Trepanators are volunteer-experimenters who perform a small drilling of the skull (trepanation) in order, in their opinion, to improve their extrasensory abilities or to improve the hypothetical "thought connection with space" and psychic energy.
In 1873-1874, Dr. Prunier and the surgeon Broca first drew the attention of the scientific world to the perforated skulls and bony discs found in the Petit-Morin caves and in the Lozera dolmen. Craniotomy in living people was performed by scraping out bone tissue. Why ancient people made holes in their heads, one can only guess.
Some researchers believe that prehistoric trepanation belongs to the category of ritual self-mutilation. Others are sure that such an operation was aimed at developing the brain and, therefore, intellectual abilities. The perforated skulls of primitive people have also been found in America, the Middle East and other parts of the world, including Russia. The holes were both round and square.
In our time, the first voluntary drilling of the skull was made in 1965 by a medical student from Amsterdam, Bart Hughes, wishing to confirm his scientific theory that trepanation can be used to expand the functionality of the brain. He made himself a trepanation of the brain on his own.
Since then, for many decades there has been controversy around Hughes' theory. Some say that Hughes was right, others criticize him vehemently. In a number of countries, Hughes was even declared persona non grata. However, this did not reduce his supporters.
Bart Hughes during surgery
In 1964 he published scientific articles: "Correction of homo sapiens" and "Trepanation - a drug for psychosis." In them, he proposed using trepanation to expand the functionality of the brain by balancing blood pressure and cerebrospinal fluid pressure.
It is known that the intracranial pressure in a healthy adult is between 7-15mmHg, and the atmospheric pressure is about 760mmHg. Hughes theorized that a hole in the skull raises pressure inside the head, which in turn squeezes out some of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), thus increasing the ratio of blood to cerebrospinal fluid in the head (he called it "brainbloodvolume").
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According to Hughes' theory of increase in brainbloodvolume increases the supply of oxygen to the brain. And the more oxygen, the faster the process of cerebral metabolism goes and the more mental energy a person has.
Wanting to prove his theory, on January 6, 1965, Hughes underwent a brain trepanning. He used a dental drill for this. The operation lasted forty-five minutes. He later said that the operation was short-lived, but it took four hours to clear the blood from the walls and ceiling.
Shortly after surgery, Hughes went to a local hospital for an X-ray as evidence of trepanning. However, there he fell into the hands of psychiatrists, who suggested that the guy was schizophrenic. Bart was locked up in a mental hospital for three weeks. However, the doctors were soon forced to release him. Psychological tests showed that he was completely normal.
In 1966, Bart Hughes met Amanda Fielding (at the time she was 22 years old). The girl becomes an ardent supporter of the theory of Hughes and his girlfriend. Around the same years, Oxford student Joe Mellen became a follower of Bart Hughes. Shortly after Amanda separated from Hughes, she married Mellen.
Joe Mellen performed his trepanation in front of a mirror without any anesthesia using a conventional drill with a mounted oval cutter in 3 minutes.
Joe Mellen with his wife Amanda (70s)
The adherents of trepanation are sure that in history some people with the most outstanding abilities remained known, who had innate holes in the skull - the fontanel for one reason or another did not overgrow, for example, Nefertiti in Ancient Egypt, which, perhaps, for this purpose since childhood tightly tied the head with a scarf.
Some parapsychologists have observed human babies, in which the parietal opening (fontanelle) does not overgrow for about a year, and concluded that information communication with the Cosmos takes place through this opening. After the overgrowth of the fontanelle, such a connection becomes more difficult, and children (according to the general opinion, up to 5 years of age - all potential psychics) gradually become just "normal" people.
In addition, in support of Hughes's conjecture, one can cite numerous observations of doctors who know many cases of skull damage, for example, in the 28-year-old Israeli Imad Rashadi (he carried a bullet in his head for half a year while he decided to see a doctor); 27-year-old Irish woman Alison Kennedy (she did not even think of losing consciousness after the knife was in her head up to the handle); Englishman Ron Fenwick (a wooden cue pierced his head through and through, Ron also did not lose consciousness, the only consequence is that he quit smoking); English steelworker Calvin Page (the head was pierced by a steel rod flying from an 85-meter height, heated to 700 degrees, after which the victim asked to cut a piece of iron sticking out of his head, and then pulled it out with his bare hands); worker from Wisconsin Travis Bohumill (affectionately chided his partner afterhow he shot him in the head with a construction pistol).
Often after receiving such injuries, people changed their character (not for the better), lost some of their abilities (Travis, for example, stopped counting in his mind), but skull injuries were also recorded, after which people not only did not die and did not lose their mental potential, but sometimes they "added" a little in intelligence (as a rule, they became more judicious).
One way or another, the example of Mellen was widely advertised by the British press, and although notes about this method were presented in an ironic tone, nevertheless, over several years several hundred people (as of August 1996 - 230) repeated the experience of autorepanning. According to the experience obtained, the most optimal for this purpose was drilling a hole with a diameter of 7 mm (a hole of a smaller diameter is gradually overgrown with bone, in a hole of a larger diameter, according to trepanators, “the wind just walks!”).
True, according to later data from Dutch scientists, the optimal diameter of the hole in the head is exactly 9.37 mm, and it is then that this “hole will help get rid of psychoses, neuroses, depression, and also find spiritual harmony and enlightenment”.
Amanda Fielding also trepanned herself. Fielding and Mellen have been married for 28 years, but then separated. Moreover, both of them persuaded their subsequent partners to do trepanation for themselves.
In 1995, Amanda Fielding married a former Oxford professor and an English lord. The husband suffered from severe headaches, which stopped after trepanation. In 2000, Fielding traveled to Mexico City, where she underwent repeated trepanning. The European doctors to whom she made this request refused her.
Amanda Fielding is currently the founder and owner of the Beckley Foundation, which promotes innovative neuroscience, drug policy reform, clinical research on the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain, and more.
Joe Mellen. Photo of 2015
The first known head drilling operation in Russia was performed by a Muscovite Albert S., in total there are only three such voluntary trepanators in Russia (plus 200-300 people who have received head injuries that resemble a round hole of the required diameter), although it is also possible that where- then in small settlements there may well be a number of half-crazy masochists, ready to do whatever they want with themselves out of boredom, without any definite purpose and then, hoarsely, prove the undoubted effectiveness of the method.
At the beginning of the XXI century, another extreme novelty appeared in Venezuela - brain piercing. In the area of the back of the head, the customer drills 2 holes with a drill into which a metal ring is threaded. As stated, in this procedure, it is not so much the aesthetic side that is important as the practical: the ring puts pressure on some parts of the brain, promoting the release of chemicals into the blood that cause a feeling of euphoria. For the "eternal buzz", those who wish will have to go to Latin America - there have been no brain piercing masters found on the territory of Russia either.
At the same time, despite the subjective advantages of this method, professional doctors in Britain express quite definite doubts about the advisability of this masochistic execution and warn against possible consequences. Indeed - after all, one wrong movement of a fast-rotating drill, which crumbles the skull literally a millimeter from the delicate brain, and …
Followers of other parapsychological and religious movements consider drilling the brain useless, since, in their opinion, unity with the Cosmos can be achieved in other ways.
We will make a special reservation - in no case should this article be considered as a recommendation.
