Chapter 8: Recognition
People who came to Max’s groups were often
influential in their own fields such as publishing, healing, the arts and
relaxation groups of many kinds. Some
became very active in making his work better known. His training - linking meters with the perennial wisdom of
knowledge beyond words - captured their imagination because it offered an
objective basis for the many things they had learned, or were teaching intuitively. It
mirrored Max’s salutary experience as a youth at the Budokwai where
his master told him that he was sitting in the meditation posture but actually
doing nothing.
It was a student from the Thursday group who
paved the way for probably the most influential means of putting Max’s
work before a wider audience - a book explaining his methods. Johnny St John
was an editor at Heinemann the publisher who had already written about Max’s
work in his own book Travels in Inner Space (ref 8-1). He
tried to involve Max in writing a book but Heinemann wanted it to be about
meditation or about biofeedback but could not imagine a book could be written
which combined both. Max was
wary. Because of such reservations and having had experience of the publishing
world, he refused to get involved.
Finally, in desperation, St John stated he would
find a writer and a different publisher if Max would guide the writing. His
choice was Nona Coxhead, a writer with many published books, both fiction
and non-fiction, to her credit and who was passionately interested in all
aspects of the mind. She had
already written Mindpower - The Emerging Pattern of Current Research (ref
8-2) which mentioned Max. They
met and agreed to do a book together.
Their working relationship proved though to be
very fraught precisely because of their respective passionate interests. On
the one hand Coxhead was very involved in a group that had its origins in
the writings of Thomas Troward, a British psychologist who had been a divisional
judge in the Punjab. It was
his Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science (ref 8-3) which lead to the formation
of the Science of Mind organisation in America. Coxhead was the head of Science
of Mind in England for a number of years.
By contrast, the basis of Max’s teaching
was understanding through direct experience; his emphasis on the use of biofeedback
meters intended to enhance this direct awareness of mental states as mirrored
by and grounded in physiological states. These
two approaches to the spiritual path have existed since time immemorial:
the one believes that we can develop higher modes of intelligence through
faith based on reasoning while the other is convinced that any conceptual
path is a barrier to spiritual enlightenment. The
first will reason that the supreme principle of life must also be the ultimate
principle of intelligence, the second will say that consciousness comes first
and that the only sin is lack of that understanding.
Nona Coxhead introduced Max to her editor in
New York, Eleanor Friede, who was effectively an independent publisher within
Delacorte Press. Friede had
already published the highly successful 1970s book Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
by Richard Bach, and this gave her choice considerable authority. Finally
the book was published as The Awakened Mind in America in 1979. In
1980 an associate company, Delta Books, reprinted it as a paperback and the
book then went through a number of reprints in England, first at Wildwood
House and then Element Books. It has also been translated into Dutch and
Spanish.
In America, most reviews of The Awakened Mind
in the specialist press were very enthusiastic. For example: “It is a fine effort to explain in Western
terms the philosophy of the East”; “listening
to the body . . . and listening to the soul”; “biofeedback
as a spur to the mind”.
The studies of healers described in the book
created considerable interest. However,
some people who read it at that time still held the medieval opinion that
if healing was not mediated by God then it must be the work of the Devil. One
reviewer for an education magazine, in a review entitled “Machines may
start a new biofeedback religion”, was typically dismissive: “Such
writers do not write from evil motives, of course, but one would hope that
they be careful before they promote a new secular religion that, of all things,
is linked to machines which tamper with the human brain.” (ref 8-4).
The Awakened Mind has stayed continuously in
print and though the machines have developed, the message remains relevant. Now,
two decades later, a few people each month are still discovering the book
and writing for further information saying how exciting they have found it.
The need for such a book became apparent in the
1970s as an increasing number of people became aware of knowledge and faculties
that lay beyond orthodox disciplines. For example, at the Conference on Health
and Healing, at Loughborough University in 1977, Max was introduced to Dr
Alec Forbes, a hospital consultant with a clinical practice in Plymouth,
Devon. He wanted to discuss
healing with Max because, he said, he would sometimes would find himself
unable to help a patient with conventional medicine and had wondered what
would happen if tried laying on of hands as a last resort. He
did not have the courage to try this nor did he have any confidence in having
any healing capability.
Alec Forbes asked to be connected to the Mind
Mirror to see if he could learn anything about his potential abilities. He
showed quite disappointing patterns but when Max asked him to imagine the
situation he had just described - of helping a patient in his surgery by
laying on hands - the Mind Mirror
quickly showed an impressive State 5. From
this, Forbes understood, he said, the importance of giving himself permission
to explore other avenues of healing.
