John C. Lilly is one of my favorite “alternative” scientists. His popularity has waned significantly since his death in 2001, even as his contemporaries like Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna have continued to have strong followings. Still, Lilly’s admittedly outrageous ideas and prophecies are worth remembering, not because they are necessarily true, but because, like all mythologies, they give us insight into the consensus reality.

A medical doctor with a background in hard science, Lilly spent most of his adult life studying the human mind, especially his own. He is known for being one of the early scientific cartographers of human consciousness. He’s also known for inventing what is now called the float tank, a device I’ve documented at length.

Lilly was what you might call a “psychonaut,” literally translated from Greek as a “sailor of the soul.” By isolating himself in the float tank and taking a large amount of psychedelic drugs, Lilly wanted to understand the mysteries of existence.

He used psychedelics like LSD in his float tank to produce deeper and more profound visions, but his preferred drug was the anesthesia Ketamine. “Seeing things” after a few hours in a float tank is not uncommon, but with the use of Ketamine, he was able to radically increase the intensity of these visions.

While floating under the influence, Lilly claimed to become aware of a cosmic hierarchy of aliens. He called one group the Earth Coincidence Control Office or ECCO. (This and Lilly’s other ideas later became the inspiration for the Ecco The Dolphin video game series.) Lilly’s contact with extra-dimensional beings is similar to those described by Harvard medical professor John E. Mack and his books on alien abductions — specifically, that aliens are not necessarily physical entities driving around in spaceships, but trans-dimensional spirits with an interest in human activities.

According to Lilly, the ECCO aliens use their powers to alter events on Earth, specifically through the use of carefully crafted coincidence, to guide some human beings toward higher levels of consciousness. The intent of these aliens, Lilly says, is to help humanity evolve in a peaceful and healthy way. Interesting as his experience or delusion may be, this is not his most important contribution.  Read More »