Sunday 30 May 2010

Transpersonal Psychology and Crisis Intervention (Part 1)

“I’m going to die”

She cried compulsively as she buried her head into my shoulder; trying to remember the details of what happened the day she left all her belongings behind in her house. I put my arms around her and kissed her head in silence.

“There was mud coming in everywhere. I saw the wall coming down.” I didn’t know what to do. I heard someone shouting out to me; telling me to run. I ran as fast as I could but I’m an old lady. I thought I was going to die. I managed to escape just in time. When I turned around. I saw my house begin to collapse. I’d been there 40 years. All my photos are gone. All my clothes are gone. I’ve got nothing left. Where am I going to live? I’ve worked all my life. What am I going to do? I get 250 euros a month. I can’t afford to rebuild a new house or buy a new place. What’s going to happen to me?” she said almost in one breath, in a flood of tears. I continued to hold her in silence.

“Maybe it was better if I’d died. Why did I live to see this?”

This is just one of the many heart-breaking accounts I’ve heard since the 21st February 2010 and just a couple of the many questions people asked.

Everyone and their family had a story: Dnª Joana, Dnª Rosa, Dnª Ana, Helena, Dnª Ana (Nº 2), Dnª Graça, Sr. José, Sr. João, Dnª Maria, Dnª Edoarda, Dnª Leonora, Dnª Rosa, Dnª Helena (Nº 2), Fam. Silva, Fam. Fernandes, Fam. Teixeira, Fam. Camacho, Dnª Maria (Nº 2), Dnª Albertina, Dnª Idalina and all the people who are not mentioned here because the list is too long. They all have an account to share in some way, and this is just a partial list of people who were made homeless and came to stay in the army barracks with us for a while.

In the field, out in the countryside, there are hundreds of thousands more accounts. In my estimation, it’s fair to say that there are probably as many accounts as people living on the island. Everyone was affected in some way.

Although it was internationally publicised, on the 20th February 2010, Madeira island was hit by a “freak storm” that flooded the capital city of Funchal, isolated the towns of Tabua and Curral das Freiras; caused immeasurable damage in Ribeira Brava and Serra D’Água and provoked severe landslides in other areas of the island like: Jardim da Serra, Trapicho, Monte, Santo Antonio, Santa Cruz and many more. The disaster was of proportions nobody could have foretold.

Many, within a matter of hours, lost everything they possessed. They were barely saved from their homes with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Many lost more than that. They lost their loved ones; a husband, a child, a son, a daughter, a father, a brother, a wife.

One young man lost his entire family; eight people gone within minutes. One man, seeing the mud coming and trying to protect his family, told his wife and child to run out of the car to what he thought would be safety, as they were trapped in a shopping mall car park, but they died and he survived. One family took refuge in another family’s house, thinking it would be safer from the mud; only to have a crane fall on the house and kill all nine people.

Shopping malls and underground car-parks were filled meters high with mud. Thousands of cars were destroyed in the streets. Hundreds of video clips and photos circulated on the Internet. These living memories, and images, are just some of the traumas facing the collective conscience of the people who live in Madeira and those who are watching abroad. They need to be overcome effectively for the Madeiran community to have half a chance of any kind of re-establishment of “normality of life” in the future.

It has already been noted that people are afraid to park in underground car-parks. I have also already spoken to people who refuse to shop in certain shopping malls because they feel they are graveyards. During one rainfall, a friend of mine called her partner 28 times. He didn’t reply. When he eventually did, they ended up having an argument. When she phoned me, she was fully aware that although she thought she hadn’t been affected, she was suffering with a form of post-storm trauma. Her compulsive telephoning behaviour was due to her preoccupation with his welfare during the downpour.

These are just a few examples. The worst repercussions, in my opinion, are yet to come. At present, we are entering summertime. The rain is subsiding. People are quickly trying to forget and avoid the memories. Nightclubs have registered an all time high alcoholic consumption. At Easter, an incredibly high number of Madeirans opted to leave the island for their Easter break.

At present, people are planning their holidays; talking about their suntan; thinking about their next vacation but nobody is really thinking about next winter and what will happen when the next storm strikes. I’m not saying the next storm will cause the same physical damage as this one did, but psychologically people will be affected.

Presently, people are using avoidance techniques to sidestep dealing with the real issues that underlie the fear that was instilled this last February. Yet, when next winter comes and we have torrential downpours, the memories and the fear will come back. Panic will set in.

The truth is, when we don’t know how to deal with something, we run away because it’s the easier option. Not having to face a trauma means not having to deal with the pain associated with it. Yet, in not facing pain of any kind, at a later date we find ourselves less in a position of being able to disassociate from that pain.

A natural part of any healing process is to recognise, feel and acknowledge pain, along with any memories, in order to disassociate the emotional attachment we have to them.

