2090 replies to this topic

[william7]

Referring to pharma company lying is rich coming from Kennedy — a man who totally distorts the truth about pharma products.

 

Kennedy's opinions are completely polarised, biased and one sided. Kennedy never talks about the many millions lives saved each year as a result of pharma products, or the fact that people with otherwise fatal chronic diseases can now live full lives thanks to pharma products. Or the fact that pharma products greatly alleviate the horrible suffering from chronic pain or chronic mental health symptoms. 

 

No, he never mentions the positives; Kennedy only talks about the negatives of pharma products. 

 

Thus Kennedy gives a completely unbalanced and fallacious account of how the pharma industry affects our lives.

 

In short, Kennedy's views are brim filled with lies and distortion. 

You might be right here. Maybe we should let the pharmaceutical companies get away with their crimes against the public. They do so much good we should just let them get away with it from time to time. We should probably just do away with any type of laws, regulations or standards governing the production of pharmaceuticals to protect the consumer. If they were all abolished, Pharma companies would likely become more creative and innovative with their products. 

[Hip]

You might be right here. Maybe we should let the pharmaceutical companies get away with their crimes against the public. They do so much good we should just let them get away with it from time to time. We should probably just do away with any type of laws, regulations or standards governing the production of pharmaceuticals to protect the consumer. If they were all abolished, Pharma companies would likely become more creative and innovative with their products. 

 

You must be aware that the pharma hatred meme is a strong one. Lots of people seem to want to hate the pharma industry, or cast it as the devil. I think we are all aware of that. 

 

But why is that? Why is pharma hatred so strong, compared to other industries? 

 

40,000 people die each year in the US alone from road traffic accidents. That's a lot of death. But people don't seem to generate hate for the car industry, and their obviously dangerous and unsafe vehicular products.

Edited by Hip, 14 March 2024 - 11:54 PM.

[william7]

You must be aware that the pharma hatred meme is a strong one. Lots of people seem to want to hate the pharma industry, or cast it as the devil. I think we are all aware of that. 

 

But why is that? Why is pharma hatred so strong, compared to other industries? 

 

40,000 people die each year in the US alone from road traffic accidents. That's a lot of death. But people don't seem to generate hate for the car industry, and their obviously dangerous and unsafe vehicular products.

Yes, and how about the airlines. Don’t you agree that the airlines should be able to build their planes as they see fit without regulations? Both these guys in the You Tube video below are totally wrong. They just don’t get it. 

https://youtu.be/PsU...WSm6OfoAr_n4Jlk

[Daniel Cooper]

You must be aware that the pharma hatred meme is a strong one. Lots of people seem to want to hate the pharma industry, or cast it as the devil. I think we are all aware of that. 

 

But why is that? Why is pharma hatred so strong, compared to other industries? 

 

40,000 people die each year in the US alone from road traffic accidents. That's a lot of death. But people don't seem to generate hate for the car industry, and their obviously dangerous and unsafe vehicular products.

 

I don't hate the pharmaceutical industry. But I'm under no illusion that they exist "for the betterment of mankind" or the "reduction of death and suffering" or anything so noble sounding.

 

They exist to generate a profit and to give shareholders a return on investment. End of story.

 

But, I'm a committed capitalist so I have no issue with that motivation. It's just something that should be kept in mind by consumers of all drug and medical products. These companies are not "in it" for your health. So as is the case with all products in the market - caveat emptor.

 

The pharmaceutical companies have enhanced lifespan and quality of life in many cases. But, they have a built in bias towards life long treatments rather than cures, and they will promote off label uses of their drugs beyond what is beneficial to the patient and will generally seek to cover up any adverse effects (see SSRIs, SNRIs, anti-psychotics, benzos, etc.). That is built into their profit seeking nature. Again - caveat emptor. 

 

I do wish the FDA was either a more effective regulatory agency or just went away entirely, as today we have the worst of both worlds. They don't do a great job of finding and eliminating bad drugs, but they do slow down introduction of new drugs whilst making them vastly more expensive. Someone has to bear the cost of that decade and $2B USD required to get a drug to market and it's almost exclusively US consumers. The FDA has over the years become a very high entry barrier that keeps new innovative companies and products out of the market in favor of the incumbent drug companies. This is no surprise as it occurs in almost all regulatory bodies. The term is regulator capture. Which happened decades ago in the case of the FDA.

 

You should look at pharmaceutical companies the way you look at car companies. I like the ability to hop in a car and drive where I want to. I'm in favor of car companies. But no one believes that Honda, GM, VW, or Toyota exist to make my life better or more enjoyable. They exist to sell me a product. Many of their products are very good, others not so much. Their interest is in selling me the product. Any other considerations are a distant second.

 

The drug companies are no different.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 15 March 2024 - 03:45 PM.

[Hip]

I don't hate the pharmaceutical industry. But I'm under no illusion that they exist "for the betterment of mankind" or the "reduction of death and suffering" or anything so noble sounding.
 
They exist to generate a profit and to give shareholders a return on investment. End of story.

 
In the boardroom, profit may be the fundamental motivation. But at the grass roots level in pharma companies, the thousands of scientists dedicated to curing or ameliorating the miserable diseases of humanity do not have profit as their primary objective; their motivation is making the world a better place. 

 

That's the mentality of scientists: they like to fix problems, they like to improve the world, and they like to advance the human race. 

 

If scientists were profit oriented, they would not go into science as a career, but would use their analytical brains to to make lots of money. Jeff Bezos is an example of a scientist turned entrepreneur. He could have had a career in physics research, but chose a business career instead.

 

As for the other common meme that better pharma products would be created under a different political and economic system, like socialism; well there is no evidence that the more socialist countries produce better drugs. 


 

The pharmaceutical companies have enhanced lifespan and quality of life in many cases. But, they have a built in bias towards life long treatments rather than cures, and they will promote off label uses of their drugs beyond what is beneficial to the patient and will generally seek to cover up any adverse effects (see SSRIs, SNRIs, anti-psychotics, benzos, etc.). That is built into their profit seeking nature. Again - caveat emptor. 

 
That again is another common meme that you hear: pharma companies don't want to cure disease; they instead just want to give you drugs that you have to take daily to ameliorate your disease, so that they get a nice continued income from selling these drugs. That's how the cliche goes.

 

Well I can think of one example and one counter example in relation to this assertion:

 

The counter example is the antiviral drug called Harvoni, which actually cures chronic hepatitis C virus liver infection after a few weeks treatment with the drug. Harvoni actually eliminates the virus from the liver.

 

It is true that the drug companies cannot make a profit from such a drug? No! They made a massive fortune from Harvoni, simply by charging $1000 for each daily pill. Harvoni was a huge financial success.

 

But one example of this assertion is antibiotics, drugs which do not bring in much money, as people only take them infrequently, if they get a bacterial infection, and usually only for a short course of about a week. So sales of these life saving drugs are low.

 

We have a potential crisis on our hands, because pharma companies are not interested in spending R&D money on new antibiotics, as they will lose money, due to the low profits. So governments are trying to step, because we need new antibiotics to deal with the constant problem of rising antibiotic resistance. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Hip, 15 March 2024 - 04:48 PM.

[Galaxyshock]

I still see the net effect of the more people sick, the more Big Pharma profits from, hands down. It could go as far as making more people sick with half way there interventions. I've seen the cruel nature of psychiatric medications - people ending up in increasing cocktails of drugs that never resolve the condition. Or perhaps I'm overly pessimistic and need a dose Fluoxetine.

[Hip]

I still see the net effect of the more people sick, the more Big Pharma profits from, hands down. It could go as far as making more people sick with half way there interventions. I've seen the cruel nature of psychiatric medications - people ending up in increasing cocktails of drugs that never resolve the condition. Or perhaps I'm overly pessimistic and need a dose Fluoxetine.

 

I would not say you are pessimistic, but maybe you are like I used to be: I was inexperienced and naive when it comes to how difficult it actually is to treat a disease.  

 

It's not until you get hit with a serious disease yourself — in my case ME/CFS and various mental health illnesses — that you lose your hubristic confidence that you will be able to fix anything. When I first got ME/CFS, I felt sure that with my knowledge of health and alternative treatments, I would be able to fix my issues. But 20 years later, after throwing hundreds of drugs and supplements at my illness, and trying out every treatment protocol known to man, I am still ill.

 

That experience humbles you. It takes away your naivety, and makes you better understand what humanity is up against in our efforts to address disease. But unless you have been humbled in this way, you may go around arrogantly believing that it is easy to fix diseases with a few supplements.  

