The Book Stacks

Review by Mr. JM

So, is The Art of Smart Thinking (TAST) worth the read? For someone with little knowledge of Biofeedback, it is informative as to what can be achieved, but it is unlikely anyone inexperienced in such things could make use of the book to start on their path. As such, it is a good promotional book for the Biocybernaut Institute but I found myself disappointed at a lack of detail.

As a person with some knowledge of the subject and quite a bit of experience at the lesser brainwave entrainment level, I was hoping for some hard information that I could use to begin a path to achieving what is on the cover of the book.

The cover implies that by reading the book the reader can make gains. It specifically doesn’t mention that the book is about a process that can only be done in California and that what is inside is simply describing that process and what might be gained if you go. It isn’t really telling whoppers, but it is misleading. Mostly when you see a book like this, dealing with self-improvement, inside there is at least an attempt to offer processes or methods by which you might achieve what is being promised.

TAST is not a self-help book, although it appears to be. TAST is a teaser or promotional book to let people know about a series of courses being run by a commercial organization in California.

About halfway through the book I went to www.biocybernaut.com to see what was available. What I saw soured me for a while about the book. A seven day program to learn to use Alpha level brain functions costs around $15,000 – that’s a lot of money in anyone’s terms. It may be worth it; if the claims made are lived up to, what price do you put on turning a life around for the better, dealing with problems that could take years of psychotherapy or gaining access to techniques leading to enlightenment?

But also in the book is Hardt’s ideas about how the world could be better with biofeedback. Unfortunately, like such programs as Scientology, what this apparently means is improving only those who are well off. Not that many people have a spare $15,000 laying around and if you take a good look at society, it’s the ones who don’t have that kind of spare cash who really need the improvements offered by biofeedback. They are the ones locked into lives that are unfulfilling, who dramatise the effects of traumatic childhoods without access to expensive treatment, and, importantly, who vastly outnumber those who are on their path to enlightenment.

If programs like The Secret & what we are told of the Law of Attraction are anything to go by, it is those vast numbers of unhappy and fearful people who are having the major effect on how our world is going. The few who manage to break out of the trap may influence their own lives but until someone addresses the needs of those in misery and fear, the ideal of improving the world will not be achieved.

So, while what the book promises is enough to make me really want to do some biofeedback training, and the content of the book is enough to overcome the need for a revision to improve the readability, overall what it has done is left me a bit depressed. My situation is such that it will be years before I can afford to do even the first seven day course (and I wouldn’t do it without my wife so double the amount) plus the travel and other expenses.

I’m left with the feeling someone has shown me the lolly shop then told me my allowance isn’t enough to get even a small one without saving up for years. I’d give my left one to be able to go and do the courses. I’d start with the basic Alpha training and as soon as possible, move into the Theta level training. But that is (if at all possible) many years and many thousands of dollars off into the future.