Trepanation

By Nicole Resz

Randall Haws has never really been a meditation type of guy, but as he sat in the waiting room of a medical clinic in Monterrey, Mexico this past June, he took a few minutes of silence and just breathed.

"Man, don't worry about this," he then told the five other men in the room with him. "It's being taped and nothing's gonna go wrong. If it does, they got it on tape."

Haws said the other men seemed rather nervous, but he was confident that his life would change drastically for the better after the hole was drilled into his skull. He and the others were at the medical clinic to have holes drilled in each of their skulls, a procedure known as trepanation.

Meanwhile Jon Cole sat anxiously, running his thoughts past the other four men. "You nervous, you nervous?" he spouted to the others. "How do you feel? How do you feel? Are you ready to do this? Oh my god, I can't believe we're doing this."

As the first of the five men walked into the operating room Haws looked at the others and took a deep breath. "Well guys, here we go," he said.

Sounds a bit ludicrous to have a hole drilled into your skull electively, but trepanners want people to keep an open mind. The theory behind the practice is that drilling a hole in your skull increases the volume of blood to the brain, therefore accelerating your brain metabolism. As a result, trepanners insist that your level of consciousness, energy and quality of life increases, though neurologists insist there is no proven value.

But don't go running to get your two-bit drill just yet; the surgery is somewhat of a doozy and is not recognized as a legitimate therapeutic practice by physicians. In fact, those looking to be trepanned are forced to travel to Mexico to have the procedure performed, assuming they haven't taken to trepanning themselves in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

Peter Halvorson, 54, director of The International Trepanation Advocacy Group (ITAG), does not endorse self-trepanation, but he did drill his own 8 mm hole back in 1972 in Amsterdam and has been crusading for the cause ever since. With an injection of anesthetic, a scalpel, four drill bits and an electric power drill controlled by his foot, Halvorson drilled his way to eternal bliss by inflicting a small hole towards the front of his scalp.

After battling bouts with depression in his 20s, Halvorson, who sidelines as a tree farmer and diamond setter, met and became a disciple of sorts to the guru of modern-day trepanation, Bart Huges. Though Halvorson had tried psychotherapy, various medications and yoga to relieve his anxiety, it was Huges' theory of consciousness expansion that attracted Halvorson the most.

Huges' theory is based on the concept that boring a hole in the top of your skull will reverse nature's development, increase the volume of blood in your brain and return your skull to its original state, ala an infant with a soft spot. As a result of replacing the hole, one is expected to experience an accelerated cerebral metabolism; essentially a permanent high.

"I perceive it to be beneficial to me, and my quest is to do the science," said Halvorson. "It's a kind of good fortune that such an interesting subject came into my life and that I have the opportunity to investigate it scientifically. It's really a beautiful little scenario there," he said.

"It's an exciting day!" Tom Wargo chirped, mentioning that he had just finished filing for divorce from his wife of 18 years. Though his head is hole free, Wargo, 44, has been assisting Halvorson in his research since 1994, using his computer know how to help Halvorson develop the ITAG Web site and research trepanation in depth.

Wargo hired Halvorson in 1990 to do some stone setting for the jewelry store he owned in Pennsylvania and swears Halvorson is phenomenal in whatever he does.

"There aren't really too many people around as talented as Pete," Wargo said. For Wargo, trepanation is a breeze compared to the living hell he went through after a freak water skiing accident in 1979. Doctors pronounced Wargo dead two separate times, and that was only after they had finished reattaching his severed left leg. For him, a small hole in the skull sounds like cake.

"I mean it's actually less involved than doing root canals or pulling a tooth. I feel really good about it," he said.

Wargo, who now runs an Internet service company, says he fully intends on being trepanned himself, but insists it be done here in the states. Though Halvorson was forced to look outside the United States for a medical clinic to perform the procedure, Wargo intends on holding off until an American surgeon will drill into his skull on American soil.

"I'd like to bring it home, so to speak," he said. "I want the research to be done here in the U.S. so that it would open the door to those people in the U.S."

But 'bringing it home' landed Halvorson in some pretty hot water a few years back. In April 2001, Halvorson and comrade William E. Lyons, 56, plead guilty in the 5th District Court in Utah to a third-degree felony of practicing medicine without a license.