Soon after this he set up the Friends of the
Healing Research Trust, which evolved into the Natural Health Network. In
1980 he set up the Bristol Cancer Help Centre with Penny Brohn and Pat Pilkington.
The centre uses complementary therapies, yoga, relaxation and diet to help
people cope with their illness. Again Max had an influence because Brohn
had also attended his classes. (ref 8-5) Another
link with Max at the centre is Barbara Siddall, who has worked there from
the beginning as a therapist, and who makes use of methods gained from the
courses to help people attending the centre.
Television producers have been fascinated by
biofeedback. The first programme,
for BBC1’s Panorama, was filmed at the house in Chesterford Gardens
where the classes were held. The
producer’s idea, for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, was to
suggest the kind of personal development methods that people might be using
in 2002, the fiftieth anniversary of her reign. So
a dozen of us were duly connected to the meters and Mind Mirrors and performed
very creditably for the camera while Max gave one of his usual classes. During
the rehearsals we took the opportunity to wire up the producer and director
and found that they showed excellent patterns.
It was through this “experiment” that
we first learned that the State 5 pattern could be the hallmark of inner
security not only in healers but in anyone who was very competent and interested
in their job. My memory of this
programme is of the TV crew connected to the machines, and of them lying
on the floor giving or receiving massage; for the afternoon they became part
of our group ambience. They
were quite impressed by what would be happening in 25 years’ time!
We gave an excellent demonstration and discussion
for the BBC programme A Plus on healing presented by Elaine Grand. Ann Woolley-Hart took
part in this programme with Max and myself, stating with some conviction
that, as a someone working in the medical field, she was frustrated by the
contradiction between the medical profession’s technical brilliance
and its reluctance to look at the patient as a “whole person”.
Lee Everett, a healer who showed an excellent State 5 pattern, offered a
clear-cut point of view, from her own experience, about the role of the machines,
saying that the results she achieved working with clients showed her that
healing worked: “If there is a machine that shows that healing is taking
place, that’s marvellous.”
Many individuals and groups became interested
in our work. We gave a demonstration
to members of the Rosicrucian Society in London. Max’s
methods and the Mind Mirror were written up in their study papers which emanate
from the society’s American headquarters.
By now, as well as appearing on a number of television
programmes, we were taking the opportunity to wire up as many of the presenters
as we could. As we had discovered
with the Panorama director and producer, we found consistently that they
had excellent balanced brain rhythms. It
became obvious that the immediacy of being in front of a live TV camera demanded
all one’s faculties of presence and awareness and so was another demonstration
of the value of the State 5 pattern in a very different context. This echoes
the description by Maslow, the humanistic psychologist, of the self-actualising
individual who is confident in his or her being. By
extension, it seemed that we should find a stable State 5 pattern in any
individual whose competence and inner security are unshakeable.
Interest by television and radio teams in our
work could have an impact on them they did not expect. They sometimes found
that these unseen realms were, to their surprise, more real than they had
expected. One day, for example,
I had a visit from a BBC researcher to discuss our studies for a radio programme
on healing. When she arrived,
it was clear she was visibly shocked. She
explained that, 15 minutes previously, she been speaking on the phone to
Bruce MacManaway in Scotland about his healing abilities. She
was efficiently asking some questions to aid her investigation when Bruce
suddenly announced: “You
have a cracked shoulder blade.” It
was true, she explained to me. She
had fallen off her moped a few weeks earlier and had indeed cracked her shoulder
blade. She hardly knew what
questions to ask me as she struggled with this experience, which absolutely
did not fit in with her role of dispassionate researcher. She
was not to know that Bruce was in the habit of using his dowsing pendulum
to check the state of anyone phoning who might benefit from his help.
In America, Max’s work has become increasingly
known through the efforts of Anna Wise, the American who was instrumental
in helping him to expand his classes at the Franklin School. Anna
had returned to teaching dance as therapy after the Franklin closed, then
began teaching biofeedback meditation classes with Elizabeth St John, another
student of Max’s.
After an 11-year stay in Britain, Anna Wise decided
to return to America. She arrived in Boulder, Colorado in 1981 with a dozen
ESR meters and a Mind Mirror “to find that no one had any knowledge
of biofeedback and consciousness training”. The
work was an immediate success – “a testimony not only to Max’s
ideas, but also to his training and nurturing of me as a teacher”.
