textfiles/bbs/KEELYNET/BIOLOGY/trepann1.asc

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|  File Name      : TREPANN1.ASC     |  Online Date     :  12/21/95          |
|  Contributed by : Bill Beaty       |  Dir Category    :  BIOLOGY           |
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This file is from Bill Beaty's website as listed above.
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Date: Wed, 30 Aug 95 15:43:58 EST
From: Terry Colvin <ncr.disa.mil!colvint@Nexus.integral.org>
Reply to: GENERALLYWEIRD Distribution List <generallyweird@Nexus.integral.org>
Subject: Trepanning

Author: FringeWare Daily <email@fringeware.com> at smtp
Date: 29/8/1995 9:07 PM

>>>> THE PEOPLE WITH HOLES IN THEIR HEADS  >>

Amanda Fielding lives in a charming flat looking over London's river with her
companion, Joey Mellen, and their infant son, Rock.  She is a successful
painter, and she and Joey have an art gallery in a fashionable street of the
King's Road.  Another of her talents is for politics.

At the last two General Elections she stood for Parliament in Chelsea, more
than doubling her vote on the second occasion from 49 to 139.  It does not
sound like much, but the cause for which she stands is unfamiliar and lacks
obvious appeal.

Fielding and her voters demand that trepanning operations be made freely
available on the National Health.  Trepanation means cutting a hole in your
skull.  The founder of the trepanation movement is a Dutch savant, Dr. Bart
Hughes.

In 1962 he made a discovery which his followers proclaim as the most
significant in modern times.  One's state and degree of consciousness, he
realized, are related to the volume of blood in the brain.  According to his
theory of evolution, the adoption of an upright stance brought certain
benefits to the human race, but it caused the flow of blood through the head
to be limited by gravity, thus reducing the range of human consciousness.

Certain parts of the brain ceased or reduced their functions while others,
particularly those parts relating to speech and reasoning, became emphasized
in compensation.  One can redress the balance by a number of methods, such as
standing on one's head, jumping from a hot bath into a cold one, or the use of
drugs; but the wider consciousness thus obtained is only temporary.

Bart Hughes shared the common goal of mystics and poets in all ages: he wanted
to achieve permanently the higher level of vision, which he associated with an
increased volume of blood in the capillaries of the brain.  The higher state
of mind he sought was that of childhood.

Babies are born with skulls unsealed, and it is not until one is an adult that
the bony carapace is formed which completely encloses the membranes
surrounding the brain and inhibits their pulsations in response to heartbeats.
In consequence, the adult loses touch with the dreams, imagination and intense
perceptions of the child.  His mental balance becomes upset by egoism and
neuroses.

To cure these problems, first in himself and then for the whole world, Dr.
Hughes returned his cranium to something like the condition of infancy by
cutting out a small disc of bone with an electric drill. Experiencing
immediate beneficial effects from this operation, he began preaching to anyone
who would listen to the doctrine of trepanation.

By liberating his brain from its total imprisonment in his skull, he claimed
to have restored its pulsations, increased the volume of blood in it and
acquired a more complete, satisfying state of consciousness than grown-up
people normally enjoy.  The medical and legal authorities reacted to Hughes's
discovery with  horror and rewarded him with a spell in a Dutch lunatic
asylum.

Joseph Mellen met Bart Hughes in 1965 in Ibiza and quickly became his leading,
or rather one and only, disciple.  Years later he wrote a book called "Bore
Hole", the contents of which are summarized in its opening sentence:

   'This is the story of how I came to drill a hole in my skull to get
    permanently high.'  . . . (a few paragraphs detail Joseph Mellen's early
    experiments with LSD, and how he finds out about Bart Hughes.)

The time came when Joey felt he had preached enough and that he now had to
act.  He did not agree with Holingshead that the third eye was merely a figure
of speech, believing in its physical attainment through self-trepanation.

Support for this can be found in archaeology.  Skulls of ancient people all
over the world give evidence that their owners were skillfully trepanned
during their lifetimes, and many of these appear to have been of noble or
priestly castes.

The medical practice of trepanation was continued up to the present century in
treatment of madness, the hole in the skull being seen as a way of relieving
pressure on the brain or letting out the devils that possessed it.

By his scientific explanation of the reasons for the operation, Bart Hughes
had removed it from the area of superstition, and Joey Mellen proposed to be
the second person to perform it on himself in the interest of enlightenment.

