Who Is This Man?

The Black Sea, November 2010

Spirituality is always a struggle between the need to sustain the body and, to nurture the spirit.

And yes, that is quite a journey.

My website, Man From Atlan is now up. You can click http://www.manfromatlan.com/ to get there.

It's a teaching web site. Available to all. I have always offered healing and teaching to anyone who asked, and now I see a whole planet in need of healing. But now, for the first time, I'm the one asking: Will you join me?

The people of Atlan who came to Earth thousands of years ago did so because of a prophecy. And because of that prophecy which pointed to this particular point in time, I have incarnated over and over again, through many lifetimes, with struggle, but also, with love.

So here I am again. From 1966, to start my work when I was 16. Now I'm 61, and it's like I'm starting again.

I was in England in 1977 when I saw the events that would come to this planet, and returned in 1999 to see, yet again, that vision.

It was a burden too heavy to carry. As I said, "sometimes, seeing the future can be a terrible thing", but, now I've shared that vision with you, what will you do about it?

So if you care about the world you leave for future generations; if you want to make a difference, let me know.

If, after you check this out and feel you want to support this work, in a small or large way, please contact me at naseer@manfromatlan.com

Sometimes, the only thing to do is make a leap of faith, and plunge in.

Thank you.

The Criminal Mind

Is there such a thing?

Of course there is.

Introduction:

The question of criminality has been much in the news lately, as wild gangs of youth rampaged through British cities, and wild gangs of feral financial speculators rampaged through the world's economies.

As a scientist I wonder about the pathologies involved, and as a spiritual person I wonder about root causes.

So this is about where we are going as a society. Are we descending into criminality, and is the problem getting worse? I also wonder about the connection between criminality and mental illness.

I have been following the case of Amanda Knox for some time, as readers may know. http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-might-have-been.html

Amanda Knox, along with her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and acquaintance Rudy Guede, was convicted of the brutal murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy in November 2007.

There are passionate supporters of the case for her innocence, as well as those who believe the several hearings and trials she has had so far were fair and she is in fact, guilty. I belong to the latter camp, but, since she has filed an appeal am quite content to let it run its course. Justice will be served.

Disclaimer:

I have never met her, or anyone connected with her. This article is not a diagnosis of the psychology of Amanda Knox, nor in any way does it make presumptions of her guilt or innocence. That will be determined by evidence presented in court.

Nor, as some have attempted to argue in other forums, is my opinion based on astrology, or other occult tools.

But I was inspired by people who asked the following questions:

1) Is there such a thing as a criminal mind?

2)How can that be ascertained?

This, then, is to present an overview of the research and opinions of experts in the field, as well as present hypotheses of my own.

My background, for those only aware of my spiritual beliefs, is that I am a foreign trained physician with a specialization in Autism Spectrum Disorder. I've been in clinical practice for over three decades, but now act as a consultant as I continue further research into the causes and treatment of mental illness.

Concurrent with that I have been following my spiritual path and see no conflict between my calling and my work; both have the goal of helping humanity.

In the course of trying to find a treatment for my own children's Autism, I came to the following conclusion: conventional medical science has no clue about the causes or effective treatment of mental illness.

Therefore I had to range further into alternative medicine to find solutions, and serendipitously, I did. Yet, when my son's autism reversal was confirmed by psychologists, no one seemed to want to know how. Neither the media, nor the conventional establishment.

Never mind. My findings were presented, for free, to various alternative medical doctors and clinics, reported in journals and books, and confirmed by them. The protocol has great possibilities in the treatment of other neurological illnesses. It is possible to reverse brain disease.

At my clinic in Toronto as well as other countries, I treated hundreds of young people with Autism, ADHD, Aspergers, and other psychological disorders, using holistic medical methods alone. Many of them went on to have normal lives; most improved significantly. And, when I have the time, I will write a book about this journey, and share it with everyone.

Which I already did, btw, here: http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2007/12/not-incurable-new-research-on-autism.html But this is by way of background. I do not claim to have cures, or answers; I'm a searcher for knowledge, which I wish to share with others.

The question:

So: Is there such a thing as a criminal mind? This was a question much pondered as the new field of psychology came into being. In opposition to religious belief that crimes were caused by man's original state of sin, and provoked by deadly sins like avarice and lust etc., it tried to define abnormal behaviour as a function of upbringing and environment. It was only later as research into the nature of the brain emerged that new theories were formed; could neurological deficits explain criminal acts? Along with other suppositions of nurture and nature, addictions and abuse?

The answer: According to these studies, yes. http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Top_Story&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=38174

"The release today of a study by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) showing than 64 percent of local jail inmates, 56 percent of state prisoners and 45 percent of federal prisoners have symptoms of serious mental illnesses is an indictment of the nation’s mental health care system. It is both a scandal and a national tragedy. The figures are worse than those generally believed in the past, in which estimates of the total number of inmates with mental illnesses have been approximately 20 percent. The study reveals that the problem is two to three times greater than anyone imagined. What is even more disturbing is the number of these inmates that have served prior sentences, committed violent offenses, or engaged in substance abuse"

This is not an ideological statement, nor is it an attempt to avoid the serious problem of crimes in society. We have to have a system of laws and justice, and we have to protect the innocent. But the present system of crime and punishment doesn't work, either.

So, how do we measure the criminal mind? Could there possibly be genetic, neurological, behavioral or even, physiognomic markers? I was 10 years old when a gentleman took one look at certain bumps on my head and said I "was very perceptive; could look at a scene and see what others could not"Cool, and this was my introduction to phrenology.

This was where 18-19th century researchers sought to determine racial and emotional differences through the study of skull size, shape and protuberances. And yes, they did believe the criminal's head was different than that of normal people. This later became the field of craniology and craniometry, as scientists tried to avoid making unsavory determinations.

http://www.answers.com/topic/craniometry "The scars left after World War II by these atrocious programmes of research meant that the study of human skull shape and size fell into disrepute. Human variation, the core subject of anthropology, was increasingly explored through genetics and other biological markers, and became functional and adaptive in orientation rather than a search for racial affinities. In recent years, however, the introduction of new computer-based techniques of measurement, and the greatly enhanced power of statistical analysis, has meant that there has been a resurgence of interest in this subject, and, stripped of its non-Darwinian and racist past, the study of the human head remains a topic of major importance"

So now, scientists are using cranial measurements to determine mental illness, like here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/118653.php

"Recently, Harvard researchers reported that children with autism have a wide range of genetic defects, making it nearly impossible to develop a simple genetic test to identify the disorder. Now, University of Missouri researchers are studying 3-D imaging to reveal correlations in the facial features and brain structures of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which will enable them to develop a formula for earlier detection of the disorder" .."When you compare the faces and head shapes of children with specific types of autism to other children, it is obvious there are variations. Currently, autism diagnosis is purely behavior based and doctors use tape measurements to check for facial and brain dissimilarities. We are developing a quantitative method that will accurately measure these differences and allow for earlier, more precise detection of specific types of the disorder," said Ye Duan, assistant computer science professor in the MU College of Engineering"

Then you have "The Criminal Brain-Understanding Biological Theories of Crime", author Nicole Hahn Rafter, New York University Press (October 2008) http://www.amazon.ca/Criminal-Brain-Understanding-Biological-Theories/dp/0814776140,

"What is the relationship between criminality and biology? Nineteenth-century phrenologists insisted that criminality was innate, a trait inherent in the offender's brain matter. While they were eventually repudiated as pseudo-scientists and self-deluded charlatans, today the pendulum has swung back. Both criminologists and biologists have begun to speak of a tantalizing but disturbing possibility: that criminality may be inherited as a set of genetic deficits that place one at risk for theft, violence, and sexual deviance. If that is so, we may soon confront proposals for genetically modifying "at risk" foetuses or doctoring up criminals so their brains operate like those of law-abiding citizens"

Wow. Now this really frightens me, to see scientists, once again, barking up the wrong genetic tree, but there you go any way.