Personally, I’ve been working as a volunteer since the 21st February. I was brought on board as part of the psychological support team. Here in Madeira, I am the only person, to the best of my knowledge, who is a Transpersonal Psychologist with experience in Emergency and Crisis intervention and a solid background in the Transpersonal field.

During my time in the army barracks, I was also assigned to Caritas as co-ordinator for one of the main distribution depots in the army base; where the homeless were being received and temporarily housed.

When I got there, the depot was a mess. Clothes, shoes, and bedding were thrown in piles all over the floor. People were climbing all over them to get items. They were tossed and juggled. It was chaos and a mess. The people who had lost everything came in to get something and, understandably, started crying.

One by one, I escorted them out for a walk around the courtyard and gave them a defusing and debriefing session; all rolled into one. Yet, clearly I knew that wasn’t the only solution. When I went back into the depot, I kindly asked the other volunteers to transform the depot into a shop front.

My argument was: “The people who come to us for item have lost everything. They have, more than likely, never had to ask for anything in their lives. They are people with pride, honour and self-worth. We’re not going to take those qualities away from them as well. They probably see this as a bad thing. They probably feel like beggars. We need to restore their self-worth, their dignity and their pride. We need to make them feel like nothing bad has happened. By transforming this depot into something that looks like a shop, we can modify their concept of needing something from us. We can give them back something of their self-worth. If they have their self-worth, their pride and their dignity restored, they can start to rebuild their lives again. They can build a new beginning on that. If we take away that too, they have nothing left to build on.”

The volunteers understood and within a day, we had a shop front we renamed Zara RG3. RG3 is the name of the army barracks. From that time on, instead of crying when they came into the depot, people started asking if we had matching items. Some volunteers complained people were becoming a little too demanding and arrogant. Yet, it was better to see that little touch of arrogance than unrecoverable depression from which recovery could take years. If improperly treated, some people never even recover over an entire lifetime; which is sadly what happened with some of the soldiers who took part in the Falklands war whom I met, and who never received adequate post war counselling.

In fact, one such soldier, when I met him, had suicidal tendencies due to sever depression he couldn’t explain. He admitted he had had difficulties reintegrating back into society after the war. Yet, he couldn’t explain his depression. After talking to him for a while, we came to the conclusion, and agreed that his depression and suicidal tendencies were due to the fact that his conscience weighed heavy at having killed other human beings.

Killing was against his very nature. His philosophy of living was to preserve life and not take it. He had carried out orders as a member of the Forces but it contradicted everything he was “spiritually” programmed to believe in. This contradiction caused him severe inner subconscious distress. Once he learned forgiveness and to make peace between the material world; what was demanded of him under “exceptional circumstances” and the spiritual world; restoring his “spiritual state of being”, he was able to let go and start again.

In the RG3 army barracks, many tears were shed by the people who all lost something, many hugs were given and a lot of time was spent slowly, day after day, helping to rebuild confidence, trust and a vision that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the future will be brighter.

Each case was different and had to be treated in a different way.

For one woman, physical separation from her aunt meant emotional and affectionate separation. For her, that loss was traumatic; possibly worse than the loss of her house. It was the loss of her point of reference; her security, her comfort zone, her family nucleus and such a drastic change in life that she didn’t know how to face the future.

I met her when she came into the depot for a pair of shoes. She was looking through the boxes and found one of a pair that she liked, but she couldn’t find the other one. She was there compulsively looking for the other. Instantly, I recognised, the issue wasn’t the shoe. I casually approached and asked her to escort me for a walk. That’s when I discovered her aunt had been taken into an old people’s home when she’d been removed from their home.

I tried to explain that physical separation didn’t mean emotional separation but I could sense that my words were half falling on deaf ears; not through any fault of the lady’s nor as any criticism or judgement. When a person is suffering a trauma or a profound sense of distress, although all the senses are somewhat heightened, all cognitive processing capabilities are weakened. On a cognitive level, a person appears almost in a surreal or semi dreamlike state.

After the walk, I told her to go and relax somewhere and that we’d find the shoe. We did. When I gave her the pair, she clutched them as if they were gold dust. In an absurd kind of way, they became her new point of reference.

Meanwhile, a few days later, we found out in which old people’s home the lady’s aunt was. I, personally, drove the lady and her husband to the home so they could restore the bond with their aunt. After the visit, the lady, her husband were completely different people. The husband, who had barely spoken since he’d arrived at the barracks, didn’t stop talking. The lady was happy and talkative. That night, the shoes were stolen from her room in the army barracks but she didn’t care. She had restored her original point of reference. She had her family nucleus back and intact on a physical, mental and spiritual level.

Although this was the first time I had held an “official” emergency and crisis intervention post, this was not the first time I had been involved in situations where I was able to apply Transpersonal techniques and further study transpersonal approaches and their efficacy in Crisis and Emergency Intervention.

