The Halo Effect

What is the Halo Effect? Idolisation! Only seeing the positive about someone!

What is Self-serving Bias?

What is Self-Serving Bias? When making decisions we always make them in our favour! 

Anchoring Effect

What is the Anchoring Effect? Questions to answer for insight! 

Christian Salvation by Tim Heaton

In the season of Lent, the 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day, it is traditional for Christians to embark upon a course of Bible reading, study and meditation as a way of preparing themselves in mind and spirit for the great festival of Easter. (The six Sundays of Lent are excluded, hence the popular understanding of Lent as matching the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness.)

One of the best-selling Lent Courses of all time (and currently #1 in popularity on Amazon UK) is Tim Heaton's "The Long Road to Heaven", which uses the brilliant film "The Way" starring Martin Sheen as a springboard into discussion about Christian understandings of salvation. In the film, Sheen plays a bereaved father walking the Way of St James to the shrine of the Apostle at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain - carrying his son's ashes.

Heaton's book ends with a short story called "El Camino", which is reproduced here, and which Church Times, the world's leading Anglican newspaper, said "could stand alone as a powerful and moving allegory of salvation."

What is Negativity Bias?

 

What is Negativity Bias?  Pessimism! Only hearing the negative and missing the positive!

The Ostrich Effect

 

The Contrast Effect

 

The Ikea Effect

The Curse of Specificity

 

Sunk Cost Fallacy

 

What is Sunk Cost Fallacy? Wanting to make the most of money spent!

The Political New Age Toxicity

What do our politicians want from the electorate?…. They want us to be compliant!  How do they get it? By dumbing down the ability of the ordinary person to think critically! 

We all make important political decisions based on news headlines. The more a politician is in the news, for whatever reason - even for bad publicity - the greater their popularity and the more they are worth. When they lose their MP seat, they get a well paid sinecure on the board of a lucrative bank, big pharma, a chemical, industrial, or armaments manufacturer, in the media, in construction, tech company, etc. 

Politicians who have taken us to war, sell books, after dinner talks, they invite their supportive friends to sit in the House of Lords and they can enter royal privilege as a Garter Knight, as did Tony Blair. 

How has the New Age been infiltrated by the political agenda to disempower you and to make you dependent on their desires. You will be told by spiritual teachers to be self serving, to want and get more and more, as greed becomes fashionable and desirable, not think of altruism as spirituality has told you is the foundation of a spiritual life for thousands of years. There is no right or wrong any more. 

Paradox of Choice

What is the paradox of choice? The more choice we have, the more difficult the decision. 

What is the Pygmalion Effect?

What is the Pygmalion Effect? How we listen to people who we look up to! Your belief in someone adds to their confidence. 

Scandinavian Lagom

"Moderation, centredness, natural, wellbeing, ease of life, good-enough, middle of the road, sustainable, balance, simplicity, harmony, contentment, and connection".

These words above encompass the Swedish philosophy, called "LAGOM" often translated as 'not too much - not too little'. It is a practice that enjoys social norms. All excess, greed and dysfunctional behaviour does not fit this way of life. Lagom shows consideration towards others and encourages self sufficiency, a comfortable home and work life, and quality relationships. The secret is to take regular breaks for self care and relaxation described as 'fiken' translated as time out. One finds meaning and values when exploring Lagom; contributing and volunteering are important to creating a Lagom society. It is a way of life that is suitable for our future ecological world by caring for the planet, its people and other species. Developed from the 8th century Viking world, we realise the Vikings were not the crazy people we thought they were, but a people who were disciplined, intelligent and caring.

Consistency Principle

What is the Consistency Principle? How we feel better when we act in accordance with the way we usually act and avoid new ways of decision making. 

Baha'i

 

The Baha'i religion was founded by Mizra Hasayn Ali in Iran and this faith has now spread across the world. It is both peace-loving and humanitarian and it praises equality and kindness. There are no clergy, rites or sacraments and there is an emphasis on caring for all species, and for the planet, hence vegetarianism.

Ambiguity Effect

 

What is the Ambiguity Effect? We avoid the unknown and move towards what is known. We love the predictable and shy away from uncertainty. 

Alexander Technique - Breathing

 

What is the Alexander Technique? 

The Alexander Technique is a simple and practical method to focus our attention on everyday activities and use our body properly. Frederick Mathias Alexander (1869-1955) was an Australian therapist who showed how bad habit reflect on our health. (He spent some time in London UK where he treated actors to stand and move well, breathe properly, add to their energy and ability to perform to the best of their ability. Aldous Huxley was one of his patients. He also visited America and developed an international reputation.) When our body is subject to stress or habit, it develops 'body armouring' which can be relieved through exercises, self-awareness and repatterning. It has no side effects.