Brain Injury as a factor in crime:

Alternative physician Dr. Russell L. Blaylock:

Vaccines, Depression and Neurodegeneration After Age 50 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/pages/vaccines-depression-and-neurodegeneration-after-age-50.aspx

"Previously, it was thought that major depression was secondary to a deficiency in certain neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly the monoamines, which include serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. While alterations in these important mood-related neurotransmitters is found with major depression, growing evidence indicates that the primary culprit is low-grade, chronic brain inflammation. In addition, we now know that inflammatory cytokines can lower serotonin significantly and for long periods by a number of different mechanisms"

I would agree with him there, since it has been my observation that mental illness is often accompanied by inflammatory disorders or auto-immune illness. I also believe the changes in vaccine schedules may have led to increased neurological deficits and genetic damage passed on to subsequent generations, but that is an argument for a separate article. I do not blame vaccines alone, as I will explain here.

There is research that shows criminal minds and behavior issues are often accompanied by brain damage. http://waiting.com/blog/tag/chris-henry-autopsy-show-brain-damage

"Brain injury is a condition that involves microscopic damage to brain tissue that can only be seen in life through the lens of the patterns of the injured person’s life. Chris Henry, the former NFL wide receiver whose autopsy results confirmed he was living with brain damage, may have finally made that clear"

"Limbic Abnormalities in Affective Processing by Criminal Psychopaths as Revealed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging"
Kiehl, et al, http://www.uni-graz.at/~schulter/Limbic_abnormalities.pdf

"Results: Compared with criminal nonpsychopaths and noncriminal control participants, criminal psychopaths showed significantly less affect-related activity in the amygdala/hippocampal formation, parahippocampal gyrus, ventral striatum, and in the anterior and posterior cingulate gyri. Psychopathic criminals also showed evidence of overactivation in the bilateral fronto-temporal cortex for processing affective stimuli"

The brains of autistic individuals show similar defects: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v130/ai_4422064/

"The two research teams have noticed an intriguing abnormality in the brains of the small group of autistics they have examined: The cerebellum, a portion of the brain involved with muscle coordination and the regulation of incoming sensations, contains fewer neurons known as Purkinje cells. There are also preliminary indications that growth in parts of the limbic system, which oversees emotion and memory, is arrested while autistics are still in the womb"

Likewise, in schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/unlocked-the-secrets-of-schizophrenia-1727987.html

"new research shows for the first time that both have a common genetic basis that leads people to develop one or other of the two illnesses..find that thousands of tiny genetic mutations – known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – are operating in raising the risk of developing the illness"

"Early Signs of Psychopathy" argues that signs can show at an early age http://www.suite101.com/content/early-signs-of-antisocial-personal-a29191

"A twenty-five year study, published this month in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, demonstrates that, as early as the age of three, there are temperamental and physiological difference between those who show psychopathic tendencies as adults and those who don’t. Not only do psychopaths lack emotions of conscience and empathy, but research has shown that these individuals consistently display certain aspects of temperament including a lack of fear, lack of inhibition and stimulus seeking behavior"

A lack of a hormone that affects empathy:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-hormone-that-helps-you-read-min

"We've long accepted that hormones can make you amorous, aggressive, or erratic. But lately neuroscience has been abuzz with evidence that the hormone oxytocin -- which also acts as a neuromodulator -- can enhance at least one cognitive power: the ability to understand the gist of what others are thinking. In this week's Mind Matters, Jennifer Bartz and Eric Hollander, two leading researchers in this area, review the many and surprising ways in which oxytocin seems to influence both our openness to others and our understanding of them"

"For inherently social creatures such as humans, the ability to identify the motives, intentions, goals, desires, beliefs and feelings of others is not a nicety but an essential skill. We must understand "where others are coming from" not only to pursue our individual goals but also to facilitate social harmony more generally. Specifically, we need to recognize that other people can have thoughts, beliefs, desires and feelings that differ from our own --"

and it may be this that drives psychopathy, or the criminal mind.

Psychopathy: Two lengthy checklists of psychopathic, or anti-social personality disorder:

Cleckley: http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/psychopathy_checklist.html

Cleckley's original list of symptoms of a psychopath: 1. Considerable superficial charm and average or above average intelligence. 2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking 3. Absence of anxiety or other "neurotic" symptoms considerable poise, calmness, and verbal facility. 4. Unreliability, disregard for obligations no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import. 5.Untruthfulness and insincerity 7. Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned, seeming to stem from an inexplicable impulsiveness. 7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior 8.Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience 9. Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness incapacity for real love and attachment. 10. General poverty of deep and lasting emotions. 11. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do. 12. Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness, and trust. 13. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks. 14. No history of genuine suicide attempts. 15. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated sex life. 16. Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way, unless it be one promoting self-defeat.

Hare: http://www.oregoncounseling.org/Handouts/PsychopathicPersonality.htm

The Psychopathic Personality:

"A psychopath can have high verbal intelligence, but they typically lack "emotional intelligence". They can be expert in manipulating others by playing to their emotions. There is a shallow quality to the emotional aspect of their stories (i.e., how they felt, why they felt that way, or how others may have felt and why). The lack of emotional intelligence is the first good sign you may be dealing with a psychopath. A history of criminal behavior in which they do not seem to learn from their experience, but merely think about ways to not get caught is the second best sign.

The following is a list of items based on the research of Robert Hare, Ph.D. which is derived from the "The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, .1991, Toronto: Multi-Health Systems." These are the most highly researched and recognized characteristics of psychopathic personality and behavior":

1. glibness/superficial charm 2. grandiose sense of self worth 3. need for stimulation/prone to boredom 4. pathological lying 5. conning/manipulative 6. lack of remorse or guilt 7. shallow emotional response 8. callous/lack of empathy 9. parasitic lifestyle 10. poor behavioral controls 11. promiscuous sexual behavior 12. early behavioral problems 13. lack of realistic long term goals 14. impulsivity 15. irresponsibility 16. failure to accept responsibility for their own actions 17. many short term relationships 18. juvenile delinquency 19. revocation of conditional release 20. criminal versatility

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Is it becoming a rare quality among young people? It certainly seems to be declining in society.
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/Gallery/Young/emotion.htm#what%20is%20EI

"Emotional intelligence "is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions" (Mayer & Salovey, 1993: 433). According to Salovey & Mayer (1990), EI subsumes Gardner's inter- and intrapersonal intelligences, and involves abilities that may be categorized into five domains:

Self-awareness: Observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it happens.