 

 

 

For most illnesses, we still do not even know what causes them. 

 

How on Earth can a pharma company make a drug to address the root cause of illness, in order to cure it, when we do not know what the root cause actually is? Think about that.

 

It's not pharma companies who research root causes; that's not their job; it's academic scientists in universities who are trying to work out what causes all the physical and mental illnesses that afflict humanity.

 

So it's rather foolish for anyone to say that pharma companies do not tackle the root cause of disease to find cures, because science does not yet know what the root causes are. 

 

We are not waiting on pharma companies to find the root causes; we are waiting on university research to find these root causes. If we can discover the root causes of disease, then this will then allow pharma companies to develop treatments which target those root causes. 

Edited by Hip, 15 March 2024 - 06:24 PM.

[Hip]

Here is the TL,DR version especially for joesixpack:

 

Many pharma critics say pharmaceutical companies never develop drugs to treat the root cause of disease, which would be curative; they just make drugs to treat the disease symptoms.

 

Well the root cause of most diseases is unknown, and until they are discovered by university researchers, it would be impossible to target a treatment at the root cause.

 

Therefore is it foolish and naive for these critics to claim that pharma companies never aim to cure a disease, when this is totally impossible to do with our present state of scientific knowledge.

Edited by Hip, 15 March 2024 - 07:28 PM.

[william7]

You must be aware that the pharma hatred meme is a strong one. Lots of people seem to want to hate the pharma industry, or cast it as the devil. I think we are all aware of that. 

 

But why is that? Why is pharma hatred so strong, compared to other industries? 

 

40,000 people die each year in the US alone from road traffic accidents. That's a lot of death. But people don't seem to generate hate for the car industry, and their obviously dangerous and unsafe vehicular products.

Yes, and how about the airlines. Don’t you agree that the airlines should be able to build their planes as they see fit without regulations? Both these guys in the You Tube video below are totally wrong. They just don’t get it. 

https://youtu.be/PsU...WSm6OfoAr_n4Jlk

[Hip]

Don’t you agree that the airlines should be able to build their planes as they see fit without regulations? Both these guys in the You Tube video below are totally wrong. 

 

I don't follow you. Both plane manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies are heavily regulated, and both can face lawsuits if their products  are found faulty and harm people (excluding vaccines; the government takes the rap for vaccines). What point are you trying to make?

[Gal220]

I don't hate the pharmaceutical industry. 

 

Much to hate

 

1. Remdesivir basically used to bribe hospitals to kill Covid patients.  Virginia hospital brazenly took Marik to court for using Ivermectin instead of the profit laden double black box drug. 

Still being used today

 

2. Epipen and Insulin prices exploited for years

 

3. Pfizer recently caught dumping chemicals , also heavily fined company 

"Dumped More than 1,000 Gallons of a Dangerous Toxic Chemical at the Plant Causing City Officials to Shut Down River Access "

https://twitter.com/...388111518613890

 

4. J&J hid and continued to sell cancerous talcum powder 

 

5. Pfizer caught funding companies promoting vaccine mandates

https://twitter.com/...747025623433217

 

 

Pharmaceutical settlements

https://en.wikipedia...cal_settlements

Edited by Gal220, 16 March 2024 - 03:43 AM.

[Hip]

Much to hate

 

 

What a silly post.

 

You will find the same shenanigans in every corporate sector. All companies in all industries do dubious things.

 

For example, the VW and Mercedes car manufacturers cheating on their car emissions certifications.

 

If we apply your logic, we should hate the suppliers of every single commodity we consume, from clothes to food, from cars to jewellery, from computers to smartphones. 

 

Your clothes are made by people working under slave like conditions in Asian sweatshop factories. Rechargeable batteries used in phones, laptops and cars are made by exploiting African children to mine for cobalt in slave-like conditions. The price of diamonds in jewellery are artificially hiked up to a massive degree, by restricting supply.

 

If you want to start hating corporations for their unethical practices, you have a lot of choice, because most corporations are unethical in some respect.

Edited by Hip, 16 March 2024 - 06:32 AM.

[Galaxyshock]

I would not say you are pessimistic, but maybe you are like I used to be: I was inexperienced and naive when it comes to how difficult it actually is to treat a disease.  

