Some called him a genius, others a sadist, and still others a madman. And he, in his own words, just "wanted to try to penetrate into other worlds, different from ours …". And also - to find out where thoughts come from. He was looking for the answer to this question, studying physiology, neurobiology, psychiatry, parapsychology, philosophy, mathematics, hypnotic and extrasensory abilities of a person. It is no wonder that he was "herded" by the FBI, CIA, NASA, Pentagon.
The Prince and the Pea
On January 6, 1915, the "Prince and the Pea" was born into a family of fanatical Catholics in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. In the truest sense of the word.
During the first weeks of life, the baby was so sensitive to any touch that he was worn on pillows.
The touchy was named John. When he grew older and stronger, he was sent to the Catholic school of St. Luke. John's successes in comprehending theology amazed even harsh teachers.
… It happened when John was only seven years old. He prepared for confession, kneeling in a dark church, facing the altar, on which only one candle burned. Suddenly, the walls and pillars of the temple became transparent and John saw angels, God and saints marching through the temple. But they were all in some other dimension. Shocked, the boy told the nun about the incident. But she scolded John: in her opinion, only saints can have visions. It is understandable why, having accepted God with all his heart, John, having matured, flatly refused to follow church dogmas. And the parents eventually had to transfer their offspring from a Catholic to an academic school. After graduating from it, he brilliantly passed the entrance exams to the California Institute of Technology, which was considered the "forge of personnel" of science, and in the most advanced areas at that time.
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Dolphins interlocutor
Embryology and genetics are precisely those areas of knowledge that trace the origin of life from scratch. It was them that John began to study in order to comprehend the divine essence of the origin of life through the visible and tangible.
In higher medical school, from knowing the origins of life, Lipley moved on to studying the "source of thoughts" - the human brain.
The knowledge gained came in handy during the Second World War. At the same time, Lipley began to study the physiological state of military pilots in high-altitude flights.
It was during the war years that John Lilly developed the technique and devices for continuous monitoring of blood pressure and the chemical composition of the pilot's exhaled air. These developments became the basis for the creation of breathing apparatus for flights in the stratosphere.
But still, Lilly was most interested in the very process of the brain. Immediately after the end of the war, he continued his research, developing unique techniques for implanting the thinnest electrodes into the brain of animals, while not injuring the brain itself at all. By acting on various parts of it, Lilly identified the centers responsible for fear, pain, hunger, pleasure.
His research became known to the CIA. The day came when the "men in black" visited Lilly's research center and offered a deal: they would do their best to promote his work, and he would supply them with the results of his research. Lilly agreed, setting a condition: all information that intelligence services will receive from him must become the property of the scientific community. Of course, he was promised it. But in one of his private conversations with a curator from naval intelligence, he learned: the true goal of the military is to control the behavior of not animals, but humans. And then he began to conceal the key results of his work.
In the late 50s, dolphins appeared among Lilly's experimental subjects. Communicating with them, the scientist made an amazing discovery: it turns out that next to humanity there is another world, another civilization, more ancient and no less developed in terms of intelligence. According to Lilly, dolphins have long comprehended the laws of the universe. Therefore, it is they, and not the person, who are the first to make contact. Man, in his egocentrism, does not notice brothers in reason. Moreover, mercilessly, ridiculously and cruelly exploits the "planet" of their habitat - the ocean. But it occupies two-thirds of the globe. It is worth considering who is the real master of the house …
For many decades dolphins became “sea brothers” and colleagues for the scientist. The moment will come when he will understand that he has no right to keep them in captivity, that they should come and go only at will. Communication with dolphins convinced Lilly of the existence of a global single mind, which he called the Entity.
Nowadays, according to Lilly's method, dolphins are being trained to detect damaged underwater communications.
Lilly switched to the study of human intellectual capabilities. Most of all he was interested in how our consciousness depends on the world around us. To answer this question, it was necessary to figure out how to isolate the subject from the slightest influence of this very world. Lilly came up with! It is necessary to put a person in a bath with water, the temperature of which is plus 34 degrees: these degrees are not felt by the body, the bath must be in an absolutely dark and soundproof room. Air - supplied through a soft rubber mask.
