Alphalearning Revolution II

During the week we’ll be using the EEG and light and sound machine in combination with well-established ancient and modern techniques of non-chemical mind alteration, from hypnosis and visualisation, to biofeedback, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), eye exercises and Mind Mapping. Together they comprise a system that stretches and relaxes the brain before easing it into balance, and the tools to keep it in balance, and to put in and retrieve more information, faster.

In addition to our professional interests, we’ve been promised personal benefits that include doubling or even tripling reading speed with no loss of information retention, up to 20 points added to one’s IQ, and a degree of control of our brain state that for thousands of years have taken many years of practice to master. All in five days.

It does sound far-fetched. But that does not make it necessarily fraudulent or false – though perhaps hard to ‘prove’ in scientific terms. Nor has it prevented hundreds of executives from many global corporations (e.g. Olivetti, Raychem, KLM, Ford, Fisons), wealthy individuals (from Swiss bankers to Saudi princes and household names like Richard Branson), Formula One drivers (e.g. David Coulthard), bankers, military officers in several countries, and Olympic athletes from taking the course. They just keep quiet about it.

I have been in sporadic contact with the Institute for the eight years since we first wrote about and photographed several families on courses after two years of research, as it has moved from Holland to Germany to Hong Kong then Korea before settling in its current location in Lugano. I have spoken to many course attendees and the tales they tell of the additional – sometimes extraordinary – effects of the course risk arousing the angry incredulity of several medical establishments, and putting the Institute in the firing line of the Federal Drug Authority, the ferocious gatekeeper of American – and by extension, global – medical and drug licensing.

The morning of Learning to Learn, Day 1, starts unremarkably enough. Attendees learn about the brain – it’s structure and functioning, how it pays attention, stores and retrieves memories, and so on. It’s interesting, dynamic and well-presented, with science, anecdote and examples.

Some of the information was rather unorthodox when he first espoused it in the early 1990s: ‘most people have some degree of brain damage, but this can be fixed’. Or ‘brainwaves are contagious’ (the brain broadcasts as well as receives), for example. But these assertions, rooted in Tibetan and other Eastern conceptions of the brain as observed over thousands of years, are not just born out by the results of the Institute’s practice and results. Throughout the 1990s – the Decade of the Brain and a period of unprecedented growth in our knowledge of this complex, fragile organ, science has slowly backed them up too.

Suitably briefed, in the afternoon we all get our first session on the EEG/brain machine. Following a brief standardised test for brain damage, and video documentation of visible things like facial symmetry and gait (that are liable to change at the moment of brain balance so rapidly it can be hard for the subject to believe later), we prepare with no small excitement to take turns.

An EEG is recorded by attaching 4 small wires coming out of a plain grey box to the trainee’s head with sticky tabs to view the brain’s activity on the computer screen. This recording is then evaluated to determine the ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ areas of the brain as shown by the waves’ amplitude and the balance of left-right, front-back activity.

Lights and earphones are used to input certain frequencies to synchronize the 4 main sections of the brain (front and back, left and right). The precise program used is based on the results of the first EEG. Biofeedback exercises are performed allowing the user to hear and see their own brainwave frequencies and their left-right hemisphere balance. Thanks to the phenomenon of entrainment (see sidebar), the brain is attracted to the sounds and images of perfect balance and, therefore, balances and tunes itself.

A second EEG is recorded for comparison to the first EEG to measure the effect and results of the training session. This EEG is used to determine the next session setting for the light and sound training frequencies. The above sequence takes about 30 minutes. And indeed, our EEGs show that our brains are more balanced and the change is permanent.

Over the next few days, the session is repeated several times, used in conjunction with the other techniques mentioned earlier. For example, after several listenings to a hypnotic visualisation tape to familiarise the brain with being in a relaxed alpha state – the best one for taking in new information – they use the Lotus software to ‘put’ us in that state, then NLP to ‘anchor’ that state, to be entered into instantly from thereon at will.

During the whole week there’s a fair amount of psychodrama from the Alphaearning, since ‘learning to learn’ is essentially about getting one’s brain to accept change, which many of us resist by erecting sophisticated yet quite fundamental psychological defences that need lowering. In fact, over the course of five days, the room will crackle with emotion, occasionally bursting out into the public areas of the grand hotel in which the course was conducted (much to the delight of the owner, who hadn’t had such excitement around the place in many years).

But the drama is as nothing compared to when the other side of the Institute is in action, the side that uses this technology/system for healing a growing range of hard if not impossible to treat ailments and disabilities. Alphalearning was developed as an executive tool, a way to help execs read faster and retain more; but many individuals have received unexpected bonuses, bonuses that raise profound questions about the self and how it maintains health in all its aspects.

The goal of most religious, martial arts and healers for at least the past 5,400 years has been to balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The belief was that the brain, body, mind and emotion were all interconnected and by balancing any one, all the others would also become more balanced. Not only is this something we instinctively feel, but science is increasingly supporting the linkage.

