Neurology Meets the Holy Spook

Usually when science and religion meet, there’s a great butting of heads and a total lack of agreement.  However, this time, science and religion have came together to prove neurological changes in believers while they are, as they describe, speaking in tongues through a baptism by the Holy Spirit.  Brain imaging has proven it.  Never did I think my psychology degree would come in handy proving the supernatural in quite this way, but when you’ve got proof, you gotta go with it. 

The brain is the most amazing machine known to man. Added that it's a biological machine makes it even more amazing.  Like we've stated in previous blogs, the brain is a machine that runs on electrical impulses.  The brain is so intricate, researchers still can't say they know how it all works.  The electrical impulses - whch are different kinds of neurons firing across synaptic gaps, inside the most intricate web imaginable, carry information to different parts of the brain.  We could write a whole blog on the different parts of the brain and their functions, but we'll just take a look at the ones of particular interest in this case.  

The following study illustrates that there IS still magic left in the world, some things can't be explained naturally, so that makes them SuperNatural.  There are some question marks below, but it's undeniable that some UberEnergy is manipulating how the brain works, things that are expected to happen don't.  The Lost Creek folks aint gonna push religion on you, but this study pretty much rules out everything else.  As always, take in the evidence we present, and make your own interpretation based on what you feel is right.

A neurological study of believers speaking in tongues, also known as practicing Glossolalia, was carried out by Dr. Andrew Newberg at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  The results have researchers baffled, as they back up what the believers claim is happening.  The believers say the speech isn't coming from them, but Through them, from God, by the Holy Spirit.  State of the art brain scans were taken while believers were praying regularly, in English, and then when they were 'speaking in tongues.'  

The scans showed a very significant decrease in activity in the frontal lobes during the speaking in tongues prayers.  What does that mean? The frontal lobes are the part of our brains that, among other functions, is activated when we are speaking, in our mother language.  Decreased activity in that part of the brain means they weren't using natural means of speaking, it was coming from somewhere else.  The ability to express language happens in those frontal lobes.  If that's not happening, some big questions are raised.  Reasoning and self-control also happens in the frontal lobes.

 

The results also showed diminished activity in the  dorsolateral prefontal cortex.  What in the world is that?  When you are doing something on purpose, this part of your brain lights up with activity.  But when they were praying in tongues, it declined in activity.  So the prayers weren't purposefully doing this.  This part of the brain also helps control executive functions, which is just thinking and doing.  If that isn't happening, where are the prayers coming from....?  This part of the brain is also involved in humans' responses to rules of behavior.  Diminished activity would mean a sort of loss of inhibition, letting go. 

Finally, the scans showed a decline in activity of a part of the brain called the left caudate.  This part of the brain is involved in motor and emotional control, so researchers concluded that while the practitioners may be mindful of what's going on, they have ceded control over their bodies and emotions.  They have given up control and turned it over to ......? 

Interestingly, a control study was done on a group of atheists and non-believers, who were instructed to try and meditate or contemplate God's existence.  NO difference in these parts of the brain were found in this group.  1 Cor 14:2  For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. .....so looks like if you don't believe, it aint gonna happen, but if you Do believe, brain scans show it's really happening.

Here’s an interesting piece from Nightline, and whoever was behind the scenes putting it together found an amazing story, even if it is presented by the guy who did the infamous documentary with Michael Jackson.  It highlights the beliefs of one pastor and includes the study mentioned above. Watch with an open mind:

The history of speaking in tongues is a long one, going back to Biblical times.  Nobody on Lost Creek is yet qualified to tell you all about it, but if you want to do a little reading, click hereto see what the 2nd chapter of Acts has to say about it.  We will give you this part, and then discuss it a little:

Mark 16:15-18: And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Pretty heavy, huh?  This is a good example of how different peoples interpretations of the Word causes denominations to break off. The snake handlers take this passage and dance around with copperheads and rattlers, refusing medical treatment if they’re bitten believing God will heal them if it’s His will. Others debate who Jesus was talking about.  Was he addressing the apostles, and meaning these signs will accompany YOU, the people I’m talking to here right now, or did he mean anyone who came to Believe, even if it’s 2000 years later.   This one little passage can be taken so many different ways.  The Lost Creek elders advise the use of  common sense, read the whole story, then decide for yourself.  

