By:
Dr. Ron Shane and Dr. Joe Tafur
Assisted
by: Justin Tang, Akshay Hingorani, and Alva LiangQ: Is DNA actually an aspect
of what has been denoted throughout literary history as well as in many
cultural traditions as a seat of the soul?
Dr. Tafur: I think that it is real
interesting responsibility and it is a question of the gene blue print like a
particular signature that seems to be the key to some kind of a body conscious
life. Want you to have a blue print and signature that is functional and set right
about like the rubber hits the road as far as the whole experience of coming
into individual life. To me it is something that needs to be addressed and the
key to that happening.
Dr. Shane: In my view, even
epigenetics and the actual genetic signature of each human genotype does not
represent the nature of the soul. Moreover, after studying this phenomenon in philosophy,
literary history, it appears to me that there is a distinctive quintessence in
the body which Immanuel Kant refers to as the Numinous Essence. This does not
necessarily connote the actual permutations of nucleotide sequences of the
physical body; and this nature of soul can somehow be contentious or in harmony
with the machinations of the physical body with the corporal sphere. There was
a major dialogue between Aristotle and Plato on this issue. Recently, in
neuroscience, these scientists have now hypothesized that the billions of
neurons and astrocytes constitutes consciousness as well as the soul or spiritual
body. I have written a paper on the distinction between these two phenomena. In
my opinion, the utilization of plant medicine needs to be addressed on the
ineffable and edifying aspect of self, which does not necessarily correlate
with the body’s physicality. I did in my post-doctoral studies at UCLA on
Renaissance Mysticism; and my graduate studies dealt with how the deeper
essence of self is being suppressed or mitigated as well as severely thwarted within
the numinous body. The western medical model does not want to recognize the
etheric body. In my opinion, there is an interesting epigenetic interface
between the spiritual body and its corporal physicality.
Dr. Tafur: I think there is this
interface between the earthly realm and some higher dimensional phenomenon or
whatever you want to call it, actually the basic is part of the genetics
really, but they are what represent an interface between the manifestations of
the energy. When I say the “seat of the soul” I am trying to suggest the
interface where it touches down into the flesh. In other words, where is the
biochemical machinery that actually responds to consciousness? At that level,
they talk about neurons, but ultimately there is some kind of mechanism that is
responding to this energetic phenomenon. One area where we have some evidence
is the way epigenetics are responding to things like medication and things like
strong emotional experiences from traumatic moments that become imprinted in
the system and are passed on from generation such as that from a war.
Dr. Shane: The human phenotype, in
most instances is regarded as an enigmatic relationship between the
environmental milieu that includes exercise, food, medication, as well as
permutations in the atmospheric milieu; and most importantly, the machinations
of the numinous body. This aspect of the body does exist in an analogous manner
to how gravity impacts physical entities. Epigenetics must be comprehended as an
interface between different forces operating on the molecular dynamics of cellular
translation and transcription. Western medical theorists do not want to
incorporate the epigenetics of the etheric body on cellular molecular
processes. Dr. Tafur, you have discussed in a recent lecture how the spiritual
body becomes pathogenic and this could lead to allostatic dysregulation,
especially in the central nervous system’s mesolimbic regions. Carl Jung did speak
about aspects of the body’s ineffable realm, but he did not have the scientific
protocol to understand epigenetics. An important issue in psychiatry or
neuroscience is whether outward consciousness is actually modulating behavior.
Nietzsche regards Apollonian consciousness as the principle factor regulating
modern human behavior. This is very distinctive from what Kant is referring to
as the numinous body. Whatever is governing consciousness of the biological
entity, dictates the focus of the entire outward gestalt. It is important for
practitioners leading Ayahuasca sessions to direct consciousness to the
predominance of the etheric body rather than aspects of cortical circuitry. We
both concur that phenotypical remodeling involves the interface between the sex
of the etheric body and the environmental milieu which includes the actual
corporal physicality and the outward realm. This complex model of epigenetics
explicates the particular nature of proteins which will be translated by the
body’s one trillion cells.
