Chapter 6: Max the teacher
The
year 1972 was a turning point in Max’s life. His
research with Ann Woolley-Hart was approaching completion. The
initial experimental courses at Hampton had shown that there was a demand
for relaxation techniques taught with the aid of electronic instruments. Ideas
were forming in his mind how different techniques could be assembled and
taught in a series of graduated courses.
The first courses began
in Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead - at the home of a friend. They were popular, attracting 20 people each time, and were
probably the first for which Max charged a fee. Measurements of the depth of relaxation were taken three times
during the evening by Max himself because he had only one meter. He
soon realised that the act of measurement was causing more change than the
relaxation exercises and that it would be necessary in the future for each
subject to have their own meter.
Barbara Siddall, a yoga
teacher and healer, was another participant from these early days of the
courses who became an important biofeedback partner with Max. She came to the classes by chance after finding a leaflet
describing them in a book borrowed from her local library. This
leaflet was an invitation to anyone interested in altered states of consciousness
to take part in some studies. Barbara
was curious and duly arrived for the group at Lyndhurst Road.
At first, the courses
continued in Lyndhurst Gardens with Max and Isabel travelling to London each
week from a temporary home in Norfolk, but now a more central venue for the
courses was found. Because Ann
Woolley-Hart knew the Rev William Baddeley, then vicar of St James, Piccadilly,
Max was allowed to use the vestry of the church. Max and Isabel were certainly the first to give courses at
St James, which has since become a renowned centre offering a whole range
of “alternative” events
such as lectures on healing.
Their first group, in
early 1974, consisted of only five people. To
attract more, they put up notices in central London advertising the St James’s
courses and it was this which brought me into biofeedback. A
friend, Bob Bayford, caught sight of a notice in a record shop in Charing
Cross Road and told me about it. We
had little idea what the course was about except that it had something to
do with electronics. It sounded interesting and we decided to try it.
We both joined the third
of a series of ten-week courses which Max called Impact Seminars. Arriving
at the vestry in St James’s, we found that we were part of a group of
ten people seated at tables with a meter in front of each of us. I
started a second course, fascinated by this use of electronics, and by the
second or third evening realised that, with my background in this field,
I might be able to make a better ESR meter than Max was using. I casually
mentioned this to him, unsure what his response would be. He
gave a rather diffident answer, something like “Oh yes”, and thus
began our partnership. Isabel
told me later that they had been hoping someone would come into their life
with just my set of skills and interests.
The first meter I produced,
the Omega 1, was similar to the one Max was using except that, by the addition
of a transistor, I was able to reduce the current taken from the battery
and thus cut battery costs
to less than one tenth of what they had been. I
also added simple circuitry to measure the basal resistance so that students
could note how their readings changed, week by week, during the course. This
reading gave a measure of the flexibility of their autonomic nervous system
and thus their ability to relax.
It was during this first
course that I met Ann Woolley-Hart although it was not until much later that
I realised how much research she and Max had carried out together. As I continued
to design and make more biofeedback instruments, I found I could depend on
her unfailing help when I needed an explanation of some aspect of physiological
function. I admit that often
my questions produced answers I could hardly understand and I know sometimes
she had difficulty understanding my questions; nevertheless, she answered
with great patience.
An instrument which caused
much amusement during the early classes was the hypnogogostat. This
was, simply, a buzzer that needed pressure on a button to prevent it from
sounding. The training which used this machine was intended to teach
the student to find and remain in the hypnagogic state, which we all experience
as the moment between waking and sleeping that is accompanied by bright and
clear images. Many have found
this a very creative state. Edison, the American inventor of the electric
light bulb, considered that many of his inventions came from this state. He
cultivated it by placing a sheet of tin on the ground and holding a rubber
ball in his hand, so that if he dropped it the crash would wake him up.
The hypnogogstat performed
the same function. Max would
give exercises in guided imagery and if the subject fell asleep instead of
maintaining the hypnogogic state, the pressure on the button would be released
and the buzzer sounded - waking the subject. In
practice, the effect of various buzzers going off at unexpected intervals
could be chaotic. It is not
clear why Max stopped using this exercise but it was probably because he
found that hypnagogic images are rather inconsequential and do not necessarily
lead to creative reverie.
