One of the primary inspirations behind this new site is that turning on higher intelligence is not only fun and joyous, it is absolutely necessary if we and our intelligent civilization are to survive the coming decades and expand out into the cosmos. By higher intelligence I mean the whole enchilada, whatever that is - not just greater intellect, but greater everything, greater emotional sanity, more love, compassion, creativity, inspiration, and most especially the transcendent experience itself and it's infinite expanse so raved about by psychonauts, shamans and eastern/yogic practioners.

Hoffman's virtual worlds, which he calls by names such as SnowWorld or SpiderWorld, are designed to immerse the user so deeply in the virtual experience that their attention is distracted away from the pain.

SnowWorld, for instance, takes users on an absorbing virtual journey through glaciers and ice caves whilst having to defend themselves from attack by polar bears and penguins.

Mike Robinson, a patient who has undergone the virtual reality treatment, said it helped him to overcome the extreme discomfort he felt when his dressings were changed.

"My pain when the nurse is changing my bandages is consistently extreme," he told BBC News Online. "But during the time I was in VR, I was pretty much unaware that the nurse was even working on my wound. "I mean, at some level I knew she was working on me, but I wasn't thinking about it because I was inside that SnowWorld."

"Pain requires conscious attention. Humans have a limited amount of this and it's hard to do two things at once,"

"It is disturbing to observe the adverse effect of some U.S. policies on the less-developed nations. Despite helpful contributions of USAID and military assistance in Mali, for instance, the grossly exorbitant cotton subsidies for mega-farms in America cost the country far more than all the combined assistance from rich nations. Malians produced more cotton last year than any other African country and it is their number one export, but they had to sell it with no profit in order to compete with the heavily subsidized U.S. crop. Also, there is a heavy-handed effort by Washington to force other countries to violate the basic premises of the newly established International Criminal Court. Our government threatens to withhold military assistance unless they will guarantee that U.S. citizens be immune to possible punishment for war crimes or other atrocities. Another interesting development has been the efforts from Washington to elevate the issue of terrorism, and American diplomatic officials are forced to participate in this over-emphasis. We were warned strenuously about the new terrorist dangers that had arisen when we planned our visit to Timbuktu and Mopti. I decided that we would take a chance, and when we met with representatives of a dozen donor agencies in Bamako, I asked if any of them had any evidence of increased violence in the area or terrorist threats. The unanimous response was laughter."