Mahendra Trivedi (and Ken Wilber)

[Balder]

Has anyone heard of Mahendra Travedi before, or read this essay by Wilber? 

 

Here's a link to Trivedi's website, from which this is an excerpt:

 

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi was born with an exceptional ability to change living and non-living matter with Energy Transmissions or "blessings" (focused intentional consciousness, called The Trivedi Effect™). Through collaborations with researchers in six countries from numerous scientific fields, Trivedi has amassed a broad set of data substantiating this ability in a scientifically demonstrable and measurable manner. The results of these collaborations are beyond anything predicted by the science and technology of today:

• Agriculture - grow crops with no use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides while providing
  • Increased nutritional value (300% increase in bio-photons)
  • Increased yields (up to 500%)
  • Increased immunity (up to 300%)
    
    
• Genetics
  • Change the DNA in plants (up to 69%) and in microbes (up to 79%)
  • Change the genus and species in harmful bacteria
    
    
• Microbiology
  • Reduce viral loads for HIV, Hepatitis B and C and Cytomegalovirus (up to 99.81%)
  • Reduce antibiotic sensitivity of harmful bacteria (significantly)
  • Convert cancer cells into non-cancerous cells
    
    
• Material science
  • Alter mass and size of atom, energy within and between the atoms
  • Alter specific heat, boiling and melting points
  • Interchange mass and energy (more than 400%)
    
    

It is the goal of Trivedi Foundation to create additional rigorous scientific collaborations to further corroborate, reproduce and follow up on the many remarkable results of the Trivedi Effect™ on seeds, plants, soils, bacteria, fungi, viruses, metals, ceramics and polymers. Through continued collaboration with the international scientific community, we will broaden our base of understanding of the previously demonstrated effects and create groundbreaking new paradigms of the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to the material universe.

Trivedi Foundation also seeks to further the research previously done on Trivedi's distinct physiology and it's relationship to his unique abilities.

[julian walker]

hi everyone!

well, it takes the latest great leap backward into new age confusion by the integral community to lure me back into the conversation! :)

oh my, my.... really, ken?

i for one am very disappointed that my fearful predictions of integral theory falling prey to the whacky new age zeitgeist that surrounds it, are coming to pass.

i am watching the video link of trivedi for the first time. wow. ken has been taken in by this guy? the arc from brilliant and knowledgable but psychotic grandiose sociopath (adi da), to spoiled brat unimpressive narcissist (andrew cohen) to this shifty eyed used car salesman snake oil peddling pseudoscience rapping conman is a study in ken's unfortunate lack of discernment in who he chooses to endorse. it is also an arc of decreasing complexity and increasing corniness.

trivedi seems to be on the same level of a masuro emoto, except with the classic bald faced guru huckster schtick variation. let's hope he doesn't rise to the level of a sai baba.

now - is there such a thing as "energetic healing?" in my opinion, YES, with some serious caveats.

energy is the subjective experience of the sacred biochemistry of the body. objectively it has to do with the radiance of the nervous system, the exquisite potency and intelligence of the endocrine system and an attunement to brain states in which our awareness of embodied porcess is heightened.

at a deep level, energetic experiences are possible that release layers of tension that represent how our ingrained psychological patterns are held in the body. when this happens we shake, moan, weep, laugh, sweat, go into the classic wave motions symbolized by the mythic image of the kundalini serpent - often we go through sequences of reliving traumatic moments in our lives or seeing the connections between various experiences from the past and current dynamics in our lives.

it is a profound altered state, and it is driven by neurobiology, breath, and other forms of stimulation that can vary from music to touch to yoga postures to various sacramental substances that enhance openness and flow. subjectively the embodied experience is one of "energy flow" "energetic release" - streaming sensations, unwinding, color, warmth etc - but this is not OTHER than the already sacred human body going through a rebalancing via it's extraordinary systems coming into a kind of symphonic improvisatory dance. powerful.

the important distinction here is that we can influence one-another's biochemistry - and people who have worked on becoming more and more adept at this (like myself) can do this very effectively and in ways that may look almost magical to the untutored eye. but it is not magical - it is real, repeatable, innate and anyone can learn how to do it.

around these kinds of experiences (as well as the more pathological varieties brought on by epilepsy, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia etc) people have usually added a magical/mythic interpretation or story line based in our pre-wired brain fart tendency to explain various compelling subjective experiences via some kind of supernatural agency. this has always been a mistake.

now - on to trivedi. regardless of the legitimate existence of various "energetic" experiences between people, one should not buy into the contemporary version of supernatural explanation mixed in with pseudoscience claims of being able to affect molecular structure, DNA, change the past, use the power of intention to manifest physical realities etc... this is hokum and hogwash and is not in any way linked to the reality of feeling your "prana" coursing through the nervous system in a yoga class, or seeing someone go through potent unwinding and altered states.

no-one can affect molecular structure with their mind, water does not respond to the "energy of thoughts," and regardless of easy to fake photos of trivedi's supposed powers over plant life and dime store anecdotal accounts of "feeling he is the real deal - he definitely has a special energy coming off him..." if he and his organization and now ken are going to claim he can do something that no-one has ever been able to do - they quite simply have to provide transparent, repeatable, unbiased evidence.

