A research team at the University of Michigan studied placebo-related brain chemistry in August 2005. A placebo is a blank sample used in place of actual drug or medicine. A research group led by neuroscientist Jon-Kar Zubieta, induced pain in the jaws of fourteen men by injecting a salt solution. Each was given a placebo—an injection said to be an experimental pain medication. Nine of the men said the pain subsided. PET scans showed differences in brain activity, as those who reported pain relief after taking the placebo showed increased activity in parts of the brain associated with modulating pain, writes David Epstein (Discover, January 2006). "If somebody believes something will work," says Zubeita, "that positive expectation by itself, through different connections in the brain, activates mechanisms that suppress pain. We saw a linear relationship between how people reported pain and how their brains released opioids." The research is being doneto minimize the placebo effect and find out the actual effect of the drug in pain relief.

Faith—either on the part of the patient or the doctor—has always played a great role in healing. "With faith all things are possible," says Light on the Path. All down the ages there have been innumerable examples of faith healing. H.P.B. writes:

Healing, to deserve the name, requires either faith in the patient, or robust health united with a strong will, in the operator. With expectancy supplemented by faith, one can cure himself of almost any morbific condition. The tomb of saint; a holy relic; a talisman; a bit of paper or garment that has been handled by the supposed healer; a nostrum; a penance, or a ceremonial; the laying on the hands, or a few words impressively pronounced—either will do. It is a question of temperament, imagination, self-cure. In thousands of instances, the doctor, the priest, or the relic has had credit for healings that were solely and simply due to the patient's unconscious will. The woman with the bloody issue....who touched the robe of Jesus, was told that her "faith" had made her whole. (Isis Unveiled, I, 216)

We are aware of three states of matter—solid, liquid and gas. What is the fourth state of matter? The answer is plasma, so named by an American chemist, Irving Langmuir in 1928. Plasma is a gas in which atoms have been stripped of electrons, i.e., ionized. In 1800s, an Englishman named Sir William Crookes spoke about "fourth state" of matter and described the ionized gas. Walter Gekelman, researcher on plasma in the laboratory at UCLA, along with other scientists, is intrigued by the behaviour of plasma. Plasma has magnetic and electric fields that move around unpredictably, altering their environment. But as the environment changes, there is corresponding change in plasma and thus there is continuous play of action and reaction. It is usually hot, but it can also be cold. "Ninety nine percent of the universe is made of it. The Earth is surrounded by it. The aurora borealis is a lovely example of it. So is lightening. The sun is made of it," writes Joel Achenbach (National Geographic, February 2006). It is believed that the core of the sun is plasma, denser than lead, which leads to fusion of atomic nuclei and releasing huge amount of energy.

Plasma could be the key to new energy sources.It is already being used for multiple purposes. Thin beams of highly accelerated plasma are likely to be used in rockets; cold plasma is essential to many industrial operations. Mounir Laroussi, a physicist at old Dominion University, has developed a sort of pencil that shoots out a small stream of cold plasma. It can sterilize equipments that would be damaged by heat. It can be used to disinfect flesh wound without damaging neibouring cells and it is said to make the fibres in the disposable diapers more absorbent.

The article, "What is Matter and What is Force?" (The Theosophist, September, 1882), mentions Professor Crookes's discovery of the "radiant matter," or "the fourth state of matter," by refining the gases to a condition so ethereal, as to reach a state of matter that could be described as "ultra-gaseous," exhibiting an entirely novel set of properties. Several great men of science admitted the existence of such matter. They accepted the possibility on the analogy that just as there are sound and light vibrations, to which our ears and eyes are insensible, so there could be matter beyond gaseous state. The fourth state of matter was described as, "the first flying molecules, [which] if left to obey the laws of kinetic force without mutual interference, will cease to exhibit the properties characteristic of the gaseous state, and take on an entirely new set of properties."