In 1996, I unofficially devised and studied the efficacy of transpersonal defusing and debriefing techniques with hotel clients and English speaking Cypriot citizens who endured the 6.8 earthquake that was followed by a hail stone storm, of great magnitude, the following day.

In 1997, in Cyprus, once again we lived in a state of Emergency as we became under direct threat of war with Turkey. Since Cyprus has no real army to speak of, my colleagues (the barmen) kept machine guns, hand grenades and gas masks on standby behind the bar; in case of attack. Early in the mornings, we would awake to the sound of Turkish jet fighters being chased by Greek ones.

Once again, it became an opportunity for me to unofficially test my own Transpersonal debriefing techniques. For a while, we all lived with the impending uncertainty of life or death. It was also a time when I re-evaluated my own personal beliefs and my own perspective on life.

In 1998, I unofficially experimented these Transpersonal techniques on US seals in Oman who had been employed in the Gulf war and were suffering post war trauma. The classical symptoms were nightmares, feelings of persecution, paranoias about their personal safety, avoidance and denial.

Furthermore, in 1998,1999 and the year 2000, I unofficially tested my theories further about transpersonal techniques and their intervention efficacy with US, Arabic and British Forces in Bahrain and Dubai, pre and post gulf assignments.

Prior to these dates, in 1995, I had worked on Forces bases in Germany in Minden, Osnabrück, Monchengladbach and Gütersloh. It was there, with the constant bomb checks and other safety procedures that I started to wonder what psychological repercussions arise in a person.

Using myself as a study subject, I slowly noticed how my awareness grew and my habitual carefree patterns of life and living began to change. I started taking my safety less for granted and from a psychological point of view; fear had crept in. My behaviour was changing by mere suggestion of what could be and not by what “actually” was.

Yet, my love for psychology really emerged from being a professional entertainer. As I performed night after night, my curiosity arose from how music had the ability to manipulate people’s moods and emotions and completely change the atmosphere in a venue; sometimes effortlessly and sometimes with a great deal of effort. So, in 1993 I embarked on my Psychology degree.

Yet, I was consciously aware that not all entertainers have the same ability to make this change in people nor touch the inner being of people in the same way. When I completed my degree, I still couldn’t find an explanation for this occurrence in conventional psychology and that’s when I realised its limitations and turned to the transpersonal approach.

In 2001, I tested my theories a little further about psychological transpersonal techniques and interconnectivity in Shanghai, China: 1) In cases of child/adult abuse and with young girls forced into prostitution as a means of survival, and 2) with police officers when I was arrested in the airport and spent a considerable amount of time in the chief of police’s office. The outcome was I made new friends in unimaginable places under unthinkable circumstances.

All my tests and experiments were unofficial, unwitting and for my own satisfaction. They were never officially recorded anywhere nor were they officially declared to any presiding psychological society. Yet, with a little push from a couple of very nice colleagues here in Madeira, I feel that the time is now right to start bringing my research out into the open little by little, making it official and perhaps make a little bit of a difference to someone somewhere; even if that be by helping another psychologist to help a client/patient.

The transpersonal models I have created are guidelines for swift simultaneous “attachment and detachment” methods in order to create instant bonds and safe environments between people in moments of Emergency and Crisis Intervention.

Until 2008, I didn’t even know the techniques I was using were determined “Transpersonal”. It was only when I came to study with Atlantic University that I was finally able to assign the label “Transpersonal” to the methods I’d been using. Until then, I’d just entitled them “Humanistic” psychological approaches.

Since 2007, I have been healing people online and offline using an integrative methods of Transpersonal Psychology and Natural Medicine. There are testimonials on my website. www.venerinaconti.com

In 2009, while debating whether I should continue with my Doctorate in Natural Medicine, pursue a Doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology, or start from the beginning and pursue a degree in Medicine, I visited Nepal. While I was there, I volunteered in a Tibetan Nunnery Clinic. I also visited a Tibetan refugee camp. It was there that I finally found self confidence in the craft I had turned into an art form - I finally realised my methods of Transpersonal approaches are completely cross-cultural.

Reflecting back on this, I can only award this very important factor to having worked with, interacted with, learnt from and assimilated something from all the people I have met in life. For that I am truly grateful. They were people literally from all over the world. I have lived among, worked with or met and learnt something from someone from just about every country on this planet.

They are people of all ages, from all walks of life, all socio-economical backgrounds, all traditions, cultures, beliefs and religions; and they have all left me with a new piece of knowledge.

I’ve always been of the opinion that conventional psychology is limiting. I wrote an article about the Psychology of Past lives and Reincarnation where I explicitly state the need for a more integrative approach to psychological intervention that falls outside the outdated models currently being used.

