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The Center of the Cyclone: Looking into Inner Space
In this long-out-of-print counterculture classic, Dr. John C. Lilly takes readers behind the scenes into the inner life of a scientist exploring inner space, or “far-out spaces,” as Lilly called them. The book explains how he derived his theory of the operations of the human mind and brain from his personal experiences and experiments in solitude, isolation, and confinement; LSD; and other methods of mystical experience. It also includes glimpses into Lilly's friendship with such 1960s' notables as Oscar Ichazo, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Albert Hofmann, Fritz Perls, and Claudio Narajo. Written for the non-specialist, Center of the Cyclone shows an important, modern thinker at his most personal and profound.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
37 people are currently reading
2182 people want to read
About the author
John C. Lilly
27 books213 followersJohn Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
March 19, 2009
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 gurus like Ram Dass, Alan Watts and Gurdjieff - even giving LSD to dolphins (which have brains larger than humans), who were "far more developed than we in strange and alien ways" and, in fact even doing LSD ('Pure Sandoz') in sensory deprivation tanks and achieving 'Darhma-Megha-Samandhi' (Gurdjieff vibration level +3), a state of "Fusion with universal mind, union with God; being one of the creators of energy from the void, in the Ma'h spiritual center of the head". Truly one of the most fearlessly exploratory scientists of the last century, going wherever the inquiry takes him. Worth quoting is his dictum
These types of psychologists were crushed by establishment science, their work lives on in neglected books like this.
"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits."
These types of psychologists were crushed by establishment science, their work lives on in neglected books like this.
March 16, 2015
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, but Lilly's name was definitely in the air, he being much discussed amongst friends since high school. I knew he was a psychiatrist, wrote about altered states of consciousness and had done seminal work about cetacean intelligence. I did not know about the sensory deprivation tanks until reading this "Autobiography of Inner Space."
Lilly started his career with the government, doing work with dolphins which consisted, in part, of training them for warfare. During the Vietnam conflict the U.S.A. experimented with training them to attack divers and having them carry bombs as living torpedoes. He also participated in studies which, thanks to Congressional supoenas, we now know were related to the CIA's MK-ULTRA program and its predecessors--experiments in mind control, experiments with psychoactive chemicals and with sensory deprivation which led eventually to his famous tanks. To his credit, Lilly preferred the dolphins to his employers and dropped out of these well-funded areas of "research."
Working on his own, Lilly continued the research, minus the torture and manipulation of others, experimenting mostly on himself. The Center of the Cyclone is one of his earlier attempts to map out the phenomenology of his experiences, with and without LSD, under conditions of sensory deprivation.
I cannot remember anyone specifically recommending this title, but Lilly's name was definitely in the air, he being much discussed amongst friends since high school. I knew he was a psychiatrist, wrote about altered states of consciousness and had done seminal work about cetacean intelligence. I did not know about the sensory deprivation tanks until reading this "Autobiography of Inner Space."
Lilly started his career with the government, doing work with dolphins which consisted, in part, of training them for warfare. During the Vietnam conflict the U.S.A. experimented with training them to attack divers and having them carry bombs as living torpedoes. He also participated in studies which, thanks to Congressional supoenas, we now know were related to the CIA's MK-ULTRA program and its predecessors--experiments in mind control, experiments with psychoactive chemicals and with sensory deprivation which led eventually to his famous tanks. To his credit, Lilly preferred the dolphins to his employers and dropped out of these well-funded areas of "research."
Working on his own, Lilly continued the research, minus the torture and manipulation of others, experimenting mostly on himself. The Center of the Cyclone is one of his earlier attempts to map out the phenomenology of his experiences, with and without LSD, under conditions of sensory deprivation.
December 3, 2012
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.
May 19, 2013
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.
June 17, 2010
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.
