Past Speakers 04-05 Season


THE ART OF MEDICINE IN ANCIENT EGYPT - MAY, 05

Our speaker for May will be W. Benson Harer, Jr., M.D. Dr Harer's avocation over the years has been archaeological expeditions, studies, and research into ancient Egypt. He will speak on ancient Egyptian medical practice and how it echoes through the millennia. Medical schools, specialists, and women physicians date back to the Old Kingdom, about 4,500 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, the process of mummification did not provide a basis for medical knowledge in ancient Egypt. The ancient health professionals spent no more time in the embalmers workshop than modern physicians do today. There were three classes of health professionals in ancient Egypt. The senew corresponded to modern physicians. They practiced rational pragmatic medicine based on careful observation. They used our doctor's familiar pattern of patient history, physical exam, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. The second class of health professionals were priests. In ancient Egypt illness or pain without obvious physical cause was attributed to punishment by an offended God or from a curse from an enemy or an ancestor. Priests served as healers through their ability to appease the offended Gods and thus induce them to relieve their patients' suffering. Then there were the magicians who claimed to be able to heal through their special ability to control the forces of Nature or to trick the Gods. Amulets were also considered protective - an ancient preventive medicine. Science has changed dramatically since the dawn of human history, but the human body has not. Neither has human behavior. Science, medicine, religion and magic have always remained intertwined -- from ancient Egypt to this day.

After graduating from Princeton University, Dr. Harer received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He was President, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Chief of Staff at the Riverside County Regional Medical Center. He founded Telmed, Inc. to provide free tape-recorded health information to the public. He is currently Adjunct Professor, Humanities, California State University at San Bernardino. His personal interest is Egyptology, and he has been going on archaeological expeditions to Egypt since 1979.

    SPEAKER: Dr. W. Benson Harer, Jr., M.D.
    Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Humanities, CSUSB

THE UFO PHENOMENON - APR, 05

Our April speaker is Dr. Jacques Vallee who will introduce us to the current research underway regarding the UFO phenomenon. Dr. Vallee will present numerous examples of selected cases that he and his associates have personally investigated. He will survey the history of the UFO phenomenon and suggest several avenues for further investigation. Jacques' interest in the UFO phenomenon began when he was a young astronomer at the Paris observatory, where he witnessed the destruction of recorded data obtained during the observation of an unidentified object by a team of astronomers. Stimulated by the realization that many such observations by professional scientists had been censored, Jacques and his wife compiled the first computer catalog of UFO data and began searching for patterns, first at the University of Texas, and later at Northwestern, where Dr. Vallee worked for four years as a close associate of Dr. J. Allen Hynek at the Dearborn observatory. This interest in the subject brought Jacques to many countries where he has conducted field research, from Russia to Brazil and from Scotland to Argentina. Jacques believes that UFO reports represent a robust, important and unexplained global phenomenon with significant implications for modern science and for the understanding of the link between consciousness and the physical universe.

Jacques F. Vallee was born in France, earned a B.S. in mathematics from the Sorbonne, a master's degree in astrophysics from Lille University, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University. He developed NASA's first computer map of Mars, did galactic research at the McDonald observatory, researched artificial intelligence, contributed to database software at Shell in Europe and at RCA. At Stanford University he managed database systems and at SRI he developed the first Network Information Center (NIC) for the ARPAnet. He was a principal investigator for ARPA and NSF computer networking projects and led the group that developed the first network-based conferencing system. As a founder of a software networking company, and later as a venture capitalist with a Silicon Valley fund, Dr. Vallee continued to pioneer developments in computer software and networking projects. Eighteen of the hightech companies he financed have reached the Nasdaq public market.

