The Scientist: A Metaphysical Autobiography

Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility of modern times but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and his is now almost forgotten. Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated. He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen. He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine, and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. And all this happened before most of us were born! He had courage,honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins(he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world. He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as this books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them. As a result of all his research, especially his m

After reading John Lilly's "The Scientist: A Metaphysical Autobiography," I have come to realize that drugs can indeed expand the mind. My own mind has expanded just by reading about John's far-out trips, and I didn't even need to take drugs myself! The danger in pursuing this course, however, is that the mind may expand so far past the current human consensus reality that those stuck in it will either find these ideals laughable or frightening. What is truly frightening though, is that no one can disprove the realities that John Lilly experienced while conducting his drug and sensory deprivation experiments.I discovered John's work through an extraordinary coincidence... [When I decided to research him again twenty years later] I found that he had left our reality for good only a couple of weeks before.... Although I did not know the man personally, I will miss him dearly, and the world will feel the void left in his wake. Goodbye John, and good luck.

One of my four most influential authors, I first read of John in an Omni magazine and I do not remember what the story was about. Soon I was drawn to his books on dolphin research and I read every thing that he has written on them. He was the foremost pioneer and one of the best in dolphin research. One of his goals was to communicate with dolphins and he came pretty close but gave it up when he decided man was not ready for that knowledge. The movie "Day of the Dolphin" originates out of his dolphin research and showed how man has taken his research and knowledge, suppressed it to the public, and used it for power and political gain. One of the largest influences on me of the dolphin studies was my understanding that there were intelligent beings on earth either on par with or superior with humanity. Knowing and accepting this has been very influential in my life and how I have grown. I followed along on the rest of John's writings and learned from and was influenced by them as well. His books on spirituality and the world beyond our consciousness have lead me beyond many of the walls placed in front of my mind by our society. The movie "Altered States" originated from Lilly's book "The Center of the Cyclone" which was about his experiences with altered states of the mind. The presence of CCG's, or the Coincidence Control Group, that John met when out of his body has stayed with me since reading of them. For John was told by them that we have control of small scale coincidences but the CCG works with the large scale coincidences. His autobiography is a great overview of all that he has done and leaves me with awe and a desire to see and understand the world beyond what I have been taught.

Boy, would that change things a bit! Dr. Lilly is an authority on some far-our stuff: dolphin communication, isolation tanks, and Ketamine. Mix them all together and what do you get? I don't know, but I wouldn't lend it my car. GREAT BOOK.

This man knows a lot of stuff about the collective unconscious, human motivation, drugs, dolphins and the whatnot. He's important. Very important. Weird things happen when you read this. Watch for "coincincidences." They happen all the time.... This book investiagates those coincidences, and inclinations towards LSD and K... you might lose yourself, become one with the network...