GENETIC HEALING
The Hidden Life of the Family Tree
by Iona Miller, 2016
The Hidden Life of the Family Tree
by Iona Miller, 2016
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF FAMILY TREES
Sap Is a Living Symbol of the Tree
Reading our genealogical lines is ultimately a heuristic process -- one requiring deep research and circumspect interpretation. But, connecting with the vitality of our lineage -- the living sap of the Tree -- elevates the mind and sublimes the thought. It is less about a "me generation" story than a grand "story of us" that ranges beyond illusions of time, space, and ego. We can cultivate the Elysian Fields of our ancestors to good effect. Thus, genealogy can be a transformative art. The Grail is a Mystery and the search for it a Quest for self-actualization, a way of initiation.
Genealogy contains a spiritual healing potential, the living sap of the Tree, a manifestation of the sacred. It is a Grail banquet of cultures, customs and symbolism. We see in many manuscripts that wings are used to mark progress or advancement of an alchemical solution toward perfection. Crowns mark the final stage of a spirit or solution: perfection, completion, ascension. The spirit, by death or enlightenment, will produce the pure, perfected, incorruptible spirit. In alchemical terms, the incorruptible body is the potential of the philosopher's stone.
The circulation of blood in the arteries mirrors the circulation of sap in the tree, and the circularity of cosmological or metaphysical thought — analogical thinking that links the macrocosm and microcosm, above and below. The ancestral field has an immediate effect, both healing and challenging, on our whole lives.
Our genealogical Quest is an introspective as well as investigative journey. We may think that the lines of evidence of our family tree are very neat and orderly. But when it comes to human beings, dead or alive, there is a certain inherent messiness that comes from the sap of living, from the juicy stuff of life that won't ever fit on the page or chart -- the life experiences and felt-sense of Being. Uncanny patterns and systems of occurrences befall families from generation to generation.
Much of the action goes on in the invisible realm, in the roots far below the branches where everything mingles and becomes entangled and from which the nutritious sap flows. Hidden links below the surface inform and affect us at the unconscious level and biogenealogy. Our ancestors, and their original ancestral traumas, even those who died before we were born, do affect us. They are part of the natural environment from which we are formed.
Family patterns persist over generations. It is the hidden hand of the grip the family retains on our lives and being. Transgenerational therapy says the ancestors can be the root of repetition compulsions, couple behavior, unresolved feelings, and a variety of other psychophysical phenomena. This includes the tragedy of trauma, psychosomatics, and dissociation and the power of complexes, including ancestral complexes, real or imagined.
“Family tree” has a symbolic connection to the theme of immortality. Mythology, genealogy, and archetypal psychology are sources of information about the symbolic. Sometimes, if we are grafted onto a family tree, we may be shaped, beautiful in a way, yet still raw from the cutting and oozing sap. Nothing green lasts forever. Sometimes family trees go extinct, just as an ancestral line can begin in a brick wall or historic dead end.
Methodical tracing of our family trees uncovers how important events have been interred in our genetic structures, only to pop up generations later. Family conflicts can pass on to future generations, even "the secret that is never told." When we have to live with the circumstances, knowledge is power.
The anniversary date of or a certain tragedy in the past can be stored in unconscious memory and acted out by following generations. Anniversary reactions appear not only as dramatic coincidences in dates or behaviors, but also in health problems, family secrets and accidents which seem to repeat generation after generation without any plausible explanation.
The research of Ernest Rossi, MD and others opens a new model of the relationships between the most interesting and motivating experiences of consciousness and the molecular dynamics of memory and learning that are described as the “novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis effect” (Rossi, 2002).
Gene-expression is the mechanism by which new patterns are called into being (Rossi, 2000). There is also a strong correlation between modulation of the brain’s EM field and consciousness (Persinger, 1987; McFadden, 2002). Creative, novel and enriching psychotherapeutic experiences can lead to neurogenesis, gene expression, and healing which facilitate mindbody communication and can have a long-term transformative effect on the whole person (Rossi, 2002).
Activated ancestors, like activated archetypes in complexes, can become like strange attractors, around whom we orbit in weird yet meaningful patterns. The attractor once again exhibits its self-iterating capacity by demonstrating its attractive or seductive power as a phenomenon, idea, or theory. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self organization, holistic behavior, inherent unpredictability.
It isn't what is expected and easily predictable in human affairs that is motivating, but the exact reverse. That which is surprising, unknown, and unpredicted garners our attention and sets us forth on the human quests for problem solving and creative adventure in the novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis dynamics of mind-body communication and healing explored by the new discipline of psychosocial genomics.
What Creates Rapid Changes in Gene Networks
Perhaps, the most remarkable genetic system is the immune system—the largest genetic network in human beings. The immune system edits its own DNA to create enormous numbers of different shapes that will eventually match any shape that the extremely rapidly evolving bacteria and viruses can produce. These wildly diverse antibodies created by cellular self editing not only create a lock and key match with part of almost any protein nature throws at them, but also, man made new chemicals in food and the environment.
