Mind Games Guide to Inner

The following is excerpted from The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon (Quest Books, December 2009). Consider the pieces of decorated paper in your wallet that give you the power to walk into a shop you've never visited before and leave with whatever strikes your fancy. Consider how traffic laws are observed on a normal day in the city versus how they are observed while a riot is taking place. Consider how you behave when surrounded by thoughtful, polite people, but how petty you would become if marooned somewhere with a group of self-gratifying, devious individuals. Human society is founded on agreement. Paper money has power only as long as everyone agrees on its value. Laws are relevant only as long as a significant percentage of people agree to observe them. Each of us has a set of values we find valid, but if the group surrounding us is playing by a different set of rules, we'll find it extremely difficult to resist conforming. What we agree on shapes society. Once enough of us agree that character is more important than skin color, racism will tend to vanish. Once enough of us agree that it is absurd to pay a woman and a man different wages for performing the same job, gender bias will tend to wither away. Once enough of us agree that cigarette smoke is harmful, the acceptability of smoking will tend to diminish. Now, what if a significant number of us were to agree that -- starting next Monday -- we would treat everyone we encountered with respect, compassion, and love? John Lennon realized, then propounded, that since as humans we have the ability to change our own habits and convictions, the only barrier to our living in a better world is agreement that we are committed to it. He implied the concept in "All You Need Is Love," "Instant Karma (We All Shine On)," and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." However, he crystallized his point of view in his masterpiece, "Imagine." In simple but resonating lyrics, he sketched the framework of a harmonious world he and other dreamers had in mind, concluding with an invitation to the listener to join them. Then he read a book called Mind Games, by Robert Masters and Jean Houston, published in 1972. Just as the Maharishi had come along at precisely the right moment in Lennon's life, echoing his point of view plus offering a proven method to help reach the goal he wanted to reach, Masters and Houston confirmed Lennon's own insights about psychic exploration and provided a structured process to help others expand their consciousness. The authors had been involved in LSD research in the 1960s. After the government ceased to license such research, they developed alternative approaches to mind exploration based on meditation, assisted trance, and guided imagery. In Mind Games they set forth a series of mental adventures for small groups designed to tap into four levels of the psyche: the sensory, the psychological, the mythic, and the spiritual. They placed the "games" in the t

From Front Jacket: "Here, in print for the first time, is the key instruction book to the mind games - exercises of education, ecstasy, entertainment, self-exploration, powerful games of growth. ....Masters and Houston, both human potentials researchers of considerable experience and the author of 'The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience,' describe and instruct the reader-player in the mental exercises they have developed scientifically to alter, explore, and regulate human consciousness. Almost anyone can play. The product of the authors' extensive researches at New York's Foundation for Mind Research, the mind games' message is a hopeful one: that the powers of the human being are sufficient to deal with the problems that confront us; that man is not something that has to be surpassed, but something yet to be realized. One might consider the mind games a yoga for the West - but a yoga that draws on the latest findings of contemporary psychological, psychiatric, and other investigations of consciousness and latent capacities and their productive applications. There are no drug-induced practices involved, and the approach to the nonrational is never credulous. Research has shown that the average person not only can safely and successfully play each of the mind games, but by playing them can reach new levels of awareness and do so with an increasing richness and depth of experience. In practice, the mind games can teach anyone to use what the authors call the 'mind-brain system' much more effectively; the games can improve sensory perception, magnify or accelerate mental processes, and retrieve forgotten or inhibited faculties." From Intro: "The games are the products of research...We have played these games and similar games with research subjects and friends for many years. All of the mind games require that one or more of the players assume the role of 'guide." '0

This is the kind of book that isn't so much about reading as it is about doing. It is a book of exercises, meant to be done in a group, as a way of expanding upon the potential of the human being. I found that the book isn't very readable, because it's not meant to be read, so much as its meant to be used as a primer for doing activities. I have used a few exercises from it with other people and found have the exercises to be very workable and easy to integrate into other exercises a group might be using. It's a really good book for stimulating action and discussion, as well as exploration of the potential that each person has.

this book forced me to use muscles i didn't even know i had. me and my friends shared experienes we'll hold on to for the rest of our lives. you should experience this book.

When I first came across this book I was rather sceptical about hypnosis in specific and the psychadelic experience in general. If you can find a close friend or two (or up to five or six) to play these "games" all the way through you will find yourself in a much better place. Not only are the games fun and educational, they help develop imagination, intuition, and other faculties you didnt know you had. (or I didnt know I had anyway) Personal development aside, the exersizes in this book make for a great way to relax and help reduce stress and fatigue. I enjoyed the book imensley and tip my hat to Masters and Houston for putting it together. Thanks.