 

It's not until you get hit with a serious disease yourself — 

 

I am hit with a serious disease, I'm in the schizophrenia spectrum. Pharmaceutical industry has done essentially nothing to resolve the real killers of the disease - negative symptoms like anhedonia. Only lately there seems to be some pharmaceutical interest in new options for antipsychotic properties: muscarinic agonists. But it appears like "oh well, something we can again profit from". People in developing countries show better outcomes for psychotic disorders and they don't use the oh-so-praised neuroleptic medications at all.

 

You're right it does humble me, the human brain, and body, are highly vulnerable.

 

For most illnesses, we still do not even know what causes them. 

 

How on Earth can a pharma company make a drug to address the root cause of illness, in order to cure it, when we do not know what the root cause actually is? Think about that.

 

To me it almost seems as if the root cause is wanted to remain hidden. But yeah it's true things can get very complicated in many illnesses.

 

Got side-tracked here, sorry about that. 

 

Regarding the vaccines, I'd like to see some conclusion / consensus. This debate has gone over 60 pages. Personally I am definitely not against vaccines, they have saved many lives. But I am hesitant towards experimental ones. I did get three Pfizer shots based on the information at the time and as recommended by Finnish health care. Not sure what I'd like to see when the next pandemic hits. They are developing vaccine safety monitoring systems I believe.

[Dorian Grey]

I'm grateful for the non-mRNA vaccines, but the price we paid for them (no treatments) was far too steep. 

 

I'll always look back in horror at those who had to die alone & afraid just to preserve the EUAs for the jabs & new pharmaceuticals.  

 

Those who continue to sing the praises of Big Pharma are essentially dancing on the graves of the departed.  

 

I'll never forget, and never forgive.  

[pamojja]

I'll never forget, and never forgive.  

 

Too many took the jabs without second thought, and too many are not ready to reconsider and understand, other than from main media, how many got harmed.

 

Forgiving is always worthwhile. Not enough space for adversarial emotions in me. I prefer kindness, despite.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dorian Grey]

Forgiveness is possible for many things, but a protracted cruelty that goes on for extended periods is problematic for me. 

 

Like a Titanic disaster recurring a couple of times a month for 2 years, and the captains just keep on racing ships through the ice fields.  

 

Full steam ahead, and our pharmaceutical mates will all be rich soon?  I'll be cursing them on my death bed.  

[Hip]

I am hit with a serious disease, I'm in the schizophrenia spectrum. Pharmaceutical industry has done essentially nothing to resolve the real killers of the disease - negative symptoms like anhedonia.

 
I also have several of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia alongside my ME/CFS, including the very miserable anhedonia symptom.
 
Longecity seems to be a refuge for those with mental health conditions, including myself. I think this is why you can get such strange and often unscientific opinions here. When people suffer from anxiety, paranoia, psychosis, depression, OCD, etc, it alters the way they perceive the world.
 
 
It's true that very little is available to treat anhedonia. After trying hundreds if not thousands of drugs and supplements, the best thing I have found for anhedonia high dose EGCG (green tea extract) 1000 mg daily. I find this works quite well for my anhedonia; EGCG is shown in studies to boost the dopamine reward pathway (the mesolimbic system), so this likely explains why it works for my anhedonia.
 
The downside I've noticed is that if I stop taking EGCG, I get a comedown, where I feel mentally flat with ennui for several days (ie, my anhedonia becomes worse than normal). But I found if I taper off EGCG slowly over a few days, I can avoid this comedown. 
 
Though check out the liver toxicity that can appear in some people after many months of daily high dose EGCG. 
 
I tend not to take EGCG, though, not because of the liver issues, but because I don't like becoming addicted to something that then gives me withdrawal symptoms when I stop taking it. Instead I take 40 mg of manganese daily, which I find helps a little with anhedonia.
 
 
 
 

You're right it does humble me, the human brain, and body, are highly vulnerable.

 
My health and medical views are fairly conventional across the spectrum; but one opinion I hold that is at present still quite unconventional is the idea that infectious pathogens will likely be proven the root cause of nearly all disease, physical and mental, in the future as science advances. 
 
This I see as a cause of great optimism for the future, because if this pathogen hypothesis of disease is true, it means that if we can eliminate pathogens via advanced vaccines and new medical technologies that we can only dream of today, humanity will experience a golden era of health.
 
But I think it will take hundreds of years before we reach that golden era, unfortunately.
 
