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By: Amy R.

For something so natural and basic for health, sleeping can be remarkably difficult.

A whole lot of Americans have trouble sleeping at least some of the time[1]. For many, it’s just a transitory phase, but for others, it’s a lifelong struggle. And so there is an enormous industry devoted to helping people get some shuteye[2].

That industry can be tricky to navigate because medicine has produced a long line of sleep aids that turned out to be dangerous in one way or another.

It’s important for every person with insomnia to learn about the causes and the science of sleep disorders and know what their options are.

The Roots Of Insomnia

While insomnia has been described since ancient times, a lot of researchers say that modern life is making it more common than it once was[3].

For a lot of us, the problem started in early childhood.

Like many little kids, I was scared of the dark and imagined all sorts of monsters that might be lurking in the shadows or making those mysterious creaks coming from beneath the floor. If it got bad enough, I would end up in my parents’ bedroom, sleeping on the floor.

This reaction isn’t surprising, really, given that leaving children alone in dark rooms to sleep is a fairly new practice in world history – and still is uncommon in some parts of the world[4].

Children are also more likely to suffer from nightmares and sleep terrors[5]. Although these usually fade as we get older, that early experience can still establish the night as a very anxious time.

Even after we grow up, there’s still plenty going on to keep us awake. For one thing, the modern world is full of noise and distractions.

My first experience of living outside of my parents’ house was in a college dorm, which as anyone who’s been there knows, is not exactly a respite of peace and quiet.

My dorm was hardly a party house, but there were still students who would have long phone conversations in the middle of the night.

And after college, the Internet became a thing and set everyone on the course toward staring at glowing screens day and night. Electricity had already been messing with people’s circadian rhythms by keeping the night unnaturally bright, and television had provided a more stimulating way to unwind than reading by candlelight[6].

Another, perhaps underappreciated, factor in adult insomnia is temperature. Like a lot of people, I tend to be cold when I’m sleepy, so it’s tempting to leave the heat on when going to bed. But temperature is an important factor in, which tells your body when to sleep and when to wake up[7].

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Sleeping Pills: The Ups and Downs

But of course, there are plenty of people who still sleep like logs despite all of this, which can also make insomniacs feel like there’s something wrong with us. And so anxiety about insomnia can itself exacerbate insomnia, as you can’t get to sleep because you’re worried about not getting to sleep, or even angry about it.

It’s in these circumstances, trying to blot out your brain with a pill can be very appealing. I started that in my noisy college dorm with over-the-counter stuff like Sominex.

Virtually all of those drugstore sleep aids have, which is Benadryl when sold as an antihistamine[8]. It’s a fairly effective sedative, though it does lose its oomph if you eat something close to the time that you take it.

But over time, your body does adapt to it. I found myself needing more for it to work, and if I didn’t have it for whatever reason, my “rebound” insomnia would be worse. The same went for its antihistamine effect, actually – if I went off of it, my nose exploded.

After college, I tinkered with a number of products. I tried the natural remedies valerian and kava, neither of which did that much for me. I took melatonin for a while, which worked better[9,10,11].

But in 2004, I got interested in a new prescription drug called Lunesta. When it came out, it became touted as a new kind of sleeping pill that was safe to take for longer periods than previous sedatives.

I went on it and took it for almost 10 years until my doctor abruptly pulled the plug. It turns out it wasn’t safe for long-term use after all.

It was only later that I learned more of Lunesta’s backstory. It was one of a group of drugs designed to be successors to benzodiazepines, which had been the new wonder drugs when they came out in the 1950s and ‘60s under names like Valium, Librium, and Xanax[12].

Those drugs work by depressing the central nervous system, which is effective for getting you to sleep but also brings your body to a state closer to death. The potential for a lethal overdose is high, as is the potential for addiction.

By the time I was consulting doctors about my sleep problems, they had become more cautious about prescribing benzodiazepines, at least in the West.

A few years ago I went on a trip to East Africa and was suffering hellacious jet-lag, only to learn that the hotel where we were staying had a doctor on staff. Dr. Feelgood would shell out Valium and other hardcore medicines without worrying about piddling things like prescriptions.

I will say, it worked like a charm. The flight back marked the first and so far only time that I’ve been able to sleep on a plane. But obviously, it’s not for longer-term use.

The next generation of sleep drugs, which included Lunesta, aimed to have a similar effect on the brain as benzodiazepines, but without the risks[13]. However, subsequent research suggested that they really weren’t an improvement after all[14].

Another issue that’s continuously dogged these drugs is the quality of sleep that they give you. Sleep is actually way more complicated than just lying there unconscious.

Throughout the night, you cycle several times through four different stages of sleep, the deepest being REM or dreaming sleep[15]. If something disrupts this, you might sleep for a normal amount of time or even longer, but still not feel totally rested.

Sedatives that depress your central nervous system can also suppress the normal cycles of sleep. This reaction is true not only of benzodiazepines but alcohol and many recreational drugs. If you’ve ever fallen asleep after drinking a fair amount, you might have found yourself waking up early from a dreamless slumber – and that’s why.