Now, as I sit and reflect upon the flood events in Madeira and my previous experience, I am resolute in my opinion that Clinical Psychology needs a shake up. If Psychologists of the future are to offer better services to their clients/patients then they need to have a more holistic training, more complete tools and a better approach; one that integrates mind, body and soul.

I believe that in situations like emergency and crisis, the least “clinically” said, the better. People just need to be heard, comforted and reassured. Emotional distresses need to defused and/or debriefed but not in a clinical way.

Formal clinical training is an essential part of training for psychologists, but there are no clinical models that can help in an emergency situation, and every human being will react and respond in a different way. It’s all a question of trial and error. What works with one person may not necessarily work with another. Assumptions should never be made and parrot fashion text book style approaches are useless.

One mistake many psychologists make, in an emergency and crisis situation, is saying: “I understand,” at the end of a “trauma” person’s sentence.

Unless we truly go through what people in this situation have been through, we cannot begin to understand. So, there is nothing we can inwardly draw upon to even begin to understand. A simple statement like this can make matters worse. It’s better to be honest and say: “I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through but ....” and offer reassurance or comfort.
Honesty is a must. If you are dishonest, trust will be broken and the person who has just lost everything will fall further into depression and harbour feelings of resentment; not just against you but also against fellow colleagues in support positions.

As psychologists working with Transpersonal methods, we need to learn to respect all beliefs, traditions and religious faiths. This is easier for me, since, as a Buddhist, part of our philosophy is just that.

One day, as I was walking through the dining hall, two women stopped me and asked me why God punished the “more humble” by destroying their houses; making them homeless and apparently never took anything away from the rich. My first question was: “Do you both believe in God?” They replied: “Yes.” So, I said: “Do you have faith in him?” “We don’t want to lose our faith” They replied.

So, I sat with them and began to explain the reasons Funchal flooded. I began to explain the physics of river length versus depth and width. I began to show them the potential architectural structural differences between the houses that were destroyed and those that weren’t. I made them think about geographic choice of locations for more humble abodes versus more upper market properties. I offered them scientific data for climatic changes and so on, until one of them said: “So, really it has nothing to do with God punishing anyone.” I simply smiled at her.

Then, the other lady hit with a question I wasn’t expecting. She said: “What about the people who died?” My reply was honest, I said: “I don’t know. I know it’s not a punishment because God is a God of love. Maybe, with all the disasters everywhere in the world at the moment, God can’t help us and protect us all at the same time. So, maybe he needed some extra Angels to help him watch over us from up there.”

In situations of Emergency and Crisis Intervention, a psychologist (or any individual in a support position) needs to be able to:

Attach and Detach simultaneously.
Show compassion and kindness.
Respect spiritual, traditional and cultural differences.
Be calm within themselves to project and instill calmness in others.
Be empathetic and sympathetic but not patronising.
Recognise their own limitations.
Be honest and open hearted.
Practice, teach and offer integrative alternatives to conventional methods of psychological treatment.
Recognise each case as an individual case.

Anyone, regardless of whether you’re a psychologist or not, can apply these few principles when helping someone to overcome a difficult situation in their life.

Sunday 16 May 2010

Tears reflected in someone else's eyes

Someone once wrote that God never gives us more pain than we can handle. I guess what is meant by that phrase is that, as human beings, we are so resilient, we adapt to our circumstances. We take the pain and we learn to deal with it in the best possible way. We may even learn from it and eventually start to slowly move forward again; recomposing the pieces in this jigsaw we call life - growing a little stronger each day.

We may be undoubtedly left with scars, some emotional, others psychological or physical but they serve as a living testimony to our strength in overcoming each challenge we found along our path. They’re a reminder of what was; a souvenir we gained from the challenges we faced and are almost like a sign of bravery for every hurdle we managed to overcome and survive.

The healing process for each pain is different and differs from individual to individual. There are those who need to share their pain by being surrounded by others who care. There are those who need to retreat into quiet solitude with their own inner being and there are those who need a little of both.

There are those who look for answers in signs and small miracles and there are those who never question anything at all. They just accept everything as a coincidental part of living. There are some who never heal at all from their pain. There are some who only partially heal and there are those for whom wounds just keep reopening.

Whichever the case, it would seem that pain, whatever kind, always leaves a void; a little hollow space where the depth of the sheer emptiness is such that it feels like a big black hole from outer space slowly taking over - engulfing us with all its almighty dark expanse. Most of the time, we may feel like nobody understands our pain. Yet, in all honesty, we probably never truly understand the personal consequences of the pain of others.

We can sympathise and we can empathise with each other but our pain is just that - ours. Even when we go through the same experiences, we all relate to them in different ways. Our processing means, rates and abilities are all different, our sensitivities are different and our emotional make-ups are different because the experiences we have and the lessons we’ve learnt in life have all been taken in differently.

Therefore our responses to pain and our healing processes are very different and as unique to us as our personalities. We all have different coping strategies in place that are the product of our life’s journey and what we’ve encountered along the way.