January 4, 2024
Okay this has been on my currently reading shelf forever and I'm gonna be honest I did not finish the last ~70 pages or so of the book, but at this point I have long since put it back on my shelf...as I often do. Originally I wanted to read this because I thought it was going to be about Lilly's experiences with Ketamine specifically and was a bit disappointed to find out it wasn't. However I still really enjoyed the book , especially in the beginning, but at a certain point it started to get a little harder to understand (guess I haven't dropped enough acid!) and I lost the momentum to finish it. I do want to finish it eventually and I'm giving it 5 stars because it was an enjoyable read for me for the most part. Ignoring the bizarre dolphin experiments, I find the guy really interesting, and also a reminder to not get carried away with the Ketamine revelations ;)
ETA: I also have to mention (as it factored into my rating despite not having finished the entire book lol) that on page 47 (a number that has spiritual significance for me) there was a sentence that stood out in one of those "whoa" synchronicity sort of ways, like I was meant to read it then and there, a reminder. Naturally this gave the book a different tone for me and it will remain special for that reason.
ETA: I also have to mention (as it factored into my rating despite not having finished the entire book lol) that on page 47 (a number that has spiritual significance for me) there was a sentence that stood out in one of those "whoa" synchronicity sort of ways, like I was meant to read it then and there, a reminder. Naturally this gave the book a different tone for me and it will remain special for that reason.
August 16, 2020
Brings new meaning to the word (and concept of) "introspection". Fearless, curious, initially egoistic, eventually generous; all told with the honesty of a true explorer. Recommended.
February 27, 2019
I wanted to read this book as I knew the author experimented with LSD and sensory deprivation tanks. He was the inspiration for the brilliant film Altered States, which I enjoyed immensely. The third book of John C. Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone starts as an intense book, an exploration of the deep mind using arcane and sometimes forbidden techniques. A magnificent beginning... and a horrid ending.
Let me start from the beginning. Lilly is a psychoanalyst and a neuroscientist at the same time, perfect skills to explore and understand the limits of the human mind. He first starts his experiments with dolphins, trying to understand them and communicate with them. He starts an entire institute in order to research this field, but the book is not about that, but about the period starting with LSD experiments. At the time he begins taking the drug, it was legal. Parties were held where people would share the experience and entire schools of therapy were using LSD to facilitate access to the mind.
Having previously tried experiments of sensory deprivation, a sort of shutting down of all outside stimuli in order to explore inward, he attempts to mix the two techniques: LSD and sensory deprivation tanks. Something opens up and he gains access to repressed memories, deep understanding of self and incredibly fast and precise advances in pinpointing psychological hurdles, trauma points. Till this point, I have gobbled up the book, resonating profoundly with the scientific method of exploration aided by chemical substances that eliminate the barrier between consciousness and subconscious. But then it all changes.
If you intend to read the book and make up your own mind, I suggest you stop reading the review now and start with the book. I am going to express my own opinions on what I read there.
What I think happened is that Lilly had the spiritual openness that allowed him to connect empathically with himself and others, something I believe resides in the right hemisphere of the brain. This openness is facilitated by the catholic upbringing that he is subjected to as a child. He himself, under the influence of LSD, retrieves a repressed memory inside a church where he starts seeing angels flying around. He confesses this to a nun and she, bitchy as she was, gets terribly upset and tells him that only saints can have visions, not a seven years old boy. This makes him forcefully lock the door that he had opened in himself. But now, after he has dedicated himself to science and logic, he stumbles upon this drug which unlocks the memory and so the initial skill.
This should have been a momentous occasion, something to combine perfectly the scientific mind with a strong spiritual/emotional side. Unfortunately, he was truly unprepared for it all. From a scientific book, it quickly devolves into yogi and Eastern spiritual practices, combines knowledge gained from experiment with hearsay from ancient texts, mixes hallucination with perception. He acknowledges that he started writing the book, then, after experiencing all of this spiritual avalanche, he decided only the first three chapters were worth keeping. Unfortunately, those are the first three chapters that I loved and that made sense.
It is not just my own subjective disgust for his abandonment of reason that makes me think the book follows up with personal involution, but also the way the book is structured, the writing style, the use of information at the end which had not been introduced previously... it all gets worse.
Now, he is the second scientist I've read that reports some sort of mental or at least emotional connection at a distance, the first one being Kary Mullis, who also seemed rather wacky and experimented with drugs. I really wanted to believe that, as well as many of the extraordinary things reported in the book, and wanted to explore them for myself. But now... I am not so sure. Be it the LSD or some sort of giving up to the emotional side, I see this book as a diary of going bananas and not realizing it.
