Paul Kieniewicz

By Paul Kieniewicz “I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen, are not respected, 5G or not. The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt.” – Céline Fremault, Minister of the Government (Brussels-Captial Region), responsible for Housing, ...

by Paul Kieniewicz How would you like to be instantly connected to high speed broadband — so that you wouldn’t need your home WiFi? So that your car, appliance would have contact with an internet hub at all times? Videos on demand, without buffering problems,  no matter where you are on Earth? To some extent we already ...

One of the main objections raised against the existence of paranormal phenomena is the lack of a scientific mechanism to explain how they happen. Several scientists have proposed that the carriers are electromagnetic waves, perhaps ultra-low frequency waves. In a recent review article that examines this question, Craig Weiler recounts a 1977 remote viewing experiment ...

  These days, there’s no shortage of scientific optimism, that this or that problem, even though it cannot be solved today will one day be solved. One day we will understand the nature of consciousness and, yes, it will be shown to be material in origin. One day we’ll prove why the universe contains something rather ...

The Bristol Group continues its regular meetings on the second Wednesday of the month at Sally Lawson`s starting at 8 pm prompt and ending at 10 pm. The format is one based on dialogue, starting the process with a 5 minute meditation. Any members wishing to find out more should contact either of its local co-ordinators, ...

Is quantum entanglement real? When two photons are created at the same time, and then separated over some distance, are they still mysteriously in touch with each other, so that what one photon does affects what the other photon does — instantaneously? The concept was first quantified by Bell in his 1964 paper, and known as ...

One of the today’s unanswered questions in developmental biology, is what causes an organism to grow from an egg and acquire the form that it does. The study of how living forms develop and acquire their final shapes occupied much of Goethe’s life, and inspired his theory of forms.  Since the discovery of the DNA ...

The policies and direction of the SMN, are the responsibility of a Board of up to twelve Directors. The directors are chosen by being recommended by subscription members of the SMN at their members AGM, which takes place at the Annual Gathering in July. The Board then ratifies new directors. Board meetings are also attended ...

  By Paul Kieniewicz Back in the 1960’s, the Polish Science Fiction writer, Stanisław Lem wrote a short story about robots. A rocket along with its calculator lands on an uninhabited  planet and subsequently spawns a race of robots. The robots (who call themselves Magnificans), build an entire city along with theatre and music ensembles. Along with ...

The debate on the nature and origin of consciousness has lately taken an unexpected turn. Rather than restricting consciousness to the human species, the new theories such as Integrated Information Consciousness (IIC) are expanding the notion of consciousness to many material entities, non-biological included. After a long detour into the material and away from anything ...

Preposterous (def. Collins dictionary) adjective contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous. “a preposterous suggestion”           Synonym absurd, ridiculous, foolish, stupid, ludicrous, farcical, laughable, comical, risible, etc. The Latin origin of the word implies putting “the cart before the horse”.  That the future (pre) can precede the past (post). That causality is violated. We philosophise about causality ...

We’re all used to hearing that a course in yoga and meditation can make you feel better. Help you cope with stress. Now a new study headed by Helen Lavretsky of UCLA and published in the May edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Research indicates yoga and meditation may also forestall the cognitive impairment that ...

19th November 2016 – Colet House In partnership with The Study Society Speakers David Lorimer Dr Peter Fenwick Diana Clift Maggie La Tourelle Anne Geraghty Elizabeth Fenwick Chris Johnson Beata Bishop Sue Bayliss Paul Kieniewicz Zelda Hall Natalie Tobert Event details

By Paul Kieniewicz So, we may one day all be replaced by intelligent machines. One day, given enough computational power, machines will become self-aware. According to some AI researchers, some machines already have a measure of self-awareness. Of consciousness. And then, there’s the fabled Singularity, when the machine surpasses the human being and becomes a truly ...

These days there’s no shortage of conspiracy theories. Many people still believe that the moon landings were faked, that climate change is a hoax, nuclear power is available at low temperatures or that the 9/11 attacks were staged by the US military. While some conspiracy theories do end up being true — the Prism project ...

Reflections on other modalities of consciousness By Paul Kieniewicz Looking ahead to Chris Bache’s upcoming book, Diamonds from Heaven (see link to interview),  I decided to read his classic, Dark night Early Dawn. This is a book about other modalities of consciousness than those we typically experience in our daily lives. What makes the book so interesting ...

Depth Psychology has never had it easy. Most articles in New Scientist and other scientific journals denounce psychoanalysis as pseudoscience, a collection of disproved and discredited techniques for curing mental illness. At worst, a scam. A long review article by Oliver Burkeman recently published in the Guardian takes a different view that psychoanalysis (the author focuses on ...

Editorial by Paul Kieniewicz Anyone visiting their child’s classroom today will be impressed at how the computer, and other digital media have established themselves as teaching / learning tools. A recent New York Times article, How Google Took over the Classroom, relates how much of this advance is driven by a war between Microsoft and Google ...

By Paul Kieniewicz (SMN) Sunflowers follow the movements of the sun. At nightfall some flowers close up their petals. Some legumes also show sleep movements. That some plants move with the circadian cycle is well-known. What about trees? It now appears that certain trees lower and raise their branches, not only at nightfall or sunrise, but ...

Do dolphins have language skills similar to ours? Do the vocalizations of bottlenose dolphins mean anything? Are the dolphins conveying useful information or just having a good time? While primates such as chimpanzees can be taught sign language, there is a great deal of scepticism as to whether they are using language that has a ...