Modern day tongue talking is commonly agreed to have taken off in 1906, in Los Angeles.  An African American preacher named William Seymour started a Pentecostal revival, the meetings being held on Azusa Street.  The Azusa Street story is another blog in itself, but to summarize, for the first time blacks and whites were worshipping together under one roof, the building filled to capacity and people lined up outside, looking in the windows, anxious to get in.  Seymour had studied under Charles Praham, who instilled in him that speaking in tongues didn't stop after the apostles.  Worshippers left Azusa Steet asserting that had been/still were Filled with the Spirit, carried their stories back to their families and friends, and the notion caught like wildfire.

William J Seymour

It is commonly agreed upon that while speaking in tongues, what comes out can be an actual language, unknown to the person praying, or more commonly an unknown language. The unknown language has been purported to be the "language of the Spirit," a "heavenly language," or even the "language of the angels."  In a recent conversation with a believer, I was told that God inhabits our praise.  What's that mean? I was told for instance when the music is going, everyone is into it, on the same wavelength, we are sending up some of that positive energy, "and He sort of comes down and absorbs/enjoys/revels in it. Our praise draws him nearer to us, and opens our minds and Spirits to "usher" him in!"  Also added in the conversation was "When you speak in tongues you are praying in the Spirit, and it's a precious treasure, because the Devil can't understand it."  

We've found and presented evidence, make of it what you will.  Decide with your head and your heart. The study discussed has raised more questions than we have time to even ask, but we're following where the butterflies take us.  As mentioned in the quote above, being on the same 'wavelength' is pretty close to Carl Jung's Collective Consciousness that is gonna be explained along with his explanation of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences in the next Medicine Show.  We've got some research to do on that one, so think this one over....til next time!


 

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart

 NIV, Jeremiah29:13

Spook Show Baby

The butterflies of Lost Creek have undoubtedly led us to the supernatural.  We spent years sneaking into old houses (getting arrested for trespassing once, thanks jerk) or spots we’d heard spooks had been seen, snapping pictures, recording audio, and holding our breath waiting to see if we could come away with evidence of the supernatural.  At the continued urgence of a couple friends, we found our way to this little church here in these hills.  This aint some case I read about on the internet, it's something the Lost Creek folks seen, we were there, witnessed the following.

While we were at first uber hesitant to admit it , the researchers here at Lost Creek have came to the conclusion that supernatural occurences can't be ruled out in this case. Personal encounters don’t amount to much when you consider ghost hunting evidence, because you can’t prove it to anyone else.  The only person I sat out on this journey to prove anything to was myself, and them personal experiences combines with other evidence and we get something that we can’t explain away as easily as an Ed and Lorraine Warren demon infestation case (which would of course have an outrageous made-for-tv-movie to go along with it) or a split second shadow blur on a TAPS camera.

Being raised in the Church of Christ and dragged along everytime the doors were open whether I wanted to go or not, was likely one of the biggest motivators that built Lost Creek and sent me running all over the tri-state area looking for spooks.   As an adult now, I knew a little about Pentacostal beliefs, just the basics, and didn’t know how it all works.   From what I'd catch between doodling in the church I was dragged to, on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and they spoke in foreign tongues.  That was it.  Next day, back to biblical business as usual.  Then I get led to the 2nd chapter of the Book of Acts, and started wondering if they had it wrong.  Of course no two people are going to have the exact same beliefs and interpretations, but some of them are so important that they separate believers into different denominations.  I'm not going to preach a sermon, if you want to read it and make a decision for yourself, hit this link.

So when I stumbled in those doors that first nite, fashionably late, I hear what sounds like Jennifer Nettles, with a little more soul like Janis Joplin, and an awesome band up on stage rockin out, and everyone on their feet.   Back when I was doodling in the Church of Christ, my Daddy was one of the song leaders, and it went the old fashioned way, just sit there and "make music with your heart".  This place had  a rock show I would've paid admission to see going on and that was only the beginning..You could instantly feel an Energy in that building.  Going Jungian(Carl Jung, broke off from Freud and hit the ground running), there was a Collective Energy.  I once had a tweeting conversation with Michelle Belanger, from A&E's Paranormal State and was told that energy built up in people could boil to a point it manifests.  The case we were talking about was a friend I was concerned about who was seeing shadow people and lightning bugs that weren't there.  

