Interview with:JJ Semple [jjsemple]
SCIENCE
 | What do you investigate? What is at the heart of your research? The biological basis of consciousness.
We have a great storehouse of biological energy inside us, capable of replenishing the brain and reinvigorating the body. However, only recently has interest begun to peak in this energy phenomenon, a physical subsystem capable of activating this energy reserve, known as Kundalini.
A few years ago, clinical trials were held on meditation to discover whether meditation might relieve stress. Doctors, like Herbert Benson, proved the stress reducing benefits of meditation. Where did they get the meditation systems they used in their tests? From Eastern religions and other oriental sources, of course. But how much did they know about these meditation systems? did they know there is much more to meditation than the two-step techniques they acknowledge borrowing from Buddhist and Taoist sources? Do they know about the backward-flowing method, for instance, a part of the Taoist meditation tradition, discussed in The Secret of the Golden Flower.
So if you “borrow” selectively from a source, why not investigate that source’s complete methodology to see what it can do, especially since the benefits of the techniques they failed to investigate go way beyond relief of stress. The techniques they failed to investigate activate Kundalini.
That's what our research is about: Proving that Kundalini opens access to an energy continuum, a dimension of higher consciousness. Proof for the hypothesis — that the energy continuum, a metaphysical plane beyond the scope of present day material science — exists in many anecdotal accounts.
What’s so special about these accounts? Can they lead to scientific validation? Why should we take them seriously?
They occur irrespective of culture, language, geographic, or religious influences. In other words, yes, they are anecdotal in nature, but, at the same time, asynchronous, disconnected in time and space. In fact, so disconnected it would indicate that the subjects (the individuals undergoing the experience) were in no way influenced by others undergoing similar experiences. Similar enough for any serious investigator to keep an open mind about the subject and focus on proving/disproving the existence of this hypothesis — that there is an energy continuum that can be accessed through the proper use of powerful meditation techniques, capable of activating the biological Kundalini energy. |
| Do you have a link to a site where we can see something about you, or the center where you work? http://www.goldenflowermeditation.com/the_method.html
http://www.commonsensekundalini.com/my_kundalini_experience.html
http://www.lifeforcebooks.com/life-force-books-store/books/reviews_for_jj_semple.html |
| What is your educational background? What work experience did you have before this? Like many seeking self-knowledge, I started as a novice, looking for truth that didn’t exist in the material world. Religion hadn't worked for me, neither had higher education, nor specializations such as law, medicine, business. I wanted to take an active part in my development. I wanted to be the creator of my own Being.
As far as career paths, I felt that everyone around me had already figured things out; all they had to do was learn the ropes, keep their mouths shut, and the doors of riches and success would be open to them. I wanted something else, something that would allow me to figure out exactly who I was. At the time, I didn’t know much about spirituality. In fact, the first self-realization technique I came across was hypnosis. Almost immediately, I sensed there were other forms of consciousness. I thought this was great! I picked up a few books, listened in on a few conversations about Yoga and meditation. Pretty soon I found myself on the spiritual bandwagon — Yoga magazines and studios, spiritual bookstores, so-called highly evolved friends, etc. I began to investigate the concepts and employ the vocabulary. Initially I was a dabbler, I practiced Hatha and Kundalini Yogas off and on, but something pushed me toward a deeper exploration. I advanced from dabbler to practitioner. A few months into my meditation practice something unexpected happened. I started getting feedback from my body. I began to see my body as a laboratory, and myself as an observer of certain phenomena taking place inside.
After my Kundalini awakening, I began to see the scientific implications. Not only did I learn about the self-healing potential of Kundalini, I realized the method I used to arouse my Kundalini was more related to science than to mysticism, religion or spirituality. Why? Because Golden Flower Meditation (GFM) is capable of producing results with the consistency and predictability of a scientific experiment. So even though I started out as a spiritual seeker, I have become a Life Force Scientist, an observer of the energy continuum. And as I scientist, I suggest that we investigate all aspects of Kundalini, from documenting the most reliable methods of activating it to examining the metanormal effects it produces. The best way of documenting Kundalini experiences? Tried and true peer review! |
| Did you keep your nose to the grindstone in school? |
| What kind of technology are you using for your research right now? Meditation. Anecdotal accounts of Kundalini, its effects and its aftermath. |
| What types of experiments do you conduct? How are the conclusions documented? They are documented in my books, on my websites, and in articles I write and speeches I give. |
| If you conclude your investigation successfully, what practical application would it have in everyday life? You only need to look at the world around us for the answer. How long can we go on this way? Exhausting our resources, killing and fighting, shouting and screaming, overcrowding and wasting. Look at how evolution is responding to this turmoil. It’s sending millions to Yoga, Kundalini, and the like. Imagine, then, that the ultimate in neuroplastic brain development might be the bodiless brain or the ethereal brain or the bodiless being? If we were to exist in bodiless form, what happens to all our problems? Suddenly, they don’t exist. Suddenly, we are free. Will it happen tomorrow? Don’t confuse evolution with history; the two are not synonymous. It took us millions of years to evolve into our present form. It may take another million to get to the next stage, but evolution is trying to adjust, trying to keep us alive.
