Mining Your Own Inventive Mind

excerpt from Discovering The Obvious

This procedure features, as a post-Einsteinian "Deep Thought" experiment a science-fiction theme. This theme is one of visiting, through your mind's eye, some highly advanced world. Everywhere you look in this advanced world, there are items in common use there which, back here on Earth, would be original inventions, new products or services, innovations, art techniques, procedures or even new invention-making procedures, even scientific discoveries. Select one item during your "visit" and "copy" it by observing and describing it in as much detail as possible. Then from that detail reconstruct it back here as your invention.

(To make this experience effective, you will need either a live listener or a tape recorder as potential listener. This will provide needed external focus which enables you to develop this experience. Even with a live partner to help as your listener, you may need paper to make sketches on.)

What has happened in our world, in fact, the past few years seems far more improbable than any science fiction, so this theme seems tame by comparison. This procedure is one of many ways to get at the innate understandings which your more sensitive faculties have built up of how our universe works. At subtle levels you do have this comprehensive, accurate understanding, regardless of whatever is your scientific and technical background or lack thereof.

Yes, we can expect successes and testimonials from formal researchers and scientists, such as the ones at the start of our inventions and discoveries book. We are used to this kind of experience.

--But pay very close attention to the next several paragraphs.

Over the mid and late 1970s, we were teaching "Beachhead" as part of a broader training workshop mostly to laymen, and by 1979 had collected more than 1,000 seemingly significant invention concepts. Most of these were from people with no scientific or technical background. 100 of these invention concepts, all from people with little or no such background, were selected to be examined by professional engineers, to see what percentage of them might actually be workable according to the formal laws of science and engineering.

To our amazement, 100% - every last one - of those inventions from laymen, turned out to be workable!

A relatively small proportion of people in this country have available to their consciousness much understanding of the laws of science and nature. You may have seen some of the newspaper stories about how shamefully poor is the average American's understanding of physical science. For three years lived two doors from this writer a reasonably articulate gentleman, in a reasonably upbeat middle-class neighborhood, who had no idea whatever that the Earth circles the sun! Yet it appears that once the limits of their conscious minds are bypassed, the more sensitive faculties of most or all of us have a pretty good idea of those laws, and of what works and what doesn't work!

In 1979, this writer received a call to come up to Windsor, Ontario, Canada to teach for a class which St. Clair Community College there was conducting in the community. A former college teacher, he rushed up with high expectations, only to find, not exactly a college class--

--but a class St. Clair was running in the community, teaching people how to comb their hair, brush their teeth and some, with luck, to tie their shoes! In other words, this was a class of "Educable Mentally Retarded People," or "EMRs."

At the time totally unprepared for this, the writer sought to make the best of it and so went ahead with the procedures he had brought along, including "Beachhead," expecting a dead flop. Much to his astonishment--

Of the 27 mentally retarded people in the class, we were able to get the attention of 17 enough to do a little processing with. Of those 17: every one of them, on first try, came up with original, workable inventions!

--After which, of course, instead of developing those people as special because they were inventors, the college went back to teaching them how to comb their hair, brush their teeth and some of them, with luck, to tie their shoes......

The point, though, is that the ability to invent accurately, creatively and profitably, using these sensitive post-Einsteinian visual thinking techniques, is very widely distributed!

Part of you truly is brighter than you think. Part of you knows the laws of science, nature and engineering very well indeed, whatever your conscious background in those subjects. You are as capable of accurate, effective inventing as were the laymen in our training workshops here, and certainly more so than those 17 mentally retarded Canadians!

In retrospect, we believe that probably, non-technical people on the whole may have some advantage, rather than disadvantage, compared with people with the most rigorous technical and scientific backgrounds, because they are not as likely to edit their images to conform with what they think they know!

That, of course, is one key to the "Beachhead" process, as is the patience to go after all the detail needed to comprehend the chosen device in order to "re"-create it back here on Earth as an invention.

Before we proceed to "Beachhead," let us proceed to review some of the key strategies of attention and describing, in post-Einsteinian discovery technique. (These strategies applying also to "Over-the-Wall" problem solving and to the other uses of receptive imagery.) Here in review are some of the key principles:

1) Allow yourself to be surprised by what you see. Work with whatever imagery actually comes up, whether or not you think it fits what you are seeking. For example,

Mario C. was looking anxiously to visit some very futuristic civilization to see all sorts of remarkable things. His chosen purpose for this visit was to find an inexpensive new source of electric power. In his vision - Mario C. was sorely disappointed to find himself standing in a grassfield, with a rustic fringe of trees on the left, with no futuristic city, and nothing even modern in sight. He could barely be prevailed upon to stay with the vision and to continue describing what he was seeing. Worse, Mario kept finding himself stumbling over trailing cables and stanchions.....

