11 ms·

Psychonetics: A nerd's toolset to work with mind and perception

197 points by irthomasthomas 5y ago

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
Hmm. I want to like this. Something is making me uneasy, though. It seems like some of what is here is partial reinvention and tweaking of stuff that goes back at least to the earliest days of Buddhism. It reminds me a lot of the method known to westerners as "Mahasi noting", so I was surprised not to see it mentioned. Each time I was inclined to be encouraged by something like "distractions are welcomed", I'd be worried again soon after at mentions of controlling things. It's OK to go against thousands of years of tradition if you want, but it seems worrisome if you do it without mentioning the prior art and explaining what's wrong with it.
- Kheyas 5y ago
  You can study the tradition separately. This is one of those tools that can become a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. If someone doesn't study the universe before getting into this he is most likely to use it the wrong way. It's important to appreciate the universe from outside the individual perspective. But you can't stop people from doing anything. Just like you couldn't stop people from building the atomic bomb. We need to experience and learn. Tradition, in my opinion, is people being one-sided towards the right side of the brain - focusing only on experience and not logic. To the point where mysticism is the only way to explain anything. Both sides need to be integrated.
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    It is nice to see attempts at rationally integrating mystical experiences. That mystical experiences occur and have value is clear. The mystical and perennial philosophy (“all is one”) is not too far from rational thinking.
- dvh1990 5y ago
  You get uneasy because this is written in a very ego/control driven way. I get the feel from the text that the individual who wrote it is interested in dominion over himself and perhaps others. This is diametrically opposite to how Buddhist/Hindu texts sounds and feel. And I think the way those aforementioned religions approach the subject of personal practice is healthier for both the individual and the world
- joeberon 5y ago
  Honestly as a Buddhist, I find perennialism and the western approach to Buddhism to be offensive and degrading to the religion. Many such people even claim that traditional Buddhist lineages are "backwards" and "for stupid people". The pushing of secularists into Buddhist spaces is a huge issue and invalidating traditional Buddhist voices in the west. The worst part is that the Buddha even specifically spoke out against many of the points secularists rely on, for example he spoke out extensively against the idea that death is the end. People who believed that were called annihilationists. However people approaching Buddhism in a secular way choose to ignore this, because they think their secular worldview is basic, immutable, and "obvious". Not accepting that the whole Buddhist project contradicts that, they try and suppress Asian voices and spaces, and instead support spaces that already agree with their preconceptions. It is just another form of colonialism, and I really don't like it.
  - itisit 5y ago
    Sorry, this comes across as surprisingly dogmatic and sanctimonious for someone who identifies as Buddhist. Religion can be used in any way people fancy. It goes without saying, but there is no right/pure/true way to practice a religion, especially considering their imaginative basis.
    - joeberon 5y ago
      Why would it be surprising? Buddhism is a pretty dogmatic religion. Literally the first of the Buddha's eight fold path is Right View, which means "you should believe in rebirth, believe in life after death, believe in karma, etc." He said that the first step is to have the correct dogmatic opinion. He actually said it is the forerunner to the path and by far the most important element. Once again, the idea that Buddhism would somehow be less dogmatic than other religions is a Western projection onto Buddhism. As far as religions go, Buddhism is pretty dogmatic and prescribes a very specific worldview. The difference is that it actually gives you the tools to verify those things if you wish, at least if you feel up for it.
      - itisit 5y ago
dr_dshiv 5y ago
“The model was simple. An individual performs some arithmetic calculation, such as subtracting 17 from 10000. Then, 17 again from the result and again. At some point, he is administered nitrous oxide and sees a hallucinatory image. His task is to continue the calculation.”
- pvarangot 5y ago
  I think the Neo American Church has a similar ceremony with nitrous if you are interested in nitrous rites: http://okneoac.org/ http://okneoac.org/ Don't quote me on that, I never read their texts except tangentially while reading other history books.
dvh1990 5y ago
This isn't very different from existing forms of meditation, but the scientific/secular focus here changes things. If done for science and the discovery of truth, this practice could be a great way to bring old-school spirituality into modernity. If, however, this is practiced for the acquisition of power, I can see how it can lead to psychosis.