That doesn't mean that the book doesn't contain valuable knowledge. The fact that, single or under guidance, the man could access hidden memories and background "programs" after the first LSD experience makes the entire business of psychotherapy laughable with their lengthy discussions and careful probing. Various methods to access the trance necessary to explore your inner spaces that don't even involve chemical aid (like the looping of a word and listening to it until entering the desired trance state) I bet are perfectly functional. Also, there was one collaborator of Lilly's, Ida Rolf, that used a technique combining deep tissue massage and trance to unlock the repressed memories that affected body stance.
Many more interesting and very useful facts are hidden in the book. Alas, it is difficult if not outright impossible to separate wishful thinking from actual fact, garbage from science. Or maybe, who knows, I am so biased that I can't understand some essential truths in the book. I guess it is up to you to read the book and decide for yourself. I loved the beginning and loathed the ending.
Let me start from the beginning. Lilly is a psychoanalyst and a neuroscientist at the same time, perfect skills to explore and understand the limits of the human mind. He first starts his experiments with dolphins, trying to understand them and communicate with them. He starts an entire institute in order to research this field, but the book is not about that, but about the period starting with LSD experiments. At the time he begins taking the drug, it was legal. Parties were held where people would share the experience and entire schools of therapy were using LSD to facilitate access to the mind.
Having previously tried experiments of sensory deprivation, a sort of shutting down of all outside stimuli in order to explore inward, he attempts to mix the two techniques: LSD and sensory deprivation tanks. Something opens up and he gains access to repressed memories, deep understanding of self and incredibly fast and precise advances in pinpointing psychological hurdles, trauma points. Till this point, I have gobbled up the book, resonating profoundly with the scientific method of exploration aided by chemical substances that eliminate the barrier between consciousness and subconscious. But then it all changes.
If you intend to read the book and make up your own mind, I suggest you stop reading the review now and start with the book. I am going to express my own opinions on what I read there.
What I think happened is that Lilly had the spiritual openness that allowed him to connect empathically with himself and others, something I believe resides in the right hemisphere of the brain. This openness is facilitated by the catholic upbringing that he is subjected to as a child. He himself, under the influence of LSD, retrieves a repressed memory inside a church where he starts seeing angels flying around. He confesses this to a nun and she, bitchy as she was, gets terribly upset and tells him that only saints can have visions, not a seven years old boy. This makes him forcefully lock the door that he had opened in himself. But now, after he has dedicated himself to science and logic, he stumbles upon this drug which unlocks the memory and so the initial skill.
This should have been a momentous occasion, something to combine perfectly the scientific mind with a strong spiritual/emotional side. Unfortunately, he was truly unprepared for it all. From a scientific book, it quickly devolves into yogi and Eastern spiritual practices, combines knowledge gained from experiment with hearsay from ancient texts, mixes hallucination with perception. He acknowledges that he started writing the book, then, after experiencing all of this spiritual avalanche, he decided only the first three chapters were worth keeping. Unfortunately, those are the first three chapters that I loved and that made sense.
It is not just my own subjective disgust for his abandonment of reason that makes me think the book follows up with personal involution, but also the way the book is structured, the writing style, the use of information at the end which had not been introduced previously... it all gets worse.
Now, he is the second scientist I've read that reports some sort of mental or at least emotional connection at a distance, the first one being Kary Mullis, who also seemed rather wacky and experimented with drugs. I really wanted to believe that, as well as many of the extraordinary things reported in the book, and wanted to explore them for myself. But now... I am not so sure. Be it the LSD or some sort of giving up to the emotional side, I see this book as a diary of going bananas and not realizing it.
That doesn't mean that the book doesn't contain valuable knowledge. The fact that, single or under guidance, the man could access hidden memories and background "programs" after the first LSD experience makes the entire business of psychotherapy laughable with their lengthy discussions and careful probing. Various methods to access the trance necessary to explore your inner spaces that don't even involve chemical aid (like the looping of a word and listening to it until entering the desired trance state) I bet are perfectly functional. Also, there was one collaborator of Lilly's, Ida Rolf, that used a technique combining deep tissue massage and trance to unlock the repressed memories that affected body stance.
