By Jennifer Villegas
An Intersection between Neuroscience and Magic!
Luigi Anzivino speaks at the 2011 Technology Horizons Fall Research Exchange. Anzivino is a scientific content developer at the Exploratorium.
Other topics that took place at this conference included the idea of invisibility cloaks, quantum consciousness, designers lifeforms, etc. Anzivino’s presentation fit right in. Check out his presentation below.
Luigi Anzivino: Science of Magic – Boingboing.net
LSD and Creativity
In 2007, Albert Hofmann, the creator of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), wrote a letter to Steve Jobs on behalf of his friend Rick Doblin, who was the founder of the nonprofit organization Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Hofmann was with hopes, at the age of 101, that Jobs might want to make a donation to support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser's proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy. The main mission of MAPS is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription drugs that could be made available to treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pain, drug dependence, anxiety, and depression. Hofmann, a large supporter of the organization, pushed the idea that his creation has helped others and could provide crucial benefits in future health treatments and so asked Jobs for "help in the transformation of [his] problem child into a wonder child." Many others who have had the opportunity to experiment with this psychedelic drug brought on an entirely different perspective of what LSD provides: an awakening of the Self and for many innovative thinkers an eye-opening journey in expanding their creativity. More
Behind Closed Eyes: An Ayahuasca Experience
Ayahuasca is found to produce life-changing visions but can it also produce life-changing cures?
"As I closed my eyes, images - if they can be called such - began racing at an ever-increasing speed before me. Swirls of colors, shapes, forms, textures and sounds simply overpowered me to the point where I became immobile. Like many others before me, no doubt, I became somewhat frightened. What had I let myself in for? When I opened my eyes, the phantasmagoria of forms vanished, and I saw myself in the same room with the others"
Donald M. Topping's description is very similar to the accounts many others have given. He brought up many questions on the vividness of visions produced after his very first ingestion of the hallucinogenic brew Ayahausca. What underlying brain mechanisms allow potentially healing, uplifting and fearful experiences to occur behind closed eyelids? That is what Draulio B. de Araujo and others sought out to find. More