Social Experiences Have Powerful Effects on Genes
The environment influences the organism as new cells are built each day. Billions of new blood cells, skin cells, and mucosal cells are made each day and these cells’ behavior are triggered by changing DNA networks in response to our experiences, and the chemical environment we are passing through. In the brain many new glial cells and a small number of neurons are, also, made each day.
Social connectivity has powerful effects on genes.
Sap Is a Living Symbol of the Tree
Reading our genealogical lines is ultimately a heuristic process -- one requiring deep research and circumspect interpretation. But, connecting with the vitality of our lineage -- the living sap of the Tree -- elevates the mind and sublimes the thought. It is less about a "me generation" story than a grand "story of us" that ranges beyond illusions of time, space, and ego. We can cultivate the Elysian Fields of our ancestors to good effect. Thus, genealogy can be a transformative art. The Grail is a Mystery and the search for it a Quest for self-actualization, a way of initiation.
Genealogy contains a spiritual healing potential, the living sap of the Tree, a manifestation of the sacred. It is a Grail banquet of cultures, customs and symbolism. We see in many manuscripts that wings are used to mark progress or advancement of an alchemical solution toward perfection. Crowns mark the final stage of a spirit or solution: perfection, completion, ascension. The spirit, by death or enlightenment, will produce the pure, perfected, incorruptible spirit. In alchemical terms, the incorruptible body is the potential of the philosopher's stone.
The circulation of blood in the arteries mirrors the circulation of sap in the tree, and the circularity of cosmological or metaphysical thought — analogical thinking that links the macrocosm and microcosm, above and below. The ancestral field has an immediate effect, both healing and challenging, on our whole lives.
Our genealogical Quest is an introspective as well as investigative journey. We may think that the lines of evidence of our family tree are very neat and orderly. But when it comes to human beings, dead or alive, there is a certain inherent messiness that comes from the sap of living, from the juicy stuff of life that won't ever fit on the page or chart -- the life experiences and felt-sense of Being. Uncanny patterns and systems of occurrences befall families from generation to generation.
Much of the action goes on in the invisible realm, in the roots far below the branches where everything mingles and becomes entangled and from which the nutritious sap flows. Hidden links below the surface inform and affect us at the unconscious level and biogenealogy. Our ancestors, and their original ancestral traumas, even those who died before we were born, do affect us. They are part of the natural environment from which we are formed.
Family patterns persist over generations. It is the hidden hand of the grip the family retains on our lives and being. Transgenerational therapy says the ancestors can be the root of repetition compulsions, couple behavior, unresolved feelings, and a variety of other psychophysical phenomena. This includes the tragedy of trauma, psychosomatics, and dissociation and the power of complexes, including ancestral complexes, real or imagined.
“Family tree” has a symbolic connection to the theme of immortality. Mythology, genealogy, and archetypal psychology are sources of information about the symbolic. Sometimes, if we are grafted onto a family tree, we may be shaped, beautiful in a way, yet still raw from the cutting and oozing sap. Nothing green lasts forever. Sometimes family trees go extinct, just as an ancestral line can begin in a brick wall or historic dead end.
Methodical tracing of our family trees uncovers how important events have been interred in our genetic structures, only to pop up generations later. Family conflicts can pass on to future generations, even "the secret that is never told." When we have to live with the circumstances, knowledge is power.
The anniversary date of or a certain tragedy in the past can be stored in unconscious memory and acted out by following generations. Anniversary reactions appear not only as dramatic coincidences in dates or behaviors, but also in health problems, family secrets and accidents which seem to repeat generation after generation without any plausible explanation.
The research of Ernest Rossi, MD and others opens a new model of the relationships between the most interesting and motivating experiences of consciousness and the molecular dynamics of memory and learning that are described as the “novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis effect” (Rossi, 2002).
Gene-expression is the mechanism by which new patterns are called into being (Rossi, 2000). There is also a strong correlation between modulation of the brain’s EM field and consciousness (Persinger, 1987; McFadden, 2002). Creative, novel and enriching psychotherapeutic experiences can lead to neurogenesis, gene expression, and healing which facilitate mindbody communication and can have a long-term transformative effect on the whole person (Rossi, 2002).
Activated ancestors, like activated archetypes in complexes, can become like strange attractors, around whom we orbit in weird yet meaningful patterns. The attractor once again exhibits its self-iterating capacity by demonstrating its attractive or seductive power as a phenomenon, idea, or theory. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self organization, holistic behavior, inherent unpredictability.
It isn't what is expected and easily predictable in human affairs that is motivating, but the exact reverse. That which is surprising, unknown, and unpredicted garners our attention and sets us forth on the human quests for problem solving and creative adventure in the novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis dynamics of mind-body communication and healing explored by the new discipline of psychosocial genomics.
What Creates Rapid Changes in Gene Networks
Perhaps, the most remarkable genetic system is the immune system—the largest genetic network in human beings. The immune system edits its own DNA to create enormous numbers of different shapes that will eventually match any shape that the extremely rapidly evolving bacteria and viruses can produce. These wildly diverse antibodies created by cellular self editing not only create a lock and key match with part of almost any protein nature throws at them, but also, man made new chemicals in food and the environment.