Managing emotions: Handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.

Motivating oneself: Channeling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses.

Empathy: Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and taking their perspective; appreciating the differences in how people feel about things.

Handling relationships: Managing emotions in others; social competence and social skills.

And according to Goleman (1995: 160), "Emotional intelligence, the skills that help people harmonize, should become increasingly valued as a workplace asset in the years to come."

The last words belong to the educators, of course.
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/gardner.shtml
Howard Gardner (July 11, 1943 - ) American Psychologist and Educator

"Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) proposes that intelligent behavior does not arise from a single unitary quality of the mind, as the g -based theories profiled on this Web site suggest, but rather that different kinds of intelligence are generated from separate metaphorical pools of mental energy"

"Gardner derived this conceptualization of intelligence in part from his experiences working with members (of) extreme populations, in which certain cognitive abilities are preserved (often to a remarkable degree) even in the absence of other, very basic abilities. For example, some autistic savants display extraordinary musical or mathematical abilities despite severely impaired language development and social awareness. Likewise, individuals with localized brain damage often demonstrate severe deficits that are circumscribed to a single cognitive domain (Gardner, 1983/2003)"

And Piaget, who inspired me many years ago:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/piaget.shtml
Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896-September 16, 1980) Swiss Biologist and Child Psychologist

Definition of Intelligence:

"Intelligence is an adaptation…To say that intelligence is a particular instance of biological adaptation is thus to suppose that it is essentially an organization and that its function is to structure the universe just as the organism structures its immediate environment" (Piaget, 1963, pp. 3-4).

"Intelligence is assimilation to the extent that it incorporates all the given data of experience within its framework…There can be no doubt either, that mental life is also accommodation to the environment. Assimilation can never be pure because by incorporating new elements into its earlier schemata the intelligence constantly modifies the latter in order to adjust them to new elements" (Piaget, 1963, p. 6-7) (Including, imo, 'criminal intelligence')

Major Contributions:

The theory of Genetic Epistemology

"Piaget also believed that intellectual development occurs in four distinct stages.

The sensorimotor stage begins at birth, and lasts until the child is approximately two years old. At this stage, the child cannot form mental representations of objects that are outside his immediate view, so his intelligence develops through his motor interactions with his environment.

The preoperational stage typically lasts until the child is 6 or 7. According to Piaget, this is the stage where true "thought" emerges. Preoperational children are able to make mental representations of unseen objects, but they cannot use deductive reasoning.

The concrete operations stage follows, and lasts until the child is 11 or 12. Concrete operational children are able to use deductive reasoning, demonstrate conservation of number, and can differentiate their perspective from that of other people.

Formal operations is the final stage. Its most salient feature is the ability to think abstractly"

It is my opinion that emotional intelligence development also follows these four distinct phases. This is where nurture and nature come into play, and any trauma, abuse, neglect, that occurs during these phases can lead to an emotional stunting where the child is unable to progress to the next stage of development.

In the same way, a positive home and school environment can help children grow to be more harmonious members of society, once you adjust for any biological and neurological deficits. Early recognition and treatment is key...

Having worked as a volunteer in the public school system, I can tell you what teachers and educators have been telling me for years: the number of learning disabled and emotionally disturbed children is increasing exponentially..

Is it just me, or does it seem like the world has become an increasingly disharmonious place lately?

But the last word might well come from a book written by a Norwegian judge, Jens Jacob-Sander:

The Criminal Brain: A View from the Bench
Exploring the Criminal Mind

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=1354

"What goes on in the minds of criminals? This question raises perennial philosophical issues about human behavior in general and criminal conduct in particular. Do criminals act the way they do because of how and what they think and feel? And, are these internal forces of thought and feeling caused by the states of their brains, which in turn are predetermined by biology, chemistry, and genetics? Is the problem, in short, what used to be called bad blood?

Or, are the thoughts, feelings, and actions of criminals caused by external factors such as parents, education, and other influences in the environment that mold and shape malleable brains, which, in turn, give rise to the criminal personality? In other words, is the real culprit for criminal behavior what used to be called society?

With the emergence of brain science over the past 50 years, including brain imaging technologies and the study of brain chemistry, perhaps we can return to these profound questions with new hope of making progress toward answers.

At the present time, although some scholars of brain science lean heavily toward a reductionistic biological determinism, others call attention to the plasticity of the brain and its capacity for change. Even if we cannot ever uncover a single satisfactory answer to how the criminal mind works, perhaps we can begin to diminish the devastation caused by criminal behavior.

An exploration of the criminal mind might yield insights, ideas, and innovative hypotheses worthy of serious consideration and further study. It might also provoke us to reconsider how we think about the questions we ask about the causes of criminal behavior. Instead of polarizing the discussion by pitting determinism (biological or social) against free will as mutually exclusive explanations of criminal conduct, we might discover that biological predispositions and habits of thought can be influenced by education, cognitive retraining, and behavior modification. Whatever our current state of knowledge, isn't it worth our effort to try to formulate better theories and more effective forms of intervention?

That daunting task has been undertaken in a new e-book titled Exploring the Criminal Mind and subtitled Advances of Brainscience and Mental Procedures of the Criminal Personality: A Unified Brain-Mind Theory. The author and publisher, Jens-Jacob Sander, is a judge in the Norwegian Courts of Justice, located west of the city of Oslo. Judge Sander tells us in the foreword to his book that it grew out of his frustration with trying to understand the criminal mind while he was engaged in a major international fraud-hunt in 1989 that, although successful, was apparently hampered by the lack of adequate information and insights about criminal minds"

Perhaps we can return to these profound questions with new hope of making progress toward answers, indeed.

The Horoscope of the United States of America

My first love was an American

Growing up in the diplomatic enclave of Tokyo I first came in contact with Americans at the American Nichimachi School and many of my neighbours were also, American. They were open and friendly, and I made many friends.

Then when I returned to Pakistan there was another family right across from us, funny enough. The father was American, the mom, Russian. How they ended up in Karachi I never knew, but the older brother, Christopher, was my friend, and Margaret, who was about my own age, was my first love.

She really liked me, and I, her, but being 10 at the time we never really knew how to proceed, and then she moved away.

Me and my family almost moved to the U.S. in 1970 but came to Canada instead.

So, for me, the United States is like one's first love, a memory that always remains in one's mind, like the question, what might have been.

As I grew up I realized there would always be the dichotomy of the ideals of the American Republic and Constitution and how it rose to greatness on the backs of ruthless expansion and war finance of its economy.

Now I have written at length about how I tried in previous years to bring about a spiritual awakening movement in the United States. (See "A Spiritual Journey to the United States") http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2007/12/spiritual-journey-to-u.html originally published in late 2001 then again in December 2007.

I was reminded of this just a few days ago, when someone asked me a general astrological question ;)

I said well, some Cancers were going through a rough time.

