Peter Ragnar, We Salute You

I actually had forgotten this man existed.  I rejected his existence, now that I look back, because it seemed so absurd --- but Peter Ragnar is perfectly real, and unfortunately for my ego and all it’s petty attachments, so are the challenges he presents.

Peter Ragnar, like Aubrey DeGrey, plans on living forever, but for some reason I suspect Ragnar might come a good deal closer to the mark.  He’s a lot happier, for one thing....plus, let’s face it, he looks way more healthy.  Peter Ragnar lives in the woods in Tennessee, entertaining guests and seekers and generally striking a blow against pessimism, skepticism and materialism with every breath he takes.  He is a healer, martial artist, author, and gigantic Nordic bear of a human being.

Our bullshit detectors tend to go off when we see poorly designed covers like the photo to the left, but suspend that snotty disbelief for the duration of this article.  Has Brainsturbator finally succumbed to some New Age guru?  Definitely --- SEND MONEY NOW.

ANDREW COHEN: Peter, why is it that you declare that there is no explainable reason why a person should die, other than his or her belief in death?

PETER RAGNAR: Because I feel that we have ultimate control to the degree that we’re conscious. If we are conscious enough, we can make anything happen in our body. We can preserve this body or we can kill this body.

It’s very simple to see how people kill their bodies with their thoughts—it’s a product of their unconsciousness of causes and effects. If we’re conscious of our thoughts—I mean luminously conscious of our thoughts—those thoughts then impregnate the cellular structure of our body in a way that is very, very difficult to explain. When you have an abundance of life force inside you, it pours out of your eyes. It comes out of the palms of your hands as heat, as healing heat. It radiates as if you swallowed the sun, and you are different. Now, with that type of dynamic and powerful energy inside of you, how can you die?

COHEN: Interesting question!

RAGNAR: It’s a working hypothesis, of course. But the more life we have running through our body’s energy system, the more alive we are. Life is not death, life is the opposite of death. So embracing life is the situation. How many people embrace life with every thought and every action and every decision they make? Only a very, very rare few.

You see, we’ve been conditioned to believe in death. Right from the very first breath we take, we feel like life is a march between the womb and the tomb.

---from this interview with Andrew Cohen

Charlie: We know that humans and animals can do incredible feats. Birds migrate to a specific spot or mate many thousands of miles across the earth. Each of us has experienced life situations that can’t be explained. Idiot savants add and multiply faster than computers, and many occurrences we can never understand. How do I learn how to increase my perception and use my inherent talent to win?

Peter: In the very same fashion as you build muscle, you’ve got to consciously exercise your mind to increase your perceptual talents. As I’ve mentioned before, performing the memory feat of memorizing and accurately recalling a deck of 52 cards as they fall requires practice. Each morning, I would take a deck of cards and a stopwatch and time myself until I was able to perform the feat in under a minute without hesitation. Even though doing it before a live audience takes longer, you have the full confidence of being able to present a flawless performance.

Once you have a relaxed sense of confidence, your intentions can take center stage. This is the art of winning. How confident would you be at the card table knowing that you’re aware of the cards that have already been played? The way you do this is to become so intimate with a deck of cards that not only do you remember how they fall, but you sense what card it is before it’s shown face up. Let them be so intimate that they simply become extensions of your fingers.

More from the Andrew Cohen interview:

COHEN: And you believe that human life expectancy should be between 160 and 200 years?

RAGNAR: If you look at the rate of maturation of any animal—in other words, the ratio of the length of time it takes an animal to mature to the length of its life span—for most animals it’s ten to twenty times. A horse, for example, will mature in two years and live for twenty-five to thirty years. Same thing with chimpanzees, dogs, cats—with all animals, it’s at least ten to twenty times. The only exception to this rule is the human species. Even if you take ten times human maturity, which is a low figure, that gives you 180 years. If it’s twenty times, then double that.

You’ve got to get sick in order to die. Nobody dies healthy. I’ve heard people say, “They just died of old age.” And I say, “No, they had so many diseases, they didn’t know which one killed them!” To get sick, you have to get into some type of negativity that damages one or more particular organs.

I’m probably out there by myself on this one, but I feel that we do have ultimate control of our body, because our body is a thought. It’s filled with frozen memories—memories that are formed by our experiences that we have already reached conclusions about, and we’ve emotionalized those conclusions and frozen them into our flesh. Therefore, only when we thaw it out and release, and stop holding on for dear life, can we have dear life.

RAGNAR: Are you familiar with behavioral kinesiology, or muscle testing?

COHEN: Yes.

RAGNAR: Okay. How is it that certain things weaken us and certain things strengthen us? Our body tells us. Our body sends us a signal, and that signal either weakens or strengthens us. The other day, someone was asking me about some testing equipment for kinesiology. And I said, “I don’t need the testing equipment. I’ve already got it; it’s inside me.” I can look at something or think of something, and I know the feedback loop. I know whether it comes back “this is good” or “this is bad.” It’s the same feedback loop that all animals have.

COHEN: So, in other words, you’re saying that when you become more and more conscious, you become more sensitive to what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, a direction to go in or a direction not to go in, a place to eat or a place you shouldn’t eat, that kind of thing? That your intuition will evolve in leaps and bounds, and you will experience a level of sensitivity and intuitive knowing that most people would ordinarily be unaware of, or wouldn’t even be able to imagine?

RAGNAR: Precisely. Now, I know people will say, “You’re making me feel guilty now. You’re making me feel uncomfortable because I don’t have that.” And I say, “But you can. It’s something that develops in time. It’s all called consciousness.” Some of us have been at it longer, that’s all. Some of us have grown up faster. It’s just a part of our evolution. We grow more conscious if we work at it, and if you make a commitment to work at it, then you have the ultimate protection. You’re always in the right place at the right time for the right reason—you are never not. Nothing can happen to you that you do not designate if you are that conscious.

Now, let’s say my belief is wrong. Okay, we’ll find out. But the neat thing is that your confidence is bolstered once you realize that the process works. It works in little ways, and if one is conscious enough to see it working in little ways, then you will see it working in dramatic ways. I choose to believe that everything works because you are more conscious. If you’re conscious, everything works in your favor. And if you’re unconscious, everything works against you.

Further Reading for Curious Primates

First and foremost, read this article on voting and slavery by Ragnar.  Great quote:

Oh yes, you may agree that you have been burdened by government, and so seek solace by voting for change. You may feel that you are choosing the lesser of two evils. Here I implore you to bear in mind that the lesser of two evils is still evil! To endorse a little evil is similar to accepting a little carcinoma. Evil is still evil!

You were born free and you should remain free. You need no one to speak for you. You require no guardians. You have no need for an elder brother watching over your shoulder. You will learn from your own mistakes and grow strong by them. You require no handouts. For it is only by your own hand, and by voluntarily trading with others, that you can honestly obtain all the fruitage for the greater life. You may fail or you may succeed, but only so long as you grant no man the authority to make you his slave may you pursue your quest for a more bountiful life.

For a panopoly of views on Peter Ragnar’s “Magentic Qi Gong” program, check this out.

Peter Ragnar runs a blog, as well as his official website.  They also run a rather embarassing looking online store, should you feel compelled to buy things from him.

Finally, here’s a very glowing second opinion from another new age health author.

Remember to breathe.