my article

Two human studies, published in 1995 and 2000, tested the effect of carbohydrate vs. fat overfeeding on body fat gain in humans.  What did they find, and why is it important? We know that daily calorie intake has increased the US , in parallel with the dramatic increase in body fatness.  These excess calories appear to have come from fat, carbohydrate, and protein all at the same time (although carbohydrate increased the most).  Since the increase in calories, carbohydrate, fat, and protein all happened at the same time, how do we know that the obesity epidemic was due to increased calorie intake and not just increased carbohydrate or fat intake?  If our calorie intake had increased solely by the addition of carbohydrate or fat, would we be in the midst of an obesity epidemic? The best way to answer this question is to examine the controlled studies that have compared carbohydrate and fat overfeeding in humans. Horton et al. Read more »

Hugh Lynn Cayce (left) was photographed with his father and mother, Edgar and Gertrude Cayce, and his brother Edgar Evans Cayce circa 1940. Hugh Lynn Cayce (1907-1982) was instrumental in expanding public awareness of his father's life and 'The Work,' as father and son referred to the psychic readings that came through Edgar Cayce while in a hypnotic trance.  Hugh Lynn Cayce's own psychic experiences are described in the biography Hugh Lynn Cayce: About My Father's Business (1988) by A. Robert Smith. During one interview with Smith, Hugh Lynn commented: "The breadth of view of the Christ consciousness, I have said many times, is the most exciting material in the Edgar Cayce readings for me."  In a July 1983 tribute article honoring Hugh Lynn Cayce in The A.R.E. Journal , Harmon Hartzell Bro  observed: " I became convinced, years ago, that for Hugh Lynn the total structure of his father's work and thought became a paradigm or pattern for viewing

A few months ago an academic psychologist whose current research is exploring ‘the conscious experience’ wrote to me inviting me to give feedback on some of his research findings based on his theory of ‘Consciousness Quotient’, and he explained: ‘I am trying to describe the conscious experience as accurately as possible, including as many perspectives as possible’. I replied to his invitation, and this led to a series of emails between us in which he tried to answer what I wrote and to explain his viewpoint in more detail. The following is adapted from the six replies I wrote to him. First reply: Thank you for this kind invitation, but I am not sure whether I can contribute in any way to your research, because the questions I would ask about consciousness and conscious experience perhaps go beyond the scope of your project. To give you an idea of what I mean, I would start by questioning the meaning of the word ‘consciousness’, which I believe is ambiguous, because it used differently

A Polaroid photo was taken of me with Mickey in 1982 at a birthday party at his Westlake Village home.  On April 7, Internet news headlines reported that actor Mickey Rooney (Joe Yule Jr. 1920-2014) made his transition at the age of 93.  I had known Mickey while working for his agent Ruth Webb from early 1980 through March 1987. When starting the job, I had been informed that I would be Mickey's assistant working in Ruth's home office, where I also was involved with the daily agency work.  I had been working as a story analyst (script reader) for Ingels, Inc. after majoring in cinema at USC.  Ruth had recently become active in film and television work after being a well-known stage agent in New York.  Before that, she had been an actress whose credits included Broadway productions.  The aspect of the job that I found advantageous was the prospect of opportunities for my (then) planned screenwriting career.  I eventually became a subagent myself.  My expectation continuously wa

A friend recently wrote to me saying that he felt that in my article Does the practice of ātma-vicāra work? I did not really answer the question in a direct manner, and he tried to explain why he felt this. The gist of what he wrote was as follows: after many years of practising self-attention, he had arrived at a firm conviction that there is only one self, not one self in search of another self, and that ‘I am the Self’; there is only the Self, so the striving, the searching and the attaining of the Self is only an illusion created by the mind, and Ramana said that the mind doesn’t exist; therefore he is firmly convinced that ‘I am the Self’ and that he only has to abide in the Self; although the illusion of the world is still there, with the mind and thoughts, it doesn’t change the fact that there is only the Self; whether or not the mind is destroyed now, it doesn’t really matter, because it is only an image on the screen and has no reality; so is ‘realisation’ necessary? Won’t j