And since astrology is a theoretical science, it will never be 'proven' as there are indeed too many variables, so I try to avoid any blanket statements as to how, or when.

But, the day after I said that, the eastern seaboard of the U.S. was struck by a rare earthquake and the Washington Monument cracked.

And the US is a Cancer country, born on July 4, and this was a message.

So, if astrology is a karmic map, I can say the U.S. is in for some interesting times!

This is what I wrote shortly after the events of September 2001: "And if Earth Changes are required to bring about harmony, let them take place"

And: "This applies to all the people of the United States. You, and all your generations, are trapped inside a spiritual, emotional and karmic place, and never will be free until you heal the harm that was done in your name"

Please understand that all this shows in the horoscope of the U.S. The Sagittarius ascendant shows the ideals that formed the basis of its founding. The Mars Neptune square, deception and corruption of those ideals. Pluto opposite Mercury and Pars Fortunae in the 8th house, ruthless exploitation of natural resources and jingoist propaganda to exculpate that. And Sun, Venus and Jupiter conjunct in the 7th house, being so blessed with good fortune and love from its allies.

But, every cycle comes to an end, and the planets now show so clearly what will be.

Saturn returns to its original position every 30 years, (It became exact in November 2010, continued through 2011) and signifies a time of renewal, but also, the culmination of activities that have formed that cycle, for good or evil. Karma is just a form of balance.

Pluto opposite planets in Cancer, signifying a shift in national identity. And in September, more upheavals going into the new year.

I wrote in 'Healer" http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2011/04/healer.html and "America the Spiritual" http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2011/03/america-spiritual.html what was going to happen, and what needed to be done.

I know how to offer help, but don't know how to ask for it. Yet I do know one thing. If there is going to be that spiritual change which is the only possible thing that will ensure our survival, it must begin there, in the United States. If there is one person of means out there who is prepared to take a chance and help me, then let me know. The information will always be available to everyone, but, at this time of my life, I will ask for help.

There are two places I need to be soon. The U.S., and, Europe.

The contact address is on my profile page.

I look forward to hearing from you.

London Is Burning

This is so sad

I missed being born in London by just three months.

The spiritual awakening that saw me remember all my past lives began in Toronto in 1974 and came to a culmination in London in 1977 (See "Benjamin Creme and Me")

http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2007/12/benjamin-creme-and-me-from-beginning-i.html

I have been to the U.K so many times it had become my second home, and yes, I love the people very very much See "Rule, Britannia"

http://manfromatlan.blogspot.com/2008/06/rule-brittania.html

where I write: "Two million people march against war in 2003 and you know that there is a British spirit that will never change, and magic will always exist, there"

But, after my last visit in 2007: "There is much done in its name (Britain's) and there is an imbalance that requires healing"

What I do in my trips is train the healers who will be needed in the time to come. And what I also do sometimes is send healers to places where healing is required. So two sisters in Canada married Brits and moved there, then one came back on holiday last month, and when she arrived, the hot weather changed to thundershowers, and the wet weather in the Lake District became quite sunny :)

Then we had a meditation on August 6 and again, these meditations are circles of energy meant to bring about change. On a little scale (little only because it happens so often) my daughter rubbed her hand on some one's arm, and a mole that had been growing and sparking fears of skin cancer scabbed and fell off the next day, and on a broader scale, riots broke out all over England.

The ostensible reason: a black man was shot by police as they attempted to arrest him; a protest demonstration outside a police station led to a 16 year old girl being battered by riot cops. Gangs of youths went on an orgy of violence and looting, shops destroyed, and 4 people killed; some, while trying to protect their homes and businesses.

Ironically this happened just weeks after people were treated to the live coverage of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch being questioned about his role in a scandal where revelations were made about the corruption of top politicians and cops.

I do not condone or explain away violence. It is morally wrong and soul deadening. But in a world where we routinely bomb Libya to get at its oil and kill over a million Iraqis because of a lie, and people are out of a job because of financial manipulation and my friends tell me how their home values have fallen and they are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, I am sorry, but my moral outrage is directed...elsewhere.

And yes, a whole generation of our children is lost, as I said on my other website, once.

But I do believe this: the world as we know it is changing. All over the world people are realizing the failures of right wing policies and throwing out their 'solutions'. All the prophecies I made have come into play, and yes, once again I say that things will become much much worse.

But, I also believe this: We will not repeat the mistakes of the past. There is a spirit of revolution in the air, but that will come through community, and spirituality, and sharing our gifts with one another.

I know that around the time of the London Olympics, there will be great change.

And what I said at the end of my article, Rule Britannia, I say again to young people everywhere:

Do not live ordinary lives.

Cranks, Inc.

James Randi, Esq.

I've met a lot of er, interesting people in my time. And God bless 'em all, even the aforementioned James Randi.

In my study of Psychology I enjoy figuring out what makes people tick, the motivating factors and environment that shapes them, and the actions that follow. But in the broader scheme of things I'm much more interested in social groups.

Over the last more than four decades I’ve been observing at very close hand a huge panoply of social groups: New Age, Cults, UFO's, Spiritual and Psychology based movements, religious, race and nationalistic -isms, and yes, patriot and conspirology based, not ‘theorists’, but people with their own paradigms or memes, and from my own observations, they are every bit as intelligent as everyone else, if a little um, unbalanced in their approach. So I won’t judge them, but just look for the kernel of truth in what they say, because I think divided we fall, and all that.

But, what about groups that actually set out to be divisive?

Disclosure: I was attacked recently by people from the eponymously named James Randi Educational Foundation, a "Skeptics" organization. I'd the temerity to comment, many, many times, on Huffington Post and other crime based sites about the guilt of Amanda Knox. Then, when I was invited to repost my previous article "What Might Have Been" on a site that chronicled proof of her guilt some folk from JREF discovered Google and this website, and the older, web archived one. Much hilarity ensued; since they hadn't been able to effectively debate me on the subject in other forums, they could, um, make fun of my astrological and spiritual beliefs instead.

No big deal, I'd already been unmasked previously by right wing groups for my tens of thousands of anti-war comments on various political web sites. JREF comments, by comparison to right wing nasties, seemed pretty picayune really.