Dr. Tafur: The reason that I like
to explore emotionality is that it also provides evidence of this energetic
exchange. In other words if some would say love is affecting the epigenetic
system, then as a simpler example that maybe is easier for a lot of different
people to relate to and the evidence for, such as the forces that are acting on
the system, then we can recognize that the system is centered to those forces.
The emotion just the way you see, emotional trauma for example, there is a
point that there is a stress response or stress adaptation. To me it is more
important because it is something more people can relate to and is more
tangible.
Dr. Shane: I recently experienced
something with plant medicine and it would have only been possible if my
cortical processes were less provocative. When the volitional cortical
processes are tempered, the individual is more readily able to utilize the
medicinal factors of plant medicine to enable the numinous body towards a
higher level of mystical genesis. In my view, facilitators of plant medicine
must be able to mitigate the
obstructions of their contrived cortical processes.
Q: Is it necessary to experience
hallucinogenic visions for Ayahuasca to be efficacious in terms of activating
the etheric body?
Dr. Tafur: No, not necessarily.
Maybe, it is not clear but there are people who made it that would probably say
that once the etheric body is more activated, than visions are more likely.
Dr. Shane: I disagree 100% with
that. In my view, hallucinogenic visions may not be necessarily related to
actualizing the etheric body.
Dr. Tafur: In other words if we
just have a bunch of follow up, a
lot of people are going to have healing without the visions and healing does
not depend on the patient at all. However, when people are more clear and more
healthy, sometimes they have greater access to visual experience the same way
that similarly to someone who does not remember their dreams, will start
remembering the dream. The visionary aspect of the person might open up more
third eye, open up more as much hallucination like a third eye opening.
Dr. Shane: It is important to open
the third eye before participating with plant medicine. Pablo Amaringo’s book
entitled Ayahuasca Visions is an
interesting pictorial narrative of his experiences with plant medicine. But he
really never focuses his mystical sessions with a phenomenon of ontological
genesis. It was not a clear focus towards genesis of the etheric body. In
general, he does not have a clear focus towards the genesis of the etheric
body. Pablo Amaringo became lost in visions and not directed towards ways to
actualize the dimensions of the etheric body. Dr. Luna’s dissertation leads me
to believe that modern shamanism is not related to deeper genesis of the
numinous body but rather the extraction of virulent energy that thwarts chi
follow. Placing acupuncture needles into a highly perturbed patient can induce
chi circulation. There are many methodologies for removing problematic toxicity
in the inner body. In my opinion, it is necessary for modern humans, with
exacting clarity, to remove pathogenicity in the numinous body. It is not
necessary for energy practitioners, if they have developed their third eye, to
use plant medicine in order to see and remove vitriolic energy from the inner
body.
Dr. Tafur: How long ago… is a
visionary artist. That is what the artist are about, trying to share some of
the world visions that he sees. There is a big mythology among that stuff that
is kind of local. But, if someone did some mild healing, and these people are
not really like the sages of spiritual search, they are healers, doctors of
sorts and so it is rare to meet actual masters … but I bet there are many
people who are skilled. The visions for them is like an inspiration and it is
also, there are things that can be done in different ways and different people
have different ways of doing them, and in this idea to studying the past, using
these plants as an ally to help you do these things. A lot of it, and mythology
is kind of like a journey toward developing relationships with the plant where
your experience is kind of dependent on the plant in terms of the vision they
are going to have into somebody else’s etheric body, you are going to be
depending on Ayahuasca without these individuals and how they train from
drinking it and it is really going to open up. That relationship that is
developed with Ayahuasca, or a traditional way with a plant show you what is
wrong with them, they are guiding you to an idea as well as an experience what
is wrong with the person and what you need to clean up and what you need to
heal in that person and creating that problem. I think ultimately the vision is
about the travel, the realms are more of an inspiration. Ultimately there are
about connecting, the spirits or energy that are going to help them learn how
to affect the etheric body of someone else ultimately through song or a
ceremony.