ENERGY SYSTEMS AND CONSCIOUSNESS
IMPLICATIONS TO ALZHEIMER'S - MAR, 05

Our speaker for March will be Steven William Fowkes, the Executive Director of the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA (www.CERI.com). Steve will discuss energy systems and consciousness with an emphasis on the biological energy implications to Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Fowkes has been researching the biological basis of brain function and senility syndromes for three decades. This has led to therapeutic insights relating to both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions. Steve will discuss cellular and sub cellular energy mechanisms and their role in brain functions and the mind, and the effects of nutrition, enzymes, pharmaceuticals and endocrine regulators. Specifically, the talk will cover the 1) mitochondrial mechanisms of energy production in cells, 2) biological mechanisms regulating the use of carbohydrate and fat fuels, and 3) how energy systems drive the neurotransmitter basis of consciousness. On Alzheimer's Steve will discuss the "browning out" of energy systems that leads to the metabolic cascade failure of Alzheimer's disease; and the roles of diet, attitude, exercise, detoxification, genetics, nutrition and mercury toxicity in causing, reversing and preventing this process.

Mr. Fowkes has written several books, authored hundreds of newsletters and journal articles and edited a book on the neuroendocrine mechanisms of aging. He is a co-author of Smart Drugs II, the supplementary volume to Smart Drugs & Nutrients. A "smart" drug is any drug or nutrient that enhances aspects of mental performance. Smart drugs involve issues that are beyond the present limitations of our modern biochemical and mechanistic science. In other words, cognitive technology is as much a subjective issue as it is a technological one. On this subject he has testified before the California Legislature and Senate, presented as an expert witness in front of State and Federal courts, and appeared on Larry King Live.

    SPEAKER: Steven William Fowkes, Executive Director
    Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute, CA
    email - fowkes2@ceri.com

INTEGRATED MEDICINE
ITS HISTORY, FUTURE, AND SPIRITUAL ASPECTS
- FEB, 05

Our February speaker, Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo, will discuss the history and future of Integrative Medicine in this country and in the world. He has explored it's spiritual aspects, met with energy healers and shaman of various cultures including a number of visits to Brazil where he became familiar with the spiritual ayahuasca ceremonies and the energy healing techniques of John of God. Dr. Quevedo has participated in meetings sponsored by the U.S. Government with the goal of integrating such ancient wisdom with modern medical practices. Today a new global medicine is emerging in countries all around the world. Twenty-seven U.S. academic medical centers now have full Integrative Medicine Centers, and over eighty U.S. medical schools offer courses in integrative medicine or complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Dr. Quevedo will discuss this exciting "medicine of the future" and will give specific examples of the medical and research activities of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine in San Francisco.

Dr. Quevedo has an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Masters degree in Public Health at Harvard's School of Public Health. He has served as Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and as Associate Chief of Nephrology and Medical Director of the Artificial Kidney Center at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. He was founding director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. He is now the Director, Clinical Programs, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo was the past President of the Foundation for Mind-Being Research. His area of specific interest is the interface between spirituality and medicine and the comparative study of healing traditions.

    SPEAKER: Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo, M.D.
    Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, UCSF

YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL - JAN, 05

Our January speaker is Dr. Fred Alan Wolf who will be discussing his new book The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time. Fred will present means for achieving time travel through the use of a mind Yoga -- a technique for training the mind to carry out the process. The ancient Vedas referred to this as kala-vancana or "time-cheating." He will explain in very simple language, using metaphors and common experiences just what you would encounter by traveling through time in a manner counter to the usual "flow" -- our normal motion pictures of reality.

Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, a physicist, professor, writer, and lecturer, is the author of eleven books including Taking the Quantum Leap which received the National Book Award for Science. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at UCLA in 1963 and began researching the field of high atmospheric particle behavior following a nuclear explosion. However, his interests expanded, and his inquiring mind has delved into the relationship between human consciousness, psychology, physiology, the mystical, and the spiritual. You may have seen Dr. Wolf when he appeared as one of the key scientists in the amazing film "What the #$&! Do We Know!?" His web site is www.fredalanwolf.com.

