Hawkins, however, has settled on the two-person arm-pressing technique because it is the easiest to do. (By definition the effect is unconscious otherwise you would not need another person to push down on the arm… you would feel your muscles weaken and the other physiological responses.) For example, if you go to a biodynamic psychotherapist (a system of psychotherapy developed by Gerda Boyesen), he or she will use feedback from your gastrointestinal track, usually placing a stethoscope on the abdomen to hear the gurglings in the stomach during the psychotherapy which is claimed signify emotional release, giving the practitioner access to the patient's autonomic nervous system and unconscious. In fact, several different forms of alternative therapy use it as a feedback mechanism to the unconscious.
The physiological effect of a particular statement on the strength of the shoulder muscle that supports the arm is chosen for its ease to test, for the kinesiology reaction is actually seen throughout the body, including changes in brain waves, pupil dilation and gastrointestinal mobility. (In reality, Hawkins' students disagree on these "objective" values and usually have to resort to having Hawkins find the "correct" value.) And Hawkins will claim, although nobody has ever scientifically verified this, that this number is as objective as a weight or height measurement, and that others testing for the same truth calibration, provided the testers and their motivation calibrate over the level of basic integrity (which is 200), will come up with exactly the same value. In this way, it is possible to get a yes-or-no answer to any question you can formulate, or determine, for example, a person's or book's truth calibration by repeatedly stating that it is above or below a particular value and then testing whether this statement is true or false, and then repeating the process a number of times to zero in on an actual value. If, however, the arm resistance feels weaker than the baseline resistance during the push down, then the statement is objectively false. If the muscle resistance to the downward push is strong in comparison to the baseline resistance when no statement is being said, then the statement in question is believed to be objectively true. This muscle test itself involves two people, one lightly pushing down the outstretched arm of the other to determine the muscle resistance whilst the particular statement is being said. This model of consciousness has metaphorical parallels to science's map of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it is not dissimilar to Ron Hubbard's Scientology emotional tone scale and The Sedona Method's hierarchy of emotions formulated by Lester Levenson, whom Hawkins worked with quite closely for a while (although he now classifies Levenson as a "fallen teacher" - link.) Hawkins currently lives in Sedona, Arizona, where he runs from home the Institute for Advanced Spiritual Research Inc.Ĭentral to Hawkins' philosophy is a simple arm muscle testing technique, borrowed from an alternative therapy called Applied Kinesiology, which he uses to absolutely and objectively test the truth of any statement, calibrating it on an arbitrary logarithmic scale of 0 to 1000 (and sometimes higher), with different states of consciousness - shame (20), apathy (50), fear (100), anger (150), courage (200), reason (400), love (500), peace (600), enlightenment (700-1000) - located on different points on this scale, forming a linear and fixed one-dimensional "map of consciousness". He received his medical degree (M.D.) from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1953, and also received a PhD in Health and Human Services from Columbia Pacific University (now closed). David Hawkins is, here is a summary: Hawkins is an American psychiatrist who has become a high profile spiritual author and lecturer.
As someone who naively believes in free speech, I could not understand how a Wikipedia entry could just disappear. This is in stark contrast to the same entry just a couple of months earlier, an entry which was substantial due to Hawkins' controversial nature.
David Hawkins, the American psychiatrist who has over the last decade been putting out a lot of scientific-sounding New Age / New Consciousness philosophy in a series of books, magazines and lectures, you will be surprised to see that his entry in that online encyclopedia is almost blank.