Many more interesting and very useful facts are hidden in the book. Alas, it is difficult if not outright impossible to separate wishful thinking from actual fact, garbage from science. Or maybe, who knows, I am so biased that I can't understand some essential truths in the book. I guess it is up to you to read the book and decide for yourself. I loved the beginning and loathed the ending.
September 24, 2024
It’s not every day you finish reading the #2 book on your TBR. I’ve been meaning to read this book for years and only recently got my hands on a copy. Going all the way back to my psychonautics reading heyday of my early 20s I’ve been wanting to read more from John C Lilly. While my reading tastes have expanded a lot since then I still like returning to this subject and even after all these years it was well worth reading The Center of the Cyclone.
This is my second time reading a work from John C Lilly. I read The Human Biocomputer a few years back with mixed opinions. While having a very interesting outlook on the mind I felt his lack of data in his claims to be a bit limiting in buying into his theories. I found The Center of the Cyclone much more interesting read.
What I think makes The Center of the Cyclone a more enriching read is the fact that it is more so an overview. This is a particle autobiography of John C Lilly and gives a good introduction into many of his different studies and subjects of interest. His studies of LSD, sensory deprivation, dolphins, meditation, and the human biocomputer. I really think this is the introduction people should make with the work of Lilly.
I found the earlier chapters to be the most insightful. Lilly’s writing on his initial personal experiences with LSD are some of the best trip report writing I’ve read. It’s details and all encompassing without being too abstract. His recounting of his studies with LSD when it was still something that could be obtained legally are highly insightful to anyone looking to better understand the history of studies on psychedelics.
I think this transitions well into his work developing the sensory deprivation tank and his work with dolphins. Where I started to lose some of my engagement was with the later discussions on meditation and the human biocomputer. Maybe it's just that my interest in learning Lilly’s thoughts on these subjects is less invested but I just wasn’t as drawn in by the last hundred pages as I was the first.
Overall, I still highly recommend this to anyone interested in psychonautics. I would honestly say this should be the second book you read after Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception. The insight into Lilly’s life is also great, although maybe a bit too much at times. The section on understanding his own birth through taking a shit on acid, while amusing, leaves a lot to be desired.
This is my second time reading a work from John C Lilly. I read The Human Biocomputer a few years back with mixed opinions. While having a very interesting outlook on the mind I felt his lack of data in his claims to be a bit limiting in buying into his theories. I found The Center of the Cyclone much more interesting read.
What I think makes The Center of the Cyclone a more enriching read is the fact that it is more so an overview. This is a particle autobiography of John C Lilly and gives a good introduction into many of his different studies and subjects of interest. His studies of LSD, sensory deprivation, dolphins, meditation, and the human biocomputer. I really think this is the introduction people should make with the work of Lilly.
I found the earlier chapters to be the most insightful. Lilly’s writing on his initial personal experiences with LSD are some of the best trip report writing I’ve read. It’s details and all encompassing without being too abstract. His recounting of his studies with LSD when it was still something that could be obtained legally are highly insightful to anyone looking to better understand the history of studies on psychedelics.
I think this transitions well into his work developing the sensory deprivation tank and his work with dolphins. Where I started to lose some of my engagement was with the later discussions on meditation and the human biocomputer. Maybe it's just that my interest in learning Lilly’s thoughts on these subjects is less invested but I just wasn’t as drawn in by the last hundred pages as I was the first.
Overall, I still highly recommend this to anyone interested in psychonautics. I would honestly say this should be the second book you read after Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception. The insight into Lilly’s life is also great, although maybe a bit too much at times. The section on understanding his own birth through taking a shit on acid, while amusing, leaves a lot to be desired.
August 1, 2015
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 what ever you are reading, this is the book that will open your eyes to the possibilities.
October 12, 2019
There is some excellent material here, especially Lilly's work with LSD and isolation tanks, and his descriptions of various out-of-body states he has achieved. A lot of the latter material in the book, however, is not very readable or essential to Lilly's story; his time in Chile basically amounts to pages and pages of describing his state using a number rating system that is, at best, almost completely incomprehensible. A decent read, but not as compelling as some of his other material.