FeepingCreature 5y ago
The basic structure of this seems to match my experience. > This experience can be perceived as the "normal" mind turning off and another mind awakening. This "other mind" does not think serially with words. Instead, it thinks dimensionally, with mental sensations of pure meanings. An important note is that it is, imo, not the case that the "conscious mind" shuts off and an "unconscious mind" begins operating; rather, the unconscious mind is always the one doing the work, and the conscious overlay is more akin to a debugger pausing, stepping and querying its operation. A good exercise for verbal thinkers that I've found, is to try and think a thought out loud, then interrupt yourself before actually mentally verbalizing it, but still keep the thought at the forefront of your mind. This allows you to examine the "pre-verbal form" of the thought. edit: I've also found that a good way to get rid of intrusive visual thoughts is to do the opposite of their planar deconcentration exercise, basically embedding my observing perspective completely in my vision, leaving no "space" for imagination. edit: POSSIBLY IMPORTANT INSIGHT that I've just had. Why is there a sense of "I exist/I have control" to begin with? Well, with our imagination, we can move our center of perception somewhere or sometime else. When we do that, the center of our perception diverges from our actual current body. In this state, consciousness cannot command actions at the point of perception, so there has to be a sense of "I do not exist here/I cannot perform actions here", in order to differentiate the state of imagining a fictional center of attention from living in the moment. That sense is precisely the quale of existence.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  I agree the unconscious is the one delivering the 'stuff'. If you know anything about neural networks, you may have come across an autoencoder. This is what I think is happening as information gets passed into the conscious mind. We are aware of the shifting patterns of non verbal thought within our mind, when we pay attention, this is viewing the compressed output of the inner mind - just as the second stage of an autoencoder views the compressed output of its first stage. The unconscious is unconscious because it's machinations are not directly recorded into memory and so we cannot self reflect upon them. But of course in the moment that part of our mind is conscious just as we are, it's just that that consciousness cannot be recalled. So this article is calling for the shutting down of the fore mind so that we can better listen to and interpret the output of the subconscious. And further to start to think in terms of the same non verbal architecture that the subconscious moves with. It is also apparent to me that this matches with the MBTI personality classification system. Sensing types rely upon machinations within the fore mind, logic, verbal translations of inner thought - whereas the intuitives listen directly to the unconscious. I'm an intuitive and when solving a problem I will often simply wait for the answer to arrive.
daralthus 5y ago
Perhaps a note about grounding techniques form psychology should be added here, as many of the exercises may cause anxiety or even psychosis. If you happen to feel uneasy try this: Look around and take a mental inventory of things around you: "This is a lamp. This is a table. This is a room..."
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  A similar grounding exercise[1] I like is saying out loud: 5 things I can see, 4 things I can touch, 3 things I can hear, 2 things I can smell, and 1 thing I can taste. It takes just a minute to complete and consistently works. [1] https://copingskillsforkids.com/blog/2016/4/27/coping-skill-spotlight-5-4-3-2-1-grounding-technique https://copingskillsforkids.com/blog/2016/4/27/coping-skill-...
selfhoster11 5y ago
My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psychologically or using drugs, are not sustainable. Using such techniques to correct a mind that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical mind is to be avoided.
- throwanem 5y ago
  This is a reasonable intuition, but consider the same statement in the context of physical exercise: > Using such techniques to correct a [body] that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical [body] is to be avoided. Of course there exists dangerous excess in both cases. You can exercise yourself to death, or ruin your health with horse testosterone. But that overindulgence can do harm doesn't automatically indict a daily hour of cardio, or even HIIT and a bit of protein powder or whatever. edit: Granted, some of the stuff in this "psychonetics" book seems a bit nonsense. But some of it certainly isn't. For example: What it systematizes apparently for the sake of systematism as "(VM.PDA) Planar Deconcentration of Attention (PDA)" is just a very highflown and rather silly description of