John's Teachers

Saint Paul Academy, Saint Paul, Minnesota -- 1928-1933

RUSSELL VARNEY, science and military teacher: Classical physics and the novel controlled experiment are worth pursuing.

JOHN DE QUEDVILLE BRIGGS, headmaster: Defining the whole man--the scientist and the writer: mens mentis in corpora sang.

HERBERT TIBBETTS, master: Express what you know to be true, now in writing (Reality), and on film (Academiana).

RICHARD C. LILLY (father), banker: In complex negotiations never lose your temper. You may act "as if" you have lost your temper, but make sure that inside you are in control of it. When sizing-up people, use your intuition to its fullest extent and trust it more than the credit rating of that particular person. Banking in essence is a paper reality, but never forget that it is the people who create the paper reality. You can never get anything done in any large institution unless you have friends in the proper places. The business of the world is best done through goodwill. That is the fundamental meaning of credit. Perfect your arithmetic so that it is very fast and accurate. Perfect it to the point where you can think in terms of arithmetic and do calculations fast enough mentally to stay ahead of your competitor. The game of poker is the training ground for good bankers. If your business or your profession is your be-all and end-all here, retirement will be a disaster. Choose a business or a profession where you are not forced into retirement when you reach a certain age.

DAVID M. LILLY (brother), diplomat-industrialist: Hindsight possesses 20/20 vision. Life can be lived now with logic, common sense and sanity. Use gentle humor and a firm hand when giving orders. People need their grass cut. Build lawn mowers to satisfy that need.

Cal Tech -- 1933-1938

HARVEY EAGLESON, professor of English, and House Resident: "God died in 1859, and the pile of dirt on his grave has been increasing to the present": Sigmund Freud, Hiroshigi, the Art of Teaching; living alone; discipleship and advice.

DR. McMINN, professor of English: "Your poetry can express itself if you step aside and let it flow."

HENRY BORSOOK, professor of biochemistry: "The knowledge you have is limited. You can expand it in Medical School. The knowledge you need is locked up in medical schools."

ERNEST WATSON, professor of physics: Good experiments in physics are under the guidance of adequate operational theory. The crucial experiment rarely needs statistical support. The crucial experiment is repeatable only by those with adequate technique and theory knowledge. Understanding comes only with experimental experience.

ROBERT A. MILLIKAN, president and organizer, 1923 Nobel Prize winner in Physics: The whole man in science functions in such a way as to generate support for science in general and in his own area in particular. Genius makes use of its own new and inventive science. Science is (in the essence) man's best thinking applied to man's problems of existence: the most efficient speed for an automobile is to be found and the car driven at that speed with minimal accelerations--decelerations; to build a fire, create the maximum numbers and maximum lengths of chimneys with the wood. Dress appropriately for your expected audience. Live in consonance with family, students and colleagues.

ARNOLD 0. BECKMAN, teacher, businessman--scientist and philanthropist (he taught me inorganic chemistry in my undergraduate years at Cal Tech). "Chemistry is merely a machine such as a hopper with a crank on the side of it. You simply put the data in at the top, turn the crank and the answer comes out at the bottom." Scientists need instruments. We construct instruments for their uses based upon the best science. The availability of critical instruments determines the future course of science. Whenever possible, contribute one's energy and money to the furtherance of the scientific education of the young.

FRITZ WENT, professor of plant physiology: Plant growth can be controlled through regulation of light-dark cycles, humidity, minerals, nitrogen, grafting and genetic manipulation. Why can trees and vines pump water higher than thirty feet (1 atmosphere) even when cut? Photosynthesis is the key to efficient use of solar energy) solve how this process is accomplished and we can feed the world population efficiently with least effort and least expenditures of energy.

FRITZ ZWICKY, professor of astrophysics: Novae and supernovae occur frequently enough in our galaxy to call our attention to the fact that it is possible that they could eventually cause our demise.

