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The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space
A renowned scientist's experiments inside the human mind!
The astonishing personal account by John C. Lilly, M.D.
In this classic of scientific research, Dr. John C. Lilly shares his ground-breaking theory of the interaction between mind & brain. Using his personal experiments in solitude, isolation & confinement, he combines these states with LSD, mysticism & ot ...more
The astonishing personal account by John C. Lilly, M.D.
In this classic of scientific research, Dr. John C. Lilly shares his ground-breaking theory of the interaction between mind & brain. Using his personal experiments in solitude, isolation & confinement, he combines these states with LSD, mysticism & ot ...more
237 pages
Published
December 1973
by Bantam Books
(first published January 1st 1972)
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Dr. John C. Lilly, M.D. is one of those legendary scientist/psychologists who went exploring the mysterious inner spaces of their own freaking minds - zoning out in sensory deprivation tanks, communicating with dolphins, meditating and chanting on the side of mountain in Chile with gurus, doing aggressive and traumatic group therapy sessions in San Francisco, loading up on pure LSD and being pulled through swirling infinite inner mental vortices, reprogramming his mind, learning from mystics and
...more
Mar 15, 2015
Erik Graff
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
altered states fans
Recommended to Erik by:
lots of people
Shelves:
psychology
During the four years of seminary study, summers and Christmas breaks were the two periods when there was time for fun books outside the curriculum. They were mostly fictions, often tangentially related to academic studies, things like historical novels or sf books playing off religious themes. Occasionally, I'd pick up a non-fiction title, something lighter than the usual school fare. Lilly's The Center of the Cyclone was such a book.
I cannot remember anyone specifically recommending this title ...more
I cannot remember anyone specifically recommending this title ...more
It is hard to contemplate or be in the states described in the book by just reading them.An apt heading "the centre of the cyclone" was all i found.Since imagination has its own limits in creating a mental reality, this a set of hallucinatory crap for someone who is not already following the path consciously or consciously.
This book I really have to rate in two halves. The first half is the author's experiences with LSD. It is typical of other psychedelic literature, but better written than most (although nothing in the genre tops Huxley's Cleansing the Doors of Perception). The second half is the author's self explorations with various self-improvement cults and builds on Programming the Human Biocomputer. It is really week. The first half, gets 4 stars the second half gets 2.
John C. Lilly was the inventor of the sensory deprivation chamber. He and many others believe that by removing the constant sensory reminders that "you are here" via sight, sound etc. you can free the mind and achieve different states of consciousness.
This book contains interesting stories about the author's experiences with altered states of consciousness including: experiencing nitrous oxide administered by his dentist at age 7, an air bubble in his vein/artery, lung and then to his brain cau ...more
This book contains interesting stories about the author's experiences with altered states of consciousness including: experiencing nitrous oxide administered by his dentist at age 7, an air bubble in his vein/artery, lung and then to his brain cau ...more
I have spent a fair amount of time and money with teachers who said they understood programming, but no one has ever explained programming and the levels of enlightenment attainable with certain practices/disciplines the way John C. Lilly does in this book. He connected a lot of dots for me. Most importantly, before you spend any more money, if no one in the group of students reaches any level of enlightenment, then he/she may not be the guru you think they are. If you are a seeker like me, drop
...more
This book is proof positive that there are, or at least were, open-minded scientists - willing to have some pretty extreme ordeals to reach non-ordinary states of consciousness. I'm not sure all of the descriptions and experiences he described could accurately be called "science", but I do think Lilly at least thought of himself as a scientist and so this book tends to turn a fairly objective eye on very subjective realms and experiences. The books covers a wide variety of methods and journals t
...more
I really enjoyed the first half where he was exploring with lsd and sensory deprivation tanks. My attention nosedived somewhere in the middle when he started to experiment with group work activities /therapies. That part got a little hippie dippie for me.