something I learned from a great-uncle as one of a hunter's techniques for easily noticing movement. The way he put it was not to look at anything, but just look, and eventually I got the hang of it. I don't hunt, or at least not with a rifle, but I do regularly use the technique in wildlife photography, and it's extremely helpful and not at all as complicated or esoteric as Kusakov would seem to prefer. Too, Uncle Bram seemed perfectly sane when I knew him as a child, and I'm likewise not aware of any particular harm the use of this mental technique has inflicted on me. I wouldn't make the same assertion for everything in here, or even claim that anything in here is useful other than by coincidence, but there is at least one thing in here I can vouch for, albeit again preferably without all the nonsense with which Kusakov hedges it around. So if nothing else he's no worse off than a broken clock, I suppose.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  It's definitely good to always remember this cautious idea, yet sticking entirely to it seems equivalent to "don't ever go to gym and lift any weights". People around do all sorts of things which are rather far from the stable point to where their bodies rest naturally and get all sorts of semi-sustainable benefits. A human can actually use brains some good ways most people don't know about. Your brain is a machine you should develop some degree of control over rather than leave it to drive itself chaotically based on external and unintentional internal stimuli alone. E.g. it is possible to develop some degree of effortless stress-free emotion control, learning to take your feelings and ideas critically is also very important. E.g. feeling anger doesn't necessarily mean the other person is wicked or have actually done anything bad at all, feeling depressed doesn't imply everything is bad, you can feel debilitating panic without actual danger, appetite is just loosely correlated to actual need to eat, it is possible and good for health to switch (by your will alone) to feeling gratitude from feeling annoyed. Most people are not aware of this but they should be. Also "normal" mind is a sleeping mind, occasionally you sort of "wake up" for a moment and find the time has passed as if it never was so you didn't live it for to full extent.
jonnydubowsky 5y ago
This practice has similarities to Rudolf Steiner's Six Exercises for Basic Esoteric Development. I've been practicing at least a few of these, nearly every day for most of my adult life. I've found them to be a great help. My 2 favorites are: The Control of Will Choose a simple action to perform each day at a time you select. It should be something you do not ordinarily do; it can even be a little odd. Then make it a duty to perform this action at that time each day. Rudolf Steiner gives the example of watering a flower each day at a certain time. As you progress, additional tasks can be added at other times. This exercise is as hard as it is simple and takes a very strong intention to complete. To start you might think of it as you think of a dentist's appointment - you do not want to be late. It can be helpful to mark your success or failure on the calendar each day. If you completely forget at the time, but remember later, do it then and try to do better the next day. My other favorite isn't on this list, but is a related practice: Draw the same plant or tree every day for 5 minutes. This offers incredible insight into the observation of small changes taking place as part of the change in seasons. https://leadtogether.org/six-basic-exercises-esoteric-development-rudolf-steiner/ https://leadtogether.org/six-basic-exercises-esoteric-develo... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises_for_spiritual_development https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises...
greenail 5y ago
Preface: I've been fascinated with cults since I read "a piece of blue sky" about L. Ron Hubbard and scientology. I'm reading "The private life of chairman mao" now. I've only skimmed the article but... With the right leader this could make a great cult!
- coolgeek 5y ago
  You might be interested in the following: https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CONLANG;a52bdeda.1407D https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CONLANG;a5... And the New Yorker article he references (which is citation 34 in the OP article here): http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beginners http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beg...
BoppreH 5y ago
Psychonetics originated from academic research[1] and appears to employ scientific criteria and methodology (such as [27, 28]) in many aspects. That's a lot of qualifiers. So it originated (but may not have continued) from academic (but not necessarily peer reviewed) research, and appears (but may not actually) employ scientific criteria and methodology in many (but not all) aspects. I hope it's just unfortunate writing, but I can't help but take it as a pseudoscience red flag.
- jorgesborges 5y ago
  The purpose isn’t to explain anything scientifically but rather to find practical solutions to a given problem. >> However, that team of researchers was seeking solutions to their tasks rather than explanations concerning the observed phenomena. The researchers' approach could be called "technological". >> A technological approach differs from a scientific approach in the sense that the former does not claim to develop explanations as long as there are reproducible steps that can be followed to reach a predictable result.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Sure, but "technological approach" doesn't sound nearly as cool and specific as "scientific approach" does. Say "scientific approach" and people think rationality, granularity and reproducibility. Say "technological approach" and people think something boring, complex and, paradoxically, impractical. It is also curious to mention Oleg Bakhtiyarov specifically discusses the technological and a bunch of other approaches in the beginning of his "active consciousness" book referenced in the article and considers "organismic approach" the next step after it. I hope somebody is going to translate the book into English once.
analyte123 5y ago
I always enjoyed looking at Necker cubes and making them morph, as well as other optical illusions. I'm looking forward to trying the more "advanced techniques" mentioned here, like perceiving both morphs simultaneously or doing two cubes at a time. My intuition is that many of these exercises could be valuable training for the mind, although I definitely see how some (like the audio time compression thing or the 2d visual plane thing) could cause psychosis or other problems in a vulnerable individual. A few weeks ago I was wondering why optical illusions were part of my elementary school curriculum in the US. I doubt there is any connection at all to this particular Russian school, but I think "awareness and control of perception and attention" could be part of why you'd want a child to see them. Also, working with the "Schulte table" reminded me a lot of looking at passages or charts on standardized tests, or looking over logs or source code while debugging.
_virtu 5y ago
I read this years ago on HN and could not put my finger on the name of the phrase or the originating article. Every year or so I would go in and try to find it in my notes, email or via the search on HN. I'm so stoked this popped up in my feed today as it's one fewer brain itches I have to scratch. Man I love HN.
JALTU 5y ago
There was a long-form, dramatic (as is typical) story about a woman who lost control and eventually committed suicide in The New Yorker or similar that I can't find at the moment, but any search on the "dangers of" or "dark side of" meditation will return ample material to consider before going excessively far with these techniques. Not to belittle the seriousness of the dangers or their practical consequences: It does seem in life that too much of a good thing, isn't "good."
- JALTU 5y ago
  Also, just FWIW: Sam Harris' Waking Up app has many podcast style conversations with and monologues by practitioners of variations on meditation/mindfulness. I'm suggesting this as a starting point if the article's content is perhaps too esoteric.
YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
It is very hard for me to take any claim of "advanced psychological technology" seriously, especially when it includes a section about "supernatural phenomena." Can a person get or train themselves to resolve ambiguous stimuli (like a Necker cube) in multiple ways? Sure. Can one dissociate one's attention from the center of one's gaze? Undoubtedly. But is there a reason to call this "perceptual weightlifting"? Maybe this works for some people; but I find myself turned off by this language, especially because it seems to promise "superpowers." One of the points made here is that though most people think that the important aspect of attention is what people focus on, it is also possible to change how one focuses, in a low level sense. Which is a) true, b) potentially worth exploring, and c) very likely not going to live up to the self-hype. I think being aware of what one is sensing and perceiving to be important; the same is true with other types of self-awareness.
agumonkey 5y ago
I wonder what those people think about music. Especially polyrhythmic instruments (piano, drums, guitar when overlapping low and high tones). It's a massive walk into deconcentration of attention. Also their mention about "pure mind" reminds me of an event 10 years ago. Got to job further than usual, 10km along a path on the forest, never been that far, it was a new environment. Sparse forest, calm, but disturbingly so. Sparsity allowed to see far away, but the perspective made trees difficult to differentiate from someone standing still. My mind turned into a hawk-like state. It wasn't fear like fight-or-flight, with accelerated heart beat, sweat, anxiety.. no it was more like a slight hunger and extreme calm focus (also I'm a thin, non combat/chaos trained person, being ready to survive was not a natural thing). My brain also operated faster.