Yet, we all probably share one common trait when it comes to pain. Just as we think our suffering couldn’t get any worse, something happens to trigger the healing process. A sign arrives, a friend says something, someone hugs us, or one day we may just see our own tears reflected back at us in someone else’s eyes.

Suddenly, the darkness is banished by resplendent light and clarity. The void is replaced with sheer beauty and we feel that graceful, gentle, loving touch of another human being’s soul. There is no transpersonal connection or communication that is purer, more beautiful or more satisfying to the very inner being of who we really are.

That’s when the healing process begins and we silently, but consciously, know it. That’s when we know we can get through whatever it is we’re going through.

So maybe, in relation to: "God never gives us more pain that we can handle" - perhaps it more appropriate to say that when God thinks we're on the verge of not being able to handle it, he sends us someone or something to bail us out, to replenish our souls and lay a healing hand on us.

Sunday 18 April 2010

Natural Disasters and Nuclear Testing

Far be it from me to be a conspiracy theorist or even one to listen to conspiracy theories. Yet, last year in Nepal I met a very interesting man who, at his own request and for his own safety, shall remain anonymous. He told me that in former years he worked for the US government on top secret projects. At first, I thought he might just be another crack pot conspiracy theorist who’d spent too much time smoking something during the sixties.

Yet, in light of all the recent disasters taking place on a worldwide scale, the stories he told me are beginning to resonate somewhere down in the depth of my inner core. They’re stories that motivated me to question, research and investigate everything around me.

His stories were so vast and so far reaching that I didn’t even know where to begin. The truth of the matter is that, stories, by general consensus, are usually and generally considered fiction. In this particular case, his stories sparked my curiosity and my research findings are beginning to witness fiction as reality.

I now see what I thought was a crackpot conspiracy theorist account of governments and politics being reenacted in the very theatre we call “home” - “our world” - “our planet.” I find myself questioning if I have become yet another crackpot conspiracy theorist, or just someone who is touching on half of the truth we never hear because “the people behind the power” don’t want us to know and well, since we’re so wrapped up on our daily lives, we never really go looking for it.

Since January 2010, there have been earthquakes in Haiti, the Obi islands, Pico Rivera (Mexico - Near California), Turkey, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and the Tibetan autonomous Region of Kyedudo. There have been flooding and mudslides in Sicily, Brasil, Madeira, Uganda and Eastern India, avalanches in Kohistan, British Colombia and Salang; not to mention the volcanic eruption in Iceland or the unusual climatic conditions the world has seen this year; particularly in Europe.

Is this all mother nature? Are all these events truly the result of natural disasters? Or, has Mother Nature had a helping hand?

We’ve all heard the theories and conspiracy theories about 2012 being the end of the world. Everywhere you look on the Internet, in book stores, on TV documentary channels there’s someone willing to tell you about the apocalypse coming our way. There’s the theory of planet X; otherwise known as Nibiru. There’s the theory of the planets’ alignment. There’s yet another theory of the dawning of the new age of Aquarius, which is linked to the expiration of the Mayan calendar. Nearly everyone who is anyone, or who is someone seeking fortune and fame, has a theory about how the world will come to an end in 2012.

I say quite blatantly and forgive my language if you’re a prude but, “Bullshit.”

Not one theory around today can be proven to be correct nor does any one of them hold up under scientific scrutiny. In my opinion, all the theories out there are quite simply an attempt to shock people, create sensationalism, disseminate fear and control people’s minds, which ultimately, wittingly and/or unwittingly, gives power and control over their behaviour.

We saw the same thing happen with the advent of the year 2000 when everyone said the world was going to end. Everyone was psychologically affected in some way by the Y2K syndrome. Everyone feared something. At the extreme end of the scale, people even died. Some committed suicide. Some religious sects used the Y2K as an excuse to purge people of their entire belongings.

Fear: - Such a small word with such huge consequences. It makes people behave in irrational ways. People filled with fear are people who are easy to control, manipulate and command at will. People who are filled with fear usually obey without a doubt because they forget to reason. Fear invades all rational cognitive processing power. Systems shut down and, like sheep, fear filled people do whatever is demanded of them; no questions asked.

So, perhaps I should reformulate my original question and ask whether Mother Nature has a helping hand in all these Natural disasters to disseminate fear? Or, perhaps the question should be: “Does someone somewhere want us to believe that the end of the world is really coming, by helping to cause these natural disasters?”

I don’t believe in a revengeful God. I’ve been closely monitoring climate changes for a few years now and I don’t believe they are so severe to cause everything that has happened in the last 3 and a half months.

However, something else I have been tracking has lead me to believe there is a new possible and very viable explanation for what has been happening lately: - Nuclear testing.