From my own experience
on the way to sleep, there is another state which I am not able to differentiate
from being awake. The first
time my partner told me to stop snoring, I was quite indignant saying: “I
haven’t been to sleep, I am still wide awake.” After a few more
experiences on other nights, I had to accept that I had in fact been asleep
even though my experience was that I was awake with normal awareness. Many
insomniacs may be having the same experience: studies of the their EEG show
that they sleep longer than they claim. It is possible that the link with creative reverie is deep
relaxation rather than hypnogogic imagery.
Relaxation methods in
the classes at St James included Zen breathing practice and exercises based
on autogenic training and progressive relaxation, with the change registered
on the ESR meter indicating directly to the subject which method was the
most effective at that moment. A
typical class would begin with a relaxation sequence in which Max would guide
the students’ attention around their body. Here
is an excerpt:
Relaxed, relaxed, relaxed.
The whole of my body
relaxed
Relaxed and calm
Calmness all through
me
Calmness in my face,
calmness in my mind...
It is natural to relax.
It is nature's way,
To rest, to relax,
and to be calm.
It is nature's way
to renew strength.
Strength of body and
calmness of mind.
I feel the relaxation
and the calmness all through me . . .
Next,
while the students continued to relax, Max usually read a 15 to 20-minute
paper on the subject he wished to explore during that session. For
the beginners’ courses the paper might be Emotions and Health, Memory
and Self-awareness or Traits of the Fully Functioning Personality. For those
in more advanced courses, the subjects included The Nature of Mystical Experience,
The Search for Self, or The Eternal Principle in Man.
In the basic courses,
students learnt the skills that would allow them to make changes in their
lives if needed. These can be
summarised as clarity and imagination about the change and then the ability
to achieve sufficient relaxation to allow the change to happen.
To indicate the qualities
needed for good health, Max distilled a recipe from his studies which he
summarised as four attitudes of mind:
- Good interpersonal
relations
- Good empathy
- Openness
to life and experience
- Ability
to still the mind, to meditate
For the first two, check
whether you believe it is always “their” fault when your expectations
are not realised. For the third, when someone suggests trying “underwater
pony-trekking” do you react automatically with “What a stupid idea”,
or can you respond, following the Bible's injunction to be as little children, “That
sounds novel”. The fourth means, in the words of Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita,
to be able to still the mind when on the battlefield of life.
These early courses attracted
many people who were already established as teachers and practitioners in
the personal-development, meditation and healing movement. A
number became closely involved with Max’s work. Among them was Nona
Coxhead, later co-author with Max of The Awakened Mind; Addie Raeburn, a
well-known healer with whom he later conducted research; and the author Johnny
St. John, who wrote a chapter about Max’s work in his book Travels in
Inner Space (ref 6-1).
Now various strands of
Max’s life came together - no job, no career but a larger demand for
self-help courses than he had anticipated. They
looked for a permanent home again and bought a flat in north-west London.
It was during this period
at Piccadilly, while he was honorary secretary of the Society for Psychical
Research, that Max was visited at the society one day by two Americans, Albert
Tobias and Herb Hendler. They
wanted to discuss with him their vision of a “contemporary” school,
offering under one roof subjects such as meditation, yoga, literature and
Indian music. They wanted to
include biofeedback classes. He
was invited to become head of the Social Sciences and Humanities Department,
with Ann Woolley-Hart as medical consultant. He
accepted and a new chapter in his work began.
The Franklin School of
Contemporary Studies opened in north London on April 1 1974, with Tobias
as chairman and Hendler as executive director. Its
premises were a semi-detached four-storey house, at 43 Adelaide Road, Chalk
Farm. The Franklin was a miniature university - divided into six schools
running morning, afternoon and evening classes covering a huge range of subjects
but with “no exams, degrees or diplomas”. The schools’ titles
illustrated the scope of the Franklin’s aims: the School of Social Sciences
and Humanities, of which Max was head; School of Group Enterprises in the
Arts and Advanced Learning; School of Emerging Woman; School of Understanding
Tomorrow; School of Creative and Performing Arts; and the School of Self-appraisal
and Development. As the Franklin’s brochure for the second term put
it:
“We have created an informal, intimate and comfortable environment
where one can learn more about the issues and subjects that are important
to today’s society . . . We offer people the opportunity to learn
more about themselves and the world in which they live, through discussion
groups and seminars rather than the lecture format.”
This was the new environment
in which Max and Isabel found themselves, gaining both new biofeedback pupils
as the school became well known and rubbing shoulders with teachers from
other disciplines with whom, in many cases, they found they had much in common. For
the first spring term, Max ran the introductory course in biofeedback he
called Psychocybernetics, which he defined as “steering one’s mind
towards productive goals”. This was quickly followed by a second course,
Psychotechnics, which concentrated on developing mental imagery.