Hmm. I want to like this. Something is making me uneasy, though. It seems like some of what is here is partial reinvention and tweaking of stuff that goes back at least to the earliest days of Buddhism. It reminds me a lot of the method known to westerners as "Mahasi noting", so I was surprised not to see it mentioned. Each time I was inclined to be encouraged by something like "distractions are welcomed", I'd be worried again soon after at mentions of controlling things. It's OK to go against thousands of years of tradition if you want, but it seems worrisome if you do it without mentioning the prior art and explaining what's wrong with it.

Kheyas 5y ago
You can study the tradition separately. This is one of those tools that can become a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. If someone doesn't study the universe before getting into this he is most likely to use it the wrong way. It's important to appreciate the universe from outside the individual perspective. But you can't stop people from doing anything. Just like you couldn't stop people from building the atomic bomb. We need to experience and learn. Tradition, in my opinion, is people being one-sided towards the right side of the brain - focusing only on experience and not logic. To the point where mysticism is the only way to explain anything. Both sides need to be integrated.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  It is nice to see attempts at rationally integrating mystical experiences. That mystical experiences occur and have value is clear. The mystical and perennial philosophy (“all is one”) is not too far from rational thinking.
dvh1990 5y ago
You get uneasy because this is written in a very ego/control driven way. I get the feel from the text that the individual who wrote it is interested in dominion over himself and perhaps others. This is diametrically opposite to how Buddhist/Hindu texts sounds and feel. And I think the way those aforementioned religions approach the subject of personal practice is healthier for both the individual and the world
joeberon 5y ago
Honestly as a Buddhist, I find perennialism and the western approach to Buddhism to be offensive and degrading to the religion. Many such people even claim that traditional Buddhist lineages are "backwards" and "for stupid people". The pushing of secularists into Buddhist spaces is a huge issue and invalidating traditional Buddhist voices in the west. The worst part is that the Buddha even specifically spoke out against many of the points secularists rely on, for example he spoke out extensively against the idea that death is the end. People who believed that were called annihilationists. However people approaching Buddhism in a secular way choose to ignore this, because they think their secular worldview is basic, immutable, and "obvious". Not accepting that the whole Buddhist project contradicts that, they try and suppress Asian voices and spaces, and instead support spaces that already agree with their preconceptions. It is just another form of colonialism, and I really don't like it.
- itisit 5y ago
  Sorry, this comes across as surprisingly dogmatic and sanctimonious for someone who identifies as Buddhist. Religion can be used in any way people fancy. It goes without saying, but there is no right/pure/true way to practice a religion, especially considering their imaginative basis.
  - joeberon 5y ago
    Why would it be surprising? Buddhism is a pretty dogmatic religion. Literally the first of the Buddha's eight fold path is Right View, which means "you should believe in rebirth, believe in life after death, believe in karma, etc." He said that the first step is to have the correct dogmatic opinion. He actually said it is the forerunner to the path and by far the most important element. Once again, the idea that Buddhism would somehow be less dogmatic than other religions is a Western projection onto Buddhism. As far as religions go, Buddhism is pretty dogmatic and prescribes a very specific worldview. The difference is that it actually gives you the tools to verify those things if you wish, at least if you feel up for it.
    - itisit 5y ago

dr_dshiv 5y ago

“The model was simple. An individual performs some arithmetic calculation, such as subtracting 17 from 10000. Then, 17 again from the result and again. At some point, he is administered nitrous oxide and sees a hallucinatory image. His task is to continue the calculation.”

pvarangot 5y ago
I think the Neo American Church has a similar ceremony with nitrous if you are interested in nitrous rites: http://okneoac.org/ http://okneoac.org/ Don't quote me on that, I never read their texts except tangentially while reading other history books.

dvh1990 5y ago

This isn't very different from existing forms of meditation, but the scientific/secular focus here changes things. If done for science and the discovery of truth, this practice could be a great way to bring old-school spirituality into modernity. If, however, this is practiced for the acquisition of power, I can see how it can lead to psychosis.

