David R. Hawkins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article.
Please improve it or discuss changes on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.
David Hawkins giving a seminar.
Enlarge
David Hawkins giving a seminar.

David R. Hawkins, M.D. (born June 3, 1927) is an American psychiatrist, mystic, author and spiritual teacher in Sedona, Arizona. He directs the non-profit Institute for Advanced Spiritual Research Inc. and operates Veritas Publishing to publish his books and seminars.

Contents

[edit] Background

Hawkins states that he has reached a highly advanced state of awareness. In his works he approaches the study and practice of spirituality by means of his personal experience and his clinical and academic background. The stated objectives of Hawkins' research and teaching are to facilitate metaphysical understanding and to confirm the reality of spiritual truth in the individual as well as society, focusing on spiritual aspects of consciousness and the road to enlightenment.

[edit] Life overview and professional stages

Born in Milwaukee on June 3, 1927[1], David Ramon Hawkins is the son of Ramon Nelson and Alice-Mary (McCutcheon) Hawkins. He grew up in rural Wisconsin. At twelve years of age as a paperboy, in winter he had a near-death experience (NDE). He served in the U.S. Navy from 1945-1946 during World War II aboard a minesweeper between June and August before Japan surrendered. After the war, he earned a B.S. in pre-med from Marquette University (1950) and received a medical degree (M.D) from the Medical College of Wisconsin (1953). Hawkins underwent five years of his own Freudian psychoanalysis in New York while he trained to be a psychiatrist to take up his profession in 1953, leading to the American Psychiatric Association 50-Year Distinguished Life Fellows honor (May, 2004).[2]

As a stated seeker and researcher of truth all of his life, he was left unsatisfied by the array of information in the volumes of the Great Books of the Western World.[3] Calling himself a “misfit,“ he gravitated toward unconventional methods privately as well as professionally.

He married Margaret Hawkins, with whom he had one step-daughter named Kathleen (deceased). Due to his spiritual conversion in January 1965 and the course of subsequent life changes they divorced. In 1979 Hawkins gave up his large practice[4] for a seven-year-period of a frugal life in Arizona as a hermit. After twelve years of spiritual study and meditation, partially earning his living as a truck driving “dung baron,“ he relearned worldly manners again to become an “ordinary man.“ Susan Humphrey, later his second wife with whom he has one daughter named Sarah, entered his life in 1991, being the one who strongly insisted that he would publish his findings.[5]

Until 1995 he had remained publicly silent about his stated extraordinary spiritual states such as his first memory, a sudden awareness of existence, at the age of 3, his NDE as a youngster, sensing the “excruciating immensity of the suffering of mankind“ at 16, and his stated enlightenment at thirty-eight years of age, which he believes terminated his personhood[6], followed by his stated unity experience in 1977 in Rothman's Restaurant on Long Island.[7].

[edit] Transition

Soon after beginning professional life as a psychiatrist, Hawkins began to suffer from “a progressive, fatal illness that did not respond to any treatments“. Generally not naming it, Hawkins has stated however that he was an alcoholic.[8] After reading Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason as a teenager he became a “passionate atheist“. He recounts that, on the brink of death in 1965, his ego surrendered, while he called out to God, upon which he experienced enlightenment. This extraordinary transition he deems as the realization of “the most innate quality of consciousness as nonlinear subjectivity and its capacity for awareness“.[9]; it altered his life completely.

[edit] Professional and public life

After a period of nine months of adaptation, relearning language and relating, Hawkins resumed his clinical psychiatry practice in New York, where he states that he built the largest psychiatric practice in New York with fifty therapists and other employees[10], 2,000 out-patients, a suite of 25 offices and laboratories, and 1,000 new patients each year.

He was medical director of North Nassau Mental Health Center in Manhasset, New York from 1956-1980; director of research at Brunswick Hospital on Long Island, New York 1968-1979; and president of the Academy of Orthomolecular Psychiatry in New York City 1970-1980.

The book Orthomolecular Psychiatry: Treatment of Schizophrenia, which Hawkins co-edited with Nobel-prizewinner Linus Pauling (1973), was influential in its time, and has the distinction of apparently being the first psychiatric text to consider the healing effect of nutritional supplementation (vitamins) on patients suffering from mental illness (schizophrenia).[11]

Hawkins was the chief of staff at Mingus Mountain Estate Residential Center Inc. in Prescott Valley, Arizona in 1995. He lectured widely with appearances at universities such as University of Notre Dame, University of Michigan, the Forum of Oxford University (2003), University of California Medical School at San Francisco delivering one of the annual Landsberg lectures, and others; and to religious groups from Westminster Abbey (1971)[12] to Catholic, Protestant, and Buddhist monasteries. According to Hawkins, he consulted for several years with unnamed foreign governments on international diplomacy to support resolving long-standing major conflicts.[13]