By Paul Kieniewicz The SMN Galileo Project was in part launched because of the observation that many areas of research, particularly concerning paranormal effects are still off limits in academia. Mainstream science journals, both professional and popular avoid reporting such research as a matter of policy, unless the research demonstrates that such effects do not exist. ...

Gaia and Natural Selection – A new perspective By Paul Kieniewicz   The observation that for over 3 billion years the Earth’s average temperature has remained within a narrow range, while the sun’s temperature has increased by 20 % required an explanation. The Gaia Theory, of James Lovelock and Lynn Margullis proposed that living processes acted in such ...

By Paul Kieniewicz A common argument voiced in the media and by many global warming sceptics, is that even if global warming is real, if human sourced carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of it, then the process has gone far beyond the point of no return. Whatever we do now to control our greenhouse gas ...

Would you like to donate your head to science along with your other organs?  Or have a head transplant because you don’t like the shape of the rest of your body? Is that a head transplant or a body transplant? The question is by no means academic nor whimsical.  According to the Daily Mail, Valery ...

There is a long tradition of people seeing holy men or women surrounded by light. St. Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avilla are two such figures. Some meditation techniques focus on sending light to others, or to nature. Are there observable changes in brain activity during such meditations? A recent neurological study by Peter Fenwick, ...

By Paul Kieniewicz (SMN) A curious synchronicity hit me the other day. I had a lengthy discussion with my son in law about octopuses. According to a book he was recommending, octopuses have a highly specialized brain that has a totally different structure from the brains of vertebrates. This could be evidence that a central nervous ...

Paul Kieniewicz, BSc and MA (Astronomy): UCLA, MSc (Geophysics): UC Santa Barbara , speaks several languages and has taught courses in astronomy, geology, philosophy and the Gaia Theory. He lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 3 acres which he is transforming into a bio-diverse garden. He is the co-author (with Andrew Glazewski) of ‘Harmony of the ...

June 2015. Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, “Laudato Si” is likely to go down as one of the most significant documents published in our time. No other is likely to have comparable impact on our society.  Most important, it is more than a document. This is church teaching that may reach far into societies that are ...

The 2019 Templeton prize has been awarded to Marcelo Gleiser, a theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College. Gleiser’s research is in Cosmology, and the origin of life. He is the author of several popular books that deal with the relationship of science to religion and philosophy. In a recent interview with Lee Billings of Scientific American, ...

Editorial – Paul Filmore Articles Schrödinger’s One Mind and its Relevance to Religion and Healing – Larry Dossey Educating for Gaia – Stephan Harding Science and Religion Interview – with Ravi Ravindra Three Levels of Awakening – Vera Helleman Researching Experiences of the Limitless – Dr. Stephen Fulder Homo Ludens from a Primal Health Research Perspective – Michel Odent Head Light:  Taking the ...

Are we closer to understanding the nature of consciousness than we were twenty years ago? Ever since Chalmers posed ‘the hard problem’ of consciousness, of why sentient organisms have subjective experiences, the debate has gone in circles. Papers on the subject variously conclude, There really is a hard problem, there is no hard problem, there ...

By Paul Kieniewicz I live in an ancient forest, and often wonder about the relationships between the trees. For the past 80 years nobody interfered with the forest’s growth. No large trees were removed, there was no pest control or forest management. One result was that the forest developed a dense growth with trees close together. ...

  While the tendency in tourism recently has been to offer more activities and stimulation, for some time the Finish tourist bureau has been promoting silence as Finland’s most special natural resource. In Finland, you’re never far from silence. In a city it’s easy to get away into a natural space. Even at Finish airports, attention ...

Carl Jung on Non Duality — Does the Ego disappear? By Paul Kieniewicz In a letter to W.Y. Evans Wentz, Carl Jung discusses his view on the existence of Super Consciousness, and in particular to the question of whether the human ego — the sense of the “I” ever disappears when a person experiences the state of ...

A recent study by scientists at Imperial College London has revealed for the first time how the brain behaves during an LSD induced experience. The study, led by David J. Nutt, involved fMRI scans of subjects who had taken LSD and compared them with others who had been given a placebo. A major finding of the ...

Paul Kieniewicz talks about the fascinating story of how the astronomer Johannes Kepler came to discover that the planets in the Solar System move in tune to a certain music.

June 2015. No, it’s not the universe. Unless you’ve been recently living on an uninhabited island and away from the internet, you’d have heard of the multiverse. That maybe, we don’t live in a one universe, but that our universe is one out of billions and billions (Apologies to Cark Sagan) of universes; the multiverse. ...

The Science of the Field

Why do lovers hold hands? Because it feels good, brings comfort? It may also be sexually arousing. A recent study published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of science demonstrates that the wave patterns of the lovers’ brains also synchronize, and can result in significant pain alleviation. The study was conducted by researchers at the ...

By Paul Kieniewicz A series of recent articles in the Guardian, expressed a measure of outrage that many water companies in the UK today still employ dowsers to locate underground pipes or leaks. The writers described dowsing as pseudoscience, a “medieval practice”, essentially witchcraft. The articles inspired an outpouring of protest in letters to the Guardian’s ...

Editorial by Paul Kieniewicz, December 2015 According to sources at the UK Met Office, the world is officially about one degree warmer than in pre-industrial times. There is nothing magical about the one degree figure except that it is half the way to 2 degrees, regarded by many climatologists as a critical limit, beyond which any ...