Customer Reviews

The Art of Smart Thinking

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This book would be an excellent read for someone that is thinking of taking the Biocybernaut Training. It reads like a long advertisement for the training which costs a mere $15,000 per module! Good history of the training with a few interesting stories of people that took it but mostly razzle dazzle. It did make me wish I had a spare 15K laying around so I could be happier, more peaceful and on the road to Zen enlightenment.

This book tells us all about the wonderful things we could do by training our brains to make alpha waves, at their facility in Santa Clara, California. All you need is $15,000 - it's ok, you can borrow it from Wells Fargo.

I paid something like $25 for this advertisement.

I guess I believe we could learn to do some of those wonderful things, but there aren't all that many of us who can spare $15,000, with no guaranty. I guess I believe it took enough work and personpower to justify the cost, but not many of us will ever be able to take advantage of it.

So, I paid $25 to find out about wonderful things that I'll be unlikely to afford, at any time in the future.

This is my first review and I am writing this to warn everyone about NOT buying this book.
The title is totally misleading , there is absolutely no practical information about how to do what it proposes , unless of course you are thinking in spending 15,000 dollars to go to their training in California, yes you heard right 15,000 dollars!!
It really makes me angry because I naively believed in Bill HArris words "about finding a way to train alpha waves without having to do the expensive training at the institute and , what's what I got?? NO onions and no garlic as the only practical advice!! it makes me laugh .
Also this guy intenion of "helping" others are just B.S cause if his interest was real he would make this technology more available to people.
The following are words by Bill HArris about this book:

"You'll discover how this process achieves such powerful
results in such a short time. And you'll learn exactly what
steps to take at home - right now in your own living
room - to start on the journey to explode your own
spiritual growth." (B.S again unless you count not eating onions a garlic as THE way to explode your spiritual growth!)

"In fact, you'll even discover how you can begin to enhance
your own alpha waves - just by reading this book."( more and more B.S. unless you really believe not eating garlic and onions will be enough) .
So in short this is the first time that I buy a brochure and a very expensive one at that.
It brings nothing to the peaople interested in neurofeedback and it offers nothing to the ones interested in self growth ,that is , if you are not planning in investing 15000 for the 7 days training

I am going to write to Bill Harris about this very misleading invitation and let him know how abusive it is to address other people NEEDS for self growth and be concern only about gains and marketing...

As a practicing Neurofeedback therapist I was intrigued by this book. It gives an interesting slant on a therapy which is currently primarily used for psychological ills such as ADD, Depression, PTSD and so on.

Hardt has some insights in to the spiritual aspects of brain-waves and he is certainly one of the pioneers in the study of how different brain waves are related to different "spiritual" states.

But other reviews which judge the book to be a barely disguised advert for his Biocybernaut Center, are pretty fair.

The book is biased towards a conculsion which suggests we do all need to spend $15,000 for the level one course at his clinic.

In reality, the Alpha and Alpha-Theta waves which are especially important to his work, are being worked with by neuro-feedback therapists like myself, all over the world. And for a tiny fraction of the cost. I charge $100 per hour and that is typical for a qualifed therapist working with a large amount of highly sophisticated neurofeedback equipment.

What is more, it is possible to learn to induce these brain waves oneself using certian techniques. But, neurofeedback is the optimal route and has scientifically proven record with many disorders, not least those needing more alpha - such as anxiety, post traumatic stress, subtypes of ADD and many more.

If you are intrigued by the ideas in this work then I would highly recommend the following as more honest, user-friendly and fact based introductions to the field of brain-wave altering procedures using the EEG as feedback:

1) Google "Neurofeedback and Alpha" - you'll find lots of interesting links

2) A great book about Alpha states and techniques to increase them is Les Fehmi's Open-Focus. Les Fehmi was the true research leader in this field.

3) A good introduction to brian wave work in general and the history of neurofeedback is A Symphony in The Brain by Tim Robbins

4) A classic on spiritual growth, consciousness and EEG brainwaves, are the books by Anna Wise. Anna is a pioneer in the field - amongst the very first in the field in the 60s and 70s to start researching what was really going on in the mind's of meditators.

5) Finally, you might even consider buying a decent neurofeedback machine yourself. They start at around $800 and four day intro courses to the subject are abundant and around a further $1000. For less than a seventh of the cost of Hardt's introduction week, you would have your own system. A life-time's exploration at your fingertips.

In short, I would probably recommend reading the above books rather than this Hardt book, and, above all, doing your research and not assuming that this rather vain work is the only way to reach EEG nirvana.

Have a wonderful journey. Brain-wave entrainment (in all its forms) and consciousness transformation is a very exciting and real field. Enjoy it. Claim it for yourself - but don't be fooled by this book that it costs $15,000 or anywhere near.