Kundalini is the first step, a biological means of altering consciousness within a single lifetime. |
| What is a "eureka" moment? What is it like to experience one? Reversing the direction of the breath-energy, an esoteric technique in The Secret of the Golden Flower.
It confirmed the ancient meditation method I was practicing actually worked, and if it worked for me, it would work for others. |
| What do you find to be the most difficult aspects of your research? The fact Near Death Experience (NDE) and Kundalini share many of the same effects, but unlike NDE, Kundalini has not yet attracted the attention of serious scientific investigators.
How does the NDE compare with Kundalini? People who have experienced one or the other phenomenon share many of the effects. However, in the case of permanent Kundalini, there are some effects that the NDE does not share. Kundalini triggers a superset of metanormal effects. By stimulating neuroplastic activity, Kundalini triggers autonomic self-healing mechanisms, restores health, and transforms consciousness. As opposed to the NDE, with Kundalini, brain cell regeneration is a constant. Why? The Kundalini process uses sexual energy to refresh brain cells. Kundalini revitalizes the entire nervous system. It is impossible for Alzheimer’s disease to exist in a permanently awakened Kundalini body. This sounds like an extreme statement, obviously one in need of peer review. But if we concede to the Kundalini practitioner the ability to experience metaphysical activity, especially since they, by definition, live in a permanently metanormal state, shouldn't a brain stimulated by sexually sublimated energy evolve? And shouldn't these evolutionary characteristics be passed along to future generations? |
| What have you published? |
| Should there be more public financing for scientific investigation? Yes... |
| What is science and what is pseudoscience? Who decides which is which? Don’t look for validation in the outside world because you won’t find it. It’s been the same for material scientists. Some of the greatest have been called quacks. This didn’t deter scientists like Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Barry Marshall, about whom one eminent colleague commented, “I thought the guy was a madman.”
To prove his theory about ulcers, Marshall used his body as a laboratory, ingesting a bacterium that causes ulcers. He took the antidote he had devised, thus proving his theory and silencing former critics, who now praise him, “We scientists should have looked beyond Barry's evangelical patina,” one critic said, “and not dismissed him out of hand.” The gentleman who called him a madman said, “Science needs solid research, but it also needs someone with great vision. Barry had vision."
What does this have to do with Kundalini? Every time someone begins a Kundalini practice, they use their body as a laboratory in the pursuit of a goal conventional wisdom considers imaginary.
For centuries, man explored the body, gradually learning about its various sub-systems: Respiratory System, Cardiovascular System, Skeletal System, Digestive System, Muscular System, etc. The more physically "obvious to the naked eye" the sub-system, the more visible it was, the easier it was to locate. The Lymphatic and Endocrine Systems were less visible, therefore, they were "discovered" relatively recently. That doesn't mean they weren't there all along. Kundalini is an evolutionary actuality, a biological reality present in every living body. It belongs to an even more "invisible" sub-system, known as Chakras, or energy centers.
It's up to us to find a means of quantifying the neural regenerative aspects of Kundalini, Tai Chi, and meditation methods of all sorts and then compare the results with, say, cognitive game therapy, such as Lumosity.
We start with the brain chemistry altering capabilities of a science like Kundalini meditation, which actually floods the brain with dementia fighting substances, derived and distilled from sex energy. |
| What is the role of creativity in the scientific method? It is everything — because it demands we keep an open mind. For example, instead of being carried away by religious fervor after activating Kundalini, I kept a very open mind, decided to verify everything I saw, felt, or heard.
Kundalini takes no position on God; it merely connects you to the energy continuum. Trouble is people (very intelligent people) will see you as an advocate of religion, despite the fact that Kundalini is at once agnostic and ecumenical. To activate it you do not have to follow rituals or say prayers. No invocations, no learning of doctrine, no chanting the names of Saints.