Rolling with that theory, if built up negative energy can manage to break out of it's cage inside the person, there would have to be a balance, and positive energy that built up, over a period of time or quickly...in either case, could come bursting out and manifest couldn't it?  And if you've got a whole group of people collectively releasing that positive Energy, it would have to be possible that something spooky (used in the most positive way here, spooky isn't negative, just like it's used in the title, spooky on Lost Creek just means vibing with possible supernaturality [may have just made up that word]) could happen???

When I was dragged to that other church as a child, you sat still, kept quiet, and behaved.  Get too squirmy, get smacked.  From the door of this new place, I see everyone there on their feet, dancing, shouting, jumping.  Not my parent’s church!  It looked interesting, so I found a seat and took in the show.

 

Skip forward a couple days, and I’m looking at some Facebook pics a friend of mine took during worship.  We used to work together at a preschool and she’d told me for years “the only ghost is the Holy Ghost,” on every FB post I made about ghost hunting.  I immediately started seeing anomalies in the pictures.  Ghost hunters would call them orbs.  When I showed them to a couple people from there, some proclaimed it the presence of the Holy Spirit while others, maybe because they’re so convicted in their faith it can’t be shaken, laughed them off. It didn’t matter to them either way, they KNOW what’s up, and the pics didn’t matter. 

An hour later, I had ripped over 120 pics from her FB page that had anomalies in them.  Most were just orbs of light.  Some had a green tint.  The eternal skeptic in me considered the lighting, reflections, anything I could come up with to debunk them.  I checked on the camera, to see if the ‘orbs’ showed up outside the church – they never had.  Curious, I found some other pics taken in the same church by different people with different cameras, and here and there I’d find more anomalies.  

I was unsure what to make of any of this, but was hungry to find out more…starving.  The Medicine Show has never been limited to just apparitions and bigfoot sightings, we’re always open to learning all we can about different cultures, beliefs, practices, etc.  Spirituality is the most fascinating subject on Lost Creek, because it has the potential to tie everything together in a meaningful way.  

Going back to the Fear Cage blog, and the notion we've reiterated above, that everything is made up of energy influencing other energy, you could work under the assumption that the Holy Spirit that manifests when worshippers begin speaking in tongues and prophesying is the UberEnergy.  Hey, we’re open minded here, and open to anything.  So far, we aint been able to debunk anything from there, and have gotten evidence we weren’t even looking for.  Psych 101 tells us that our brains run on electrical impulses, neurons firing across synaptic gaps interpret our senses, store our memories, and allow us conscious thought.  Those electrical impulses that run our bodies/lives are….wait for it…..Energy! 

The next Medicine Show will look at how different parts of the brain are being used when believers are praying in tongues.  Why couldn’t this energy be manipulated by the Great Cosmic Joker to allow that untapped Energy to activate parts of the brain that baffles medical researches?  We don’t know, but we’re going our best to find out!

Do we have the answers? No.  Will we ever? Gonna say 90% no on that one. 

Maybe we’re not supposed to know the answers;  it’s not about the destination, it’s the journey to get there.  If along that journey we encounter the supernatural, we’ll stick around and check it out.  Can’t see abandoning a proven-by-evidence supernatural Hotspot for any reason, so we’ll keep going back and anxiously Watch and Wait to see what kind of New things Flow out of it.  

It's one of those mysterious things that sometimes leaves you with more questions than answers.  The researchers at Lost Creek are currently committed to continuing to find out what's going on with all this Energy, and will it probably end up being a lifelong project, but we'll give you some insight into what we come up with in future blogs.  So without further ado, presented for your approval, here’s just a tiny bit of the Spooky evidence of the supernatural that the Lost Creek residents have came across: (Faces were blurred out of respect and because I didn't ask anybody if I could use these, to protect the innocent, not the guilty...just the facts ma'am!)

Close up from the photo above, in motion? More than one?

