Silva Mind Control – Program 3

By: Jose Silva, Dr. George DeSau, Dave Hunt, Dr. John Weldon; ©1986

Did Jesus come to help us find the kingdom of God within us? How Does Jose Silva define the kingdom of God?

Finding the Kingdom of God

Ankerberg: Welcome! Thanks for joining us tonight. We’re talking about the Silva Mind Control technique which more than six million people have taken in how many countries?

Silva: Seventy-one.

Ankerberg: Seventy-one countries. And Silva claims that any person who will take their 48-hour course, about four days, will develop psychic powers; guaranteed. You will be able to enter an altered state of consciousness; you’ll be able to tap into higher intelligence; you’ll become psychic, clairvoyant. You’ll be taught how to invite counselors or psychic guides into your mind and be able to tap into the minds of other men, alive or dead.

Tonight, though, Jose has said in his book, and let me just quote him, and then, Dave, I’d like you or John to answer this question. You say that, “Rabbi Jesus was assigned by Almighty God of the Universe to Planet Earth to teach humanity in a step-by-step procedure how to look for and find what is called the kingdom of God within us all.” You say, “Jesus called this kingdom a heavenly kingdom of God, or just a kingdom of heaven.” I’m quoting you now. “From there on, Rabbi Jesus would say, ‘For you to do what you have seen me do, you must first seek the kingdom of heaven that is within you and function within God’s righteousness and everything else will be added unto you.’” All the psychic gifts and so on. You say that, “The method you use to accomplish the entering of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus talked about and promoted is the Silva Mind Control Method.” Before we come to you, Jose, David, do you believe this is what Jesus was teaching?

Hunt: Well, I think Jose has done what Joseph Smith, or Mary Baker Eddy or a lot of other people have done, and that is to say that “I have the inside track on what Jesus was really saying and nobody else really has, but here’s what it is after all these centuries. And it happens to be Silva Mind Control. And isn’t that remarkable that these are the keys to the kingdom.”

Now, George has said that it is rather arrogant to say that “My interpretation of the Bible is the right one.” I will give Jose credit that he does say in his book that he is not sure. But I think that we’re going to have to look at the Bible. It’s the Word of God. We’re going to have to look at what Jesus said. And when He said, “The kingdom of God is within you,” [Luke 17:21] He certainly wasn’t meaning that the Pharisees to whom He was talking, who were rebels, were part of this kingdom of God or that the kingdom of God was within them, because the King wasn’t reigning with them. In fact, He said in John 8:44 to a number of the rabbis and the Jews, He said, “You are of your father, the devil.”

And as far as that kingdom being upon this earth, He talked about His Father’s house where there are many mansions and He said, “I am going away to prepare a place for you, and if I go away, I’m going to come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there you may be also.” [John 14:2-3] And the Bible talks about a literal heaven and a literal hell, not just a state of mind within the human being that you can change by getting into alpha level or operating from your right hemisphere of your brain.

Ankerberg: Jose, what would it take if somebody wanted to say there’s evidence that Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Bible, did not teach what you say that He’s teaching? If it could be proved that that is true, what would that do to what you are teaching?

Silva: First of all, John, I’m speaking from my own personal concepts, okay? Because of the years of research involved in this field, that Jesus came to give us a message to correct the problem of human development on this planet. Because Moses didn’t do it and Noah didn’t do it, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob didn’t do it, all the others—Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad—didn’t do it. So Jesus finally came to straighten out their mess and problem, in my point of view. The people were developing the use only of the left brain hemisphere when God gave us also the right one to use for thinking with. And the right brain hemisphere is intuitive, is spiritual, intangible brain hemisphere. The right brain hemisphere reigns in the spiritual world, the invisible, intangible world of the mind, and the left one reigns in the visible, tangible world of body.

Ankerberg: Okay, and Jesus was the One that came to teach us that?

Silva: So He gave us the keys how to do it.

Ankerberg: Okay. That was His idea.

Silva: Notice He said to Peter—not to John, not to Jacob or anybody else, He didn’t say this to Paul, either—He said to Peter, “To thee I give you the keys to enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Matt. 16:19] Now, if you go by the Matthew’s translation, it says “heaven” not “kingdom of God.”

Ankerberg: You know why it says that?

Silva: This is what the interpretation….

Ankerberg: Well, Matthew was written to the Jewish people and they didn’t like to use the name of God so he used the kingdom of “heaven” there. And Luke, written to the Gentiles wrote the kingdom of “God.” Same thing, though.

Silva: Well, I’m saying this, John. A kingdom is a complete dimension of its own. The kingdom of music: seven notes; the kingdom of pure white light: seven colors of the rainbow; the kingdom of the body’s function on planet earth: seven chakras. And on and on and on. So here we have the cycles of alpha, seven to fourteen, as the inner kingdom within us. And a kingdom, heavenly, is intangible. The word “heaven” is intangible, spiritual.

Ankerberg: Jose, let me ask you this. Most people, when they hear you say, and here’s your quote that you said: “When we enter the kingdom of heaven, once there we become centered and have access to the use of the right brain hemisphere.”

Silva: Both of them.

Ankerberg: “The first time we enter the kingdom of heaven and start for the first time to use the right brain hemisphere to think with, it would be like being born again. This would truly be the concept of being born again.”

Silva: Shall I explain on that now?

Ankerberg: Well, the first thing I was asking is, I’ve never seen a verse that Jesus said we need to use the right brain hemisphere.

Silva: Well, I mean, did He have an EEG then, you see?

Ankerberg: But I mean, do you have the information. Where did He….

Silva: We didn’t have scientists then, did we?

Ankerberg: No, but we do have what He said.

Silva: So He wouldn’t have come up with electroencephalograph.

Ankerberg: But I’m saying that you are saying you got this information from Jesus, and I’m saying, where did Jesus say that?

Silva: I’m saying that I got the information that you have to go within your own self, a kingdom within you. We find the seven cycles which is a dimension, a full dimension of alpha it’s called. And this is where the connection to the right brain hemisphere is. This is the second anabolic cycle of human development: the first seven years is one, the second seven years the second one. Anabolic cycle means growth processes in your body. This is where the mind functions deductively. Before one year to seven, mind functions only inductively. Before seven to 14 the mind starts functioning deductively. The analytical processes come in, the human intelligence comes in. This is the center using the right brain hemisphere. The being “born again” means “Go back and retrace your steps and pick up the use of the right brain hemisphere like you did when you were born originally.” Now, when you get to use both brain hemispheres, that is really being born again.

Ankerberg: Jose, are you aware of the latest research in psychology and in parapsychology concerning the two hemispheres?

Silva: I don’t know which one you mean.

Hunt: Could I address that?

Ankerberg: Go ahead.

Hunt: In Psychology Today of April 1986 there is an article entitled “Neuro-Babel” by Lawrence Miller. He’s a neuropsychologist at Seton Hall University. And he calls the idea of “left-brain, right-brain thinking simplistic, potentially misleading.” He says, “It’s pseudo-scientific.” And, in fact, he calls it “whole brain half-wittedness.” Now, in Psychology Today….

Silva: That’s his concept.

Hunt: Right. In Psychology Today, May 1985, an article by Jerry Levy, a biopsychologist at the University of Chicago, the title of that article is “Right-Brain, Left-Brain: Fact or Fiction?” And again he says, “It’s a pseudo-scientific idea that people have taken some ideas of Roger Sperry for which he got the Nobel Prize and they have popularized this and they have drawn conclusions from it that are not true.” The same thing, March 28, 1983, Marilyn Ferguson’s Brain/Mind Bulletin. And I was talking with Dr. Bobgan this morning out in Santa Barbara. He’s been following the latest research; that’s why I called him, because he’s right up to the minute. And he says the major people who are now attacking this thinking are the ones who were involved in supposedly discovering this. And they’re saying that there is no evidence that people favor one portion of the brain or other. That’s pure speculation. And exactly what each hemisphere is used for is speculation; that the latest scientific findings do not support this. And I don’t think that Jose was attributing this to Jesus until these people came along with their theories, and now I think the rug may be being pulled out from under him because the scientists are beginning to backpedal.

Ankerberg: Dr. DeSau, why don’t you comment there? This is your area.

DeSau: Well, again, I am just wondering at David’s generalizations: “All scientists.” Sperry was the individual who did the split brain work and he did, correctly attributed, receive the Nobel Prize for that. Some of the other people mentioned have worked with Sperry. I think their objection is the continuing on and over-popularizing. There is no question in the research that different sections of the brain serve different functions. Now, I can’t understand the statement that that’s not so.

Hunt: Well, that’s what the latest research says. But even beyond that, I have a larger problem; and that is, we are dealing with a matter of morals. We’re dealing with sin. We’re dealing with the evil in the human heart. We’re dealing with selfishness, with lust and ambition. And those things are not a matter of brain waves or which side of your brain you’re functioning from or going down to alpha level. I think that that is a great delusion that is being promoted by Silva Mind Control: honestly and sincerely, but nevertheless, I think wrongly.