March 12, 2016
John Lily is a balanced blend of science and mystic. He is a true cartographer of the inner realms which so often are ignored in Western society. Center of the Cyclone is the culmination of these explorations through means of the sensory deprivation tank, LSD, group therapy, yoga and much more. Great read!
September 24, 2024
Super interesting account of the man who created the sensory deprivation tank and explored its nature next to psychedelics. Kind of hard to read.
July 26, 2023
Came for the LSD with dolphins, stayed for the categorization of vibrational levels of human consciousness. The first two-thirds is mostly autobiographical, but then he offered a framework that resonated with me and was helpful
October 15, 2019
An odd mediation of intelligent self-reflection and psychoanalysis and 1960's self-love language.
January 3, 2014
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 causing a coma, out of body experiences, experiences on LSD, near death experiences, and other altered states of mind including experiences in isolation tanks.
Sometimes the author uses terms like level 3 or level 5 and I don't know what that means. The latter part of the book uses language that might be more easily understood by people who are more familiar with the mechanisms involved when the conscious mind communicates with the unconscious mind. For example there was talk of interacting with entities and even creating them. It reminded me of other things I've read regarding the occult science of mind. For example, some skilled meditators refer to making contact with your "higher self" and accessing the "hall of records". These aren't real people or real places, rather, they are metaphors for accessing information available in different states of consciousness. I think I have to do more reading on the subject before I can fully appreciate the concepts discussed within this book.
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 causing a coma, out of body experiences, experiences on LSD, near death experiences, and other altered states of mind including experiences in isolation tanks.
Sometimes the author uses terms like level 3 or level 5 and I don't know what that means. The latter part of the book uses language that might be more easily understood by people who are more familiar with the mechanisms involved when the conscious mind communicates with the unconscious mind. For example there was talk of interacting with entities and even creating them. It reminded me of other things I've read regarding the occult science of mind. For example, some skilled meditators refer to making contact with your "higher self" and accessing the "hall of records". These aren't real people or real places, rather, they are metaphors for accessing information available in different states of consciousness. I think I have to do more reading on the subject before I can fully appreciate the concepts discussed within this book.
April 25, 2008
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 and mysticism.
January 20, 2025
John C Lilly’s “The Center of The Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space” is a work of non-fiction that is stranger than most fiction. Telling of his experiments with altered states of consciousness, both with and without psychedelic drugs, Dr. Lilly takes the reader on a funhouse journey through the wide spectrum of the extraordinary states achievable by the human mind. “Cyclone” gives many of the readers what they probably came here for, Lilly’s stories about tripping out and communicating with alien beings in his sensory isolation tank. However, this is not just a “drug book”, but a story of a man’s journey for truth, and also a mini-encyclopedia of an assortment of brain states and the means by which they can be achieved.
If your here to hear about Lilly’s tank tripping, you’re in for a ride, at least for the first half of the book. He brings the reader into the tranquil darkness, describing the process of floating in salt water and detaching from his normal Earth senses, switching to an alternate sensory system, and allowing his mind to tune into different realities, effectively turning the float tank into a portal. As if this wasn’t enough, Lilly throws some high powered LSD into the mix, further activating his watery portal to connect to other dimensions, bringing him in contact with non-human entities that communicate with him telepathically. In his psychedelic tank visions, he goes outside of his body and into inner space, that often resembles outer space, and upgrades his perceptual centers with the help of beings that once guided him through a near death experience in his recent past. The beings give him a mission through a cosmic mind-message.
The book later comes back down to Earth, as LSD is eventually banned and Lilly goes on his cosmically guided mission to learn a variety of techniques to allow him to help others to expand their awareness, and also learn how to get back in communication with his guiding beings without the use of drugs in the tank. He attends seminars and workshops, and studies a variety of techniques of meditation, therapy, body work, hypnosis, yoga, and physical exercises in order to get high naturally. His sober mystical experiences eventually become as profound as his psychedelic tanks experiences.
