Interview by Matt Laughlin
David R. Hawkins is a world-famous author, spiritual teacher and consciousness researcher, whose books have won wide acclaim and readership. His work represents the leading edge of consciousness research and the verification of spiritual realities, such as the author’s own major subjective realizations and transformation.
His prior background includes 50 years as a practicing psychiatrist, during which time he ran the largest psychiatric practice in the United States. He is a life member of the American Psychiatric Association and numerous other professional organizations. His national television appearances include The McNeil/Leher News Hour, The Barbara Walters Show, The Today Show, and science documentaries, to name a few. Radio interviews include Oprah Radio. He is in high demand for interviews in film, teleconferences and magazines, and speaking engagements around the world.
He has authored numerous scientific and spiritual publications, and books, and regularly presents spiritual lectures and seminars. He is co-author of the groundbreaking, landmark book, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, along with Nobelist Linus Pauling. Dr. Hawkins’ diverse background as researcher and teacher is noted in his biographic listings in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. He was a consultant for many years to Episcopal and Catholic Dioceses, The Monastery, monastic orders and the Zen Monastery.
Dr. Hawkins has lectured widely, with appearances at Westminster Abbey, the Universities of Argentina, Notre Dame, Michigan; and Fordam and Harvard Universities. He gave the annual Landsberg Lecture at the University of California Medical School at San Francisco. He has also been a consultant to foreign governments on international diplomacy, and has been instrumental in resolving long-standing conflicts that were major threats to world peace.
In recognition of his contributions to humanity, he has been Knighted by the Sovereign Order of St. John’s of Jerusalem of Denmark. This ceremony was officiated by Crown Prince Waldemar of Denmark at the San Anselmo theological Seminary in 1995. He has also been nominated for the John Templeton Award.
UH: (Unified Health): My vision was to spend an hour with you and ask some questions about the nature of your work and discoveries in consciousness research as it applies to the domain of health and medicine. For readers who might not be familiar with your work, if you could just begin by commenting on the observations and potential applications of kinesiological testing that you discovered and how that evolved into the Map of Consciousness?
DH: (David R. Hawkins, MD, PhD): I attended a lecture on kinesiology and tried it out on various people. It was quite interesting that the negative energy made the person go weak and the positive energy made them go strong. The source of the energy did not have to be in physical contact with the body, just in proximity. So, it was obvious that we were dealing with an energy field, and that somehow the human nervous system, autonomic system, was able to discern the difference. That was quite amazing.
I began to teach it to the staff at the clinic that I ran; we were going to use some volunteers. Now, the volunteers were studying A Course in Miracles at the time; we had an Attitudinal Healing center at the clinic for people with hopeless conditions and diseases. I expected these students of the course to demonstrate the effect of negative energies, such as looking at fluorescent lights makes everybody go weak. Well, they did not go weak. In fact, they didn’t go weak to any of the stimuli that made ordinary people go weak. I became curious about what is different about them; this led me into the study of consciousness. We were eventually able to evolve a consciousness scale.
We discovered that the level of energy of anything on the planet can be calibrated. We also discovered that it worked beyond time or place. It’s a not a local condition; it’s transmitted through the infinite field of consciousness itself. This was a rather startling discovery. The scale, which is now pretty famous worldwide, goes from 1 to 1,000 of varying levels of consciousness, which correlates with psychoanalysis and also spiritual reality, and the history of mankind, actually. It has many, many applications that are quite practical.