In his explanation in
the school’s brochure he declared: “To be able to use our wonderful
brain to full efficiency we must be able to know something of how it works;
of memory development, emotional control, hypnagogic reverie, creative imagery
and dream analysis. More important,
we must know how to utilise the ‘submerged nine-tenths’, the timeless,
tireless, immensely creative unconscious mind.” And
he quoted William James: “Compared with what we ought to be, we are
only half awake.”
An important figure who
became of crucial help to Max was Anna Wise, a young American from Alabama
who had taught dance after leaving university. She had come to Britain to
visit her brother for a Christmas vacation and liked London so much she returned
the next summer and stayed on. A friend, who was in Max’s first class
at the Franklin told her about Max’s work, and mentioned that Herb Hendler
was looking for someone to help at the school. She applied and got the job
as secretary three months after it opened.
Anna Wise joined Max’s
second course and found that biofeedback attracted her enormously: “Max’s
Psychocybernetics seemed to be the most popular in the school, so I thought
I ought to try it out. I soon
saw why. I was enthralled not
only by the experiences that I began having during his guided meditations,
but also by the man himself. I
was, at that time, completely unaware of the mammoth impact this meeting
would have on my life.”
A few months later when
Hendler left, Albert Tobias asked her to become the school’s programme
director. Now she was in a position to invite Max to provide more advanced
classes. She remembers:
One
day at the end of the first year, I found myself up in the classroom talking
to Max. Without forethought
or planning, I heard myself say: ‘Max, I want to do this work’. All he said was ‘Very good’ but that short conversation
was to change my life completely. During
the decade which followed, I attended every course that I could, I returned
again and again to his beginning levels, continually finding new and deeper
meaning in his training. I
said little, listened intently and had my world turned upside down with
new concepts, astounding experiences and personal growth. It
was a journey that took me to the heights and depths of personal exploration
of consciousness.
After
the first term at the Franklin, Barbara Siddall was invited by Max to join
the school to teach yoga and meditative movement, which would complement
the training in his classes. In
between her groups, she usually attended his seminars and deepened her knowledge
and experience of meditative states. While
Max was reading a paper to the class she would help Isabel to wire up students
and with any problems they might have using the meters.
Isabel’s role as
helpmate became crucial to the work. Her relaxed, friendly approach with
the students allowed Max to concentrate on the teaching and the instruments
and took pressure off him when necessary. While he prepared to begin the
class she would be settling the students in and wiring them up. During the
break she would take care of queries and again give Max a breathing space.
Her expertise was developing too, into a body of knowledge that enabled her
to skilfully interpret the readings and explain the meanings where necessary.
Their affection for each other was obvious and as a team they were well-matched.
For the autumn term in
the first year Max put two more biofeedback courses into the programme: Psychotechnics,
an intermediate course to develop mental skills; and Hypnopsychedelics, aimed
at students of parapsychology and psychical research. Altogether
more than 40 courses were offered by the school with Max’s groups among
the most popular. At the peak,
running six different courses, he had 160 students - almost half of the total
number attending all the groups in the school.
In March 1976, when the
school had been running for nearly two years, Max reviewed the progress of
his courses in the first student newsletter. Pychocybernetics,
he said, was averaging 100 pupils a year but the total doing biofeedback
in the second year was five or six times as many.
“About 40 per
cent of students have been on-going from the beginning. Two have been with us every term since we commenced; others
have left and returned after a year for refresher courses. The many letters of appreciation which have been received
show that most pupils receive considerable physical benefit, while a few
have had dramatic recoveries from migraine, hypertension, and other psychosomatic
afflictions including some who have been referred to the school by their
GP or psychiatrist . . . recent classes have included almost 100 doctors,
psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists interested in
learning new psychosomatic techniques . . .”
But somehow, in the euphoria
of opening and running this remarkable institution, a significant problem
was never resolved. Soon after the Franklin opened, the local authority,
Camden council, refused a planning application for a change of use of the
premises from residential to “adult education centre”. And
after a futile efforts to keep the school open it was forced to close. Max
and Isabel quickly needed another location in which to hold the classes.
Fortunately, one of the students, Belinda Marcettic, offered a semi-basement
room in her house in Chesterford Gardens, Hampstead which was just big enough
to hold a class of about 15 and the courses continued there.