Truthfully, I've been following Mr. Randi's um, career for quite a while now, since he first joined CSICOP, the so called Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Now CSI, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry)

But my interest isn't in him personally, or the behavior of his followers and the people he associates with, but the fakery that is associated with the entire 'Skeptical Movement'

CSICOP, in spite of its ostensible purpose to investigate the paranormal, actively sought to cut funding for ALL research into the paranoramal and parapsychology by legitimate scientists.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSICOP

"An early controversy concerned the so-called Mars effect: French statistician Michel Gauquelin’s claim that champion athletes are more likely to be born when the planet Mars is in certain positions in the sky. In late 1975, prior to the formal launch of CSICOP, astronomer Dennis Rawlins, along with Paul Kurtz, George Abel and Marvin Zelen (all subsequent members of CSICOP) began investigating the claim. Rawlins, a founding member of CSICOP at its launch in May 1976, resigned in early 1980 claiming that other CSICOP researchers had used incorrect statistics, faulty science, and outright falsification in an attempt to debunk Gauquelin’s claims. In an article for the pro-paranormal magazine Fate, he wrote: "I am still skeptical of the occult beliefs CSICOP was created to debunk. But I have changed my mind about the integrity of some of those who make a career of opposing occultism"

"In 2004, CSICOP was accused of scientific misconduct over its involvement in the Discovery Channel's test of the "girl with X-ray eyes," Natasha Demkina. In a self-published commentary, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Brian Josephson criticized the test and evaluation methods and argued that the results should have been deemed "inconclusive" rather than judged in the negative. Josephson, the director of the University of Cambridge's Mind-Matter Unification project, questioned the researchers' motives saying, "On the face of it, it looks as if there was some kind of plot to discredit the teenage claimed psychic by setting up the conditions to make it likely that they could pass her off as a failure." Ray Hyman, one of the three researchers who designed and conducted the test, published a response to this and other criticisms, and CSI's Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health also published a detailed response to these and other objections, saying that biasing the odds against Natasha was appropriate because her claims were unlikely to be true"

The movement was characterised as moved by "pseudoscepticism" and criticised thusly:

http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm

"Surveys show that over half the adult population in the U.S. have had psychic experiences and believe in the reality of the phenomena (Gallup, 1982; Greeley, 1975, 1987; Haraldsson & Houtkooper, 1991). Those who have had the experiences but encounter the debunking attitudes of apparent “scientific authorities” are likely to conclude that science is a dogma and inapplicable to important aspects of their lives. Vallee (1990) has suggested that debunkers “are among the primary contributors to the rejection of science by the public” and are “contributing to the growth of irrational movements in modem society” (p. 21). Ironically, CSICOP’s activities will likely inhibit scientific research on the paranormal and might potentially foster an increased rejection of science generally"

And funnily, this is what's happening now, the movement dedicated to fighting "woo" (Randi's phrase for woo-woo) complaining about growing beliefs in the 'supernatural'

I could devote a whole page to Randi's attacks on Homoeopathy, but I've already defended it in my previous post. Suffice to say he disrupted a homeopathic trial led by French Immunologist Jacques Benveniste. Then when a Greek Homeopath, George Vithoulkas, took up Randi's $1 million challenge http://www.naturalnews.com/025627.html and had a signed, agreed upon protocol, Randi backed out of it with the following letter "Forget all previous correspondence exchanged on the subject. What appears here is the current status. First, we require that George Vithoulkas submit a regular, properly-filled-out application and submit it just as we require everyone to do. After that has been received, we`ll go ahead as with any regular applicant - with the arrangements, including the requirement for the preliminary stage".This new turn of events understandably infuriated Vithoulkas after his 5 years of toil. To make matters worse, Randi, according to Vithoulkas, claimed on his website (http://www.randi.org/) that the homeopaths had withdrawn from the experiment. This accusation is strenuously denied by Vithoulkas"

Another example of the false tactics and arguments presented by the Randians:

http://www.greatdreams.com/faking.htm

1) Demand scientific methodology is used and then ridicule any results presented as 'biased' or 'pseudoscientific'.

2) Belittle any scientist or academic appearing to move away from orthodoxy.

3) Demand peer review of any paper presented for publication (by definition, this is very hard to achieve in totally new areas of research).

4) Do not offer assistance of any kind.

5) Heavily and widely publicise that 'hoaxing' and 'fraud' are the only explanations for what is reported.

6) Do not engage in discussion. The organisation's associates should be called upon to provide the 'expert' viewpoint. The use of academic titles such as Doctor, Professor and Nobel Prize Winner adds 'credibility'.

7) Adopt a caring and protective attitude as the guardians of 'ordinary' people who could be 'duped' by unscrupulous 'tricksters' trying to make money out of them.

Yet, for an organization that prides itself on its scepticism, it seems they applaud the staus quo and have a well coordinated, attack dog response to anything alternative or challenges entrenched interests or memes. Therefore, ALL conspiracy theory must be trashed, as if government never lies to you. GMO foods are NOT harmful. Fluoride in the water is beneficial. Aspartame is safe. Randi forgot himself a moment and actually said he didn't believe in Global Warming then had to backtrack when even his followers questioned that. The Skeptical Inquirer Magazine seems to have a area all its own (False Memory Syndrome) which by its sensationalistic pieces seem to belittle all accusations of organized pedophilia.

Here's more criticism:

http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/skeptic.htm

Michael Prescott-Why I'm Not a Skeptic

"Here we have not innocent open-mindedness, but a narrow and intolerant creed, which is today often recognized as such. The word "skeptic" is, in fact, increasingly conjoined with "dogmatic," "zealous," and "militant." Some people accuse skeptics of being nothing but cynics in disguise. A few wags have dubbed them "septics." Admittedly, that's not very nice – but, truth be told, skeptics have brought such attacks on themselves by repeatedly characterizing their opponents as credulous, gullible, simpleminded, ignorant, irrational, and foolish"

"They are creatures of comfort and routine, not explorers. They cannot think outside the box. They will, in fact, deny that there is or ever could be anything outside the box - and they'll heap scorn on anyone who suggests otherwise. They'll call names, cry fraud, and holler that civilization is in danger and the barbarians are at the gates. They'll do anything, really - except examine their own assumptions with a remotely critical eye.

And that's why I'm not a skeptic"

Some final words on the Skeptics:

http://www.dailygrail.com/Essays/2010/11/Skeptical-Skeptic

Skeptical of a Skeptic-Greg Taylor

"there needs to be a change to the blind acceptance of the words of individuals who claim ownership of the title “skeptic”. This might best begin within skeptical organizations themselves, by promoting more internal criticism and an end to the demagoguery that pervades the likes of CSI(COP) and the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)"

"The calm critic can only say that (their arguments) either displays the grossest ignorance of the facts and the subject, or it is a colossal piece of constructive lying. The authors may take either horn of the dilemma they like"

It is this comment from the above article that interests me the most: 'emlong' writes the following:

"There is huge online troll community that has thoroughly infected the social networking sites, and their calling card is often an in your face ad hominem anything goes attack style. They tend to pedestalize the Amazing Randi and Penn and Teller from whom they have picked up the very worst sensationlism. They are typically as much about syle as they are about substance, and the very first thing they like to do is insult you and mock you. It is also very easy to get caught up in it and start giving it back to them in which case they "have won" because they have then managed to lower the quality of discourse irreparably.

Randi and Penn and Teller are emotionally still children, and their legions of cohorts tend to be children too despite whatever their numerical age might happen to be. As with shock TV these days, science has also become the battleground where the lords of the flies now prevail - at least on the blogs and chat rooms"

And that is so true. They recruit socially disaffected individuals, stunted bullies who use their supposed intellects to propagate intellectual dishonesty, congenital word parsers, name calling individuals to go out and spam social websites.