FIELDS, PHYSICS AND SUBTLE ENERGIES - NOV, 04

Our November speaker, Dr. Karl Maret, will discuss his exploration into the nature of subtle energies and how electromagnetic field theories may have to be expanded. This expansion is leading to promising technologies and controversial discoveries that may become an integral part of the new energy and informational medicine paradigm - examples will be presented. The foundation for our Western understanding of reality has been physics and the measurements of energies and forces. Subtle energies and many observed anomalies do not fit well into our present physical theories. The reason for this may lie with the limitations of the current electromagnetic theories of energetic interactions that grossly simplify the original field theories of Faraday and Maxwell. The nature of potentials, higher dimensional mathematics and informational interactions could be incorporated into our theories of electrodynamics to create a new physics approach to subtle energies and healing. The special characteristics of water and its informational properties, so important for all living systems, will also be addressed in this context. By giving an historical overview of the Western scientific journey that led us to this present moment, and weaving in non-traditional research approaches, a new understanding of the essence of subtle energies can be gained.

Dr. Karl Maret practices Complementary and Alternative Medicine specializing in nutrition, functional medicine and energy medicine at the Dove Center for Integral Medicine in Aptos, CA. He holds an M.D. from the University of Toronto, a Masters in Biomedical Engineering and Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He completed a four-year post-doctoral fellowship in pulmonary physiology at UCSD and developed the entire instrumentation for the American Medical Research Expedition to Mt. Everest. Dr. Maret lectures extensively and promotes global research and innovative subtle energy instrumentation in Energy Medicine. He is President of the non-profit Dove Health Alliance foundation, and a partner in Heart-Mind Communications, an organization focused on merging science and spirit. He is also a poet; artist and life-long student of the Ancient Wisdom traditions and for 18 years lived in a community committed to rigorous applied spiritual practice and research.

TRANSCENDENT SEX - OCT, 04

Our October speaker, Dr. Jenny Wade, will discuss her research study of 91 men and women who engaged in sex and suddenly found the veil between the worlds torn open. Our interest in this research stems from the SPECT brain imaging studies of spiritual states. Medical researchers doing such studies believe that the neurological structures and pathways involved in transcendent experience originally evolved to link sexual climax to the powerful sensations of orgasm (editorial, May '04 Newsletter). Dr. Wade's research supports and extends this hypothesis. Her study used ordinary people with no special training in techniques such as the Tantric method of Hinduism. She will discuss: 1) The three thousand year history of transcendent sex; 2) Why various religions now take different views of sex; 3) The varieties of experiences occurring during transcendent sex; 4) The personal transformations upon people who suddenly and without any warning find themselves in otherworldly realms when making love; and 5) The conditions most conducive to encountering such an experience.

Jenny Wade, Ph.D., is a researcher in individual and organizational development specializing in consciousness studies, especially those facilitating transformative processes. A graduate of The Fielding Institute, she is on the faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and is a frequent lecturer at universities. She also works with Fortune 500 companies to optimize employee and organizational performance. Jenny is author of two books: Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness; and Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil.

    SPEAKER: Dr. Jenny Wade, ITP Faculty

SPIRIT INFLUENCE AND ATTACHMENT - SEP, 04

Our first speakers for this season are the Reverend Weston D. Bailey and Annette Ahlers who will discuss the subtle energies and parapsychology of spirit influence and attachment. The phenomenon of spirit influence and attachment is commonly called "spirit possession." It is an important and difficult subject for research and scientific inquiry. Since historical research and literature is sparse, the concept of spirit influences and attachment continues to arouse fears and encourage superstitions. Over the past 35 years, Wes Bailey has developed an advanced process to identify, release and heal the condition of spirit attachments. The techniques of this process are gentle and loving, taking care of the needs and conditions of the attaching spirit as well as those of the host. The combination of Rev. Bailey's years of research and Annette's clairvoyant abilities has produced a wide range of practical knowledge about what opens the door to such influences; how spirits attach, what they attach to, and the influence they impose upon human consciousness including the transference of symptomology between the attaching spirit and the host.

Rev. Weston Bailey is a respected consultant and lecturer in the fields of parapsychology, metaphysics and subtle energies especially as they relate to healing and developing the human spirit. He is founder and president of the Foundation for Spiritual Science and Healing in Sacramento, CA. Annette Ahlers has a Master's degree in psychology and has worked as a special education teacher. Her highly developed clairvoyance enables her to see the etheric energetics as they impact the physical body, both positively and negatively, on each level of consciousness.

Updated July 6, 2006.