Bart had become a close friend of Amanda Fielding, and they went off to
Amsterdam together while Joey took care of Amanda's flat.  This was the
opportunity he had been waiting for to bore a hole in his head.

The most gripping passages in "Bore Hole" describe his various attempts to
complete the operation.  They are also extremely gruesome, and those who lack
medical curiosity would do well to read no further.  Yet to those who might
contemplate trepanation for and by themselves, Joey's experiences are a
salutary warning.  It should be emphasized that neither he, Bart nor Amanda
has ever recommended people to follow their example by performing their own
operations.

For years they have been looking for doctors who would understand their
theories and would agree to trepan volunteer patients as a form of therapy.
Strangely enough, not one member of the medical profession has been converted.

In a surgical store Joey found a trepan instrument, a kind of auger or cork-
screw designed to be worked by hand.  It was much cheaper and, Joey felt, more
sensitive than an electric drill.  Its main feature was a metal spike,
surrounded by a ring of saw-teeth.

The spike was meant to be driven into the skull, holding the trepan steady
until the revolving saw made a groove, after which it could be retracted.  If
all went well, the saw-band should remove a disc of bone and expose the brain.

Joey's first attempt at self-trepanation was a fiasco.  He had no previous
medical experience, and the needles he had bought for administering a local
anesthetic to the crown of his head proved to be too thin and crumpled up or
broke.  Next day he obtained some stouter needles, took a tab of LSD to steady
his nerves and set to in earnest.

First he made an incision to the bone, and then applied the trepan to his
bared skull. But the first part of the operation, driving the spike into the
bone, was impossible to accomplish.

Joey described it as like trying to uncork a bottle from the inside. He
realized he needed help and telephoned Bart in Amsterdam, who promised he
would come over and assist at the next operation.  This plan was frustrated by
the Home Office, which listed Dr. Hughes as an undesirable visitor to Britain
and barred his entry.

Amanda agreed to take his place.  Soon after her return to London she helped
Joey reopen the wound in his head and, by pressing the trepan with all her
might against his skull, managed to get the spike to take hold and the saw-
teeth to bite.  Joey then took over at cranking the saw. Once again he
had swallowed some LSD.

After a long period of sawing, just as he was about to break through, he
suddenly fainted. Amanda called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital,
where horrified doctors told him that he was lucky to be alive and that if he
had drilled a fraction of an inch further he would have killed himself.

The psychiatrists took a particular interest in his case, and a group of them
arranged to examine him.  Before this could be done, he had to appear in court
on a charge of possessing a small amount of cannabis.  The magistrate demanded
another psychiatrist's report and demanded him for a week in prison.

There followed a period of embarrassment as the rumor went round London that
Joey Mellen had trepanned himself, whereas in fact he had failed to do so. As
soon as possible, therefore, he prepared for a third attempt.

Proceeding as before, but now with the benefit of experience, he soon found
the groove from the previous operation and began to saw through the sliver of
bone separating him from enlightenment or, as the doctors had predicted,
instant death.

What followed is best quoted from "Bore Hole".

   'After some time there was an ominous sounding schlurp and the sound of
    bubbling.  I drew the trepan out and the gurgling continued.  It sounded
    like air bubbles running under the skull as they were pressed out.  I
    looked at the trepan and there was a bit of bone in it.  At last!  On
    closer inspection I saw that the disc of bone was much deeper on one side
    than on the other.

    Obviously the trepan had not been straight and had gone through at one
    point only, then the piece of bone had snapped off and come out.  I was
    reluctant to start drilling again for fear of damaging the brain membranes
    with the deeper part while I was cutting through the rest or of breaking
    off a splinter.

    If only I had an electric drill it would have been so much simpler. Amanda
    was sure I was through.  There seemed no other explanation for the
    schlurping noises I decided to call it a day.  At the time I thought that
    any hole would do, no matter what size.  I bandaged up my head and cleared
    away the mess.'

There was still doubt in his mind as to whether he had really broken through
and, if so, whether the hole was big enough to restore pulsation to his brain.

The operation had left him with a feeling of wellbeing, but he realized that
it could simply be from relief at having ended it.  To put the matter beyond
doubt, he decided to bore another hole at a new spot just above the hairline,
this time using an electric drill.  In the spring of 1970, Amanda was in
America and Joey did the operation alone.

