Lilly was one of the greatest
scientists and pioneers on the
limits of human possibility of modern times
but after his death a collective
amnesia has descended and he is now almost
forgotten.
Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of
his time. He is almost
single-handedly responsible for the great
interest in dolphins (which led to
the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA
and helped to found the animal
rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the
brains of elephants and cetaceans
were larger than ours, that we should not
abuse them and that it was one our
most important projects to communicate with
them. He invented sensory isolation
tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them
extensively with and without powerful
psychoactive drugs at a time when it was
thought that either the brain would
shut down or one would go insane if external
stimuli were eliminated.
He created methods for implanting
electrodes in mammal brains and was planning
to do it to himself. He was one of the first
to make serious use of computers
in bioscience research and created the
hardware and software to make the first
attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self
experimented with dangerous
physiological investigations in high altitude
medicine for the military during
WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars,
submitted himself to the rigors of
Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen.
He was the first one to investigate the
bizarre psychedelic ketamine, and his
results (published in the two last chapters of
his book `The Scientist`) are
still the best data on the dose/effect
relation of any psychedelic on one
person. And all this happened before most of
us were born!
He had courage, honesty and integrity that is
rare anywhere and almost
nonexistent in science. His goal was to find
the ultimate truth about
everything and he went about as far as anyone
ever has. He had little patience
with the stupid and hypocritical games one has
to play to fit into monkey
society. Of course the reaction of the
establishment was predictable. He left
the NIMH and was never given any government or
academic support for the last 35
years of his life. His paper and comments at a
conference on sensory
deprivation were removed from the published
version. He was not invited to
government sponsored symposia on dolphins (he
had refused to help develop them
as weapons), though he clearly knew more about
them than anyone in the world.
He liked to live and work on the edge and few
could keep up with him, as this
books make clear. If you have read some of his
other books it will be much
easier going. He was a pioneer in
consciousness research and pushed the
boundaries of our understanding of who we are
and what we might become. Among
other things he catalogs the various states
reached by drugs, meditation, and
isolation, tries to determine their
significance, and suggests how to use them.
As a result of all his research, especially
his months of continuous hourly
injections of ketamine, he became convinced
that our ordinary reality was not
the only one. During his trips he was often in
communication with members of a
civilization 1000 years in the future. We all
allow ourselves such experiences
every time we watch a sci fi movie and
sometimes it leaves us more than just
amused, but when anyone meditates or takes a
drug to do it we tend to discount
the results. Lilly however, took it all
seriously, and parts of his book
explain why. Whatever our mind produces --by
any means --only happens because
our brains are programmed by our genes to make
it possible. So it's at least
plausible that any of these routes inward
reveal fundamental aspects of what's
possible for us in the future, or even for
some other species elsewhere in the
universe.
If you find his scientifically based
viewpoints irrational, consider that most
people believe without evidence (really with
abundant evidence to the contrary)
in good and bad luck, in super beings living
in space who rule the earth, in a
place in spacetime where dead people go, in
stars millions of light years away
influencing their lives, and in ghosts,
angels, witches, and gods that come to
earth to inhabit statues that read our
thoughts and violate all the laws of
physics, chemistry and biology in order to
help us personally.
He describes his tank work (and lots more) in
The Dyadic Cyclone, The Center of
the Cyclone, and in Programming and
Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer
(1967) and other books and papers.
This and his other books are pleas to
examine your beliefs with an open mind.
He defines metabeliefs as those about belief
systems. He says that our
simulations of reality (with meditation,
isolation, drugs, computers) can
provide access to other realities which may
include the future, the past, or
extraterrestrial. He refers to metaprograms as
learning tools (symbols,
programs, languages, ideas, models) which our
central programs (mind or part of
it) run all the time. Cognitive psychology did
not really exist at the time he
was most active and now we would likely call
the central programs cognitive
templates, modules or inference engines.
He refers to self-metaprograms (or essences)
as parts of the mind that program
our experiences.
Though he carried out an exhausting and
dangerous program of self
experimentation with psychedelics (what many
now call entheogens), he did not
believe they are a final or complete path to
higher consciousness. However, as
I reflect on this, I note that tens of
millions have successfully explored
their cognitive templates with psychedelics
while meditation alone may have
generated a few hundred thousand satoris and
probably less than 1000 mystics of
whom we know. It is also clear that
psychedelics have led millions to
meditation.
He mentions the very psychedelic Revelations
of St. John and understands that
Jesus taught revelation from within-- ie, the
same sort of self transcendence
as Taoism and Buddhism. He discusses how we
use drugs, sex, money, groups, war
etc as substitutes for God. God as compassion,
science, consciousness or
superspace (the then current concepts of
cosmology are explained and he
imagines the universe collapsing and being
reborn--very contemporary!). He
discusses god in here vs god out there but
notes that if it's out there then
it’s a puzzle where math comes from. His
experiences make him doubt that death
is the end.
He was very open to all ideas and his
desire to consider all points of view
makes some parts of his books rambling and a
bit incoherent. He crams so many
ideas on each page that there is easily enough
in each to form the core of ten
books or a lifetime of research and personal
exploration. Among the blizzard of
mind boggling ideas are: war is the result of
a future civilization using us
for war games; we are god simulating himself,
our interstellar rockets find
intelligent machines that follow us back to
earth and take over; government
sponsored meditation classes, computers that
control and monitor all
communication and take control of
civilization, our genes generate the illusion
that we live in a certain and determinate
universe; we are simulated by God or
vice versa.
Though he must have crossed paths countless
times with Indian mystics and
Buddhists, strangely, he was most influenced
by an obscure American mystic
named Franklin Merrell-Wolff--another
remarkable figure now almost totally lost
in time.
Lilly was an extremely bright and highly
rational person yet he became
convinced of the reality of his
extraterrestrial membership in a future
civilization and he went into a 6 week
depression after a ketamine trip in
which they showed him the collapse of the
universe.
It was clear to him that the phenomena of the
mind were capable of scientific
study but this was quite heretical 40 years
ago. What a great pity that he
never delved into Wittgenstein's philosophy
nor became acquainted with Osho!
Some of his books like "The Scientist" end
with reprints of some of
his papers and poems.
Someone should put all his writings plus
photos and other memorabilia on a DVD!
One of the great
pioneers in the study of mind,
