{"id":54571,"date":"2018-05-15T17:10:39","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T00:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=54571"},"modified":"2018-05-16T17:17:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T00:17:01","slug":"trepanning-john-yoko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/trepanning-john-yoko\/","title":{"rendered":"Trepanning with John and Yoko"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

\"trepanning\"THIS IS NOT A DRILL<\/strong><\/p>\n

In March 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent their honeymoon at a posh hotel in Amsterdam, where they staged their infamous \u201cBed-in for Peace.\u201d Among the reporters and well-wishers that Lennon invited was a 34-year-old Dutchman named Bart Huges. He was summoned there because the Beatle had a strange request: \u201cI want a third eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lennon wasn\u2019t talking about a metaphorical, spiritual third eye, but an actual hole drilled in his forehead. This controversial procedure is called trepanation.<\/p>\n

Trepanning (from the Greek trypanon, \u201ca borer\u201d) has been practiced since prehistoric times to treat everything from headaches to demons. But in the late 1960s, trepanation became something of a fad for the burgeoning New Age movement. The best known among them was Huges, a Dutch librarian who had been expelled from medical school a few years earlier for his rampant drug use.<\/p>\n

In 1964 he published a \u201cscientific\u201d paper\u2014in scroll form\u2014called \u201cHomo Sapiens Correctus,\u201d in which he claimed that ever since humans learned to walk upright, gravity has prevented enough blood from flowing up to the brain, and that drilling a hole in the forehead would relieve pressure and thus increase \u201cbrainbloodvolume.\u201d Or something like that. The benefits: increased energy and creativity, and even better: a \u201cpermanent high.\u201d Marijuana and LSD are temporary, Huges preached; trepanation is forever.<\/p>\n

BEATLE-MANIAC<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Lennon, who was well known for trying to find new ways to expand his consciousness, really wanted Huges to drill a \u201cthird eye\u201d in his head. As much of a kook as Huges may have been (and according to pretty much every medical professional, he was a kook), he warned Lennon against the procedure, telling him, \u201cI am certain you already have it. Third eye people are your kind of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metaphorically, Huges was speaking about the Beatles\u2019 and Lennon\u2019s massive influence on popular culture. But the \u201cit\u201d to which he was specifically referring is an actual hole in about 10 percent of adults\u2019 craniums known medically as a fontanel. A better-known term is \u201csoft spot,\u201d which all babies have. A fetus\u2019s skull is connected in sections, and the fontanel helps relieve the pressure of the rapidly growing brain (it also helps the head fit through the narrow birth canal).<\/p>\n

Most people\u2019s skull plates have fused together by adulthood, which is why Huges recommended trepanation. However, he insisted that Lennon still had his\u2026hole. \u201cBut John kept wanting it,\u201d Huges recalled many years later, \u201cand I kept telling him, \u2018Don\u2019t drill it. It\u2019s a deception. You will notice no difference!\u2019\u200a\u201d It wasn\u2019t until Yoko Ono took Huges\u2019s side that Lennon let the matter go.<\/p>\n

For a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cWE KNOW A GUY\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Later, back in England, John and Yoko invited Paul and Linda McCartney over for dinner one night, and Lennon brought up the subject again. \u201cYou fancy getting the trepanning thing done?\u201d Lennon asked.<\/p>\n

McCartney had no idea what he was talking about, so Lennon explained, \u201cWell, you kind of have a hole bored into your skull and it relieves the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCartney thought he was kidding.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, this isn\u2019t a joke,\u201d Lennon assured him. \u201cLet\u2019s go next week, we know a guy who can do it, and maybe we can all do it together!\u201d<\/p>\n

McCartney politely refused: \u201cLook, you go and have it done, and if it works, great. Tell us about it and we\u2019ll all have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So did John Lennon ever go through with the procedure?<\/p>\n

All reports point to no.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>This article is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s OLD FAITHFUL 30th Anniversary Bathroom Reader<\/em><\/a>. Uncle John and the Bathroom Readers’ Institute! Every year for the past three decades, Uncle John and his team of tireless researchers have delivered an epic tome packed with thousands of fascinating factoids<\/a>. And now this extra-special 30th anniversary edition has everything you’ve come to expect from the BRI, and more! It’s stuffed with 512 pages of all-new articles sure to please everyone, from our longtime readers to newbies alike. You’ll get the scoop on the latest “scientific” studies, weird world news, surprising history, and obscure facts.<\/p>\n

Since 1987, the Bathroom Readers\u2019 Institute<\/a> has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom (and everywhere else for that matter). With more than 15 million books in print, the Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader series is the longest-running, most popular series of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n

If you like Today I Found Out<\/a>, I guarantee you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books, so check them out<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader THIS IS NOT A DRILL In March 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent their honeymoon at a posh hotel in Amsterdam, where they staged their infamous \u201cBed-in for Peace.\u201d Among the reporters and well-wishers that Lennon invited was a 34-year-old Dutchman named Bart Huges. He was summoned there because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":54926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54927,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54571\/revisions\/54927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}