Michael Sternbach

Hello and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. We have a number of people here well versed in various kinds of qi cultivation. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Michael Sternbach and the TDB team

You are right on the money, Wilfred. When somebody is telling us about their wet dreams, masturbation issues, porn addiction etc, it's always a male, with almost only males replying. Where is the intercourse, um, interchange here?

Hello and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us to help restore the balance by sharing your female perspective. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Michael Sternbach and the TDB team

Hello and welcome to the forums, chimera! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Yes, paper and ink are wonderful inventions, and so are computers. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Michael Sternbach and the TDB team

PJ, the link to the terms and rules should be functioning now. Stosh, your explanation of where to find those pinned posts/threads is correct, they are one level up on the Welcome forum. Thanks for chiming in and making things clear.

Red Cairo, Your vivid description of reptilians reminded me of a dream I once had. I saw myself as a child, hiding from several intelligent reptiloids. Their skin was almost black, They walked on two legs like Velociraptors, and their way of moving was very gracious and very reptilian-like, just impossible to describe. Some material transmitted by channellers has it that such beings originate from Draco constellation - something I find interesting at least in the way of Archetypal psychology which has a lot to say on the meaning of dragons and reptilians for the human psyche. That has got to do with the oldest part of our brain being the "reptilian brain" and the snake representing the original energy (Kundalini) in the Indian system, its role in the Genesis etc. The North Pole of the ecliptic/zodiac (which Earth's polar axes precesses around once in the course of a 'Platonic year' of 26.000 years duration) coincides with Draco - more precisely with NGC 6543, the Cat's Eye Nebula.

"Rational morality" requires conditioning and is based on social convention, not on 'the heart' as the source of positive attributes. That's why Laotzu wrote that the sage acts on natural virtue (which he is barely aware of), not on virtue as a set of programmed "dos" and "don'ts". Jesus taught the same.

Some traditions remind us that at our innermost core, we are literally identical with God (in Hinduism: Atman is Brahman). Is that the part which remains after physical life and reincarnates? This must be true, yet I observe that pretty specific past life information finds its way back into incarnation as well.

Hello and welcome to the forums, Jah2075! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. You will find a lot on TCM and all things Qi related here. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Michael Sternbach and the TDB team

Sure! Welcome to the forums, redcairo! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. We are confident that you will find plenty of people here with similar interests and experiences. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Michael Sternbach and the TDB team

Be my guest. (I could quote the DDJ on the different levels of sages here, but that would be mean.)

I would define myself as a spiritual scientist. My approach to metaphysics (and to life, for that matter) is generally an experimental one. So I continuously formulate hypotheses, avoiding to assume them to be ultimate answers. At once, I try to remain open to empirical findings that don't seem to fit in. It is often the cracks in one's world view that lead to expanded understanding eventually. So I am ready to adjust and extend my theories, making them more comprehensive. The search for truth presumably never ends for good. I am not sure why it shouldn't make sense. The further my search advances, the more I realize that opposite truths are generally complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Good questions. It seems like there is a Central Intelligence Agency - LOL. Some people call this the higher self or the inner self. It also ties in with the superconscious I mentioned previously. Perhaps it is synonymous with what Des referred to as the heart?

So you could actually do this experiment yourself: Hypnotize a volunteer without known artistic abilities, tell them that they are Picasso and that they are going to paint something. Make sure that they have the tools available and see what happens... I won't tell you how far you can stretch this. But feel free to tell me (later). No, I don’t believe that it's fully preprogrammed. But it seems to be equipped with some information from the onset of an incarnation, which only needs to be "remembered".

Plato's Symposium says that primeval Man was round too, and able to roll around (or roll away, just like Nungali is supposed to ).

Removal of such "unnecessary" parts is in most cases a folly that future generations will shake their heads about in disbelief. The tonsils belong to the human immune system. However, to "expect difficulties" would potentially weaken your immune response for psychosomatic reasons. It is better to remember that your body is designed to make best of any situation it finds itself in, and your physical and subtle anatomy has an amazing capability to compensate any missing part. In about 20 percent of cases, the body actually regrows removed tonsils! But even where such is not the case will it do whatever it takes to preserve its functioning to the best of its abilities. Along these lines, I have once heard of somebody whose arms were paralyzed due to nerve damage, a condition which was successfully treaten by energetic healing with the help of Turmaline. In this case, a medical examination showed that the nerves were not regenerated; rather, it seemed like corresponding parts of the etheric body were activated to take over their function. This sounds less unbelievable if we bear in mind that there are individuals of normal intelligence born with virtually all off the brain lacking (hydranencephaly). These examples demonstrate my previous statement parts of the physical body are in many ways receivers for the subtle bodies.

Continuing my response to Karl: That's a non sequitur. I don’t downplay the role of the mind's cognitive functions. All the better. It is quite common though. See my last post above.

Superconscious might be the better term. But there is no "up" and "down" in the psyche, and different models use different terminology. In principle, yes. You could "unconsciously" draw a Tarot card to help you formulate an answer more clearly, for that matter, or use a pendulum to access your intuition via your body etc. Of course, intuitive insights can and should be integrated with conscious thought processes. Have you seen "Matrix"? In principle, you could "download" whatever skills you require from the ethers. To illustrate, very average individuals were told in hypnosis that they are i.e. a great painter, and lo and behold, they were suddenly able to produce a master piece. I will answer to the rest later, I'm in a bus and it is arriving at my stop.

No. That would be an interesting one, but my Latin is a little rusty, and I don't see it translated to another language.

Intuition is an umbrella term that covers what could be called non-linear parallel computing. The conscious mind can't follow and therefore doesn't perceive this; at best it gets to know the final result. This is therefore an un-conscious process. Intuition also often includes unconscious psychic perceptions. A straightforward method to train your intuition is to ask yourself any question and make an effort to capture and further reflect on the first thought that comes to mind, before it's glossed over by the rational minds with its endless argumentation.

While in the physical body, its functioning will influence its correspondence with the subtle bodies a.k.a. your psychological experiences. The pineal and the pituitary are gateways to the highest subtle bodies. The pineal starts shrinking in humans around the time of puberty (running on memory here). This certainly affects our feeling of connection to the Universe. However, there are certain remedies that can reverse this process, to one degree or another. I assume that meditation can have the same effect.

That's right. He doesn't have to prove anything to us. And we don't have to believe him anything he says.

Magic, alchemy are actually among the original sciences, with astrology as their queen. They had such a status before and long after the time of Aristotle, about to the 18th century. I sometimes refer to them as Hermetic sciences, or occult sciences. True for Behaviourism. Not true for Jung and Assagioli. By the way, you seem to more or less limit "science" to natural science. What about the "human sciences"? They include psychology, philosophy, sociology and so forth. Not really. Feeling is a different function than intuition. And there are in fact lots of methods to train and more readily access one's intuition.

No. Removing physical parts doesn't remove parts of the subtle anatomy. That's why people can suffer from phantom pain. Also, the etheric body is the matrix used for the healing and regeneration of physical parts.

The chakras are corresponding to the glands and nerve centres. They are the energy centres of the subtle bodies and also connecting the latter to the physical body. They can be in different states of activation, but they can't be removed.

I have no problem with you calling this science. Is psychology a science? I, for one, say "yes". Is astrology a science? That's "yes" again, in my view.