Social Experiences Have Powerful Effects on Genes
The environment influences the organism as new cells are built each day. Billions of new blood cells, skin cells, and mucosal cells are made each day and these cells’ behavior are triggered by changing DNA networks in response to our experiences, and the chemical environment we are passing through. In the brain many new glial cells and a small number of neurons are, also, made each day.
Social connectivity has powerful effects on genes.
Genetic Healing
Genomics has psycho-social dimensions. Ernest Rossi, M.D. reveals his Jungian approach, stating, “Nothing, it seems turns on gene expression and brain plasticity as much as the presence of others of the same species!”
Jung suggested that "Individual consciousness is only the flower and the fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial rhizome beneath the earth; and it would find
itself in better accord with the truth if it took the existence of the rhizome into its calculations. For the root matter is the mother of all things."
Ernest Rossi (1999; 2002) has developed a pertinent creativity hypothesis: “Enriching life experiences that evoke psychobiological arousal with positive fascination and focused attention during creative moments of art, music, dance, drama, humor, spirituality, numinosity, awe, joy, expectation, and social rituals can evoke immediate early gene protein cascades to optimize brain growth, mindbody communication, and healing.”
“[The] psychotherapeutic approach can contribute to psychobiological arousal, enrichment and relaxation; it may be possible to help people find optimal levels of mental stimulation to facilitate actual growth in the hippocampus of their brain to encode new memory, learning and behavior...optimizing psychobiological growth and healing.”
Rossi (1999) describes a mind/body communication channel that is pertinent in that it may describe another way neural plasticity and healing manifests from REM. He describes how immediate-early genes (also called “Primary Response Genes” or third messengers) play a central role in the dynamics of waking, sleeping, dreaming, and mind-body healing at the cellular level.
There is evidence that immediate-early genes (IEGs) function as mediators of information transduction between psychological experience, behavioral states, and gene expression. A wide range of behavioral state-related gene expression (from relaxation, hypnosis and sleep to high arousal, performance, stress and trauma) culminate in the production of new proteins or homeostasis, physical and psychosocial adaptation.”
Behavioral states modulate certain patterns of gene expression. Interaction between the genetic and behavioral levels is a two way street. Genes and behavior are related in cybernetic loops of mind-body communication. How does this relate, for example, to manic depression?
A look at the systems related to IEGs, shows that they affect all the systems disrupted in bipolar disorder. They are expressed continually in response to hormone messenger molecules mediating processes of adaptation to extracellular signals and stimuli. Extracellular stimuli come from the outside environment, including temperature, food, sexual cues, psychosocial stress, physical trauma, and toxins. IEGs are fundamental in the sleep-wake cycle, appetite regulation, sexual response, and reactions to stress, trauma, and toxins (Rossi, 1986; 1999; 2002).
There are persistent alterations in IEG expression in the process of adaptive behavior on all levels from the sexual and emotional to the cognitive. They can transduce relatively brief signals from the environment into enduring changes in the physical structure of the developing nervous system as well as its plasticity in the form of memory and learning throughout life. If external cues can modulate cell function through regulation of gene expression, this could also be true for internal cues.
IEGs are also fundamental in the regulation of REM-on, REM-off neurons, neuronal networks that are associated with REM sleep and dreaming. That makes them significant as molecules which can modulate mind, emotions, learning and behavior. They influence the rhythm of the natural healing process and circadian and ultradian rhythms of the body, in general. Ultradian rhythms are those shorter than the 24-hour circadian rhythms (Rossi; Cheek, 1988).
Milton Erickson discovered that his therapy sessions usually took from one and a half to two hours to come to natural closure. Later it was discovered that this delineates the natural work cycle that is harmonious with our own internal rhythms. IEGs modulate this process. This ultradian time frame is related to the activation or deactivation of the expression of specific genes and can occur in a matter of hours or even minutes.
“Most arousing environmental stimuli that have been studied can induce immediate-early genes within minutes, their concentrations typically peak within fifteen to twenty minutes and their effects are usually over within an hour or two. These time parameter IEG expressions and their ultimate translation into the formation of new proteins correspond to the parameters of a complete work cycle of mind-body communication and healing. The changes in gene transcription and new protein formation initiated in this time frame, however, can lead to lasting changes in the central nervous system by converting short term memory to long lasting learning by the process of long term potentiation. . .the activation or deactivation of the expression of specific genes can occur in a matter of hours or even minutes." (Rossi, 1999).
This mechanism assesses the duration and intensity of prior waking and/or the homeostatic or executive mechanisms that bring about sleep. Sleep deprivation leads to a wide variety of psychotic and non-psychotic symptoms. This system is also associated with the neuronal network associated with the dynamics of REM sleep. Deprivation of REM and dreaming creates its own phenomenology.
“The study of IEGs indicates that sleep and wake, as well as synchronized and desynchronized sleep, are characterized by different genomic expressions, the level of IEGs being high during wake and low during sleep. Such fluctuation of gene expression is not ubiquitous but occurs in certain cell populations in the brain. Thus...IEG induction may reveal the activation of neural networks in different behavioral states. Do the areas in which IEGs oscillate during sleep and wake subserve specific roles in the regulation of these physiological states and a general ‘resetting’ of behavioral state? Is gene induction a clue to understanding the alternation of sleep and wake, and of REM and non-REM sleep?” (Rossi, 1999).