In 1999, Hawkins was invited by Ms. Jin-Hee Moon, whom he reports was a former assistant to the Dalai Lama, to deliver several speeches to audiences such as the Advanced Yoga Research Center and to convene with members of Congress in Seoul.[14]

Hawkins' teachings with applied kinesiology are controversial. This is evidenced by double-blind studies, plus research and reviews contained in the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. [15][16]

Hawkins' AK research has not been published in peer-reviewed journals, nor did he provide double-blind studies of his own; whereas, one study, which was not double-blind, appears to support some aspects of his theory.[17]

Scientific skeptics point out that Hawkins' claims beg the question and that he turns to the means of ad hoc hypothesis in order to rescue his alternative approach from falsification. Hawkins' version of AK (rated by him at 605 or nonlinearity) does not provide provable empirically precise statements or outlooks, thereby eluding verification and scientific method and fails to meet the criteria for an empirical science (rated by him at 400 to max. 499 or linearity).[18]

[edit] Objections to Hawkins' professional life

[edit] Orthomolecular psychiatry

The use of orthomolecular psychiatry in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses by using large amounts of vitamins is not recognized by mainstream scientists and is criticized for being an unconventional therapeutic approach that can potentially harm patients.[19][20] Two longterm studies in which Hawkins was involved within the period 1963-1983 and after have shown that therapy with neuroleptica and megavitamin dosages on more than 61,000 patients prevented tardive dyskinesia to less than 0.05%. [21][22]

[edit] Source of Ph.D.

Admitted to the program on March 21, 1991, Hawkins received his Ph.D. in Health and Human Services on September 30, 1995 from Columbia Pacific University (CPU).[23] CPU was never accredited but it was approved to operate by the State of California. CPU's approval was revoked in December 1995 after a period of review and response following CPU's application in 1994; pending appeals, CPU was authorized to issue degrees through June 25, 1997. In the same year California's Deputy Attorney General Asher Rubin called CPU "a diploma mill".

Neither in his books nor on his website does Hawkins disclose the source of his Ph.D. Claiming to be reinstalled into worldliness as an "ordinary man" after a decade of seclusion, Hawkins explains his engagement for an additional title due to the "credibility problem in society". Two "Dr. Dr.s" would grant "greater fire power to the truth" of what he has to say.[24]

[edit] Mentoring by Deal

Hawkins' CPU faculty mentor was Sheldon Deal, a chiropractor who was then the president of the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK). Chiropractic researchers who reviewed the studies that came out of ICAK concluded that “no valid conclusions could be drawn concerning their report of findings“.[25]

[edit] Responses

Hawkins replies to his critics by calibrating their levels of consciousness, which he finds to be below the level of truth (200). He further states that he has no personal bias in the performance of those or any other calibrations. He considers the criticisms of him to be generally irrelevant, and notes that many of his crticis are skeptics or atheists.[26]

[edit] Rating as a spiritual teacher

The bestselling author and motivational speaker Wayne W. Dyer is one of Hawkins' outspoken promoters, as noted in his presentation on PBS titled The Power of Intention. David Riklan, a self improvement author, rates Hawkins among the 101 best spiritual teachers[27] along with teachers such as L. Ron Hubbard and Werner Erhard.

The New England Insitute of Religious Research, run by executive director and cult expert Rev. Robert T. Pardon, has applied Harvard Medical School professor and psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton's cult and mind control criteria outlined in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism to Hawkins. Andrew Paterson of EnergyGrid Alternative Media[28] in London, Shawn Nevins of SpiritualTeachers.org [29], and Sarlo of Sarlo's Guru Rating Servie all give Hawkins negative ratings and do not recommend him as a teacher.

[edit] Quotations by David R. Hawkins

On effective change

  • "We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become. Thus, every spiritual aspirant serves the world." The Eye of the I, p. 69
On the ego/false God
  • "From the viewpoint of the evolution of consciousness, atheism results from the refusal or inability to let go of the illusion that the narcissistic core of the ego is sovereign and is the source of one's life and existence." Truth vs. Falsehood, p. 356
On teaching/teachers
  • "The true [spiritual] teachers can be seen to have no interest in fame or in having followers, prestige or trappings [...] The teachings and not the teacher are what is important. Inasmuch as the teachings do not come from the personage of the teacher at all, it does not make sense to idolize or worship the personage. The information is transmitted as a gift because it was received as such." The Eye of the I, p. 37
On his enlightenment experience
  • "There was this miraculous change. […] it is so far reaching and […] so far beyond ordinary human experience. […] Now everything is transformed. […] And there is absolutely nothing you can say about it. […] Whatever had been my individual self was struck dumb with awe. It was awesome beyond all meaning of the word to be the witness of the presence of that which is in its naked expression as all existence. […] Although the mind has stopped one is at one with all that is known. There is, in the instant, the experience with those attributes of God described as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. The power is infinite. The knowingness is also infinite. All things are known. It doesn't mean that all things are denoted by the intellect, because one would have to have an interest in such things. It is like in the presence of omniscience that all things are knowable, therefore one doesn't bother knowing about the specific."[30]