Nowadays, this device is called an insulating bath, it is widely used all over the world in the training of pilots, astronauts and everyone who has to often and for a long time in dark, closed rooms.
For 10 years, Lilly experimented in an insulating bath, and conducted them only on himself. Because who will be able to more objectively and more accurately describe all the sensations of a prolonged stay in weightlessness, darkness, almost in real emptiness?
Freeing his consciousness from the pressure of the outside world, Lilly formulated the theory of the living brain as a natural biocomputer with a set of programs formed in the process of evolution and in the life of each individual person. In his life cycle, a person can lose, develop and improve his metaprograms, exchange them with other people and living beings.
All metaprograms Lilly conditionally subdivided into those that control external reality, memory, and autonomous programs of the nervous system, maintaining the body and reproduction of offspring.
Lilly formulated his task as follows: “My goal was to increase the flexibility, strength, objectivity of our current limited mind and its knowledge about itself, to get to the basic grams and metaprograms that control each particular mind, in order to then change the usual weak functioning, turning it into strong and full ….
A liberated brain easily formulates seemingly impossible decisions, opens up the depths of memory, gushes with images, gives a feeling of flight in some kind of intellectual space.
While in the isolation bath, Lilly made amazing journeys "into the realm of strange, alien life forms … Some were in the form of liquids, others in the form of glowing gases … I was an observing point in their world, not involved in it." With each new session, Lilly never tired of being amazed at the diversity of life forms and intelligences that exist in the boundless universe.
Once he made a journey inward, wandered among the cells of the brain and heart, passed through the blood, examining the work of white blood cells. "Having penetrated to the quantum level, I watched the play of atoms in their own vast worlds, their vast empty spaces, held by fantastic forces at each distant nucleus with their orbital clouds of electronic force fields and elementary particles breaking through into this system from outer spaces."
The idea of a biocomputer by John Lilly prompted engineers to use biological materials as part of the processors of modern computers. Currently, such work is being carried out by all the largest developers and manufacturers of computer technology. According to the calculations of specialists, the memory capacity and speed of bio-PCs should far exceed those existing today.
According to Lilly, the experience of achieving high states of consciousness, making it possible to really feel the vastness of our "I" and the Universe, are necessary for the survival of the human species. The one who has gone through the perception of this vastness, according to Lilly, will no longer be able to treat as a barbarian neither to his own kind, nor to the world in which he lives.
In the stream
At a certain stage in her travels to "other worlds," Lilly decides that the use of LSD, which was just being tested at the National Institute of Psychiatry, can be used to enhance the isolation of the brain from the body. In those years, doctors saw it as a possible treatment for alcoholism and a number of mental illnesses.
With a dose of LSD, the researcher "began to disappear, moving to a 'point of consciousness' that has no dimensions and coordinates in space, negligible, in which one's own 'I' becomes the same external object as everything else." From this point, according to the scientist, “you can serenely contemplate the ocean of otherworldly life bubbling around”. He compared it to being in the center of a cyclone - a space inside a raging element, "where you can learn to live forever …".
After each trip, Lilly describes and analyzes her impressions, trying to express the words "ineffable", with each new experiment complementing her map of the Universe.
While working with LSD, Lilly makes an important discovery that almost cost him his life. After the usual "experimental" dose, he falls into a coma, which lasts 24 hours, and loses his sight for two days. Lilly will conclude that, it turns out, besides self-awareness, there are other hidden systems of the body that can program processes aimed at the destruction of the same organism. LSD can trigger these programs and lead to the tragedy of self-destruction.
In 1972, the scientist completes experiments with an isolation bath, LSD, closes his laboratories, disbands his employees and devotes himself completely to preparing for a new assault on the Unknown.
Source: "Interesting newspaper plus. Magic and mysticism" №9 (133). L. Gruzdev