The Binary Circumstance

Turns out Mother Teresa lived a big lie. She knew it, but she did it anyway.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the “fast track” to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt “a hypocrite,” it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors.

Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: “Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me.”

In letters eight years later she was still expressing “such deep longing for God,” adding that she felt “repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal.”

Her smile to the world from her familiar weather-beaten face was a “mask” or a “cloak,” she said. “What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”

You’ve probably heard people talk about having out-of-body experiences and/or near-death experiences. You may have even experienced something similar yourself.

Now, scientists have demonstrated that the brain can be tricked into thinking it is in another body or outside of its own body.

From the New York Times [reg. req.]:

Using virtual-reality goggles, a camera and a stick, scientists have induced out-of-body experiences — the sensation of drifting outside of one’s own body — in ordinary, healthy people, according to studies being published today in the journal Science.

A representation of one of the scenarios that scientists used to study out-of-body experiences.

When people gazed at an illusory image of themselves through the goggles and were prodded in just the right way with the stick, they felt as if they had left their bodies.

The research reveals that “the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self,” is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams, said one expert on body and mind, Dr. Matthew M. Botvinick, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University.

Usually these sensory streams, which include vision, touch, balance and the sense of where one’s body is positioned in space, work together seamlessly, Dr. Botvinick said. But when the information coming from the sensory sources does not match up, the sense of being embodied as a whole comes apart.

The brain, which abhors ambiguity, then forces a decision that can, as the new experiments show, involve the sense of being in a different body.

The research provides a physical explanation for phenomena usually ascribed to otherworldly influences, said Peter Brugger, a neurologist at University Hospital in Zurich, who, like Dr. Botvinick, had no role in the experiments…

That drives one more nail in the coffin of any dualism between the physical and the spiritual.

The recent actions of the Federal Reserve seem to have calmed the financial markets, while Countrywide Financial Corp has received a $2 billion infusion of capital.

Bank of America Corp. announced late Wednesday it will invest the money into the nation’s largest mortgage lender to help it better weather problems with defaulting subprime loans. The investment was seen as a way to not only prop up Countrywide, but also prevent any further losses at the mortgage lender from hurting the underlying economy. Countrywide’s CEO Angelo Mozilo expressed his optimism about the deal in an interview on CNBC, but when asked if the housing slump could cause a recession, he agreed.

Though Bank of America’s move was reassuring to investors, a number of major banks and home lenders still face difficulties. On Wednesday, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said it would close its BNC Mortgage unit and slash 1,200 jobs; HSBC Holdings PLC and Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. also said they would eliminate jobs.

Mortgage industry job losses have topped 40,000 and some are calling for Bush to bailout homeowners with mortgage problems.

The CEO of Countrywide says the mortgage problems will push the country into a recession.

Some say that it’s time for Bush to bailout mortgage holders.

Famed bond fund manager Bill Gross said the White House should bail out the millions of American homeowners who face the dreaded prospect of foreclosure this year.

“If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner?” Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook on PIMCO’s Web site.

With nearly 2 million homeowners at risk of losing their homes this year and with housing prices rapidly receding, Gross said President Bush, not the Federal Reserve, is the best hope for “almost homeless homeowners.”

“This rescue, which admittedly might bail out speculators who deserve much worse, would support millions of hard-working Americans whose recent hours have become ones of frantic desperation,” said Gross, a founder of the fixed-income investment firm PIMCO and a columnist for Fortune.

“Write some checks, bail ‘em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all ‘W’, you’re ‘the Decider,’ aren’t you?” Gross wrote.

That would also bailout banks that have engaged in reckless lending practices as well as many other guilty parties in the real estate industry. While Bush has said he won’t provide grants to those facing foreclosure, he doesn’t usually pass up opportunities to help the rich hang onto their wealth.

Banks have also increased their borrowing from the Fed since the discount rate was lowered. The Fed is considered the lender of last resort.

Whether the government is bailing out hedge funds, banks or small homeowners, there is a moral hazard involved. They run the risk of enabling and encouraging the same practices that put us here in the first place and that doesn’t make the market a safe place for investors or consumers in the long run.

Being that I write all the time about the difference between fantasy and reality and the importance of knowing the difference, I found this documentary Guys and Dolls absolutely fascinating.

It’s about men who have relationships with life-like female dolls that include emotional attachment and sex. Also of interest are the people who design, make and repair the dolls.

Everyone in the film is smart, emotionally literate, articulate and vulnerable. Everyone knows the dolls are fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that seems to bring these men closer to the reality of who they are, something they haven’t found with real human companions.

It made me think of all the human relationships between real people that are really based on fantasy, far more delusional than the relationships these men have with their dolls.

It’s a really brilliant documentary.

I’d love to hear your impressions.

47 minutes. (Warning: doll nudity. NWS)