as i have said elsewhere - this would be the biggest news in the history of news, it would change human knowledge forever, it would be ths most exciting thing imaginable - were it true.

right now it just seems like another one in the long line of guru shams that extends from sai baba to maharaji to adi da to folks like masuro emoto and secret teacher james arthur ray, who's magical thinking resulted in deaths and hospitalizations earlier this year.

the saddest part of this for me is that this will further empower and embolden the confused new age wing of the integral community that already has too much power and already has turned integral theory into a grab bag catch all melting pot of psuedoscience quakery and nutty nonsense with pseudointellectual underpinnings.

for a while there ken wilber was one of the few voices in the wilderness giving spirituality a smart, grounded, respectable tone. this is no longer the case and we are worse off for it. my only hope is that, unlike with da and cohen, ken will come to his senses and issue not only a full and unequivocal retraction but do some public reflecting on his very bad track record of endorsements and what this blind spot may be about for him.

[andrew]

as i have said elsewhere - this would be the biggest news in the history of news, it would change human knowledge forever, it would be ths most exciting thing imaginable - were it true.

exactly! and by that correct standard we can easily dismiss the supposed scientific claims as rubbish at the moment!
not to mention the always present implication with these vedic sages that true reality was always nailed precisely by hinduism.......i imagine it's tough to teach yoga with the massive amount of superstition attached to that religion.

i personally really wouldn't have a problem with this sort of claim if the claim was faith based, but applying the scientific paradigm to these claims in the way it's been done with 'what the bleep', and all is intellectually dishonest, imo.....

anyway, my great love of reading has never really translated into my being able to write a proper sentence so i apologize to all those who hold good grammar in high esteem!

[julian walker]

you do me great justice and clarify my points with accuracy sir - thanks! and yes.

[julian walker]

nicely parsed out edward. yeah i have commented on the jumping the shark post at had the gong to similar effect...

the endorsement article does seem to be ken's latest moment of wanting the reflected narcissistic glory at bringing the next great super important god-man to our attention... and the way he tries to make it all dovetail with his ideas and predictions is not only self-serving but kinda bizarre.

he does take the time to disavow certain what the bleep-esque ideas (intention collapsing the wave function) but then goes on to basically endorse claims that would have been front and center in what the bleep and the secret were trivedi well known when those pieces of cornball snake oilery were made!

i think ken has always been in the grip of a messiahnic anicipatory fugue - with himself cast as john the baptist heralding the holy one, the awakened avatar, the dawning of the new consciousnesss etc.... i would hazard a guess that this is some combination of a "brain type" - probably high activity in the temporal lobes, and some sort of psychological longing that makes even the most brilliant among us susceptible to such things.

here is what i posted o on the shark blog:



the more i sit with this too the more something important pops out at me:

ken has not just endorsed this guru with magical powers – he is pointing to his magic as evidence of the arrival of his (wilber’s) personal intuition of the integral age.

so it goes like this – the magical guru has finally arrived who “proves” the basic assumptions of … See Morevedantic metaphysics – and validates not only wilber’s body of work in some way, but (and this is i think ken’s achilles heel) allows wilber to hitch his wagon to the most important event/person ever in the history of human knowledge/existence.

he did the same thing with adi da. according to wilber da was the true god-man, the most spiritually realized being in all of history, truly enlightened, an arrival that no-one could afford to ignore and everyone with spiritual aspirations should hasten to devote themselves to.. etc etc

the key here is the reflected glory that comes from discovering/introducing/endorsing the super important holy evidence of (in this case panpsychism: consciousness as the essential element of reality that goes all the way down to subatomic levels..) in adi da’s case the guru principle, possibility of perfect enlightenment etc – and in both cases the Reality of Spirit Itself in tangible form.

at the end of the day it may be that wilber’s faith and need to believe in dualistic supernaturalism has turned out to be stronger than his entire lifetime of thought that has sought to carefully integrate disparate areas of human knowledge. a cautionary tale and sobering observation on the nature of the human mind, indeed.

this has been evident in several key areas for me that i have pointed out in my online writings for several years:

1) his already mentioned highly questionable endorsements of gurus who appear to be either psychotic/sociopathic (in the case of adi da) or narcissistic/abusive (in the case of andrew cohen) and in all likelihood charalatan in the case of this current trivedi dude.

2) this is related to what i think of as a boomer generation wishful thinking around the naive acceptance of the concept of “enlightenment.” ie: the special human being who has come to the special knowledge that turns them into a divine presence/perfect teacher/all good parent/representative of the transcendent absolute meaning and intelligence behind all things (as well as the wishful thinking and naive acceptance that the later exists!)

3) this is connected to the assertion of consciousness as primary to the universe; when all of biology suggests that consciousness in any meaningful sense only comes into being at the level of organisms – it is not and cannot be possible at the level of either hydrogen molecules or supernovas, as consciousness requires biological substrate and anything we would call consciousness in a strong sense requires the beginnings of a neural net/primitive brain. self-reflexive awareness only really seems to come into being at the level of mammals – and what we think of as truly complex, self-aware consciousness is a feature only of adult human beings.