Many people aren’t aware of this but in 1963, in Moscow, a treaty was signed to ban all nuclear testing unless it was conducted underground. Between 1958 and 1962, the USSR and the US had already conducted at least a dozen nuclear tests in the earth’s upper atmosphere.

In 1996, seventy one nations signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which meant they banned testing in their own territories. However, since the last world war there have been 2000 or more nuclear tests above and below the surface; but predominantly under water.

I quote: -

Since the first nuclear weapons were exploded at the end of the Second World War, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been carried out predominantly by the five “declared” Nuclear Weapons States, China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the former USSR. More than 500 of these were ‘atmospheric tests’ conducted above ground mostly in the ‘50s and ‘60s, after which more than 1,500 were carried out underground....

.... Between 1966 and 1974, France conducted nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere at the atolls, including 41 nuclear tests and five “safety trials”....

end quote -

Am I missing something here? I thought the treaty banned testing in the atmosphere! If France was in breach of the treaty, then, how many other countries were too?

Even if we wish to overlook this fact, there is one fact we cannot turn a blind eye to. Every nuclear detonation, whether conducted underground (on surface terrain) or under the sea is sufficiently devastating enough to cause of an earthquake. The strength of the earthquake will depend on the strength of the nuclear charge detonated. Worst of all, the earth tremour can be felt for distances up to thousands of miles away from the detonation point.

I quote: -

.... in 1997--that Russia, despite its commitments, conducted a test at Novaya Zemlya. Thus, on August 16, 1997 a seismic signal from the vicinity of Novaya Zemlya registered at 3.2 on the Richter scale--consistent with a very small blast of between 0.1 and 1.0 kiloton, which might indicate scaled-down tests of a warhead primary.

end quote -

My questions here are multiple. As scientists know so much about tectonic plates and seismic fault lines, and as most nuclear scientists are paid by governments, could it be that some earthquakes don’t “JUST” happen?

I’ve posted a link in the resources to a map that pinpoints all the nuclear test sites till 2008, or does it? I mean, we can really only believe half of what we’re told and assume the other half is classified or really not true at all. And, where are the nuclear test reports from 2008 till 2010? More to the point, where are the test sites and why aren’t we being informed about them?

With so much mystery, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of a nuclear charge detonation it would take to cause an Earthquake in Haiti or Obi islands or Tibet? I’m also wondering just how much influence nuclear atmospheric testing has on climate change around the globe?
We know from the tests carried out in French Polynesia that nuclear testing can provoke flooding and landslides. The extent of the damage caused will depend on the amount of radiation exposure from the charge detonated.

I’m not looking at this from a conspiracy point of view but from an economical point of view. Who stands to gain from all these earthquakes?

Will all these disasters serve as a means to reduce the population count? Are they intended to make us live in fear? Will they bring economic growth to the countries or regions that have been affected? After all, money is now travelling from country to country as financial aid is being sent here, there and everywhere.

Or, are they just another way for the few powerful rulers to grow and control even more. Just who stands to gain the most? Pharmaceutical companies, for sure, will benefit more than ever from sales of medicine on a global scale; where their H1N1 vaccine failed. Construction companies will be required to re-build properties. Banks will get a kick-start from interest rates on loans. Economies will change.

A friend of mine quoted a line from a movie to me recently. The line is: “Are you really that naive to think that we live in a democratic world?” - Of course, I don’t believe we do. The true essence of Democracy exists solely for debate among philosophers and Platonic idealists.

However, the very question made me stop and think about whether or not I’m naive enough to believe that all these natural disasters really are natural.

Resources and further reading:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/mururoabook.html
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB200/index.htm
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Testsite.shtml
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php%3FNumber%3D34290&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=websearch

Friday 16 April 2010

URGENT EMERGENCY APPEAL - Kyekudo (Yushu) Earthquake

- From the Tibet Foundation -

http://www.tibet-foundation.org/news/urgent_emergency_appeal_-_kyekudo_yushu_earthquake/

You may have already heard the sad news of the devastating earthquake (a 6.9 magnitude) this morning at 07.49 (23.49 GMT) in Yushu (Kyedudo in Tibetan) in the northwest Province of Qinghai. This news has been widely broadcast on Chinese television and by the BBC.

Yushu County is 800km (500 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Xining. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region in the west and Kandze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the east.

Having worked in this region in the past, Tibet Foundation is familiar with the area and is already in contact with local people and local authorities. Ninety percent of the population there is ethnic Tibetan. The area is one of the poorest and remotest regions in the country with very inadequate communication and infrastructure.

The powerful tremor struck around 8 am local time followed by several other quakes, destroying or damaging almost all the houses, also school buildings, medical clinics and hospitals in the county capital, Kyekudo. Information regarding nearby areas is not available at the moment due to landslides and the breakdown of telecommunications. The official report of casualties states that some 400 are dead and thousands more injured. The unofficial and unconfirmed news from local people is three times greater than this.