[edit] Books

  • Hawkins, David R.; Pauling, Linus (ed.) (1973). Orthomolecular Psychiatry: Treatment of Schizophrenia. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co.[33] ISBN 0-7167-0898-1
  • Hawkins, David R. (1995, 2002). Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior. Carlsbad, California; London: Hay House.[34] [35] [36] ISBN 1-56170-933-6
  • Hawkins, David R. (1998). Dialogues on Consciousness and Spirituality. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. ISBN 0-9643261-7-5
  • Hawkins, David R. (2001). The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. ISBN 0-9643261-9-1
  • Hawkins, David R. (2003). I: Reality and Subjectivity. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. ISBN 0-9715007-1-1
  • Hawkins, David R. (June 2005). Truth vs. Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Axial Publishing. [37]; [38] ISBN 0-9715007-3-8
  • Hawkins, David R. (January 2006). Transcending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. [39] ISBN 0-9715007-4-6
  • Hawkins, David R. (October 2006). Discovery of the Presence of God: Devotional Nonduality. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. ISBN 0-9715007-6-2 (Softcover); ISBN 0-9715007-7-0 (Hardcover)

[edit] Audio lectures/audiobooks

  • Hawkins, David R. (2003). The Highest Level of Enlightenment. (C). Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. (P). Niles, Illinois, Nightingale-Conant Corporation[40]
  • Hawkins, David R. (2005). Truth vs. Falsehood: The Art of Spiritual Discernment. (C). Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. (P). Niles, Illinois, Nightingale-Conant Corporation[41]
  • Hawkins, David R. (June 2006). Power vs. Force - The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, 1st Audiobook (7 CDs), Revised version of his book Power vs. Force read by Hawkins. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing.

[edit] References (literature/audio)