The format of the classes
was by now well established. Originally
at Piccadilly and during the first term at the Franklin, there had been only
one session per week lasting about one and a half hours over a period of
ten weeks. Now Max changed
to two sessions per evening spread over a five-week period. The
design was the same - a relaxation sequence, a paper describing the work
of the evening and finishing with guided imagery. But between, there was
half an hour of a different kind of relaxation - for tea and biscuits where
everyone could get to know each other better.
Max was tall and well-built,
with thick steel-grey hair and his presence in the class was powerful yet
curiously unobtrusive. Before the class began he might be conferring with
Isabel, checking his notes quietly in a corner, or greeting those he knew
well with a hug and friendly laugh. Once everyone settled into their chairs,
the room became quiet and the session began. His
voice was the focus. One student, John Steele, wrote later:
Max had a distinctive appearance and presence. His
skin seemed to emanate a mellow golden glow. His
aura radiated a Zen-like serenity. His
voice was soothing and easy to listen to. His
eyes seemed to have an oriental look about them. I
often had the impression that an Eastern sage had reincarnated in this
Englishman’s body.
Steve Margolis noticed
that when the tea break came in a Ki Aikido class he also attended, the teacher
and highest-ranking students would be served first and this seemed right
and appropriate in that context. But “in the biofeedback classes Isabel
miraculously remembered what each student wanted from a wide choice of herbal
and ordinary teas as well as coffee; Max
would receive his last of all in a plastic cup. He
clearly thought that this was right and appropriate.”
The ESR meter seems so
simple, yet it can tell you a lot about yourself. A response from which we all suffered was the reaction when
Max had got us into deep relaxation, then checked how well we were doing. One
by one the needles bounced over to the right as he passed by.
Margolis recalls: “In
the classes, I was always aware of when Max was looking my way, even if I
had my eyes closed. Often and
particularly in the early days, I would feel self-conscious and even more
so when I realised that my meter was broadcasting my self-consciousness. On one occasion, Max spent a long time watching my meter. Every
time it registered any embarrassment, he quietly said: ‘Here and now.
Here and now’. It took
me an hour but I got it in the end.” As Steve says, it took us a long
time to get over that obstacle but it was a real test of whether our relaxation
was unshakeable.
Many of us tried to control
the meter - that is, to make ourselves relax - but the meter showed the contradiction
of saying: “I will relax”. “I will” belongs to the sympathetic
(responding) branch of the autonomic system and “relax” to the
parasympathetic (letting go). The
only way to progress was to ignore the meter, do the prescribed exercise
and then look at the meter to see if there was any change. If you try to
control the meter, it might begin to show relaxation; you react with a mixture
of relief and fear that you might not be able to keep it up, the meter registers
this by moving in wrong direction. Later,
when we could relax while watching the meter, in effect receiving anti-biofeedback,
we knew our relaxation was ready, in Max’s words, “for the battlefield”.
Biofeedback machines were
key tools in Max’s courses for developing self-awareness, and especially
so for Western males who for the most part have been taught by their culture
and upbringing not to examine or trust their feelings. Because of their acceptance of technology, they might
gingerly concede that the meter was trying to tell them something about themselves.
During the second session
of the class our levels of relaxation were much deeper, due in part to increased
group empathy and also more effective because students now had let go any
emotional problems of the day; or were simply feeling less tired after the
journey to the class.
Sometimes the changes
students experienced happened quickly and dramatically. One
student had been working on an encyclopaedia for three years. During
the first two classes her ESR meter reading was completely stuck, indicating
an inflexible autonomic system. Then in the middle of the third she gave
a loud guffaw, the needle swung wildly and suddenly she had got “it”.
I saw her face light up and she looked years younger, as though a heavy load
had fallen from her shoulders. It
is very magical for the person leading the group when that happens. As Max
would say: “It does not matter whether you can understand it, can you
do it?”
Another student who experienced
a similar transformation was a doctor who could not bring his meter needle
back to normal after relaxation exercises. Not being able to perform this a simple task that everyone
else in the class seemed to find easy upset him because, as a doctor and
also as someone interested in “alternatives”, he felt he should
have no difficulty. At last,
in a flash he realised what the problem was: letting go of his “doctor” label.
He let out a wild “cock-a-doodle-doo”, the needle woke up and hit
the end stop. He had no further problem with bring the needle back.
