Notable & Quotable: "The DNA Molecule is a single long chain made up of two interwoven ribbons that are connected by ... four bases. These bases can only match up in specific pairs--A with T, G with C. Any other pairing of the bases is impossible, because of the arrangement of their individual atoms: A can bond can only with T, G only with C. This means that one of the two ribbons is the back-to-front duplicate of the other and that the genetic text is double: it contains a main text on one of the ribbons, which is read in a precise direction by the transcription enzymes, and a backup text, which is inverted and most often not read.

"The second ribbon plays two essential roles. It allows the repair enzymes to reconstruct the main text in case of damage and, above all, it provides the mechanism for the duplication of the genetic message. It suffices to open the double helix as one might unzip a zipper, in order to obtain two separate and complementary ribbons that can then be rebuilt into double ribbons by the duplication enzymes. As the latter can place only an A opposite a T, and vice versa, and a G opposite a C, and vice versa, this leads to the formation of two twin double helixes, which are identical in every respect to the original. Twins are therefore central to life, just as ancient myths indicate, and they are associated with a serpentine form.

"Without this copying mechanism, a cell would never be able to duplicate itself, and life would not exist.

"DNA is the informational molecule of life, and its very essence consists in being both single and double, like the mythical serpents."

Jeremy Narby, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge (Tarcher/Putnam, 1998)

FEATURED IN THE MAY 2006 ISSUE OF DNA MONTHLY

1. "Jeremy Narby: The Man behind The Cosmic Serpent," by Ben Sumrall

2. "Three Levels of Mastery," by Sol Luckman

3. "Enlightenment & the Brain: A Scientific Commentary on the Teachings of Sri Bhagavan," by Christian Opitz

Jeremy Narby, Ph.D., is an anthroplogist and author. He grew up in Canada and Switzerland, studied history at the University of Canterbury, and received his doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University. Dr. Narby is the author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge and Intelligence and Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge, as well as being co-editor of Shamans through Time. He works with Nouvelle Planete and helps facilitate rainforest expeditions aimed at exploring indigenous knowledge systems of the Amazon.

Back in the 1980s, internationally-financed development projects were driving roads into the Amazonian rainforest and confiscating the lands of indigenous peoples. As a young anthropologist, I wanted to study this conflict.

I was studying how they used the rainforest, in order to show that they used it rationally, and therefore deserved the right to own their lands.

The Ashaninca people I lived with said that their knowledge about plants came from plant mixtures such as ayahuasca and tobacco paste. They considered ayahuasca a major source of knowledge. And they said the way to understand this was to try some myself.

You describe your first experience with ayahuasca as being both terrifying and illuminating. What stands out most in your memories of this first experience?

The images seemed to correspond to a very powerful, but unknown level of reality, which I had presupposed did not exist. I could see the arrogance of my own worldview.

In The Cosmic Serpent you demonstrate that shamans can access molecular knowledge through the use of plants. What led to this conclusion?

The correspondences between the notions of shamans and molecular biologists. For example, both agree that there is a hidden unity under the surface of life's diversity; both associate this unity with the double helix shape (or two entwined serpents, a twisted ladder, a spiral staircase, two vines wrapped around each other); and both consider it necessary to deal with this level of reality in order to heal.

Shamans claim they gain access in their visions to information regarding the diagnostic of a patient’s illness, as well as the remedy. Vision, knowledge and power are the three key stages in ayahuasca shamanism, as anthropologist Jean-Pierre Chaumeil explains. Shamans start by seeing visions, from which they gain knowledge, which in turn leads to the power to heal.

Arthur C. Clark, in his 2001 series, paints the picture of intelligent life becoming "creatures of radiation," able to store information in lattices of light. Do you think that utilizing the photon emissions of DNA could lead to a similar evolutionary progression?

Perhaps, but first and foremost I think that more research is needed on the photonic emissions of DNA.

Did you make a "leap of faith" when you decided to leave behind your Western skepticism and believe the statements of shamans as true?

I would call it "suspending disbelief," rather than "making a leap of faith." The point was not to believe what shamans say, but to consider the possibility that what they say might be true.

I've heard that certain Amazonian shamans are trying to disseminate ayahuasca to other parts of the world. Do you find this to be the case? If so, what are their intentions?

There seem to be several reasons for this trend. The last 500 years were rough on indigenous Amazonians. Some now feel that the time is right to get the world's attention.

Given the advanced state of decline in some of these ecosystems, are you worried that some knowledge has been irrevocably lost to us?

Yes. In the Amazon, entire societies have been wiped from the face of the earth.

A lot of your work has been to make sure that indigenous peoples are fairly compensated for their botanical knowledge. What is the state of this endeavor?

For sixteen years I have been helping indigenous Amazonians gain land titles to their territories and set up bilingual, intercultural schools in their communities. As to the quest for intellectual property rights for indigenous people, it is a very complex, judicial issue, requiring jurists and lawyers. As far as I can see, there has yet to be much concrete progress in compensating indigenous people for their botanical knowledge.

In regards to your work with Nouvelle Planete, what do you think is the best way to preserve what's left of the Amazon Rainforest?

The most effective way is to work with local populations, motivating them to use the forest in a sustainable way.

This research has opened my mind to several ways of looking at the world. I cherish rationalism and I also appreciate the shamanic gaze. It has made me bi-cognitive. It is like having two complementary ways of interpreting the world.

Much like Charles Darwin, you hesitated to publish your findings. Has there been a shift in response from academia and the scientific community?

Have you been approached by the advocates of "Intelligent Design" and, if so, do you find that your ideas support them, or are entirely different in nature?

I have not been approached by advocates of "Intelligent Design." As an agnostic, I do not know about final causes, and prefer to concentrate on the here and now. I take evolution as a given, but I do not believe that either "blind chance" or "God" drives it.

Have you seen the missionaries and growth of Christianity among the Ashaninca change the Ashaninca's use of ayahuasca?

Yes, in some cases it has driven ayahuasca usage underground. In others, it has changed the cosmology in which Ashaninca shamans operate.

Have you been back to study with the same Ashaninca you originally were with in Peru?

I have yet to go back to the Pichis Valley to do an in-depth study of how things have changed since the mid-1980s.

In your new book, Intelligence in Nature, you postulate that intelligence is not uniquely human, but exists across the animal and plant kingdoms. What examples did you find to support this?

Single-celled slime molds can solve mazes. Bees can handle abstract concepts with brains the size of pinheads. Parasitic plants can correctly assess whether to invest energy into exploiting a host, or whether to move on. Ants can cultivate mushroom gardens using antibiotics. Parrots can say what they mean. Dolphins can recognize themselves in mirrors. Cells can communicate with one another using molecular and electric signals.

We can learn to get a grip on our powers of predation, for starters. Jaguars, for example, stand at the top of the Amazonian food chain, but they lead discreet lives. We could learn a thing or two from these formidable predators.

I am concentrating on my work with Nouvelle Planete, getting support for Amazonian initiatives, such as demarcating the territory of the Cacataibo people; equipping the Kukama-Kukamiria people with short-wave radios to help them monitor the territories in and around the Pacaya-Samiria National Park, and enabling Aguaruna women to protect their knowledge of medicinal and nutritional plants.

Hypercommunication: extrasensory communication similar to telepathy that transcends spatial and temporal limitations used, for example, by ant colonies. Also available to humans, hypercommunication operates via the "biological Internet" constituted by DNA. Remote healing can be considered a practical application of hypercommunication.

Sol Luckman

The three Regenetics Method DNA activations corresponding to three levels of mastery form a progression making possible greater levels of consciousness and healing. The internally driven process of healing or becoming "whole" begins with the individual's commitment to conscious personal mastery. I define mastery as the development and perfection of three interrelated levels of consciousness and their corresponding ener-genetic manifestations leading to enlightenment: 1) Awareness, 2) Transformation, and 3) Intention.

These terms are borrowed from the Toltec worldview and specifically the writings of Don Miguel Ruiz, medical doctor, shaman, and bestselling author of Beyond Fear and The Four Agreements. A realization of the striking connections between the Toltec model of healing (as an evolution toward unity consciousness or enlightenment and its corresponding physiology) and Regenetics inspired a pilgrimage to Mexico in 2004 during which my partner Leigh and I finished researching and developing the transformative final phase of our method.

Potentiation Electromagnetic Repatterning, the first activation of the Regenetics Method, is closely associated with what Ruiz calls Mastery of Awareness. Bioenergetically, Potentiation stimulates DNA to recalibrate and raise the vibratory frequency of the auric or electromagnetic fields, establishing a harmonious relationship with the creational energy of Source emanating from the "Healing Sun" at Galactic Center. In other words, Potentiation attunes DNA to Source energy.

During recalibration the Fragmentary Body, or bioenergy vacuum constituted by the second electromagnetic field, is "sealed." Sealing is a critically important step on the path to genuine healing, as it lays the groundwork for creation of a higher energy body and initiates the process of integrating the fragmentation of the self caused by duality.

In terms of consciousness, Potentiation facilitates Awareness of the true nature of the Self (which is divine) and the Cosmos (which is holographic), empowering individual discernment to begin attracting higher "quantum outcomes" following the universal law that "consciousness creates." This productive use of Awareness invites one to face limiting emotions and beliefs and can lead to increased vitality, a more balanced interaction with one's environment (for example, fewer allergies), greater financial abundance, more loving relationships, even renewed life purpose. Click here for more information on Potentiation Electromagnetic Repatterning.

Articulation Bioenergy Enhancement is appropriate as of the five-month mark of Potentiation, when the electromagnetic fields have recalibrated from an unstable nine to an "infinity circuit" based on the alchemically transformative number 8. At this point a new bioenergy matrix (with no interruption or leakage in the form of the Fragmentary Body) is in place to utilize the potent life force that Articulation stimulates.

Copyright (c) 2006 by Sol Luckman. All Rights Reserved.

[Sol Luckman is editor of DNA Monthly and cofounder of the Phoenix Center for Regenetics, offering cutting-edge educational services and materials designed to activate unity consciousness and actualize human potential. The developers of the Regenetics Method are educators and ordained ministers, not medical doctors, and do not purport to diagnose or treat illness. The preceding article is adapted from the critically acclaimed Book One on the Regenetics Method, Conscious Healing. For information visit http://www.phoenixregenetics.org.]

Did you know . . . in an intriguing section of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, anthropologist Jeremy Narby includes snippets from his personal journals from his time spent studying the healing practices of Amazonian medicine men? One entry is of particular interest on the popular subject of genetic healing.

"According to shamans of the entire world," writes Dr. Narby, communication with healing spirits is established "via music. For [shamans] it is almost inconceivable to enter the world of spirits and remain silent. Angelica Gebhart Sayer discusses the visual music projected by the spirits in front of the shaman's eyes. It is made up of three-dimensional images that coalesce into sound, and that the shaman imitates by emitting corresponding melodies." In a provocative footnote to himself, Narby adds, "I should check whether DNA emits sound or not."

One school of thought insists that humans are actually made of sound and that DNA itself may be a form of sound. Drawing on meticulously documented research, Harvard-trained Leonard Horowitz explains that DNA emits and receives both phonons and photons, or electromagnetic waves of sound and light. In the 1990s, according to Dr. Horowitz, "three Nobel laureates in medicine advanced research that revealed the primary function of DNA lies not in protein synthesis ... but in the realm of bioacoustic and bioelectric signaling." In recent years a new artistic field called DNA music has even begun to flourish. It therefore seems appropriate, at the very least, to compare DNA to a keyboard with a number of keys that produce the music of life.

But what if on some level we are made of sound? What if in the beginning was the Word? What if the music of the spheres is no myth? What if we ourselves are a harmonic convergence? What if the holographic grid of our being is a linguistic and musical interface between higher-dimensional light, which might be considered a form of divine thought or intention, and sound in higher-dimensional octaves? After all, String theory posits the existence of many different, theoretically accessible dimensions that appear notationally linked much like strings on a guitar.

Narby repeatedly makes the point that shamans use sound because this allows them to transform some aspect of the genetic code. If DNA is indeed a text, a keyboard, a musical score; if it is true that this score can be rewritten so that it plays a new type of music; and if we live not just in a holographic but in a harmonic universe, then it seems plausible that our bioenergy fields are at least in part composed of higher-dimensional sound.

3. Enlightenment & the Brain: A Scientific Commentary on the Teachings of Sri Bhagavan

Christian Opitz

Since August 2003, an organization that calls itself the Golden Age Foundation has made a form of energy transmission or deeksha available that seems to rapidly awaken human brain functions to their true potential, making enlightenment and deep emotional healing very accessible for ordinary people. Sri Bhagavan, founder of the Golden Age Foundation, has given a demystified description of the enlightenment process that acknowledges the importance of a biological change in the brain. His statements about the changes induced in the brain through deeksha can be confirmed with the most advanced findings in physics and neuroscience. In the following, I would like to present a comparison between some of Sri Bhagavan's statements and my own findings in studying the brain through the means of physics and neurophysiology.

1. Sri Bhagavan describes a disconnection of activity in the parietal lobes as an essential event in the enlightenment process. The parietal lobes host what some neuroscientists call the orientation association area or OAA. The function of the OAA is to give us orientation in space. You may take it for granted that you can tie your shoelaces and walk through a door, but this is only possible due to furious neurological activity in the rear part of the parietal lobes.

Brain damage to this area makes the smallest tasks like grabbing a glass of water impossible, because the injured brain cannot perceive a distinction between the hand, the glass, and the space between. On the physical level, the ability to perceive boundaries and distinction is essential for our ability to carry out tasks. In the human brain, however, the OAA is chronically overactive. This stimulates the amygdala-hippocampus connection, a pair of brain centers designed to give a sense of meaning to perceptions registered as important.

If the OAA, which is designed to create a perception of distinction and separation to a useful degree, is hyperactive, the amygdala-hippocampus connection has no choice but to interpret this hyperactivity by assuming that separation has more reality than just at the level of physical objects like your hand and a glass. The conclusion is that we are fundamentally, existentially separate from everything else.

The sense of self, which the brain creates constantly in reaction to perception of what is perceived at "other" than self (the basic premise of object-relations theory in developmental pyschology) is then endowed with a sense of absolute, distinct separation of self from other. Neuroscience has shown that in deep meditaton or prayer, the OAA in the parietal lobe is temporarily blocked from neurological input.

This can give temporary states of vastly expanded consciousness, as the sense of separate self cannot find its usual boundaries and expands to find them. This is a temporary experience, however, dependent on altered brain function such as the suppression of neurological input to the OAA. Permanent abiding in oneness consciousness is almost impossible to attain in this way. This echoes Sri Bhagavan's statement that enlightenment has to be given, it cannot be attained through one's own efforts.

The deekshas seem to induce a process of transformation in the parietal lobes that permanently changes their function to a natural level, where physical boundaries can be perceived but unnatural overactivity ceases. The amygdala-hippocampus would then have no more reason or stimulation to create the sense of an existentially separate self.

2. Sri Bhagavan says that activation of the Frontal Lobes is involved in God-realization. The experience of enlightenment, of non-separation, does not necessarily coincide with the experience of a living God-presence. In Sri Bhagavan's teaching more than the deactivation of the overactivity in the parietal lobes is necessary to move from enlightenment to God-realization. He speaks about the activation of the frontal lobes as a necessary neurological change for God to come alive in the consciousness of a person. The frontal lobes are associated with the individual will. Many mystical traditions speak about the merging of the individual will with the will of God as both a doorway to and result of God-realization. This cannot happen, however, if the frontal lobes are underactive.

It is a universal law that anything incomplete in nature seeks its own completion. My own findings in neurophysiology (which deviate from official, university-sanctioned science) show that the frontal lobes of practically all people are chronically underactive. This means they simply do not have enough neurotransmitters and electrical energy to function anywhere near optimum. On a subjective experience level, this is equal to a weakened self-will and an experience of dullness. Boredom is only possible with underactive frontal lobes.

Dopamine, the essential neurotransmitter for frontal lobe activity, is necessary for feelings of enchantment with life and bliss, often described as accompanying mystical union with God. Lack of dopamine will increase a person's urge to maintain his or her self-will and not let it merge with a greater reality, because something is felt as still incomplete on the individual level. It is like dying: a person whose life feels complete and fulfilled usually has a much easier time dying when the time comes.

A person who feels something is missing in life will often cling to life much more. If the deekshas have the effect of activating the frontal lobes, this could give completion to the individual will. With the full flowering of the individual will, it would naturally merge with the greater reality of God. From this perspective, a "big ego" is actually nothing more than a compensation of a weak ego that seeks its own completion.

But without full activation of the frontal lobes and dopamine saturation, the ego will never find its own completion and subsequent merging into God. To judge a big ego and fixation on one's individual will as lower consciousness, as is done so often in spiritual teachings, is useless, because a weak self-will has a natural urge to fixate on the individual, no matter what our conscious intentions may be. The solution can only come about with an actual change on the physiological level, which liberates the individual will from its struggle against surrendering to a greater reality.

3. Sri Bhagavan says that enlightenment has to be given, it is a gift of Grace. Over the past fifteen years, Dr. Hartmut Muller from Germany developed a new paradigm of physics called Global Scaling. This exciting new expansion of quantum physics shows beyond a doubt that consciousness is the most fundamental "substance" of the universe and that it contains an original design of everything in the universe, following an exact mathematical formula.

The distance between planets, stars and whole galaxies, the distance between electrons and nucleons in every atom, the optimum pH for human blood, all this and everything else in the material universe follow the same mathematical structure. This original design is such that everything operates on the least level of stress and the maximum level of efficiency at all times. An atom is at all moments attuned to Source intelligence via a syntropic field. These syntropic fields allow an atom to always "know" how to function with the least amount of stress and maximum efficiency.

Human beings seem to be the only manifested forms of creation that to some degree have lost their attunement to these syntropic fields of life and unity. Once this loss has produced changes in the brain of the individual, re-attuning oneself with the syntropic fields of unity is extremely difficult, because we do not know any longer what these fields are. We then create all kinds of mythologies, religions, scientific theories, etc., about life to fill the void.

A person with an overactive OAA in the parietal lobes and an underactive frontal lobe will seek enlightenment from the experience of separation. All spiritual striving and seeking is in some sense part of the problem, because it occurs as a reaction to the loss of attunement with the syntropic fields of unity. If our seeking is based in the problem, it is unlikely that it will end in the solution. If the attunement to the syntropic fields of unity can simply be given, it is indeed possible that enlightenment can happen for everyone.

The original design of the human brain is to perceive unity as the intrinsic reality of life. This original design is latent, but it needs a naturally functioning brain to be anchored in human consciousness. If deekshas attune the brain of a person to the syntropic fields of optimum brain functioning, the individual consciousness would soon realize its seamlessness with unity.

4. Sri Bhagavan says that enlightenment is a biological and genetic phenomenon. Traditional spirituality often assigns a very low status to the body, which is often seen as just a vessel for consciousness, a shirt that the soul wears. Modern physics shows that Sri Bhagavan's view is much more in alignment with what we know about the nature of matter. A distinct dividing line between matter, energy and spirit is illusory.

Based on the brilliant vortex model of the atom formulated by Lord Kelvin in 1867, we can see that every atom has the size of the entire universe and the material objects we perceive are only the densest aspects of atoms. Matter is the result of an energetic continuum of vortexes of energy taking on increasing density. As Max Planck described in 1910, in this process of energy codensation, matter fluctuates billions of times per second between matter and a formless pre-material energy.

From this perspective, it makes sense to assume that spiritual transformation has to be anchored on the physical level. When it reaches the densest level of manifestation, all other levels are automatically taken care of, because matter is not at all devoid of the higher dimensions of creation. On the contrary, matter appears so dense because it includes all the other levels. So when the material or biological level is enlightened, everything else is included.

On the genetic level, it is interesting to note that human DNA is 173 centimeters long. Only 3 centimeters carry active genetic information. Modern biochemistry is puzzled at this seeming wastefulness of nature and calls the inactive parts of the DNA introns, useless waste material. This is a very questionable assumption, as nature does not produce waste anywhere. The introns are in my opinion (again I deviate from official science) equal to the latent spiritual potential of the human being.

It is my contention that deekshas flood the inert parts of the DNA with photons, thus activating them. Photons are nature's bridge between subtle energy and matter. Photonresonance is the process by which information from the subtle realms is distributed from the DNA throughout the cell. The 3 centimeters of usually active DNA material carry information needed for survival, but when the rest of the DNA molecule becomes active (able to use photonresonance), we can move far beyond mere survival to awaken to our full potential.

5. Sri Bhagavan says that the Collective Mind or Ancient Mind determines our individual state of Mind. In the 1950s, Dr. Hans Selye, endocrinologist at the University of Montreal, showed that the brain of every normal person is in a chronic state of survival stress that would only be appropriate in an acutely life-threatening situation. This stress response is something we have adapted to so deeply that we do not perceive it anymore as particularly stressful.

But in this stress response state, we are bound to be highly conditioned by our environment and the collective unconscious. Brain research shows that stress response patterns cause a dominance of high-frequency beta waves in the brain. While in beta, the brain is only capable of primitve stimulus-response patterns that we largely adopt from our environment and the collective human consciousness and real change is next to impossible. Beta is also the state of the least self-healing ability of the body. Spiritual practice can to some degree relax the stress response of the brain and allow more decelerated alpha, theta and delta waves.

Research shows, however, that individual spiritual practice is far less effective than a given attunement with the syntropic fields of life and unity. At the trackerschool of Tom Brown, Jr., the world's leading expert in wilderness skills, a neuroscientist examined the effects of spending time in pure wilderness. His findings where truly stunning. While it takes a novice usually well over a year of dedicated mediation practice to sustain an alpha state for a few hours, people who never meditated in their lives could sustain deep alpha for hours after only 48 hours in pure wilderness.

Since nature is attuned to the syntropic fields of life, it will entrain the human brain to its own syntropic fields much faster than when an un-attuned brain seeks its attunement through effort. It is my contention that in individual practice, too much of the energy with which the seeker practices comes from the Ancient Mind of struggle and lack; again, the search is based too much in the problem and not in the solution. This seems to be as close to a scientific validation for the need of Grace as there is.

Conclusion

Many scientists and spiritual leaders have called for a marriage of science and spirituality. After modern science was founded in the 17th Century as a reaction to centuries of blind faith, for about two hundred years scientists tried to confirm the objectivist-mechanistic world view of Descartes and Newton.

In the 20th Century, this search finally merged with the staggering discoveries of quantum physics, which showed that mystics had described reality quite accurately for millennia. What has been missing to date is a system of spiritual transformation that delivers scientific, precise and repeatable results. It is my contention, from scientific investigation, personal experience and anecdotal evidence, that the work of Sri Bhagavan is the first spititual system to deliver such results, possibly on a global scale.

Copyright (c) 2006 by Christian Opitz. All Rights Reserved.

[Christian Opitz is a neurophysicist, biochemist, herbalist, and author. He has developed a new paradigm of healing called Radiant Life that combines whole brain functioning, raw food nutrition, exercise, and nature awareness. Christian has taught in Europe and the United States for the past fifteen years. For information visit http://www.powerorganics.com. For information on Sri Bhagavan and deekshas, visit http://www.trueawakening.org.]