Survivor Bias

 

What is survivor bias?  Examples where people manipulate stories about how dangerous activity, is not really dangerous.

Bystander Effect

What is the Bystander Effect? An interesting story, a true story! A hard look at how people decide to get involved with trauma or difficulties. Kitty died because people did not want to get involved. 38 people saw the murder! 38 Witnesses but everyone deferred to someone else to call the emergency services. 

Transcendental Meditation

 

Transcendental Meditation was introduced to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s. It is a simple method that anyone can use anywhere, but best done in a quiet place alone and without interruption. The technique is a mantra which has no meaning and has no philosophy or religious structure or belief. 

Children with sleep problems

Teachers report children falling asleep during classes. Many of these children are highly stressed and keep going on adrenaline. Over stimulation is often the cause. The way to deal with this is a strict routine. At the end of the day, children need at least an hour to prepare for sleep. Lights need to be switched down, all TV and Internet off. Parents need to have words and behaviour that is consistent every night, a strict time schedule set for regularity of bedtimes. Bedrooms should be very dark. Very soft instrumental music, the same every night can be used. 12 hours is ok for most children.

Via Hedera - Bramble in August

When summertime is here so is the power of the lush blackberry bush (also called the bramble). Mother of waysides, father of highways and byways, caretaker of lands and feeder of people – we hail the high summer call to its sweet and thorny guidance, its constancy, its inherent sweetness. Blackberries, fruitful and swift to grow, long to linger, hard to kill! This is the magic they bring us come summer. Bramble is not a fickle plant spirit. They are enduring, grasping, and persistent. In your circles, spells, rites, and magic work, turn to this hearty and intrusive spiritual force to grow a thicket of protection around yourself and your work, to sweeten a guarded love, and to inspire endurance. Create a vessel for these spirits to dwell in. A cotton, linen, wool, hemp, or silk bag, a woven basket, etc., will suffice and are a biodegradable option. Do you remember that the devil of the crossroads, graves and hilltops are said to cast this herb, spitting upon it, tramping it, and honouring it from Michaelmas to Hallowtide, so take the sunny days of August to bless your home with this vigilant spirit that is favourable to Venus the sphere of romance and kindness. Let the scent of its baked petals and the prick of its wisdom guard you and guide your soul. 

A Bramble Spirit Vessel

Improving Your Sleep

One of the greatest complaints physicians hear is that patients have poor quality sleep. This either comes in the form of insomnia, or feeling tired after a full night's rest. 

The Mandala

Mandalas are very ancient meditative designs and are international in their distribution. Their design is often circular, ornate and flowing within, to the centre and then to the outside of the boundary. Labyrinths are similar designs. The object is for meditation and to create harmony and balance within the mind. Anyone can produce their own mandalas and colour them as desired. They are especially good for children and for recuperation from mental and physical illness. 

Carl Jung - spirituality

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who trained under Eugene Bleuler and was associated and trained with Sigmund Freud. Jung’s school of Analytic Psychology continues to be popular. He is accused of collaborating with the Nazis in WWII where he acted as a psychiatrist and promoted Hitler and Mein Kampf. Despite having a reputation for endorsing astrology, after an initial belief, he rejected it. 

Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology.  He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world.  There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. -- Carl Jung (from "New Paths in Psychology", in Collected Papers on Analytic Psychology, London, 1916). 

Notes - Socrates - Karen Armstrong

Precis notes from The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

"An unexamined life is not worth living!" Socrates. 

Socrates did not commit any of his teachings to writing, so we rely on the writings of his pupil Plato (circa 427 - 347). Socrates preferred oral teaching when matters could be discussed and points challenged. He did not like fixed or stridently held opinions. 

Socrates sought not only to inform but also to create in the minds of his students a profound psychological change. Wisdom was an insight not an amassing information. He said he had no interest in teaching people anything because he knew nothing. His students did not come to learn anything but to have an experience and a radical change of mind. His dialogues were a spiritual exercise. Socrates was primarily interested in goodness which, like Confucius, he refused to define. 

Instead of analysing and talking about virtue, he wanted to live a virtuous life! When asked for a definition of justice, he replied “instead of speaking it make it an act of life”. This was only possible because Socrates was authentic and his mission was to awaken genuine self knowledge. Those who came to talk to him were involved in a dialectic of rigourous discipline designed to expose false beliefs,  consequently a conversation with Socrates could be disturbing. He forced students to submit to answering questions concerning their present manner of life and the life they have lived, and he would only discuss subjects that they felt comfortable with.