In Rossi’s Dream-Protein Hypothesis, “new experience is encoded by means of protein synthesis in brain tissue...dreaming is a process of psychophysiological growth that involves the synthesis or modification of protein structures in the brain that serve as the organic basis for new developments in the personality...new proteins are synthesized in some brain structures associated with REM dream sleep.”
Rossi generalizes the dream-protein hypothesis, “to include all states of creativity associated with the peak periods of arousal and insight generation in psychobiologically oriented psychotherapy.”
Enriched internal and external environments leads to the growth and development of new cells. IEG cascades lead to the formation of new proteins and neurons along with increased synapses and dendrites that encode memory and learning. On the other hand, excessive trauma and psychosocial stress can lead to suppression of growth processes in the brain. When psychotherapy contributes to arousal, enrichment, and relaxation it facilitates actual growth in the brain to encode new memory, learning and behavior, optimizing growth and healing.
“Communication within the neuronal networks of the brain is modulated by changes in the strengths of synaptic connections...meaning is to be found in the complex dynamic field of messenger molecules that continually bathe and contextualize the information of the neuronal networks in ever changing patterns. Most of the sexual and stress hormones...have state dependent effects on our mental and emotional states as well as memory and learning, a constantly changing dynamical field of meaning.” (Rossi, 1991).
Novel and enriching psychotherapeutic experiences can lead to neurogenesis and gene expression which facilitate mindbody communication and can have a long-term transformative effect on the whole person (Rossi, 2002). Rossi points out that many of the essential dynamics of gene expression involved in the formation of the brain and body in embryology are now recognized as a continuing creative development through an individual's lifetime.
He also asserts that a lack of optimal gene expression and neurogenesis is associated with psychological depression and stress. Thus, bioholography has relevant applications for optimizing health and well-being across disciplines, such as biophysics, medicine, psychobiology, psychotherapy and holistic healing arts.
Novel Approaches to Genomic Science, by Iona Miller, DNA Decipher Journal
http://dnadecipher.com/index.php/ddj/article/viewFile/25/35
Genomics has psycho-social dimensions. Ernest Rossi, M.D. reveals his Jungian approach, stating, “Nothing, it seems turns on gene expression and brain plasticity as much as the presence of others of the same species!”
Jung suggested that "Individual consciousness is only the flower and the fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial rhizome beneath the earth; and it would find
itself in better accord with the truth if it took the existence of the rhizome into its calculations. For the root matter is the mother of all things."
Ernest Rossi (1999; 2002) has developed a pertinent creativity hypothesis: “Enriching life experiences that evoke psychobiological arousal with positive fascination and focused attention during creative moments of art, music, dance, drama, humor, spirituality, numinosity, awe, joy, expectation, and social rituals can evoke immediate early gene protein cascades to optimize brain growth, mindbody communication, and healing.”
“[The] psychotherapeutic approach can contribute to psychobiological arousal, enrichment and relaxation; it may be possible to help people find optimal levels of mental stimulation to facilitate actual growth in the hippocampus of their brain to encode new memory, learning and behavior...optimizing psychobiological growth and healing.”
Rossi (1999) describes a mind/body communication channel that is pertinent in that it may describe another way neural plasticity and healing manifests from REM. He describes how immediate-early genes (also called “Primary Response Genes” or third messengers) play a central role in the dynamics of waking, sleeping, dreaming, and mind-body healing at the cellular level.
There is evidence that immediate-early genes (IEGs) function as mediators of information transduction between psychological experience, behavioral states, and gene expression. A wide range of behavioral state-related gene expression (from relaxation, hypnosis and sleep to high arousal, performance, stress and trauma) culminate in the production of new proteins or homeostasis, physical and psychosocial adaptation.”
Behavioral states modulate certain patterns of gene expression. Interaction between the genetic and behavioral levels is a two way street. Genes and behavior are related in cybernetic loops of mind-body communication. How does this relate, for example, to manic depression?
A look at the systems related to IEGs, shows that they affect all the systems disrupted in bipolar disorder. They are expressed continually in response to hormone messenger molecules mediating processes of adaptation to extracellular signals and stimuli. Extracellular stimuli come from the outside environment, including temperature, food, sexual cues, psychosocial stress, physical trauma, and toxins. IEGs are fundamental in the sleep-wake cycle, appetite regulation, sexual response, and reactions to stress, trauma, and toxins (Rossi, 1986; 1999; 2002).
There are persistent alterations in IEG expression in the process of adaptive behavior on all levels from the sexual and emotional to the cognitive. They can transduce relatively brief signals from the environment into enduring changes in the physical structure of the developing nervous system as well as its plasticity in the form of memory and learning throughout life. If external cues can modulate cell function through regulation of gene expression, this could also be true for internal cues.