Silva: I’d like to answer him personally.

Ankerberg: Okay, go ahead.

Silva:’ He talks about what the scientists are saying. Before we came on the scene, John, all the scientists were saying, “These guys are crazy.” They’re crackpots—well, they didn’t call us crackpots, they called us “psycho-ceramics,” which means the same thing, you know. But then again, there is no way you can control alpha frequency brain waves. There is no way. You have to be in a state of reverie to produce alpha. So we finally took it to the university level, the department of psychophysiology, and ran some experiments here with medical students. It was proven, the paper came out from England, that we were correct in what we were saying. Scientists changed their mind immediately. “Yes, we can control brain waves.”

Now, you see, they don’t criticize us with their remarks. Scientists did not know this. The great big name scientists say we were way out in left field, you see. Well, could they be wrong again? They don’t want to commit themselves to say pointblank we don’t know what we’re doing, because we’ve proved them wrong once. Now, he says that we are causing delusion. If we are using delusion to solve problems, we are going to use more delusion, okay? The idea is that we need to solve problems regardless of whose problem it is, we need to solve it, we need to convert this planet to a paradise. We have not done it to date.

You sometimes wonder about the value of information, what value are the Scriptures? Is it just words? He mentioned before I said it didn’t matter whether Mary was a virgin. I didn’t say this. I said, “Why should we continue to argue whether she was a virgin or not? What kind of problem are we going to solve if one way or the other?” Did Jesus walk on water or not? What kind of problems are we going to solve whether He did or not? We’re not going to solve any problems. Why should we keep on arguing about this? Why not get down to basic fundamentals and solve problems, real problems, that are plaguing humanity? We seem to be going in the wrong direction, and we can tell, in every nation and so forth.

Ankerberg: I appreciate that, and let me respond to it. And then I’m going to turn it over to the guys. And that is that one of the things on your book here, an award-winning book here, that was selected by Psychology Today, one of the things that you’ve taught your students is that “As science progresses and comes on the scene, we will learn new things and discard the old theories.” Now, they promoted your book back in 1978 when it came on. But now you’ve got the new research that’s being published by the same people that published your book, and they’re saying that the new research shows that some of your conclusions are wrong. Now, won’t you be honest enough to use that data and move on?

Silva: John, now wait a minute. What people that took part in this book are saying that?

Ankerberg: Well, we just quoted three of them….

Silva: They are not quoting this book. They’re not our scientists.

Ankerberg: No, they’re not quoting this book. They’re quoting about the right-brain hemisphere research.

Silva: But not the same scientists who were approving of our work. They never have approved our work.

Ankerberg: It sounds to me, Jose, and maybe, David, you would want to comment again, because you read those scholars to us. Here you have science continuing to go on, and it is simply saying that some of the things that are in this book are not true.

Hunt: Well….

Ankerberg: Or am I wrong?

Hunt: That’s what I said. But what I said beyond that, and I think we really ought to move beyond because we can have our arguments about scientific research and their differences of opinion among the scientists…

Silva: That’s right.

Hunt: Therefore, I think we have to admit we don’t have a solid scientific foundation. But beyond that, Jose still hasn’t answered this matter of “guilt.” If you are really guilty of doing something, do you just change your brain waves and that takes care of it? The big problem is sin. It’s the human heart. And that, I don’t think he’s dealing with. Furthermore,…

Silva: Let me answer it, Dave.

Hunt: Let me make one other statement. Furthermore, we’re talking about scientists and we’re talking about Roger Sperry, a Nobel Prize winner. There’s another Nobel Prize winner out there, his name is Sir John Eccles. He also received a Nobel Prize for his research on the brain. And he describes the brain as “a machine that a ghost can operate.” What he means by that is in a normal state of consciousness, you are operating your brain. But in an altered state of consciousness, the normal connection between you and your brain is loosened. That allows another entity to interpose itself and begin to tick off the neurons in your brain and create an entire universe of illusion. And as John says, it leads down a particular path that ultimately denies the basic teaching of the Word of God. And I’m very concerned about who these entities are. And they are not solving the problem of sin and guilt in the human heart.

Ankerberg: Okay, Jose, what about this thing of guilt? Let’s come back to the fact of that when they’re in this altered state of consciousness, what do you tell them about real guilt?

