Self-trepanning: drilling oneself in the head to experiment with consciousness
This absurd practice has led several people to drill a hole in their skull.
In 1967 Joe Mellen, a 30-year-old British citizen, attempted to pierce his skull with a hand-held trephine (similar to a corkscrew). (similar to a corkscrew) while high on acid. After failing in his first attempt, he repeated the procedure the following year with identical results. Finally, in 1970 he managed to drill a hole in the upper part of his forehead with an electric drill. But the story does not end there.
In the same year, his wife, the artist Amanda Feilding (27 years old), also drilled her skull, she did it with an electric dentist's drill. The procedure was recorded by Mellen, resulting in something that is now considered a cult video. "Heartbeat in the brain", which is what the tape is called, can be viewed on YouTube and is material not suitable for the squeamish. The reason for this is the potential assumption that this absurd practice has to do with the desire to "expand the mind", in the same way that certain types of drugs are often experimented with.in the same way that certain types of drugs are often experimented with.
This story is one of many examples of the extent to which magical thinking, irrational experimentation and the desire to undergo supposedly cathartic experiences can lead to defending a philosophy of life based on a mixture of suggestion and the risk of dying in strange circumstances.
The origin of the story: Bart Huges
Both were influenced by the Dutch physician Bart Huges, an expert in psychoactive substances (mainly LSD), who in 1962 had affirmed that the volume of Blood in the brain conditions the state of consciousness of the person. According to Huges' theory, the adoption of the upright posture in the evolution of hominids had a negative impact on the cognitive level. had a negative impact on the cognitive and even physiological level.The heart of humans, when walking upright, must contend with the force of gravity to carry blood upward toward the brain, which ultimately resulted in a reduction of blood flow to the brain mass. Or so Huges thought.
It is for this first reason that Huges advocated trepanation: to pierce the skull (without going through the meninges) in order, supposedly, to increase the amount of blood remaining in the brain. The second reason is the sealing of the skull that takes place in humans between 18 and 21 years of age. According to the author, before that period the infant skull is only partially closed, thus favoring a greater blood supply to the brain, and the greater irrigation would favor greater consciousness and creativity in the individual by making the brain function with a better performance.
What summarizes Huges' theory is the concept of Ego, which for him was the system that distributes blood throughout the body. Blood is not sent evenlyIn his view, the fact that the part of the brain that receives the most blood is the area of speech and abstract thought means that other regions of the brain receive less.
This has to do with the fact that evolutionarily speech is the part that has monopolized the most recent development of the brain in evolutionary terms. According to the author, making an orifice in the skull would allow a greater inflow and a more balanced and homogeneous irrigation throughout the encephalon.
The cases of Mellen and Feilding
Back to our story: Joe Mellen met Bart Huges in 1965 in Ibiza, in the midst of the vortex of the Beat movement and the beginnings of acid consumption. At that time, Dr. Huges had already trephined his own skull. When Mellen learned of his ideas, he was experimenting with LSD and other potent drugs..
For her part, when Amanda Feilding met Dr. Huges, she had come from studying the religions of different countries and historical eras, as well as the mysticism and initiation rites of various cultures. It was not until 5 years later that the couple decided to have trepanation, thus combining the desire to experience new altered states of consciousness, and a fascination for ritual moments.
Both Amanda Feilding and Joe Mellen come from well-off English families. Feilding was born into a family of English aristocrats and Mellen studied at Oxford and gave up her graduate studies (and a virtually settled life) to pursue a life free of much of the responsibilities typical of Western adults. a life free of many of the typical responsibilities of Western adults..
The experience
When asked about the experience in interviews in 1970, both agreed that it was a successful operation, with Amanda reporting that the whole process took no more than half an hour. At the end of the operation she wrapped her head in a scarf, ate a steak to recover the lost iron and went out to party. Literally.
It is precisely Amanda who describes in greater detail what one experiences when one's skull is perforated: just when she finished drilling the hole she experienced it as "the arrival of a tide". He said he noticed a slow, smooth, growing sensation.
Joe's experience was somewhat more eventful because during the procedure his drill cable broke and he had to go downstairs to have it fixed with a towel over his head. Within hours of finishing, he was overcome with a feeling, he says, of lightness. He tells all about it in his memoir, Bore Hole.
In several interviews, both men agree that the ultimate goal of trepanation is to open the brain "to the heartbeat," which is what trepanation is all about.heartbeat, which is what they say the brain is deprived of by the sealing of the skull in adolescence.
How do they live today?
Feilding currently runs an art gallery in London and is also director of the Beckley Foundation, a Think Tank dedicated to the study of consciousness and all those tools to alter it, both psychoactive substances and meditation, among others. The study of physical mechanisms to achieve altered states of consciousness, in short.
Joe Mellen gives lectures in which he brings the testimony of his youth, collected in Bore Holerecently updated. This book is a real plea in favor of the use of psychoactives and the practice of trepanation.. Although both Feilding and Mellen are outspoken advocates of the practice, they strongly recommend that no one should perform this operation on themselves. Feilding herself ran for election to the British Parliament with a promise to guarantee free trepanation on the NHS in her manifesto. No kidding.
What we can learn from all this
Those who defend trepanation as something to be recommended argue that it is a practice that has been done since the dawn of civilization and that it must therefore be and that therefore it has to be necessarily beneficial. Experts on the subject place the beginnings of this operation in 5000 B.C. and even earlier, and there is archaeological evidence that it was a fairly common practice since the Neolithic period. Needless to say, such an argument is of little use, since there are much older traditions such as stoning, animal abuse or domestic violence, which should not be maintained. The classic argument of "we should keep doing it because we have always done it that way" is dismissed out of hand.
Regarding the health improvement it may have, the liberation of the mind and consciousness, it is worth remembering that not a single verifiable evidence has been found in any scientific study to support that thesis and that modern neurology states that this operation lacks medical foundation, besides being evidently a very dangerous practice, and potentially painful or even fatalespecially considering that people who perform self-trepanation do not do it for medical purposes.
Suggestion, the fact that thinking that trepanation changes the way we experience things makes us feel different (in the best of cases, only that), acts as a driving force for a series of totally irrational beliefs. That is why it is important not to engage in practices that are contraindicated by medicine with regard to such an important set of organs as the brain.
(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)