Silva Method

[Lychee]

Have any of you tried the Silva Method or gone to a Silva Method lecture? What did you think of it?

[sadavis00]

i heard a few months ago that it was a "cult"-like. But I too am interested to know if anyone has any first hand informaiton.

[justin]

My Dad attended a course in the early 90s--doubtful on the "cultness" of the course. Most of what he learned was applied to scoring decent parking spaces.

[Wabi-sabi]

Is Silva Mind Control even still around? Isn't that from the olden days?

I just looked in my bookcase and I have three Silva books but I can't even remember what it is (nor do I even care to look). Obviously the method, at least for me, did not have a lasting effect. But then, I bought three books on it.

Lesson: You know all the stuff you are really, really into today? You may not even remember what it is in twenty years. We are always moving on to the next best greatest thing I guess.

[fourthdan]

I tried it through DIY audio books. And you know what? they've ripped off ancient yoga breathing and meditation techniques which i found are far more effective. Except there's no intention manifestation during yoga :P

You'll know what i'm talking about if you've attended a program available throughout the world called "the art of living".

[mind-energy]

I've actually has taken a Silva Method course (although not one of the official). I've also read some books. It is not a cult at all. Silva Method was developed during the 1940ies by Jose Silva who was a simple man from a hard-living family in Texas. He became interested in psychology during army and being a person of high learning abilities wanted his children to study as well as he could.
So he started to experiment with them. First he used hypnosis. His hypothesis was that a person's IQ could be improved. But hypnosis wasn't good enough for him since it required the "second man", who leads you into hypnotic state. He became interested in the brainwaves research and have found that the alpha state (7-14Hz) is very good for studying. So over time he developed a method so that people could enter alpha state on their own.

It is actually very similar to meditation + visualization + intention manifestation. In the alpha state (during the meditation) there are some techniques that allow you to better "program" you for success/health etc or reprogram from bad habits etc. It's like a toolbox of meditations for various needs.

I've had some success with it both for healing some of my problems and for reaching my goals. Overall I would recommend it.

You can read more about Silva Method on my site on Silva Method category.
You can also read an interview I've done with a man who is using Silva for a very long time and very good at it:
Interview with Larry Plato - Jose Silva Mind Control Method and Silva Ultramind expert

[Acting Like Godot]

The reason why some might regard the Silva Method as "cult-like" is that it goes far beyond manifestation of intentions such as being more self-confident, or having good health, or even attracting a good job opportunity etc.

The Silva Method goes into summoning your personal spirit guides (entities which will manifest while you're manifesting and talk to you) and ESP (to the extent of medically diagnosing someone with your psychic powers and detecting whether he's got a tumour or something like that).

In one of the "creepier" Silva methods, the participants sit in a room and summon their spirit guides, and some participants will supposedly even be able to see other participants' spirit guides. Eg later they will say "I saw your spirit guide, it was an old man dressed in white and he had a mark on his right hand!" and the other person will say, "That's exactly what he looked like, when he appeared in my meditation!".

[Lychee]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

The reason why some might regard the Silva Method as "cult-like" is that it goes far beyond manifestation of intentions such as being more self-confident, or having good health, or even attracting a good job opportunity etc.

The Silva Method goes into summoning your personal spirit guides (entities which will manifest while you're manifesting and talk to you) and ESP (to the extent of medically diagnosing someone with your psychic powers and detecting whether he's got a tumour or something like that).

In one of the "creepier" Silva methods, the participants sit in a room and summon their spirit guides, and some participants will supposedly even be able to see other participants' spirit guides. Eg later they will say "I saw your spirit guide, it was an old man dressed in white and he had a mark on his right hand!" and the other person will say, "That's exactly what he looked like, when he appeared in my meditation!".

Did you go through the Silva BLS program yourself?

[Acting Like Godot]

I didn't. My knowledge of the Silva Method comes from two sources:

1. Reading about it (in the original text by Jose Silva)
2. Discussing with a Silva Method instructor.

She was asking me to consider signing up for the Silva Method course (it's just a 2 or 3 day course). I had actually met up with her for another reason - she is also a hypnotherapist - and I had gone to her for that.