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The Benefits Of CBD

One of the difficult things about insomnia is that most of the time, it’s tangled up with other aspects of your life and your health. As I noted earlier, external conditions can have a big impact on your sleep – lighting, noise, activities, and so on.

And so can your inner conditions. Mental-health problems like anxiety, depression, and addiction can disturb your sleep, of course.

But it’s also clear that some people are just more high-strung than others – probably because of differences in their nervous systems[16]. A person who can doze off in the middle of a horror movie, for instance, is definitely wired differently than I am.

That’s what interested me about cannabidiol, or CBD. If you’re like me, your awareness of CBD probably went from zero to “it’s everywhere” over the last year. But in case you’re still hazy on what it is, CBD is an extract of the cannabis plant that is very different from the better-known THC.

CBD doesn’t have the high-inducing effects of THC. Extracted from hemp plants with less than 0.3% THC, CBD is quickly becoming a powerful, natural sleep alternative. Its main feature is that it’s calming and stabilizing. It helps to regulate your body’s endocannabinoid system, which in turn helps control mood, appetite, inflammation, and cognitive functions[17].

Various studies have indicated that CBD can help with both anxiety and sleep, while still letting people maintain their energy and mental sharpness during the daytime[18]. But most interestingly for our purposes, it seems to help people relax without disrupting their sleep cycles.

One study found that subjects maintained normal sleep-wake cycles even after taking a whopping 600mg of CBD – more than you’ll find in many whole bottles of CBD oil[19]. Some users will opt for CBD vape oil as a convenient way to ease into relaxation right before bed.

Because its effects are subtle, CBD presents a natural alternative to the harsh side effects of other sleep aids. It helps to restore and protect nerve cells.

As far as dosage goes, CBD offers a unique opportunity for users to experience their own relief.

Usually, the best advice is to start low and work your way up. You can start with a lower dose and see how it affects you, then adjust accordingly. Depending on body composition and symptom severity, CBD dosage will differ for each person.

If you’re trying to get off other anxiety and insomnia medications, CBD presents a natural opportunity for better sleep.

The Way Of Tranquility

Ultimately, I’ve found that it’s best to take a more holistic approach to sleep, rather than looking for one magic key.

When I was younger, like all kids, I was trying to cope with conditions that became thrust upon me. But now that I’m grown up, I can take more control of the circumstances in which I live and sleep.

That means creating a greater sense of calm in all of my surroundings.

Holding a stressful job in a major city was eventually not worth a higher salary. Neither was doing the sort of things that, as a younger adult, I enjoyed doing just because I could, like staying up late on weekends or drinking too much.

If you want peace of mind, it has to be a priority in your life. But it can be a very rewarding one.

Author – Amy R.

Born in New York and raised in northern California, Amy joined cbdMD after spending 17 years as a business reporter in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, visiting museums, watching movies, and fantasizing that she’ll one day finish her novel. She uses CBD Vape Oil from cbdMD to counteract her insomnia.

Citations:

[1] https://www.sleepassociation.org/about-sleep/sleep-statistics/

[2] https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/sleep-aid-market-2019-global-technology-development-trends-and-forecasts-to-2023-2019-04-10/

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/08/how-modern-life-gets-in-the-way-of-sleep-chronic-insomnia

[4] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reiss-sleep-alone-20170324-story.html

[5] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/nightmares-and-sleep

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375361/

[7] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101014144314.htm

[8] https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1428/diphenhydramine-oral/details

[9] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/insomnia/expert-answers/valerian/faq-20057875

[10] https://nccih.nih.gov/health/kava

[11] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/melatonin-for-sleep-does-it-work

[12] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262809.php

[13] https://www.drugs.com/slideshow/insomnia-treatment-nonbenzodiazepines-1072

[14] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3728643/

[15] https://www.tuck.com/stages/

[16] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/highly-sensitive-refuge/201901/is-your-brain-high-sensitivity

[17] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2241751/

[18] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6326553/

[19] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29674967

The post How My Problem With Insomnia Led Me To Discover The Power Of CBD Oil appeared first on Natural Revolution.

Physicians Credentialing Services is necessary to acquire for reinforcing the revenue cycle for a smooth running physician practice. The credential services supplier keep on tracking referrals from patients and cash flow on a consistent basis.

Physician Credentialing Services are gaining much importance since healthcare practices are recruiting a large number of healthcare experts. Credentialing is a complex process and lengthy process which asks for proper expertise and expert management. For that reason, it’s better for a healthcare practice to outsource Physician Credentialing Services to yield desirable outcomes as well as to focus well on the care delivery process.

