Finely tuned sermons and political speeches are designed to produce emotion. Next time you feel the spirit of god or nationalism, please take a moment to thank the almighty for the substantianigra and the ventraltegmental area of your brain—this is where production of a neurohormone is released by the hypothalamus—The Almighty© Dopamine
Also thank god for serotonin and endorphins. These are two of the LORDs best kept secrets, bringing people into the fold by mere micrograms of inspiration. “Phenylethamine is the hormone that results in the feelings we get in the early stages of a relationship. Cocoa beans contain Phenylethamine too— Getting a release of this hormone with just the right manipulative timing can cement your relationship with Jesus—god-is-that-good”!
The pharmacological relationship between phenethylamine and amphetamine suggest that phenethylamine plays a prominent role in mediating mood-enhancing euphoric effects.
Initially discovered in 1935, it became widely known in 1953 in US research. We’d known about it but was studied as enteramine. Whatever you call it, it’s the good stuff that can be released by mood enhanced sermons, falling in love, or moments of emotional and physical rescue. Combine these babies with adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol in a crisis and you can literally see the image of god come to the rescue, etched in your memory forever based on your precondition response. “When people experience a traumatic event, the body releases two major stress hormones: norepinephrine and cortisol. Norepinephrine boosts heart rate and controls the fight-or-flight response, commonly rising when individuals feel threatened or experience highly emotional reactions. It is chemically similar to the hormone epinephrine — better known as adrenaline. In the brain, norepinephrine in turn functions as a powerful neurotransmitter or chemical messenger that enhances memory.”(1)
Here we see that god has done nothing that evolution didn’t do first. While in days-of-old these feelings were credited to god, we know now that spiritual experience is nothing more than the release of hormones—where timing is everything. An upbeat crowd, a calculating sermon, or a life altering event and…Voilet! HERE is a fantastic 5 minute video explaining more. If you want to activate all the receptors in your brain at once? LSD BABY! “Right now we know for sure that LSD has activity at the Dopamine, adrenergic, and serotonin receptors 2A, 2C, 5C, and 6. (2)
Religion—a way of transforming the neurological, evolutionary response into an unsolvable mystery. God shall not be mocked, but he can be manipulated through nature’s pharma.
Sounds good to me, & I’ll take the dark chocolate please.
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It is more consistent than a first date. Here ya go 🍫
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Thank you….😸
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Great post, Jim!
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Thank you. Did it give you a little dopamine?
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You betcha! I got a bit of that feel good drug recalling my studies in neuropsycholgy. 🙂
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omg, have pity on the blind, for they know not what they do not see! 😂
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But how do you know this tells the whole story? What state is the mind in when these amine and phins and things are released into our brains. I go back into my old acid memories, and trips depended on so many things, like mood, environment, the people around you, your energy level, a lack of sleep, and so much more.
I am not disputing what you are telling us, Jim, but from experience I doubt you can boil everything down to brain chemicals alone. I hope even you will agree the mind is open to many influences, but drugs cannot yet make us understand foreign languages, or teach us to talk in riddles. Science can only go so far, then it runs out of factual evidence. You know I believe, through experience, in a living spirit that is not god. Science cannot explain it.
And I am affected by it, no matter what chemicals are running through my brain, or not.
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Thank god for lsd!
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Maybe you should thank lsd for god?
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That’s another possibility
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I’d thank Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann who first synthesized LSD.
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I read a while back that someone had filmed an lsd experience where everything in the room was changing shape and color. The video saw none of it, but the person involved was sure it was real.
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My experiences were unremarkable in that regard. Of my three attempts, the blotter acid induced no effect at all and microdot made me extremely relaxed and attuned to the environment. In fact, I was so relaxed I was able to file an accident report (non-drug-related, though the person who’d plowed into me was clearly hungover) at the local police station around the time I peaked without the slightest bit of paranoia (or arousal of suspicion). 🙂
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I’ve never tried drugs like that. I learned about god the old fashioned way, with a bible and whoopin, stick
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drugs are never recommended. any dependency on an external stimulant is bound to leave you dissatisfied. plus, when your mind is messed up by drugs… how can you see clearly??
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Or how can you trust the experience?
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absolutely! that is so right. we’ve all been sooo sure about something that proved to be completely wrong at some point or other. mind is a fickle, tricky, cheating thing
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John “the revelator” wrote his book while banished to the Greek island of Patmos, which is known for its hallucinogenic mushrooms. And the Great Canterbury Psalter contains pictures of Adam & Eve standing beside a tree with mushroom-shaped fruits. In fact, I’ve even seen frescos of Jesus and his disciples sitting upon same. So perhaps your upbringing was premised on the entheogenic experiences of the ancients.
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Ron, you know I agree
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ponder on the complexity of your existence, on all the endless subtleties of your feeling and experiences, on the depth of your love for your dear ones, and this planet, and then tell me that you are nothing but a bag of meat and electrical neurons signalling erratically to each other
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It certainly doesn’t feel
like this bag of meat (so romantic) is even the real me. Cultural conditioning, or a natural response? Our culture has legislated so much importance on the individual that we mostly live now in isolation.
It isn’t uncommon that people need a break from I, and attempt to find the real me, like there’s two of each person—the real one and the mask.
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of course it isn’t. you are lucky to have that feeling, most people are convinced they are the persona. from birth we are treated like, and taught to think of ourself as a person living in some ‘outer’ world.
we go through life after life thinking and acting on this illusion-belief, so it’s entrenched in our DNA. it’s super hard to change such ideas. but it has been done, and many masters have achieved cosmic consciousness. why the east is invaluable right now, as they have left exact tools on how to get there. here in the west, unfortunately, even the idea of enlightenment or self-realization is non-existent. how can you wish for more when you’re not even aware that more exists?
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Oh yes, the brain and the mind. Very interesting stuff. I wish I knew more, especially regarding pain management. Second point….
So many have told me that they believe things because it makes them feel good. Like Casper and the Tooth Fairy, it’s fun stuff. Conversely, it makes me feel better to know things and be skeptical. Weird, right?
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I can say without a doubt, that the feeling I experience when Holy Spirit enters the room is FAR and WIDE greater than that of putting chocolate in my mouth. I am not here to argue. I just pray for all to experience the overwhelming presence of the Lord and discover that nothing on earth could ever compare to it.
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This is a false equivalency. If chocolate were all we were talking about I’d give you a point. This is also proof positive of the failure of prayer where the hormonal overload you’ve experienced is completely random based on the stress level of the event and cultural anchoring bias. Had you been raised in the Middle East you’d be praising Allah. Fact
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