If reincarnation exists, I will aim to only reincarnate say 500 years hence, when hopefully nearly all disease will be conquered. 
 
 
 
 

Regarding the vaccines, I'd like to see some conclusion / consensus.

 

This is what I would like to see, but unfortunately it will never happen, because there are too many extremist and polarised posters on the COVID threads. So you will never see a balanced, nuanced final consensus.

 

I try to remain fair and honest with my posts; when it has been demonstrated that vaccines are causing a serious side effect, then I readily admit it. For example, the COVID vaccines seem to be triggering ME/CFS, which is really terrible side effect. But usually such serious side effects are typically only found in 1 in 50,000 vaccine doses. But you have to balance that with the fact that these vaccines reduce the chances of COVID death by 20 times.

 

But people like Mind, pamojja, Gal220 and others never seem to say anything positive about the vaccines. They are not interested in reaching a balanced consensus; they only want to push extremists views on everyone. 

 

 

 
 
 

Edited by Hip, 16 March 2024 - 05:23 PM.

[Galaxyshock]

 This is what I would like to see, but unfortunately it will never happen, because there are too many extremist and polarised posters on the COVID threads. So you will never see a balanced, nuanced final consensus.

 

I try to remain fair and honest with my posts; when it has been demonstrated that vaccines are causing a serious side effect, then I readily admit it. For example, the COVID vaccines seem to be triggering ME/CFS, which is really terrible side effect. But usually such serious side effects are typically only found in 1 in 50,000 vaccine doses. But you have to balance that with the fact that these vaccines reduce the chances of COVID death by 20 times.

 

But people like Mind, pamojja, Gal220 and others never seem to say anything positive about the vaccines. They are not interested in reaching a balanced consensus; they only want to push extremists views on everyone. 

 

It does seem like real consensus is not going to happen when it comes to various aspects of the pandemic, including vaccines, unfortunately. I agree that rambling dozens of pages about the negatives isn't particularly constructive discussion and makes it harder to get an objective view of things. I would like to see some kind of wrap up of the COVID pandemic, trying to do that in the "aftermath" thread but since the topic is very widescale it will be quite a challenge. 

[pamojja]

Full steam ahead, and our pharmaceutical mates will all be rich soon?  I'll be cursing them on my death bed.  

 

With practicing for over 3 years full-time meditation in the most rational of traditions (in my perspective), it appears most likely that the condition of mind at the last breath is the most important for determining the first at re-becoming. Just as the consciousness states arising and passing before, are naturally determining, too. But at the moment of death those usually escalate to what has been sawn before.

 

 If reincarnation exists, I will aim to only reincarnate say 500 years hence, when hopefully nearly all disease will be conquered.

 

You think you don't have the mental faculties to determine the state or time of your re-becoming. The basis of which would be ethical conduct. But with ethical conduct, one would have no worries healthwise.
 

However, through my practice and some humble insight into non-self, practically it doesn't matter for most people. Since the next existence will basically amounts to being just like any other, and not what now is considered oneself. With additional compassion, it however does.

 

 

 

 

Edited by pamojja, 17 March 2024 - 01:14 PM.

[pamojja]

But people like Mind, pamojja, Gal220 and others never seem to say anything positive about the vaccines. They are not interested in reaching a balanced consensus; they only want to push extremists views on everyone.

 

If you read my posts more carefully, you would have recognized that I never gave medical advice. I just related to the situation through my own experience and perspective.

 

My pediatrists at birth already prevented any further vaccines after my first set, because they've seen firsthand what catastrophic effects they had on my particular weak immunity. I did however, later take long-tested vaccines for an African journey. But just a little inattention of the medical officer, and thereby had been given 10 times the dose of life polio vaccine accidentally.

 

So when in my country Austria experimental vaccines were mandated by law, I of course would have to speak to all the manifested dangers, especially of a not long enough tested one. Since it simply could mean my demise, beside until now not experiencing any benefit myself. I've got tuberculosis despite being vaccinated. Not vaccinated measles and mumps, I survived as child perfectly fine.

 

You could have prevented all those unwholesome mental states since 3 years, you notoriously cultivated towards everyone fearing for their and their closest lives.
 

Additionally, if Mind and Gal220 took this experimental vaccine themselves - other than myself - how deep you've sunken in your brain-fog? To allege they says nothing positive about those vaccines?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by pamojja, 17 March 2024 - 01:48 PM.