Credentialing with government and viable payers is amongst the challenging and complex aspects of running and/or establishing a medical practice. When you outsource to some credentialing services Provider Company you procure most favorable Physician credentialing services with the inclusion of the following:

1. Medicare and Medicaid Provider Enrollment

Provider Enrollment is a process of asking for partaking in a network of health insurance as a partaking supplier. It undertakes the following steps:

• Enrollment with a plan

• Filling the application for plans credentialing

• Submitting duplicates of licenses

• Insurance, and other documents

• Agreeing to a contract

Credentialing is a determinant for the acceptance of the request of a supplier for enrollment. Credentialing ensures that the supplier is well-educated, well-skilled and fulfills the particular requirements of the insurance network for enrollment. Subsequent to the completion of the credentialing process, the insurance network makes a deal with the supplier for partaking.

2. Insurance Contract Negotiations

Physicians and healthcare companies need to struggle hard to collate maximum possible amount of money. A large number of organizations do not go for renegotiation and only a small number of them renegotiate on a yearly basis. Rendering to these statistics, a single healthcare practice loses 10-25% of its overall wealth in the bank of the insurance company. When you outsource Physician Credentialing Services, you get also Insurance Contract Negotiation which entails

• Accurate analysis and inspection of all existing contracts
• Evaluation of the payer contracts and the way they match up to the standards of the local market.
• Suggestion for a strategy for contracting on the basis of your business goals and the existing setting of the insurance.
• Consultation with payers with regard to measures for pay-for-performance and with regard to the fee schedule which fits best with the group
• Determining the rate of losing referrals due to your not participation in specific insurance plans
• Development and implementation of a suitable plan for renegotiating your insurance contracts
• Delivering consistent updates to keep you up all through the negotiation process.

3. Contract Evaluation Services

Adding to the contract negotiation services, credentialing companies also provide services to evaluate the contract to make sure you get to know accurately the way you are being paid. The standard process of evaluation is to fulfill the evaluation process of a thorough contract prior to the start of any project for contract negotiation.

4. Payer Fee Schedule Creation & Evaluation

Scheduling the creation of the fee for the payer is essential to acquire the true in turn of investment.

5. Credentialing Tele-health

Credentialing to telehealth or telemedicine is required for a physician which determines their eligibility for providing them hospital privileges. The process of Privileging evaluates the competence of the physician in his/her specific field of practice.

Physicians providing telehealth, regardless of not being physically in the hospital, yet require undergoing the process of credentialing and privileging for the remote institution.

However, this process is long and costly and requires ample of relevant resources.

To sort this out, there is a way called “privileging by proxy” which reduces the cost and overall resources.

6. Issues Regarding Reimbursement

The revenue cycle in the healthcare is facing a significant drop because of denied claims that occur due to mishandled medical billing and coding. It causes a lot of reimbursement issues and an imbalance in the revenue cycle hence causes a reduction in the cash flow. Outsourcing credentialing services also brings about the solution of reimbursement issues thus contribute to an improved state of reimbursement and uplift the revenue cycle. The use of right expertise and the right software to perform medical billing and coding in a precise manner is a key step to give a boost to your cash flow.

7. Medical License Application Processing & Renewals

For every healthcare practitioner, it is necessary to get a hold on to a medical license for ensuring smooth practice in his/her specific area of medicine. Obtaining a medical license is a not that easy and requires some complex steps. It involves filling up an application form and then it submitting for requesting a medical license. It also requires certification and verification from certain organizations which might be time-consuming. Moreover, after receiving the medical license, physicians are also required to renew their license. Outsourcing to a credentialing company makes the entire process very easy and smooth for you.

8. DEA Registration and Renewals

The DEA registration from the Drug Enforcement Agency allows the Physicians and other prescribers to prescribe controlled substances after to the clients. Obtaining a DEA registration can be sometimes a complex process because of the barriers such as prior verification or penalizing issues, the nature of the practice, the inadequacy of experience and the like. Outsourcing is a suitable option since it helps you to acquire and secure their DEA registration with the assistance of well-trained and well-qualified experts in a hassle free way. Moreover, it also aids in renewing the DEA registration every 90 days.

9. Council for Affordable Quality Health Care (CAQH) Registration

CAQH registration is a crucial step towards supplier enrollment and credentialing. With the escalating expense of the healthcare, registering to CAQH can aid in lessening the expense of the healthcare. Moreover, registering to CAQH centralized your demographics and credentials regarding information at a particular site. However, the process of CAQH registration is a bit complex and a lengthy one.

The post The Importance of Outsourcing Physician Credentialing Services appeared first on Natural Revolution.

Those of us who are either new, or long-time vigilant advocates of supporting legal medical cannabis with Amendment 2 (A2), it was a long time coming that it finally passed, and now that medical cannabis is now a constitutional law in Florida, those who sought to help those who were sick or in pain, can now find comfort knowing that 6.5 million Floridians voted to help ease their suffering.

We finally won this long battle to bring medical cannabis to Florida for patients who will now have the opportunity to be treated with something natural, God-given, and is NOT a synthetic, and potentially, deadly prescription drug.