The two men were featured in a February 2000 edition of ABC's 20/20 trepanning Heather E. Perry, a British woman who sought Halvorson's help in being trepanned, and were reported to the authorities.

Though Halvorson cites that stint on ABC as "the best thing I ever did and probably the most outrageous thing I'll ever do," he and Lyons were sentenced to three years probation and fined $500 each, as well as being ordered to undergo mental evaluations. Judge Philip Eves presided in that particular courtroom and warned the men to refrain from performing or promoting trepanation anywhere in the United States. Though Halvorson parades on, he insists his intentions are completely innocent.

"I don't go out and proselytize about, you have to be trepanned or you're an inferior human or something like that," Halvorson said. "I don't do black magic and make people feel bad about themselves."

Two years prior to being convicted, Halvorson and Wargo took their act on the road when they appeared before the merciless Howard Stern in the spring of 1998.

"We knew we were going to have mostly all ridicule, because that's the way that show runs," said Wargo. "And I said to Peter, I said, you know what, I said, if a million people hear this and 99.9 percent think we're crazy, that's okay, because the .01 percent that don't are going to be the people we want to talk to.

Both Halvorson and Wargo agree the publicity was great and essentially launched the Web site and organization, but going in front of Howard Stern was no walk in the park. Stern called Halvorson "insane" and said, "I thought Jews for Jesus was a cry for help, but this one's really out there." Halvorson said he took the heat like a pro.

"It was like a major leaguer was throwing you fast balls," Halvorson said about the interview. "I fouled a whole bunch of them off and wore his arm out. Pete Rose used to do that."

But 10 bucks says Pete Rose never preached about trepanation, or went in front of E! channel cameras for that matter. Whatever the case, Halvorson and Wargo couldn't have asked for better exposure, as his Web site saw roughly 18,000 hits that day alone. In fact, Halvorson credits the E! channel program as the most positive spin anyone has ever put on trepanation. Wargo too, was pleased with the response to the show, but warns that Stern is "a little odd and pretty out there."

The stint on Stern's morning show may have got the ball rolling, but to try and make trepanation widely available and recognized by American physicians as a legitimate therapeutic practice, Halvorson has created a pilot study using human guinea pigs. The scientific evidence will be presented to the University of Monterey and if the institution is satisfied with the findings of the study, it will continue to allow Halvorson to bring trepanation hopefuls to their clinic for the procedure.

The research subjects are those people in the United States that have been trepanned thus far, and anyone else who is trepanned in the near future. Essentially, the organization ITAG and the Web site were developed to attract research subjects to the pilot study.

In order to avoid any legal ramifications, anyone deciding to go through with the procedure must complete a process that educates the subjects on what trepanation is all about. The so called "engramming" process involves a 25 page coloring book that must be hand copied 10 times, colored in, while read aloud and recorded 10 times on an audio cassette. After the materials are sent back to ITAG headquarters in Pennsylvania, Halvorson then arranges a trip across the boarder.

Besides circumcision, trepanation is one of the oldest known surgical procedures. Evidence of the practice dates back to 3000 B.C., and skulls with holes bored in them have been found on every continent.

Only 15 people are members of the holier-than-thou club in the United States today, and American doctors hope the number doesn't get any larger.

Dr. Donald J. Prolo, a neurosurgeon affiliated with Stanford Medical Center, pities those who buy into the claim that drilling a hole in the skull increases brain blood volume or accelerates brain metabolism.

"The premise itself is totally inaccurate," said Prolo, who studied neurology at both Stanford and Johns Hopkins medical centers. "Drilling a hole in the skull is totally irrelevant to blood volume, has nothing to do with it. It has no proven value."

Not only do doctors such as Prolo insist that trepanation is worthless as an elective procedure, but the list of potential risks involve all the big hitters. Seizures, convulsions, epilepsy, paralysis and infection are at the top of the list, while injury to the durra matter or underlying brain is also a potential harm.

Though there have been no reported deaths or serious injury in the United States from those undergoing the procedure at the clinic in Monterrey, worldwide statistics on the matter have not yet been compiled.

But the risk of seizures and paralysis didn't stop Ray Ybarra, 43, from getting a notch in his skull. A respiratory therapist at a military base in San Antonio, Texas, Ybarra is married with two teenage boys. Describing himself as "just another Mexican", Ybarra is a dark-haired, husky man, standing at 5'8". Growing up as a boxer, he has always looked at ways to maintain his physical well-being and intellectual capacity.

