From Einstein’s groundbreaking quantum findings to Mendeleev’s foundational periodic table, from Newton’s exact cosmic mathematics to Tesla’s electric dream of wireless technology, from Jung’s profound depth psychology to Muhammad’s divine spark of religion, holotropic states of consciousness have served as remarkable catalysts to radical insights, stimulated and expanded human minds, and provided powerful sources of creativity and inspiration (Grof, 2019). Why did such states disappear from our historical record and scientific tradition? Why are we not making use of these states of being and leapfrogging our scientific development at every turn? What is the price we may be paying by limiting ourselves to ordinary states of being? Could scientific progress be revolutionary and exponential instead of evolutionary and linear?
In this paper, I explore three pioneering scientists (Newton, Einstein, and Jobs) and describe how their advances have reshaped our collective trajectory. I present the undisputed evidence that such extraordinary discoveries were sparked by non-ordinary states of consciousness. I then examine how contemporary scientific research is conducted seemingly divorced from such inner explorations. I consider how this omission may be influencing our scientific orientation and pace of development. Finally, I imagine a future of scientific inquiry that includes, and is greatly enhanced by, the use of expanded states of consciousness.
Newton dismantles a centuries old paradigm
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is considered one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists that ever lived. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia) is his magnum opus and a cornerstone of modern physics and astronomy. In this seminal work, he established a rigorous framework for classical mechanics, defining with exactitude the laws of motion, universal gravitation, and physical forces. This comprehensive and foundational encyclopedia continues to be indispensable today. With it we are able to erect skyscrapers, engineer orbits for satellites, and propel men and women to the moon. It was an extraordinary achievement.
Principia also triggered a profound change in worldview of the earth and its place in the cosmos. The Aristotelian view of heavenly spheres composed of numinous substances and moved by the Gods was swiftly replaced by a grand precise machine where impersonal forces exerted themselves on planets and objects in an explainable, calculable, and predictable way: we could now forecast the cosmos’ every move.
An extraordinary impact on science
To prove his physical laws, Newton had to no less invent an entire field of science now called Calculus (then named The Method of Fluxions). Traditional algebra and geometry cannot deal with rates of change over time and space or areas under curves. To handle this, Newton had to create from the ground up an entirely new branch of science with a full symbology, taxonomy, theorems, and corollaries which have since become the bedrock of virtually all other sciences (chemistry, biology, economics, engineering, etc.)
If this were not enough, he introduced a new standard of rigor and methodology in scientific inquiry. Prior to his time, much of science relied on philosophical or qualitative descriptions. In contrast, Newton’s methodology introduced rigorous hypotheses, meticulous proofs, and carefully crafted and controlled experiments. It was a giant step forward for the science field and his stellar and thorough approach is still adopted to this day.
Newton was thus a polymath of substantial intellect, unparalleled analytical precision, and logic. Major contemporary scientists like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Max Plank still praise the pioneering and monumental impact Newton’s work has had in setting the stage for the many scientific revolutions to come.
A man of strict logic and reason
When I was researching Newton a few years ago, I came across a most fascinating quote of his: “Truth is the offspring of silent and unbroken meditation” (BBC Select, 2013). I was certain this was a misattribution. Surely, Newton’s tools must have been sharp logic, depth of analysis, exactitude in calculation, precision of experimentation, etc. How could meditation fit in this?
Scientific books, biographies, and documentaries portray Newton as a highly rational, cold, and sober man, exclusively using reason and analysis for study, obsessed with his inquiries, and extremely methodical. He hardly socialized, never married, had no hobbies, and barely slept (BBC Select, 2013).
Upon closer examination, however, we find that the picture is far more complex. We know that, amidst the great plague of 1665, the 23-year-old Newton retreated from his Cambridge urban life into his mother’s farm in the country (Westfall, 1981). According to Westfall, this isolation proved pivotal, providing solitude, unbroken focus, and continuous inquiry resulting in his groundbreaking work in calculus, gravitation, and optics during this very period.
Newton the esoteric scientist
The scientific public record states that Newton’s method of inquiry was one of careful hypothesis, painstaking theoretical proof, and precise empirical verification. Yet, recent researchers are finding that this view is largely skewed. Through hundreds of workbooks, handwritten notes, stories and correspondence, Bilimoria verified that the so cold man of strict logic and reason was not strictly a purist (Bilimoria, 2021). He demonstrated that Newton’s method begins with a deep and unbroken silent focus on a particular question, often with eyes closed, and relentlessly concentrating until and unless a knowing came to him: a mystical intuition that his conscious mind could not yet fathom, comprehend, let alone prove. Then, and only then, did he set out to work out the mathematical proof and verify the insight. An important story of how he informed Halley, a friend and colleague, of one of his most fundamental discoveries of planetary motion illustrates this perfectly (Bilimoria, 2021): ‘Yes,’ replied Halley, ‘but how do you know that? Have you proved it?’ Newton was taken aback: ‘Why, I’ve known it for years’, he replied. ‘If you’ll give me a few days, I’ll certainly find you a proof of it’, as in due course he did.