There are currently over 400,000 seriously ill people in Florida that will now have the legal right to consume medical cannabis. A person who is suffering with a debilitating disease or is in pain in the state can no longer be denied medical cannabis from their doctor for any reason as soon as Amendment 2 goes into effect in 2017.

If you voted Yes for A2, let me personally take this opportunity to say THANK YOU! If it wasn’t for you that voted Yes, millions of Floridians would not have the chance from legal medical cannabis to relieve their pain and suffering. You made a BIG difference in the lives of potentially millions of people. How amazing is that?!

To every single person in this group who supported us and our goals to see that A2 passed, with an overwhelming 72% of the vote (Yes, amazing!) by spreading the word and getting out there among the millions and beyond, THANK YOU!

So congratulations and thank YOU for championing the cause and ‘Fighting The Good Fight For Cannabis’.

Let me also add, that by voting Yes on A2, you were instrumental in helping reduce the number of certain drug cartels in our state, cities and in our communities. When there’s a safer competitive market, the black market always diminishes. So when there are less drug dealers on the street, it profoundly contributes to the benefit of communities everywhere and, there is one less avenue for kids to get drugs, which will help keep those children out of harm’s way.

Just like with alcohol, the black market with prohibition is what created incredible violence, gangs and a myriad of problems for cities. When prohibition ended, they finally saw a dramatic decrease in guns on the street and people getting killed by alcohol-pushing criminals.
Now, like in almost every state in the US, when there is a much safer market for cannabis, through legal dispensaries, it keeps caregivers, and patients safe and helps lessen the activity of drug dealers on the street, and online.

A2 will also have regulatory guidelines that are setup to ensure strict safety protocols to see that there are NOT dangerous additives mixed in with cannabis, like harmful drugs, pesticides, and other toxic substances.

The legalization of medical cannabis is also providing for our courageous police officers the ability to not have to be bothered by petty crimes like people smoking small amounts of cannabis, and then having to cite, fill out long reports or arrests the thousands of people who are using cannabis each year. That not only saves their department an immeasurable amount of money and time each year, but it also enables police officers to allocate more time to focus on keeping violent criminals off the streets who are a profound scourge to our society.

Lastly, the amount of tourism and tens of millions of dollars that will be generated with the many new cannabis industries to our cities and state, there’s no question that government and city employees will potentially see not only an increase in their wages, but those millions of dollars will be directed towards increased budgets for departmental programs which will help our cities thrive with new amenities, that will not only improve our city, but improve the quality of life of every single person who lives in Florida.

So again, thanks to every single person who helped get The Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative, also known as Amendment 2, passed; we couldn’t have done it without you!

Greatly appreciative,

Steven Peters

The post Finally Realizing the Dream of Legalized Medical Cannabis in Florida appeared first on Natural Revolution.

Manly P. Hall

By MITCH HOROWITZ

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an explosion of spiritual teachers and impresarios dealing in “secret wisdom.” Their ranks included hacks and frauds – as well as more than a few genuine scholars of esoteric traditions. Most have vanished from memory, their writings a historical footnote.

There exists one distinct figure, though, whose movement and teachings not only survived his passing but are even experiencing a revival in our day. His name is Manly P. Hall. While few academicians will ever know of him, Hall was among the twentieth century’s – and perhaps any century’s – most commanding and unusual scholars of esoteric and mythological lore. Yet the source of his knowledge and the extent of his virtuosity can justly be called a mystery.

While working as a clerk at a Wall Street banking firm – the “outstanding event” of which involved “witnessing a man depressed over investment losses take his life” – the 28-year-old Hall self-published one of the most complex and thoroughgoing works ever to catalogue the esoteric wisdom of antiquity, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Hall’s Secret Teachings is almost impossible to classify. Written and compiled on an Alexandrian scale, its hundreds of entries shine a rare light on some of the most fascinating and little-understood aspects of myth, religion, and philosophy.

Today, more than seventy-five years after its initial publication, the book’s range of material astonishes: Pythagorean mathematics; alchemical formulae; Hermetic doctrine; the workings of Kabala; the geometry of Ancient Egypt; the Native American myths; the uses of cryptograms; an analysis of the Tarot; the symbols of Rosicrucianism; the esotericism of the Shakespearean dramas – these are just a few of Hall’s topics. Yet his background betrays little clue to his virtuosity.

A Man Unknown

Hall was born in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1901 to parents who would shortly divorce, leaving the young Manly in the care of a grandmother who raised him in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He had little formal schooling. But there was a spark of some indefinable brilliance in the young man, which his grandmother tried to nurture in trips to museums in Chicago and New York.

Tragedy struck early, when his grandmother died when he was 16. Afterward, a self-styled Rosicrucian community in California took him in. At age 19, suspicious of the community’s claims to ancient wisdom, Manly moved on his own to Los Angeles where he began a precocious career in public speaking – first giving an address on reincarnation in a small room above a bank in Santa Monica, and soon rising to the rank of minister at a liberal evangelical congregation called The Church of the People.