IEGs are also fundamental in the regulation of REM-on, REM-off neurons, neuronal networks that are associated with REM sleep and dreaming. That makes them significant as molecules which can modulate mind, emotions, learning and behavior. They influence the rhythm of the natural healing process and circadian and ultradian rhythms of the body, in general. Ultradian rhythms are those shorter than the 24-hour circadian rhythms (Rossi; Cheek, 1988).
Milton Erickson discovered that his therapy sessions usually took from one and a half to two hours to come to natural closure. Later it was discovered that this delineates the natural work cycle that is harmonious with our own internal rhythms. IEGs modulate this process. This ultradian time frame is related to the activation or deactivation of the expression of specific genes and can occur in a matter of hours or even minutes.
“Most arousing environmental stimuli that have been studied can induce immediate-early genes within minutes, their concentrations typically peak within fifteen to twenty minutes and their effects are usually over within an hour or two. These time parameter IEG expressions and their ultimate translation into the formation of new proteins correspond to the parameters of a complete work cycle of mind-body communication and healing. The changes in gene transcription and new protein formation initiated in this time frame, however, can lead to lasting changes in the central nervous system by converting short term memory to long lasting learning by the process of long term potentiation. . .the activation or deactivation of the expression of specific genes can occur in a matter of hours or even minutes." (Rossi, 1999).
This mechanism assesses the duration and intensity of prior waking and/or the homeostatic or executive mechanisms that bring about sleep. Sleep deprivation leads to a wide variety of psychotic and non-psychotic symptoms. This system is also associated with the neuronal network associated with the dynamics of REM sleep. Deprivation of REM and dreaming creates its own phenomenology.
“The study of IEGs indicates that sleep and wake, as well as synchronized and desynchronized sleep, are characterized by different genomic expressions, the level of IEGs being high during wake and low during sleep. Such fluctuation of gene expression is not ubiquitous but occurs in certain cell populations in the brain. Thus...IEG induction may reveal the activation of neural networks in different behavioral states. Do the areas in which IEGs oscillate during sleep and wake subserve specific roles in the regulation of these physiological states and a general ‘resetting’ of behavioral state? Is gene induction a clue to understanding the alternation of sleep and wake, and of REM and non-REM sleep?” (Rossi, 1999).
In Rossi’s Dream-Protein Hypothesis, “new experience is encoded by means of protein synthesis in brain tissue...dreaming is a process of psychophysiological growth that involves the synthesis or modification of protein structures in the brain that serve as the organic basis for new developments in the personality...new proteins are synthesized in some brain structures associated with REM dream sleep.”
Rossi generalizes the dream-protein hypothesis, “to include all states of creativity associated with the peak periods of arousal and insight generation in psychobiologically oriented psychotherapy.”
Enriched internal and external environments leads to the growth and development of new cells. IEG cascades lead to the formation of new proteins and neurons along with increased synapses and dendrites that encode memory and learning. On the other hand, excessive trauma and psychosocial stress can lead to suppression of growth processes in the brain. When psychotherapy contributes to arousal, enrichment, and relaxation it facilitates actual growth in the brain to encode new memory, learning and behavior, optimizing growth and healing.
“Communication within the neuronal networks of the brain is modulated by changes in the strengths of synaptic connections...meaning is to be found in the complex dynamic field of messenger molecules that continually bathe and contextualize the information of the neuronal networks in ever changing patterns. Most of the sexual and stress hormones...have state dependent effects on our mental and emotional states as well as memory and learning, a constantly changing dynamical field of meaning.” (Rossi, 1991).
Novel and enriching psychotherapeutic experiences can lead to neurogenesis and gene expression which facilitate mindbody communication and can have a long-term transformative effect on the whole person (Rossi, 2002). Rossi points out that many of the essential dynamics of gene expression involved in the formation of the brain and body in embryology are now recognized as a continuing creative development through an individual's lifetime.
He also asserts that a lack of optimal gene expression and neurogenesis is associated with psychological depression and stress. Thus, bioholography has relevant applications for optimizing health and well-being across disciplines, such as biophysics, medicine, psychobiology, psychotherapy and holistic healing arts.
Novel Approaches to Genomic Science, by Iona Miller, DNA Decipher Journal
http://dnadecipher.com/index.php/ddj/article/viewFile/25/35
Gene-Expression
Gene expression is the cellular process that decodes the genetic information in DNA and converts it into proteins. It is regulated at many levels: when messenger RNA is transcribed from DNA; when mRNA is translated into proteins; an
d at the epigenetic level, when the structure of chromatin, coils of DNA wound around histone proteins, is altered. Although most discussion of gene expression focuses on the regulation of transcription, the other components of the process
are also crucial . Yet little is known about how they are integrated. (Rossi, 2010)
Work by Tom Misteli at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and his team provides a striking example of the integration of seemingly disparate components in gene-expression regulation (Luco et al., 2010). They describe how patterns of alternative splicing of newly made RNA, a key regulatory mechanism, can themselves be regulated by specific chemical modifications in the chromatin. They also found that a given set of modifications to histones predicts patterns of RNA splicing. The authors conservatively estimate that this mechanism occurs in dozens to hundreds of genes in the human genome.