The Chinese government has a good record of responding efficiently to such emergencies. The government and the Chinese Red Cross have already sent officials to assess the situation. Due to the remoteness of the region and poor infrastructure it could be a very challenging task.

We are directly in touch with some local people and local officers, and the Foundation representative in the nearby Kandze Prefecture is coordinating our assessment of the situation. Your help is most urgently needed for the Tibetans in the region. Whatever support you can give towards immediate assistance for medicine, clothing and food, and also long-term support for rebuilding schools and health clinics, would be very much appreciated. All funds raised by Tibet Foundation will go immediately to the people in need with no intermediary agencies.

Please, we urgently request you to help the Tibetans in Kyekudo affected by this devastating earthquake. We assure you that whatever amount you can offer, however large or small, will go directly to assisting the people in Kyekudo.

Donations

Either:

Send your cheque made payable to Tibet Foundation (Yushu Earthquake) to Tibet Foundation, 2. St. James’s Market, London, SW1Y 4SB, UK

http://www.tibet-foundation.org/news/urgent_emergency_appeal_-_kyekudo_yushu_earthquake/

The Earthquake in Tibet Appeal

Earthquake in Tibet: Emergency Appeal
Please help Tibetans in the quake area, donate to Tibet Relief Fund's emergency Yushu Appeal here

14 April: An earthquake has devastated the Tibetan county of Yushu, in a remote mountainous area of Qinghai province on the border of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Initial news reports indicated at least 300 people have been killed with more than 8,000 injured. It is now feared the final death toll could be more than 2,000.

Click here to Donate to an official Body - The Tibet Relief Fund

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Are Pharmaceutical Companies all about the money?

I am sorry for the delay in getting this next article out for everyone but I’ve been busy volunteering on the island of Madeira since the freak flood of the 20th February.

On my last post, about the adverse effects of a vaccine called Gardasil, a friend of mine in Facebook, posed a very good question. He asked if the motive behind pharmaceutical companies injecting people with vaccines that are potentially harmful to human beings, or that haven’t been sufficiently tested under clinical conditions, was purely monetary.

My immediate response was to say yes. Money equals power. Power equals control. Control is the basis all politics and all governments are founded on.

Personally, I see pharmaceutical companies making billions and billions of dollars a year in profits from people’s malaise; no longer with the good intentions of helping people, but by actually being a part of the cause; in order to guarantee “long term” sales of their products. The way I see it is, it’s not in Pharmaceutical companies’ nor Governments’ best interest to have entire populations of healthy individuals. Why?

Well, there are actually a lot of factors at play here in a chain of events that are all related and interconnected with one another.

Governments (Politicians)

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Pharmaceutical Companies

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Health officials (Including all Health establishments)

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Universities
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Work Places

Working from the highest to the lowest, at the top of the food chain, we have governments who profit the most from our illnesses. They gain money from the pharmaceutical companies by way of campaign donations (at least in the USA.) They gain money by way of taxes - ours, the pharmaceutical companies and those of their employees - and they gain money via health insurance policies or national health contributions.

Second in the chain, and just under governments, are the pharmaceutical companies who, as we all know, make enormous profits from our discomforts. The more we have wrong with us, the more products they can potentially sell us.

Underneath them, I’ve put Health officials including all health establishments, because they are next in the food chain. They are usually our first point of contact when we’re not feeling well. Naturally, we go to our doctor or we end up in hospital. However, as I mentioned in my last report, in a lot of countries doctors and health establishments get kick backs (commissions) from pharmaceutical companies for prescribing their drugs.

Underneath Health officials I’ve put Universities. It’s natural that, the more patients there are in the world, the greater the demand is for health officials. Education and training are of the essence. We also need to remember that universities are responsible for a great deal of research that takes place. Hence, universities stand to financially gain from illness as well.

A lot of university research is either government funded or funded by pharmaceutical companies, but since one is in bed with the other (so to speak) it’s hard to tell where the money is ultimately coming from.

However, there is a a reverse side to every coin. The reality is, there aren’t enough placements at universities to cater for everyone. So, in a twisted way, it’s actually convenient to have fewer candidates. This leads me into the next category on the chain: the workforce.

With a third (or whatever percentage it may be) of the population unable to work, present employees can continue to work for a longer number of years. The retirement age has already being extended; at least in some countries.

On another level, it also means the status quo of things doesn’t have to be altered. This is greatly beneficial for those who are in high power jobs or in Scale A jobs; higher up the Socio-political Economical chain. Potentially, they can’t be challenged or so they think. The key players are in place and will continue to be there until they have had sufficient time to train a whole new team to replace themselves accordingly.

You may be thinking that it costs governments more to have someone unemployed, but does it? Some countries pay sick benefits or unemployment benefits and other don’t. Whatever they do pay, if they pay, is recovered in many ways as explained above.