Prevailed upon to describe these, he discovered: that these cables led to the tops of trees, and from there to one-way wind-up ratchets which, in turn, drove old-fashioned electric generators salvaged from old telephones and automobiles. Every time the wind blew, tree movement drove the ratchets which in turn steadily drove the generators.

--So rigged, trees are natural windmills - and, since they are already there by nature, they cost less to install than do constructed windmills. The sense of the vision was that, at least in breezier sections of the country, a small forest would generate enough power to energize a small city much of the time....

We don't know what the actual costs of such a power source would be, but it probably would be competitive in some regions and under some conditions - and would have been missed altogether if Mario C. had not been prevailed upon to stay with the vision, even though it differed from what he had expected to see.

So: allow yourself to be surprised, even startled by what you see in these undirected, receptive visualizations. Describe your perceptions, not your expectations!

2. Describe your imagery while examining it. This develops the imagery, as it did Mario C.'s, and as you experienced in the Answer Spaces of your "Over-the-Wall" problem solving exercise. The Einsteinian method only described what was "seen" after the imagery experience was completed: as a result, its practitioners were rare and even so, had like Einstein to take special measures to keep from going to sleep in mid-meditation. Holding rocks in either hand like Einstein did might help keep you from nodding off in mid-vision, but won't help you actually develop that vision, whereas your describing will, and quite powerfully. The more colorful and richly textured the detail of your describing, the more effective it will be in developing your vision. The more rapid your description, the better your chances of outrunning your internal editor into some real payoffs.

Note that the subtler and less defined the phenomena which gets described into consciousness, the greater and more rapid will be your gains in awareness. Also the subtler the faculties, providing that imagery, which you can reinforce onto line with your verbal consciousness.

3. Keeping your eyes closed while exploring and describing these ranges of experience will also allow you to examine subtler perceptions than might otherwise be possible, your inner vision not having to compete with your outer. Keeping them continuously closed during the experience builds up also a continuity and power, largely dissipated each time one checks back into outer vision.

4. The more richly textured the description, the more richly textured the ensuing experience. Stay sensory in your descriptions - this keeps you in contact with, or deepens, your contact with those reaches of your brain whose main working language is sensory imagery, and which have the understandings we are trying to bring conscious. Build sufficient sensory contact with the experience and your intellectual understandings will take care of themselves.

5. To learn or discover or retrieve any perception, simply fit it into some appropriately designed format, then begin describing from some easily accessed corner of it more and more of that format, until your description has come upon and opened that perception to you.

6. You don't have to figure out anything or understand anything until after you've developed your data. Only after your data is out there, then bring all your analytic, judgmental and other intellectual faculties to bear, to make sense of that data. Only after! For now, though. describe in sensory detail what you find in these visions. Taking the short-cut of recognizing what or where you are looking, and settling for naming that instead of describing it, inserts a level of abstraction which comes between you and full contact with the part of your brain you are seeking perception from.

We can resurrect our analogy about "two feet of the mind" from the previous chapter, only this time instead of referring to creating freely and then judging freely, each in its turn, let us speak of observing and describing freely as one "foot," then analyzing and understanding freely, as the other "foot." Not only in our interior visions: we are all too prone to try to hop through life on our analytic foot, drawing upon what we think we "know," such "knowledge" in turn too laden with third and fourth hand information rather than based upon first-hand experience.

Observe first; then try to make sense of the observation. Trying to "make sense" too early shuts off much of the opportunity for your subtler faculties and vision to surprise you with further, relevant and even more significant insights.

Scripting the instructions for "Beachhead:"

From extensive experience in writing instructional books, we have learned to give the most detailed form of a procedure first, then the condensed, self-use version, counseling the reader to read the detailed version first and have that information in back of his mind while following those simplified, condensed instructions. Also, we've learned that the very most effectively detailed version of these procedures, which we especially want to provide for a procedure this important, is a word-for-word script designed for one person to read, step by step, to a partner or a group to perform.

That is the form we present here. --Not because we are trying to persuade you to pull together an entire group to teach invention-building to, all at one time, although we think that would be a very good idea. Rather, simply because this lets us address the procedure in its fullest detail, for you to read before you take yourself through the simplified version.

Also: if you get a second tape recorder, you can pre-record the following scripted instructions the same way that you might read them to a group. Playing that tape back, to cue you step by step through the experience, you can record your experiences step by step recording into the other tape machine.

So here is, first the group script form of your instructions for that most invention-productive of all post-Einsteinian Discovery procedures, "Beachhead." (The idea behind the name is to establish a beachhead in a highly advanced civilization, use it to come, again and again, to discover many things there and copy them off as inventions back on Earth.)

In this following script: it is the instructions in quote marks which are read aloud to the group or to the tape, for the hearer(s) to be cued step by step. The instructions in parentheses are only to guide the person who is reading those instructions, and are silent, not passed along to the hearer(s) as part of the instructions in building the experience.
(* Please arrange a space which won't be interrupted for 40-60 minutes - bury the telephone or take it off the hook...)