This remarkable study makes a connection between a quintessential transcription
-regulation mechanism, histone modification, and a post-transcriptional process, alternative splicing. It shows that chromatin can regulate not only how much of a protein, but also which protein, is made in a cell. We have seen a surge of intriguing studies suggesting that molecules that were thought to regulate transcription also direct epigenetic modifications, modify alternative-splicing
patterns and participate in the intracellular transport of RNA.
Synaptic connections underlie associative learning. Psychological, social, and cultural signals modulate gene expression. Psychosocial Genomics measures changes in the deep psychobiological process of “activity or experience-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity” associated with creativity and healing.
Psychosocial genomics produces long-term changes in behavior, vision and worldview, through learning and morphological changes in gene expression that alter the strength of synaptic connections. Structural changes alter the anatomical
pattern of interconnections between nerve cells of the brain. Stated simply, the regulation of gene expression by social factors makes all bodily functions, including all functions of the brain susceptible to social influences. (Rossi)
Neuro-gnosis
Neurognostic structures organize experience and cognition, and correspond somewhat to Carl Jung's archetypes. Jung was ambiguous about the ontological status of the archetypes and the collective unconscious, because of the inadequacy of the science of his day. Modern developments in the neurosciences and quantum physics - especially the new physics of the vacuum - allow us to develop Jung's understanding of the archetypes further. Direct neurophysiological-
quantum coupling suggests how neural processing and quantum events may
interpenetrate.
He insisted that the archetype is not merely another word for the physiology of the image or thought. While it included the physiological basis of knowledge, the concept was intended to run deeper-deep into the instincts and beyond, outward into the universal ground of existence.
Archetypes form the total ground-the collective unconscious – upon
which conscious cultural and personal experience develops. These structures are the products of natural selection, and are the impressions left by recurrent experiences of the species upon the nervous systems of individuals.
They generate (or "cause") an endless variety of transformations that are experienced as images and ideas had in dreams, fantasies and visions. These images and ideas bear the mark of personal and cultural conditioning, and
the archetypes themselves are involved in the development of
consciousness. The archetypes produce all of the universal material in myth and ritual drama.
Archetypal experiences tend to be numinous and transpersonal in their
impact upon personal development, for they are the eruption of archaic and timeless meaning into the personal world of the ego.
The archetype exists as the intersection of spirit and matter. We are now beginning to understand in a scientific way how this intersection might be possible, if by "spirit" we mean the order of the quantum sea. Human experience becomes the localized instantiation of the universal-the transcendental-through the medium of neurognosis. And neurognosis is precisely the local embodiment of the structure of the sea, and at the same time the structures mediating consciousness.
When Michael Persinger suggests in his book, Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (1987), that certain experiences of unity with the Godhead may be mediated by structures in the temporal lobes, such an analysis need not imply a reduction of transpersonal experiences to neurophysiology. Among other things, to reduce these experiences to their neurophysiological foundations begs such questions as the profundity of insight, or the causation-at-a-distance that may accompany such experiences.
Neurognostic or archetypal structures in the brain may transduce insights pertaining to the universal structure of the quantum sea. Each human brain may indeed prove to be a microcosm that contains, like the proverbial mustard seed, or the more modem hologram-all the wisdom of the ages, requiring only the optimal conditions of development for each person to individuate into a sage. (Miller, 2008).
Rossi reports that neurogenesis can occur in the motor cortex simply through the act of imagining playing the piano (Pascual-Leone, Amedi, Fregni, & Merabet, 2005). Similarly, taxicab drivers develop the areas of their brains involved in spatial relationships by memorizing the labyrinthine streets and avenues of
the cities in which they work (Maguire et al., 2000).
Although the underlying mechanisms are different, neuroplasticity research suggests that challenging learning experiences can lead to the development of brain tissue in a manner analogous to the ways that physical exercise can lead to the development of muscle tissue. One area of research that has found significant evidence of mental training leading to neuroplastic modifications in brain activity focuses on the study of meditation.
Meditation, although greatly varying in technique and purpose across the diverse spiritual and cultural traditions in which it is used, may be generally defined as the intentional practice whereby one grasps "the handle of cognition" to cultivate a competent use of one's own mental capacities, gaining agency over thought and emotion (Depraz, Várela, & Vermersch, 2003). Such intentional mental training has been shown to induce functional neurobiological changes.
Jung's reference to the essential unknowability of the archetypes-in-themselves also applies to neurognostic structures. Neurognosis may also refer to the functioning of these neural structures in producing either experience or some other activity unconscious to the individual. This usage is similar to Jung's reference to archetypal imagery, ideas, and activities that emerge into and are
active in consciousness. This includes ancestral / genetic memory. In the inward experience the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed is first revealed as a resonance, relationship or correspondence.
Jung's genius was in holding the tension of opposites of mind-body dualism-that is, between experiential relativism on the one hand and physical reductionism on the other. It was clear to Jung that an individual's experience is both structured by processes universal to the human psyche, and the manifestation of individuation.
Holding the tension of the opposites, one transcends them.