Dr. Shane: I think that what you
are saying is quite inspirational. Something you mentioned that is really
important in both of your Power Points is that of the translational nature of
energy blockage in the etheric body and how it eventually manifests into what
we call in western medicine idiopathic diseases. Western medical practitioners
do not understand the impetus for many pathologies and vitriolic energy of the
etheric body will eventually cause changes in the molecular dynamics of cell
lines which are most amiable to allostatic pathogenesis.
Dr. Tafur: IRA recognizes it, Chinese medicine recognizes it, and so it is
just a matter of time. and it is also kind of bringing out the arbitrary
western science that we can not see but we acknowledge them and we repeatedly
measure them and that is a big standard. This standard of repetitive
measurements, the scientific method that really limits the discussion and a
mass denial which is what I kind of get tired with and exhausted with as a
doctor because you can come for instance to the lab a mutation and you can tell
someone I feel this lump in my throat or blockage in my throat, or however they
phrase it. And then you go to the doctor, and you are dismissed and denied as
whatever.
Dr. Shane: You mentioned the third
eye and you understand that it is a symbol of western medicine. However, most
practitioners do not experientially comprehend this symbolism. In the best case
scenario, licensed medical doctors should have been able to actualize the
mental eye in order to see furtive malaises of the numinous body. The
pharmacological therapies are the last resort in terms of treating escalated
energy perturbations that have manifested into physical pathologies.
Dr. Tafur: The quote for example
it seems to be the case that in large part that the quote represents the
takeover of pharmaceuticals in medicine or is being restricted to, where all
these bright minds who are interested in healing and helping people are
directed to this medical training program which has been reduced to pharmaceuticals
and then surgery. So then those are the only options that the insurance based
health care system is offering. It is all about money and costs and what is
available and who is going to pay for it. It is caught up in that, the
corporate-ness.
Dr. Shane: In one of our
conversations a few years ago, you are learning to do this, and your intuitive
perceptions have become very developed. In an ideal situation, it would be
judicious to teach western doctors how to remove energy perturbations before
they turn into a physiological morbidity. If someone were to walk into the room
and you could now observe gastrointestinal issues like Crohn’s disease,
however, the impetus for that pathology is being induced from severe energy
blockage in the lower dantien. That patient needs to be treated with
alternative methodologies as there is not a current pharmacological strategy to
mollify this diseases and it eventually is ameliorated by the re-sectioning of
the colon.
Dr. Tafur: That also is going to
be simultaneously encouraged, this kind of training across culture. The
patients are becoming increasingly frustrated as they are also becoming
saturated as they are seeing this is how you do it and this is where it goes.
Even the doctors themselves they have to look into their own lives and this
denial factor…
Dr. Shane: Their energy is blocked
too.
Dr. Tafur: Yeah, their energy is
blocked, exactly. So they are just staying in that mode, but then people, there
are more and more waking up and there are more and more options. There are
people that are having healing from what is considered to be chronic illness.
As that happens, then people are going to what to look down the pair of time
Q: How does the traditional use of
Ayahuasca affect epigenetics, or is it impacting aspects of the body that may
not be regulated by cellular molecular dynamics?
Dr. Tafur: It seems that, there is
the visceral and peripheral and physicality to it, but energetically in the
right situation and right care seems to facilitate some epigenetic flexibility.
Kind of like opening up the possibilities again for things to shift. By opening
up this portal into the energetic which is the higher realms of numinous, all
these things, is opening the door to that and when that door is open then it is
possible for things to shift a little bit and there, it will probably be more
effective in the long term with meditation, or some kind of spiritual practice
or some kind of training over time, you need to solidify it and integrate it.
But there is a possibility that any kind of a strong experience or series of
some experiences that you would allow things to shift more rapidly, whether or
not that shift sticks depends on a lot of things in the person’s lives and
other variables. There can be a shift facilitated by the access and the higher
energies.
Dr. Shane: This issue affects four
hundred thousand licensed medical practitioners here in the U.S. as they do not
possess the intuitive inclination to experience higher energies to where there
is an awakening of the etheric body; and the tempering of the cortical
processes of the central nervous system. Most practitioners of alternative
medicine are at extremely nascent stages in terms of their understanding of the
interface between the numinous body and its physical sphere.