4) this relates also to what i have called a kind of “intelligent design in drag” that is part of the metaphysics of integral theory – an insistence that there must be some transcendent spirit at play in the evolutionary process – just ’cause we like that idea and some ancient big kahunas said so.

5) wilber has also opened the door to a lot of new agey crap with some of his more recent work trying to integrate postmodern ideas that can easily be interpreted as negating the objective world that exists independent of subjective consciousness.

6) even though the 4 quadrant model is an amazing guide to valuing interior, exterior, collective and individual ways of gathering knowledge, i have long pointed out that the bias in the community (that is supported by ken) overly values the upper left quadrant – or subjective, individual, interior experience – and tends to critique most forms of empirical inquiry as “reductive” – this has resulted in things like neuroscience being undervalued in the attempt to hold onto a mystical (and mystified) picture of consciousness as some absolute, dualistic “spirit.” now it is resulting in completely overlooking the definition and method of science and rushing to assert something unproven, highly unlikely and frankly as fishy as the alleyway dumpster behind a bad sushi restaurant.

all of this adds up for me to a set of unquestioned quasi religious (hindu) beliefs that have always been assumed to be true by wilber underneath all of the other wonderfully inquisitive and brilliant work he has done.

i have been predicting that this kind of confusion and nonsensical detour might happen in the integral institute and community in general as these problematic aspects of the worldview unfolded further mistakes in reasoning – BUT never would have guessed it would come from ken himself in this glaringly delusional way….. wow.

[julian walker]

seth

why would they? because they are desperately awaiting the appearance of something magical, enlightened, supernatural - as proof of their entire bodies of work, and as a way to finally get to tell the whole world (and probably their parents) that it IS real, goddamn you it IS real!

you are committing two logical fallacies here - one is the "appeal to authority" - wilber and chopra (strange bedfellows indeed) saying he's for real has absolutely zero impact on whether the claims of scientific evidence are true or false.

second the "burden of proof" fallacy - all extraordinary claims are considered highly unlikely or even false until they are proven. no-one has to disprove them - and it would be a bizarre world indeed if we assumed the position that they must be true until disproven, right? (my dog can fly, i have a invisible elephant trunk that sucks up subtle energy from the atmosphere and can douse people with it rendering them permanently free from illness, your mama was a really a prehensile tailed skink.... etc - true until proven otherwise?)

what if i told you i was an alien from the pleidian constellation and i had scientific proof - then when you looked it turned out that some half-baked academic who has written a book on crop circles as the key to life, the universe and everything had carried out non-peer reviewed experiments and came to the conclusion that i was definitely not human..... and what if perhaps we could get nasim haramein to aree and say that i was clearly teh re-appearance of the intelligence that built the pyramids in ancient egypt?

[julian walker]

in that case i am even more pleased!

[julian walker]

word

[julian walker]

actually that was a "see more" inadvertently inserted via facebook before the words "vedanta metaphysics," so no - no link, just a general statement...

[Balder]

Edward Jung, did you get my email / private message to you? Check your forum inbox ... :-)

Edward Jung said:

julian walker said:

you do me great justice and clarify my points with accuracy sir - thanks! and yes.

Hey julian, it's "kela" behind the hannibal lector mask. :-) Ya, my sense is that in associating with known Gurus Ken may be an attempt to add legitimacy to his own project. His invocation of established traditions of spirituiality and great mystic philosophers of the past may also be part of this. Of course, that has always been a part of what is known as perennialism, though Ken has attempted to distance himself from its older forms. It remains a tension in his work though, IMO.

Did you have a linky-poo for "More Vedanta metaphysics"?

"Messianic anticipatory fugue." I like it.

[Seth]

Julian, if you told me you were an alien from the pleidian constellation you wouldn't need scientific proof, I would believe you! :D

No, honestly, I have enjoyed the grounded discourse you have brought to this topic. My logic fallacies, as you state, would be closely intertwined, as the second "burden of proof" is very much dependent on the first "appeal of authority", and that "appeal of authority" is not to usher in an outright belief in what is being present, but rather a greater openness to the claim. If you read through the thread you will see my openness to the claims continually wane as more information is brought forth. But, plainly, I do enjoy your mention of logical fallacies.

You may be right in your reasons as to why Wilber and Chopra are jumping on the Trivedi band wagon. It seems reasonable enough. Another possibility, as you've made mention before, could be that it's illness driven in the case of Wilber. I have been a little ignorant to the exact existence of his illness. The point that it's a rare incurable disease that has him mostly bedridden... that is still the case isn't it? If so I could see a couple angles on how it could be at play in this situation.

By the way, welcome to the club!

[julian walker]

yea - actually i read through and saw your credulity waning! yea i think the illness/medication/decline of poor ken is probably central here too - but that would not account for da or cohen, right?

[Seth]

lol... sometimes I wonder if you are joking or not, but it is funny either way. There may be a little credulity at play here, but not to any detrimental effect. I am apt to put a little more faith in what certain people say over others. A little credulity for past credibility so to speak. I would probably extend the same leash to you given the same scenario. But remember where I say open you say belief. Big difference.