FeepingCreature 5y ago

The basic structure of this seems to match my experience. > This experience can be perceived as the "normal" mind turning off and another mind awakening. This "other mind" does not think serially with words. Instead, it thinks dimensionally, with mental sensations of pure meanings. An important note is that it is, imo, not the case that the "conscious mind" shuts off and an "unconscious mind" begins operating; rather, the unconscious mind is always the one doing the work, and the conscious overlay is more akin to a debugger pausing, stepping and querying its operation. A good exercise for verbal thinkers that I've found, is to try and think a thought out loud, then interrupt yourself before actually mentally verbalizing it, but still keep the thought at the forefront of your mind. This allows you to examine the "pre-verbal form" of the thought. edit: I've also found that a good way to get rid of intrusive visual thoughts is to do the opposite of their planar deconcentration exercise, basically embedding my observing perspective completely in my vision, leaving no "space" for imagination. edit: POSSIBLY IMPORTANT INSIGHT that I've just had. Why is there a sense of "I exist/I have control" to begin with? Well, with our imagination, we can move our center of perception somewhere or sometime else. When we do that, the center of our perception diverges from our actual current body. In this state, consciousness cannot command actions at the point of perception, so there has to be a sense of "I do not exist here/I cannot perform actions here", in order to differentiate the state of imagining a fictional center of attention from living in the moment. That sense is precisely the quale of existence.

plutonorm 5y ago
I agree the unconscious is the one delivering the 'stuff'. If you know anything about neural networks, you may have come across an autoencoder. This is what I think is happening as information gets passed into the conscious mind. We are aware of the shifting patterns of non verbal thought within our mind, when we pay attention, this is viewing the compressed output of the inner mind - just as the second stage of an autoencoder views the compressed output of its first stage. The unconscious is unconscious because it's machinations are not directly recorded into memory and so we cannot self reflect upon them. But of course in the moment that part of our mind is conscious just as we are, it's just that that consciousness cannot be recalled. So this article is calling for the shutting down of the fore mind so that we can better listen to and interpret the output of the subconscious. And further to start to think in terms of the same non verbal architecture that the subconscious moves with. It is also apparent to me that this matches with the MBTI personality classification system. Sensing types rely upon machinations within the fore mind, logic, verbal translations of inner thought - whereas the intuitives listen directly to the unconscious. I'm an intuitive and when solving a problem I will often simply wait for the answer to arrive.

daralthus 5y ago

Perhaps a note about grounding techniques form psychology should be added here, as many of the exercises may cause anxiety or even psychosis. If you happen to feel uneasy try this: Look around and take a mental inventory of things around you: "This is a lamp. This is a table. This is a room..."

kelseyfrog 5y ago
A similar grounding exercise[1] I like is saying out loud: 5 things I can see, 4 things I can touch, 3 things I can hear, 2 things I can smell, and 1 thing I can taste. It takes just a minute to complete and consistently works. [1] https://copingskillsforkids.com/blog/2016/4/27/coping-skill-spotlight-5-4-3-2-1-grounding-technique https://copingskillsforkids.com/blog/2016/4/27/coping-skill-...

selfhoster11 5y ago

My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psychologically or using drugs, are not sustainable. Using such techniques to correct a mind that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical mind is to be avoided.