(* Have your participants work together in pairs. Three working together is o.k. but that cuts into the time each participant has for describing, so pairs is better. Have each member of the pair sit closely together so he can hear and be heard without effort when everyone is describing experiences. This prevents oppressive din and makes the room experience an agreeable buzz-murmur and a "psychic resonance field.")

(* Have at hand a water glass or chime, with spoon or other metal striker, whose sound will be agreeable and easily heard above many voices without having to be loud. Establish with your participants these agreements - (a) That one "bing" on your chime or water glass is a half-minute's notice; for participants to keep on going on the one "bing" but be ready a half minute later to hear your next instruction. (b) That upon three "bings," everyone instantly pauses in his talking - not only in mid-sentence but in mid-word, to hear the next instruction and so that the next instruction can be heard. Stopping talking does not mean stopping experiencing: indeed, the whole point of these agreements is to get arrangements smooth enough that you can slip in one instruction after another without interrupting the experience, which therefore can build, layer by layer, into extraordinary ranges of effect.)

(* Establish also with your participants that they should close their eyes and keep them closed during the experience in order "to see more freely," and to notice when actual visual images happen in their experience and to switch to describing these, even if they lead in some direction other than that which is being cued by the instructions, as these images might represent a more direct route to the desired goal, presented by one's subtler faculties.)

(* Allow enough time in the intervals between steps for your participants to build rich and intense experience, but not so much time that some get restless and wander out of your process wondering what to do next. If the group gets going well and there is plenty of time available to work in, Steps # 18, 19 and, to some extent, 21, are the ones it is most useful to allow to expand to 8 or 10 minutes or even longer. Usually, after the first several minutes of describe-aloud intervals, momentary let-ups in the ongoing buzz-murmur are the best time to start the process of moving on to the next step.)

The "Beachhead" procedure:

(Have everyone involved take a deep, rewarding stretch; slowly let down from that stretch into the "afterglow" of that stretch, settle into a deeply relaxing, comfortable position, let go 1-2 great slow satisfying sighs, and close eyes....)

(Orientation:)

1. "We enter this experience together for the purpose of finding new products or services of possible value, which can be provided entirely from the resources we now have readily to hand. We don't have to figure out what we are going to invent, or plan ahead what it is we are going to see. We'll just sit back and let the subtler portions of our minds and brains show us. Let them show us whatever it is that they will show us. Let them surprise us with what they show us, all we do for now, once the experience is underway, is sit back, observe, and describe to our partner what it is that we are observing. Later, after we've described all that we've seen, we can try to make sense of what we've seen but for now we don't try to make sense of it, just see it and describe it and later maybe we'll figure out what it is that we've seen and described."

2. "The more the vision contents of this experience are a surprise to us, the better the likelihood that we are genuinely getting inputs from further reaches of mind and brain beyond where we do our conscious thinking from. Those further reaches contain all the experiences and information which we've ever encountered, whether conscious or unconscious, from the very beginnings of our life. Since at any given moment only one in 100 of our incoming experiences is received consciously, each of us has an available data-base greater than that even of the greatest universities."

3. "--And just as more and more formal information in the great universities and libraries is going on-line, available through computers, so also our own internal data-base is on-line, available through these inner visions. We describe in words, with our conscious minds and to our partner; describing our inner imagery brings more of this internal data-base and our subtler mental faculties closer on-line with where we are mainly conscious from.

The more detail you can describe from your inner experience, the more you will see and the closer on-line will be that subtler part of you which has lived in this physical universe for quite some time, and which knows very well how it works and how things work."

4. "And the more rapidly you can describe also the things I will ask you to describe, the more these further reaches will be pulled on-line with where you are conscious from. For that reason, instead of politely taking turns with your partner, in effect both of you should be talking at once, this way: as one of you pauses for breath in your description, the other of you rushes in with description from his experience. As he has to pause for breath, you rush back in with further description of your experience. Do make sure that both of you do get a reasonable share of the available air time, which usually runs two minutes or so after each step I'll give you in the experience. Get as much of your own description as possible packed into every available moment in that two or more minutes because the more you describe aloud to your partner, the more and better you will see in the experience."

"--However, yours is a partnership, not a competition, so do please allow your partner enough time to speak. If you are deeply into your own experience, you don't need to give full attention to your partner's descriptions, since you won't be tested on them. It is enough just to be there as his external focus to describe to, just as he is there as your external focus to describe to."