That they front for Pharma funded sites like Quackbusters and NCAHF and spam the same scripts provided by those orgs every where also points to their lack of integrity

My recent personal experience of them was on Huffington Post, where they could be counted on to show up on all the Homoeopathy threads with specious arguments that showed they had no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, the Autism threads where they promptly insulted ANY parent who felt their child had been harmed by vaccination, and the numerous Amanda Knox threads where their favourite reply to anyone who disagreed she was innocent was they were "stupid idiots" and a relentless debating style that broke down any time someone ignored them and used wit and intelligence instead.

And their arguments were so similar to the template I'd observed on JREF and CSICOP (mostly, they lied, blatantly, copiously, obnoxiously, and rudely) yet not one of them admitted they had come from those organizations.

Never mind. I enjoyed observing their pathology, which really was so awful they couldn't appreciate it when I said I was studying them. Interestingly, I met a whole bunch of ex-JREF'ers who'd been driven out in a hail of abuse because they'd been sceptical of the claim that Amanda Knox was innocent.

Yet even these nice people who thought it was a safe and respectful place for sceptical debate believed that behavior was typical only of the Knoxii, as I call them. Sorry, but that's the way they've dealt with dissent and unconventional thinking for thirty years, and you just discovered that now?

In the end, the saddest thing of all is that the JREF'ers fail to see how their 'debating methods' are just a poor parody of that used by the vast army of right wing trolls who are sent out by PR agencies every day to battle for war, for nuclear power and against 'left wing liberal values' on America's social websites.

A Defense of Homoeopathy

Extraordinary Medicine Indeed

What if one day medicines were widely available to everyone, that could help heal people faster, and without the severe effects we have come to expect from modern conventional medicine? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Well, such medicines do exist. They're called homoeopathic medicine, from the field of homeopathy (alternative spelling)

From the website Extraordinary Medicine: http://www.extraordinarymedicine.org/

"Homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of medicine used successfully by tens of millions worldwide. It is part of the public health care systems of nations in Europe, South America and Asia. It has a laudable two-century clinical record. There are hundreds of high-quality basic science, pre-clinical and clinical studies showing it works. It is one of the fastest-growing forms of health care in Canada and around the world, and has recently become a regulated health profession in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is vastly safer than conventional medicine"

And here's a definition of homoeopathy: "A system of therapy based on the concept that disease can be treated with diluted drugs (in infinitesimal doses) thought capable of producing the same symptoms in healthy people as the disease itself"

Yet, recently CBC, BBC and the Guardian all ran stories purporting to prove that homoeopathy was a fraud foisted on a gullible public.

Hmm. Whom to believe?

The CBC Marketplace program had boffins in white coats who examined homoeopathic dilutions and declared they couldn't find any traces of the substances in the water. It also had a stage magician who swallowed a bottle of homoeopathic pills and said 'he didn't feel a thing'. Of course, they're bound by the Avogadro constant that once a substance is diluted so many times, no molecule can remain.

The BBC program had a horror story about a man who took a homoeopathic malaria vaccine instead of a conventional one, then came down with malaria when he went to Africa. Even though the homoeopath who prescribed it can be seen telling (via hidden camera) the patient it is about as effective as a conventional vaccine (around 60-70%) the program implied he would have been safe if he'd taken the regular vaccine, which is preposterous. Those vaccines are proven to be hit and miss, and have horrible side effects as well.

The Guardian, published an article written by a homoeopath, then followed it up with one from its "Bad Science" correspondent who claimed it was simply unproven, and then, to drive home its point, published another article that said meta analyses by the Lancet proved that its effect was attributable to a placebo effect. As someone who's seen many such meta analyses, I'll summarise it for you. They searched for articles in medical journals (but didn't conduct their own studies) then simply, tuned out what didn't fit their predetermined conclusion.

Here's one, also from the Lancet: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9310601

Lancet. 1997 Sep 20;350(9081):834-43.

Are the clinical effects of homeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials

INTERPRETATION:
"The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic"

Except, they ignore studies conducted by homeopaths, hmm. Except, they start with a pre-judgement, that since they can't understand the mechanism by which it works it remains unproven. The community of sceptics take it further and say it must therefore be fake.

Even Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier, the virologist who received the prize in medicine for his discovery of HIV, says "there is a phenomena, which must be investigated" and that "it is very promising". Yet he had to leave France to pursue his research into the electro magnetic properties of highly diluted substances in water (read homeopathic)

Regardless of the scepticism, as a physician and a healer I am only interested in results. If it works, that's all that matters. One last word on the so called "placebo effect". If scientists have been able to measure quantifiable differences in the macrophages of treated animals, for example, are you still going to call it placebo?

Full disclosure: I used to suffer from horrible allergies that developed into chronic bronchitis. Antibiotics didn't help. Homeopathy was the only thing that gave me relief. Then I had a reaction to chemicals that caused lung damage. I ended up having to take asthma medication which caused weight gain and high blood pressure. I was able to get off that with homeopathic that alleviated the asthma. Then I met a physician, Dr. Felix Ravikovich, M.D., who used injectable homeopathic to help me get completely rid of the allergies (He was later censured by the College of Physicians, even though hundreds of his patients testified on his behalf. His book The Plot Against Asthma and Allergy Patients is available on Amazon)

I have been medication free for 25 years now, and my lung function is normal. I have not had asthma or any allergic illnesses since then too, and I credit that to Homeopathy. Must have been some very powerful placebos, indeed!

And I have my own homeopathic formulations in my research on Mental Illness and the causes of Aging.

This is referred to in the sceptical community as anecdotal evidence, but their world view is somewhat biased, shall we say. I ascribe to the classical definition of science as a body of knowledge, based on verifiable evidence. And the evidence is there, in hundreds upon hundreds of databases. Please check the Extraordinary Medicine site above. Please check http://avilian.co.uk/ and http://www.vithoulkas.com/

Beyond that, the rest is up to you.

What you do have in Homeopathic medicine, is success story upon success story. It is cheap, affordable and widely in use in countries that cannot afford expensive conventional medicines.

Cuba has suffered from recurrent epidemics of Leptospirosis, a bacterial infection, every hurricane season. Due to American embargo, it has had to develop its own, proprietary vaccines, but the cost is still very high.

From a Cuban study of a homeopathic trial:

http://homeopathyresource.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/summary-of-cuban-experiences-on-leptospirosis-prevention-from-the-authors/

"Here is the preliminary report by the authors of a Cuban Study that used homeopathy to prevent Leptospirosis in 2.5 million Cubans.

Homeoprophylaxis: Cuban Experiences on Leptospirosis

Dr. Concepción Campa, Dr. Luis E. Varela, Dr. Esperanza Gilling, MCs. Rolando Fernández, Tec. Bárbara Ordaz, Dr. Gustavo Bracho, Dr. Luis García, Dr. Jorge Menéndez, Lic. Natalia Marzoa, Dr. Rubén Martínez.

“The Finlay Institute is a centre dedicated to development and production of vaccines; we also bring our WHO qualified facilities for all homeopaths and homeopathic medicine. The Finlay Institute acts as supporting institution for research, production and development of high quality homeopathic products. However, according with the social objective addressing prevention of infectious diseases, we are focused on homeo- prophylaxis as strategy to attenuate the impact of preventable diseases on developing world, the ones that need it the most.

