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The Whole Person
Philosophical Perspectives
We have had the good fortune of a having a number of excellent writers. There was a special group of contributing writers who got together and decided they wanted to see the articles they wrote for New Perspectives: A Journal of Conscious Living put together in a book.
The result of the writing for New Perspectives over the years is the book, Philosophical Perspectives from Pierre Grimes and Opening Mind Writers: An Anthology of Articles and Reviews.
The Compilation of articles was written by Pierre Grimes, Ph.D. and the members of the Opening Mind Academy and The Noetic Society, Inc. The articles were not submissions, but requests and assignments. Ideas for stories come in or a publisher sends a book in to review, and then a search is made for the right person to write it. The articles and reviews just fit the moment or the "news of the day."
The book is set up in sections, similar to the magazine. Within each section (Features, Columnist, News Stories, Film and DVD reviews, Themes) the article or review is placed in chronological order so that there can be shown a succession of thought or latest topic of interest. Each section is unique except that you find something about Philosophical Midwifery in every section.
See Opening Mind Academy Web site to order the book.
We observed alternative movements merge with mainstream society
New Perspectives has been published for over 20 years (established in 1987). It was originally set up to report on alternative movements. As time went on these subjects were more accepted and we found them merging with mainstream society — holistic medicine-later termed complementary and integrative medicine; yoga now taught in every gym and heath spa in the country; vegetarianism and natural products are now found to be the most healthful diet; a surge in eastern religion and practices; of course concern for the environment became the "green" movement; even prosperity thinking has been taken over by Christian mega churches.
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Our concern for public affairs
The important, Public Affairs section was launched in 2009 — to complete the reporting on the whole person. We have been writing about understanding, awareness, and clarity on a personal level, on alternative health practices, and the book review section brought the reader new ideas on self development. Now we are ready for the next step of the citizen observing, then "repairing" the nation — real change coming from grassroots — not from the politicians.
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Holistic Living
Evarts Loomis, M.D. was ahead of his time, and we can still learn from him.
"I think there is a great need in the healing professions — psychologists, physicians, and ministers — all of us, to get involved in our own healing. It is much more than words that gets to people. Does my voice carry — are my words authentic or not?" Dr. Evarts Loomis, considered by some as the "father of holistic medicine," was speaking these words to those of the Integral Life Center, The Gift of Life restaurant, Meadowlark healing retreat center, and others who were curious about this man of medicine, that was ahead of his time in treating the whole person (September 30, 1977). He was giving a report of his latest trip to Europe (his Sixth) to study with Dr. Paul Tournier who teaches from his Medicine of the Person Group.
Evarts Loomis, M.D.
This man questioned the status quo in order to learn about himself and serve his chosen field better. He went on with his talk, "As Mazlo, Assygioli, and some of the new psychologists who are getting into what is referred to sometimes as Transpersonal Psychology say, there are two important things for all concerned. First, synthesis — the discovery of our personal self, and then, the spiritual synthesis — our identification with something beyond. Then we begin to realize we are part of a vast network of life that goes far beyond the dimension of our physical plane."
He said, "Tournier's comment on this was, 'First one must discover him or herself, and then he must get rid of this little self. We have to find ourselves, in other words, before we lose ourselves.'"
Loomis followed this with, "We have to come to some account, make some kind of contribution to life around us, have something to give and then we can give it away."
"Men and women (His talk was entitled Man and Woman in Search of Their Person's Today) have a very important complementary relationship. We could say that in the West technological advantages have been great, along with it man has lost his soul — and civilization could be destroyed. On the other hand, in India, they have gone the other way.
They don't have technological advantages, but they have gone much deeper into the meditative and intuitive parts of the person. So you see, we need the two. For the past 100 years, I suppose, we've been sending missionaries to the East and now they are sending them back to us — we have yogis all over the place now.
"This is necessary. We have to restore the balance. We were too unbalanced. We were in a cold technological world. And again the heart dimension was not developed. So you see how important this trend is. Because they have been preserving the contemplative, meditative life — TM and other forms of meditation instruction have really begun making us aware of our need to find this inner dimension of our own human soul where we can go beyond ourselves and be much more attuned to the life that is around us — and in the heart rather than the intellectual.