(Setting the Stage:)

5. "Let's set the stage for our Mind's Eye now. Because our physical universe is so very large both in time and space, it likely has more worlds which are inhabited than we can count. Even if it did not, imagining that it does gives useful routing instructions for the inner workings of subtler reaches of our brain, providing our subtler faculties a way to bring their subtler information to our consciousness. Setting more of that stage,"

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6. "European world civilization since the Dark Ages is only about 1000 years old; the history of our portion of it only a little less than that and, through classical Mediterranean civilization before it, draws on a continuity of recorded experience running back only about ten thousand or so years. Yet nearly everything discovered or invented in the scientific, technological phase of our civilization has come within the last two hundred of those years. Billions of other civilizations throughout our universe, some of them resembling our own people and our own civilization and some of them quite different from us, are bound to have been, or are still, in a scientific and technological stage. Some of them may have been in a highly productive, rapidly evolving, scientific and technological stage for thousands or millions of years and still accelerating, while others may be just coming into that stage."

7. "In this experience, let's imagine visiting one such civilization, stumbling across or finding devices there in common use which would be new inventions back here on Earth. As our inner minds' way to show us new inventions, let us experience them as devices we stumble across in our inner vision, as devices in common use in some highly advanced civilization we will visit in this experience. There we'll take a good, detailed look at the device, enough detail that when we come back here we can 'copy' and rebuild it here as an invention."

8. "Because there are so many civilizations out there to choose from, we have many potential inventions out there, in fact, and many forms of any given invention to choose from. So: whatever invention we get in this experience, might as well be in its simplest, most understandable form, and in a form that is harmless and which brings the most benefit to any or all who are affected by it or involved with it. AND: we might as well get whatever that invention is in a form which can be readily built from off-the-shelf components and materials and techniques, the simpler the better - inventions we can readily construct from the resources we have immediately available. How do we get from here to the experience of that highly advanced, real or imaginary, civilization which has this most suitable invention lying around for us to come across?---"

(The Experience:)

9. "For this experience, let us use an imaginary elevator - because we are used to the experience of movement in elevators, and because elevators are partly automatic and take us where we want to go without our having to pay too much attention to the driving. Anything, though, will do to provide for us the experience of getting from here to there - car, plane, bus, train, whatever you like. For convenience, this time I'll suggest the elevator which we'll use to ride us to the highly advanced civilization. To begin with, with your eyes closed, please imagine pushing the call button on an elevator. Because the elevator is coming from so very far away and we have a long wait before it arrives, we have time for this next step - of imagining that as you're pushing the call button you are looking at the back of your own hand in that act, seeing the skin color and texture, the fine hairs, the nails and knuckles, the hints of the underlying structures of muscle, tendon and bone - notice also the feel of your hand pushing that call button....."

10. "Imagine now stepping back from that elevator door and looking at that elevator door, real or imaginary, familiar or one you've never seen before. In the two minutes or so before I announce arrival of the elevator, please use richness of detail in your description to make your elevator door as utterly real as possible to your partner, while your partner - whenever you have to pause for breath - makes his elevator door utterly real to you: don't allow any air-time to lapse between you. In the two minutes or so before I announce arrival of the elevator, please force the utter reality of your elevator door into your listener's experience by describing in as rich a detail and in word-pictures as you can, beginning now....."

(* Allow 2-3 minutes or so. Check that everyone is actually participating, but under-manage rather than over-manage, to make sure you don't intrude on anyone's process. You may be surprised to discover that if you, yourself, run a similar picture in your own mind's eye describing it silently or very softly to yourself, your group will work even better - and that this also will automatically improve the quality of your instructions to your group thereafter.....)

(* After several minutes, or when there's let-up in the ongoing buzz-murmur, lightly sound your chime or water-glass once, softly saying words to this effect, "Half-minute's notice, keep on going but a half minute from now be ready to hear the next instruction." Even said quietly, your words ride the chime sound as if it were a carrier wave. After another half-minute or so or with the next let-up in buzz-murmur, lightly sound your chime three bings, saying,)
11. "Thank you, eyes still closed, staying with this experience, moving even deeper into this experience: some of you may already have experienced the elevator arriving and if not, let it arrive now, and let's all of us step into our respective elevators now. To save time I'll describe a little about this elevator. Whatever the door looked like from outside, note that from inside it looks like there is some sort of window set in it and you can see out. When we get where we are going, you will see a color flash beyond the door. I will ask you to identify that color. Then the door will slide open and I will ask you to step out there and describe to one another what you see on all sides, beginning with what's directly in front of you....."

12. "The control panel inside this elevator has a number of buttons on it - including the 'up-when' button for moving into a future civilization, one of many possible; including the 'space' button for moving across our galaxy or across many galaxies even to the Great Wall of Galaxies, to reach the particular high civilization which happens to have for us the invention we're after and has that invention for us in the form which is best and most useful to us; including the 'down-when' button to move to possible, real or imaginary, civilizations deep in the past; and including even a 'side-when' button to move across parallel tracks of time to where our own lives, our own civilization or world, took a different turning than in our own past, and developed the thing we now seek here....."