Holding a divine "tension" allows anew consciousness to unfold. As hybrid "spirit-matter" beings, we must realize it is appropriate for us to be living in two worlds at once--the world of the ego and the world of the soul. We do not become one watered-down nondescript composite: we each bring forth our entire way of being--as a very rich and inviting way to live.
You can't wait to discover something without knowing how it is going to happen. Expectancy and surprise in the neuro-psycho-physiology generate detectable changes in the dynamics of gene expression and neurotransmission. Regulation of the priming step of the neurotransmitter release has important consequences for memory, learning, problem solving, and behavior change at the synaptic level. A synaptic protein called RIM, among others, is involved in a key regulatory step of synaptic plasticity facilitated by priming the synaptic vesicles between neurons
to release their neurotransmitters.
The molecular messengers generated by stress, injury, and disease can activate immediate early genes within stem cells so that they then signal the target genes required to synthesize the proteins that will transform (differentiate) stem cells into mature well-functioning tissues. Such activity-dependent gene expression and its consequent activity-dependent neurogenesis and stem cell healing is proposed as the molecular-genomic-cellular basis of rehabilitative medicine, physical, and occupational therapy as well as the many alternative and complementary approaches to mind-body healing.
The therapeutic replaying of enriching life experiences that evoke the novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis effect during creative moments of art, music, dance, drama, humor, literature, poetry, and spirituality, as well as cultural rituals of life transitions (birth, puberty, marriage, illness, healing, and death) can optimize consciousness, personal relationships, and healing in a manner that has much in common with the psychogenomic foundations of naturalistic and complementary medicine.
The entire history of alternative and complementary approaches to healing is consistent with this new neuroscience world view about the role of psychological arousal and fascination in modulating gene expression, neurogenesis, and healing via the psychosocial and cultural rites of human societies. (Rossi, 2003).
A single genotype, the genetic blueprint of an organism, can be expressed in a multiplicity of distinct physiological and behavioral forms, known as phenotypes. The mechanisms by which such different phenotypes are expressed are just beginning to be understood, but they appear to involve the regulatory effect of internal and external environmental signals on stress hormones, which in turn modify gene transcription processes (Rossi, 2004)
Experiences modulate gene expression. In turn, experience-dependent modifications to neural tissue may be driven by epigenetic processes (that is, changes in gene expression produced by environmental determinants). The human environment is constantly conditioned by social experiences, which, when transduced by the nervous system into electrochemical signals, may modulate protein synthesis in the nuclei of nerve cells, ultimately leading to changes in the replication and growth of neurons. Social experience can change gene expression, leading to the restructuring of the brain through neuroplasticity.
Thought, emotion, and action trigger neural activity, which can lead to a reorganization of the brain, shaping future psychosocial experience. From this perspective, we are not the passive products of neurophysiology and heredity; rather, through our behavior in the social environment, we become active agents in the construction of our own neurobiology and, ultimately, our own lives. We
have the power to transcend and transform their limitations into opportunities for growth and well-being.
http://www.ernestrossi.com/documents/FreeBook.pdf
Neurognostic structures organize experience and cognition, and correspond somewhat to Carl Jung's archetypes. Jung was ambiguous about the ontological status of the archetypes and the collective unconscious, because of the inadequacy of the science of his day. Modern developments in the neurosciences and quantum physics - especially the new physics of the vacuum - allow us to develop Jung's understanding of the archetypes further. Direct neurophysiological-
quantum coupling suggests how neural processing and quantum events may
interpenetrate.
He insisted that the archetype is not merely another word for the physiology of the image or thought. While it included the physiological basis of knowledge, the concept was intended to run deeper-deep into the instincts and beyond, outward into the universal ground of existence.
Archetypes form the total ground-the collective unconscious – upon
which conscious cultural and personal experience develops. These structures are the products of natural selection, and are the impressions left by recurrent experiences of the species upon the nervous systems of individuals.
They generate (or "cause") an endless variety of transformations that are experienced as images and ideas had in dreams, fantasies and visions. These images and ideas bear the mark of personal and cultural conditioning, and
the archetypes themselves are involved in the development of
consciousness. The archetypes produce all of the universal material in myth and ritual drama.
Archetypal experiences tend to be numinous and transpersonal in their
impact upon personal development, for they are the eruption of archaic and timeless meaning into the personal world of the ego.
The archetype exists as the intersection of spirit and matter. We are now beginning to understand in a scientific way how this intersection might be possible, if by "spirit" we mean the order of the quantum sea. Human experience becomes the localized instantiation of the universal-the transcendental-through the medium of neurognosis. And neurognosis is precisely the local embodiment of the structure of the sea, and at the same time the structures mediating consciousness.
When Michael Persinger suggests in his book, Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (1987), that certain experiences of unity with the Godhead may be mediated by structures in the temporal lobes, such an analysis need not imply a reduction of transpersonal experiences to neurophysiology. Among other things, to reduce these experiences to their neurophysiological foundations begs such questions as the profundity of insight, or the causation-at-a-distance that may accompany such experiences.