Stay Healthy: Read the Comics
By Allan Hartley
Before the era of the computer, the internet, and all the auxiliary electronic gadgets there was an adventure felt by the seeker of alternative health practices, non-religious spirituality, and self development. The individual had to leave his house and go to a book store or a learning center. Once there he or she would find a book or meet a person who would refer him to an organization or some study guide. He might find what he was looking for or find his search took him in a different direction which was just as rewarding. Much of that is gone.
Maybe it isn't gone, the seeking is still there, but we are just doing it with different tools. I happened to read a comic strip in the Los Angeles Times Sunday edition (February 7, 2010) called "Candorville" by Darrin Bell. It might have been the first time. I usually just read "Doonesbury." In it the man tells the woman why he doesn't want to go to Burger Queen: "Scientists discovered half of the fast food fountain sodas they tested were contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria."
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Shaking in earthquake country
Recent major earthquakes have encouraged better ways to predict and warn of coming quakes in California. This includes non-ordinary and less costly methods than the Parkfield Prediction Studies carried out since 1985.
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The Whole Person as Active Citizen
Observing Our National Predicament
We have an inherited distrust of the government from previous administrations; an inept and irresponsible Congress; a failed economic system; and immoral and costly war in Iraq and stepped up war in Afghanistan; and a constituency that looks to this inept government to take care of them. They are all in collusion to alter the country as it is today — not for the better. Will it be a collapse of capitalism? Will the crisis be big enough to wake up all these sets of people to transform fundamentally, individuals and the system currently permeated by greed, self centeredness, and corruption?
The question is whether we have a big enough crisis to snap us all out of our complacency or just one that we will forget in a short time and continue doing things in the same old way.
This was written by me, Allen Hartley, a year ago and so far I am sorry to report that it is the latter of the two results just mentioned — the crisis wasn't bad enough to change our way of doing business or running our individual lives.
A year after the financial institutions were given billions of dollars, they are again giving their people millions in bonuses. Where is the accountability that was supposed to come with the Obama administration?
The Los Angeles Times (12/11/09) said, "A week after ordering 30,000 more American troops into Afghanistan, Obama told a committee that chose him (for the Nobel Peace Prize) to join the company of such icons of nonviolence as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. that evil must sometimes be met with force."
He followed this in the same article with, "Instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace." He says this while engaged in two conflicts. Most of us learned a long time ago that you don't bring about peace by doing more violence.
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Addressing our national predicament
To be able to live in this, sometimes frightening, world we need to be able to see clearly and with reason. We need to understand ourselves and our relationships. Then we can use our understanding as citizens to participate in democratic action to make this a better place to live.
Rami Shapiro, author of Open Secrets, says tikkun is the process of putting things back together again. He goes on to say, "There are two kinds of tikkun corresponding to the two kinds of brokenness we humans imagine. The first is called tikkun hanefesh, repairing the soul. The second is called tikkun haolam, repairing the world. Both must occur if we are to set things right, and neither takes precedence over the other. Indeed they are two ends of the same thing."
I wrote this a year ago in our Winter 2009 issue of New Perspectives. A year later we aren't much better off as individuals or as a nation. Let's do something. I think Shapiro is right, maybe the old way of trying to fix the government without fixing the individual doesn't work. So, let's look within and see what we can change, and with that take some kind of action to begin working for a renewed and revitalized government — one that reports to the people who put them in power. Let's take action to end the two wars. Those that suffer in wars are the civilians — both the victims in the countries we invade and the families the military leave behind in this country.
Sometimes I think that the responsibility of making decisions of running a country is just too overwhelming for the people that are supposed to be doing it. They might even want someone to tell them what to do. Let's tell them. But let's be heard.
There are a number of ways to do this, and I will be letting you know about this in the coming weeks and months. You and I need to go about this with a sense of urgency.
I will study, and research the problems we face. I will write about them. I will speak about what I find. I will contact people in the government. I will invite service men and women to speak about these terrible wars. I will do whatever it takes. How about you? What will you do? It is your life. It is your country.
See Office of Public Advocacy in ABOUT US under heading Message from the Editor, Urgency for the People to Be Heard.
Allan Hartley, Editor
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Kucinich says that how we eat influences everything else in our life
Rep. (D-Ohio), Dennis Kucinich
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) was recently interviewed by reddit.com about a number of national issues. Before they were done, he was asked what he would do if he were made the absolute dictator of the United States for one day.