Dr. Tafur: The thing is like what
happens, like now, no real competitive medical school they all have to have an
integrated program, for the young medical student, the young college student
coming out, if they do not have it and they want to go to a top tier school it
is just not good enough. As those programs exist, than we are going to have
more people practicing yoga, and in those situations a lot more people are
going to have their own journey beyond what others and PhD’s are going to tell
them about yoga, and they are going to get curious about yoga and some of them
are really going to learn about the deeper teachings of yoga. The doors are
opening that way.
Dr. Shane: The use of plant
medicine could accelerate licensed clinicians’ deeper intuitions to where they
could begin to experientially understand the machinations of the etheric body.
If they are on plant medicine, they would be more readily able to experience or
to feel the body’s mystical proclivities.
Dr. Tafur: We will see how it fits
into everything, but meanwhile, I am doing that to a point, to a degree at the
center in a sense that we have had many medical students the issue with why …
like you are saying the culture of the individuals coming through are so flawed
that you need something fast and dramatic to open them up or else become psychedelics.
At the center there are medical students coming through, not that many of them,
but there are definitely some and more and more of them are getting access to
some of these experiences.
Dr. Shane: It would be great if we
could induce a paradigm revolution in terms of understanding that these are
facilitators; and that anyone who is practicing medicine needs to feel the
body’s cryptic factors that we cannot empirically, at this moment, measure.
Pathologies of the etheric body have immense effects on outward
pathophysiology. The quintessential issue is how we can educate a culture
concerning lifestyle epigenetics and how it relates to humans becoming fatter,
dumber, sicker, and lethargic. How are we going to move beyond this phenomenon
to higher mystical issues? Currently, our lifestyle is epigenetically
engendering overall bodily pathophysiology.
Q: There is strong reason to
believe that the cortical processes of the brain are distinctive from the
machinations of the etheric body.
Dr. Tafur: Yes, I think they are in the sense that they, again, are related to it, connected to it. But, they can be different from what might be optimal.
Dr. Tafur: Yes, I think they are in the sense that they, again, are related to it, connected to it. But, they can be different from what might be optimal.
Dr. Shane: We should focus 100%,
when we meet, in terms of being able to more readily experience the arcane
machinations of the deeper body.
Dr. Tafur: I am interested, I am
curious about what it is.
Dr. Shane: This needs to be brought
into fruition in our future collaborations.
Dr. Tafur: It depends; I might have a job in Phoenix. If I have a job in Phoenix, I will have three day weekends.
Dr. Shane: This is the major issue
in western culture since our social evolution is so delimited; humans have a
very opulent resplendent realm which is being abnegated from consciousness.
Dr. Tafur: I agree with that.
Q: Advanced practices of the use
of Ayahuasca bypass the cortical circuitry of the brain where consciousness is
translocated; and there is no utility to continue to harvest emotional
pathology in terms of experiencing deeper mystical edification.
Dr. Shane: We need to establish a
paradigm shift as to how individuals are utilizing the therapeutic aspects of
plant medicine. Many individuals have been exposed to plant medicine for
decades, and they still do not know how to temper their cortical processes. This
is necessary to be able to execute in order for higher forms of sentience to be
experienced.
Dr. Tafur: This is kind of related to this other topic. In San Francisco and there is this one Erie conference or seminar. The second part is where I get into this paper about … network and the information of psychedelics of this network and the brain and how this culture, the ego driven materialistic seems to be strengthening and that is shutting off.
Dr. Shane: Have you ever been
exposed to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Modern society is at the lowest level,
where we are plagued by the stress system’s fight or flight response. The
mesolimbic rewards network is downregulated when the stress system is over
activated.
This concludes the first part of
the Ayahuasca dialogues between Dr. Ron Shane and Dr. joe Tafur.
Ron Shane ND PhD OMD MFA Dr. Shane is a world-leading authority in body mind consciousness studies. See Bio section for more information about Dr. Shane.