Various techniques (some books claim over 100) have been developed and taught over the years. Tai Chi is a classic example of concentrating on balancing the body to achieve physical and mental harmony. Aikido is another example of blending physical skills with mental intent. The primary goal here too is balance, initially physical, leading to mental and emotional stability. Other techniques have been developed such as mantras (repetition of a sound – or a color blend – as in a mandala).

What the research director distilled from a review of the literature and reading 680 books on the mind and brain (the average Phd. has read only 40 books in his chosen field) combined with an eclectic range of direct experience with ancient brain balancing techniques during the 70s and 80s (he’s studied Aikido, worked closely with the Maharishi in India, and in a Tibetan monastery) was that from the strenuous to the passive, they all work. All will guide the brain/body connection towards balance and stability – but very slowly.

A faster way was needed. Corporate executives did not want to sit on a rock and chant for 15 – 20 years, they wanted a high-speed solution. So how did the techniques work, and why? What was the theory?

Light and sound have been used for many thousands of years to influence the state of mind and emotions of mankind. The early versions (65,000 years ago) were dancers around fires creating the first “strobe light” effects, while drummers added beats. Similar effects are brought on by the constant, rhythmic-drone of Tibetan Buddhist chants, which transport the monks and even other listeners into realms of blissful meditation. It was clear even then that lower frequencies of flashing light and drums caused people to sit calmer and learn better. Moreover, the effect was fast (if ephemeral).

During the ‘70s, the first electronic programmable light and sound machines were developed in California. Initially to enhance music appreciation and meditative experiences, interest grew in trying to teach people to generate an alpha wave by bio-feedback.

The problem with light and sound machines was that 40 – 60 minutes a day exercise was required to achieve a measurable effect on the brain – and, it had to be continued forever to maintain the effect, and most people will not invest that time. Another problem was that while the equipment could easily change the brain’s frequencies and, therefore, control the thought and physical processes of the body, it did not have a lasting effect. Lights off – effect off.

The Alphalearning Institute set out to find a way to keep the change once the lights went off. It took three years of testing as the parameters – frequency of sound and light, various input and output factors, combinations of other non-technological techniques, before they delivered a system that has changed little 10 years later. Because it worked. It can be used to train self brain balancing in 30 – 35 hours, along with the ability to enter an alpha state at will.

A mix of hard, soft and parascience, and eastern philosophy, its very differentness has been a problem for Alphalearning. Peter Selkirk, a senior executive at Raychem UK (which took up the co-sponsorship reins of the initial study from Raychem Belgium. Heinkel and ICL were the other sponsors), says: “As the seniority of managers taking the course rose, there were increasing concerns about its whole acceptance. How mainstream was it? Just how fringe did Raychem choose to go? It’s an example of the fear you encounter of going beyond boundaries of science, and the fact is that it is very hard to distinguish between the charlatan and the innovator.”

He did a course in early 1994. “I understand how they feel. However, I was keen and thrilled with the course.” Though popular with those who did it, the course never became mainstream, like sales skills for example. “This is one of Alphalearning’s frustrations, and it’s understandable,” says Selkirk. “Glasses and earphones make your brain better? It does take some swallowing.”

But Selkirk and his wife Cornelia have had no such doubts – not since their son Harry tried the Brainwave 1 workstation, an event that would change the whole direction of the Alphalearning Institute’s research ambitions.

A number of beneficial “anomalies” had occurred during the initial executive testing – strange little tics and life-long problems disappearing , and by word of mouth, parents doing the course began to bring their disabled children along. In February 1994, Harry Selkirk was just two – so any fear of a placebo effect was removed. He was brought to a session in the UK, on the same day that a new batch of LEDs for the glasses arrived from the manufacturer.

For some time, they had suspected that the frequency of light used – the same as the most intense light of a flame (610 nanometers) – would make a difference; that it would make changes permanent. But Harry’s reaction amazed them. A club foot (equinovarus) since birth straightened out there and then, in just one 12-minute session, and it stayed straight.

In the following months, these health anomalies continued to occur. Not just improvement in concentration, confidence, rashes, depression and better pain control, but treating addictions, Attention Deficit Disorder, various types of dyslexia, several cases of epilepsy allowed to completely come off the drugs they used to control the problem.

It became clearer – to them at least – that what had started out as simply a way of teaching executives to read faster and remember more was threatening to become a full-blown medical revolution, the Institute had to decide what it was in business to do.

“We at the Alphalearning Institute no longer believed that there was any basic difference between dyslexia or autism or any of 50-100 other “brain disorders”. We now believe that the common denominator is electrical damage in the brain. It is just that damage in different parts of the brain cause different external symptoms, both physiological and psychological.,” says the Alphalearning. “And we can fix them.”

“Proof’ is a difficult concept – as is “cure”, for that matter. On the one hand, there has been a retreat from seeing science as the only arbiter of truth. But how else do you convince people of incredible claims? How do you mobilise government and health organisations to back and provide access to a heretical technology like this?

By 2002 there had been more than 3,500 participants on the course, and the list of incredible benefits continues to grow. Less dramatic but still remarkable are the small, almost imperceptible changes that occur with regular Brainwave training, from quickened reflexes and increased mental clarity and alertness, to greater intuition and enhanced smell.