Where did the insight come from? What did he connect to that gave him a truth that his mind could not comprehend and would need to later reconcile? How can strict logic and reason coexist with mystical knowing and meditative realization?
Meditative introspection to enter holotropic states
On a fine summer day of 1936, a Sotheby’s auction opened in London with a strange large metal trunk full of Newton’s most occult hand-written papers, laboratory works, study manuals, notes, and correspondences, most of which have never seen the light of day in centuries. This bounty of immense scientific value was unfortunately sold to various collectors most of whom understood little of what they were buying but hoped to resell to whomever knew better (Kean, 2011). Fortunately for us, John Maynard Keynes, a Newton enthusiast, managed to buy back over half the papers and dove into the study of the unpublished esoteric notes.
After years of analysis, he was astonished to find that mathematics and physics represented less than 10% of his writings, whilst theology and alchemy dominated the working notes. Newton seemed to think that alchemy was the most primordial of all sciences and that the study of sacred texts can be just as scientific and reveal the hidden dimensions of surface reality. Keynes subsequently wrote a beautiful and deeply moving address to the London Royal Society but passed away a few months before the event took place. It was posthumously delivered by his brother. The excerpt below speaks volumes of Newton, the man:
Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago. […] Isaac Newton, a posthumous child born with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonderchild to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage. […] His deepest instincts were occult, esoteric, semantic with profound shrinking from the world, a paralyzing fear of exposing his thoughts, his beliefs, his discoveries in all nakedness to the inspection and criticism of the world […] He parted with and published nothing except under the extreme pressure of friends. Until the second phase of his life, he was a wrapt, consecrated solitary, pursuing his studies by intense introspection with a mental endurance perhaps never equaled. (Keynes, 1946)
My interpretation is that Newton the private scientist, not the reported public persona or the subsequent legend we built him to be, was an extraordinary intuitive that routinely used intense meditations to enter holotropic states of consciousness and access fields of insights that revealed to him the answers he was seeking. The scientific method was a means of communicating such insights to a world that only spoke that language and would otherwise not listen.
Einstein the genius
AlbertEinstein(1879-1955) is known as the greatest theoretical physicists in history and an unmatched global celebrity in the field of science. He revolutionized our understanding of space, time, and energy. His famous and extremely elegant equation E = M C ^2 equated matter to energy for the first time. Practically, this means that any object as large as a human or as small as a virus has latent energy that can be unleashed at great scale.
His work on Special Relativity showed that time and space are not separate things as is in the Newtonian model. Instead, one entirely depends on the other. If I were to travel at the speed of light, time would cease for me, and my mass would contract to that of a photon. This forever eradicated our classical view of time being chronological and space being a stale unchanging physical medium. His General Relativity further showed that gravity shapes and warps space-time which had wider and far-reaching implications. His work enabled highly practical moder-day technologies like the GPS (Global Positioning System), laser technology, and the tragic atomic bomb used in World War II.
Einstein’s hypnogogic states
As a child, Einstein took a long time to develop speech to the point that his worried parents took him to a doctor. In retrospect, he says, it made him think more visually and imaginatively and less in words or concepts (PBS, 2015). He was often fully immersed in his inner life, in a dream like state, absorbed in intense thought and introspection.
Habituated and comfortable in dream like states and deep introspection, Einstein reportedly used thought experiments to access insights, after which he used mathematics to prove them. He would imagine himself riding a beam of light and let his imagination give him the experience of what that would be like. He trusted that the insight would be found in the emerging inner experience and that led to his Special Theory of Relativity. Similarly, he imagined himself falling from a roof or an elevator and let the experience give him the knowing in his body. This later led to his General Relativity Theory. He was able tap into what was then called hypnogogic states and trusted, from childhood experiences, that it would lead to a real and true experience (Houser, 2022). Anecdotally, Einstein is reported to have used a metal object while getting in his thought experiments, slowly drifting to sleep so that when his muscles relaxed the object dropped and made a sound that woke him up. Upon awakening, he would be able to record the insight that would otherwise have been lost from his conscious mind.