Word spread of the boy wonder’s mastery of arcane and metaphysical subject matter. He attracted benefactors and eventually began travelling the world in search of hidden wisdom. Yet Hall’s early letters from Japan, Egypt, China, and India are, in many respects, fairly ordinary: They contain little of the eye-opening detail or wonder of discovery that one finds in the writings of other early twentieth-century seekers encountering the East for the first time. More often they read like prosaic, if somewhat sensitive, linear travelogues of their day.

Like a bolt from the blue, however, one is astounded to discover a short work of immense power from the young Hall – a book that seems to prefigure that which would come. In 1922, at the age of 21, Hall wrote a luminescent gem on the mystery schools of antiquity, Initiates of the Flame. Though brief, one sees in it the outline of what would become The Secret Teachings of All Ages. On its frontispiece, Initiates of the Flame boldly announces: “He who lives the Life shall know the Doctrine.”

The short book goes on to expound passionately and in detail on Egyptian rites, Arthurian myths, and the secrets of alchemy, among other subjects. Feeling the power and ease in its pages, the reader can almost sense the seeds of greatness that were beginning to take hold in Hall’s grasp of esoteric subjects.

The Secret Teachings Born

Hall soon returned to America, where he tried his hand at banking – though he found his true path in the beaux arts Reading Room of the New York Public Library. Entering this cavernous space today, it is not difficult to picture the large-framed, young Manly P. Hall surrounded by books of myth and symbol at one of the room’s huge oaken tables. Like a monk of the Middle Ages, Hall copiously, almost superhumanly, pored over hundreds of the great works of antiquity, distilling their esoteric lore into his volume.

By the age of 28, having pre-sold subscriptions for nearly 1,000 copies (and printing 1,200 more), Hall published what would become known as “The Great Book” – and it has never gone out of print since.

Indeed, Hall is an exception to most of his contemporaries as someone whose work is actually building in influence today. In its day, the Secret Teachings was expensive, hefty, and cumbersome. As a result, the book spent much of its existence as an underground classic. In late 2003, however, the Secret Teachings found new life in a reset and redesigned “reader’s edition,” which has sold a remarkable 40,000 copies in less than three years.(For further details, see “Bringing the Secret Teachings Into the 21st Century” by Mitch Horowitz at www.lapismagazine.org). A little-known 1929 companion volume by Hall, called Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, has also been recently reissued.

After publishing his magnum opus, Hall opened a campus in 1934 in the Griffith Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles called The Philosophical Research Society (PRS), where he spent the rest of his life teaching, writing, and amassing a remarkable library of esoterica. A self-contained property designed in a pastiche of Mayan, Egyptian, and art deco styles, PRS remains a popular destination for LA’s spiritually curious.

Following Hall’s death in 1990, PRS barely survived simultaneous legal battles – one with Hall’s widow, who claimed the group owed her money, and another with a bizarre father-son team of con artists who, in the estimation of a civil court judge, had befriended an ailing, octogenarian Hall to pilfer his assets. The Los Angeles Police Department considered Hall’s death sufficiently suspicious to keep it under investigation for several years.

Secret Wisdom, Practical Wisdom

For all his literary output, Hall revealed little about his private life. His most lasting record is a frequently trite, unrevealing childhood memoir called Growing Up with Grandmother (in which he refers to his guardian as “Mrs. Arthur Whitney Palmer”). As an adult, Hall’s close relations were few. He did not marry until well into middle age, in a union some surmise was never consummated.

Hence, when Hall disclosed something about his background, it was purposeful. He wrote this in a PRS newsletter in 1959: “As a result of a confused and insecure childhood, it was necessary for me to formulate a personal philosophy with which to handle immediate situations.”

Here was someone with a tremendous interest in the arcane philosophies of the world, in the occult and metaphysical philosophies, but he wasn’t fixated on immortality, or a will to power, or on discovering keys that unlock the universe. Rather, he was focused on harnessing inner truths in a very practical way. How, he wondered, could such ideas lend clarity to daily life?

We’ll take a byroad that steers us in another direction before returning to this point. Our byroad involves one of the most famous novels in history, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The work has many facets, among them a portrait – not sympathetic, but not as unsympathetic as one might suppose – of the European occult in the Enlightenment era. The portrait comes in the character of a young Victor von Frankenstein, a budding scientist torn between the occult teachings that drew him to science as a child and the prevailing rationalism of his teachers. Victor confides his interest in the great alchemists and occult philosophers, such as the Renaissance-era magus Cornelius Agrippa, but his professors dismiss him with complete condescension.

One day in his room, Victor ponders the unbridgeable gap between his magical visions and the scholasticism of his peers:

I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.

In a sense, Victor spoke for generations of occultists when describing his ideal of boundless grandeur, immortality, power, and visions. (And who wouldn’t sympathise with the rebellious young Victor – whose dreams and ambitions, while hopeless, exist on a grand scale – versus the certainties of his crusty professors?)