This book is interesting in many ways. What stays with me many years later, is that he describes the decline of his mental health, without seeming to recognize that decline. Somewhat like Henry James "Turn of the screw"
How to describe this book? It's a difficult read. It is exploratory even forty years after its writing. Almost everyone would be a layperson reading this book, but it's written as though for a professor.
This being said, it is wonderful. I plowed through it to the end. There is a section that I skimmed and skipped through because it is difficult and dry, and almost inapplicable unless one were doing the exercises with the author.
In this book, he explores inner space, other realms, and realities, ...more
This being said, it is wonderful. I plowed through it to the end. There is a section that I skimmed and skipped through because it is difficult and dry, and almost inapplicable unless one were doing the exercises with the author.
In this book, he explores inner space, other realms, and realities, ...more
Apr 25, 2008
Steve
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
other mad scientists
Here is a book by my favorite mad scientist, John Lilly. He worked in isolation studies as well as human-dolphin communications. The government tried to exploit him. Both Day of the Dolphin and Altered States are based on his life and work. Come with him on this psychedelic voyage and you will encounter ECCO, the Earth Coincidence Control Office, and the CCCC, the Cosmic Coincidence Control Center. This is his most deeply personal memoir and a great read for exploring the wilder side of science
...more
Ah, the 60's... neuroscience was in its dark ages, academics hung out naked, and researchers injected themselves with pure LSD and wrote about the symbolism of their bowel movements. For people who have done their own work with altered states, you likely won't find much new here (though it's a fun read). For those who have never tripped (or meditated, or so on), this book is probably way more interesting -- and is, in the very least, accurate and honest. Worth a read.
One may think the parts of the book, in which John Lilly begins to speak as one to one about how one may experience one's perception of one's universe to be annoying.
But other than that, it was well written, had good examples of some real places and was a good affirmation of psychic places that I've peeked. He seemed to have a much healthier outlook and ability to navigate these places consciously, which was a great read.
But other than that, it was well written, had good examples of some real places and was a good affirmation of psychic places that I've peeked. He seemed to have a much healthier outlook and ability to navigate these places consciously, which was a great read.
I found a this book very interesting and thought provoking. However, my interest was really being pushed towards the end of the book. This is because there is just no way I can verify anything he was saying. It could all be true, it could all be utter nonsense ... there's no way of me knowing, and that's not good enough for my scientific/analytical mind. But still, good food for thought.
This book is a real adventure. Lilly writes with a contagious passion, obsessed with understanding his own mind and then communicating what he's learned—or thinks that he has learned. Revelatory, even if what it mostly reveals is how little we understand about ourselves—and how OK so many of us sadly might be with that.
This book explores an incredibly interesting and intriguing subject, but Lilly's scientific approach to spirituality didn't really resonate with me. His pragmatic and empirical treatment of the material left me yawning where I could have been feeling encouraged or enlightened.
Along with Crack in the Cosmic Egg, this book is fundamental to everything that you need to think about...Lilly is one of the major researchers on dolphin communication, but he kind of went beyond that once he figured out how little we really know about bending the mind.
After reading a little bit, i immediately incorporated lilly's ideas into my vocabulary, referring to my various state of minds. I'm not sure why he numbers the states as he does but i kinda like it and i'm pretty sure that there's good reasoning behind it.
Dec 03, 2012
Robert Blakesley
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
changed-my-life
Of all life's lessons, one of the most valuable is the basic truth that I am not my body, not my thoughts, not my feelings, but something beyond those things. I first learned this lesson as a seeker, long ago, reading this book by John Lilly.
Perhaps if I had read this in the 60s when most of us were mindless, I would have liked it. but I grew up I did not like one page of it and am sorry that I kept going , should have dropped it after 10 pages.
This book is mostly about two things: LSD and isolation tanks.
It's got some philosophical insight, but more pseudoscience than the contemporary scientific mind would like to acknowledge.
It's got some philosophical insight, but more pseudoscience than the contemporary scientific mind would like to acknowledge.
mmm. john lilly is an interesting scientist. this book explores his use of floatation tanks and lsd and other psycho-spirtual disciplines. Is pretty pieced together, didn't get too much from it.
