Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 10, 2003 02:54 AM         

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has anybody read any tom robbins? he writes these great philosophical comedic novels... and he's just the best, he makes me cry laughing!

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Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 10, 2003 04:08 AM         

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also has anyone ever read "many lives, many masters"? it's a non-fiction book about a clinical psychologist who, after using hypnotherapy on a patient to help relieve her panic attacks and phobias, begins unintentionally regressing her into past lives; only after this happens do her symptoms lift.
it's interesting because the patient, 'catherine' i believe, is a person with no knowledge understanding or believe in reincarnation, brought up protestant or catholic, and the psychologist is a real level headed scientific age-of-reasoning type of guy with no particular spiritual convictions. she was quite frankly freaked out by some of the things she said when hypnotized, and refused to listen to the recording of the sessions... the psych could hardly believe any of it, but after applying the scientific method to the situation: researching, exploring all explainations, he could do nothing but believe when he witnessed.

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Posts: 4050
From: The Boundless
Registered: Mar 2003

posted April 10, 2003 01:47 PM         

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Love Tom Robbins...he's a strange and interesting creature!
I seem to recall he married a bi-sexual psychic...

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Posts: 3308
From: England
Registered: Jan 2002

posted April 10, 2003 03:27 PM         

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Many Lives, Many Masters
An amazing book, I couldn't put it down - I read it in one go.
I really recommend it.
Sue

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Posts: 2255
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted April 10, 2003 11:24 PM         

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I LLLLOOOOOOVVE Tom Robbins. He's incredible. I think my favorite is a toss up between Jitterbug Perfume and Still Life with Woodpecker.
Many Lives Many Masters sounds amazing. I'll have to check that one out. Thanks for the tip, knowflakes.

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Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 11, 2003 12:28 AM         

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harpyr! those are my favorites too!!!! i shall write more later, gotta go hang out with the boy.

and yes, i read many lives, many masters in one go too, in a few hours, i couldn't put it down...

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Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 11, 2003 11:05 AM         

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so one of the reasons i brought up tom robbins is BECAUSE of jitterbug perfume-- i just finished it a few weeks ago-- and i think he said some pretty intersting things about immortality in there. (perhaps i will post this in the oranges and hyacinths forum too0---- and if you plan on reading the book, don't read the rest of this post.)

one of the characters talks about human evolution and a significant increase in brain capacity some 200,000 years ago. he postulates that because brain size doesn't necessarily correlate with brain power, the extra size may have been preparation for an increase volume of memories (which do need physical space in the brain to exist)-- for when humans live significantly longer than we did then, as well as now.

so this character also talks about the improtance of the sense of smell with memories-- he says that a scent or odor will evoke strong memories like no other simulus could- even the sight of something... and further postulates the importance of scent for the immortal.

he talks about how the human brain contains all of the former evolutions we have been through. that (and im pretty sure this is fact) we have something of a retillian brian at the core of our brain which is paranoid, aggressive, self-preserving, angry and greedy. (you can always tell a person who still uses their retillian brain over the others) -this was necessary for humans pre-civilization.- around this is our mammilian brain, characterized by "warmth, generosity, loyalty, love, joy, grief, humor, pride, competition, intellectual curiosity and appreciateion of art and music. " (i've just pulled the book out as backup ) - this was necessary for civilization, and tho its still valuable, we need something more.-- he says that most recently we've developed a third brain, a layer over the neocortex. supposedly, this area is light sesitive and may be for collecting and converting light into energy, just like flowers, which is why this is called the 'floral' brain; this is the area of the brain that responds to meditiation chanting and all higher forms of experience.

according to tom, the next step of human evolution includes an increase use in the sense of smell, because of the incresase of memories, and and in the use of this new brain. the mamilian brain was helpful for exploring and conquering space (land, earth) and now the floral brain will help us explore conquer time through immortality.

`~`~`i always wonder how much of what tom writes about is truly factual... some of the things i have previously learned, so i know them to be fact, but he talks about so many things spanning across so many different topics, and draws these amazing conclusions from it all, and some of it is so damn extrordinary, sometimes its hard to believe!!`~`~`

anyone in the science field? anyone know any writers that talk about these types of things?

