Thread by @Unexplained2020

This Man created the model for Consciousness used by the CIA but was later killed in the deadliest plane crash in American history.

Itzhak Bentov, the Czechoslovakia-born Israeli-American scientist and inventor, who became an innovator in the field of bio-medical engineering in the USA, suggested that consciousness is the common uniting element of all creation, and that through this link all things are in permanent contact.

Bentov believed that our minds are not just in our heads, but are connected to everything around us and even to the universe. He thought that this connection is what makes us alive and aware. (Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the mechanics of consciousness, Itzhak Bentov, Wildwood House, 1978).

For a long time, scientists didn't study consciousness because they didn't understand it. But in the 1990s, they started to learn more about it. Now, many scientists are working to understand consciousness, but it's still a mystery.

Think of consciousness like a big puzzle that we're trying to solve. We know some of the pieces, but we don't know how they all fit together yet. Bentov's idea was an important piece of the puzzle, and scientists are still building on his work today.

Keep scrolling there is more to read...

According to Bentov, consciousness evolves to the 'absolute' which is the source of all consciousness. Matter, composed of quanta of energy, is the vibrating, changing component of pure consciousness. The absolute is fixed, manifest and invisible.

Bentov proposed that the brain acts as a transducer, converting the energy of consciousness into the electrical and chemical signals that are used to communicate information within the body. He also believed that the brain has the ability to tune into different frequencies of consciousness, allowing individuals to experience different states of awareness.

Bentov's theory is based on the idea that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe and is not limited to the brain or the body. He argued that consciousness is non-local, meaning it is not bound by space and time and can exist independently of the physical body.

Bentov's theory has been influential in the field of consciousness studies, but it remains a subject of debate and is not widely accepted by mainstream science.

Mystics and sages have spoken for long of an interconnecting cosmic field behind everyday appearances — for example, the Akashic record, after the Sanskrit and Vedic term for space — that conserves and conveys information, and information is implicitly intelligible, otherwise we would not be able to perceive it as being able to 'inform'.

Quantum science, meanwhile, has come up with the idea that we live in a holographic universe, the implication of which is that all information is everywhere at the same time, in a state of 'zero separation'. A field of information as the essence of the universe has been posited by Ervin Laszlo, the Hungarian philosopher of science and systems theorist and, indeed, named by him the Akashic field, or 'A-field'.

Laszlo (b1932) sees the fundamental energy and information-carrying field as arising from the quantum 'vacuum', and having its equivalent in a zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field comprises a subtle flow of fluctuating energies from which everything in the universe arises, including consciousness. Laszlo regards the Akashic field as the original source of all things arising in time and space and also the continuous and enduring memory of the universe, holding the record of everything that has ever happened and relating it to all that is yet to happen.

How is such a record, such a higher consciousness, accessed? Most of us have no inkling of a higher 'cosmic' mind, except in moments of 'breakthrough consciousness', fleeting mystical experience, or during meditation or undergoing other altered states of consciousness (ASCs).

Such moments, says the English philosopher and novelist Colin Wilson (1931–2013) in Super Consciousness (2009), his study of the phenomenon, are capable of leading to a sustained experience of 'sheer perception of meaning' which for the human race would be 'the decisive step to becoming something closer to gods'.

Text credit: Geoff Ward geoffjward.medium.com/pioneering-thi…

Itzhac Bentov on drugs

From Itzhak Bentov’s book “Stalking The Wild Pendulum”

Much has been said about the effects of drugs on the expansion of consciousness. These drugs do not expand the consciousness; rather, they alter it and tend to funnel it into particular levels. These levels may be either above or below the human reality shown in our diagram. “Bad trips” means that consciousness is projected into a reality below the human, and is naturally experienced as a nightmarish reality.

“Sometimes consciousness is projected into realities above ours; then one has a “good trip.” However, all these experiences are NECESSARILY distorted because the drug prevents the brain from functioning normally. Also, there is little control over the events or levels one happens to enter. The only positive thing about these drugs is that they do show us that we see our reality through a tiny window, that there is much more to it. On the other hand, prolonged use of drugs will destroy the ability of the nervous system to evolve normally in the direction toward the higher levels shown in our diagram by the arrow of evolution. This is due to the instability in the nervous system produced by the long-term use of drugs. In order to interact on a certain level of consciousness or reality, the mind has to be very steady and clear.”

"I am attempting to build a model of the universe that will satisfy the need for a comprehensive picture of 'what our existence is all about.'" - Itzhak Bentov.

In 1983, author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.

Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation. He distinguishes it from hypnotism.

Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles.

He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 – 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)

Bentov was killed in the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 shortly after takeoff from Chicago O'Hare Airport in 1979, which remains the worst non-terrorism-related aviation disaster to have taken place on US soil.

At the time of his death, he was traveling to California where he had been set to present his ideas on science and mysticism to a group of scientists from Japan.

He was 55 years old. His daughter, English professor Sharona Ben-Tov Muir, wrote a memoir about her father, The Book of Telling: Tracing the Secrets of My Father's Lives in 2005.

It was not until after his death that she learned about his life in the Israeli Defense Forces and that he had created Israel's first rocket. Searching for answers as to why he never discussed this part of his life, Muir traveled to Israel and researched his years there.

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