throwanem 5y ago
This is a reasonable intuition, but consider the same statement in the context of physical exercise: > Using such techniques to correct a [body] that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical [body] is to be avoided. Of course there exists dangerous excess in both cases. You can exercise yourself to death, or ruin your health with horse testosterone. But that overindulgence can do harm doesn't automatically indict a daily hour of cardio, or even HIIT and a bit of protein powder or whatever. edit: Granted, some of the stuff in this "psychonetics" book seems a bit nonsense. But some of it certainly isn't. For example: What it systematizes apparently for the sake of systematism as "(VM.PDA) Planar Deconcentration of Attention (PDA)" is just a very highflown and rather silly description of something I learned from a great-uncle as one of a hunter's techniques for easily noticing movement. The way he put it was not to look at anything, but just look, and eventually I got the hang of it. I don't hunt, or at least not with a rifle, but I do regularly use the technique in wildlife photography, and it's extremely helpful and not at all as complicated or esoteric as Kusakov would seem to prefer. Too, Uncle Bram seemed perfectly sane when I knew him as a child, and I'm likewise not aware of any particular harm the use of this mental technique has inflicted on me. I wouldn't make the same assertion for everything in here, or even claim that anything in here is useful other than by coincidence, but there is at least one thing in here I can vouch for, albeit again preferably without all the nonsense with which Kusakov hedges it around. So if nothing else he's no worse off than a broken clock, I suppose.
qwerty456127 5y ago
It's definitely good to always remember this cautious idea, yet sticking entirely to it seems equivalent to "don't ever go to gym and lift any weights". People around do all sorts of things which are rather far from the stable point to where their bodies rest naturally and get all sorts of semi-sustainable benefits. A human can actually use brains some good ways most people don't know about. Your brain is a machine you should develop some degree of control over rather than leave it to drive itself chaotically based on external and unintentional internal stimuli alone. E.g. it is possible to develop some degree of effortless stress-free emotion control, learning to take your feelings and ideas critically is also very important. E.g. feeling anger doesn't necessarily mean the other person is wicked or have actually done anything bad at all, feeling depressed doesn't imply everything is bad, you can feel debilitating panic without actual danger, appetite is just loosely correlated to actual need to eat, it is possible and good for health to switch (by your will alone) to feeling gratitude from feeling annoyed. Most people are not aware of this but they should be. Also "normal" mind is a sleeping mind, occasionally you sort of "wake up" for a moment and find the time has passed as if it never was so you didn't live it for to full extent.

jonnydubowsky 5y ago

This practice has similarities to Rudolf Steiner's Six Exercises for Basic Esoteric Development. I've been practicing at least a few of these, nearly every day for most of my adult life. I've found them to be a great help. My 2 favorites are: The Control of Will Choose a simple action to perform each day at a time you select. It should be something you do not ordinarily do; it can even be a little odd. Then make it a duty to perform this action at that time each day. Rudolf Steiner gives the example of watering a flower each day at a certain time. As you progress, additional tasks can be added at other times. This exercise is as hard as it is simple and takes a very strong intention to complete. To start you might think of it as you think of a dentist's appointment - you do not want to be late. It can be helpful to mark your success or failure on the calendar each day. If you completely forget at the time, but remember later, do it then and try to do better the next day. My other favorite isn't on this list, but is a related practice: Draw the same plant or tree every day for 5 minutes. This offers incredible insight into the observation of small changes taking place as part of the change in seasons. https://leadtogether.org/six-basic-exercises-esoteric-development-rudolf-steiner/ https://leadtogether.org/six-basic-exercises-esoteric-develo... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises_for_spiritual_development https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises...

greenail 5y ago

Preface: I've been fascinated with cults since I read "a piece of blue sky" about L. Ron Hubbard and scientology. I'm reading "The private life of chairman mao" now. I've only skimmed the article but... With the right leader this could make a great cult!

coolgeek 5y ago
You might be interested in the following: https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CONLANG;a52bdeda.1407D https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CONLANG;a5... And the New Yorker article he references (which is citation 34 in the OP article here): http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beginners http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beg...