A Master of Wisdom points out that the three states of matter—solid, liquid and gaseous—are but so many stages in an unbroken chain of physical continuity. Beyond the fourth state of matter, there are fifth, sixth and even seventh conditions of matter, as well as seven senses in man. It is not impossible that in time, these higher states of matter and higher dimensions of space will be discovered and nature will be found to be septernary. The source of electricity lies beyond the fourth state of matter.

A Master of Wisdom observes that the nature of the sun and its various phenomena pertain to the sixth state of matter. Thus:

The astronomers, may yet arrive at accepting the occult theory, viz., that they have to look to the 6th state of matter, for divulging to them the true nature of their photospheres, chromospheres, appendages, prominences, projections and horns. (The Theosophist, September 1883).

How old is human occupation of the Americas? For a long time researchers considered that human settlement in America was not more than 12,000 years old. However, the remains of a human settlement at Monte Verde, Chile, discovered in 1977, was judged 1,000 years older than the accepted figure of 12,000 years. Since then it has remained a controversial issue. A team of researchers, led by Sylvia Gonzales of Liverpool John Mores University of England, claimed human footprints discovered in Central Mexico to be at least 40,000 years old. The evidence came to light in 2003 while studying a formation of volcanic ash in the Valsequillo Basin, south of Puebla, where they spotted marks, of small depressions, in an area of hardened ash that has long been quarried by locals. After spending two years studying the depressions and using several dating techniques, the marks were claimed to be ancient human footprints. Many scientists have challenged the conclusions and dating techniques. Some archeologists and geologist visiting the site say that "the proposed footprint tracks cross several different layers of ash and in some cases form rectangular patterns. This suggests that the marks may not be footprints at all but rather modern quarry marks left when workers cut and extracted rectangular slabs of the concretelike ash°¶.The site was too disturbed by modern human activity to yield by modern human activity to yield conclusions," writes Michael W. Robbins (Discover, January 2005, reprinted in January 2006 issue of Discover). Gonzales aims to return to the site this year for further investigation.

A series of articles titled "A Land of Mystery" appeared in the early issues of the magazine, The Theosophist—the first one appearing in October 1879. In these articles, H.P.B. points out that the European conceit had led to almost complete ignorance of the wonders of pre-Columbian arts and architecture in both South and North America. Many of the stupendous structures that still exist—temples, palaces and cities of Peru and Mexico that rival Egyptian antiquities—are considered to be the work of far earlier races. H.P.B. assembled evidence to suggest an immense antiquity for such archaeological remains. H.P.B. also suggests the connection between Aryans and Americans in the far past.

In the same articles H.P.B. points out that it stands scientifically proved, beyond any doubt or cavil that man has lived in America, at least 50,000 years ago. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological society, cited the evidence in his lecture, as follows:

"Near New Orleans, in one part of the modern delta, in excavating for gas works, a series of beds, almost wholly made up of vegetable matter, were dug through. In the excavation, at a depth of 16 feet from the upper surface, and beneath four buried forests, one on the top of the other, the labourers discovered some charcoal and the skeleton of a man, the cranium of which was reported to be that of the type of the aboriginal Red Indian race. To this skeleton, Dr. Dowler ascribed an antiquity of some 50,000 years." [H.P.B. comments] The irrepressible cycle in the course of time brought down the descendants of the contemporaries of the late inhabitant of this skeleton, and intellectually as well as physically they have degenerated, as the present elephant has degenerated from his proud and monstrous forefather, the antedeluvian Sivatherium whose fossil remains are still found in the Himalayas; or, as the lizard has from the plesiosaurus. (H.P.B. Series No. 12, p. 32)

"Certain excavations in America in mounds and in caves, have already yielded in isolated cases groups of skeletons of nine and twelve feet high. These belong to tribes of the early Fifth Race, now degenerated to an average size of between five and six feet," writes H.P.B. (S.D., II, 293)

Perseverance opens up treasures which bring perennial joy.

—M. K. Gandhi