Since there are a lack of jobs around the world, at this present time, it seems very convenient to have a percentage of people unemployed through some form of illness; especially certain age groups. Furthermore, since the world economy has slowed down considerably over the last couple of years, it also seems very convenient to give it a boost through extra worldwide sales of pharmaceutics.

However, since the EU parliamentary commission did take the pharmaceutical companies to court over the H1N1 vaccine, we might assume here that not all countries were behind the swine flu vaccine scam.

However, there could be two underlying reasons why, at least Merck, are desperate to sell their vaccines. In 2009, it was announced - I quote -

Merck and the Wellcome Trust will initially put up equal cash contributions — a total of $130 million over the next seven years.

Other funding could come from grants for specific projects, donations from governments and charities, or investments and licensing fees from for-profit pharmaceutical or biotech companies, said Merck spokeswoman Amy Rose. - End quote -
These funds have to come from somewhere.

This leads me to a very interesting fact that I came across on the Internet; donation records from Merck’s CEO to the Republican Senatorial and Congressional campaigns between 2006 and 2008.

Merck, Pfizer Inc and Sanofi Aventis US, three major names in Pharmaceuticals, still Patron Mary Pallin and her Gala events, as well as various other Republican events. It’s funny to also note how Merck’s income from US federal contracts has sky-rocketed since their contributions to the republican campaigns. You can see for yourself by following the link provided in the resources and further reading section.

I think it would be safe to assume and draw the conclusion here that, on the basis of these facts, both the US Senate and Congress, therefore, fully condone pharmaceutical companies’ actions.



My friend (on Facebook) also wondered if there was some darker, deeper, sinister element at play; like trying to wipe out half the world’s population. I’m less likely inclined to believe that. It’s far more profitable to make people suffer, on a long term basis, than to have them (putting it bluntly) die in the short term. Although, this too may have some advantages.

Let’s explore this in a little more detail:

Most vaccine manufacturers use substances like: Polysorbate 80 (also known as Tween 80) - As I’ve already explained, and it’s a well documented fact, it’s an infertility substance. Governments know this. The FDA knows this. We can, therefore, assume that its use in vaccines could be threefold:

To control the population count. As we have all heard, the world is getting over-crowded. So, somebody somewhere has decided we need to slow our growth down a bit. Instead of enforcing a child number policy per family, (like China or Tibet), which, let’s face it, most countries wouldn’t accept, governments happily let us be injected with something that might help solve the problem quietly. That way, there’s no need for social reform, no new legislations, no referendums, no social unrest and well, what the public doesn’t know can’t hurt them.

To subsequently provide future fertility treatments to infertile couples who want to have a child. As I mentioned in an earlier article, at between 2,000 to 5,000 US dollars per treatment, the pharmaceutical companies stand to gain tremendous wealth. If we examine it a little closer, it’s also another way of controlling the population count. Since it is such an expensive treatment, and not always successful, many couples wouldn’t be able to afford it. So, eventually, just the act of having a child would become a luxury for those who are financially better off.

To ensure that some of the millions of orphans around the globe find parents willing to adopt them. That’s not such a bad thing, right? Except that, most major adoption agencies are government organisations (or affiliates thereof,) and if they’re not, you can rest assured governments around the world are trying to shut them down. So, from a cynical point of view, is this another way of redirecting more money into government funds? - Also, adoptions come with a high price tag. So, one has to question whether even adopting a child is, or will solely be, for the financially privileged. Are children really being thought of, or would this just be another form of legalised human commerce?

A lot of pharmaceutical companies are using substances like Mercury, Thimerosal, Aluminum and its derivatives. None of these have ever been proven safe for human

With the ever increasing number of people getting better health education and turning to alternative methods of Health Management, such as: Naturopathy, Homeopathy, Holistic Nutrition, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Tibetan Medicine, Aromatherapy and an in-exhaustive list too great to mention here, it’s fair to say the pharmaceutical market suffered losses.

These same pharmaceutical companies have tried to ban natural supplements on a worldwide scale. They have tried to shut down, discredit and ban natural health remedies and all kinds of Natural Health Specialists. We should be asking the question; why?

If this doesn’t prove that it’s all about the money and the politics; nothing does. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. I am not showing you anything that isn’t public intellectual property and readily available out there.



Resources and further reading:

http://littlesis.org/person/2473/Richard_T_Clark
http://www.merck.com/about/leadership/board-of-directors/home.html
http://www.womenspolicy.org/site/DocServer/WPI_Gala_invite_2010.pdf?docID=2921
http://www.fedspending.org/fpds/fpds.php?database=fpds&reptype=r&detail=-1&sortby=a&datype=T&parent_id=227272&sum_expand=P
http://blog.taragana.com/health/2009/09/17/drugmaker-merck-british-research-charity-to-develop-vaccines-for-diseases-in-poor-countries-12084/