Homo Sovieticus

Homo Sovieticus
Author: Wladimir Velminski
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2017-02-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262035693

How Soviet scientists and pseudoscientists pursued telepathic research, cybernetic simulations, and mass hyptonism over television to control the minds of citizens. In October 1989, as the Cold War was ending and the Berlin Wall about to crumble, television viewers in the Soviet Union tuned in to the first of a series of unusual broadcasts. “Relax, let your thoughts wander free...” intoned the host, the physician and clinical psychotherapist Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky. Moscow's Channel One was attempting mass hypnosis over television, a therapeutic session aimed at reassuring citizens panicked over the ongoing political upheaval—and aimed at taking control of their responses to it. Incredibly enough, this last-ditch effort to rally the citizenry was the culmination of decades of official telepathic research, cybernetic simulations, and coded messages undertaken to reinforce ideological conformity. In Homo Sovieticus, the art and media scholar Wladimir Velminski explores these scientific and pseudoscientific efforts at mind control. In a fascinating series of anecdotes, Velminski describes such phenomena as the conflation of mental energy and electromagnetism; the investigation of aura fields through the “Aurathron”; a laboratory that practiced mind control methods on dogs; and attempts to calibrate the thought processes of laborers. “Scientific” diagrams from the period accompany the text. In all of the experimental methods for implanting thoughts into a brain, Velminski finds political and metaphorical contaminations. These apparently technological experiments in telepathy and telekinesis were deployed for purely political purposes.

Electric Brain

Electric Brain
Author: R. Douglas Fields
Publisher: BenBella Books
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1948836297

What is as unique as your fingerprints and more revealing than your diary? Hint: Your body is emitting them right now and has been every single day of your life. Brainwaves. Analyzing brainwaves, the imperceptible waves of electricity surging across your scalp, has been possible for nearly a century. But only now are neuroscientists becoming aware of the wealth of information brainwaves hold about a person's life, thoughts, and future health. From the moment a reclusive German doctor discovered waves of electricity radiating from the heads of his patients in the 1920s, brainwaves have sparked astonishment and intrigue, yet the significance of the discovery and its momentous implications have been poorly understood. Now, it is clear that these silent broadcasts can actually reveal a stunning wealth of information about any one of us. In Electric Brain, world-renowned neuroscientist and author R. Douglas Fields takes us on an enthralling journey into the world of brainwaves, detailing how new brain science could fundamentally change society, separating fact from hyperbole along the way. In this eye-opening and in-depth look at the most recent findings in brain science, Fields explores groundbreaking research that shows brainwaves can: • Reveal the type of brain you have—its strengths and weaknesses and your aptitude for learning different types of information • Allow scientists to watch your brain learn, glean your intelligence, and even tell how adventurous you are • Expose hidden dysfunctions—including signifiers of mental illness and neurological disorders • Render your thoughts and transmit them to machines and back from machines into your brain • Meld minds by telepathically transmitting information from one brain to another • Enable individuals to rewire their own brains and improve cognitive performance Written by one of the neuroscientists on the cutting edge of brainwave research, Electric Brain tells a fascinating and obscure story of discovery, explains the latest science, and looks to the future—and the exciting possibilities in store for medicine, technology, and our understanding of ourselves.

Awakening the Mind

Awakening the Mind
Author: Anna Wise
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002-03-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1585421456

Each moment of our lives, from birth to death, our brains are engaged in an endless symphony of patterns. In Awakening the Mind, Anna Wise reveals how a careful understanding of the four types of brain waves, and the practice of carefully designed meditation exercises that lead to a mastery of each type, can vastly improve everyday focus, memory, concentration, and overall mental awareness. Over the past three decades, Wise has measured the brain-wave patterns of spiritual teachers, artists, high-performing businessmen, athletes, and other highly creative and productive individuals. She discovered that, during periods of peak mental awareness and clarity, they all exhibited a specific brain-wave pattern in which the four categories of brain waves—alpha, beta, theta, and delta—combined in a distinct configuration. In this book, Wise provides meditation exercises specially developed to lead readers to achieve that heightened mental state referred to as the Awakened Mind.