Hypnosis to enter holotropic states
A hypnogogic state is a handful of minutes (typically 2-5 minutes) transition period between wakefulness and sleep. In our modern-day parlance, this would be called the twilight zone (Lacaux, 2021). Lacaux’s research found that “spending at least 15 seconds in this non-rapid eye movement period […] tripled the chance to discover the hidden rule […] and this effect vanished if subjects reached deeper sleep [suggesting] that there is a creative sweet spot within the sleep-onset period.” Specific patterns of alpha and delta waves seem to correlate with highly non-linear creative thinking which is still largely a mystery to neuroscientists.
On a personal note, I am a clinical hypnotherapist and would comfortably call this a hypnotic or trance state. I would also describe Eistein’s thought experiments as self-hypnosis which, in my own experience and that of countless clients, accesses a different realm of experience that is non-linear, often insightful, highly creative, healing, and dreamy in its felt sense. Though neuroscience is in its infancy when it comes to fully grasping these states and being able to induce them, it is clear that this is a non-ordinary state of consciousness: holotropic.
That our most famous modem scientist used, and unequivocally confirmed countless times, holotropic states of consciousness to access insights that have revolutionized how we understand time-space, light, and gravity should give us pause. Why aren’t we widely researching holotropic states? Engaging in them personally and professionally? Including them in our cultural milieu and scientific institutions?
Jobs the revolutionary
A last and more contemporary example is Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Jobs is a college dropout and not a scientist per say. I would classify him as a visionary and a revolutionary in the field of Technology: an applied science. He gave us the Macintosh which democratized personal computing, the iPod which made music available at our fingertips, and the superb iPhone with which I can communicate with friends, watch a movie, read a book, light a room, order a meal, book a flight, find a global tribe, be guided step-by-step to a store, and so much more. This extraordinary achievement also comes in a beautiful sleek design which requires no instructions or technical ability such that my ninety-year-old aunt who doesn’t know how to read, write, or turn on a television can use it, and in fact loves it.
Jobs the mystic
As a nineteen-year-old, Jobs traveled to India for a prolonged spiritual seeking and a deep study of himself, life, and enlightenment (Isaacson, 2011). He became a student of Zen Buddhism, Eastern philosophy, artistic mysticism, and experimented with LSD, strict diets, and fasting. This, he says, impacted him into always prioritizing intuition over intellect and cultivating a beginner’s mind in all professional endeavors.
Jobs was reported to meditate often to increase his focus, productivity, and creativity. He took frequent walks and abided by his famous ten-minute rule: always walking away from difficult problems after a mere ten minutes to allow his subconscious and the deeper field to co-create a cleverer solution instead of forcing a more basic one.
Walking to enter holotropic states
It is well known that meditations induce holotropic states of consciousness that are healing, creative, and peaceful (Travis, 2007). However, the deceptively simple technology of walking is, in my opinion, far less known or appreciated. A walking person’s creative output has been quantified to increase by 60% when compared to sitting (Wong, 2014). Jobs was said to take most of his calls at Apple while on walks and routinely took prolonged barefoot walks in nature (Isaacson, 2011). He claimed to have his best ideas while walking and could not stand sitting for too long unless meditating. Many are trying to bring back the art and science of walking as a technology for profound inspiration, health, and a doorway to enlightenment:
Throughout history, many cultures have understood the power of walking as a sacred practice. The Buddhist tradition of walking meditation (kinhin) teaches that every step can be a path to enlightenment. Indigenous wisdom sees walking as a way to honor the land and communicate with nature. Even in medieval times, labyrinth walking was used as a form of spiritual pilgrimage. Walking was never just about movement; it was about connection. (Siegel, 2009)
In Jobs case, he walked being fully present and in direct skin contact with the earth, also known as grounding. Above and beyond the quantified benefits of grounding as a health strategy reducing and preventing stress and inflammation (Oschman et al., 2015), it seems to also be a technology to tap into holotropic states of consciousness: connecting us to a subtle field of information and contacting other dimensions of creativity and healing. This need not upset the post-modern mind as the quantum vacuum has now strong experimental support (Capra, 1975) in addition to more qualitative support: morphogenic fields, Akashic Holofield, implicate order, etc. (Grof 2019; Tarnas and Kelly 2021). It seems Jobs was contacting these fields so regularly that he was able to envision revolutionary consumer goods and expanding technologies.
Walking in religious traditions
Long walks and pilgrimages represent a key cornerstone of the major religions. In Islam, Muhammad made the famously arduous 250-mile journey from Mecca to Medina known as the Hijra. This marked the start of the Muslim calendar and established the base for Islam. To this day, faithful Muslims perform the annual Hidj (the fifth pillar if Islam) which includes walking rituals and the notorious circumambulating of the Ka’aba seven times. I am reminded of my grandparents return from this pilgrimage, as they described how strenuous the long treks were amidst the scorching heat of the Arabian desert and the swelling crowds of the faithful. Yet, they insisted it was the most sacred experience of their lives: a time when they felt closest to Allah. They returned to it a second time despite their advanced age.
Christianity’s Camino de Santiago is alive, thriving, and has represented a profound spiritual connection to God for millions of people. Judaism’s Exodus is celebrated through symbolic ritualistic walks as well. The solitude, slow pace, full embodiment, bilateral stimulation, and connection to creation at large seem to foster a deeper way of being: a holotropic state of consciousness.
Who has time for walking?
Unfortunately, our post-modern era does not celebrate walking. With an exclusively productive state of mind, the main life goal is to survive, produce, and hopefully have some fun along the way. As such, walking is seen as simply getting from point A to point B. Therefore, and just like any other activity, it needs to be optimized so we can produce ever more. To do so, we find ourselves using transportation vehicles even for short distances, encapsulated in metal and triple-tasking along the way. The post-modern human does not have time or patience for silly things like walking: it gets in the way of achievement and a busy productive life.
The importance of scientific paradigms
In his thought provoking The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962), Kuhn retraces how science evolved throughout history. He shattered the popular view that science makes incremental and cumulative gains. Instead, he noticed that science has two modes of operation: periods of normal science interrupted by periods of revolutionary science when the scientific parading reaches a profound crisis. He defines a paradigm as “a set of universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners”.
Through compelling examples in Mathematics, Chemistry, Cosmology, and Physics he begins by describing times where a well-established and accepted scientific paradigm is in place (e.g. a geo-centric view of the cosmos). In such certain times, normal science proceeds in solving well-defined problems, deepening the paradigm and its specializations, creating new instruments, expanding on empirical evidence, etc. This normal science is efficient and needed: it brings us progress in knowledge and technology. But it is also one that is slower, more linear in nature, and unequivocally uncritical of its underlying paradigm.
When anomalies accrue
Then anomalies start to accumulate. At first, they are ignored as errors or flukes. Then, they are unpersuasively explained away or adjusted by introducing new factors or assumptions. At some point, however, the anomalies pileup to a critical degree, the adjustments become widely convoluted, and the giant gap between paradigm and observable data widens beyond reach. A crisis is then born and this is where science stops becoming normal and enters the stage of revolutionary science. It forces the new generation of scientists, perhaps less attached to decades of allegiance to the old paradigm, to question everything and eventually break from the old paradigm and building a brand new one from is ashes. This is where revolutions in science are made: from a geo-centric to a helio-centric cosmology of the world is an example. Radical new ways of thinking and inquiring emerge, and progress becomes exponential and tectonic.
An interesting fact is that this revolutionary shift takes place only after the paradigm has been truly in crisis for decades if not centuries. Otherwise, the times are not ripe and any new theory questioning the paradigm in place is not taken seriously by anyone even if it is true and correct. This may explain why we are still in our current paradigm despite mounting anomalies of quantum entanglement, time dilation, telepathy, remote viewing, and so many more. Our current paradigm is unambiguously in crisis, but we do not yet seem to be at the tipping point where it is crashing and we are actively abandoning it and searching elsewhere.
Revolutionary science and holotropic states
Newton broke the Aristotelian paradigm: from a mystical aetheric cosmology to a perfectly predictable machine with impersonal physical forces and calculable trajectories. Einstein, in turn, broke the Newtonian paradigm of the cosmos: from a fixed, absolute, and deterministic view to one of complete relativity and connectedness in space, time, and gravitation. Jobs transformed our cultural and private spaces by bringing us beautifully human-centric technologies merging computing power with social necessities.
These brilliant scientists, as we as have seen, routinely made use of holotropic states of consciousness via focused meditations, hypnosis, or meditative walks. They have publicly stated that such states are the source of their exceptional insights and subsequently used the tools of the day to make those insights palatable to the rest of us. The strong correlation between the use of holotropic states of consciousness and the exponential and revolutionary thinking seems unmistakable.
Why are holotropic states unused in science today?
In his depiction of normal science, Kuhn describes how scientists need a sure-footed and commonly agreed upon paradigm to dive deeper into their work. This shared reality is fundamental and foundational to freely explore and do normal science work.
Normal science, as we have seen, works within its paradigm and is implicitly oriented to further establish and solidify that same paradigm. This means that the questions scientists ask, their theoretical work, their empirical set-ups are all highly colored by, and oriented to further, the paradigm itself.
Medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and other related scientific fields do not recognize holotropic states of consciousness and their extraordinary powers to access inspiration, information, novelty, and contact with other dimensions of reality (Grof, 2019). At best, and only recently, neurobiology started recognizing that certain brain waves and states of being are more conducive to relaxation, coherence, focus, and flow. But the much stronger and clearer bridge from holotropic states to indisputable access to expanded states of consciousness and their enormous benefits is largely stripped from the current paradigm. And since a paradigm is self-perpetuating until it is in a strong and long crisis, no scientist will even think of using these states to inspire their work. Any scientist openly using them might risk being ignored or ridiculed, if not harshly criticized or ostracized.
The promise of holotropic states
What if holotropic states were taken seriously by scientists? Could they be embedded and seamlessly used in scientific protocols? If so, which inquiries will we focus on? How will we go by accessing insights and inspiration? What role will the scientific proof evolve into? Will we continue to proceed by hypothesis and counterhypothesis? Or will we access the confirmed hypothesis directly? Would we manage to outrun a paradigm in decades instead of centuries? Will we move away from slow evolution and revolutionize our progress at every turn? Would extraordinary advances in science and technology be the norm and not the exception? Would the scientists themselves be transformed? What type of science would their transformation engender? What world would we be creating and living in? Possibly a wonderful one…
Reimagining the future of science
Grof touches on the wave-particle enigma in modern physics and describes humans as “paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: they can show properties of Newtonian objects and also those of infinite fields of consciousness” (Grof, 2019). I interpret the former as us being in ordinary daily life focused on earthly manifestation and the latter as us being in holotropic states accessing realms of infinite possibilities, insights, and creativity.
I imagine a science of the future that uses both states deliberately, methodically, and openly: becoming the wave and meeting the field in times of inquiry whilst collapsing back into particles to embody the insights and ground them into everyday life. I submit this is the science of the future: one that fully, strategically, and wholeheartedly embeds the wave state in its method and protocols in times of research and experimentation, then comes back to the ordinary state of particles to not only work out the proof of the insight but also ground it and make into materiality. A science that is profoundly humane, remaining extraordinary in its rigor, and ceaselessly exponential in its (r)evolution.
Closing notes…
I would like to close with three personal notes that I feel are important to express: an observation on the men included in this paper, a commentary on the absence of women, and a tangential finding that I found delightful and enchanting.
Imperfect men and perfectly human
A note on the imperfection of the three abovementioned scientists to complete the picture: all were widely reported to be extremely difficult human beings. Newton was known to be intensely sensitive to commentaries on his work and could, as a result, be incredibly vengeful, tyrannical, and assailant (BBC Select, 2013). Einstein tragically abandoned his first wife and young children with no financial or emotional support of any kind (Popovic, 2003). He reportedly invited young groupies in his study while his second wife was in the next room desperately holding her distress. Jobs was well known to be extremely abrasive with his employees, volatile, and even cruel. His unapologetic aggression and low empathy made him very difficult to be around and work with (Isaacson, 2011). I mention this to in no way diminish their revolutionary contributions to humanity: it is to refrain from idolizing these human beings and instead complete the picture with a more realistic view of their humanity.
The absence of women
As a woman myself, I tried very hard to include at least one woman in this paper. Many notable women scientists could have been included: Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, and Jane Goodall just to name a few. However, I was looking to include intellectuals who profoundly rethought fundamental systems. Doubtlessly, this reflects the very limited professional and academic opportunities afforded to women throughout history and geography as well as the role of childbearing and rearing which both nature and nurture has made gender unequal.
A treat from this research
As I researched the abovementioned thinkers, I delighted in one thing they had in common: the use of idle time. All three shared a strategic use of doing nothing timeas they knew and trusted that free time was necessary and sufficient for bold creative ideas. Newton spent hours staring at the fire in his study and took frequent walks in his small private garden catatonically staring at his flowers. Einstein often reported that his best ideas came subsequent to days of aimless sailing. Jobs took frequent breaks intentionally doing nothing, haphazardly roaming around while half-noodling on things to allow divergent ways of thinking.
In today’s fast paced epoch, free time is seen as unproductive, frivolous, and the fastest route to loser town. With our linear way of thinking and relentless focus on production, we do not even have time to think about free time and its benefit: a loss, no doubt. We may be sacrificing deep undistracted uninterrupted focus time, the opportunity to enter generative holotropic states of consciousness, and contacting revolutionary insights hidden in plain sight.
References
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