Dr John C. Lilly
Dr. John C. Lilly died on September 30th,
2001, in Los Angeles, of heart failure. Dr. Lilly was best known for
his work with dolphins and interspecies communication, his development
of the isolation tank, and his research into altered states of
consciousness. The main characters in two popular films, The Day of the
Dolphin and Altered States, were based on Dr. Lilly.
Born
January 6th, 1915, in Saint Paul, Minnesota to Rachel and Richard
Lilly, Lilly was educated at St. Paul Academy, California Institute of
Technology, Dartmouth College Medical School, and the University of
Pennsylvania Medical School. During WWII, he conducted high altitude
research at the Johnson Foundation for Medical Physics. After the war,
he trained as a psychoanalyst.
While a Commander in the U.S.
Public Health Service, Lilly worked at the National Institutes of
Health, where he developed the isolation tank, which came to be known
as the "Lilly tank". In 1959, he established the Communication Research
Institute in the U.S. Virgin Islands to study the vocalizations of
Bottlenose dolphins. The work later continued in San Francisco under
the aegis of the JANUS Project. He also established the Human Dolphin
Foundation, and worked with Samadhi Tank company to help popularize the
isolation tank experience.
From the late sixties until he
retired to Hawaii in 1992, Dr. Lilly worked from his home lab in
Malibu, California. He traveled extensively, teaching and lecturing at
academic institutions, international conferences, and growth centers
like Esalen, where he was a long-standing artist in residence.
Dr.
Lilly published over one hundred and twenty-five scientific papers,
relating to his work in various fields, including Respiratory
Physiology, Neurophysics, Neurophysiology, Psychiatry, interspecies
communication, and the nature of consciousness and the self. He also
published nineteen popular books, including the influential Man and
Dolphin, 1961; The Dolphin in History (with Ashley Montagu), 1963; The
Mind of the Dolphin, 1967; Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human
Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments, 1972, 1987; The Center of the
Cyclone, 1972, 1987; The Dyadic Cyclone (with Toni Lilly), 1976; Lilly
on Dolphins, Humans of the Sea, 1975, a revised edition of two
previously published books, Man and Dolphin, The Mind of the Dolphin,
and The Dolphin in History, a lecture; Simulations of God: The Science
of Belief, 1974; The Deep Selp: Isolation Tank Relaxation, 1976; The
Scientist, a Novel Autobiography, 1978, 2nd. ed. 1988; Communication
Between Man and Dolphin: The Possibilty of Talking with Other Species,
1978, 1988; In the Province of the Mind (with Francis Jeffrey); John
Lilly So Far, by Francis Jeffrey (with John C. Lilly, M.D., Ph.D.)
1990; and Tanks for the Memories, Floatation Tank Talks, by Dr. John C.
Lilly and E.J. Gold, 1995.
Dr. Lilly has made significant
contributions to psychology, brain research, computer theory, medicine,
ethics, and interspecies communication. His work with dolphins and
whales created a global awareness that lead to the enactment of the
Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. Today, Dr. Lilly is considered
the father of dolphin researchers.
In the 1940s, Dr. Lilly
invented new types of capacitance manometers to aid in researches of
human metabolism, and invented gas concentration and flow meters to
study respiration, gas mixing, and pressure and altitude. In the '40s
and '50s, Dr. Lilly was on the cutting edge of Neuroscience. He was the
first to map the brain of chimpanzees, in the process inventing the
"Lilly Wave": an electrical pulse that could be used to stimulate the
chimp's brain without any damage. He also developed the twenty-five
channel EEG moving relief maps of the electrical activity in the brain
and dynamic iconic displays for researching pulse shapes and
electrodes. His brain mapping with acoustic, motor, and travelling
waves predated today's state of the art by fifty years. His research in
electronic brain stimulation, dreams, schizophrenia, and the
neurophysiology of motivation - involving the identification of
punishment and reward systems -- were published in a number of
psychiatric journals.
In conducting his brain research, Dr.
Lilly developed an interest in large brain systems. This led him to
work with dolphin communication. In the process he invented various
spectral analyzers and hydro-phones, and pioneered the use of
minicomputers with real time programming and original software.
While
working at the National Institutes of Health on isolation, solitude and
confinement, he invented the floatation tank, a tool to maximally
isolate sensory stimulation to better understand what the mind does
without exterior influence. NASA and other important organization have
used his research into sensory isolation. After ten years of tank
research, and while still in the employ of NIMH, he was given the
responsibility to experiment with LSD in the tank. The results of that
study were reported and published by that institute in his classic
treatise, Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer.
Like all his research, this was eventually made available to the
public. Dr. Lilly considered this documentation his most original work.
This is where he first published his famous statement,
"In the
province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes
true, within certain limits to be found experientially and
experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In
the mind, there are no limits"
"The Deep Self" his view
- Meditation when floating
- "The Deep Self"
His Books Related to Floating:
- Tanks for the Memory -Dr John C. Lilly and E. J. Gold
- Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer -Dr John C. Lilly out of print
- Center of the Cyclone -Dr John C. Lilly out of print
- The Deep Self -Dr John C. Lilly out of print
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