He says his hobbies include researching parapsychology, religion and conspiracies, beyond his passion for training and managing young boxers. But even quirkier is Ybarra's passion for fads and gadgets. For the past year and a half he's been immersed in a high-tech audio meditation program called The End, which sells for $300 a level. Ybarra's is on level two and has roughly four more to go and $1200 left to spend before he graduates the at-home program.

He's also apparently discovered the fountain of youth via some Ron Popeil wannabe who's marketing a $1700 water purifier and gallons of liquid youth. It's called electron water, and though Ybarra acknowledges that it all sounds a bit fishy, he intends on giving it a go.

"They have a picture of homeboy there [on the Web site] and he's supposedly like 70 years old, and he only looks about 30," Ybarra said. "He claims his water is very to close to what nature used to provide so it would tend to reverse your aging."

Since Ybarra seems incredibly receptive to almost any quick fix, trepanation was no big deal. He was mainly in search of achieving some sort of nirvana but unfortunately, the only change he's experienced is some serious insomnia.

"He was very precocious," said Edee Haws in a sweet Texas twang, of her son, Randal Haws, as a young boy. He was always getting into things and coming up with new ideas. But this idea, to have a hole drilled in his skull at age 32, wasn't something Edee, who still lives in Dallas, was so fond of.

"This is something that I would never have thought he would be remotely interested in," she said. "This is not something I ever would have dreamed he'd ever want to do. I mean this is kind of a serious thing."

Edee voiced her concerns to her son, but in the end trusted that he was making an informed decision that would somehow better his life. Haws, who considers himself to be "pretty normal guy," took his mom's concerns into consideration and elected to have the procedure done anyway.

He first heard of trepanation back in 2000 on the 20/20 special that talked of self-trepanation.

"I thought, these people are nuts," said Haws of his first exposure to Halvorson and other trepanners. "And I was thinking, why are these people doing it? What's driving them? Is this is a fad? What does this achieve?"

After searching the Internet for the hole story, Haws became a hardcore believer in the idea.

"I came to the conclusion that there had to be medical benefits of increasing blood to the brain, which is essentially the whole idea," he said. "It just all made sense."

At this point, Haws had came to the conclusion that his life needed some major improvements, and that trepanation was the only way to go.

Paranoia, for instance, consumed Haws in the month's prior the procedure, as he became suspicious that his neighbors and strangers were out to get him.

"I found myself not going anywhere without my gun and my little fanny pack," said Haws. "I've been through a tax audit, I've been through building my first house, been through a breakup. Just the common things in life, and I was realizing I wasn't coping like I used to. I felt like I was out of my prime," he said.

Now, one hole in the head later, Haws speaks whimsically of the changes he has experienced. His girlfriend for one, routinely tells Haws he is turning into a genius and says that "she feels a little bit intimidated talking to [him] now." Haws also experienced what he calls a turbo charge aspect in his brain that he likens to a constant caffeine charge. Above all, he swears he has no regrets and is an improved man since having it done.

He is however, careful about putting his noggin in any compromising situations. "There are a lot of potential risks," he said. "You know, I'm up in the attic, jump up on a nail and it goes in my hole. That could be game over right there. I figure trauma to the head is probably not the best."

"I just was like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe there's a drill going into my skull. What the fuck am I doing?"

Jon Cole, 29, recounts the details of his trepanation this past June very matter-of-factly. He said that the hospital was located in a Beverly Hillsish area of Monterrey, Mexico, and that the streets surrounding the hospital were lined with Mercedes and BMWs.

Just like his 14 fellow trepanners, Cole changed into a hospital gown after having a pre-op MRI done on his head there at the hospital. He was then wheeled into the operating room and given a relaxing sedative. After checking his blood pressure and numbing the scalp around the center of his hairline with a shot of lydicane, Cole said "a short, pudgy Jewish-Mexican guy," entered the OR. Halvorson refused to give any info on the surgeon for confidentiality purposes, but Cole explained that the doctor is a plastic surgeon who specializes in breast augmentation and liposuction.