Bill Harris is a master marketer who lured me into Dr. Hardt's Biocybernaut program with his glowing personal testimonial of its benefits. I learned only later he only "test drove" it for a day or so. Dr. Hardt's center was nothing I expected it to be for $15K, but rather had a "back room" warehouse feel with what appeared to be cobbled together monitoring equipment and training rooms. It reminded me of Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. The training is grueling, numbing, and obviously brainscrambling and Dr. Hardt's follow up group sessions were, in my opinion of questionable effectiveness. Producing alpha is great in theory,but in and of itself is not the "holy grail" to happiness as suggested in the book and the program. While, I did experience some beneficial awareness and experience of both enhancing and suppressing alpha in the chamber sessions, the program is essentially group therapy with electrodes. A very expensive indulgence in my opinion, without any particular long term benefit.

Like many of the other reviewers, I was drawn in by the sales pitch ( a recommendation by Bill Harris) and disappointed to find there was no way of achieving this for myself except by travelling to the USA to undertake a week long session of being hooked up to technology (I haven't checked out the price of doing so). However, the book does reveal some incredibly valuable insights into the workings of the brain, and ways of understanding our behaviour. It's just such a pity that it can't be done without highly expensive, specialised pieces of kit. (How did the sage beings of the past ever manage?) Dr Hardt asks people to comment on what might have been missing from the book - well, how to do this for yourself would be top of the list. It's also completley mis-named - it's not an art, and it's not about thinking. Finally, the book is hard going, Dr. Hardt has spent too much time writing scientific papers and not enough time learning conversational writing. Overall, it's too high a price for something that essentially leaves you with nowhere to go

The Art of Smart Thinking is a book long overdue. To learn that there is a way to train your brain to produce more Alpha waves, which have been scientifically linked to more creativity, reversing brain age, and increasing IQ is mind-blowing. For over 30 years, Dr. Hardt has made this research his life's work - his credentials are impeccable, and he has received patents from the U.S. government for his neurofeedback technology. No easy feat.

Neurofeedback technology I might add, that has LONG been buried by mainstream medicine since the 70's (in favor of pill-popping I suppose).

After all, if we humans really do have the ability to create and sustain positive emotional states by simply learning how to use something we all already have (a brain and Alpha brain waves) then the big pharmaceutical companies would not be very happy now, would they? <wink>

Neurofeedback is such an intriguing subject. Seriously. I suppose it is natural that eventually some genius would find a way to squeeze some big bucks out of mesmerized readers. The Art of Smart Marketing, ultimately, is just a full-length promotion of Dr Hardt's Biocybernaut Alpha brainwave training program. His 7-day intensive onsite in Santa Clara sounds terrific. I wish I could afford it. At $14,999, its likely out of reach of most would-be clients. But given that his program is conducted in small groups, I suppose there are enough well-heald seekers out there who aren't limited financially. Its today's price point. If you are one of those who can scrape up the dough and make the time to go, don't bother with the book, which has no practical instruction and would have benefited from some professional editing. Still, its about a topic that has really caught my attention recently. It did keep my interest during the first skim through. It is an amazing topic and I suppose it should be publically promoted somehow. This book though, left me feeling a bit disappointed.

It's been a month or so since I finished the book and walked away thinking "not so good", but I didn't let it get to me. I just glanced at the book again, after pulling it out from under the junk on my desk. I found myself getting somewhat angry. The book's cover is so misleading. It provides nothing of what it promises on the cover, unless of course you take his course. Come to think of it, I ended up just skimming through the book, looking for nuggets of wisdom but finding only disappointment with the sales pitch. Instead I came away with negative knowledge that apparently I should stop eating garlic and onions if I ever hope to be enlightened.

The truelly humanitarian thing to do would be to make this technology readily accessible to everyone so that we transform the world, instead of a select few. Have we not learned from the modern day examples of Google, wikipedia, Myspace, etc. that there is so much more power and profits and goodness to be gained from giving things away for free and empowering people.

Unfortunately my first review on Amazon is negative, but hopefully it will send a message. And on the flip side I will do my part to provide positive reviews of those books that are truelly deserving.

Before I came into an awareness of Dr. Hardt and his technology, I didn't give my brain waves a moments consideration. All I knew about them was that they flat-lined upon death; and like everyone else, I'd seen many variations of that scene played out. This book changed that limited point of view dramatically. I now realize how important my brain waves are; and that they are, in fact, the catylyst behind everything else I experience in life.
The statement that blew my mind the most is called the "Psychophysiological Principle", which states that:
"Any experience you have as a living Human Being, you have only when you have a certain pattern of brain waves." When I read that, I had to stop and just ponder the magnitude of it. If the brain wave pattern determines every experience; and you can learn to control that pattern, then you're state of mind and the quality of your experience is in your hands. What incredible news for anyone ready to step out of victimhood into self empowerment!