Silva: It depends on what guilt means to you. If you mean a guilt complex….

Ankerberg: A man divorces his wife because he committed the adultery. Somebody commits murder. Somebody steals. Somebody commits fraud. Real guilt.

Silva: I believe—and this is my personal concept, again, John—what I believe sin is is an error because of ignorance. If we knew better as what to do, we wouldn’t commit sin, meaning going against God’s desires. Now, what is against God? Destroying God’s creation and causing problems for God’s creatures. Now, we venture into this, and we usually do it because of ignorance, not knowing any better, because we are using only the left brain hemisphere and we are more animal-like in responding than human-like responding. We are not that much spiritually evolved. The right brain hemisphere is the spiritual hemisphere that reigns in the spiritual world and the left one is the one that reigns in the physical world. So then if we commit a sin it means we made a mistake because we didn’t know any better. That’s what I call a sin.

Ankerberg: How do you get rid of that real guilt then?

Silva: Learn to use the left brain hemispheres. Now, if you’ve done it before and you want to get into your level and apologize, now you know better.

Ankerberg: John, maybe I can have a comment from you.

Weldon: Jose, you mentioned that sin is going against the will of God.

Silva: That is correct.

Weldon: And yet how do we know what the will of God is? The Bible is the Word of God and in the Bible it states that we are to avoid all forms of necromancy and spiritism.

Ankerberg: And what’s necromancy?

Weldon: Contacting the dead.

Silva: Wait a minute. You are going into several different areas. He’s blending several other subjects.

Weldon: I’m just trying to determine what exactly is the will of God. Is it God’s will really to contact the dead or not. And God says it is not His will. It is an abomination to Him. [Deut. 18] The issue of guilt and real guilt feelings is such that people have guilt feelings because they are truly guilty before an infinite God who does hold them accountable. The issue of sin is much deeper ingrained in human nature than to just say that it is something that, you know, we committed some sin or evil because we didn’t know any better. There’s a deliberate rebellion on the part of people against God. Jesus said that man hated the light and they loved the darkness because their deeds were evil and because they did not want to come to the light to have their deeds exposed. The issue of sin and guilt is something that every person has to face, and I don’t think that Jesus came to really give us the means to some form of inner or psychic development. He said, “I came to give my life a ransom for many” [Mark 10:45] and He said, “This is the blood of my covenant which is shed on behalf of many for forgiveness of sins.” [Matt. 26:28] There is only one way.

Ankerberg: Jose, you’ve said in your book that you are still a Roman Catholic, that’s correct, isn’t it?

Silva: That’s correct.

Ankerberg: Okay, so you believe in Jesus dying on the cross, shedding His blood for the sins of the world, including yours. Or don’t you?

Silva: Well, you see, the interpretation that we give the Bible, John, I think we are interpreting the Bible wrong. That’s my personal view.

Ankerberg: Do you interpret it the way the Roman Catholics do?

Silva: That’s right. I think I’m in hot water for saying that, you know.

Ankerberg: Well, I’m just asking you if that’s….

Silva: But I’m saying because I have to say what I feel, okay. So then I’m saying this. Why do we think that we’re interpreting the Bible wrong? Because, alongside the Old Testament, we continue to war against each other and cause destruction to God’s creation and His creatures. Alongside the New Testament, we continue creating problems, warring against each other, not trusting one another and hurting each other too. Destroying God’s creation, again. Something is wrong, because it’s getting worse and worse instead of better and better. So what is this wording, these particular interpretations? If it were correct, we probably wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in right now. That’s what I’m saying.

Ankerberg: We’re going to pick this up a little bit more and we’re going to go into a little bit more of the scientific research next week. Dave, maybe a final word from you as you’re sitting and listening.

Hunt: Well, the Bible is very consistent from Genesis to Revelation. And I’ve read Jose’s statements about, you know, that, “Somebody who died 1900 years ago or 2000 years ago, his blood cleansing us from sin and so forth, that doesn’t help solve problems today.” That does solve the basic problem. If you’re going to throw that out, you’re going to have to throw out all the Old Testament sacrifices that looked forward to the coming of the Lamb of God. You’re going to have to throw out the statement of John the Baptist who said, “Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sins of the world.” [John 1:29] You’re not just throwing out a few little things that were said here and there. You’re throwing out the whole Bible.

Ankerberg: I thank you, gentlemen, for this week and we’re going to pick this up right here and we won’t forget it and I hope that you’ll join us. Stick with us next week.

Silva Mind Control – Program 4 Read Part 4