From: lassini@eecae.ee.msu.edu (Stefano Lassini)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.consciousness,alt.dreams,alt.drugs,alt.mindcontrol,alt.psychoactives
Subject: Re: chrysalis by Peter Reich
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:58:58 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Michigan State University

bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (William E. White ) writes:

>In article <1992Sep8.144936.6553@cs.umb.edu> pbreton@cs.umb.edu (Peter Breton) writes:
>>  Also curious if anyone's built any orgone boxes, Hieronymous devices, 
>>or anything else besides the typical light-and-sound fare. AND, what's 
>>the dirt on the various PC mind machines? Is there hardware out there that
>>does this kind of thing already? Let's get a little discussion going...

>I haven't built one yet; keep intending to.  Most of the devices available
>commercially charge you an overwhelming charge for a 555 timer and a
>bunch of red LED's (oh yes, I forgot the sunglasses...).  Trouble is,
>without a means of monitoring brainwave components, you have very little
>way of knowing what's placebo and what's real.

>If you're really interested there was an article (I think in an old BYTE
>magazine, like 3 years ago) on how to build an EEG card for a PC; it even
>included fast fourier transform software so you could watch individual
>freq components.  I'd say your best bet would be to couple that with, say,
>a special-purpose synth card (a la SoundBlaster for the brain), give three
>channels (red,green,blue) per eye, plus two audio channels (left,right)
>hooked into an FM synth or something, plus however many direct contact
>stimulators you want (again, FM synth on those or equivalent).
>Basically you end up with about a gazillion variables, but you can watch your
>brain response in realtime.  Call it the BrainBlaster card?  Maybe this is
>marketable ....

>Anyway, three big safety rules:
>    - don't play with this if you've any degree of epilepsy
>    - avoid combinations of light and sound that have light flashing near
>        alpha rhythm with sound giving alpha rhythm beat frequency (the
>        British tried this, I believe, for a method of crowd control.  Had
>        limited success.  Tends to induce severe seizures even in non-
>		epileptics).
>    - make sure you isolate any wires stuck to your skull from actual
>        electrical connection with the brain.  Go through an optoisolator
>		or something equivalent (IR remote, etc).  (Unless you're looking 
>		for that sort of effect).  The chance of anything going wrong is
>		slim, but why risk it when you have wires stuck to your head
>		with conductive jelly?

>Never heard of Heironymous devices.  As for "orgone", the man who postulated
>its existence was fairly well known for violent opposition to all facts
>disproving it.  Evidently there's a good book about him; I think he also
>might be mentioned in _In the Name of Science_.


>>  Peter


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The board to which bill refers to is probably the HAL-4, an eeg monitor with
up to 4 channels controlled by a 60C31 microcontroller. I have built one
with good results: by the way it transmits its data to the PC via RS232, so
any computer [in my case an Amiga] will do. Steve Ciarcia is the designer of the board and it can be bought in kit form from Circuit Cellar, 4 Park St.,
suite 12 - Vernon, CT 06066

Have fun 
Sam
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.alien.visitors,sci.skeptic