Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00273)

(Sorry about the wrong salutation in the previous post of this letter) 

Dear Paul,

My comments were based mostly on the scientific reviews and interpretations 
and conclusions made about the book by so called "peer reviewers" -- some 
negative, that pointed out the experimental flaws. I also found their 
interpretation mostly based on materialistic concepts that imply that 
consciousness and 
resultant mental concepts and psychic or spiritual tendencies are of a 
material 
causation -- that directly contradicts both theosophy and my personal 
conclusions based on the theory of ABC, and even some of the later DNA 
holographic wave 
field theories and corroborative experiments made by the Russian scientists. 

Although I don't doubt the possibility -- which most of these reductive 
scientists overlook -- that what is thought in the mind that leads to 
religious 
tendencies can, in fact, alter the genes expressed by the DNA. More or less 
agreeing with Buddha's statement that "everything we are is the result of wh
at we 
have thought." That idea of downward causation from higher fields also seems 
to agree with, besides theosophy, the morphogenetic field evolutionary theory 
of Sheldrake as well as similar conclusions of the DNA-wave theorists. 

Thus, the implication in Hamer's research conclusions that the DNA is the 
cause of these tendencies is highly misleading, and heavily biased toward 
proving 
materialism as the only reality -- i.e., matter as the primal cause. 
Although, his correlation's of particular genes with such tendencies is not 
in 
serious doubt. However, this is similar to the "neural correlates of 
consciousness" 
by the neuroscientists -- that also confuse the direction of causation 
between consciousness, mind and matter. 

That is why I compared his "God-gene" theory with the earlier correlative 
"scientologies" some of which have been discredited, but which may still have 
some superficial and simplistic correlative values.

However, I haven't read the book itself, and eagerly await whatever comments 
and conclusions you might find that may or may not consistent or correlate 
with theosophical science.

Best regards,

Leon


In a message dated 10/09/04 9:02:14 AM, kpauljohnson@y... writes:

>Dear Leon,
>
>Perhaps it's a failing of mine to enthuse about a book when I have 
>just started it, not waiting until it's digested and I can discuss 
>the thesis and evidence. So I'll post in detail next week after 
>finishing it. Halfway through now, I can strongly disagree with:
>
>--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, leonmaurer@a... wrote:
>
>> This (let's call it "geneticology":-) seems to fall into the same category 
as 
>> phrenology, iridology, astrology, chiromancy, psychoanalysis, etc. -- some 
>> of which became so popular around the time of HPB. 
>> 
>
>and allay your concern that Hamer is trying to:
>
>> scientifically explain all the inner workings of the human psyche -
>
>One tidbit that I find downright eerie is that studies of siblings 
>who vary on scores in the self-transcendence scale identifies a 
>particular genetic difference that strongly correlates. The more 
>spiritually-oriented sibling usually has a C in a sequence where the 
>less spiritually-oriented has an A.
>
>What's so weird and eerie about this is that Gurdjieff teaches about 
>three kinds of influences to which we can respond: Work influences 
>which uplift us, Life influences which blind us to spiritual 
>reality, and mixed influences. He calls Work influences C 
>influences and Life influences A influences, which corresponds 
>precisely to the names of the genetic difference Hamer finds between 
>siblings. Odd coincidence!
>
>(This was a by-product of research on cigarette smoking and 
>nonsmoking siblings, BTW.)
>
>More later,
>
>Paul