He applied the drill to his forehead, but after half an hour's work the
electric cable burnt out.  Once again he was frustrated.  An engineer in the
flat below him was able to repair the instrument and next day he set out to
finish the job. 'This time I was not in any doubt. The drill head went at
least an inch deep through the hole.  A great gush of blood followed my
withdrawal of the drill. In the mirror I could see the blood in the hole
rising and falling with the pulsation of the brain.'

The result was all he had hoped for.  During the next four hours he felt his
spirits rising higher until he reached a state of freedom and serenity which
he claims, has been with him ever since.  For some time now he had been
sharing a flat with Amanda, and when she came back from America she
immediately noticed the change in him.

This encouraged her to join him on the mental plane by doing her own
trepanation. The operation was carefully recorded.  She had obtained a cine-
camera, and Joey stood by, filming, as she attacked her head with an electric
drill.  The film shows her carefully at work, dressed in a blood-spattered
white robe.  She shaves her head, makes an incision in her head with a scalpel
and calmly starts drilling.  Blood spurts as she penetrates the skull.  She
lays aside the drill and with a triumphant smile advances towards Joey and the
camera.

Ever since, Joey and Amanda have lived and worked together in harmony.  From
the business of buying old prints to color and resell, they have progressed to
ownership of the Pigeonhole Gallery and seem reasonably prosperous.  They have
also started a family.

There is nothing apparently abnormal about them, and many of their old friends
agree in finding them even more pleasant and contented since their operations.
There is plenty of leisure in their lives, mingled with the kind of activities
they most enjoy.  These of course include talking and writing about
trepanation.

They have lectured widely in Europe and America to groups of doctors and other
interested people, showing the film of Amanda's s elf-operation, entitled
"Heartbeat in the Brain".

It is generally received with awe, the sight of blood often causing people to
faint.  At one showing in London a film critic described the audience
'dropping off their seats one by one like ripe plums'.  Yet it was not
designed to be gruesome. The soundtrack is of soothing music, and the surgical
scenes alternate with some delightful motion studies of Amanda's pet pigeon,
Birdie, as a symbol of peace and wisdom.
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Vanguard Notes

Several years ago we had come across this information on intentional
trepanning to awaken a more spiritual quality and it got misplaced.  It is
pleasing to find it again because it was of great interest at the time and
led to quite a bit of speculation relating to expanding 'psychic' abilities by
creating a hole in the Pineal region.

The idea was based on increasing oxidation in certain parts of the brain which
would 'awaken' atrophied abilities.  Certain hallucinogenic drugs have this
ability and children often have 'imaginary playmates' or claim visual and/or
audible communication with recently deceased loved ones.

It is intriguing that babies have a soft spot in the top of their head for
many months before the skull actually closes.  The skull has a 'seam' on each
side which allows it to partially expand for the first few years of life.  As
the person ages, this expansion ability diminishes, resulting in less blood
flow in certain regions of the brain.  This reduced blood flow reduces the
amount of available oxygen to cause desensitizing and atrophy of the affected
brain tissues.

These imaginary friends which children claim to play with are quite possibly
real entities existing on a higher frequency that is visible to an excited,
oxygen-enriched pineal gland.  Since the skull does not completely harden for
the first several years of a childs' life, it is possible the additional blood
flow provides this pineal stimulation.

As the child is subjected to the teasing of adults about his imaginary friend,
he learns not to discuss it publicly for fear or ridicule or embarassment.

So, the combination of ridicule by adults and the childs' peers, working in
conjunction with the hardening of the skull, causes this unique extra visual
sense to atrophy and become relegated to an imaginary episode in life.

It is therefore quite plausible that intentional trepanning in the pineal
region would allow the brain tissue in that area to breathe, following the
pulsations of blood from the heart.  This would 'awaken' the pineal region to
new sensations which would have to be assimilated or 'mapped' into conscious
perception in a rational, understandable way.

The paper I had on this trepannation procedure said once the hole was created,
the blood pressure would cause the exposed brain surface to pulse in and out
of the hole, kind of like an expanding and contracting lung.  The writer who
calls himself Lob-Sang Rampa said his third eye (pineal gland) was opened with
a sliver of wood which was made larger over time.

The effects of this trepanning are not exactly clear, but it appears to
mollify violent or temperamental outbursts, making the person sociable and
pleasant to be around.  Wouldn't this be a great treatment for violent
criminals who are repetitive in such behavior?  Very much like castration, I
imagine.

Despiccable as mind control and behavior modification techniques are, I think
when people intentionally hurt other people in a violent way and on a regular
basis, they automatically make themselves candidates for such correction
techniques.........................................................>>> Jerry
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