Ageless in Spirit: Discussions and interests for our times

May 17, 2025

This morning, my wife Rebecca invited me to have my coffee and cereal out in our front yard deck. The sun was shining, the trade wind breeze coming from our blue green ocean washed over us. Our garden was green with naupaka, palm trees, nawawili, and green grass, with sculptures of angels, and ceramic art pieces enhancing the vegetation and delighting our vision. Being one with nature a feeling of wonder and awe. Religious experiences of oneness, connection and bonding with the all, has been written about, studied in the laboratory, set to music such as Poem of Ecstasy by Alexander Scriabin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poem_of_Ecstasy), and incorporated into the rituals and dogma of various religions as proof and connection to the other or creator who then may seem to promise connection to loved ones now deceased and even paradise after we die for the faithful worshipper. The study of awe, a human emotional state of being, is related to these musings of mine. When enveloped in this state of awe we are able to feel more alive and health benefits are associated.

Many years ago when Carlos Castaneda wrote his series of books beginning with the Teaching of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge I was intrigued and became more interested in meditation as a means to observe and allow my stream of consciousness be part of the whole which of course felt more than what I had been experiencing. Many of my patients troubled with anxiety, depression, self doubt, ruminations, and behavioral rituals taking a life of their own were introduced to my instructions and practice sessions in meditations. The Dalai Lama collaborated with the researcher Richard Davidson Ph.D. so he studied the brain information available through EEG and other methods using monks adept in meditation ( The Mind's Own Physician: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on the Healing Power of Meditation Hardcover – January 2, 2012 by Zara Houshmand Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD (Editor), Richard J. Davidson). Alpha and Theta waves were seen as more important to associate with the ability to meditate. As a curious participant and interested person to overcome emotional and psychological hang-ups in myself I participated in EST (Erhart Seminars Training). In a subsequent class on meditation with this group, we were presented with a difficult challenge. We sat in upright chairs knee to knee opposite another person and looked into the participants eyes practicing so that we did this last session for one hour! To be here and now as an observer letting go of attraction or uncomfortable feelings was very difficult so that the room of many like participants was filled with gasping, groaning, and shifting in our seats. Nevertheless, I did experience freedom and satisfaction in knowing that I could detach myself and be an observer and witness and at times just be there. The meditation craze of that time was widespread and included seminars in corporations and schools as a means toward freedom. Alas, fads do not make truth. To me I saw that the emphasis on meditation and eastern philosophy led me to conclude that meditation and the like leads to passivity and inaction, acceptance of the gurus thinking and prescriptions for living, and a loss of free will and choice. For example, I went to Swami Muktananda's rented palatial home in Kahala on the ocean, listened and participated in his audience setting, spoke with him and came away with an impression that he was a special person gifted in holding your attention and mesmerizing in allowing you to accept his teachings and directions. Here's an interesting article about shamanism and the different forms it takes in our societies sometimes to our detriment (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/06/manvir-singh-shamanism-timeless-religion-review/682581/)

In my journey of self explorations and professional interests I enjoyed my time getting to know the writings of Milton Erikson M.D. Ph.D. Arizona hypnotist and his followers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson). I already had training in Child Psychiatry at a psychoanalytic oriented residency in Boston and enjoyed working with children and families. Erikson was a unique professional who enjoyed story telling and hypnosis usually combined. Many professionals went to his Arizona farm to be instructed in his methods. I incorporated story telling into my therapy repertoire. I began using some hypnosis in my practice especially when I had a few patients who I diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. I will be brief here since I've written about this in other blogs. People who grow up in families in which they have been savagely abused and dominated who have high hypnotizable proclivities can dissociate when abused, create an alternative split off series of selves, and seemingly are unaware when they dissociated into alternative versions of themselves. Again I was stuck with how our ability to meditate, our ability to experience awe and spirituality were related to our ability to be hypnotized. For example, studies have shown that those who are easily hypnotized are more prone to be manipulated by someone such as a charismatic guru, shaman, declared prophet, and charlatan. Many of us less hypnotizable but still good subjects may be also susceptible to these influencers.

Related to these mind changing abilities and tendencies we have to dissociate, post traumatic stress disorder is better understood. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a modern example of a psychological treatment approach to overcome traumatic experiences that have altered our mind and brain processing (https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand_tx/emdr.asp). Meditation, hypnosis, and EMDR are related in my view.

Getting back to my beginning thoughts for this blog, a feeling of spirituality, awe, oneness with nature, the meditated observer etc. may convince some of us that we are in communication with a spirit, god, being that may even be understood as the creator, observer, and evaluator of our moral being. These experiences coupled with a more dogmatic prescribed religious upbring seems to be associated with inflexibility in our thinking and a closure to evidence that may seem to question the dogmatic views we accept. Cognitive flexibility is defined as the the ability to adapt, tolerate uncertainty, and shift perspective The Ideological Brain by Leor Zmigrod is well worth your interest in this regard (https://www.amazon.com/dp/125034459X?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title). I can experience awe, spirituality, oneness, detachment, and even ecstasy but my religious upbringing and associated dogmatic prescriptions for living are not incorporated into these experiences. I choose yet belong to a wider community that are diverse and maybe some are less liberal.

Leonard S Jacobs

P.S. Look at this link and find the rabbit and/or the duck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion)

Now look at this!

(https://www.californialawreview.org/online/zs2a8qmrgnyc3pbiny8yg1ffvsvb54)

Now finally this!

(https://condenaststore.com/featured/an-army-lines-up-for-battle-paul-noth.html?product=canvas-print)