EDWIN P. HOBBLE, astronomer who defined the red shift: The red shift is proportional to the star magnitude. The more the red shift the farther the star from us. The universe, from our viewpoint, is expanding uniformly at a constant rate. (Spectrographs have monitored the movement of the galaxies in the Universe away from each other and away from our solar system by showing the apparent alteration in the color of a star in relation to its distance (Doppler's effect) at the red end of the spectrum of the spiral galaxy. These recessions away from our gaIaxy occur at a constant rate in relation to their distance from the earth, i.e., the universe is expandirg at a constant rate.)

ALBERT EINSTEIN, physicist: Common sense is that set of biases and prejudices acquired before the age of eighteen years. I find it difficult to believe that God plays dice with his creation. There can be no absolute frame of reference in space-time: the limiting velocity of signals in the universe is c, the velocity of light, of electromagnetic radiation and of gravitational waves. Mass and energy are interconvertible: the rest mass, m sub zero (mo), of a particle of matter has a potentially realizable energy equal to the rest mass times the square of the velocity of the resulting electromagnetic radiation.
The solution of the problem of the nature of the universe lies in developing the unified field theory connecting electromagnetic waves and gravitation.
Space time is curved in the vicinity of large masses; the universe may appear closed as a consequence of its mass distribution. Examine the basic assumptions-postulates-axioms uponwhich a given science rests; manipulate these systematically and create new sciences. Live alone, walk and think with colleagues, work with graduate students, live for your science and its advancement.

SIR JAMES JEANS, mathematician and physicist: The universe and ourselves are mysterious. We are here to solve the mystery of existence.

Medical Training -- 1938-1942

WILL MAYO, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota: Your choice of medical school is important. In the first two years you will have acquired the knowledge of human anatomy. This will be your most important course as an M.D. In the first two years you should get clinical experience. The only medical school that has the best anatomy course is Dartmouth. The professor is Frederic Lord. Dartmouth also starts clinical work in the first two years. Go there for your training, then go to the University of Pennsylvania for studies in human physiology, etcetera.

CHUCK MAYO, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic, surgeon and friend: Surgery is the failure of medical science to solve the problems of growth of tissues including neoplasia (cancers). Aside from gross damage requiring sewing, etcetera, surgery must become obsolete as we learn more of biochemistry, gene control, and the real laws of tissue regeneration and neoplastic process.
If you must do surgery, remember the whole person always; treat your patient with gentle compassion and do thorough workups. Make a friend.
In surgery, make minimal-sized incisions; large incisions are tissue damage syndromes; the smaller the incision the less the healing time; and the less the recovery time. Inconvenience yourself rather than the patient; develop your sense of feel in your hands and your techniques to be able to work blind inside the body cavities with assurance.
Follow-up every patient with friendly concern. Learn from your mistakes; you are allowed very few as a professional.

ROLF SYVERTSEN, M.D., professor of anatomy and histology: If you wish to go skiing every weekend in May on Mount Washington, it will be necessary to make some adjustment in your study of anatomy. If you wish to ski you must work evenings in the anatomy laboratory. I am not open to bargaining.
"Your attention to detail is rather rare in a medical student. Most medical students would have ignored those small valves that you found in the left ventricle of the heart." (After I had spread the intestinal tract out across the anatomical laboratory in order to measure its full length, Syvertsen suddenly entered the dissecting room and gave me a long lecture on the sacredness of the human body and said that this was not a way to treat portions of it. In my defense I said, "The textbook says that the gut tract is 28' feet long when extended. I wished to find out if this was true or not.")

H. CUTHBERT BAZETT, professor of physiology: In training human physiologists it is necessary to insist upon the dictum of the British scientist J. B. S. Haldane: If you are to do research on human subjects you must first do the experiments upon yourself. This procedure will assure that you will appreciate the limits within which one must work. This method will also give you insight regarding your own motives, and assure that you will devise the least damaging, least uncomfortable, most efficient, and least dangerous methods. Often times, the right crucial experiment done upon yourself correctly does not require further subjects for the area.
The observer, working on himself, generates results and data to be submitted to others, equally or better trained for consensus science control. But he does this only after he, personally, has integrated the data and transformed his language for appropriate presentations in the consensus reality.

Biophysics -- 1942-1953

DETLEV W. BRONK, biophysicist and director: Young researchers need space, apparatus and colleagues. Aside from this let them alone. Supply each one with a salary at a low level, a laboratory of their own, a machine shop, a darkroom and allow them to operate at any hour of the day or night. The duties of a scientist include writing scientific papers and lectures for the laity. Support of science is through private foundations preferably or through government grants and contracts. The initiative of the individual scientist is an important asset in science.

BRITTON CHANCE, biophysicist and friend: It is possible to do at least three things simultaneously. One can carry on one's laboratory work, talk to a visitor and settle his problem, and write scientific papers. Scientific techniques need to evolve to develop new science. One needs a knowledge of analog computers, digital computers, electronics and software in order to progress in modern science. It is best to arrange for other scientists to receive Nobel prizes rather than one's self. A Nobel Prize can be a distraction from one's work.

CATHERINE DRINKER BOWEN DOWNES, authoress: Writing is a hard profession. Adequate research is an absolute requirement. One can integrate a family and the writer's profession. It is worthwhile for us to study the best people that man has produced and write their lives in an understandable and expert fashion. The most interesting objects for research are human beings.

Psychoanalytic Years -- 1949-1958

ROBERT WAELDER, Doctor of physics, an analyst's analyst: In your own psychoanalysis, no one but you makes the rules for feeling, thinking, acting. We are not here to test Freud's theories, to review other cases, to discuss science and philosophy except inasmuch as these are part of you. I listen, I think while you talk and think out loud. Eventually I will learn enough about you to make a few suggestions. Before that I will say little or nothing.

John (angrily): "How can you analyze me? You overeat, are overweight and smoke lethal cigars."

Waelder: "I did not have the opportunity of being analyzed by an analyst as clever as yours."

John (laughing): "Okay!"

LAWRENCE KUBIE, analyst and friend: In the future, psychoanalysis must eventually base itself on a much more sophisticated and advanced science of the brain than was known by Freud and by current analysts.

SIGMUND FREUD, doctor of medicine and lone seeker: Established medical research and teaching restrict one's horizons. Unconsciously our past dramas determine, within certain limits to be found, our current and future feeling, thinking and behavior. Hypnosis, classically, abrogates the freedom of inquiry into the depths of one's own mind. Rigid theories ruin minds.
"No, science is no illusion. It is an illusion to suppose that we can get anywhere else what science cannot give us."

C. G. JUNG, psychoanalyst and "cosmologist": The Unconscious is vaster than Freud's theories of it. Somehow, inside, we tune in to the Universe outside.

Two Sons and a Daughter -- 1937-1975 (Mexico, Colorado and Maine)

JOHN C. LILLY, JR., filmmaker and anthropologist: The Indian cultures of Mexico have a tremendous variety and a particular sensitivity to investigators from the United States. To secure adequate data on their lifestyles and their religious beliefs, it is necessary to live with them for a number of years, until they trust you and until you have learned enough about them to be easy in their presence. It is necessary for us to work fast, to record these cultures before the encroachment of the machine civilization changes the pattern beyond recognition. Among these Indians the use of psychedelic plants has been ritualized, regulated and made a way of life worth recording.

CHARLES R. LILLY, scholar: The origins of one's self and of one's family are worthy of research and study. Tracing one's ancestors is a rewarding pursuit.

CYNTHIA OLIVIA ROSLYN LILLY: A subjective description by a particular observer is that the newborn female baby is obviously female, even as the newborn male baby is obviously male. One sees this in the face, in the movements of the body. In the case of the female, the total acceptance of the world as it is, and in the case of the male, the restless exploration and modifications of the world as it is. "I will love you even if they hypnotize me and tell me that I do not." Growing up as a young lady is very difficult without daddy in the immediate environment every day. Divorce as organized in the United States is a cruel process for children. The creation of competition, of agony, between the members of a couple in the name of the law is somehow vitally wrong. Except in cases of grave physical need, alimony, as it exists today, is often a degenerating influence upon a woman. It is an invitation to cease all efforts to earn one's own living and to become very clever at increasing the amount of alimony. No woman that I have ever heard of, who is on alimony, learns to take her own place in the world of humans; the only exceptions are those who are physically or mentally handicapped in an obvious direct fashion. Alimony generates mental illness and reemphasizes any tendencies in this direction. In the new world, a woman must be educated in such a way that in her older age she can earn her own living if she wishes, or can remarry if she wishes, or not marry at all if she wishes. Men have sought knowledge and means of self-support for thousands of years; the time of woman is coming.

National Institutes of Health -- 1953-1958

FRED STONE, administrator: The seasoned communicator within government knows networks of communication whose existence he cannot share. However, he can use these networks as long as he steps out of the credit line at the end. "Tell me what you want done and it will be arranged, but do not ask me how it was done, and give credit to the man whose name I will give you at some later time." Within any government agency there is a very strong network of loyal, trustworthy people of high integrity. It is these people that you must find in an agency to get the job done.

Dolphin Laboratory U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas -- 1958-1966

ORR REYNOLDS, scientist-administrator: Find the effective researchers and support them. Projects have no meaning except as a means of communication between the scientist and administrators. Seminars lasting several days are the most effective means of communication between scientists. Once one finds effective young researchers, pay attention to their ideas. They may seem very far-out to you, but if these are effective people they will turn up something new, inventive, interesting and important in science. Large government operates in such a way that one can accomplish far more within it than one knows at any given time. However, this requires certain kinds of talents in dealing with the complex communication system in government. Step on the fewest possible toes but hold your ground.

GREGORY BATESON, anthropologist: In order to understand man in greater depth, we must understand the other species on this planet. Otters, wolves, octopuses, and dolphins are worthy of our study. Rituals and playing "as if" are very important components of animal behavior. When you find an apt student with talent please don't spoil him or her. If you do effective research, the support for it will come. The first priority is to get started in the research.

CONSTANCE DOWLING TORS, actress and guide: It is possible to love unstintingly and to break loose from the bonds that have been placed on one's love in the past. When one is free and open, one's belief systems can be changed by those one loves and respects. In special states of consciousness it is possible to share directly without words many specific events that have occurred in the past, that are occurring currently and that will occur in the future. One does not project the negative upon those one loves. One creates beauty in one's self, in one's environment and among one's friends.

Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California -- 1968-1971

IDA ROLF, the originator of structural integration: The body has stored within it all of the evidences of past traumas to the body. In order to release these patterns built into the muscle-centralnervous-system feedback, one must experience pain at the site of the original trauma. The buried tapeloops of the past trauma suppressed from the conscious mind are thereby released. This release creates energy that is now free flowing and no longer bound into the original pattern.

RICHARD PRICE, cofounder of Esalen Institute: There is nothing more important in this life than perfecting one's self--in body, in mind and in spirit. Aiding others to achieve this aim is a way of life worth pursuing. So-called "psychosis" is merely doing your own thing irrespective of the wishes of others, it can be a transformation of self, achievable by no other means. "If you wish to be a dolphin, live it out and I'll live it out, too, with you, to the limits of our imaginations." If you wish to enter the kingdom of heaven, become as a little child. There are ten thousand trips that people wish you to take. Take as many as you please, but be sure that you integrate them and construct your own trip. Surround yourself with effective people who believe in their trips and everything else will take care of itself. There is no need to be arbitrary or tyrannical when dealing with one's associates. Assume that each person is willing to take the responsibility for his own being, his own states of being.

FRITZ PERLS, originator of Gestalt therapy: One should have a Rolfing session for each year of one's life. "Reality is the concernful." You have your trip and I have my trip. We have our trip only if we so choose. If not, that's okay too.

ALDOUS HUXLEY, gentleman and scholar (from conversations and his writings): Curiosity and interest are merited by all things human. Projection of current scientific trends into the future may prevent a future social horror. Fiction is a powerful social force to acquaint those in power with possible futures to avoid their probable existence. Brave New World is a blueprint of one such possibility to be avoided.
All phenomena of the human inner reality are worth investigation. Your researches into the neurological substrate of motivations is important for each human being. Your research into the phenomena of physical isolation, solitude and confinement is fundamental to human reason.