Along with Lilly’s telling of his personal journey, the book also gives a historical snapshot of the time in which it was written. Many prominent figures of the time make guest appearances or are referenced throughout the story. For someone wanting to research the exploration of consciousness that happened during this era, this is a great book to get a foundation from, and also to springboard off into further research. This a good book to read with a pen and paper handy as one will likely want to look up a lot of other info later.
At times, this book seems to have been written in a dialect of it’s own. By his own admission in the book, Lilly wanted to find a way to reformulate the concepts of meditation and mysticism into the language of science, with a heavy emphasis on computer science. This gives a lot of the writing a unique air of science-fiction mysticism, but also makes for some laborious reading at times, and often comes of as a little cult-like. I can see how someone with a scientific world view may find this appealing as a way to expand one’s perception beyond the material world, but it often takes some of the shine out of the mystical ideas that are discussed.
Overall, this is a unique book, a real life tale that stretches the imagination. Though some of the writing is difficult to wade through, there are parts that are interesting enough to keep even skeptics at least entertained, even if they don’t find the story plausible. Today, as float centers can be accessed by the public, and psychedelic healing centers are starting to open, Lilly’s autobiography shows that whatever was guiding his thoughts at that time was guiding them in a direction that would become relevant to our modern world.
If your here to hear about Lilly’s tank tripping, you’re in for a ride, at least for the first half of the book. He brings the reader into the tranquil darkness, describing the process of floating in salt water and detaching from his normal Earth senses, switching to an alternate sensory system, and allowing his mind to tune into different realities, effectively turning the float tank into a portal. As if this wasn’t enough, Lilly throws some high powered LSD into the mix, further activating his watery portal to connect to other dimensions, bringing him in contact with non-human entities that communicate with him telepathically. In his psychedelic tank visions, he goes outside of his body and into inner space, that often resembles outer space, and upgrades his perceptual centers with the help of beings that once guided him through a near death experience in his recent past. The beings give him a mission through a cosmic mind-message.
The book later comes back down to Earth, as LSD is eventually banned and Lilly goes on his cosmically guided mission to learn a variety of techniques to allow him to help others to expand their awareness, and also learn how to get back in communication with his guiding beings without the use of drugs in the tank. He attends seminars and workshops, and studies a variety of techniques of meditation, therapy, body work, hypnosis, yoga, and physical exercises in order to get high naturally. His sober mystical experiences eventually become as profound as his psychedelic tanks experiences.
Along with Lilly’s telling of his personal journey, the book also gives a historical snapshot of the time in which it was written. Many prominent figures of the time make guest appearances or are referenced throughout the story. For someone wanting to research the exploration of consciousness that happened during this era, this is a great book to get a foundation from, and also to springboard off into further research. This a good book to read with a pen and paper handy as one will likely want to look up a lot of other info later.
At times, this book seems to have been written in a dialect of it’s own. By his own admission in the book, Lilly wanted to find a way to reformulate the concepts of meditation and mysticism into the language of science, with a heavy emphasis on computer science. This gives a lot of the writing a unique air of science-fiction mysticism, but also makes for some laborious reading at times, and often comes of as a little cult-like. I can see how someone with a scientific world view may find this appealing as a way to expand one’s perception beyond the material world, but it often takes some of the shine out of the mystical ideas that are discussed.
Overall, this is a unique book, a real life tale that stretches the imagination. Though some of the writing is difficult to wade through, there are parts that are interesting enough to keep even skeptics at least entertained, even if they don’t find the story plausible. Today, as float centers can be accessed by the public, and psychedelic healing centers are starting to open, Lilly’s autobiography shows that whatever was guiding his thoughts at that time was guiding them in a direction that would become relevant to our modern world.
November 8, 2020
Не сон разума рождает чудовищ, а очень активное воображение.
Дисклеймер - как бы ни выглядела рецензия, я безмерно благодарна автору за то, что эта книга вышла. Без нее не было бы дальнейших разработок и наработок, а значит, не было бы психотерапии в том виде, в котором мы ее видим сейчас.
Если бы я не посещала индивидуальную и групповую гештальт-терапию, и не была знакома с методом визуализации, я бы вообще не поняла, о чем речь в книге. Представляю, каково было людям того времени читать эту научную работу.