“At first I offered one basic course in
biofeedback meditation. There
was such a demand that, over the next eight years, I developed a whole series
of courses called The Awakened Mind Program, with a certification training
programme for those wishing to teach using my methods.” At
the same time she was busy developing a private practice, gained an MA in
psychology, produced relaxation and guided-imagery tapes and led weekend
workshops throughout America. “My most exciting teaching trip was to
Taiwan, where I taught in five different locations with translators for different
dialects. One seminar was held
at the University of Taipei and - the most thrilling of all - was teaching
in a Taoist Temple to a group of students and their Master."
She began by explaining the Mind Mirror pattern
and then asked for a volunteer to be connected to the machine. No
one moved. Finally the Master himself volunteered. On connecting him
up, he showed an excellent State 5 pattern exactly as she had just described. Now
everybody wanted the experience. She
realised that group had needed the Master to validate the machine before
they would try it, whereas in the West an excellent pattern instead would
give us confidence in the Master -
i.e. the machine would validate the master.
During this same session, the Master’s pattern
suddenly disappeared; he was seemingly in a deep trance, with only two straight
lines indicated on the Mind Mirror display. She
asked him to “come back” and he confirmed that he been out of his
body. Such enlightened teachers
know how to impress us when we arrive with our modern machines!
In 1991 Anna was invited to lead her first workshop
at Esalen Institute, at Big Sur. This renowned personal growth centre in
California, with its resident community of 100 people, has existed for 30
years and extends for half a mile on remote, spectacular cliffs overlooking
the Pacific Ocean. Hot
springs flow from the cliff face and fall into the sea. When
last I was there, I remember discussing the implications of training using
the stroboscope, while lying in the hot pool under the light of the full
moon at 2am. Probably all the
best-known teachers in the personal growth movement have taught at Esalen: Fritz
Perls, Will Schutz, Roger Woolger, Raymond Moody, Candace Pert and Stanislav
Grof - while Anita Roddick, founder of Britain’s The Body Shop
chain, teaches on the subject Reconnecting Business with its Soul. Everyone
who leads courses at Esalen does so by invitation only. “I
accepted with excitement,” Anna said.
The Awakened Mind Brainwave Training seminars
she has run at the centre comprise weekend and five-day workshops using Mind
Mirror and ESR meters for biofeedback monitoring in conjunction with meditation
and visualisation techniques. The aim, as the course programme explains,
is to help participants bridge the conscious and unconscious mind to develop
their inner resources. “Having
the continuity and seclusion that Esalen offers is a dream come true for
my work,” Anna says. And it takes Max’s techniques to the heart
of the personal growth movement.
Her book The High Performance Mind appeared in
January 1996 (ref 8-6) and in paperback a year later. She gave a presentation based on it at the Key-West
1996 EEG conference which was very well received with very little reservation
from those with a more “orthodox” viewpoint. Jeremy
Langford from Israel had presented his work with the Mind Mirror in 1995.
Anna has also previously presented her work in 1994 at this conference but
many found it a little too novel at that time. So interest in Max’s work is undoubtedly growing. Anna
is sure that “Max must be very proud of us”.
Teaching
The Awakened Mind Training, under whatever name
it exists, is kept alive within each of us by our intention to explore the
depths of our inner being. If
you have some success you may want to share this with others; indeed if you
do not then any knowledge gained will die with you. But
how do you test yourself to see if you have anything valuable to impart to
others? A solution which Max
offered was to examine yourself closely to see if what you are matches what
you say. Biomonitoring with machines offers a quick and easy way to examine
this correspondence.
If you have a penchant for machines, then such
methods can enliven and validate many other approaches, remembering always
that it is not the biofeedback that is important but rather the information
it provides about your inner resources and processes. Perhaps you have already taught relaxation, yoga, dream interpretation
or any of the whole range of therapies available today and feel inspired
by this book to widen the scope of what you are teaching. This
book, we hope, shows even the most sceptical that there is a sound physiological
basis for the biomonitoring methods described.
References
8-1
Johnny St John. Travels in Inner Space. Gollancz 1977.
8-2
Nona Coxhead. Mindpower - The Emerging Pattern of Current Research.
8-3
Thomas Troward. The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. A M Philpot. Pre-1910.
8-4 The Star-Ledger, Education & Youth, Jan 7 1979
8-5
Penny Brohn. The Bristol Programme.
Century Paperbacks 1987
8-6
Anna Wise. The High Performance Mind. Jeremy P Tarcher / Putnam 1996