Hutchison Michael - Book of Floating

Copyright 1984, 2003 by Michael Hutchison

3rd Edition Copyright 2017 by Galen Hutchison

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:

Portions of the Introduction first appeared in The Village Voice, July 13, 1982. Copyright 1982 by Michael Hutchison.

Excerpt from Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning by Moishe Feldenkrais, copyright 1949 by ALEF Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel, reprinted with permission of International Universities Press, Inc.

Excerpt from an interview with Candace Pert by Judith Hooper, copyright 1982 by Judith Hooper, reprinted with permission of Omni Publications International, Ltd.

Excerpt from Modes of Thought by Alfred North Whitehead, copyright 1938 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc, renewed 1966 by T. North Whitehead, reprinted with permission of The Free Press.

Book design by Matthias Schossig, iTRANSmedia

Cover design by Sally Bower 2017 by Gateways Books and Tapes

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No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast..

In Memoriam

Michael Hutchison

(1945-2013)

Editors Note: All Michael Hutchisons author royalties for sales of this book will go to his son, Galen Hutchison.

I thought Michael was great before I ever met him. He wrote a very interesting article in a well respected, internationally circulated New York newspaper, The Village Voice, that doubled the traffic in my Beverly Hills Tank Center. Moreover, his writing style was engaging, intelligent, bright and shiny.

The people who came to use the floatation tanks as a result of reading his article were filled with information and expectations of a variety of good things happeningand they did happen.

When I actually met Michael Hutchison in New Orleans at the Second International Conference on REST and Self-Regulationthe gathering of scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs focused on the promise of the tankI thought that the floatation tank now had a valuable ally.

His main work at that time was with the Mind machines. These high-tech brain tools had proved beyond doubt their capacity to enhance mental functioning, boost brain power, and quickly produce peak performance brain states. He called the Samadhi Tank the ultimate mind machine.

We collaborated for many years, whenever we had the chance. The biggest project was our hosting the first West Coast MegaBrain workshop in our 10,000-square-foot Los Angeles factory. Thousands of eager folks came to sample the newest mind machines that were being introduced by the inventors to a receptive audience. Michael was the celebrity to this entrepreneurial group of game changers. He was going where no one had gone before. We loved him and his support.

For many years I was hearing about him a lot, not seeing him much, since he was now a celebrity speaking at all the Consciousness Conferences, leading workshops, and being recognized as one of the leading authorities in the field of brain tools. Michael was a public heroa pied piper of life improvement.

And then he vanisheddisappeared. I heard rumorsall of them bad. I heard stories of such a long run of bad luck that his survival is one of the more amazing tales of human endurance and adaptation.

Finally, he contacted me, and I was able to visit Michael in Santa Fe in the winter of 2002, and, like people do, we talked about the good old days and how big a difference The Book of Floating had made to the floatation tank world, and how much we missed it since it was gone. Michaels book, astonishingly, captured the excitement of those early years, communicated the enthusiasm of the first generation of floaters, and created for mainstream readers a broad overview of the uses and benefits of floating, much as John Lilly had foreseen them.

I thought of it first, Why dont we republish? There are so many more people floating now than there were in 1984 when the book first came out. Surely the tank centers around the world would offer this book to those coming to float, and reading the book would help to expand the numbers of floaters.

Michael wanted to add a new chapter and when you read this new chapterits the last oneyoull see the intensity of this addition. Read it many times!

As I write now in 2017, Michael has gone, and we in the floatation field certainly miss him. For this third edition of his book, I would like to remind you, and myself at the same time, of what a great job Michael did on his Book of Floating! Dr. John Lilly, the inventor of the floatation tank, envisionedfrom his researchthe commercial development of floating as an intervention to better the quality of life for everyone, and he gave usthe Samadhi Tank Companythe privilege and responsibility to do the job. He saw floating as a means of meditation and consciousness exploration, but also as the best imaginable stress buster, relaxation technology, and aid to treating BOTH somatic and psychosomatic ailments. In view of his highly developed respect for human awareness and human creativity, and his healthy misgiving about the limitations of our various belief systemshe would have been the first to say, The sky is the limit, and who am I to say what uses will be found for my floatation tank? He gave us this oneStop avoiding the Void, get nothing from Samadhi.

Thanks again, Michael, and thanks again and again, Dr. Lilly.

I hope that you, if you are a new reader or a person completely new to this experience of floating, will come to appreciate the work of these pioneers who inspired us and opened a completely new pathway through the trackless forest or, say, the ocean depths, of modern life. Try it for yourself. You have to be the one to judge.

Lee Perry, President, Samadhi Tank Co., Inc.

www.samadhitank.com

This is a book about floating atop a ten-inch-deep pool of water in a dark, enclosed chamber about the size of a small closet lying on its side. The book will present a lot of evidence that this practice is not only fun but very good for you.

Much of the information here is based on the current work of and interviews with experimental psychologists, neuroscientists, physicians, and others engaged in research into the effects of float tanks. In many cases this material is being made public for the first time. In the following pages you will learn: