An individual can display certain symptoms, but whether they are an indication of schizophrenia or shamanic abilities depends largely on the cultural context. By cultural context I mean the collective beliefs, values, expectations and responses of the community which shape the mentality and behaviour of the individuals within that community. Mental illness is heavily influenced…
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Humans have been attracted to geometric shapes and patterns for thousands of years. Geometry has not only been used for the description of physical reality – from the time of Euclid’s Elements to string theory today – it has also been imbued with a sense of the mystical and the beautiful. Sacred geometry, for example,…
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The whole concept of virtual reality – especially full immersion in a virtual, artificial world – has been a favourite topic of many science fiction writers. The idea has also featured in many speculative and philosophical questions, such as: What is reality? How do we distinguish reality from illusion? And so on. Loosely defined, virtual…
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There has been a lot of mystery surrounding what is known as near-death experiences or NDEs. The term was coined in psychiatrist Raymond Moody’s popular book Life After Life (1975), in which he detailed people’s testimonials of their NDEs. Moody interviewed 150 people who experienced an NDE as a result of being clinically dead or nearly…
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Julian Jaynes (1920 – 1997) was an American psychologist and is best known for his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. ‘Bicameral’ means having two chambers. The theory of the bicameral mind says that the two hemispheres of our ancestors’ brains – the left and right – carried…
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