An occult scholar born at the cusp of the twentieth century, Manly P. Hall signalled a different kind of ideal. Hall told of “a personal philosophy with which to handle immediate situations.” After Hall’s death, a reporter in the Los Angeles Times noted, “Followers say he believed in reincarnation and in a mixture of the Golden Rule and living in moderation.”

For Hall, the very act of writing The Secret Teachings of All Ages was an attempt at formulating an ethical response to the age he lived in. While the book is at times speculative and some of its sources are limited by the constraints of their era, it is the only codex to esoteric ideas that treats its subject with total seriousness. Contemporaneous works, such as The Golden Bough, regarded indigenous religious traditions as superstition – interesting museum pieces worthy of anthropological study but of no direct relevance to our current lives. Hall, on the other hand, felt himself on a mission to re-establish a connection to the mystery traditions at a time when America, as he saw it, had given itself over to the Jazz-Age materialism he witnessed at his banking job.

“After I thought the matter over,” he wrote a few years before his death, “it seemed necessary to establish some kind of firm ground upon which personal idealism could mingle its hopes and aspirations with the wisdom of the ages.”

In this sense, the prodigious scholar achieved more than a cataloguing of esoteric truths. He turned the study of occult ideas into an ethical cause.

MITCH HOROWITZ is the editor in chief of Tarcher/Penguin. A well-known voice for occult and esoteric ideas, Horowitz lives in New York City with his wife and two children. The above article is adapted from his book Occult America: White House Séances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation. You can visit his website at www.mitchhorowitz.com.

Exclusively for Natural Revolution readers, we’ve come across a version of this book in PDF format, which is in the Public Domain, now available for free by clicking the this link. Enjoy!

Get ready for some incredible ideologies and profound wisdom from a man whose scope of research into the many facets of the esoteric, in such a short period of time, has been revered by philosophers, theologians, and academics, among others, over a span of a hundred and fifteen years and into the 21st century; what an incredible legacy and passionate work Manly P. Hall has left us all to discover and contemplate.

The above article appeared in New Dawn Magazine No. 96 (May-June 2006).

The post Secret Teachings Reborn: The Mysterious Life of Manly P. Hall appeared first on Natural Revolution.

The U.S. government has been funding medical cannabis research for the past five decades. Only, they’ve been outsourcing that research to another country. For half of a century, the National Institute of Health has provided an annual grant to Israel for research on the herb.

You may have heard of Dr. Raphael Mechoulam. Dr. Mechoulam is the man who first discovered THC.

Back in the early 1960s, Mechoulam asked the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for funding on his cannabis research. Unfortunately, true to form, they turned him down.

However, according to a Newsweek report,  one year after Mechoulam’s first inquiry, he got a call from the NIH. Apparently, after an unnamed U.S. Senator caught his son smoking a little cannabis, the senator called the NIH to find out what the herb actually did to the brain. No one had the answer.

So, the same official that once rejected Mechoulam’s research called him with some good news. The NIH would grant $100,000 to Mechoulam’s team each year for further study on the health effects of cannabis.

This funding has continued for over 50 years. This is amazing, as it is really tough to get an NIH overseas grant.

A half-century’s worth of medical discovery

In that time, Mechoulam and his team have unearthed a wealth of medical potential in the cannabis plant. This includes findings that suggest that:

• Cannabinoids aid in recovery after brain injury
• Cannabinoids have neuroprotective properties
• CBD has antipsychotic properties
• Cannabinoids may aid in autoimmune conditions
• CBD lowers incidence of diabetes 
• CBD aids in epilepsy 

The few findings mentioned here are only the very beginning of what Mechoulam and associated teams have discovered. The research conducted in Israel since the 1960s has lent itself to cannabis reform time and time again.

Without Mechoulam’s contributions, we may not have the medical cannabis programs that we have today. In his own country, Mechoulam has won several major awards and honors for his work.

In his own country, Mechoulam has won many prestigious awards and honors for his work. Now, Israel’s medical cannabis industry is booming. There, patients can access medical cannabis for cancer, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, pediatric epilepsy, arthritis, and Crohn’s disease.

Though $100,000 can go quickly in scientific research, the federal government’s generosity helped fund these incredible discoveries.

So, after all of that funding, why is cannabis still seen as having “no medical value” by the DEA and other governmental agencies?

In 2013, the NIH released even a study that described that the endocannabinoid system plays a role in “essentially every human disease”. The U.S. government currently holds a patent on cannabinoids as a neuroprotective antioxidant, which is helpful in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Alan Shackelford, a Harvard-trained, medical cannabis prescribing doctor in Colorado, explained that the U.S. doctors had no trouble prescribing the herb prior to the Reefer Madness era. He tells Newsweek,

Marijuana was an integral part of American medicine for more than 100 years, from the 1830s through the 1940s, and it was used safely and effectively for all of that time. – Shackelford

So, what’s with all of the hypocrisy? Recently, large pharmaceutical companies have made substantial donations to anti-legalization campaigns. At the same time, other companies have received special permission to test cannabis-based pharmaceuticals in U.S. patients.

