Do you ever wish you were smarter, that your memory was better, or that you could reduce
your own fears and anxiety?
There’s no doubt that human beings are spectacular creatures, and yet we all have a tendency
to always want more from ourselves.
But, how far would you go to achieve that?
This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at the strange story of José
Silvadoros, the man who used mind control on his own family.
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José Silvadoros, better known as José Silva, was working in electronics, in the 1940s,
when his life took on an all new direction.
At that time, Silva had a young family, including children at school, who would soon become
key figures in his sudden and seemingly unexpected rise to parapsychology fame.
Silva’s interest in psychology in general also grew in the 1940s, before he set about
trying to apply what he knew to improving his kids’ school test scores.
And, after a few attempts at tapping into the young minds of his own offspring, Silva
became convinced that he had found a way that worked.
It would become known as the Silva Method.
The Silva Method - otherwise known as Silva Mind Control - was launched publicly in the
1960s.
Today, more than half a century later, it’s still going, although modern minds would perhaps
categorize it more as a self help technique rather than a genuine, paranormal superpower.
Nevertheless, what is the Silva Method?
And how did it grow from one father trying to control his children…
into an internationally followed way of thinking.
Into what has even been called a cult or a self-religion?
On the official website for the Silva Method, José Silva is quoted as saying; “the greatest
discovery you’ll ever make is the potential of your mind”.
This idea encapsulates much of what Silva Mind Control promises: a way of understanding
how your mind works, enhancing its output and efficiency, and thereby achieving better
results across all walks of life.
There are variously similar claims circling all around the Silva Method, with it fashioned
as though - via just a few simple techniques - you really could trigger a profound change
in your life experience.
At the same time, however, there is a lot of skepticism, with it alleged by some - including
the stage magician and paranormal investigator, James Randi - that all or parts of the Method
are wholly unproven.
At its heart, the Silva Method is about accessing what it calls the alpha level.
At this level, it’s said that you can better access the right side of your brain, which
better fuels your creativity.
In doing this, advocates claim that you can enter a meditative state where solutions become
simpler to see, and where worries become easier to ignore or overcome.
On its website, the Silva Method further suggests that it has all to do with the frequency of
brain activity - of the electrical impulses that are constantly firing through the neurons
and connections of our minds.
It’s said that for most of the day, our brains operate at Beta frequency, but that
whenever we’re daydreaming, or when we’re close to falling asleep, our brainwaves slow
into the alpha region.
This, according to the Silva Method, is the optimum region for getting stuff done.
There are even suggestions that the alpha mind is capable of receiving guidance from
a higher plane, as part of rare but complete enlightenment.
Back in the 1940s, the alpha level is what Silva was reportedly trying to get his children
to work within…
with apparent proof of its success in their gradually improved exam grades.
For those at the alpha level, it’s claimed that visualization is key.
While the usually prominent left brain is guided by logic and reasoning, the suggestion
is that it can sometimes be freeing to move away from that rigidity.
Exactly how that visualization takes shape isn’t clear, but then again perhaps it’s
different for everybody once our right brains are given free reign to run riot.
Regardless, how does the Silva Method reckon you might reach this apparent higher level?
In fact, there are a number of tips and techniques put forward, with many crossing over into
the more stereotypically practiced methods of meditation.
Slow and deliberate breathing; a focussed emptying of your mind; embracing silence,
if you can.
Something called the “three finger technique” is probably the Silva Method’s most well-known
and lasting export, though.
Again, José Silva is said to have taught his children to follow it, and really - physically
speaking - there’s not a lot that needs to be done.
Take your index and middle fingers on both hands, press them into your thumbs with slight
pressure, and wait.
You might close your eyes in the meantime, trace circles with your thumbs against your
fingers, but the Silva Method says that by simply doing this you can vastly improve your
chances of accessing the alpha level.
It supposedly works like a trigger toward the alpha state.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Silva Method has come in for a good deal of criticism in its
fifty-year-plus history - and not only from James Randi.
At one end of the spectrum it might be called simple wishful thinking, at the other end
it’s been labeled a full-blown scam.
With seminars and courses for students to follow, there is a lot of money involved…
and, the more cynical point of view is, really, that’s all that matters.
Whether or not making money had been José Silva’s original goal is impossible to know,
but the origin story is another point of contention for those who remain unconvinced.
Silva had been living and working at a very different time, when many things that we now
understand… were then being interpreted as paranormal events.
Perhaps his children’s test scores simply improved with their age and education.
Maybe his apparent insistence upon making them smarter was enough to improve their focus,
in itself, no mind control necessary.
Ultimately, as a business model at least, the Silva Method is a success.
It’s still here many decades after it first formed, with many of its students and followers
thoroughly convinced that it has had a major and lasting effect on their lives.
But what’s your verdict?
Is this the real deal or a shameless hoax?
With or without the Silva Method, could there be anything to the idea of an alpha level
for our brains?
Have you practiced the Silva Method before, and how did it work for you?
Let us know in the comments!
One thing that certainly is clear is that, as we move through the twenty-first century,
there is a greater and greater emphasis on truly understanding how the mind works.
The brain has before been called the most complex single structure in the entire universe,
but science is working to unravel its mysteries.
For example, it’s often (though usually erroneously) claimed that we only ever use
ten percent of our brains.
That may or may not be true, but we do know that we could at least use our brains more
effectively and efficiently than we currently are.
Lapses in memory are all too frequent for human beings; deeply ingrained biases dictate
how we see the world; our sensory skills are good, but there are countless examples across
nature of creatures that can see, hear and smell better than we can.
Our brains are clearly impressive, then, but they could still be better.
With this in mind, and as we saw in another recent video, scientists and technicians are
now making great strides toward neural implants and AI enhancements.
There are multiple, international projects in the pipeline to restore sight to the blind,
for example, or to bolster our memory capacities.
The bridge between the organic brain and the artificial computer is now being walked, and
it remains to be seen exactly how those two things will meet and merge.
In a future time, then, will any of the Silva Method still be relevant?
Or might science have harvested the bits that it needs - like the apparent benefits of the
so-called alpha level - and installed them into its own, tech-driven techniques?
What do you think?
Today, for some, the Silva Method is a genuine way of life.
In the future, it might become a forgotten or deeply specialist approach.
But, in the past, when it began, it was developed as part of a highly unusual story…
where one man, José Silva, really did use mind control on his own family.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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