The Book Stacks

Review by Mr. JM

For a long time I have been interested in the potential of the human mind. In the 80’s I read about biofeedback and the possibilities were extremely interesting. It seemed normal people could learn some of the things formerly attributed solely to gurus and mystics who had studied and trained for decades to learn control of self.

The cover of The Art of Smart Thinking (TAST) says ‘Give Yourself a Brain Lift’ ‘Reverse Brain Aging’ ‘Enhance Creativity’ and ‘Increase IQ.’ Big claims to make and I was interested to see if the book could substantiate them.

The beginning is (probably necessarily) mostly history of how Hardt came to his current ideas and procedures; interesting but in parts, it was annoying. The book needs better editing; in a number of places, not only phrases, but sometimes entire sentences are repeated within a few lines of each other.

Another slight hitch in reading is there are signs that Hardt wrote some and someone else wrote parts that have been merged in. There are references to Hardt in the third person.

But the content kept me reading. The information being presented made for a forgiving attitude as I followed along with learning what Biofeedback could do.

The brain can be monitored for electric fields; this has been known for a long time. Over the decades the fields have been measured and named. Starting from the highest frequencies, they are Gamma, (above 40Hz) Beta, (15 – 40Hz) Alpha, (9 – 14Hz) Theta (5 – 8Hz) and Delta (0 – 4Hz). These are approximate figures.

Mostly while awake, we run on Beta and during meditation or sleep, we may drop to Theta or Delta. Alpha level is an unusual range. A person who has completed a task and relaxes may show Alpha waves. So may someone involved in creative thought.

In deep meditation, we show Theta waves in the scans, indicating the brain has slowed or changed to a different state of being. The states of being seem to show different capacities and functions for those experiencing them.

And sometimes different states are necessary. In deepest sleep we show Delta waves, and if we go too long without achieving deep sleep we experience health problems ranging from tiredness and disorientation through to (if kept going to long) states that might be seen as insanity.

So exploration of, and achieving the various states of mind can be beneficial on a number of levels and pursuing such achievement would seem to be worthwhile for personal growth.