13. "Please note, in the lower corner of the control panel, a button and packet labeled 'disengage.' Disengage that packet and imagine sticking it in your pocket. Any time you want to get back in a hurry, or leave a visited civilization without taking time for the elevator, just slap your pocket and find yourself back here on our Earth, in present time and space..."

14. "This time, let your finger rest on the 'Space' button, to go across galaxies to where a high civilization awaits your visit. If you prefer 'Up\when,' meaning the future, recognize that your observing the future necessarily changes the future and generally for the better - and that the one future being viewed is only one of many possible futures ahead of us. For convenience, though, perhaps the next time you use this elevator use its 'Future' button and for now, this time, let's go across the galaxy with the 'Space' button...."

15. "Let your finger lightly rest on the 'Space' button without pushing it yet, to make possible the convenience and mutual reinforcement of us all going up at once when the time comes. With your finger in contact with that button let's program your elevator to take you where you want to go. With your finger lightly on that button, say silently to your elevator but say it loudly in your mind, some form of this instruction: 'Take me to a highly advanced civilization where I will observe a useful and beneficial device in common use there which I can apply to my own context back here on present-day Earth.....' Say things to your elevator like, 'Take me to a highly advanced civilization where I can observe and copy a suitable device there as an invention here.' Say silently to your elevator, programming it by having your finger on the button though not pushing it yet, think loudly to your elevator some form of this instruction, 'Take me to the point of experience in that highly advanced civilization where I'll best be able to view and understand this device, technical solution or innovation in its most useful and beneficial form and in the form my resources back here will best let me re-create it back here....a point of experience where I will be best able to copy off the device in detail to bring back....' Give some form of that instruction to your elevator, silently with your finger in light contact with the button...."

(* 10-15 second pause, then continue:)

16. "Good. Soon but not quite yet, we will press that button and let ourselves experience the movement of this elevator. Because this experience of an elevator we are riding is more than a mere elevator, is instead a Space/Time Transporter, the movement we experience may be much more complex than just the movement of going up or down. Then we'll suddenly feel the elevator drawing to a stop, a color will flash through from beyond the door, I'll ask you to tell your partner what that color is, then the door will open and you'll step forth into whatever scene from your highly advanced civilization will best provide you your invention for this session. Because from inside, this elevator door is transparent, while the elevator is still moving you may even get to see some things which belong with this experience before you get there--if so, you can share these with your partner after you've arrived in the high civilization, as part of your ongoing description."

17. "For now, let's prepare to push that button when I count down from 3 to 1, on the count of '1' we will push that button, are we ready?--I'm counting down now '3'......'2'......ONE!-push it now! (lightly snap fingers or tap table or wall for emphasis.) Elevator's moving - feeling motion - let yourself feel whatever motion or motions, some of the motion might be hard to describe when we're sharing later but it's interesting to note how some of these motions of our Space/Time Transporter feel - We're arriving, feel the elevator stopping, the color through the door! What is that color? Name to your partner whatever impression of color you have. Please quickly tell your partner your color impression now!....."

(* Allow the 5-10 seconds needed for each to tell the other his respective color impression. Then continue:)

* 18. "Now let the door slide open and step forth into this scene of some remarkably advanced world. Describe this scene in richly sensory detail, make it utterly real to your partner in sensory-evocative word-pictures. Beginning with what's directly in front of you there, then to either side, then with whatever more comes into view or contact as you move through the areas of this scene - beginning with what's directly in front of you here, make this new space utterly real to your partner as you resume describing richly now....."

(* The same parenthetical instructions to you, reading this, as those following Step # 10 above. If your participants are restless at this point or otherwise not responding well, give them a minute or so, then the half-minute's notice, then cut short the experience by going back in the elevator saying, "after this first look-around, so we can compare notes before going back to this civilization to see what we can find in it." If, on the other hand, you've plenty of time and if your participants are responding well, this is one of the steps whose interval you might allow to extend to eight minutes or longer. If your participants are responding well enough for you thus to carry on further, at the end of this interval of 8-10 minutes, give the half-minute's notice as in the parenthetical instructions during the interval following Step # 10 above, then at the next let-up in the buzz-murmur give the three 'bings,' and say:)

19. "Thank you. Keeping eyes closed, perhaps moving even deeper into this experience as you move around the spaces of this highly advanced civilization in whatever form you've encountered it - whatever you've found there that's unusual or new to you, pick one to investigate more closely - or find something now to investigate if you hadn't noticed anything special before. Because you have complete freedom of your own mind, whatever it is that you find you can open it up, or go inside of it; you can expand it to bring more of it into view or make it smaller to gain perspective; you can even move it through time to see how it performs or how it was made or whatever else you can observe about it, inside and out, to discover how it works, discover the principles of how it works, and be able back here to build a working copy of it yourself. You might start by going up to it and touching it, feeling it, maybe even smell and taste it, and describe to your partner, as if your partner were 'Mission Control,' everything you can of how it looks, how it performs, how it feels to touch, taste and smell. Then get inside of it one way or another and go on from there until you and your partner know every working detail of your respective inventions and know how to build a working copy of the device. Whatever this device or object is, now go up to it and discover everything about it, as you resume describing now....."