[Hip]

With practicing for over 3 years full-time meditation in the most rational of traditions (in my perspective), it appears most likely that the condition of mind at the last breath is the most important for determining the first at re-becoming. Just as the consciousness states arising and passing before, are naturally determining, too. But at the moment of death those usually escalate to what has been sawn before.

 
I used to have a lot of interest in what might happen to human consciousness after death, reading any literature I could find on the subject — scientific, philosophical, psychological, religious and spiritual literature — such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I like to take a multidisciplinary approach, reading about a subject from many different angles, and then trying to integrate these angles.
 
I have read many different views about what happens after death. However, none of the literature I read considers the idea that in reality, the human brain often dies gradually or partially over many years, due to disease or medical events.
 
Since I was hit with a chronic disease which affects consciousness and brain, I now realise that death of the brain and the person does not always happen at a specific instant in time, but can happen slowly over many years (like when the person gradually disappears over several years as they descend into Alzheimer's), or death can partially occur due to a medical event (like when someone gets a stroke which kills part of their brain).
 
When people have a stroke, it can destroy many aspects of their personality and mental faculties, by wiping out various areas of the brain.
 
So in some sense, a part of that person dies as a result of a stroke.
 
 
How does such partial death affect any transition of a human consciousness soul from this world to the next world? If you experience a medical event which destroys part of your brain and part of your personality, does that mean part of your soul makes a transition to the next world, and part of your soul remains behind in this world?
 
Or when your consciousness and individual self slowly deteriorates due to a dementia like Alzheimer's, does that mean a bit of your soul transitions to the next world every week?

 

When I look at myself now, I am a greatly diminished person, with greatly reduced consciousness, compared to what I was before my viral brain infection and the ME/CFS illness that it caused. 

 

Does that mean that part of me is already enjoying the afterlife, and it's just the most miserable part of me that is still stuck here on Earth?
 
 

 

Additionally, if Mind and Gal220 took this experimental vaccine themselves - other than myself - how deep you've sunken in your brain-fog? To allege they says nothing positive about those vaccines?

 

My worsened brain fog came from catching COVID. I had three COVID vaccinations in the two years prior to catching COVID, and these vaccines did not change my health status even in the slightest. But within days of catching COVID (positive lateral flow test), my fatigue and brain fog levels were dramatically increased. 

 

Since catching COVID, I am now too tired to socialise, and no longer able to visit friends, because normal conversation is too exhausting for my mind.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Hip, 17 March 2024 - 04:35 PM.

[Galaxyshock]

 I used to have a lot of interest in what might happen to human consciousness after death, reading any literature I could find on the subject — scientific, philosophical, psychological, religious and spiritual literature — such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I like to take a multidisciplinary approach, reading about a subject from many different angles, and then trying to integrate these angles.

 

Tibetan Book of the Dead is indeed a good read. I'm in the shamanistic spectrum in my beliefs. Have you looked into Eight-circuit model of consciousness by Timothy Leary? If so, what is your opinion on it? I feel that it intergrates many angles and there's certain truth to it. This vaccine discussion has taken a side road, but I like it!

[pamojja]

I have read many different views about what happens after death. However, none of the literature I read considers the idea that in reality, the human brain often dies gradually or partially over many years, due to disease or medical events.

 

I read all those books from age 10 onward. However some years later I knew with conviction to get to the bottom of consciousness, it has to be explored experiential. Books aside.

 

How does such partial death affect any transition of a human consciousness soul from this world to the next world? If you experience a medical event which destroys part of your brain and part of your personality, does that mean part of your soul makes a transition to the next world, and part of your soul remains behind in this world?
 
Or when your consciousness and individual self slowly deteriorates due to a dementia like Alzheimer's, does that mean a bit of your soul transitions to the next world every week?

 

When I look at myself now, I am a greatly diminished person, with greatly reduced consciousness, compared to what I was before my viral brain infection and the ME/CFS illness that it caused. 

 

Does that mean that part of me is already enjoying the afterlife, and it's just the most miserable part of me that is still stuck here on Earth?

 

From the book-knowledge standpoint, there is an all embracing net of views. If you read that monumental Sutta beyond the analysis of ethics section, you sure will find yours there too.

From the experiential experience of exploring consciousness, it is so much more liberating - but if caught in the web of views - so much scary too.