He responded, "I think I would order everyone to have vegan chocolate chip brownies." He paused, then continued, "Now why would I do that? Well I have been a vegan now for ...since 1985...that would be more than 14 years. As a result I've had tremendous health. I have had great energy, clarity, I have had the ability to be able to connect my dietary choices with my health.
"I had Crohn's growing up and had a pretty serious bout with it throughout my 30s and 40s. When I changed my diet the symptoms began to disappear. I started to understand also how the choice of diet affects the environment, resources, energy. It's a spiritual choice as well.
"So if I had one day to make an imprint on the nation, I'd look at the choices we make in respect to food. Also the matters of compassion towards living creatures who become food. We need to be more thoughtful as a nation about the choices we make and the food we consume.
He told reddit.com that he didn't believe in dictating what people eat. But, he used the interview as a way "to bring in the potential of diet for transforming individual health and for transforming the nation in some powerful and positive ways."
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The Bodhi Tree Bookstore—An End of an Era
The downturn of the economy and competition of chain bookstores led to the closing of the long time metaphysical bookstore in Los Angeles.
By Allan Hartley
Neisha Ghiatis, office manager at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, recently told me that it was in escrow and would be closed in two years. The bookstore has been in operation for 40 years, and for 32 of them she has been one of the guiding personnel. For many people in the Los Angeles region this was the place to go for books and magazines on Metaphysics, Eastern philosophy and alternative health practices.
Prior to the internet and the chain bookstores with their discounted books, it was enjoyable to spend time browsing their shelves, maybe have some tea, and look up to find your current favorite guru's picture among those that were lined up on the wall above you. Mine were Krishnamurti and Swami Satchidananda.
Ghiatis said, the owners, Stan Madson and Phil Thompson, were looking for someone to buy their inventory of books and new age merchandise. The employees were also told that they could purchase the business and continue operating as the Bodhi Tree in a different location.
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Stents put in Clinton's artery;
Other options are discussed
Medical panel on Larry King TV show discuss Bill Clinton's latest heart procedure. Dr. Dean Ornish insists that life-style change is important. Allan Hartley reflects on his experience since his refusal for a bypass eight years ago.
By Allan Hartley
I watched with interest the Larry King program on former president Bill Clinton's latest heart operation (CNN, February 12, 2012). The panel of experts included Dr. Wayne Isom who had operated on Larry King 23 years ago; Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent; Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute; and Jane Seymour, the actress, who talked about the emotional stress of a broken heart.
The panel appeared to confirm and applaud the way Clinton's latest trip to the operating room was handled by putting two stents in his blocked artery- all except Dr. Dean Ornish. Each time the camera focused on Ornish, usually only for a moment, he would say that life-style change was the best way to treat cardiovascular disease. Once he even ventured to contradict Isom and Gupta by saying that stents don't extend life.
Problems for heart patients don't end with bypass surgery. The case of Bill Clinton is a good example that surgery is only the beginning. His bypass surgery was done in 2004, but in March 2005 he had to have follow-up surgery, decortication to remove scar tissue and fluid from his chest cavity. Now, just short of five years later, he is back in the hands of the expert surgeons, this time to put in a stent to open an artery. This is a temporary fix, although it is said that the newer kind of stent inserted with medication will last longer than an old stent.
Seeing Bill Clinton in the news again with his heart problem might give us the impetus to examine more of what this procedure and the post operative entails. There are complications that aren't usually spoken of outside the cardiac unit in hospitals. Dr. McDougall, internist, author and lecturer on diet vs. drugs, recently described in a newsletter a problem that follows bypass surgery that all surgeons and cardiologists recognize. They refer to it as "post bypass surgery cognitive dysfunction," or brain damage caused by the operation. The newsletter says, "The primary cause is emboli produced during surgery from clamping the aorta and from the 'heart-lung machine.' This machine pumps blood to keep the patient alive while the heart is stopped during the operation. Unfortunately, this pump also introduces toxic gases, fat globules, and bits of plastic debris into the bloodstream of the patient under anesthesia. Once they are in the bloodstream, these particles migrate to the brain where they can clog capillaries and prevent adequate amounts of blood and oxygen from flowing to the brain. Essentially, all patients experience brain emboli during surgery and for many the damage is permanent."
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