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Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 11, 2003 11:46 AM         

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i can't resist posting this (thanks to all who read this all )this is one of my favorite things he's writen

from "stilllife with woodpecker":

When the organizers of the Geo-Therapy Care Fest announced their intentions, they were blizzarded by applications from manufacturers and salespeople of “ecologically sound” stuff who wished concessions to peddle their New Age wares- teas and herbs, sleeping bags and hot tubs, tipis and windmills, water distillers and air purifiers, wood stoves and frozen yogurt, arts and crafts, books and kits, bio-magnetic underwear and carob chip cookies- on the premises. The organizers refused. They had no complaint against ecology fairs or the cosmic profits to be reaped from them. IT was just that their Care Fest was conceived to traffic, and they put it, “in ideas no objects”
Now, the line that separates objects from ideas can be pretty twiggy but let’s not unzip that pair of pants. Galileo was right to drop objects rather than ideas off of his tower, and the Care Fest might have been wise to stick to objects as well. Within the normal range of perception, the behavior of objects can be measured and predicted. Ignoring the possibility that in the wrong hands almost any object, including this book you hold, can turn up as Exhibit A in a murder trial; ignoring, for the moment, the far more interesting possibility that every object might lead a secret life, it is still safe to say that objects as we understand them, are relatively stable, whereas ideas are definitely unstable, they not only can be misused, they invite misuse- and the better the idea the more volatile it is. That’s because only the better ideas turn into dogma, and it is this process whereby a fresh, stimulating, humanly helpful idea is changed into robot dogma that is deadly. In terms of hazardous vectors released, the transformation of ideas into dogma rivals the transformation of hydrogen into helium, uranium into lead, or innocence into corruption. And it is nearly as relentless.
The problem starts at the secondary level, not with the originator or developer of the idea but with the people who are attracted by it, who adopt it, who cling to it until their last nail breaks, and who invariably lack the overview, flexibility, imagination, and, most importantly, sense of humor, to maintain it in the spirit in which it was hatched. Ideas are made by masters, dogma by disciples, and the Buddha is always killed on the road.
There is a particularly unattractive and discouragingly common affliction called tunnel vision, which, for all the misery it causes, ought to top the hob list at the World Health Organization. Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. IT is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good idea is run through the filters and compressors of ordinary tunnel vision, it not only comes out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects the opposite of those for which it originally was intended.
That is how the loving ideas of Jesus Christ became the sinister clichés of Christianity. That is why virtually every revolution in history has failed: the oppressed, as soon as they seize power, turn into the oppressors, resorting to totalitarian tactics to “protect the revolution.” That is why minorities seeking the abolition of prejudice become intolerant, minorities seeking peace become self-righteous, and minorities seeking liberation become hostile (a tight ******* being the first symptom of self-repression).

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Posts: 4050
From: The Boundless
Registered: Mar 2003

posted April 13, 2003 08:30 AM         

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Robbins is always provacative, ain't he?
And just when you think you know what the hell he's talking about, he leads you down a path you didn't even know was there.

In his latest book, his lead character Switters is musing about life (as his characters always do), and comes round to thinking that to really reach the ultimate state of being, not only must one be enlightened, but also, endarkened! I don't have the book handy to get the context/quote correct, sorry. But it's a heck of a fun read.

I'll agree with Harpyr, my faves are Jitterbug Perfume and Still Life With Woodpecker. Check 'em out, they're a fun ride!

I'm also a fan of the late Douglas Adams...as anyone who recognizes my nick would know!

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Posts: 274
From: Morristown, NJ USA
Registered: Nov 2002

posted April 14, 2003 04:47 PM         

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how could i forget douglas adams?!!! wow i haven't thought about those books in a while... i definately have to reread them sometime soon

i wish more people came to the free-for-all forum, because i'd love to know what some knowflakes think about his immortality ideas... hmmm a floral brain, i think i like it. i pay a lot more attention to my sense of smell now, i try to make it more keen and try to smell odors below the level of consciousness-- my inner nose if you will

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