The Ecology of Consciousness - Part 4
James V. Hardt, Ph.D.
Biocybernaut Institute
 continued from part 3
Shared Alpha Feedback Training
We may soon have EEG-based operational definitions
of charm, charisma, and leadership, as well as Neurofeedback training
programs to increase these highly desirable characteristics in anyone
willing to devote the time and energy to learning new patterns of
neural activity. In 1994 Hardt presented reports of Prescriptive Brain
Maps, which encode the patterns of changes which a Biocybernaut
trainee would need to make in order to enhance or diminish any chosen
mind state. This truing can be highly specific and tailored to the
unique needs of every individual, by assisting each person in making
the correct pattern of brain activity changes which will produce for
him or for her any desired mind state.
It is also possible to provide a personal
description of an experiment similar to Brown and Klug's 1974 report
which was conducted by Hardt and Odell as a pilot study in 1971 when
Hardt and Odell were exploring "shared alpha feedback." We each wore
an O2 electrode referred to one ear. We used a prototype
feedback device from y-Not, Inc. which provided feedback not only of
alpha amplitude, but also of alpha frequency.
As the alpha voltage went from positive to zero to
negative, the feedback tone went from loud to off to loud. While this
is too disruptive a signal to be useful for alpha training with
beginners, it does provide useful additional alpha frequency
information for advanced Neurofeedback practitioners. Higher amplitude
alpha activity would drive the tone from louder to off to louder. If
alpha frequency slowed, the loudness fluctuations would be slower.
This system was therefore suitable for multiple
brain inputs. First we plugged just Odell's electrodes into the
machine. We sat quietly in the darkness of a shielded acoustic chamber
as we listened on separate sets of earphones to Odell's alpha. Then we
unplugged Odell's electrodes and plugged in those of Hardt. His alpha
was noticeably higher in frequency.
We guessed that we could discriminate each other's
alpha if we were both plugged in simultaneously, so we tried that, and
it worked. We sat listening to the random blending of the fast and the
slow alpha as each waxed and waned according to the variations of our
individual awarenesses. However, after what seemed like short while,
we noticed that the blending was no longer random. The fast and slow
alpha began to wax and wane (to appear and disappear)
simultaneously. We were quite startled when this happened and we had
some strange shared experiences.
For example we began to speak the same words
simultaneously. On one disappearance of alpha we might say nothing, on
the next disappearance we would simultaneously say, "What did you just
do?" The next time we would simultaneously say something else like,
"What happened?" We must report that we were unprepared for such an
experience of simultaneity in consciousness and found it somewhat
unsettling. Not having a model of what was happening, being both
unexposed to ESP, telepathy, and training in shared awareness, we were
so unsettled by the simultaneity of our experiences that we
discontinued the experiment.
A possible analogy to explain our reactions at
that time is the difference between an unsuspecting person being
secretly given LSD vs. someone openly choosing to take LSD with full
understanding of the changes it can produce. In 1971 we were literally
unprepared for the shared consciousness resulting from our pilot alpha
feedback study and were only later able to appreciate the experience
and to discover how to build on the insights into the structure of
consciousness which flow from such studies. Nowadays with an increased
understanding of what can happen and with an appreciation of the value
of such experiences, we now routinely practice "shared feedback" to
establish and to deepen rapport, and to teach ourselves and others
more about the potential of the group mind experience.
Shared feedback training is now an opportunity available to all
graduates of the Biocybernaut Institute's Level 1 Alpha Training, which
is a 7 day intensive exploration into consciousness. Graduates of the
Level 1 Alpha can schedule shared Alpha Feedback training with one or
more willing partners who have also done at least the Level 1 Alpha
Training. The Level 1 Alpha Training is the entry point into the more
than two dozen advanced brain wave training programs offered by the
Biocybernaut Institute. It is an entry level "Brain Wave Training 101",
which incorporates over 30 years of experience with this process.
Any feedback is effective to the extent that it
is: 1) Accurate, 2) Immediate, and 3) Aesthetic. In addition, a
successful brain wave feedback training program of deep inner
exploration requires: 1) An ergonomic technology, 2) An optimized
training protocol, and 3) A transformational perspective of the
Trainer. A skilled Trainer is extremely important. More time is spent
each day interviewing, debriefing, and integrating the experiences
with the help of an experienced Trainer than are spent in the feedback
modules.
The Level 1 Alpha Training program is intensive
and requires 8-12 hours per day on 7 consecutive days. It is a high
tech vision quest and an exploration to the frontiers of being. Within
this exploration, as the trainees become more adept in regulating
their own brain waves, they are then given the opportunity to practice
shared feedback with the other participants in the group
training. Some advanced trainings are devoted exclusively to shared
feedback, for deepening personal and professional relationships, for
resolving misunderstandings or conflicts, and for focusing mental
powers to achieve objectives shared by all members of the group or
team.
Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and this
technology can be used to create and expand the science of magic:
According to the Celtic tradition, there are three elements to magic:
Desire, Expectation, and Merging. These are the keys to successful
magic, in which the mind influences the quantum wave function of the
universe and shifts the probabilities enough that unexpected, low
probability results can occur. The results of this work can even look
like it is going outside natural law, but from the perspective of the
Boundless all things are possible. Any physicist will tell you that if
you jump up off the ground here on Earth there is a small [very very
small] probability that you will come down on Mars. In prayer as in
magic, you work with altering probabilities. The first two elements,
Desire and Expectation are generally understood and easily coached
verbally, and the key third element, Merging, can be trained and
deepened with suitable Neurofeedback training.
Performing this type of shared prayer or focused
intending in a group seems to scale the effectiveness of the
enterprise as a power function of the number of group members. Unlike
learning how to fly an airplane, in the alpha feedback training you
learn to solo first, and only later do you learn to fly in inner space
with other Biocybernauts.
Shared feedback is very important to the study of
awareness and the rapid development of human
consciousness. Neurofeedback technology can be the neural network
which connects all the brains of all the humans on this planet to form
the Global Brain envisioned by Peter Russell, and before him
Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Christ said, "Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I also." Others have also
recognized the transcendental power emerging from minds which are
linked by shared intention, meditation and prayer.
Continue to Part 5 
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