Sydney Crawford was another
student who suddenly found that his meter needle became mobile. With
his permission I would like to recount the story. Many
a Thursday evening Sydney was there - we called him Samadhi Sid because he
went to sleep in every meditation. Then
one day, he called me over: “What does this mean?” he asked, pointing
to his meter. The needle was
zooming all over the scale. I looked at his face and saw him as if for the
first time. His skin was smooth
and he seemed 20 years younger. He had got “it”. He began teaching
relaxation techniques soon afterwards. I am getting goose pimples typing
this. As these stories demonstrate, it is difficult to deny the evidence
of the meter, which will indicate directly what is happening within our own
body.
Throughout this period
Max never taught once without using the meters. Without
the confirmation they provided, some might have decided that it was only
his personal opinion that they needed help with their relaxation or meditation
practice. He often had the experience
of demonstrating to other groups and finding that the group leader also needed
guidance. To many of us it was
a surprise to find out how little our intellect knew about the state of our
mind or body. Recent studies
have shown the harmful effect our emotions can have on our immune system. Many
of us keep our cars in a better state than our mind.
Max’s intention was
always to help people to discover their own abilities and resources. It
was the key to his teaching. In the first seminar of every beginners’ course,
before introducing the idea of altered states of consciousness, meditation
or breathing practices, he devoted the evening to instilling in his pupils
the fundamental idea that they could help themselves. The
first step, he explained, was being able to achieve states of very deep relaxation
- a possibility in the safe surrounding of the group.
It was through Barbara
Siddall that Max began to give weekend courses on behalf of the Wrekin Trust,
which was set up by the British educationalist Sir George Trevelyan. Sir
George had already inaugurated weekend courses on New Age themes at Attingham
Park, Shropshire, the adult education college where he was the principal. Gazing
from his office window one day at a local hill, The Wrekin, he realised this
could be the perfect name for an educational trust to pursue his vision of
providing courses to help people to explore the mind, body and spirit. Later
Malcolm Lazarus joined him as course organiser and many more courses were
introduced so that something was available most weekends on subjects ranging
from colour therapy to dowsing and the Kabbala. Barbara
had met Malcolm Lazarus in 1975 on a pilgrimage to St Michael’s Mount
in Cornwall, so she was well acquainted with the Wrekin Trust’s work. He
and Sir George were invited to the Franklin School to meet Max and so began
another co-operation which lasted many years.
Max and Barbara Siddall
gave many Wrekin Trust courses together at East Hampstead Park, in Berkshire,
structured so that half the group attended the biofeedback session while
the other half did yoga or a creative art workshop, then changed over. There
was a shortage of suitable rooms but they were always fortunate with the
weather so that the yoga could be held outside on the lawn. These
joint weekends were very popular, with as many as 60 people attending.
Someone who attended these
courses for many years at Chesterford Gardens was Sandra Stein. She
became very involved with Max’s methods, Zen, the meters, the explanations
and the imagery. Finally she began to teach from her home in Northwood, Middlesex
and this experience was invaluable after Max’s death: she and Isabel
continued running the courses together for a couple of years. Stein died in June 1993 but left a wonderful legacy to the
Maxwell Cade Trust - all the tapes of the courses that she had diligently
recorded over many years.
Advanced Courses.
Max emphasised that inventiveness
and originality apply to every aspect of our lives. Many
of the students who attended his courses had artistic talents which often
had not been exercised since their youth. Others
were and still are well known as painters, sculptors and writers who discovered
that the classes could enhance their creativity or help them find a way out
of a creative impasse. That
this source of riches permeates every facet of work and leisure was illustrated
by many reports: “I get on better with my wife (husband, boss)”; “I
found myself a better job”; “I am taking a course on writing, something
I have always wanted to do”, and so on.
Max’s courses woke
up the gifts of imagination. This
was demonstrated abundantly by the haiku exercise which he gave to the participants
of his Thursday evening group - experienced students who had taken his courses
over a number of years. The
haiku, the ancient form of
Japanese poetry which originally had 17 syllables, expresses a mood, a feeling
or an emotion. With the group
in deep relaxation Max would read a haiku. Here
are two examples:
The mists come;
The mountains fade
and vanish;
The tower stands alone.
Evening moon:
Plum blossoms start
to fall
Upon the lute.
Max would ask each of the group to bring along to the next session their impression of the haiku he had read. The work could be in the form of another haiku, a model, a sculpture, drawing or painting, or anything else. The following week the students would crowd round the table, eagerly examining each other’s contributions. The effect was profound. People who had not touched a paintbrush since school found depths of artistic creation they had not suspected. Even experienced artists were often surprised at the new directions which were revealed. The “art gallery” on the biofeedback room walls at Chesterford Gardens was always decorated with exotic paintings and drawings that spoke eloquently of gifts that had been waiting to be discovered or further explored.
