From the Archives: Modern Medicine for the Manipulation of the Mind

First Published May 29, 2008.

  It turns out that trust is chemical, at least according to modern neuroscience and research into oxytocin.  Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the neuron part of the pituitary gland that has long been known to strengthen uterine contractions in childbirth and to start milk production in breast feeding.   More recently, scientists have started to understand its role in brain and behavior with key role in trust.

A sense of the miraculous in everyday life

     Whether its Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus rising from the dead, Mohammed riding a winged horse of fire up into heaven, or the Angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith to lead him to an ancient record written by his own hand on gold plates, all the World’s great religions are founded upon miracles. They are fantastic and dramatic, and awe inspiring. They are also generally ridiculed and looked down upon in today’s “evidence based” world. To believe in miracles is to be gullible. In today’s world there must always be an explanation.

Minority vs. Majority

    ” We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.”

            Doctrine & Covenants 121:39

      Few things in life distort the relationship of communities and society more than power and politics.  The American revolution and the revolution in France introduced democracy to both America and Europe in roughly the same time period.  The French revolution ended up much more violent and tumultuous than the former, described by Charles Dickens as “the best of times” and “the worst of times” simultaneously.  The French revolution was an extremely violent and intolerant uprising.  It led to mass beheading and guillotining of the aristocracy.  It led to the rise of the first of the modern despots in Napoleon, who enthralled the recently empowered majority, was voted into power which he refused to release and unleashed upon the rest of Europe, as the revolution ran off its rails.

The Storming of the Bastille in 1789

 

Modern medicine for manipulation of the mind

  It turns out that trust is chemical, at least according to modern neuroscience and research into oxytocin.  Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the neuron part of the pituitary gland that has long been known to strengthen uterine contractions in childbirth and to start milk production in breast feeding.   More recently, scientists have started to understand its role in brain and behavior with key role in trust.

Phenomenal Cosmic Powers

We live in an age where our understanding of life is far beyond what our forefathers could have dreamed. We have cracked the genetic code. We have to capability to splice and dice. We have an entirely new field, bioengineering dedicated to the proposition that we can literally, “engineer life” to suit our needs. The breakthroughs we have made are astonishing. We have sequenced the entire genome of mankind. We have the power to modify species at will.

In a sense we have been at this for a very long time. We have domesticated the dog and the cat. The grains that we rely on to feed mankind are all a product of manipulation of one seed with another, keeping the ones that grow the “best” crop. Rice, wheat, corn are all essentially artificial and manmade in a sense. I find it a little ironic those that will look at genetically altered agricultural produce with fear and disdain when by definition, agricultural products are manmade. Whether we select genetic traits in a lab or in the field, the fact is we alter them.