(* Same parenthetical instructions as in the interval following Step # 10 above. This interval, too, if your participants are doing especially well, you can expand to 8-10 minutes or longer if you have time, searching for all the working detail which will enable your participants to build actual working inventions from these observations. Run the 'one-bing' half-minute's notice. Next lull in the buzz-murmur, the full 'three-bing' signal, saying:)

20. "Thank you, eyes still closed, moving even deeper into this experience-- Now please find some member of this civilization, some person knowledgeable about this device, maybe even this device's builder or inventor. For even more understanding of what this device is and how it works, let's become one with this knowledgeable person or inventor in order to share his, her or its perception of this same device that you've been examining. To do this, please stand this knowledgeable person at arm's length distance from you - with his, her or its back to you - and now please waft yourself forward into the body of this knowledgeable person. Bring your own eyes to where this person would ordinarily look from, to be this person, seeing. Bring your own ears to where this person normally hears from, to be this person, hearing. Perceive through and with this person's senses and memories and abilities. Notice the often surprising differences between the way this person sees the device you've been examining and the way you had seen it earlier. As this person, re-examine this device and make utterly real to your partner these differences in perception, coming to understand what those differences mean and how these add to your understanding of how to build a working copy of this device. Resume your describing now....."

(* Same parenthetical instructions. This step is also expandable if appropriate. The purpose, of course, is to press for enough detail to become able to build a specific invention that actually works. Cycle 'one-bing' and then at the next lull, 'three-bing,' saying:)

21. "Thank you, now return this person's head to his or her or its own shoulders now, so that you can ask some questions and get answers. Perhaps the best way to ask questions and get good answers in this experience? --Ask your questions very softly out loud, so your partner can barely hear them, but in your own head very loudly--then listen as intently as you can until you either hear this person's answer, or until this person does something or points to something for you to see, or the scene itself changes in answer to your question. You then report to your partner whatever happened, as an answer to your question. While your partner in turn is reporting to you his questions and experience of answers, sometimes you can add questions of your own without leaving your own experience, for your partner's knowledgeable person to answer. You can ask about anything, but our main purpose is to get as effective an understanding as possible of how the device works so you can easily copy and build it back here on our Earth.......
Think of the first question you can ask, whose answer can add greatly to your understanding. --Now loudly in your mind, softly out loud, ask that question, look and listen intently for the answer, report the results to your partner, take turns with your partner doing the same, and then maybe another question or so in the minute or so remaining. Ask that question, report the results, go on with this now....."

(* 3-5 minutes but expandable, otherwise the same parenthetical instructions as following Step # 10 above....)

22. "Thank you. If you've not finished you can always come back here for more, with your partner or with a tape recorder to tape your additional observations. Please return now to your elevator........push the button labeled 'Return,' and return..... feeling motions, returning with full recall of all that has transpired thus far - coming fully present to here and now, coming fully alert and feeling marvelously refreshed! Now: please take notes and make sketches of what you have observed!"

(* Allow several minutes for note-taking and sketching, perhaps a few more even for a refreshments-break. When ready, say:)

23. "The most valuable part of this experience is often the de-briefing, because in relating what you've seen to a new listener, new perceptions often occur to you or new meanings for perceptions and relationships in such experiences become clear. Take your notepad with you; let's see if you can be seated with a new partner in ten seconds! - Ten..... Nine..... Eight..... Seven..... Six..... Five..... Four..... Three..... Two..... One..... One-half..... One-quarter..... (* or whatever way to laughingly stretch out the interval if needed until all are ready).....

24. "This time with eyes open, in just two minutes tell everything that you experienced, from the moment of the color through the elevator door, on through that door into the experience and what you found waiting for you there in that experience. First one of you, telling that experience in great detail but compressed into just two minutes. Then I'll sound this chime as signal for you to reverse roles so your partner can have airtime too. O.K., with eyes open,this time one of you describing, here goes....."

(* After 2-3 minutes or at first lull, gently sound the water glass or chime a time or so, saying:)

"--Even at risk of incompletion, your partner needs airtime too, very gently switch now so your partner may also describe his experience."

(* Allow 2-3 minutes or until first lull...)

25. "Gently return to here and now; you may want to make a few additional notes or sketches, because more has occurred to you and more may continue to occur to you in the hours ahead. Now that you know the way into this Discovery Space, with fresh partners at home or with tape recorders to describe your observations into, you can revisit this Space, as many times as you like, to get fresh details on an invention already seen or to go for entirely new inventions, copying down all the details you need to be able to build the thing back here on our present-day Earth."

