Brian649 is...eh, I was led to believe by a very well-respected binaual beatician that the harmonic matrix was the next best thing to god. It's not. I don't think any alpha/theta meditation is, personally. Useful, very useful for spontaneous creative visualization, sure, but not...radically life-altering.
And I want "radically life-altering".
I think we confuse the matter when we say we are looking for a specific brainwave pattern. Why? Because if all we're doing is playing with our brainwaves, those altered states are not very maintainable. They ALWAYS fade. I've begun to think of the vast landscape of self-improvement methods as making up a pyramid, sort of. Chi and brainwaves are...SYMPTOMS of something much more...basic. 
The chinese had this great system that articulates this notion well:
I. JING, sexual vitality/hormones/blood
II. CHI, life energy/bioelectricity
III. SHEN, brainwaves/flow experience
jing converts to chi;
chi converts to shen.
Nice n' simple.
Binaural beats deal mainly with shen (mind) and that's it. That's at the top of the pyramid. You can enter the Awakened Mind state for a an hour, then the meditation ends, you get up and walk around. 10 minutes later, that ultra-high is gone. Why? Because you've got no foundation!! So what good was it? Top-down approaches take decades. Bottom-up approaches like the Kundalini Awakening are much much faster...like a bullet train compared to kiddy tri-cycle.
(Using this logic, 10 Minute Supercharger and Instanteous Personal Magnetism might be the best paraliminals as they are energy meditations. Though, it's easy to psych oneself out. Best to have an Egely Wheel or chidometer so you can quantify the bioelectric benefit from these tapes.)
I think this is also why the hyper-ventalation of the Rebirthing Technique works so well...because you're FLOODING the body with chi from oxygen metabolism.
The Holo-sync concept works very well, because you're not playing with alpha and theta, you're going to delta where you are energizing your body and releasing a ton and a half of salutary hormones. Essentially, can we say that holo-sync is artificial deep sleep? Deep Sleep is jing, chi, and shen. Praise be to deep sleep!
The Tomatis Effect uses high-pitched sounds to energize the nervous system. Sort of a substitute for natural sex energy, works just as well though.
Tai chi? It's still rather indirect in that it focuses on cultivating chi. The effect on the mind is direct (upwards on the pyramid), but what about jing (downwards)?
The body naturally turns jing into chi and turns chi into shen. So...perhaps we should deal with jing explicitly? We know Voodoo Economics didn't work during the Reagan years...that the money of the rich would trickle down to the poor. We can always trust that the poor's money will ..'trickle up' to the rich though.
You know, I think that poor levels of jing may be the underlying Root problem. And if you can get your jing to such a high level, abundance of chi and shen will happen of themselves.
+ Most of us have ejaculated the hell out of our nervous systems. Semen is the most chi-ful substance in the body. We're killing ourselves. If you are a cultivator and you ejaculate too often...that is the ULTIMATE self-sabotage. http://www.actionlove.com/extra/over.htm
+ Most of us have been sleep-deprived by the effects of artificial light.
+ Most of us have crap diets.
+ We all drink non-structured water.
+ We all live in artificial environments that have almost zero negative ion concetration.
If I had to attack the problem of consciousness, you know, take the most DIRECT path...I'd go for the roots. (Confucius: The gentleman attends to the roots and the way grows therefrom")
Sexual Qigong. Essentially souping up your blood and hormones and entire endocrine system. Where qigong oftentimes deals solely with the aura. Again, healthy auras are awesome but... is not the aura a SYMPTOM of something deeper just as the brainwave state is also a SYMPTOM of something deeper?
The kundalini awakening is essentially revving up your sex (bindu) energy and having it run along your entire nervous system. Note that the sex energy "takes on a life of its own". It burns off all of that wonderful trauma that is keeping the energy from flowing. It gives you unbearable cravings for high energy food. It makes you spontaneously desire to bend your body so the energy will flow. Once the kundalini is awakened, I mean...you're pretty much good to go. It takes you on a ride, and it knows where it's going.
The sex energy goes straight up your spine, straight to your brain, and throughout your entire Peripheral Nervous System.
Your entire nervous system is 100% online for once.
This post is a little 'all over the place' as I haven't finalized my thoughts on the matter, but... hopefully I achieved some coherency.
[This message has been edited by Brian649 (edited February 16, 2002).]
