My prediction for 2012 is that, like other major predictions of the end of the world or the end of civilisation as we know it, the whole thing will be a non-event. Apparently the Mayan people had a calendar that starts at creation and ends in 2012. Experts in Mayan culture say that the end of the calendar is no more than a turning point or transition, just like our celebration of the new year.

So the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar which is not based on any kind of notion that we would regard as scientific today. But not many of us are scientific by nature. Whatever really happens in the year 2012, there will be lots of people saying, “I told you so”.

Many people every day use search engines to find out how to burp loud. It says a lot that significantly fewer ask how to burp loud-LY. I guess if your activities are crude so is your language. So, for anybody who has heard others burp with great volume, and wishes to reach similar heights of accomplishment, here is how you burp loud.

Jon Oesch of Detroit once held the world record for loud burping. His advice on how to do it are: first, take twenty or thirty big swallows of air. Now, imagine somebody is going to punch you in the stomach and tense your muscles to take the blow. Next, just let the air out all at once. The quicker the air escapes, the louder the burp.

Jon Oesch lost his world record to Paul Hunn who can burp at over 118 decibels compared to Jon’s 115 decibels. The video shows Paul Hunn doing what he does best.

The Celtic region of the world came under Roman control in the year 43A.D. Over the four hundred years of Roman occupation the Celtic celebration at the beginning of winter became amalgamated with two Roman celebrations: one honoring the dead and one honoring the tree goddess, Pomona. As the Christian church became the spiritual authority in regions that formerly followed Roman traditions, an attempt was made to replace the “pagan” celebration with All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day which is November 2. The Middle English word for All Saints Day was “Alholowmesse” which later became All-hallowmas. This led to the old Roman celebration being called All-Hallows Eve, and later Halloween.

Nowadays it is impossible for us to relate to the living conditions that gave rise to festivals like Halloween. Today it is a time for kids to have fun and for adults to sell crappy merchandise.

This video gives a potted history of the modern celebration of Halloween.

Technorati Tags: Halloween

Here is a video of Kobayashi showing how tastefully a hotdog can be eaten. Unfortunately, he didn’t win this one.

To get a taste of what hypnosis means, here is a video that helps you to get yourself into a hypnotic trance.

The genesis of conversational hypnosis is the theory that we all go off into hypnotic trances during our daily lives when our attention is directed in one direction for a short time. The practitioner of this kind of hypnosis must have a great control over his own personality in order to establish a rapport with the intended subject. One of the key ways of getting inside someone’s psychological space is to express complete agreement with what they are saying.

There is also a need to learn how to direct a person’s attention toward a subject. Make them contemplate a question to get their mind focused. Once you have turned your subject’s mind towards the area you wanted them to think about, your next job is to offer a suggestion along the lines that you want your subject to follow.

A rough example of conversational hypnosis working is if you want a subject to give up smoking, instead of putting them in a trance in the usual way, you could first establish a rapport with the person, then try and lead the person’s thinking towards the idea of giving up smoking. Your goal is not to influence the person in some subliminal way but to arrange the conversation so that the decision to give up smoking comes from the subject’s own mind.

If you are interested in learning conversational hypnosis you will need to do a lot of reading on the subject and take every opportunity to practice on any person you encounter.

Not only that, but after a token effort on other people’s behalf I always feel that I have “done enough”. I’m not helping them if I don’t let then stand on their own two feet. After some attempts and much thought on the subject of making yourself happy through service to others, here are a few ideas.

I have recently started again to try to make myself happy by going out every day with the idea that I will simply be nice to the people in my neighborhood and those I come in contact with during my day. Although there are always exceptions, I have found that in general, if you make a conscious effort to be pleasant and helpful to others, they will feel the need to respond in kind. This kind of feedback always makes me feel that I’m on the right track.

Driving my car I am constantly telling myself that other drivers should not be behaving the way they do. I work myself into a state where I see other people on the road as morons who are blind to my needs. It is only when I’m calmer that I think about how other drivers must feel. They have lives, families and commitments that place them under stress, make them want to hurry and distract them from being courteous on the road. Many people leave the house in the morning with the attitude that they have to do battle with the world.

I do not have to be like that. I can give people I don’t know the benefit of the doubt. I can be generous inside. I may have to adopt a naive mental attitude, but if it helps me to be calm, what of it?

This video on how to be happy might help if you still prefer to chase happiness.

This video features a man who had to single-handedly turn his life around to be happy.

I have not been able to find any scientific data that verifies the belief that people undergoing out of body experiences are really observing their surroundings. The descriptions of people having such experiences during surgery or other traumatic events are very vivid and convincing as anecdotes, but there is very little in the way of back-up testimony by other witnesses.

Here is a description from New Scientist of an experiment designed to verify out of body experiences.

Many people interested in the way our minds and bodies work have experimented with lucid dreaming. This simply means that the mind stays awake while the body goes to sleep. This kind of experimentation has led to the experimenter achieving the experience of being separated from one’s body.

Dr Steven Novella writes in his Neurologica blog
“Unless one is a neuroscientist or has a keen interest in how the brain works, we tend to think of our mental selves as an integrated whole and not as a collection of independent functions – the latter is more close to the truth. Our brains are more like committees with many different parts carrying out specific functions – some conscious, some unconscious. But since we are our brains we are only aware of the net effect of that part of our brain function that produces our conscious awareness and attention.”

There is an informative essay on astral projection at astralprojectiontravel.com

Here is an essay connecting astral projection with lucid dreaming.

This video explains some techniques for invoking out of body experiences.

According to The Advertiser the photographer, Andrew Kitt said, “The hairs on the back of my neck went up when I first saw it. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m not saying it’s a ghost or anything, but it is certainly strange,” said Mr Kitt.

It’s not a hoax, he obviously has no way of explaining how a double exposure could have occurred, so it must be “strange”. Nobody in the history of spirit photography has been able to explain why an indistinct image or mark on a picture should be assumed to have a supernatural explanation. Oh, wait, it’s probably because there’s so much hard evidence of the existence of ghosts that it’s hard to explain these anomalies any other way.

Here’s a video of a ghost, or something: