Former basketball star Jerry Lucas

VENICE - What Jerry Lucas accomplished on the basketball court is nearly without equal.

He was the first player to win championships on four levels: high school, college, pro and Olympic gold. Twice in the pros, he averaged more than 20 points and 20 rebounds a game. And he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history.

But what Lucas achieved with just his brain may be even more impressive.

Known as Dr. Memory, Lucas once recalled and recited 200 pages of names in the Manhattan phone book.

I also memorized the whole New Testament, Lucas said in a phone interview this week. I'm going to be 75, but I can still remember the first and last names of 200 people at a speaking engagement or memorize a magazine from cover to cover.

The third passion for Lucas is spirituality. He said he never so much as said a prayer growing up, but realized as adult that their was a void in his life. He embraced body, mind and spirit and has spoken at 1,100 churches.

In what is being billed as a Weekend to Remember, Lucas will focus on all three areas in a series of free talks through Monday at Venice Presbyterian Church. Thursday night's subject is his basketball career and what it took to become one of the game's legends.

Lucas grew up in Middletown, Ohio, about 35 miles north of Cincinnati. His father was a pressman at a paper mill and his mother worked on an assembly line. But from his youth, Lucas stood out and not just because he was 6-feet-8 at age 15.

Dedicated basketball players are known to take a few hundred practice shots a day. Lucas took 5,000 shots a day, often practicing 12 hours or more.

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Basketball great Jerry Lucas to speak in Venice

IMAGE:The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal provides observational, clinical, and scientific... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, March 10, 2015--Depression affects about 350 million people worldwide and is the leading cause of disability. Mindfulness training is a promising approach to decreasing depressive symptoms. The success of an intensive mindfulness meditation program on reducing depression, and how factors such as age, gender, and spirituality affect an individual's response to training are presented in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website until April 10, 2015.

Jeffrey Greeson, PhD, Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC) and University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine (Philadelphia), and coauthors, also from McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), Broadleaf Health (Guelph, Ontario, Canada), and University of Southampton (U.K.), compared how individual differences in religious beliefs, spirituality, the ability to achieve mindfulness, gender, and age affect levels of depressive symptoms after completing an 8-week course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

In the article "Decreased Symptoms of Depression after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: Potential Moderating Effects of Religiosity, Spirituality, Trait Mindfulness, Sex, and Age," the authors report that overall, depressive symptoms decreased substantially for nearly all of the subgroups of participants, and they suggest that MBSR can be helpful whether its use is intended by the individual as a secular or spiritual practice.

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Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Center For Complementary & Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K99AT004945. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About the Journal

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal provides observational, clinical, and scientific reports and commentary intended to help healthcare professionals and scientists evaluate and integrate therapies into patient care protocols and research strategies. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website.

About the Publisher

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Can intensive mindfulness training improve depression?

TAMPA, Fla. (PRWEB) March 09, 2015

Over a 30 year period, a compilation of inexplicable events occurred in author Pandora H. Kings life, experiences of precognition, a sixth sense also referred to as second and future sight, which were perceptively charted. The tipping point was, however, a series of events in the year 2012 that appeared incredibly noteworthy and generated further exploration into the esoteric matter, culminating in the authors new book, Down Under: The Avgoustos [August] Trilogy (published by Xlibris).

King explores the unconventional subject that has directly affected her life through a first person narrative that follows her as she tries to understand the nature of her extrasensory perception, a paranormal phenomenon that she acknowledges is highly controversial and inconclusive all the more reason for further investigation. Her book contains an investigative component, with a storyline that touches readers desires to enhance their knowledge base by examining causality and potential interrelationships associated with the sixth sense and spirituality. Affinity groups may span from a cross-section of adults such as, college students, intellectuals or readers with a high interest level in the inexplicable alongside the faith-based and scientific communities.

Down Under: The Avgoustos [August] Trilogy also contains inspirational messages, Pandoras Affirmation shows that when a life-altering event creates a spiral of unforeseen challenges, an individual can counteract these unexpected challenges by relying on his or her faith in God coupled with a support system that fosters self-healing through spirituality, self-empowerment, and a profound surge of resiliency.

The ability to be forward-thinking and intuitive can empower an individual to initiate impulsive choices, and subsequently, to the observers, it may appear the consequences in the decision-making process have not been effectively factored in. In the lessons-learned archives, we should never underestimate the human spirit and people, in general, who inherently possess the knowledge base that fuels their intuitiveness. King says.

Down Under: The Avgoustos [August] Trilogy By Pandora H. King Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 278 pages | ISBN 9781503527904 Softcover | 6 x 9 in | 278 pages | ISBN 9781503527898 E-Book | 278 pages | ISBN 9781503527881 Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author Pandora H. King is an educator with over 15 years of experience in the academic setting. She was a former doctoral student and undergoing the dissertation process when she was diverted by design to develop the aforementioned book.

Xlibris Publishing, an Author Solutions, LLC imprint, is a self-publishing services provider created in 1997 by authors, for authors. By focusing on the needs of creative writers and artists and adopting the latest print-on-demand publishing technology and strategies, we provide expert publishing services with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound and full-color formats. To date, Xlibris has helped to publish more than 60,000 titles. For more information, visit xlibris.com or call 1-888-795-4274 to receive a free publishing guide. Follow us @XlibrisPub on Twitter for the latest news. ###

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Down Under: The Avgoustos [August] Trilogy explores precognition

Wikipedia defines pseudo science as a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudo science ignores the scientific method. It makes conclusions and then looks for facts to support the conclusions. In pseudoscience there is no healthy skepticism about fantastic claims, in fact there is an enthusiasm to accept untested personal testimony as a public truth ( as in the stories about UFOS).

It is more about what someone feels then facts. The elevation of individual testimony or sensation over logic and verifiable fact is not only popular; it is often linked to religion, spirituality, popular psychology and cults. Pseudoscience enthusiasts offer a hypothesis first and ignore facts such as the assertion that ancient aliens were behind most changes in history. A recent Time/Yankelvich poll found that 80% of Americans feel that the government is covering up information about extra-terrestrials. 68% of citizens support child vaccines compared to 86% of scientists 57% do not know that electrons are smaller than atoms. 84% percent of scientists think that humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels but only 49% of the public believes it. 93% of scientists support federal research on funding on stem cells versus 58% of the public. About 46% of the public believes, God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years and this number has not changed since 1982 63% of American adults are unaware that the last dinosaur died before humans arose. According to a recent Pew Research poll, science is on the decline in terms of public interest. At the same time there is almost a universal criticism of our education system directed at students, teachers, school administrators, and their curriculums. And the latest magic curriculum that is being offered is called STEM LEARNING which is supported by the Federal, State, and local governments as well as the manufacturing sector. This program aims to make kids better at science, engineering, technology and math. I am a supporter of the STEM learning initiative, and feel strongly that all citizens (not just students) need to have a better understanding of science. But I have a big question that relates to STEM learning. How can we ask kids to be more interested in science and math when their parents are enamored by pseudo-science? Pseudo-science comes in the form of books, products, seminars, newspapers, magazines, pop psychology, religion and TV shows. I think TV is very representative of what people are really interested in because it is based on ratings and numbers of viewers. There are channels called the history and science channels on cable TV but these are oxymorons because there is very little real science or history. Most of the programs are about UFOs and Ancient Aliens with a smattering of reality shows like Swamp People.

All of these examples make it very clear that pseudo science is a lot more popular with the public then real science which I believe is a real danger for the future. But before any attempt at making a case for science literacy, it is important to understand why people like pseudoscience.

Pseudo-science is very appealing to people who like black and white or fundamentalist thinking such as creationists and new earthers. People attracted to fundamentalist solutions prefer simple solutions to very complex problems. Secondly a lot of people who took science courses in high school remember very little science because the courses were taught through rote memorization. Third science is not easy to study and many people simply avoid hard subjects. And perhaps the biggest problem is that pseudo-science is easier and more entertaining than the real thing.

To put this problem in a larger perspective, American Manufacturing must be able to compete with the rest of the world by advancing science and technology. Manufacturers know this and are crying for students who can take courses in Science Technology, Engineering and Math.

Of all of the subjects that students can master in their STEM learning, I think understanding the scientific method way of thinking is the most important lesson that can be learned. In the scientific approach to analysis, people create a hypothesis, describe the facts that support the hypothesis, and then publish their findings as conclusions. Science has a built in system of checking for errors, by letting anyone on the planet try to find errors in the facts or conclusions. The theory is based on provable facts and your conclusions will not be accepted until a majority of the critics agree they are valid. We are in a century where there will be many changes to the planet and environment. . In our new century, science will permeate all industries and most of our major problems. But with so few citizens really understanding science there will be big problems. The late Carl Sagan summed up this problem in his book the Demon Haunted World: Weve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our face,

I think that the most critical factor in student learning are their parents. Parents are in the unenviable but responsible position of setting an example for their children and being involved in the learning process. Parents involvement is crucial to developing the childs academic ability and confidence. Dr. Patricia Porter makes the case that parents are very influential in 3 ways: 1. Modeling Children love you and want to be like you. They watch what you do and try to do what you do. Modeling is the most important way you influence your childs behavior. 2. Mentoring Sharing your knowledge and experience with your children will help them develop skills. 3. Mediate You need to mediate between your child and the world around him. You can help your children understand science and the realities of the world by preparing yourself in the realities and basics of science. How can a student focus on geology and the search for natural resources if parents tell them that geological dating methods are wrong and the world is only 10,000 years old? How will we train the future doctors, nurses, and medical technicians if they are told that the principles of evolution and biology are not proven? How will students be able to understand and analyze the problems of gas emissions and make a decision about climate change if they dont know basic chemistry? More importantly, how will students understand many of the advanced and complicated concepts in STEM learning if their parents cannot model, mentor, or mediate? Pseudo-Science leads to irrationalism

Parents, not just students, are going to have to learn more about science just to play their role as mentors to their children. To even have a chance of understanding the natural world and all of the problems that are coming at us in the future, parents need to set a better example for their kids. They need to be less gullible and better at critical thinking and more skeptical about fantastic claims. They need to understand that fantastic claims require fantastic evidence. Rather than accept a claim that appeals to them emotionally, people need to learn more about the scientific method. It is
a way of looking at the world as it is, rather than how we would wish it to be. The 21st century is going to bring some fantastic breakthroughs in stem cell research, cloning, coding of DNA, fusion, quantum physics, artificial intelligence, computers, microelectronics, materials science, nanotechnology and the conquest of disease. Pseudo-science can lead to blind antipathy to reason and lead people away from making good decisions or understanding the true nature of the world we live in and the problems we must solve. It makes people gullible to fantastic claims taken at face value without investigation. A good example is the current antipathy to vaccines by 32% of our citizens which has led to a rash of infections in Southern California It will be very tempting for people to be attracted to superstition, cult theories, and pseudo-science for answers. Unless we can make a lot more headway in discounting the importance of pseudo-science we will continue to move towards a society where irrationalism will prevail, clutching our crystals and magnets to our heart.

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Pseudo Science And The Age Of Irrationalism

For most of my life, a God that was real seemed a contradiction in terms. Every idea of God I had ever encountered seemed either physically impossible or so vague as to be empty. I was an atheist married to a famous scientist. But a time came when I needed a higher power. I was forced to acknowledge that, but I didnt know if it would be possible for me. I have no interest in a God that has to be believed in. If I am going to have God in my life, it has to be a God that cannot help but exist, in the same way that matter and gravity and culture exist. We dont need to believe in these things; they just exist. We can choose to learn more about them, or not.