А так, это очень иносказательное, максимально очищенное от личного опыта, описание перезаписи воспоминаний. Рассказанное через сравнение человеческого сознания и компьютера, даже через замещение (само)сознания компьютерными образами, причем не самыми естественно понимаемыми. Делаем скидку на год, отсутствие тогда интуитивно понятного интерфейса в компьютерых программах, да и вообще интерфейса как такового - удалось сформулировать мысль "человеческое сознание способно (само)программироваться", а на основе этого создать модель, разработать условия и поставить эксперимент, который можно повторить. В сети в 21 веке можно найти гораздо более развернутые и близкие нам описания этой модели, но все-таки это век 21, а к��ига написана в 20м.
Не совсем поняла, для чего было использовать в данном случае ЛСД, наверное, чтобы надежно сместить точку сборки.
Мне показались интересными не сами эксперименты и многостраничные расшаркивания о том, как важно отбросить пристрастность и подходить ко всему критически (а также, что идеальный экспериментатор и объект эксперимента в данном случае - биоробот без эмоций и убеждений, но так теряется смысл эксперимента), все равно это можно уместить в десяток страниц.
Интересными были идеи о том, что человеческий разум _в первую очередь_ будет наделять свои деструктивные программы отдельным сознанием, вытеснять даже мелкие детские неприятные переживания в отдельных сущностей. И убеждать, убеждать сам себя, что только это переживание является истинными и конечными. "Область ума - это единственная сфера, в которой то, во что веришь, как в истинное, либо истинно, либо становится истинным в пределах, которые можно и нужно определить экспериментально" (цит.).
Первое и единственное, с чем человеческое сознание будет сталкиваться, погружаясь в себя, свои ощущения и мысленные конструкции - это только его собственное человеческое сознание. Наверное, если нет специальных способностей медиума.
Также сформулирован сам феномен влияния паттерна поведения человека в детстком возрасте на поведение его же во взрослом возрасте. Условно говоря, те самые "ты добиваешься внимания мужчин, потому что папа не любил тебя в детстве", и даже предложено решение по перезаписыванию такого поведения в состоянии психоанализа под ЛСД (боги, это настолько специфическая практика, что я даже хз, кому она может понадобиться).
Короче, это попытка максимально беспристрастно написать технику безопасности для работы с видениями. Автор в своей жизни переживал мистический опыт, и всеми силами старался скрыть любое упоминание этого опыта в своей работе, при этом стремясь дать понять практикам, в какие ловушки разума можно попасть, если входить в ИСС неподготовленным.
Читается тяжело и муторно, очень много метафизики описано научным языком, что не добавляет понятности.
Однако считаю очень полезным.
Дисклеймер - как бы ни выглядела рецензия, я безмерно благодарна автору за то, что эта книга вышла. Без нее не было бы дальнейших разработок и наработок, а значит, не было бы психотерапии в том виде, в котором мы ее видим сейчас.
Если бы я не посещала индивидуальную и групповую гештальт-терапию, и не была знакома с методом визуализации, я бы вообще не поняла, о чем речь в книге. Представляю, каково было людям того времени читать эту научную работу.
А так, это очень иносказательное, максимально очищенное от личного опыта, описание перезаписи воспоминаний. Рассказанное через сравнение человеческого сознания и компьютера, даже через замещение (само)сознания компьютерными образами, причем не самыми естественно понимаемыми. Делаем скидку на год, отсутствие тогда интуитивно понятного интерфейса в компьютерых программах, да и вообще интерфейса как такового - удалось сформулировать мысль "человеческое сознание способно (само)программироваться", а на основе этого создать модель, разработать условия и поставить эксперимент, который можно повторить. В сети в 21 веке можно найти гораздо более развернутые и близкие нам описания этой модели, но все-таки это век 21, а к��ига написана в 20м.
Не совсем поняла, для чего было использовать в данном случае ЛСД, наверное, чтобы надежно сместить точку сборки.
Мне показались интересными не сами эксперименты и многостраничные расшаркивания о том, как важно отбросить пристрастность и подходить ко всему критически (а также, что идеальный экспериментатор и объект эксперимента в данном случае - биоробот без эмоций и убеждений, но так теряется смысл эксперимента), все равно это можно уместить в десяток страниц.