Brainwaves

Brainwaves
Author: Leonard Goldberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2002
Genre: Forensic pathologists
ISBN: 9780739430606

The discovery would have made D. Karen Crandell the most renowned neurologist in history. Using brain probes, she was attempting to recapture the aural and visual memories of her patients and unlock the final visions of the dying. It would have changed the face of medical science and criminal justice, had Dr. Crandell not appatently taken her own life.or did she?

James B. Conant

James B. Conant
Author: James G. Hershberg
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 980
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780804726191

James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the giants of the American establishment in the twentieth century. President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, he was also a scientist who led the US government's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction, and his story mirrors the transition of the United States from isolationism to global superpower at the dawn of the nuclear age. 'This splendid portrait of Conant ... illuminates the life of a pivotal figure in the making of US nuclear, scientific, educational, and foreign policy for almost half a century. But the book is much more: it is not only an insightful narration of Conant's life, it is also a brilliant and important account of the making of the nuclear age, a chronicle that contains much that is new.' TheWashington Post 'The bomb would be as much Conant's as it was anyone's in government. His inner response to that burden of responsibility has long been obscured, but it is illumined here ... This is a model of historiography that is evocative reading.' The New York Times Book Review 'Vibrantly written and compelling, it breaches Conant's shield of public discretion in masterly fashion ...

A Symphony in the Brain

A Symphony in the Brain
Author: Jim Robbins
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2014-10-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0802191533

A “fascinating overview” of neurofeedback and its potential benefits for treating depression, autism, epilepsy, and other conditions (Discover). Since A Symphony in the Brain was first published, the scientific understanding of our bodies, brains, and minds has taken remarkable leaps. From neurofeedback with functional magnetic resonance imaging equipment, to the use of radio waves, to biofeedback of the heart and breath and coverage of biofeedback by health insurance plans, this expanded and updated edition of the groundbreaking book traces the fascinating untold story of the development of biofeedback. Discovered by a small corps of research scientists, this alternative treatment allows a patient to see real-time measurements of their bodily processes. Its advocates claim biofeedback can treat epilepsy, autism, attention deficit disorder, addictions, and depression with no drugs or side effects; bring patients out of vegetative states; and even improve golf scores or an opera singer’s voice. But biofeedback has faced battles for acceptance in the conservative medical world despite positive signs that it could revolutionize the way a diverse range of medical and psychological problems are treated. Offering case studies, accessible scientific explanations, and dramatic personal accounts, this book explores the possibilities for the future of our health. “Robbins details the fascinating medical history of the therapy, tracing it back to French physician Paul Broca’s discovery of the region in the brain where speech originates. At the heart of this riveting story are the people whose lives have been transformed by neurofeedback, from the doctors and psychologists who employ it to the patients who have undergone treatment.” —Publishers Weekly

The Grieving Brain

The Grieving Brain
Author: Mary-Frances O'Connor
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2022-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0062946250

The Grieving Brain has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

The Seven Mysteries of Life

The Seven Mysteries of Life
Author: Guy Murchie
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 708
Release: 1999
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780395957912

"All life in all worlds" -this was the object of the author's seventeen-year quest for knowledge and discovery, culminating in this book. In a manner unmistakably his own, Murchie delves into the interconnectedness of all life on the planet and of such fields as biology, geology, sociology, mathematics, and physics. He offers us what the poet May Sarton has called "a good book to take to a desert island as sole companion, so rich is it in knowledge and insight."

The Definition of Death

The Definition of Death
Author: Stuart J. Youngner
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2002-10-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780801872297

In the 1980s, following the recommendation of a presidential commission, all fifty states replaced previous cardiopulmonary definitions of death with one that also included total and irreversible cessation of brain function. The Definition of Death: Contemporary Controversies is the first comprehensive review of the clinical, philosophical, and public policy implications of our effort to redefine the change in status from living person to corpse. Edited by Stuart J. Youngner, Robert M. Arnold, and Renie Schapiro, the book is the result of a collaboration among internationally recognized scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, social science, law, and religious studies. Throughout, the contributors struggle to reconcile inconsistencies and gaps in our traditional understanding of death and to respond to the public's concern that, in the determination of death under current policies, patients' interests may be compromised by the demand for organ retrieval. Their questions about the philosophical and scientific bases for determining death lead, inevitably, to more profound questions of social policy. Acknowledging that the definition of death is as much a social construct as a scientific one, the authors, in their analysis of these issues, provide a comprehensive and provocative source of information for students and scholars alike.