 

Here's that one again, with the anomalies circled:

  Zoomed crop of the photos above.  Anomaly on the left could be in motion...?

Little blurry because of the zoom, but the anomaly is clear

Hard to see with the face blurring, but she was singing and the anomaly is right on her face...

Preaching happening, anomaly in front of the preacher...

Here's our favorite, for personal reasons.  Here's the original image first:

 

and here's it flipped, if you were there looking down, what you would see:

and finally, here's what some people saw in this pic:

I've seen tons of supposed ghost photos on the net of smudges and lens flares, but this one is Spooky (in the sense mentioned above)

That's just a sample of the evidence we're pouring through, and if we don't get moving we're gonna miss the Spook Show tonite, so til next time....

The Fear Cage

The Fear Cage is a term used in the paranormal field to describe the effects of exposure to high levels of electromagnetic fields, or EMF.  Some people are thought to be more sensitive to this, and symptoms of exposure include paranoia, hallucinations, the feeling of being watched, headaches, dizziness, and nausea.  Here on Lost Creek we've decided to take the concept of the Fear Cage a step further, and apply it to everyday life.

There's energy all around us.  The Earth has a natural magnetic field that is influenced by the electricity generated by thunderstorms.  In addition, everything in your house that is plugged in gives off an electromagnetic field.  Paranormal enthusiasts coined the term Fear Cage to describe a small place, like a closet or little room, that gives off high levels of EMF.  Suppose a haunting was reported, feelings of being watched and apparitions in the basement of a house.  Investigators take a baseline EMF reading, and find that a small area with a lot of old wiring and maybe an appliance or two, is giving off high levels of EMF.  This could induce the paranoid feelings and hallucinations that were thought to be a ghost. 

The theory most paranormal researchers seem to agree on is that 'ghosts' need energy to manifest, and can suck the energy from batteries in use and EMF in the location, even from the investigator themself if you agree with that theory.  Rolling along with that, the 'ghost' can muster up the energy to show itself by draining it out of the environment around it.  IF this is the case, a Fear Cage, with unusually high EMF levels, could attract the 'ghosts.' 

Medical researchers have confirmed the relationship between EMF and human biology.  In 1981 F. S. Perry reported that suicide victims were unusually likely to live near high power transmission lines.  Researchers today are linking EMF exposure to depression, cancer, and suicide.  EMF exposure can interfere with electrobiochemical processes. Exposure to even weak power line frequency magnetic fields have been shown to induce depression-like abnormalities in neurotransmitter and endorphin levels.

In 2006 a Swiss doctor reported producing 'doppleganger-like effects' in a patient by electrically stimulating the brain. Other than epilepsy, which she was being treated for, the patient was physically fit.  When electricity was applied to her left temporal junction, she immediately felt the presence of another person in her extrapersonal space.  She described the other person as young, of indeterminate sex, silent, and with a body posture almost identical to her own.  She felt the person was located exactly behind her, almost touching her. 

The residents of Lost Creek believe that the notion of the Fear Cage can be taken beyond a broom closet with faulty wiring.  There's energy all around us.  What we do effects that energy, and creates our psychological environment.  If you go ghost hunting, with your adrenaline pumping, you're jumpy.  Even the calmest ghost hunter can get excited and spooked when the people and events around them get excited. 

What if Fear Cages exist outside those old broom closets?  Take for instance someone in a depressive state.  There's so much negative energy surrounding them, and they carry it around with them.  The folks at Lost Creek are thinking that a situation like this could produce a type of Fear Cage.  The person is stuck in the dark, hopeless, afraid.  How can they break out of this fear cage?  We think that they have to do something with that energy around them, find some way to transform it into positive energy; whatever means works for the individual would be acceptable. 

We're very excited about the Fear Cage notion, because we're gonna tie it in with our old blog on dopplegangers, string theory, 'ghosts in the machine,' and it's possible that we can come away with an explanation that makes it All fit.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, the Medicine Show is gonna run with this one, follow the butterflies, and see where they take us.  Stay tuned to see where we go!!!

Overhearing what they said, Jesus told them, "Don't be afraid, just believe."         Mark 5:36, NIV

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