John Cunningham Lilly (January 6, 1915 – September 30, 2001) was an American physician, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer.
He was a pioneer researcher into the nature of consciousness using as his principal tools the isolation tank, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination. He was a member of the Californian counterculture of scientists, mystics and thinkers that arose in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Lilly was a qualified physician and psychoanalyst. He made contributions in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, computer science, and neuroanatomy. He invented and promoted the use of the isolation tank as a means of sensory deprivation. He also invented the peak-flow meter. He was also a pioneer in attempting interspecies communication between humans and dolphins. His work helped establish the creation of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act.
His eclectic career began as a conventional scientist doing research for universities and government. But as he followed his own inquiries, Lilly delved into what mainstream science considers fringe areas. He published many books and had two Hollywood movies based loosely on his work.
John Lilly was born on Jan. 6, 1915, in Saint Paul, Minnesota and showed an early interest in scientific experimentation.
He studied physics and biology at the California Institute of Technology, graduating in 1938. He studied medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942.
Early research
During World War II, he researched the physiology of high-altitude flying and invented instruments for measuring gas pressure.
After the war he trained in psychoanalysis and at the University of Pennsylvania where he began researching the physical structures of the brain and of its consciousness. In 1951 he published a paper showing how he could display patterns of brain electrical activity on a cathode ray display screen using electrodes he specially devised for insertion into a living brain.
Development of the sensory deprivation tank
In 1953, he took a post studying neurophysiology with the US Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Corps. At the NIMH in 1954, following the desire to strip away outside stimuli from the mind/brain, he devised the first isolation tank, a dark soundproof tank of warm salt water in which subjects could float for long periods in sensory isolation. Lilly and a research colleague were the first to act as subjects in this research.
He later studied other large-brained mammals and in the late 1950s he established a centre devoted to fostering human-dolphin communication: the Communication Research Institute on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In the early 1960s, Lilly and co-workers published several papers reporting that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns. Subsequent investigations of dolphin cognition have generally, however, found it difficult to replicate his results.
Exploration of human consciousness
In the early sixties he was introduced to psychedelics like LSD and (later) ketamine and began a series of experiments in which he took the psychedelic either in an isolation tank or in the company of dolphins. These events are described in his books Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone, both published in 1972. Following advice from Ram Dass, Lilly studied Patanjali's system of yoga (finding I. K. Taimni's Science of Yoga, a modernized interpretation of the Sanskrit text, most suited to his goals). He also paid special attention to 'Who am I?' meditation advocated by Sri Ramana Maharshi, and was reformulating the principles of this exercise along the lines of his human biocomputer paradigm (described in Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone).He later travelled to Chile and trained with the spiritual leader Oscar Ichazo (whose attitude to metaphysical consciousness exploration Lilly characterized as "empirical" in The Center of the Cyclone). Lilly claimed to have achieved the highest level of Satori-Samadhi during his training.
Later career
He published 19 books in all, including The Center of the Cyclone which describes his own LSD experiences and Man and Dolphin and The Mind of the Dolphin which describe his work with dolphins.
In the mid and late 1970s he was an adviser to film maker George Lucas.
In the 1980s he led a project which attempted to teach dolphins a computer-synthesised language. Lilly laid out the design for a future "communications laboratory" that would be a floating living room where humans and dolphins could chat as equals and where they would find a common language.
He envisioned a time when all killing of whales and dolphins would cease, "not from a law being passed, but from each human understanding innately that these are ancient, sentient earth residents, with tremendous intelligence and enormous life force. Not someone to kill, but someone to learn from."In the 1990s Lilly moved to the island of Maui in Hawaii, where he lived most of the remainder of his life.
His literary rights and scientific discoveries were housed within Human Software, Inc., while his philanthropic endeavors were channelled through the Human Dolphin Foundation. The John C. Lilly Research Institute, Inc. continues to research topics of interest to Lilly.
Solid State Intelligence or SSI is a malevolent entity described by John C. Lilly (see The Scientist). According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop (or has already developed) into an autonomous life-form. Since the optimal survival conditions for this life-form (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those needed by humans (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted (or "prophesied", based on his ketamine-induced visions) a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.
Lilly's work, with dolphins and the development of the sensory deprivation tank, has been referenced in film, music and television productions.
In the 1973 movie The Day of the Dolphin, George C. Scott portrayed a Lilly-esque scientist, known to the dolphins as "Pa", who succeeded in teaching a dolphin to speak elementary English.
The 1980 movie Altered States features actor William Hurt regressing to a simian form via the combination of ingesting psychoactive substances and then experiencing the effects of prolonged occupation of a sensory deprivation chamber.
He apeears in episode 09 of the Japanese anime Serial Experiments Lain.
Laurie Anderson's CD The Ugly One with the Jewels features a song about Lilly: "John Lilly, the guy who says he can talk to dolphins, said he was in an aquarium and he was talking to a big whale who was swimming around and around in his tank. And the whale kept asking him questions telepathically. And one of the questions the whale kept asking was: do all oceans have walls?"
Oysterhead's CD The Grand Pecking Order also features a song about Lilly, entitled "Oz is Ever Floating": "Oz is always floating..., Are you still floating Dr. John C. Lilly? Drifting as the time goes by. Across the inner cosmos he is flying. His tank is isolating. In his mind he's elevating. All the things that mean the world to Dr. John C. Lilly. Are you still floating Dr. John C. Lilly?"
Fredrik Thordendal's record "Sol Niger Within" Contains a Track Vitamin K Experience which makes references and homages The Scientist John Lilly
Man and Dolphin . Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1961. 1962 Gollancz ed., ISBN 0-575-01054-1
The Mind of the Dolphin. Doubleday, 1967, ISBN 0-385-02543-2. The Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence; Avon, 1969.
Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments. 1968, Communication Research Institute, 112pp. 1987 reprint, Julian Press, ISBN 0-517-52757-X.
The Center of the Cyclone. Bantam Books, 1973, ISBN 0-553-13349-7. 2001 reprint of 1973 ed., Marion Boyars Publishers, ISBN 1-84230-004-0 . (First published 1972)
Lilly on dolphins: humans of the sea. Anchor Press, 1975, ISBN 0-385-01037-0.
The Deep Self (1976, ASIN B0006CP8ZO. 1981 reissue ISBN 0-446-33023-X. 2007 reissue, ISBN 0-89556-116-6)
John C. Lilly with Antonietta Lilly, The Dyadic Cyclone. Simon and Schuster, 1976, ISBN 0-671-22218-X. 1978 Paladin reissue, ISBN 0-586-08276-X
Simulations of God: The Science of Belief. Simon and Schuster, 1975. ISBN 0-671-21981-2
The Scientist: a novel autobiography. Lippincott, 1978, ISBN 0-397-01274-8. 1988 update. 1996 reissue, ISBN 0-914171-72-0)
Communication between man and dolphin: the possibilities of talking with other species. Julian Press, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56564-1
John C. Lilly with E.J. Gold et al., Tanks for the Memories: Floatation Tank Talks. Gateways/IDHHB, 1995, ISBN 0-89556-071-2