I have had the extraordinary privilege of a ringside seat for one of the greatest scientific revolutions in human history. For thirty-eight-years I have been married to a man who studies the entire universe as a single evolving entity. My husband, Joel Primack, studies cosmology, the branch of astrophysics that researches the origin, nature, and evolution of the universe. In the early 1980s my then-young husband and three collaborators proposed a theory to solve the great mystery of why there are galaxies. After all, if the Big Bang was symmetrical in all directions, why isnt the universe just a bigger soup? What caused galaxies and clusters of galaxies to form?

Their new theory challenged the assumption that everything is made of atoms. It postulated that the vast majority of matter in the universe is in fact not made of atoms or even made of the parts of atoms. Its something completely different, something invisible, called cold dark matter. The theory calculates how the peculiar behavior of cold dark matter could have created the galaxies over time. It was a daring theory, making specific predictions in a field that had scarcely any believable evidence. Some astronomers dismissed it as wildly improbable, but my husband and his collaborators kept developing it with increasing success, realizing a few years later that the other key actor in the evolution of the universe was the even more mysterious dark energy. Thats the energy making the universe expand faster and faster. To test the theory countries around the world have built great observatories on the ground and in space. After three decades the evidence is overwhelming and still pouring inand it confirms the theory without a single discrepancy. As unlikely as it seemed at first, even to my skeptical husband and his colleagues, the double dark theory, based on dark matter and dark energy, has now become accepted in astronomy as the foundation of the modern picture of the universe.

For me a God that is real has to be real not in our commonsense world but in the double dark universe, where we now know we live.

The double dark theory tells a big piece of our origin story. For thousands of years and in virtually all cultures, people have told origin stories, but this is the first one to be based on science and therefore the first origin story in the history of humanity that may actually be accurate. The story is not what anyone, not even Einstein, expected. Were living in a stranger universe than earlier generations ever dreamed. The implications of this discovery for intelligent beings are almost entirely unknown, but inevitably they will be life changing. We have a new picture of the universe. What does a new picture of our universe mean for who and what we are?

And what does it mean for God?

The modern world is certainly confused about God. Surveys consistently find that about 90 percent of Americans, and a somewhat smaller majority of people in many other countries, say quite definitely that they believe in God. But when they are asked to explain what they mean by God, they become less certain, and theres much divergence of opinion. Is God something authoritarian or supportive, engaged or distant, physical or in the heart? Some describe God as all knowing, all loving, all wise, a careful planneran entity embodying human characteristics raised to perfectionthat created and controls the entire universe, including alien worlds where there could be intelligent creatures with little resemblance to humans. Some believe there is no law of physics an all-powerful God could not break.

Religions opponents jump in and claim that God does not exist, end of story. This claim is understandable: abuses in the name of religion provide plenty of temptation to feel that the human race might be better off abolishing the whole idea of religion. From this perspective God is at best a fantasy and a distraction, and there are saner and more useful ways to contribute to society.

There was a time when I felt this way.

I remember sitting in Sunday school when I was in the second grade, reading a picture book that showed God as an old bearded man sitting on a cloud and giving orders. I thought, of course that couldnt be real! I watched clouds all the time, and I never saw anyone up there. Metaphor was quite beyond me as a child. I took things literally, and then I made my own judgment, which would always seem like the obvious conclusion. The greatest mystery to me as a child was how grown-ups could believe the religious stories they were teaching us. Did they really? Were they crazy or were they intentionally tricking us? The implications either way were confusing. I suffered through eight years of Sunday school. When I was fifteen, the rabbi had my confirmation class write an essay on our personal view of God. God didnt create us; we created God, I wrote, honestly concluding that God was a fiction invented by weak or illogical people for reasons of convenience or comfort. The rabbi ordered me into his office and yelled at me. Who do you think you are, he railed, to question the wisdom of your ancestors? It was more than a decade before I entered a synagogue again.

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My atheist search for God: Were debating science and religion all wrong