A psychophysiological study was conducted with two Brazilian claimant mediums and a non-medium living in Recife, Brazil and 7 North American advanced meditators from the esoteric school, Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, located in Yelm, Washington Results revealed specific incongruence in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central autonomic nervous system (CNS). For Brazilians, there was a genera reduction of sympathetic PNS vasoconstriction and increased muscle tension (EMG during the imagined incorporation of spirits, and an increase in (EMG) and alpha wave percentage (EEG); both were paradoxical. Increase in frontal EMG while imagining spirit incorporation is consistent with a hypothesis of increased muscle tension possibly driven by intrusive cognitions and/or affect; however, the mediums reported feeling calm, not agitated. The non-medium control showed a large increase in EEG alpha wave percentage and decreased EMG in the eyes closed conditions. The mediums imagination condition was discrepant from what is typical during an eyes closed imagination condition, and EMG and EEG were positively correlated contrasting research findings from other studies revealing a negative correlation. This supports previous findings that physiological incongruence are frequent outcomes of individuals claiming "mediumistic" abilities; they are described as living episodically in two worlds (i.e., critical, rational, and practical; expansion and deepening of fantasy and emotiona reactivity). As such, medium/mediumistic-like practitioners may be "at risk" fo psychosomatic illnesses, but these descriptors do not particularly apply to the Brazilian control showing no noticeable incongruence. The advanced Ramtha meditators were not tested with an EEG, but also showed sympathetic activation during the meditation session and reported minimal/none negative affect. Incongruence between CNS and ANS are not unusual among spiritual practitioners, and other studies have noted sympathetic activation during meditation styles that use cognitive faculties and/o accelerated breathing (voluntary hyperventilation) techniques. The findings sugges medium/mediumistic-like practitioners may need to create "buffers" to maintain physical and emotional well being.

The status of research in ego state therapy is examined against the backdrop of 20th and 21st century developments in the philosophy of science and the emerging recognition of the subjective as a vital element in all science. Attention is paid to the phenomenological method because until recently phenomenological studies have been the basis for the standards of care and training in ego state therapy as well as in many aspects of hypnotically facilitated psychotherapy. The importance of bringing an end to the "science wars" through the integration of the subjective and the objective, of phenomenological studies and evidence-based studies in ego state therapy and hypnosis research, is proposed.

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This "swamps" working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model.Abstract: We suggest that morbid jealousy falls on the extreme end of a jealousy continuum. Thus, many features associated with normal jealousy will be present in individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy. We apply Boyer & Lienard's (B&L's) prediction one (P1; target article, sect. 7.1) to morbid jealousy, suggesting that fitness-related life-cycle dimensions predict sensitivity to cues, and frequency, intensity, and content of intrusive thoughts of partner infidelity. Critical developmental periods of increased plasticity program ritualized behaviorAbstract: The consideration of humans going through sensitive periods of life, such as childhood and the early postpartum, may be helpful in understanding the cognitive and evolutionary puzzle of human rituals. During such periods, certain brain systems may mediate an increased susceptibility to learn new behaviors, rational or irrational.Abstract: The architecture of the hazard management system underlying precautionary behavior makes functional sense, given the adaptive computational problems it evolved to solve. Many seeming infelicities in its outputs, such as behavior with "apparent lack of rational Abstract: In reply to commentary on our target article, we supply further evidence and hypotheses in the description of...

No abstract

No abstract