Neurognostic or archetypal structures in the brain may transduce insights pertaining to the universal structure of the quantum sea. Each human brain may indeed prove to be a microcosm that contains, like the proverbial mustard seed, or the more modem hologram-all the wisdom of the ages, requiring only the optimal conditions of development for each person to individuate into a sage. (Miller, 2008).
Rossi reports that neurogenesis can occur in the motor cortex simply through the act of imagining playing the piano (Pascual-Leone, Amedi, Fregni, & Merabet, 2005). Similarly, taxicab drivers develop the areas of their brains involved in spatial relationships by memorizing the labyrinthine streets and avenues of
the cities in which they work (Maguire et al., 2000).
Although the underlying mechanisms are different, neuroplasticity research suggests that challenging learning experiences can lead to the development of brain tissue in a manner analogous to the ways that physical exercise can lead to the development of muscle tissue. One area of research that has found significant evidence of mental training leading to neuroplastic modifications in brain activity focuses on the study of meditation.
Meditation, although greatly varying in technique and purpose across the diverse spiritual and cultural traditions in which it is used, may be generally defined as the intentional practice whereby one grasps "the handle of cognition" to cultivate a competent use of one's own mental capacities, gaining agency over thought and emotion (Depraz, Várela, & Vermersch, 2003). Such intentional mental training has been shown to induce functional neurobiological changes.
Jung's reference to the essential unknowability of the archetypes-in-themselves also applies to neurognostic structures. Neurognosis may also refer to the functioning of these neural structures in producing either experience or some other activity unconscious to the individual. This usage is similar to Jung's reference to archetypal imagery, ideas, and activities that emerge into and are
active in consciousness. This includes ancestral / genetic memory. In the inward experience the connection between the psyche and the outward image or creed is first revealed as a resonance, relationship or correspondence.
Jung's genius was in holding the tension of opposites of mind-body dualism-that is, between experiential relativism on the one hand and physical reductionism on the other. It was clear to Jung that an individual's experience is both structured by processes universal to the human psyche, and the manifestation of individuation.
Holding the tension of the opposites, one transcends them.
Holding a divine "tension" allows anew consciousness to unfold. As hybrid "spirit-matter" beings, we must realize it is appropriate for us to be living in two worlds at once--the world of the ego and the world of the soul. We do not become one watered-down nondescript composite: we each bring forth our entire way of being--as a very rich and inviting way to live.
You can't wait to discover something without knowing how it is going to happen. Expectancy and surprise in the neuro-psycho-physiology generate detectable changes in the dynamics of gene expression and neurotransmission. Regulation of the priming step of the neurotransmitter release has important consequences for memory, learning, problem solving, and behavior change at the synaptic level. A synaptic protein called RIM, among others, is involved in a key regulatory step of synaptic plasticity facilitated by priming the synaptic vesicles between neurons
to release their neurotransmitters.
The molecular messengers generated by stress, injury, and disease can activate immediate early genes within stem cells so that they then signal the target genes required to synthesize the proteins that will transform (differentiate) stem cells into mature well-functioning tissues. Such activity-dependent gene expression and its consequent activity-dependent neurogenesis and stem cell healing is proposed as the molecular-genomic-cellular basis of rehabilitative medicine, physical, and occupational therapy as well as the many alternative and complementary approaches to mind-body healing.
The therapeutic replaying of enriching life experiences that evoke the novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis effect during creative moments of art, music, dance, drama, humor, literature, poetry, and spirituality, as well as cultural rituals of life transitions (birth, puberty, marriage, illness, healing, and death) can optimize consciousness, personal relationships, and healing in a manner that has much in common with the psychogenomic foundations of naturalistic and complementary medicine.
The entire history of alternative and complementary approaches to healing is consistent with this new neuroscience world view about the role of psychological arousal and fascination in modulating gene expression, neurogenesis, and healing via the psychosocial and cultural rites of human societies. (Rossi, 2003).
A single genotype, the genetic blueprint of an organism, can be expressed in a multiplicity of distinct physiological and behavioral forms, known as phenotypes. The mechanisms by which such different phenotypes are expressed are just beginning to be understood, but they appear to involve the regulatory effect of internal and external environmental signals on stress hormones, which in turn modify gene transcription processes (Rossi, 2004)
Experiences modulate gene expression. In turn, experience-dependent modifications to neural tissue may be driven by epigenetic processes (that is, changes in gene expression produced by environmental determinants). The human environment is constantly conditioned by social experiences, which, when transduced by the nervous system into electrochemical signals, may modulate protein synthesis in the nuclei of nerve cells, ultimately leading to changes in the replication and growth of neurons. Social experience can change gene expression, leading to the restructuring of the brain through neuroplasticity.
Thought, emotion, and action trigger neural activity, which can lead to a reorganization of the brain, shaping future psychosocial experience. From this perspective, we are not the passive products of neurophysiology and heredity; rather, through our behavior in the social environment, we become active agents in the construction of our own neurobiology and, ultimately, our own lives. We
have the power to transcend and transform their limitations into opportunities for growth and well-being.
http://www.ernestrossi.com/documents/FreeBook.pdf
(c)2015-2016; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
iona_m@yahoo.com
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iona_m@yahoo.com
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