Интересными были идеи о том, что человеческий разум _в первую очередь_ будет наделять свои деструктивные программы отдельным сознанием, вытеснять даже мелкие детские неприятные переживания в отдельных сущностей. И убеждать, убеждать сам себя, что только это переживание является истинными и конечными. "Область ума - это единственная сфера, в которой то, во что веришь, как в истинное, либо истинно, либо становится истинным в пределах, которые можно и нужно определить экспериментально" (цит.).
Первое и единственное, с чем человеческое сознание будет сталкиваться, погружаясь в себя, свои ощущения и мысленные конструкции - это только его собственное человеческое сознание. Наверное, если нет специальных способностей медиума.
Также сформулирован сам феномен влияния паттерна поведения человека в детстком возрасте на поведение его же во взрослом возрасте. Условно говоря, те самые "ты добиваешься внимания мужчин, потому что папа не любил тебя в детстве", и даже предложено решение по перезаписыванию такого поведения в состоянии психоанализа под ЛСД (боги, это настолько специфическая практика, что я даже хз, кому она может понадобиться).
Короче, это попытка максимально беспристрастно написать технику безопасности для работы с видениями. Автор в своей жизни переживал мистический опыт, и всеми силами старался скрыть любое упоминание этого опыта в своей работе, при этом стремясь дать понять практикам, в какие ловушки разума можно попасть, если входить в ИСС неподготовленным.
Читается тяжело и муторно, очень много метафизики описано научным языком, что не добавляет понятности.
Однако считаю очень полезным.
October 11, 2023
All things considered, an entertaining survey of countercultural contributions to our culture in the latter half of the last century. Lilly expounds “scientifically” on his firsthand experiences of LSD, sensory deprivation tanks, the burgeoning Human Potential Movement at Esalen, Arica as taught by Oscar Ichazo etc.
I’ve always been a freethinking person who is open to many different interpretations of reality, having experienced several myself. However, Lilly seems to have completely abandoned all semblance of objectivity. His credulity is so open to suggestion as to be almost without any freewill of its own. Ultimately I think Lilly confuses critical thinking with his own amalgam of self-styled mysticism and esoteric practices.
I’ve always been a freethinking person who is open to many different interpretations of reality, having experienced several myself. However, Lilly seems to have completely abandoned all semblance of objectivity. His credulity is so open to suggestion as to be almost without any freewill of its own. Ultimately I think Lilly confuses critical thinking with his own amalgam of self-styled mysticism and esoteric practices.
March 26, 2019
In the late 50’s and 60’s it was rule that if you were doing research on psychedelics that you had to try them. Lily kept a diary of his adventures and they are profound in the depth of inner therapy he unwillingly ventured. Interesting read for those interested in the depth of the mind.
July 21, 2021
I came to The Centre of the Cyclone having read and loved The Dyadic Cyclone, but found this less engaging. Still nonetheless interesting, and the latter portion of the book is of use to those interested in occultism.
August 4, 2021
maybe I've been blessed with level 12 some times in my life. when I was a kid, at the dinner table, I would have out of body experiences. some weird, deep shit is in here, fits right in with Berkeley. the end has a but too much about the different states, but the ending is beautiful ✨
September 11, 2021
Is it an autobiography if the author doesn't reveal any of the circumstances around his LSD trips and altered states. From someone who has definitely gone and continues to explore their spirituality and believes in this stuff: this is pretty tortured writing. But I read the whole damn thing.
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January 21, 2024For the porpoise of self actuality, sensory deprivation has been a key tool to realizing how my path in life was flawed. This book has some good accounts of mental landscapes that one can go into, in deep meditative States. With drugs, but this translates to without them as well.
July 10, 2019
Lily's writing can sometimes be unclear, but this book is a personal look into Lily's transformation as a scientist and psychonaut.
July 14, 2020
OMG! Programs for biocomputer. Loading..
May 26, 2022
Enjoyable read, but lost me in the last third of the book.
December 23, 2022
Seems less rational than I would have thought
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April 9, 2023Trip reports aren't my fave.
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