Medley

Compiled by Jan Nicolaas Kind – Brazil  

Amsterdam has banned public advertisements for meat and fossil fuel products. This means there will be no ads for burgers, chicken nuggets, petrol cars, and airlines in Amsterdam's streets, train stations, and other public places. The ban is to help move Amsterdam towards its target of being carbon neutral by 2050. One aim is for local residents to halve how much meat they eat. The city is the world's first capital to take such action. Environmentalist Hannah Prins said the ban on meat advertising is similar to the one on cigarette products. The number of smokers went down because of that. Ms Prins said it was "weird" that people were once allowed to smoke in public. 

Immersive dreams may help sleep feel deeper and more restorative, even as the brain stays active. The more vivid the dream, the deeper people felt they had slept. Credit: Shutterstock

Feeling like you had "a good night's sleep" depends on more than just how long you slept. It also reflects how deeply and continuously you believe you slept. Scientists still do not fully understand what happens in the brain to create this sense of deep, refreshing rest.

Andrew Rooke – Australia

The vast majority of Americans – 91% - now own a smartphone of some kind up from 38% in 2010 [PEW Research Centre]. This is probably much the same in Australia and most Western countries. According to reports in a Bank of America survey conducted in 2016, 96% of millennials aged 18 to 24 years said smartphones are very important to them with 93% of them suggesting that smartphones are more relevant than toothbrushes and deodorant! The research also revealed out that this generation checks his or her smartphone every 6.5 minutes!

Can meditation apps  really reduce stress, anxiety, and insomnia?

Meditation apps are transforming mindfulness by making it more accessible, measurable, and personalized. However, their long-term success depends on solving the problem of user drop-off.

Do you have a meditation app on your smartphone, computer or wearable device? Well, you're not alone.

Technophilia Unchained - A confession from a reluctant participant in the digital age

Tim Wyatt – England

Why do we love something which is murdering us?

The message is getting clearer day by day and even hour by hour. The technologies we’ve created are no longer killing us slowly. They’ve become a hyperactive means of death and destruction as evidenced by the hundred plus wars currently taking place in the world. And before this technocratic domination drives us into the grave it makes us weak, dependent and ill. And then it drives us mad.

What is in a prayer? Persian mystic Hakin Sanai’s advice is, “Don’t pester the universe with your begging. Be thankful for all that has been bestowed upon you. Just ask for more opportunities to be grateful to the universe.”

Tim Wyatt – England

Illustration: Rose Angel by Ethelwynne M. Quail based on the observations of the clairvoyant Geoffrey Hodson 

Apart from desisting from the age-old practice of killing one another to supposedly resolve disputes (which at this stage of the game remains a karmic impossibility for humanity), the world faces another major challenge – making contact with invisible worlds. Not worlds hovering in the heavens millions of light years away but hidden realms and their inhabitants here on Earth.  

Humans hubristically assert that they and they alone rule this planet of ours. And outwardly, that appears to be the case, with animals, vegetable life and minerals assigned only subsidiary and supporting roles in what is widely regarded as an essentially anthropocentric evolutionary drama. For the most part, there is little or no understanding or acceptance of other departments of the natural world – notably the kingdoms of existence below the mineral, known by esotericists as the etheric states.