ALAN WATTS, author and philosopher: (Alan was born forty minutes before I was.) "The coincidence of our births almost makes me believe in astrology, but not quite." Introducing me to his wife Jano the first time, he said, "Here is a man who is more ruthlessly rational than I am." (This remark was made after I had spent three hours with him on the Surgeon Story, which is a long and involved intellectual puzzle. To solve it, one must be ruthlessly rational without emotional attachments to various types of human activities.) Formal rituals can be fun. Let us have fun together through formal rituals. Life on this planet is a cosmic joke. Let us enjoy it together. Buddhism in its many forms has much to offer the Western mind. Let us study Buddhism together.

GEORGE SPENCER BROWN, mathematician: The protologic behind logic determines the logic. Let us find a protologic and then construct new systems of logic. The Laws of Form is not a handbook on how to go to far-out spaces, but a handbook on how to get back once one is there. In the protologic of The Laws of Form the observer is a marked state (the Brownian operator). The Laws of Form poses a dilemma: where is the writer and where is the reader? When one severs a universe by making a distinction, who is doing the severing? Is this the Brownian operator, the marked states and voids alternating ad infinitum? Alternatively, is the one making the severance separate from this system? Is he creating (with a continuous consciousness) discontinuous universes?

(BABA) RAM DASS, mystic and friend: Patanjali states the basic assumptions, the basic belief systems of jnana-yoga. Study the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali for understanding of the deeper meditations. "The powers of the mind are attained through birth, through light-containing herbs, through mantra, through tapahs and through Samadhi." (Book 4, Sutra 1.) Brahmacharya (celibacy) is a groovy way of life if one is a bhakti yogi. It is a discipline that generates a large amount of internal energy useful in teaching. "My guru exists everywhere. You are my guru; the cat is my guru."

Arica, Chile -- 6 May 1970-7 February 1971

OSCAR ICHAZO, esoteric master and teacher: When a student has learned everything that you can teach him, let him go on his way. When a group has become integrated and learned everything that you have to teach them, let them all go on their way. Develop your own physical, mental and spiritual disciplines and practice them assiduously. There is no compromise with reality as it really is. Reality as you wish it to be has no place in your life. Cosmic love is ruthless: it loves you whether you like it or not. To reach the higher levels of consciousness, the higher spiritual planes, one's ego must die. After one's ego is reborn it becomes a tool in the service of one's Essence rather than the master of one's destiny. The only reason that you cannot reach higher states of consciousness and further your spiritual development is your own wish not to do so. The ego is anything that keeps you from the higher states of Satori. The injunctive use of words is the only valid use for words in achieving changes of states of being. A powerful exercise loses its power as you master it and the insights that it reveals. Without the higher states of consciousness the higher states of being, the planet earth will be finished in a catastrophic ending. Every human being on this planet must share these higher states. When one has trouble within one's own country achieving these states, one must travel and find a place where one can safely transcend the limitations of one's own culture. The United States has been and possibly will remain the chief focus of energy on this planet within humankind. God is very much larger than our conceptions of him, than our projections and our simulations of him. Western science and mysticism eventually will fuse and we will be unable to separate the two.

STEWART BRAND, inventor and editor of The Whole Earth Catalog and the Coevolution Quarterly: Pertinent information is the lifeblood of the planet. Earth is the only planet we have, let's not throw it away. Man is changing the planet unconsciously; let us make this a conscious process and do a better job of it. We need new ideas. Let us find those who have them and transmit their information as cheaply and for as wide an audience as we can reach. Let us use every available means-film, sound, print, the mediaÑto disseminate useful information. There are literally millions of people who yet do not know how to carry on their planetside trip in the most economical fashion. Let us research means to do this and transmit these means to those who need them.

LOS Angeles, California -- 1971-1975

ANTONIETTA LENA LILLY, my best friend, love, and wife: Life is a balance game. No matter how far one pushes life in one direction, it swings back oppositely. Every human being is worth listening to, for enough time to understand. Social forms express one's empathy, patience and concern. One's village is the world; the world is one's village.
Politics is fun; it's the name for human relationships. The politics starts with three persons together.
The dyad is the most stable human relation; the triad is unstable. Saying "no" can be a graceful elegant art, as can saying "yes" or "maybe."
Beauty is from within; use, in its expression, what one has with external aids extending to one's home and garden and friends. Tools are to be used; one does not praise or blame tools; one cares for them and uses them carefully, efficiently and in the proper context.
Reality is economic; if it isn't economic, it isn't real.
The universe is a series of interrelated, smoothly flowing squiggles, lubricated with cosmic giggles.

