http://centerpointe.com/

Just wanted to share another avenue of meditation and spiritual development that is based in science. I've used it daily for several months and am really pleased with the results so far.

Just an option you might enjoy exploring post-RSE.

You might think it's like the Monroe Institute Hemi-Sync - I know the Gateway series was popular in certain circles at RSE to manifest an OOB but I found those rather annoying. There's no one talking at you in the Holosync CDs.

They also have a top-notch free support hotline via phone and e-mail. I've called a few times to check-in about experiences I had and they were great. No being yelled at "why did you create that?"

I'm enjoying it very much and recommend it.

JEM. If this is working for you, good.

here's a cheaper but same thing:
http://www.mercola.com/forms/holosync.htm
"However, I can only highly recommend the Insight CD because Holosync, which is sold in a multi-level format, is far more expensive – the first level alone costs almost $160 – while the Insight CD is available to you at a total price of under $35!"

Personally I avoid formal meditation of any kind. I would redflag holosync due to the multilevel marketing. In my experience the so-called benefits do not occur to everyone and holosync's claims are over the top.

Just be careful, especially if you are recovering from RSE.
Joe

Hello JEM and Joe,

Kelly Howell's products are also more or less useful and pretty inexpensive:

http://www.brainsync.com

I tried that first level of Holosync and couldn't stand having to wear those ear phones. They were distracting and uncomfortable and so was that sound. I gave it a good try (used it for a couple of months), and probably should have sent it back for the refund when it was obvious that I was not enjoying the whole experience.
I much prefer straight, mantric medition which takes me to a higher place than Holosync.
By the way, you not only have to buy the tapes, which in my opinion are very over priced, but you also have to buy a high quality set of earphones for optimum results. I think I paid close to $100 just for the ear phones.

Holosync is NOT sold via MLM.

One orders Holosync products directly from Centerpointe Research Institute. You don't have to be referred by anyone and there is no upline or downline. If you refer a friend or two, you get a little discount off future programs you may order, but that is not multi-level marketing. Instead, it is a form of marketing that many retailers use.

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I also found another less expensive option that has some testing evidence behind it.

http://www.perfectmeditation.com/

I would correct that Holosync isn't multi-level marketing as I'm familiar with the term. No intermediate commissions on sales. Joe, if you mean they encourage continuing with several levels of the program that they sell to you, then yes, it's several levels.

I'd also caution that it's the kind of thing that a person can turn into a cult type experience. The guy behind Holosync has a worldview that he's come up with descriptive terms for that he uses to explain concepts. It's as easy to turn those in "THE magic special words" as anything from RSE.

But all that said, it is REALLY nice to reach meditative states daily that I did on occasion through the RSE disciplines.

Also, I would correct that the Holosync folks today don't REQUIRE particular headphones until the later levels where it's important to have a higher quality headphone in order to deliver the lower-level frequencies to the ear. The Perfect Meditation folks mention the same thing. Also, they don't say that the headphones they recommend are the only ones that will work. Just to be fair, I think they are pretty up front and clear about that.

There are no magic solutions. We ultimately have responsibility for our lives. But these are pretty nifty modern tools, in my opinion, that are really helping me progress how I'd like to be progressing. Healthier, happier, freer.

I recommend some traditional Irish music myself.

Nothing like it!

Check it out. Grab yourself a cup of tea before you sit down and listen to the jig.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/thefullset/av_20070623.html

I used Holosync consistently for over 1 year. It is a 7 year program.

I got results I was looking for but question long term use.

It is good because one gets to create a list and then record it in ones own voice and then listen/meditate to it in subliminal mode for 1 hour each day.

It only works by doing it for an hour a day everyday.

My only question is that the Holosync technology was create by C.I.A. (see fine print of Centerpoint)

I can't help but question what else lays in the programing that we are not told about.

In theory it is some pretty serious technology.

And no knows the mind better than the CIA.

My RSE partner loves holosync so I imagined it was something recommended by the school. Be aware though it does concentrate on particular brain waves and might produce adverse effects such as short term memory loss and lethargy

a list?made by the cia?sounds very[darn i might have used a copywrighted word]so you need equipment were you send people to town for headsets.than you by a free cd for a littel fee to hook you up.and then some minor courses to realy lern it?somebody learned from ouer girl in town or were they first?thank you ausiegirl.

Aussiegirl said, " Be aware though it does concentrate on particular brain waves and might produce adverse effects such as short term memory loss and lethargy "

What supportive information do you have for making this statement ? I'd be curious to know. I assume you read or heard something that brought you to this belief.

Yes I did read something about it, will see if I can find a link. As I have an RSE partner I'm always a bit concerned about the different "disciplines" he takes part in and try to research them. Of course his answer is I'm like a rat trying to find cheese and you can always find negative information if you want to. Which is what he thinks my involvement in this forum is all about - my attempt to find negative info about the school and JZ

I've never heard of any detrimental effects from meditation, or those audio tapes/CD's, so I'd be interested to read about it. I'm rather skeptical that it would be harmful.