  • Spencer-Brown, G. (1969, 1994). Laws of Form. Portland, Oregon: Cognizer Company. ISBN 0-9639899-0-1
  • Herbert, Nick (1987). Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-23569-0
  • Wilber, Ken (2001). A Theory of Everything. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 1-57062-855-6
  • Shermer, Michael (2002). Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. New York, NY: Owl Books. ISBN 0-8050-7089-3
  • Dyer, Wayne W. (2004). The Power of Intention. Carlsbad, California; London: Hay House. ISBN 1-4019-0355-X
  • Pringle, Kevin (February 16, 2006). Ex-radio moderator and Yahoo group moderator on Hawkins' teaching, ACIM Talk at Miracles Center [42]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Biographical data of Hawkins' life provided by Consciousness Project [1]
  2. ^ APA Official Actions (Annual Meetings) [2]
  3. ^ D. Hawkins quote: “Searching for truth I couldn't find it in the intellect.“ […] It [truth] ain't there [Great Books of the Western World]. in: The Highest Level of Enlightenment, CD-series, disc 3 of 6, section The energy of life is not destructible, min 2:21
  4. ^ Webradio interview Beyond the Ordinary, October 14, 2003, min 49:00 [3]
  5. ^ Webradio interview Beyond th Ordinary, July 13, 2004 [4]
  6. ^ David R. Hawkins in Advanced States of Consciousness: The Realization of the Presence of God Volume III, DVD 1 of 2 issued by the Institute for Advance Spiritual Research (2002)
  7. ^ Quote of David R. Hawkins: “The Presence suddenly intensified until every thing and person, which had appeared separate in ordinary perception, melted into a timeless universality and oneness. In the motionless Silence, I saw that there are no 'events' or 'things' and that nothing actually 'happens', because past, present, and future are merely an artefact of perception, as is the illusion of a separate 'I' subject to birth and death. As the limited, false self dissolved into the universal Self of its true origin, there was an ineffable sense of having returned home, a state of absolute peace and relief from all suffering. For it is only the illusion of individuality that is the origin of all suffering; when one realizes that one is the universe, complete and at one with all that is, forever without end, then no further suffering is possible.“ in Power vs. Force, p. 297
  8. ^ Consciousness and Addiction, Volume II by D. Hawkins, tape 1 of 2 DVD/Video, Institute for Advanced Spiritual Research (2002)
  9. ^ David R. Hawkins, I: Subjectivity and Relativity, p. 267
  10. ^ 2006 Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame by orthomolecular.org [5]
  11. ^ Orthomolecular Psychiatry by Junius Adams, Reprinted from COSMOPOLITAN, June 1977; The Huxley Institute for Biosocial Research [6]
  12. ^ D. Hawkins on Alex Hermosillo's »The Happy Healer« Webradio Show, min 18:36 [7]
  13. ^ Luminary: David Hawkins by Shift in Action, Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), 2003 [8]
  14. ^ D. Hawkins on Alex Hermosillo's »The Happy Healer« Webradio Show, min 14:53 [9]
  15. ^ Applied kinesiology unreliable for assessing nutrient status. By Kenney JJ, Clemens R, Forsythe KD.; PubMed (National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) [10]
  16. ^ Test-retest-reliability and validity of the Kinesiology muscle test. By Ludtke R, Kunz B, Seeber N, Ring J.; PubMed (National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) [11]
  17. ^ Muscle test comparisons of congruent and incongruent self-referential statements. By Monti DA, Sinnott J, Marchese M, Kunkel EJ, Greeson JM.; PubMed (National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) [12]
  18. ^ Entry on Applied Kinesiology referring to D. Hawkins provided by The Skeptic's Dictionary [13]
  19. ^ Stephen Barrett, M.D.; Quackwatch Orthomolecular Therapy
  20. ^ Vitamin Therapy, Megadose / Orthomolecular Therapy; BC Cancer Agency [14]
  21. ^ Hawkins, D. The Complete Prevention of Tardive Dyskinesia with the use of High Dose Vitamins in 50,000 Patients, Academy of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, May 5, 1984, L.A., CA; Hawkins, D.: The Prevention of Tardive Dyskinesia with High Dosage Vitamins: A Study of 58,000 Patients, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 1986, 1:1,24-26 and Ist der Teufel im Detail der Suchtpolitik ein Geheimnis der Psychohygiene-Bewegung? Dr. med. Hannes Kapuste 1998 [15]
  22. ^ Quote by D. Hawkins: “Among 61,000 patients protected by high dosage vitamin therapy, only 37, rather than predicted nearly 20,000, devoloped the disorder.“ in: Power Vs. Force. The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior p. 213, Hay House, 2002 referring to: Hawkins, D. Successful Prevention of Tardive Dyskinesia: A 20-Year-Study of 64,000 Patients., Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, January 1991.
  23. ^ Article: "World Renowned Psychiatrist and Author David R. Hawkins, MD, Ph.D."; Web site by Columbia Pacific University alumni; (2005) http://netnotes.altcpualumni.org/?page_id=27
  24. ^ David R. Hawkins, Advanced States of Consciousness: The Realization of the Presence of God Volume III, Tape 2 of 2 issued by the Institute for Advanced Spiritual Research (2002)
  25. ^ A review of the research papers published by the international College of Applied Kinesiology from 1981 to 1987. By Klinkoski B, Leboeuf C.; PubMed.gov (National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health) [16]
  26. ^ Critics: Clarification of Consciousness Research
  27. ^ The Top 101 Experts selfgrowth.com [17]
  28. ^ A Rough Guide to New Age Teachers by »EnergyGrid Alternative Media« [18]
  29. ^ Rankings of Spiritual Teachers and Groups Hawkins entry provided by SpiritualTeachers.org [19]
  30. ^ David R. Hawkins in Advanced States of Consciousness: The Realization of the Presence of God Volume III, Tape 1 of 2 issued by the Institute for Advanced Spiritual Research (2002)
  31. ^ Quotes of David R. Hawkins provided by Best Spirituality.com [20]
  32. ^ Quotes by Dr. David R. Hawkins, Consciousness Project [21]
  33. ^ 2006 Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame by orthomolecular.org [22]
  34. ^ Afflicted by Forces Unseen? excerpted of »Power vs. Force« [23]
  35. ^ Excerpt »Power vs. Force«, Magazine »Light in Times«, August 2004 [24]
  36. ^ Power vs. Force, Kathryn M. Brinkley interviews D. Hawkins, »Light in Times«, November 2004 [25]
  37. ^ Truth vs. Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference. By David R. Hawkins; Axial Publishing Company [26]
  38. ^ Truth vs. Falsehood; Miriam Knight interviews D. Hawkins, »New Connexion«, September 2004 [27]
  39. ^ Partial Index of Transcendencing the Levels of Consciousness provided by Conciousness Project [28]
  40. ^ The Highest Level of Enlightenment, Audio series by David Hawkins et al.; Nightingale-Conant Corporation [29]
  41. ^ Truth vs. Falsehood, Audio series by David Hawkins et al.; Nightingale-Conant Corporation [30]
  42. ^ Pringle, Kevin (February 16, 2006), Audio on Hawkins' teaching, ACIM Talk at Miracles Center [31]

[edit] External links

[edit] Text links

[edit] Audio links

[edit] Criticism & review links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../d/a/v/David_R._Hawkins_b4f6.html"
In other languages