Thus, development and evaluation of nosodes, appears to be our main approach to fill up the breakthrough on current conventional strategies based on vaccination. Similarly with vaccination interventions, massive applications of prophylactic nosodes give rise to a greater impact on population health compared with individualized therapies. In addition, the easy administration and low economics resources needed, become this alternative really suitable and accessible for developing countries and almost the best for emergency situations comprising epidemic outbreaks and natural disasters.

The Cuban experiences of massively administrated nosodes supports it use as promising solution to confront epidemiological dangerous situations. On October November 2007, three provinces of the eastern region of Cuba were affected by strong rainfalls causing floods of big areas and several damages to sanitary and health systems. The risk of leptospirosis infection raised extremely dangerous levels with about 2 million of peoples exposed to potentially contaminated water.

Considering this situation, the Finlay Institute prepared a leptospira nosode 200 CH using 4 circulating strains and following international quality standards. A multidisciplinary team travelled to the affected regions to conduct the massive administration of the nosode.

Coordinated action with public health system infrastructures allowed the administration of a preventive treatment consisting in two doses (7- 9 days apart) of the nosode to about 2,4 million of people (4,8 million of doses). The coverage of the intervention rose up to 95% percent of total population of the three provinces at risk.

The epidemiology surveillance after the intervention showed a dramatic decrease of morbidity two weeks after and a reduction to (z)ero of mortality of hospitalized patient. The number of confirmed leptospirosis cases remains at low levels and below the expected levels according with the trends and rain regimens.

A reinforcing application was given after the hit of the hurricane IKE but using the nosode diluted up to 10 MC. Strict epidemiological surveillance is carried out on this provinces. Up to date result will be presented.

The results supported the design of new strategies for leptospirosis control. This experience could be extended to other diseases and other countries. The Finlay Institute is offering our facilities and specialists to spread this alternative to all regions needing emergent alternatives for epidemic control and prevention”

Homeopathy in Epidemics and Pandemics http://www.slideshare.net/drprabhatlkw/homeopathy-in-pandemics-epidemics

shows remarkable successes in treatment of Typhus, Cholera and Smallpox during the epidemics that swept across the world. During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 the mortality rate in over a thousand homeopathic hospitals in the US was around 1-2% but for those treated allopathically the mortality rate was 24%! Yet after the war all of those hospitals were closed down under pressure from the American Medical Association, which still, unfortunately, acts like a gang. Yet, as new pandemics emerge over the horizon, shouldn't we look again at what worked the last time?

How does Homeopathy work? I dunno for sure, physically that is. I do understand it's a facet of Energy Medicine which is my interest, but there you are. The work of Masaru Emoto, with his evocative photos of charged water (like the one here) shows how it might work. But the fact is, it works, and I urge you to try it. Caveat: it's an amazing system, one that many can use and try on their own, but if you have serious concerns, please consult with an experienced homoeopath.

But, in a world where more and more people are becoming ill and there is more and more need for healers, I choose to defend Homeopathy.

What Might Have Been

Four lives, wasted

Due to my Scorpionic nature, I think, I come across a great many criminal and legal cases that grab the public attention.

It seems, also, that I get involved in the case in one way or the other, and, a great number of coincidences seem to er, follow me. Psychologists call that the 'I was there syndrome' and that's fine, it's a form of mental illness, and you can decide if I have it, or not :)

But I have spent a lifetime studying the fine line between Psychic Sensitivity and Schizophrenia, and what interests me here is not only how we identify with the crime and the individuals involved, but how these cases establish themselves in the public consciousness.

And yes, I want to write about the lives wasted, and what might have been.

Whenever a person dies, there is a break in the fabric of consciousness, and all of humanity is affected. Most people learn to ignore it; some, more sensitive, get consumed by it, but we are all affected by it at some level.

A murder case may be just one individual; the devastation of an earthquake or tsunami may affect hundreds of thousands. As for me, I am an observer, but also in a way, a catalyst.

Look, you know my spiritual claims. Forget that for a moment. What I do is warn people about the fateful consequences of the psychic and spiritual damage done to our souls (or psyche) and environment, and if you don't listen, if you don't change, then so be it. What will be, will be. But a part of me, having seen what would happen, mourns for what might have been.

One of my patients was a girl who had Rhett's Syndrome, a severe form of Autism. She came to my clinic and the treatments really helped, yet it was the mother who also needed help. In the end, suffering from depression, she killed her child and tried to commit suicide.

A woman two streets down from us, suffering from post partum depression, killed her husband and stabbed her two children as well. My son used to play with their dog at the local park, but curiously, I never met them.

I worked on a mayoralty campaign. The candidate, a lovely soul, came second. At the farewell party I saw something dark around him. I told his partner that he needed help, and offered. It wasn't heard because they were, I think, already caught up in their karma. A year later he jumped off a bridge and killed himself.

Then, going from the personal to the 'famous' cases, and the 'coincidences' and lessons thereof.

I wrote in "Michael Jackson, the Drowning Man" about how I helped a famous musician with his Parkinson's Disease in 1994 but when I asked him to introduce me to Michael Jackson, he didn't. I was too controversial. Pity, I could have helped him before he descended into his inappropriate behavior.

OJ Simpson was the first criminal case. I lived in Santa Monica almost equidistant between him and his ex-wife Nicole Brown. I had driven around the neighborhood enough times to know the story had some inconsistencies, but I believed he was guilty. I also accepted the jury's verdict of Not Guilty, because the principle of reasonable doubt, in American law, had to be upheld.

There also was the fact I had closed my practice in Toronto and moved to Los Angeles just to help people there, arriving in 1993 in time for the Malibu Fires and Northridge Earthquake (written in "A Spiritual Journey To The United States") and once I knew my work was done left for Texas. And a few months later, the murder, the White Bronco slowly driving down the freeway, the media circus and all of LA enjoying a mass catharsis.

After I left the US in 1995 I shifted my focus to Europe, though Canada remained my home base. I still looked back to the US with fondness, and sadness for what was yet to come.

I was in England in 2005 when the Terri Schiavo case gripped the nation. She was in a lengthy coma, with most of her brain destroyed. Her parents were fighting to keep her on life support, while her husband wanted to pull the plug and let her die.

I tried to stay uninvolved, even though I knew her spirit wanted to be free. I felt this was wrong, for parents to keep holding on to their child. So one day, when Chloe called me about the latest developments, I said enough was enough, and helped her spirit pass on. She died that evening. And shortly after I left England, there was the London Tube bombing. Coincidence, or catharsis?

Madeleine McCann, a little girl from the U.K., disappeared from her holiday bedroom in Portugal just a few days before her 4th birthday, in May of 2007. Her parents were dining some distance away with their friends and inexplicably had left the children unattended and the door to their villa unlocked. The investigators never found Madeleine. The conclusion, absent a body, was that she had been kidnapped. There were many false sightings after that, as people assumed she had been kidnapped by child traders.

