March 24, 2011: Gary S: Parapsychology meets Freud and Quantum Physics.

     On this date, Gary S presented a review of the book Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, PhD. Hit Read More below to see Gary's review of her book. The group was able to provide some discussion on this topic. Many attendants applied their knowledge of mindfulness practice, meditation, compassion, loving kindness, and other elements of spiritual tradition to the elements in this book. As is often the case with a presentation by Gary, this was one of the more intellectual of our spiritual quests.

March 17: Todd presented thoughts from Karen Armstrong's "A Case for God"

     Todd Davison presented to us some ideas from the book "A Case for God" by Karen Armstrong. She hopes in this book to deal with some of the difficulties that this post modern society has with religion. And we certainly do have problems. To do this she goes back to our origins to show what religious faith was like then and how mankind lived in many ways better with that faith than with for example what fundamentalism has brought to religious experience.
     In her introduction she speaks of logos and mythos. When the modern scientific method took over many of our thought processes, it was by way of logos. The ancient Greeks knew these two words and the difference between them. Logos, another word for reason, was "forward looking, continually on the lookout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh." Thus logos was "the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the material world." Therefore it had to correspond accurately to external reality. But our modern society in believing that everything needs to have proof of existance including our transcendent beliefs, we have lost something. Logos does not assuage human grief no help us to find ultimate meaning in the viccissitudes of life. The something missing that can provide ways to accomplish these two latter goals is mythos, another Greek word. In today's world myth has fallen into disrepute. In today's parlance, a myth is untrue. But when this word's origin mythos was considered, myth was not a made up fantasy. It was a different way to look at the world and at our life. One of mythos' necessary ingredients was ritual. Myths were focused on " the more elusive, puzzling and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside of the concept of logos. Being able to listen to and tell stories that help us see the world in a way that is not as threatening is what is provided by myth. "A myth was never intended as an accurate account of a historical event; it was something that in some sense happened once, but that also happens all the time."
     Looking at events in life with mythos instead of logos, allows us to not feel we have to have an answer of how, why, when, etc. We are allowed in fact we may benefit from the unknowing, by recognizing that God or the force that is beyond ourselves is something that can not be understood by humans. That unknowing is actually able to provide us with  a sense of satisfaction, rather than the constant seeking to have an answer to everything. Because there is a demand for an answer from any or all current faith traditions, and therefore a feeling of necessity in those faiths to provide that answer, religion necessarily becomes contentious. Each faith strives to prove itself the best and the correct one. Perhaps we would all benefit from removing that sense for a need to answer, and replace it with mythos. In current society "we are seeing a great deal of strident dogmatism, but there is also a growing appreciation for the value of unknowing. ...There is a long religious tradition that stressed the importance of recognizing the limits of our knowledge, of silence, reticence, and awe...One of the conditions of enlightenment has always been a willingness to let go of what we thought we knew in order to appreciate truths we had never dreamed of."

March 10, 2011: Tim: Satisfaction and Joy at Work!

     Tim has worked in industrial psychology and understands what workers need at the workplace and how they need to view their work in order to be happy there. He now is teaching the necessary elements to students at MSOE. Today at our meeting Tim provided the handouts he uses to outline steps that can make us all happier at work. He uses a lot of Mihalyi Csikczentmihalyi' principles outlined in several of his books starting with one eentitled simply "Flow". The hand out from Tim will be posted on this website when available.

March 3, 2011: Bake Off

February 24, 2011: Dr. Drew McMillan, chiropractor, applied kinesiologist.