BoppreH 5y ago

Psychonetics originated from academic research[1] and appears to employ scientific criteria and methodology (such as [27, 28]) in many aspects. That's a lot of qualifiers. So it originated (but may not have continued) from academic (but not necessarily peer reviewed) research, and appears (but may not actually) employ scientific criteria and methodology in many (but not all) aspects. I hope it's just unfortunate writing, but I can't help but take it as a pseudoscience red flag.

jorgesborges 5y ago
The purpose isn’t to explain anything scientifically but rather to find practical solutions to a given problem. >> However, that team of researchers was seeking solutions to their tasks rather than explanations concerning the observed phenomena. The researchers' approach could be called "technological". >> A technological approach differs from a scientific approach in the sense that the former does not claim to develop explanations as long as there are reproducible steps that can be followed to reach a predictable result.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Sure, but "technological approach" doesn't sound nearly as cool and specific as "scientific approach" does. Say "scientific approach" and people think rationality, granularity and reproducibility. Say "technological approach" and people think something boring, complex and, paradoxically, impractical. It is also curious to mention Oleg Bakhtiyarov specifically discusses the technological and a bunch of other approaches in the beginning of his "active consciousness" book referenced in the article and considers "organismic approach" the next step after it. I hope somebody is going to translate the book into English once.

analyte123 5y ago

I always enjoyed looking at Necker cubes and making them morph, as well as other optical illusions. I'm looking forward to trying the more "advanced techniques" mentioned here, like perceiving both morphs simultaneously or doing two cubes at a time. My intuition is that many of these exercises could be valuable training for the mind, although I definitely see how some (like the audio time compression thing or the 2d visual plane thing) could cause psychosis or other problems in a vulnerable individual. A few weeks ago I was wondering why optical illusions were part of my elementary school curriculum in the US. I doubt there is any connection at all to this particular Russian school, but I think "awareness and control of perception and attention" could be part of why you'd want a child to see them. Also, working with the "Schulte table" reminded me a lot of looking at passages or charts on standardized tests, or looking over logs or source code while debugging.

_virtu 5y ago

I read this years ago on HN and could not put my finger on the name of the phrase or the originating article. Every year or so I would go in and try to find it in my notes, email or via the search on HN. I'm so stoked this popped up in my feed today as it's one fewer brain itches I have to scratch. Man I love HN.

JALTU 5y ago

There was a long-form, dramatic (as is typical) story about a woman who lost control and eventually committed suicide in The New Yorker or similar that I can't find at the moment, but any search on the "dangers of" or "dark side of" meditation will return ample material to consider before going excessively far with these techniques. Not to belittle the seriousness of the dangers or their practical consequences: It does seem in life that too much of a good thing, isn't "good."

JALTU 5y ago
Also, just FWIW: Sam Harris' Waking Up app has many podcast style conversations with and monologues by practitioners of variations on meditation/mindfulness. I'm suggesting this as a starting point if the article's content is perhaps too esoteric.

YossarianFrPrez 5y ago

It is very hard for me to take any claim of "advanced psychological technology" seriously, especially when it includes a section about "supernatural phenomena." Can a person get or train themselves to resolve ambiguous stimuli (like a Necker cube) in multiple ways? Sure. Can one dissociate one's attention from the center of one's gaze? Undoubtedly. But is there a reason to call this "perceptual weightlifting"? Maybe this works for some people; but I find myself turned off by this language, especially because it seems to promise "superpowers." One of the points made here is that though most people think that the important aspect of attention is what people focus on, it is also possible to change how one focuses, in a low level sense. Which is a) true, b) potentially worth exploring, and c) very likely not going to live up to the self-hype. I think being aware of what one is sensing and perceiving to be important; the same is true with other types of self-awareness.

agumonkey 5y ago

I wonder what those people think about music. Especially polyrhythmic instruments (piano, drums, guitar when overlapping low and high tones). It's a massive walk into deconcentration of attention. Also their mention about "pure mind" reminds me of an event 10 years ago. Got to job further than usual, 10km along a path on the forest, never been that far, it was a new environment. Sparse forest, calm, but disturbingly so. Sparsity allowed to see far away, but the perspective made trees difficult to differentiate from someone standing still. My mind turned into a hawk-like state. It wasn't fear like fight-or-flight, with accelerated heart beat, sweat, anxiety.. no it was more like a slight hunger and extreme calm focus (also I'm a thin, non combat/chaos trained person, being ready to survive was not a natural thing). My brain also operated faster.