This was two months before I went to the UK with my family on holiday. I was asked what I thought about Madeleine. Would she be found? I replied that she had died that first night, and the parents were involved in a cover up. The person who asked me that question then consulted a psychic, who of course said what everyone wanted to hear: Madeleine was alive.

Then further reports came out, and we found that special police dogs, trained to sniff for evidence of death, had indicated she had died inside the bedroom that very night. Nothing further came to light, as political interference corrupted the whole process, and police investigators were sacked for 'unfairly blaming the parents'

Yet, here's a website that does just that; you be the judge.
http://madeleinemccann.org/

http://madeleinemccann.org/2008/1756/madeleine-died-in-the-apartment/

http://madeleinemccann.org/2008/1753/payne-suspected-of-paedophilia/

This was another example of a case that would consume the public, as so many identified with the missing child, or the parents. And, as always, my presence seemed coincidental to a whole series of events. A few weeks before we arrived in Glasgow, bombers hit Glasgow airport with a van loaded to the top with propane cylinders, the rains hit the whole country for three months straight, and the biggest floods in over a century inundated large parts of Southern England. Yet wherever we went, there was sunshine...This is the dichotomy of healing, that there can be sunshine, but also, darkness.

I had already arranged to go back to the UK for a month as a consultant. I returned to Canada on October 31.

The very next day, on November 1, 2007, British student Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, was murdered in Perugia, Italy. Her roommate, Amanda Marie Knox, was convicted of the murder, as was her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Hermann Guede, a drifter from the Cote de Ivoire in Africa.

I hadn't read much about the case and trial, but came across it on the pages of Huffington Post, the social news website. Here was a full blown narrative: Amanda Knox was innocent of the crime, she was the victim of a corrupt Italian prosecutor, and Rudy Guede was the sole perpetrator (All untrue, btw)

What piqued me was the fingerprints of an extensive PR campaign to manipulate public opinion so as to influence the outcome of a trial in another country. Appearances by Knox's family on Oprah, calls to boycott Italy, politicians trying to intervene in a judicial process, oh my.

And the comments on the numerous Amanda threads were funny, and so sad. These people were, in a word, disturbed. They were even foul mouthed about the victims parents, for daring to say they felt justice had been served. And they had no compunction about blatant lying and slander either.

I'd seen this so many times, the ease with which people could be led to believe, on the basis of something they saw or read, the most outlandish things.

Now I really do believe that trying to convince True Believers is a waste of time. (But arguing with them can be er, illuminating:) I'm interested in the process by which they come to that belief, but any good book on mob psychology can give you the basics, and of course, you must always read Orwell's 1984. The same principles of propaganda used to create support for war can also be used to support a position, no matter how wrong it might seem to the intelligent observer.

So I looked at the facts of the case. Amanda Knox had falsely accused her black boss, Patrick Lumumba of the crime, she and her boyfriend had provided alibis that were later disproved, there was a staged break in to mislead the investigation, and there was sufficient DNA, blood and foot prints to prove the complicity of the other two accused.

Two courts, led by Judges Micheli and Massei, had already looked at over 10,000 pages of evidence to conclude that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito had also been involved in the murder. And, the most compelling DNA evidence, Raffaele's DNA on the victims bra, and Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith's on the murder knife found in Raffaele's flat.

The Supreme Court of Italy, while affirming Rudy Guede's conviction, had already established that more than one attacker had been involved, and that DNA attributed to Knox and Sollecito had already been found.

I also noted that the Wikipedia page on Meredith Kercher, once reflecting the findings of guilt against all three accused, had now been hijacked by, let's say, Amanda Knox partisans.

I have to thank the two websites, http://www.truejustice.org/ and http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/ for the fine work they have done compiling and translating the vast volume of Italian language transcripts of the trial and summaries of evidence. Without them, my technical knowledge of the case would have been quite inadequate. I can't recommend them highly enough for anyone interested in learning about the case.

But I formed my opinions way before I found their sites, and I say this out of respect: I don't want their work compromised by association with my own views.

What I write about here is first and always, spiritual in nature. I may use logic to confirm something, I will look at evidence, but ultimately I look at disturbances in the fabric to search out imbalance and untruth. And I learn to trust my instincts. It is only afterwards that I look at other factors, and if I need to adjust my views, so be it. But the patterns and the coincidences, are fascinating.

First, the Astrology. Meredith Kercher, born Dec. 28, 1985, and Rudy Guede, December 26, 1986, are both Capricorns. Raffaele Sollecito, March 26, 1984, is Aries, and Amanda Knox, July 09, 1987, a Cancer. Their signs form a T-Square, at 90 degrees to each other, which are widely seen as indicators of stress and incompatibility. The day of the murder saw widespread stressors on all their horoscopes which would lead to murder, detection, conviction and imprisonment. The Astrology even shows Raffaele's drug dependency and mental confusion on the night of the murder, the conflict between Amanda and Meredith, and the violence and rage that simmered just below the surface of Amanda Knox's psyche.

And the night of the murder, November 1, 2007, saw Saturn and Venus in the house of emotional excess, Uranus in the house of sudden death, and Jupiter/Pluto, in the sexual house, in an almost exact T-Square to each other. The close conjunction of Pluto to the Milky Way's Galactic Center shows the potency of this murder in attracting the public imagination, and also, the trigger for the murder.

But Astrology is just one of many tools in Humanistic psychology. It shows patterns, yes, but mainly it gives a picture of motivations and stages of development. And sometimes, it tells us what might happen. For me, there are many tools: Psychism to know, and other tools to understand.

So I will say this about all four:

Amanda Knox's profile is that of the self destructive individual who will fall from 'the shattered tower' due to her associations with others. Btw, her July 09 birthday is the same as OJ Simpson's and they Both Wielded Knives, hmmm :)

Raffaele Sollecito has powerful friends who won't be able to help him. He almost had it too easy, and his drug use took him into some deep dark spaces. Note he wasn't just using cannabis, but more likely a potent form called skunk weed, plus heroin and cocaine.

Rudy Guede may actually turn out to be a sympathetic individual. His is the one chart I see that leads to redemption and indescribable potential. He is, quite frankly, the most believable of the three, even though he did lie, and he was rightly found guilty.

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher was greatly loved, had the intellectual capability to go far, and would have, if she hadn't been murdered, been a bright blazing star. RIP Meredith.

I hate to make predictions. Human beings will always have the capacity to alter the future (though truth be told, not as much as they like to think) My prophecies have to do with the future of this planet and humanity's ability to survive and regenerate itself.

But tomorrow, on June 27, Rudy Guede will face Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in their appeals trial, and for the first time, be forced to answer questions directly. I believe this will be the day he begins to redeem himself.

On June 30th, the DNA experts will present their findings. This will be one day before the solar eclipse in Cancer. I predict bombshells in court.

I am struck by the coincidences of the cases I outlined: allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, disputed forensic and DNA evidence, racism and political interference, your standard trial. But they all, held a special place in the public imagination.

But in spiritism we see that it is the unquiet spirit of the victim that calls to us, and we can only hope and pray for their peace. Justice is always done.

And one can only look back at them with sadness, for what might have been.