NINA CAROZZA (Toni's daughter), dancer and teacher: It is necessary to perfect one's posture and one's grace of movement by arduous work every day. When teaching, stay on top of where each person is at any particular time and move them from that point along the lines that you feel they can follow. It is necessary to achieve relaxation in a class before one can evoke spontaneous dancing from them. Watch the energy flow and tilt it as the need arises to achieve this spontaneity. Most people like to dance but are afraid to do so. Get them past this barrier.

ANGELO FICAROTTA, carpenter and father: Creation of houses, of cabinets, of furniture is a continuous meditation and a productive way of life on your planetside trip. Automobile accidents, strokes and illness can be handled by one's self and one can heal most wounds through one's own efforts. I do not need to believe in anything but my own direct experience and my family.

THOMAS FICAROTTA, contractor: Some lawyers indulge in sophisticated extortion. Some lawyers and some judges tend to forget that we all live in a very small town known as planet earth.

BURGESS MEREDITH, actor, director, author: Loyalty to one's friends irrespective of what they do, of what they believe or of who is against them is a prime virtue. Good manners are essential to life on this planet. Work with the establishment, not against it. It will change as you change. The performing arts are a way of life. The performing arts can educate the public not only as to what art is but also as to what is behind and important to science.

ARTHUR AND PRUE CEPPOS (dyad) publishers: You don't know a book and what it contains, even if you have written it, until you have read it five times. There is an old Chinese saying, If it isn't economic, it isn't real. The Tao implies living life to its fullest as one is, not as one would like to be.

JOHN BROCKMAN, author and agent: "Kill all of your darlings," when writing a book; do not treasure any given paragraph, sentence or chapter. Ultimately words as such have no reality whatsoever. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein said all there is to say. An autobiography can never be up to date. Everything that is said in it is passed--finished. Teasing is a fine art.

JERRY BROWN, Governor of California: The machinery of government is top-heavy with regulations, with paperwork, with excess numbers of people in it. Let us examine the government that we have inherited and remake it along simpler and more human lines. Let us question every person in authority about what it is they are doing and how they are doing it, and ask them to improve their methods--to be more economical and more understandable. No one in government is free from such analysis or the program of cooperative rebuilding of that which we must do.

BERNICE DANYLCHUK, posture therapist: With the aid of a disciplined posture therapist, one can change the basic line of one's body as it exists in gravity. "I require your cooperation. If you cannot work, please do not ask for my help." The bones of the body including the skull must be lined up so that one rests on the one below it in a direct line to the bottom of the feet. Once one achieves this alignment, one no longer wastes energy holding the body in position. No matter what one does with the body it is possible to improve these alignments during motion and during rest.

HELEN COSTA, stretch and movement, yoga teacher: The body must be stretched every day at every joint to the limits of its motion in order to expand those limits. Never overdo stretch. Do something every day that makes your heart beat faster, your breath increase its rate and depth.

GRACE STERN, yoga teacher and mystic: It is possible within one's mind to go very far out at the slightest excuse and depend upon others to bring one back. It is possible to teach an intensive series of yoga courses while at the same time keep one's family happy, well and functioning.

RUTH AND MYRON GLATT (dyad) teachers: Teaching teachers can be fun. Using audiovisual aids is the most effective way of transmitting the information to the student. The student seeing himself on TV can easily correct that which is wrong in his motions, in his techniques. Sorcery is a gentle, compassionate art.

RUTH AND HENRY DENNISON (dyad) teachers: Once you have taken care of your planetside trip, share your joy with others and encourage teachers and the young. Good cooking induces positive feelings and high states in the recipients. Travel to India and Switzerland is inspiring.

FRANKLIN MERRELL-WOLFF, author, philosopher, teacher, and mystic: States of Being, beyond the current consensus reality,