 

Consciousness through persisting training can be very refined. So that the incessant train of thought ends, or passes as if in slow motion. Everything usually directly experienced: sensations, feelings, thoughts, volitions and consciousnesess, are thereby seen with ..gaps in between. Arising and passing ceaselessly. The only glue holding it all together is cause and effect, co-dependent origination. Thereby dependent on so many more non-self elements to occur - or so beyond one's own intentions arising and passing - one can't possibly talk of one-self, or one's soul, anymore. Other than in parlance and everyday conversations.

 

This is so scary on one hand, not because one dies one day, but actually oneself never existed in the way one perceived in the first place. On the other hand, if oneself never existed as perceived, then how could it die? Through the experimental exploration, one also learns to know the causal chains, which lead to gladness, or otherwise to despair. Clinging to a view of oneself or soul - would be the latter.

 

Book knowledge won't produce such insights - as the above experiences now became though its translation into language. Psychedelics might lend a glimpse, but most often not the fortitude of mind, acquired through persisting training in ethical behavior, one-pointedness of mind, and investigation. Some of the seven enlightenment factors.

 

The starting point for existential exploration is always ethics. As in not to insult others, Simply because one's conscience won't allow one's mind to become silent, and thereby see for the first time clearly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by pamojja, 17 March 2024 - 06:12 PM.

[Hip]

I'm in the shamanistic spectrum in my beliefs. Have you looked into Eight-circuit model of consciousness by Timothy Leary? If so, what is your opinion on it? I feel that it intergrates many angles and there's certain truth to it. 

 

I had not come across the eight-circuit model of consciousness before, but just having a quick look at it, I like it. I reminds me a bit of the concepts from kundalini yoga (that I used to practice), which focuses on the ascent of increasingly higher levels of consciousness, and also of the seminal 1901 book "Cosmic Consciousness" by Richard Maurice Bucke, which describes how higher levels of consciousness have appeared during evolution.

 

When I was healthy, I always wanted to see how far I could push mindfulness meditation and related practices, to try to expand consciousness, and achieve higher mental perspectives. I used to do lots of mindfulness meditation, kundalini yoga, chi gong, etc to see how far I could climb up the ladder of expanded consciousness.

 

You have to be careful though, as there is such a thing as "cultivation madness", where a latent mental health problems like schizophrenia can be triggered by performing too much meditation or chi gong. 

 

Also, too much mindfulness meditation can actually make you a bit hubristic, self-focused and egoistic, if it is not balanced with other forms of more interpersonal meditation.  

 

I cannot meditate now though, as ME/CFS is a "consciousness contracting illness": it gives you diminished consciousness, even less consciousness than the average ordinary person. So no hope whatsoever in achieving any expanded consciousness now.

 

I don't consider myself a "believer" in any particular spiritual area, but I used to love exploring different spiritual traditions and their spiritual practices, and noting the conceptual parallels between them. I would I think be described as a the "seeker" type: someone who is always looking for the answers to the big questions, and so never stops exploring different traditions.

 

I've been fascinated by many traditions: including Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, yoga, chi gong, neo paganism, shamanism, Meister Eckhart (the greatest European mystic), etc. I find I get a deeper feeling for the spiritual when I explore multiple traditions and their concepts, and cross-reference those concepts in my mind, so that you see the parallels between them all. When you cross-reference, it helps your mind go beyond specific concepts. 

 

I also like to try to tie in modern scientific understandings of the universe and the human body with spiritual concepts. I really enjoyed books like "The Dancing Wu Li Masters", which draws the parallels between quantum concepts and ideas from Eastern spiritual traditions.

Edited by Hip, 17 March 2024 - 06:17 PM.

[pamojja]

You have to be careful though, as there is such a thing as "cultivation madness", where a latent mental health problems like schizophrenia can be triggered by performing too much meditation ..

 

Agree exactly. My first iteration of 10-day retreats, before I went to a meditation monastery, saw too many first-time participants, who right after the retreat tried to suicide or became psychotic. That this in my experience occurred in first-timers only, is a sign of something latent, and not primarily caused by meditation itself. And the fortitude gained through persisting training.
 