Unfortunately, one of the constraining factors around Kundalini is that, once an experience like this (a Kundalini activation) happens, one looks around for verification and support, and the only place one finds it is in Hindu, Taoist, and/or Buddhist texts. So the subject throws in his/her lot with Eastern religions...for a while, at least. But if he/she starts to examine the issue as I have over the past 40 years since my Kundalini activation, he/she sees that what happened to him/her could happen to anyone, should they follow the method correctly. And he/she begins to see the scientific ramifications of his/her experience, begins to realize Kundalini is neurobiology. |
| What scientific explanation is there for spirituality? Are religion and science incompatible? Religion and science have the same source. Alone in the desert, early seekers explored their beings first because they didn't have anything else. Next, they wondered about the universe. They discovered meditation, which brought them in touch with the energy continuum. Lacking scientific tools to quantify their experience, they attributed it to unknown forces, which morphed into religion. Science came later, once certain tools became available. But the source of both was the study of self.
Call it spirituality if you want; I call it metaphysics — or, beyond the physical. |
| What is the best way to disseminate science in the mass media? You have a hypothesis. You have to keep banging away at it, saturating the web with your work. Keep it up; you will attract attention. |
| Why do two or more scientists often come up simultaneously with the same discovery? Episodes of collective unconscious yearning usually precede periods of actualization, moments in history when the rubber meets the road—the times when fantastical ideas begin to bear fruit. For example, discoveries in the field of bacteriology by men like Ferdinand Cohn (1828–1898), Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), and Robert Koch (1843–1910) occurred about the same time in history and were preceded by social and technological changes that helped cultivate an awareness of the underlying issues. When the leading figures appeared on the scene, there preexisted a climate of acceptance. Not absolute acceptance, of course. No, innovators usually have to beat back skepticism. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine this particular breakthrough (micro-bacteriological discoveries) taking place at the time of, say, the Egyptian pharaohs.
All movements need fertile soil to grow in. And that soil is the collective unconscious yearning of a culture, a particular conjunction of circumstances and timing. This phenomenon is related to Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness, a condition cited in William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience.
In its more striking instances [Cosmic Consciousness] is not simply an extension or an expansion of the self-conscious mind with which we are all familiar, but the super-addition of a function as distinct from any possessed by the average man as self-consciousness is distinct from any function possessed by the higher animals. |
| What is the meaning of life? Is there a scientific answer to this question? The purpose of life is to become more conscious.
So why have we not accomplished this? Human nature stands in the way; it is difficult to change.
Violent emotions, selfish habits, negative outlook, addictions, aggressive personalities, faulty mental processes have created a "lowest-common-denominator" behavioral standard. Often, we exhibit negative behavior out of frustration, because we feel like "cogs in a machine." In order to survive the changing conditions of overcrowding and diminishing resources, we can and must eliminate the negative aspects of a nature that makes us feel like cogs in a machine.
The reason human nature varies so greatly among individuals is because nature is subordinate to the individual's current state of consciousness. The higher the state of consciousness of the individual, the nobler his nature. Unfortunately, the aggregate state of human nature at the present time has created a world of financial collapse, war, greed, illness, obesity, addiction, wide-scale sexual slavery, racial hatred.
So how do we change human nature? We don’t. We run an “end run” around it; we change our state of being, our consciousness. How do we do this? By raising Kundalini in a safe, permanent fashion. How does this work? My books detail the process, but the upshot is Kundalini produces an entirely new being. It’s an active process. You can’t pray for it to happen; you can’t do it by reading philosophy, by undergoing psychoanalysis, or becoming a scientist, lawyer or doctor. You have to involve the whole being. Master three powerful meditation techniques: diaphragmatic deep breathing, control of heart rate, the backward-flowing method and you’re there, standing at the threshold of a new being.
This dormant mechanism in our beings allows us to realize our full potential. Kundalini is the motivating catalyst behind the transcendent experience. It's the key to our changing our state of consciousness. How? Kundalini stimulates neuroplastic activity in the brain and, as a consequence, changes our very Being. All our behavioral aberrations vanish. We are no longer cogs in the machine. |
| Investigating is to live on the frontier of knowledge. Can you explain that sentiment? It's lonely out there, but you keep at it because you believe in what you're doing. What's more, doing something you believe in is a great way to pass the time. |
| If you could give just one piece of advice to beginning researchers, what would it be? Keep an open mind... |
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JJ Semple
Humboldt County USA
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