(* Encourage your participants to stay alongside their new partners during the ensuing few minutes of open group discussion. If things have gone well and the mood is right, orient the discussion toward the "beachhead" aspect of "Beachhead," that now each participant has established a beachhead in that highly advanced civilization where he can flash back to immediately whenever he wants, without even need of the elevator because of the connections already built up. Emphasize the diverse wealth of possible discoveries in an entire advanced world, to say nothing of using the elevator to go visit yet other such worlds. Liken the participant's situation to that of a prehistoric caveman visiting your own town and having found a wheelbarrow on this first venture, what else is there in your town for him to finCourier 10 Pitchd and re-"invented and re-"invent?" The entire accumulated wealth of not only devices but arts and ideas and genius of all of civilization is there to draw upon....)

26. "For example: right now your civilization 'beachhead' is there, waiting to show you something further that can be very valuable to you. Right where you are now, without elevator or any preliminaries, please close eyes right now and be looking at some further scene in your civilization! What's all around you and what shows up when you move around in that scene? --Starting with what's directly in front of you in that scene, please begin describing this further scene to your partner now!..."

(* Allow this to run 2-5 minutes, or longer if participants get strongly involved, but don't go as long as with the initial visit. Bringing them back after your cycle of 'bing' and '3 bings,' say:)

27. "Waiting there for you is the incredible wealth of entire worlds and civilizations, a wealth of ideas, a wealth of arts, a wealth of techniques, including even other inventing techniques and even better ways to find answers; techniques of learning; a wealth of genius, a wealth of devices, a wealth of science and technology all freely there for you to copy off and re-create back here. Visit as many times as you like; visit other worlds as well, the universe is open and free for us to explore, to create new wealth back here on Earth."

(* Determine among you who has, on this first try, come back with some workable invention or innovation. Determine which of the inventions, innovations and ideas brought back has enough detail to be made workable back here. Determine which may be used to create and generate some practical wealth in the near future. Determine if you want to work together to actualize that wealth, and if so, begin action-planning together. Or you may leave it for each participant to pursue his own devices.)

==========

Extending that thought a little further: even if, to this point, you, the Reader, have been workirs for listening and company, you may give some thought to involving other individuals, creating joint experiences together, and working together afterwards to actualize some of the wealth potential of the resulting ideas.

On the one hand you may have had your fill of waiting for other people's actions and probably desire strongly to move ahead on your own. On the other hand, if you can bring other people with you, you are much stronger, and far likelier to generate those answers, solutions, ideas, innovations, inventions, new products and services which are worth pursuing - and far stronger for pursuing them into payoff.

Perhaps your main value to each another as a group, above and beyond the other strengths, can be to remind each other to use one or another form of process for creative problem solving when encountering some issue or some difficulty en route to your goal.

But if you are already highly effective as an entirely self-directed individual, practiced at working alone and carrying your own aims through to completion, then working alone with your tape recorders is a realistic choice for you, relatively free of impediments.

If this is your first read-through and you are now wondering how you should progress further, your most obvious choices are:

1) Use a second tape recorder. Record the above group-scripted exercise on tape, with appropriate pauses. On playback, record your responses to the other tape recorder. For debriefing, write in as much detail as you can, as quickly as you can.

2) Recruit a partner as listener or possible co-learner or co-explorer. Take turns reading the scripted instructions to the other and being listener, and being the one cued through the steps of the experience. Or: both of you work from the tape you've pre-recorded for these experiences, describing your respective experiences to each other at each step. .

3) Draw in 6 or more people - preferably an even number so that everyone can work in pairs. (There is no upper limit as to how many in a group can do this process at one time--usually, the more the merrier because each pair's processing reinforces what's going on for the other pairs.) One person should read the above script aloud to the rest. The first time or so you read this script you should literally follow it word for word. After several rounds have made you familiar with the experience, you can begin ad libbing it to adapt it to variations in group and circumstances. After enough rounds of experience you will no longer need the script to conduct groups through the experience, and can create new versions of the procedure in order to pursue special goals.

Obviously, these are not mutually exclusive choices. Should you wish to, you can try all options at different times. However, your strongest chances of initial success are with # 3 above. --And of course there is the fourth choice, the choice most reading this are likely to follow--

4) Working alone with one tape recorder to receive your described experiences: First, read through the above script several times to get the gist of it well in mind. Then, take yourself through the following abridged, simplified version of "Beachhead:"

Simplified Individual Use Version of "Beachhead:"

1. Hand - visualize the back of your hand as you imagine pushing the call button for an elevator.

2. Door - describe in detail the door of the elevator while you wait for the elevator to arrive.

3. Controls - when the elevator arrives, step in, look around. Examine the Control Panel with its many buttons. Select the button for "Space" and lightly rest your finger upon it.

4. Program - through that contact on the "Space" button, program your elevator to take you to where, in some highly advanced civilization across space, you can come across, observe in detail and copy some device or procedure, which back here would be a useful, beneficial, and easily built invention.

5. Movement - once you push that button to send you on your way, allow yourself to feel movement of this "elevator" through space/time, until you arrive - the COLOR, what color flashed through from beyond the door?

6. Explore the scene beyond your elevator's opened door, come to whatever it is that you are due to find on this "trip." Explore and examine the device or procedure in every way possible, to get enough detail to be able to successfully re-create it back here on our Earth.

7. Return refreshed; debrief extensively onto paper.

================

It may be important for you (and your colleagues) to know that the first "trip" or so is the hardest work, after which inventions start coming in the necessary detail more and more readily. After a half dozen trips you will find other, additional inventions coming through to consciousness for you even when you are not in any sort of special process such as "Beachhead," during your everyday activities. Be alert to this the first few times so you can pick them up as they occur, and so that you can reinforce that behavior as it occurs using the "Portable Memory Bank" practice.

How far can this be extended? How much wealth of idea and invention and discovery can be gotten through this means? How large is the universe?!?

The group of educable mentally retarded Canadians I taught in 1979 was "exceptional" in two regards - not only the degree of their seeming lack of intelligence, because usually only about a third of people who try "Beachhead" for the first time get a workable invention or discovery from it that first time. ("Now he tells me!") Perhaps, for those retardates, there was "less in the way." However, in our experience, virtually everyone who has the patience to venture a serious-effort "Beachhead" trip three times, and the patience to go for the needed detail, who has at least a little visual imagery going from previously, will start getting useful devices and inventions until these come in a ready flow.

Many people come into this experience with some idea for an invention already on their mind, perhaps from years ago but not developed. Some of these are workable and some, of course, are not: once these have been expressed and are out of the way for their subtler faculties to begin supplying the data, apparently virtually all adequately detailed inventions by this "Beachhead" method are workable. Whether they are profitable depends a lot more upon local and general market conditions but in this version of "Beachhead," at least, a high percentage of your inventions should turn out to be profitable and a good means by which to create new wealth.

There is no apparent limit to the number, range, quality or wealth of useful ideas and inventions you can discover by this procedure. Indeed, you can make "Beachhead" into an excellent "Toolbuilder" procedure by programming your elevator to take you to a highly advanced - but this time human - civilization where everyone is a better inventor than even Tesla or Edison, and go to the point of experience which causes that to be the case. Going through whatever in that civilization makes even the most ordinary of people become inventors beyond the caliber of Tesla and Edison, you may also come back with a better technique or method for training would-be inventors, better than the method we've given you here! Let the process teach you even better processes, and there are indeed no limits!

There are, indeed, no limits!

There are, indeed, no limits!

There are, however, two sources of potential difficulty for a few of the people who read this:

1) Having the necessary patience to dig for all the detail needed, the first couple of "trips," to indeed be able to build the thing workably back here on our Earth;

2) Having the necessary stamina, commitment and drive to see an idea through to its successful realization.

For this latter, especially, involving other people in such experiences is a good idea. You can be one another's "support group" through the tasks and tribulations required before the payoff finally comes. You can encourage each other through the best of it, pick each other up from the worst of it and from the all too often unfair setbacks which dog those who try to do something positive in this world, ask each other questions and, yes, not only remind each other to specify the difficulties and to apply formal answer-finding process to them, but be audiences to one another in such process and generally. Even so simple a way as this can make all the difference to your succeeding: asking each other, at 3-day or 1-week intervals, "Have you done that next step yet?"

Also for that necessary stamina, it may be a good idea to take a little better care of yourself physically. Give some attention to getting enough rest, enough physical exercise, and enough of the various nutrients (including Vitamin C, found in fruits and vegetables), to keep the physical engine in good enough running condition to see matters through to their successful conclusion.

Also, going for very simple ideas and inventions, the first time or so, is a very good idea. What would be an invention here as simple as an advanced world's counterpart to the common table fork or wheel barrow? Sanitation? Paint? Money? Shoes? You will have plenty of time later to try for some galaxy-cruising star-drive spaceship which requires 18 materials not yet invented plus 3 major technologies yet to be conceived. Go for what you can immediately build from your resources immediately on hand. After you've achieved enough of that, then to invent a star-drive can become much more feasible (or an anti-gravity sled, or an age-reversal treatment.....)

For the simpler, more immediately practical inventions: if you've already gotten new products and services you can build, go ahead with them. If some details might still be needed, only you can do what is needed.

To reach Win Wenger, please visit his website at Project Renaissance.

New information on the latest Double Festival is available here.

This version originally published on Anakin's Brain (now Genius By Design)