She uses hypnosis to help her clients with a wide variety of problems - most commonly, addictions to smoking or alcohol; also, things like lack of self-confidence; fear of public speaking; fear of heights etc.

One reason I didn't sign up for the Silva Method course is that it seemed rather expensive. My perception of the Silva Method is that it's the early cousin of a few other more modern approaches, like NLP; and the techniques taught by Deepak Chopra.

If Jose Silva was alive today, I don't think he'd like to be known as "New Age". Basically he was a not-very-well-educated fellow from a poor family, who nevertheless had a great interest in research and experiments. In his life story, you'd see how he was also tinkering with gadgets like radios and TVs, trying to figure out how they worked.

His endless curiosity about everything led him to experimenting with the human brain - first his children's (he was attempting to find ways to make them really smart in his school), then his own ... and then, hey presto, the Silva Mind Control Method emerged.

Silva was a staunch Christian by the way. In his books, you'd find him incidentally saying that Jesus is his saviour etc. But the Silva Mind Method itself is taught in a secular way.

[NowLiveIt]

Originally Posted by Lychee

Have any of you tried the Silva Method or gone to a Silva Method lecture? What did you think of it?

Originally Posted by sadavis00

i heard a few months ago that it was a "cult"-like. But I too am interested to know if anyone has any first hand informaiton.

Originally Posted by justin

My Dad attended a course in the early 90s--doubtful on the "cultness" of the course. Most of what he learned was applied to scoring decent parking spaces.

Originally Posted by Wabi-sabi

Is Silva Mind Control even still around? Isn't that from the olden days?

I just looked in my bookcase and I have three Silva books but I can't even remember what it is (nor do I even care to look). Obviously the method, at least for me, did not have a lasting effect. But then, I bought three books on it.

Lesson: You know all the stuff you are really, really into today? You may not even remember what it is in twenty years. We are always moving on to the next best greatest thing I guess.

Originally Posted by fourthdan

I tried it through DIY audio books. And you know what? they've ripped off ancient yoga breathing and meditation techniques which i found are far more effective. Except there's no intention manifestation during yoga :P

You'll know what i'm talking about if you've attended a program available throughout the world called "the art of living".

Just because someone does not remember something does not mean it did not have an impact on their lives. Why would you buy 3 books? Why would you promote another class (art of living) when the question is about the Silva Method? Why do people use 'Oh, it's a cult' when they don't know a darn thing about it? It's a defensive mental trick to keep you from trying something new.

And as far as this stealing techniques from ancient... you don't even know the story of the research that began this process. It may appear to be the same when you haven't tried it. The truth is that Jose Silva found through scientific research the ability to train people to achieve those deep inner states of being in just moments instead of months and years of practice.

It is useful meditation that is achievable in moments. It is a way, that science is now proving what Jose discovered, to focus one's mind at the optimal level for reprogramming your life using the genius faculties of the mind.

For me it has made all the difference and I am an engineer and also a licensed spiritual counselor and have done many styles of meditation. I excelled in my career, got noticed by management, was able to accomplish tasks with much less effort, have healed, have lost weight. It has helped my partner change his brainwave frequencies so that he could get off of anti-seizure medicines. He has also stopped having migraine headaches that he used to get every few days. He has also increased his grades notably in college and it only to a couple of months to see this change. A friend of mine is using it to regenerate her kidney function that put her on dialysis for the last 3 years. And more... And more...

Clearly, there are many available systems out there however the Silva Method was the pioneer and is still the premier subjective educational system that teaches people to be creative on cue, de-stress on cue, hone intution to be effective, accelerate healing in yourself and others... so much more. There is no program that has the 60+ years of research that Silva has, the millions of graduates, the dozens of books written about it, the incurable health conditions that have been cured, etc.

Pardon my passion but this is worth every dime. It must be good since they offer a 100% money back guarantee and you can retake the class for life for free in any of the 100+ countries where it is taught. A fly by night system would not survive since the 1960s with this business model if it was not effective.

[NowLiveIt]

This spirit guides exercise is not a part of the official Silva Method classes.

It is the greatest form of flattery that many systems and teachers have 'borrowed' Jose Silva's effective techniques and called it their own. The other side of that coin is that damage has been done to the Silva Method name by these copies.