The surgeon cracked a few jokes and then began the procedure by making a three-inch incision along the front of the scalp. Cole was fully awake for the entire surgery, and says that clamps were used to pry the hole open and expose the skull. The surgeon then drilled straight into the bone, creating a hole the tip of your thumb could fit in, removed the clamps and stitched the scalp back up. A pressure bandage was applied and Cole was free to go 45 minutes later

Though he suffered from mild bouts of depression and headaches for the latter part of his life, he sought out trepanation as a way to provide himself with a better sense of well being and considered the procedure to be nothing more extreme than a piercing.

"It's like, you have eye sockets, you have ear holes, you have a mouth. You have so many orifices in your head already, well what's the big deal, you know?" said Cole.

Though Cole claims that results from a self-administered online test say his IQ has soared 21 points since the surgery, the hole isn't all he'd worked it up to be, and he was somewhat let down that there was no post-op epiphany.

"I guess I sort of had this expectation that my life was going to be vastly different and this thing would be some sort of cure all of life's problems, and it really wasn't," said Cole.

Still, he took the plunge, despite the unsettling idea of paying a stranger upfront for a procedure to be done in another country.

"It was a leap of faith, sure," said Cole. "I'm giving my money to some dude I met on the Internet who has a crazy drill-a-hole-in-your-head-Web site. There was a little apprehension, ya."

Cole, like most others, had paid $2,400 for the actual procedure, in addition to travel expenses. For this price, trepanners agree to publicize their name and portraits, participate in documentaries, and involve themselves in media coverage. Those subjects who wish to remain anonymous must pay $3,600.

Though Halvorson claims that not a cent of that money goes to ITAG, others like Cole suspect ITAG is profiting.

"Somebody's making money," said Haws. "It's most likely Peter covering his costs." As for paying a couple grand to a man he'd never met, Haws too admits he was weary.

"Well, I'm not perfect," Haws said. "It did concern me, but you know I figured if I pay by credit card and it turns out not to be on the up and up, then I'd call my credit card company."

What John Yanacek, 21, describes as the happiest day of his life involved an overdose of antidepressants and a trip to the psychiatric ward of a Michigan hospital. But Yanacek might never have had that blissful day his senior year of high school had it not been for trepanation.

After expressing interest in trepanation, his parents rushed him off to a psychiatrist to rid him of the so-called "delusions" they felt he was having. Rather than discussing his curiosity about trepanation at length, the psychiatrist sent Yanecek home with a prescription for some happy pills.

With a habit for drug experimentation that included bouts with LSD, cocaine and marijuana, Yanacek wondered how his body would respond to a higher Zolaf dosage. He began upping the dose by 25 milligrams per day until he reached 225 milligrams in one afternoon.

"That was what I referred to as the happiest day of my life," said Yanecek. "I became manic psychotic I called the ambulance myself."

Yanacek was taken straight to the emergency room by the paramedics and was then admitted to the psychiatric care unit for 24 hours.

Two weeks later Yanacek came home from school feeling uneasy. He went into his room and lay on the floor. Convinced he was having a mental breakdown, Yanacek suggested that his parents call 911.

That night he was admitted to a Tri City psychiatric hospital for two weeks and was diagnosed with schizophrenia effective disorder. He would be trepanned less than one year later.

"I got to know John as he was crashing," said Halvorson. "At 18 he was thoroughly immersed in the subject. He was the only one in the group of about 15 people that wanted to be trepanned that really knew something about the theory of it."

But it was precisely this level of familiarity with trepanation that had prompted Yanacek's parents to admit him to the psychiatric hospital. Yanacek blames his parents' narrow-mindedness about trepanation on their professions. Both scientists, he is adamant that his parents are simply outside this realm of thinking.

"Someone with a scientific mind doesn't really have much access to the information they are seeking," said Yanacek. "My parents are both scientists and it was hard to talk to them on a rational level about this. There were things that I said that were sort of out of their ballpark."

Yanacek says he has not had any schizophrenic episodes since being trepanned, but does suffer bouts with the mania side of bipolar disorder now.

Halvorson has since taken Yanacek under his wing, teaching him the ins and outs of the trepanation biz and encouraging him to learn all he can about brain metabolism in college. Yanacek isn't taking any classes at the moment, but Halvorson is certain that his protégé will get a college degree in a related subject. He's on what Halvorson calls a "personal quest, and a quest for a broader investigation of the subject."

Yanacek appears to have made the cause for trepanation more than a quest however. "It's sort of fighting back against the common way of accepting things," he said. "It's who I am."