Yet, everyday doctors who wish to prescribe the herb cannot since the herb has Schedule 1 status.

All but a select few independent and pharmaceutical researchers are blocked from experimenting with cannabis on U.S. soil. Though the federal government has respected state rights thus far, patients, recommending doctors, and cannabis businesses are still shunned to remain in a gray area of the law.

More than half of U.S. states have implemented some form of cannabis reform.

Why do you think cannabis remains illegal in the U.S.? Share this article, and your thought in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!

This article first appeared on Herb.co website.

The post U.S. Has Funded Israeli Cannabis Research For 50 Years appeared first on Natural Revolution.

By Steven Peters – I wanted to share some valuable information with you that I got from HayHouseRadio.com. If you haven’t heard of the website, no worries, I didn’t hear of them up until just recently.

I’ve found so many insightful and useful messages from the people who share their vast years of knowledge about so many different things, but mostly, what I personally found on the website is that it opened up channels to me that is helping me understand and learn the gifts of life, the universe, the divinity, peace, and meditation techniques, and so much more that I’m still discovering.

These techniques are something that I’ve found which are so easy to do (most are audio) and actually are (so gratefully) working for me, as well as love (on many different levels) and so much more.

I’ve learned along my journey of life that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I have yet to learn and want to learn; I believe we never stop learning. What a gift that truly is for me, and for us all, to find and share the opportunities we discover!

You may already know some of the simple techniques, which by the way, have been used for thousands of year, and for me, through these wise, well traveled and insightful people, have given me a chance to rediscover certain messages, and understanding that I may not have previously understood, so I can apply those positive things I’ve learned thus far in my own life to enhance who I am as a person on every level.

HayHouse.com is just one channel of inspiration; there are obviously many channels of inspiration all around us. And for me, it’s been a blessing to receive the messages from them; and so, as someone who always wants to help and pass on good and positive useful things to other people (my hope is that you do find it useful), especially those I only want the best for like my family and friends, and my subscribers to this website, all of HayHouse’s insightful and profound resources is my Happy New Year message and gift to you should you like to discover all that awaits.

I’ve found david Ji, the first person I ever heard on the site; he has a very calm and soft-spoken but clear voice as to how to realize our full potential. And he talks about it in language I can understand, and that touched upon many things that I am going through in my own life. You may find him, or the many other speakers/teachers/authors that want to share and pass on what they’ve learned throughout their journey of life. They all have varied degrees and or accomplishments in their life that now they are featured on this very popular website.

Doreen Virtue is another person, which I won’t go into detail about, though when you have the opportunity that may come your way to discover her, she has touched my life in so many ways. What a messenger and blessing she is!

I hope you enjoy the site as much as I have. And if you like the site and find it useful, feel free to check it out first for as long as you want or need to, and if you feel it might benefit you, sign up for free. They have a lot of FREE resources! I haven’t bought anything from, at this point, I’m just using all the resources that are free to use.

This is David Ji’s radio channel. www.hayhouseradio.com/#!/host/davidji ; have a listen, it’s free; if you like it, great, if not, that’s Ok too. Peruse the website and find what speaks to you. www.hayhouseradio.com.

You can also visit www.hayhouse.com/ for books and other resources (I think some of them are for purchase, though not all). I’m doing just the free things right now!

Blessing to you, with all the good and positive things that life may bring and teach you this exciting new year,

Steven Peters
Publisher of Natural Revolution

The post Beyond A Happy New Year – The Discovery of A New YOU! appeared first on Natural Revolution.

Whether you were for him or not, Bernie spoke to the populism and anger but without the hatred, fear and demagoguery of Trump felt by the disenfranchised American worker in a way that Hillary never could.

Had Bernie been nominated, it’s hard to logically believe that he wouldn’t have taken some of the midwestern swing states that Trump did with a message that, if we’re to use the primaries as any guide, deeply resonated with the respective populations of those states.

What we now, and will find ourselves immersed in with a Trump presidency, is justifiable uncertainty and a feeling of disbelief as Americans who were clamoring for real change, have awoken to the harsh realities that we perhaps didn’t fully grasps just how easily this country, with the help of Clinton’s lack favorability, the role the DNC played by undermining their own party, the mainstream media’s impact, and the fear of Americans, which slipped this country into the rise of Donald Trump, the 45th President of The United States.

Here are the Four Insane Reasons Why Trump Won The Presidency

1. The inability of Mrs. Clinton to appeal to the masses because of her shady and corrupt background over the course of 30 years. How can anyone like a person or candidate for that matter, running for the highest position in the country, who sucks on the hindtit of the establishment for so long? Meanwhile, enriching her life through contributions that reach into the tens millions of dollars from foreign governments while sitting a Secretary of State. She was untrustworthy, a scandalous career politician, and corrupt. Her emails, and investigations by the FBI, were the tipping point that anyone needed to push them over the edge in becoming a Trump supporter. Her candidacy was doomed from the outset.

