In New Jersey, I first took the Silva Method in 1977, after reading the Power of Alpha Thinking by Jess Stearn. I would say the Silva Method has been a foundation for my life the last 30 or so years. In fact most of my family has also taken the course. It gave me a great sense of confidence to believe things could turn out well if I just went for it and took the leap. It was, I believe, one of the first courses around on the power of positive thinking.  The secret was not a secret then.

 Jose Silva, had said the parents of the course were yoga and hypnosis. The course taught the yoga meditation practices of Self Mastery, to being aware of our thoughts and consciously put effort into changing our habit patterns, so we could live up to our fullest potential.

 At that time the course was set up as two full weekends. The course was based on learning how to access areas of the brain that  were more powerfully impacted through our intentions. He called it , “going to level.” At that time the word meditation scared many people off.  The practice of “going to level,” continued and deepened as the four days went on.  Then we learned techniques we could use, while at level.  These included, deep relaxation,  stress control, going to sleep without drugs, waking up without an alarm clock, remembering and receiving guidance in our dreams, getting rid of headaches or pain without aspirin, using mental anesthesia, losing weight, quitting smoking or any other habit, self-healing, and increasing our ability to develop our resource for inner guidance and intuition. Oh yes, and of course improving your memory, which was one of my favorite techniques.

Jose Silva, the creator of the course was a great humanitarian. Before coming out of level, we would imagine ourselves viewing all of humanity, depending on their ages, as fathers or mothers, sisters or brothers, or sons or daughters.

Graduates of the program were invited to come back and repeat the course for free. This was a great benefit that I used many times. It allows one to get a Silva tune up and also allows the first timers to hear success stories from the graduates.

I fell in love with the course the first time I took it and felt I wanted to become a teacher of the course, which I did six years later. In the mean time I had lots of preparation to do before I would be ready to teach. 

So life took me on a journey, and the next step will be in the next blog post.

Silva is still around and I continue to repeat classes, the last one being in 2012.

Check out their website they have some free offerings. http://www.silvamethod.com