This is the story of the three times I've been cursed and the strange events that happened in their wake. Anthropologists have known that curses have real-world effects for more than a hundred years. E.E. Evans-Pritchard wrote about how curses form the world view of the Azande while Wade Davis demonstrated how the curse of the Zombi in Haiti produced real-world zombis. In 2014 I was cursed by a rogue Tibetan Buddhist group and a series of unfortunate events his me personally and professionally. I had to find a way to unwind the spell--even as I wasn't entirely convinced that curses were real.

Learn more about it in my book The Enlightenment Trap (available on audio)

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#curses #anthropology #spells

Have you ever wondered about the skeletons that are hiding in your doctor's closet? I spent six years investigating the illegal world of organ trafficking and in this video I want to tell you about the anatomy riots that rocked European and American medical schools in the 1700 and 1800's and how the trade in human skeletons eventually migrated to India where the bone business eventually started exporting 60,000 human skeletons every single year.

Listen to the Red Market Audiobook

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Consciousness is a tool for biology to identify and interact and make decisions about the world at large. In this podcast I examine the concept of The Wedge and how we can use it to control and program the way our nervous systems operate on autopilot to build resilience in the face of adversity.  If you want to know more about these concepts check out my two books on the topic: The Wedge and What Doesn't Kill Us. 

Books:

The Wedge https://www.scottcarney.com/the-wedge

What Doesn't Kill Us https://www.scottcarney.com/what-doesnt-kill-us

In 2012, thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson's search for spiritual transcendence ended in tragedy on a remote Arizona mountaintop. His wife, a woman anointed as a goddess by an eccentric Buddhist community, held him in her arms as he slowly died from dehydration and dysentery. For Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, Thorson's death was just the most recent iteration of an unspoken epidemic that connected intensive meditation and mental instability.

The Enlightenment Trap explores how Tibetan Buddhism in the West morphed from its roots in the Himalayan foothills into a fundamentally new American religion. For Thorson the entry point into this new faith was Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University.

Carney unravels the cult-like practices of Diamond Mountain to illuminate the uniquely American tendency to mix and match Eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces. The result is that for some, enlightenment is a synonym for almost god-like powers and achieving it can become more important than life itself.

Aided by Thorson’s private papers and cutting-edge neurological research, the book reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain. Carney exposes stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes. The Enlightenment Trap is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.

Download the audiobook (or get the print book) for The Enlightenment Trap at Scottcarney.com

This is an emergency Broadcast. In light of recent attacks on my YouTube channel it is obvious that I need to get my information out on as many channels as possible. Stay tuned to this feed to see what happens next.   ©PokeyBear LLC