     One of our members brought a guest today who spoke to us about his journey through life and becoming a chiropractor and then a practitioner of applied kinesiology. Dr. Drew McMillen told us how he found his way to his present line of work. He found himself in a meeting of the class in chiropractic school where students were all describing epiphany moments when they decided to become a chiropractor. They had a personal history of musculoskeletal injury or disease and were helped by a chiropractor they saw and formed a dream of becoming one themselves. Dr. McMillen felt left out and wondered if this were a profession for him because he hadn't had such an epiphany at all. He had wondered through life thinking that if he had no so-called "calling" then he would just be a person with no devotion to his work, but he would do his work to the best of his ability. He was working in a grocery store when one day when he was still fighting within himself about his life direction, and fully 11 chiropractors came through the line. He decided that was an omen, and went to school for the chiropractic. School was hard, but he finished and started to practice. But he found that patients are not modeled to what he had learned in school. He felt that trying to mold people's problems into his learning was somehow phony and he was not sure he could continue this work. By chance at this time his mother who was taking the Course in Miracles, met another member of the class whose grandson was just finishing his internship in chiropracty. They met through these women, and from this young intern, Dr. McMillen absorbed his enthusiasm and became impressed when the young intern used methods unknown to Dr. McMillen from his training to diagnose a strained knee that the intern didn't even know Dr. McMillen had suffered. The young intern was practicing applied kinesiology. Therefore, Dr. McMillen found a 150 hour course in applied kinesiology and began to add all this knowledge to his practice. Now his practice is only about 2-3% chiropractic.
     Dr. McMillen feels that he can help people beyond just making them symptom free. He feels he can help his clients to get to their highest level of an expression of normal. He now feels that the diagnostic method he uses is no longer fraudalent and he has great confidence in what he does. He found that people come to his office with all sorts of problems: stress, the fight or flight reaction, psychosomatic problems, relationship problems, in addition to physical ailments. Formerly he had to put these issues in the form of an abnormal bone or musculoskeletal source, but now he felt that the body was able through his diagnostic methods to tell him what was wrong and lead him to the correct treatment path. He has used courses in biochemistry, herbology, toxacology, and various other modalities to broaden his knowledge to help people. He practices in Boulder Colorado, but has opened an office in Elm Grove. On the evening of Feb 24, this evening he is holding a lecture and demonstration of some of his techniques.

Dr. Drew McMillen D.C.
925 Elm Grove Rd.
Elm Grove, WI 53122

Schedule for near Future, SpiritMindBody Group

February 24, 2011: Top Secret: Either Sharleen will present on Love and Spirituality, or else we will have a holistic doctor, guest of Dick Yarr to present on holistic practices.

March 2, 2011: Bake Off

March 10, 2011: Phillip Chard discussion.

March 17, 2011: Tim will present Happiness and Job Flow

March 24, 2011: Extraordinary Knowing

March 31, 2011: Gunther Pohlmann Society

February 17, 1011: Morality by Nic P.

     Nic P offered us a definition of morality that is quite interesting: "Morality is a process of individual discovery, not a position or principal, not a set of rules. Human beings as we have evolved need to live in communal societies and yet are bound by self interest which leads us into conflict. This is unlike ants, for eg, which are strongly social and not conflicted.
     Do moral rules offer us impowerment or do they diminish us in some way?
     Phillippa Foot, granddaughter of Grover Cleveland, wrote a book called Natural Goodness, when she was 80 years old. She is interested in moral philosophy. Her book is very dense but it still contains lots of beauty. She says there is a normative condition in nature which is a moral view. She says for example that in nature there is an oak tree which if its roots function to bring nutrients out of the soil, and the trunk functions to hold the tree up, and if the leafy top functions to absorb sunlight, then the tree is not defective and is inBut nature a good tree, ie moral. But if the roots do not send nutrietns to the rest of the tree then it is defective. If a human being has not achieved a sense of morality, then he is defective. This knowledge becomes liberating.
     The process of developing morality can produce anger. But if you can regard this as a defect, then one may be able to deal with the anger. Appreciation may help you deal with these issues. This allows you to see both sides of an issue and helps one confront the issue.
     There is a biological basis to morality. We human beings with our strong tendency to generousity but also strong self  interest develop conflict between these two sides of our personality. Appreciation may be able to help us see both sides of these conflicts. We also can realize that we don't need to solve this conflict quickly. But in the end we can't survive without going through the personal process of discovery of morality. If there are no guidelines (such as of religion) this process will take longer but we will still get there.
     Members of the group came up with these questions: If morality is an individual process, how are we to think of someone like Hitler? How can a group of people who all seem moral  strongly hold such different positions?Appreciation may help discern between these different opinions. Thinking about Foot's book helped Nic add appreciation to his definition of morality.
     Morality preceeds biology and maybe part of consciousness.
     As regards Hitler, members of the group reminded us that some people say Hitler put into action what some people dream of doing. We all may be only one step away from being a Hitler. Appreciation dims certitude. Appreciation drives out fear. Just remember to go to appreciation.