The Quiet Center: Isolation and Spirit

by John C. Lilly, Philip Hansen Bailey Lilly

The Quiet Center presents the core of Dr. John Lilly’s groundbreaking isolation experiments, edited into an accessible format for a new generation to embrace the revolutionary thinking of this fascinating scientist. It is a book that distills the essence of Dr. Lilly’s philosophies-higher consciousness, the varieties of isolation experience, heightened awareness-and minimizes the scientific jargon to make his theories and examples accessible to the general reader who is searching for heightened conscious experience and serene self-awareness. As a pioneer in the research of animal intelligence, altered states of consciousness and isolation tank experiments, Lilly, like his peers Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Carlos Casteneda and Charles Tart, can and should be read by a whole new generation seeking to extend his ideas that blend science and philosophy as a means to see new truths to themselves and to seek shelter from the onslaught of external stimuli in today’s society. Whether the reader can use an actual tank or devises their own "isolation space," The Quiet Center is the first word in isolation therapy for the new millennium.

Genres: Psychology, Metaphysics

144 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2003

About the author

John 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.

Reviews

[R_ VanHal · Rating 5 out of 5]

...one of the best and most important books on conciousness.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a pleasant bit of new age nonsense, like a sci-fi Carlos Castaneda. I particularly enjoyed the bit about the Earth Coincidence Control Office, which is pretty much straight out of Philip K. Dick.

What I didn't enjoy was the extremely poor work of Amy Demmon, credited as copy editor for this book. Her incompetence cannot be overstated. There are significant typos on almost every page, occasionally bad enough to confuse meaning. The book has two chapter fours. I once found a comma in the middle of a word. Maybe this is what copyediting on entheogenics looks like.

I hope Ronin Books didn't pay her for her services.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Lilly had two movies made about him: Day of the Dolphin that was about his research into dolphin intelligence and Altered States that was about his research into consciousness using an isolation tank. This is sort of a Cliff's Notes of Lilly's earlier writings on consciousness. It can be good preparation for someone going to do their first float in an isolation tank.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

John's style was a little dictatorial; he wrote about his own findings and his ideas about them, but presented them as hard facts. Groundbreaking work nevertheless.

[Kip Koelsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways John Lilly is a bit of a hero of mine--mainly for his ground-breaking dolphin and sensory depravation tank research. This book expands on some of his loftier concepts of consciousness and while I find it interesting, the spiritual side of it is not really my thing.

I mainly read this as research for my second novel--to put my deeper into the mind of the man one of my main characters also idolizes. For that purpose, it was helpful.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this misses out on a lot of psychology that could inform some of his faulty constructs.