The results did not always
come easily. Steve Margolis,
recalls:
I always
dreaded these haiku exercises as my painting skills are primitive to say
the least. Once the haiku
was about the moon, a lake and the wind. I
hoped that nobody would notice that I wasn’t doing anything and started
doodling on my piece of paper. After
a while I scribbled: ‘No clear reflection in a ruffled mind’. Looking at it, I decided it wasn’t too bad but I couldn’t
possibly hand in a doodle-ridden scrap of paper when everyone else was
handing in works of art.
Judy
Corbalis, a writer, says:
I still remember
how worried I was the first time he set this ‘homework’ and I
still clearly reflect the haiku, Twilight Flower Fields. The day before the class I hadn’t come up with a thing
so that night I fished around in a drawer, found some coloured inks I'd
bought for my son and sat down to produce at least some evidence that I'd
tried. I kept gazing at the
haiku,
Twilight
flower fields,
Moonrise
in the eastern sky
Sunset in
the west.
I waved a pencil uselessly over the A4 sheet, then took a brush and dug
it into the ink pot. Suddenly
I knew I wanted to draw poppies and at the same time realised what the haiku
was saying. It was a revelation. I couldn’t stop painting until really
late and went to bed enormously satisfied with myself. The
pictures meant something personal to me; Max had made it possible to express
myself in a different way. It was an incredibly liberating experience.
Margaret Jordan, who wrote on Max’s biofeedback teaching as part
of her BA thesis, on English with religious studies, gives her impression
of haiku, with a poignant outcome:
The
few haiku exercises that I had done the previous year had been drawn hurriedly
(just to have something to take to the class) and badly drawn because I
do not have any natural technique. I
always felt a bit disappointed at not giving more attention to these and
I decided to spend most of the day before the next class carrying out this
right-brain exercise. I bought
lots of coloured Pentels and paints and sat down to play. All
afternoon I chuckled happily to myself as I absorbed the haiku and transferred
it to paper.
The result was by no means
a work of art but I was satisfied with it and looked forward to showing it
to Max. When I arrived at the
class, I was told that he had died a few days before. After
the shock and sadness, my first reaction was shame at not having made a better
attempt earlier but then it seemed to me that Max had in some way influenced
my state of mind that afternoon and revived my sense of fun while I painted.
Starting during the more advanced courses at the Franklin School, Max
and Isabel would often introduce a psychic experiment. A
favourite was that Isabel would bring a number of objects from home, one
of which would be shown at the end of the evening. At
some point during the class,
after a deep relaxation exercise, everyone would
try to draw the object due to be shown. Then,
at the last moment, Isabel would choose the object. There were often accurate hits as drawings correctly anticipated
the object revealed.
My own experience at one class was that I drew a conical shape with something
fuzzy on top of it. In fact
I reached the future a minute too early: Isabel lifted a waste bucket from
the floor, put it upside down on the table and placed the object on top still
wrapped in a cloth ready to unveil at 10pm, at the end of the class. My
drawing was accurate although I had no idea what I had drawn. This
impressed me more than if I had actually got the object because Isabel could
have already decided which object she was going to show and conveyed this
to me by telepathy. I am sure
she would not have thought to transmit the shape of an upside-down rubbish
bucket with a cloth on top, so it seemed to me that I had genuinely anticipated
the object but drew it 30 seconds before it was due to be shown!
Another time, I had introduced a friend to the group. At the end of the
meditation exercise everyone was asked if they had any images. People were
answering: “patches of yellow”, “yellow flowers”, “daffodils”. At
least five of the group got quite clear pictures that were nothing to do
with the guided imagery that Max had given. Finally,
my friend suggested that he might be the cause because, having no experience
of meditation, he had kept himself occupied by reciting to himself Wordsworth’s
poem, Daffodils. I was extremely embarrassed at having “wrecked” the
meditation by introducing a stranger into the group but both Max and Isabel
were delighted at this example of group empathy.
Such unexpected outcomes often set off gales of laughter. No wonder that
one student, Margaret Jordan, wrote in her university thesis that Max’s
groups must have been the noisiest, liveliest meditation classes in London.
Reference
6-1
Travels In Inner Space. Johnny St John. Gollancz 1977.