I only read about half of this because I find it is more interesting to have an LSD experience yerself rather than read about someone else's trip.
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Very good read, some fascinating accounts of psychedelic use, and psychedelics in combination with isolation tanks. Lilly proves an apt narrator.
Re-reading this for the first time in 20 years. It's amazing, if you're into that stuff. More when I finish rereading.
Save the dolphins! Oh wait, that's his other book.
Interesting read for historical and practical reasons
Jun 03, 2008
John
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
No one
Recommended to John by:
Erik Graff
Shelves:
non-fiction
It would seem that LSD makes people hallucinate.
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“I am a thin layer of all those beings on [samadhi level] 3, mingling, connected with one another in a spherical surface around the whole known universe. Our "backs" are to the void. We are creating energy, matter and life at the interface between the void and all known creation. We are facing into the known universe, creating it, filling it. I am one with them; spread in a thin layer around the sphere with a small, slightly greater concentration of me in one small zone. I feel the power of the galaxy pouring through me. I am following the programme, the conversion programme of void to space, to energy, to matter, to life, to consciousness, to us, the creators. From nothing on one side to the created everything on the other. I am the creation process itself, incredibly strong, incredibly powerful.
This time there is no flunking out, no withdrawal, no running away, no unconsciousness, no denial, no negation, no fighting against anything. I am "one of the boys in the engine room pumping creation from the void into the known universe; from the unknown to the known I am pumping".
I am coming down from level +3. There are a billion choices of where to descend back down. I am conscious down each one of the choices simultaneously. Finally I am in my own galaxy with millions of choices left, hundreds of thousands on my own solar system, tens of thousands on my own planet, hundreds in my own country and then suddenly I am down to two, one of which is this body. In this body I look back up, see the choice-tree above me that I came down.
Did I, this Essence, come all the way down to this solar system, this planet, this place, this body, or does it make any difference? May not this body be a vehicle for any Essence that came into it? Are not all Essences universal, equal, anonymous, and equally able? Instructions for this vehicle are in it for each Essence to read and absorb on entry. The new pilot-navigator reads his instructions in storage and takes over, competently operating this vehicle.”
—
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This time there is no flunking out, no withdrawal, no running away, no unconsciousness, no denial, no negation, no fighting against anything. I am "one of the boys in the engine room pumping creation from the void into the known universe; from the unknown to the known I am pumping".
I am coming down from level +3. There are a billion choices of where to descend back down. I am conscious down each one of the choices simultaneously. Finally I am in my own galaxy with millions of choices left, hundreds of thousands on my own solar system, tens of thousands on my own planet, hundreds in my own country and then suddenly I am down to two, one of which is this body. In this body I look back up, see the choice-tree above me that I came down.
Did I, this Essence, come all the way down to this solar system, this planet, this place, this body, or does it make any difference? May not this body be a vehicle for any Essence that came into it? Are not all Essences universal, equal, anonymous, and equally able? Instructions for this vehicle are in it for each Essence to read and absorb on entry. The new pilot-navigator reads his instructions in storage and takes over, competently operating this vehicle.”
“I am not my opinion of myself, I am not anything I can describe to me. I am only a part of a large system that cannot describe itself fully; therefore, I relax and I am in the point source of consciousness, of delight, of mobility, in the inner spaces. My tasks do not include describing me nor having an opinion about the system in which I live, biological or social or dyadic. I hereby drop that "responsibility".
I am much more than I can conceive or judge me to be. Any negative or positive opinions I have of me are false fronts, headlines, limited and unnecessary programmes written on a thin paper blowing about and floating around in the vastness of inner spaces.”
—
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I am much more than I can conceive or judge me to be. Any negative or positive opinions I have of me are false fronts, headlines, limited and unnecessary programmes written on a thin paper blowing about and floating around in the vastness of inner spaces.”