Cult experts generally regard meditation as a "mind numbing" technique.

There has always been an anti TM movement. (Transcendental Meditation)

The "White" album by the Beatles chronicles their time spent with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and some of the songs describe their disillusionment with it.

I will offer just a bit on the 'anti-cult'community's take on meditation and other techniques of influence of "mind numbing."

Mystical Manipulation is one of the 8 themes R J Lifton decribes in his Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. He says that the managers of a thought reform system will set up a series of environments (both external and internal) that have predictable outcomes while they let the seeker believe that the "experience" was spontaneous or "mystical." For example, almost all human beings will have odd or mystical experiences if one or more of the senses is disrupted or overloaded, especially after first tries at a new technique. Stare at a mandala for a half hour, repeat a mantra silently for an hour, dance or spin to "sacred music", breath heavily for more than ten minutes, let a preacher focus your attention for hours with emotional references from a holy book, etc.

Hypnosis is little more or less than this: focusing on something (a voice for example ) long enough for your peripheral awareness and discursive thought process to shut down. Hypnotic states can bring on that holy or transcendental awareness. Ecstatic experience tends to suppress or override critical thinking. All the above techniques open one up for suggestibility and suggestions or commands that may either come from the environment or from a leader.

Some studies show that the overuse of the techniques themselves can rewire the brain and cause changes, not necessarily good ones, in personality and thinking skills. (see "Brainwashing" by Kathleen Taylor).
Again, who's your daddy?
The question is who is the leader and what is the environment? If we have an extraordinary experience we tend to bond with the environment or person that appeared to support or cause it.

So if holosync or an RSE event is the immediate and apparent cause or matrix of an ecstatic experience we will tend to "buy into" that product if not sell our souls to it.

Joe

For some of the latest scientific research into the effects of meditation:

Richard Davidson is a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin's new $10 million W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. If you Google the words Richard Davidson meditation, you can read about brain research done with Tibetan monks handpicked by the Dalai Lama as highly accomplished meditators. The results have been so productive that researchers at Harvard and Princeton are now working with the same group of meditators.

Whatever your feelings about meditation, this scientific research into meditation makes for pretty interesting reading.

Here is more info…

Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation (excerpt)
Richard J. Davidson, PhD, Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Jessica Schumacher, MS, Melissa Rosenkranz, BA, Daniel Muller, MD, PhD, Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, Ferris Urbanowski, MA, Anne Harrington, PhD, Katherine Bonus, MA and John F. Sheridan, PhD
From Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience (R.J.D., J.S., M.R.), Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Stress Reduction Clinic, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine (J.K.-Z., S.F.S., F.U.), Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts; Departments of Medicine and Microbiology (D.M.), University of Wisconsin Medical School; Department of the History of Science (A.H.), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Departments of Preventive Cardiology and Sports Medicine (K.B.), University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospitals and Clinics Center for Mindfulness, Madison, Wisconsin; and Department of Oral Biology (J.F.S.), College of Dentistry, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
Address reprint requests to: Richard J. Davidson, PhD, Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, University of Wisconsin, 1202 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 53706.

Received for publication April 4, 2002; revision received December 27, 2002.
OBJECTIVE: The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work environment with healthy employees.
METHODS: We measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. A wait-list control group (N = 16) was tested at the same points in time as the meditators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.
RESULTS: We report for the first time significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/65/4/564

Meditation Gives Brain A Charge (article)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html

Meditation Helps With Anxiety and General Health
“Cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, has spent the last 30 years studying the effects of meditation and is founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He says that the study offers further evidence that meditation produces measurable benefits. But he rejects the idea that any one type of meditation or relaxation technique is inherently better than another.
"Any practice that can evoke the relaxation response is of benefit, be it meditation, yoga, breathing or repetitive prayer," Benson says. "There is no reason to believe that one is better than the other. The key is repetition, but the repetition can be a word, sound, mantra, prayer, breathing or movement."
Benson says stress management can benefit 60% to 90% of people who see doctors for illness. It is increasingly being added to traditional therapies for the treatment of patients with life-threatening illnesses like cancer and AIDS.
“
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Anxiety/treatment/meditation.asp

Meditation Alters Brain Structure
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/monksmed.html

fyi: no one I know in the exit counseling community is against meditation per se. We all know the benefits especially as stated by Benson for 2 decades now. It is a matter of context, intensity and frequency for harm to occur. Benson has demonstrated that a meditation like staring at fish in a bowl for ten minutes can attain the "relaxation response" for the full physiological benefits and mental refreshment. The technique or technology is not important. Benson took the cult factor out of meditation and restored it to anyone in any religion or no religion.

joe

Joe said, "Benson took the cult factor out of meditation and restored it to anyone in any religion or no religion."

Yes, I can agree that it's removing the cult factor from the equation that matters.

Also good to know the whole exit counseling community doesn't shun meditation, but the twisted use of it by those with cults and brainwashing agendas. There are many things in life that can be used for good/bad. Reminds me of the saying about fire; it can create warmth on a winter day, or burn a house down.