[pamojja]

But back on topic;
 
https://rumble.com/e...vxi/?pub=33rlly
 
"ME/CFS has only a 5% back to baseline life-time recovery rate"

 

 

[Hip]

Agree exactly. My first iteration of 10-day retreats, before I went to a meditation monastery, saw too many first-time participants, who right after the retreat tried to suicide or became psychotic. That this in my experience occurred in first-timers only, is a sign of something latent, and not primarily caused by meditation itself. And the fortitude gained through persisting training.
 

 

Yes, I think that might be right. Mindfulness meditation can help melt some of the rigid belief structures and assumptions that people use as their mental foundations. For some people, this might be disconcerting, but for others going beyond their current assumptions can enable them to develop a more subtle and deeper understanding of the world.

 

However, perhaps if someone has a latent mental health issue, those rigid belief structures might have been the only thing that held their mind together. So once these belief structures are softened or melted by meditation, then their mind falls apart.

 

Alternatively, a less psychological and more physiological possible explanation for "cultivation madness" might come from the effects meditation has on the immune system. Stress weakens Th1 antiviral immunity, but boosts Th2 antibacterial immunity. Meditation de-stresses you, so should boost antiviral but may weaken antibacterial immunity. Now if you have a mental health condition linked to a bacterial infection, then meditation might make that psychiatric condition worse. 

Edited by Hip, 17 March 2024 - 08:56 PM.

[pamojja]

Meditating up to 10 hours a day with no eye contact, no reading, no talking, no food after midday, intense pain from not being used to sitting on the floor that long - as in such rigorous mindfulness retreats - I talked about, some consider militant and much worse than jail. So first stress as never experienced before can of course break down any psychological resilience working fine under everyday distractions. But not under such harsh, never before confronted conditions.

 

Also while trying to reach a clam mind, some first have to cross abysses of traumas, not even known to oneself before. That too can destabilize a before relatively stable person.

 

Those who blessed out already on their first retreat that much, therefore psychotically thought they are god or the devil themselves afterwards, was only 1 person. Already before on anti-psychotics.

Edited by pamojja, 17 March 2024 - 08:59 PM.

[Galaxyshock]

Very interesting experiences and speculation, pamojja and Hip. I went to the deep end with shamanic practices, meditation and psychoactives, and ended up in psych ward. That was back in 2015 though. "Shamans swim in the same waters where schizophrenics drown" or so to say. One agreeably good thing about shamanism is the knowledge of medicinal herbs and psychoactives - their safe and therapeutic use. Would definitely like to discuss things more with you guys, but I guess this thread is the wrong place for that. If you make a new thread I'll chime in with more. Not sure which is the correct forum section though, / Humanities / Spirituality perhaps?

[pamojja]

Would definitely like to discuss things more with you guys, but I guess this thread is the wrong place for that

 

In a certain way, the topic had its expiry date:

 

 

Regarding the vaccines, I think this is a question we All should be asking as members of a longevity-promoting website.

 

 

I think this question now is not relevant for anyone anymore. However, this question here in this threat has from the beginning ignited polarization and downright hatred in a few. Like for Hip throughout, and now Dorian is suffering too, suddenly swearing he will curse till his deathbed.

 

Now this should be the focus of the question we all might be asking on a health promoting website: Is that healthy? Can we make a more revolutionary choice than not to vaccinate, but not to hate?

 

 

From an experimental consciousness exploring perspective on heath - for which my off-topic excursions of meditative experiences were necessary to give a context to understand - hatred in its purest and protracted form is psychotic.

 

During my intense practice years - now long ago - I had the privilege to learn about psychosis trough direct experiences, while having the mental fortitude to not succumb. Hours of traumas, at times even without material representation in my childhood, hallucinations of demons, naked females, otherworldly bright lights, bliss, infinite consciousness, and so on..., were the objects of investigation. And that is the little trick not to succumb to protracted hatred too. Indeed.

 

The moment you do not attend with kindness and mindfulness to such fascinating phenomena, you are struck with it. If somehow possible to not-identify, such attendance allows the psychosis to reveal its intent, and fluff ..it passes on. As if it only insisted on letting its unconscious intent be acknowledged, at last. By the sole investigator present.

 

Once psychosis has settled in metabolic damage (if it wasn't caused by such in the first place), especially with years of anti-psychotics, we don't have that choice anymore. As the experience in initial Soterias showed too.

 

But definitely, everyone not on anti-psychotic medication still would have that choice for one's own health. If they only knew it.