The Myth of the Chemical Imbalance

The myth that schizophrenia is caused by a neurological imbalance and that drugs work by correcting this imbalance is demolished in this video. Runs nearly 9 minutes.

Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Future of the Near East

Harvard professor and economist Niall Ferguson trounces president Obama's view on Egypt, and warns of the grave dangers facing Egypt and the world as a result of Mubarak's downfall. From the Glenn Beck program (I don't think I've ever cited Beck before).



Runs 5:21








P.S. I've wanted to watch Mr. Ferguson's "Ascent of Money" program for over a year now but have never gotten around to it. A quick search reveals it is available online for US ISPs, and so I will make time to watch it within the week.

Forbidden Knowledge 2011 Part 1

At last, your salivation is at hand! I have completed my review on Forbidden Knowledge, and present all 8,028 words of it here for you, my valued couple of readers. It is 16 pages long (roughly one page for every ten pages of the book), with 20 references and two images. Creating an HTML version will take hours, if not days, and may even exceed the size limit of a single page on The Urban Mystic, so for now I will present you with a PDF version, completely free of charge.



Forbidden Knowledge: A Dissertation on Debunking, Parapsychology, and the Psychology of the Paranormal

Faith

Shoshana Garfield writing for The Guardian has a wonderful article on the faith of people who have been tortured. The message is clear:



"I believe that they are telling the truth.... beyond displaying typical impacts of deep trauma, 100% of the clients who reported such miraculous interventions in my clinic room were perfectly sane. I can therefore only come to the professional conclusion that these reports are, to the best of our knowledge, generally true."



This article is fantastic. It is very short, and although you will finish it in a few minutes the uplifting feeling that comes from reading it remains long after you are done.



-Dee

Autobiography of a Yogi

February has been a pretty negative month, hasn't it? Trying to improve the situation, more in line with the Ananda villages video, here is a brief introduction to one of the most influential books of the past century (at least as far as my readers should be concerned). Paramhansa Yogananda wrote his Autobiography of a Yogi in 1946 (an updated version was published in 1952, shortly after he took mahasamadhi). According to the other wiki (take that with as much salt as Bloomberg will permit), Autobiography of a Yogi has been translated into 25 languages and sold more than one million copies. Yeah, it's a real shame that complete and utter shit like Twilight, lacking in any literary, artistic, political, or scientific value (it's about the author's fantasy of a geriatric psycho killer who stalks and wants to rape a teenage girl), has sold a hundred times more copies, but, as Scary Dave says, I ain't bitter.



The video is narrated by Yogananda's disciple, Kriyananda, and includes photographs of many of the locations mentioned in the book and original music performed by Kriyananda. Runs 27 minutes.

Psych Wards

Here is a video from someone who was involuntarily committed to a psych "hospital." It's a real horror story. The entire video is text (with some pretty background music), so you'll have to be doing some reading.





Oh, and Mubarak is gone. In his place is the new vice president, the guy who tortured people for the US, "secretly."

Ananda World Brotherhood Colonies

Swami Paramhansa Yogananda's great wish was to establish world brotherhood colonies, communities devoted to plain living and high thinking, where people could practice Dharma away from the negative atmosphere of the modern world, while still being a part of it. These colonies embodied the ideal preached by Jesus of being in the world but not of it. They also embody Sri Aurobindo's* ideal of Integral Yoga, combining the best advances made east and west.



Yogananda's disciple, Swami Kriyananda, helped to set up eight of these colonies (several in USA, Asisi, Italy, and Pune, India). I looked into the economic model practised by the Ananda villages, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. They are not some hippie, take handouts from the government, socialist orders. Everyone in Ananda is responsible for their own income and they have to pay for their own housing. If anywhere is a good example of responsible living, it seems to be the Ananda villages.



Here is a wonderful video on the history of Yogananda in America, his disciple Kriyananda, and the Ananda villages. Run time 23 minutes.





*Aurobindo also set up an intentional community, Auroville, in Pondicherry in India, which was then governed by the French because, as a political dissident, Aurobindo was a criminal in British India.\