2. The DNC, through their Chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who later resigned because of leaked emails that pointed to her collusion to sabotage Bernie Sanders campaign, subverted democracy by placing her own personal agenda to make sure Hillary was the nominee, likely because Wasserman-Schultz campaigned for Clinton in her run for President in 2012, and had a working relationship with her; political favors favor those seeking political power. After her resignation, Wasserman-Schultz was appointed by Hillary Clinton as honorary chair to the Clinton campaign’s 50-state program. DWS continued to push the corrupt brand of politics she perfected as DNC chair, which lost Bernie Sanders the presidency. Bernie was not only the favorite of the other two candidates, he was leading in the polls in almost every state against both Trump and Clinton. Bernie would have easily won against Trump. What DWS and the Democratic Party did verges on criminal, but without a doubt, failed all Democrats and this country.

3. The mainstream media (MSM) gave Trump a free global stage like none other in history. They hung onto every word the orange imbecile would say and report on it literally for an entire year on a daily basis. Trump spent a mere $10 million on advertising for his campaign. But the MSM gave Trump $2 billion in free advertising by airing his ‘new stories’! No other candidate has come close to that amount in free news coverage. In contrast, Clinton was given $746 million in free advertising. The MSM was complicit in electing Trump.

4. Trump’s supporters, which account obviously for the majority of voters, were fear mongered (the deliberate use of fear based tactics including exaggeration and usually repetition to influence the public in order to achieve a desired outcome) from Trump from the outset. Their fears about muslims, mexicans, conservatives and the state which their perception of the country is in, was further fueled by the exaggerated and hyperbolical language that spoke to his supporters’ fears. To that, Trump’s supporters voted for him because they didn’t like Clinton and her policies, and rightly so. The fear which was felt from the populace, handed Trump the presidency.

The desire for a socially significant moment in having our first female American president, obvious political collusion within the DNC and the existence of the Superdelegate system, created a situation where Democrats had noone to present to the majority of American voters as an antecedent to the labor-focused, populist message of Trump. Therefore, he got them all.

We can only hope that the reality within which we now find ourselves living results, four years from now, in a candidate/movement/social force that produces a profoundly liberal, leftist, pro-worker, pro-social programs, pro-equality, pro-woman, pro-environment candidate that can actually speak to the millions of Americans who have felt so forgotten for so long. I sincerely understand their complaints and just as sincerely feel that Trump doesn’t understand or empathize, nor ever will, in any way with the very people who just put him in office.

The post The Four Insane Reasons Why Trump Won The Presidency appeared first on Natural Revolution.

AND … if you are as passionate about disclosure as we are, please consider supporting our next documentary entitled “Unacknowledged : An Expose of the Greatest Secret in Human History” . . . as Dr. Steven Greer, the father of the Global Disclosure Movement, is thrilled to announce the ultimate campaign that ends illegal UFO and Free Energy Technology secrecy once and for all and embraces the beginning of a new civilization on Earth.

More can be found on their crowdfunding site at wwwfundraising.siriusdisclosure.com or on their main website at www.siriusdisclosure.com.

Please enjoy “Sirius” for FREE and share with your friends and family.

The post ‘SIRIUS’ Full Length Documentary from Dr. Steven Greer appeared first on Natural Revolution.

For more information visit www.cowspiracy.com, or to watch Cowspiracy on Netflix, visit www.netflix.com/title/80033772

The post Cowspiracy – The Global Impact Raising Animals Have on Our Planet appeared first on Natural Revolution.

“It is not acceptable that many young people have criminal records for smoking marijuana, while the CEOs of banks whose illegal behavior helped destroy our economy do not.” -Bernie Sanders

Bernie has introduced legislation in the Senate to federally decriminalize marijuana by taking it out of the Controlled Substance act altogether. This would also put an end to the failed war on drugs, which for many years has disproportionately targeted minorities and low-income communities. No other presidential candidate is willing to do the same.

Below is a fantastic event idea called “Donate $4.20 to Bernie Sanders on 4/20“, via Facebook. Please consider joining the event and invite your fellow cannabis supporters, friends and family to join in for a very good cause.

We urge all cannabis reformers, activists, patients, enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, advocates and professionals to donate on April 20th, $4.20 (or $42 or $420) to Bernie Sanders campaign and send a message to the establishment that alone we’re harmless bees, but together we’re a ferocious swarm that will not be silenced!

If you may not be familiar with Bernie Sanders, please take a look at his issues on his official website at BernieSanders.com.

If you feel you would like to support Bernie Sanders on his stance against the war on drugs and other important issues facing us and our country today, please make donations directly to the official Bernie Sanders campaign at https:// secure.berniesanders.com/ page/contribute/contribute

#BernGreenGiveGreen

The post [VIDEO] Bernie Sanders to Take Marijuana Off Controlled Substance Act as President appeared first on Natural Revolution.