Welcome to Isolation Tank Gnosis, or ITG for short. ITG as a practice is based on these beliefs:
- The power of isolation: I believe that all I need to perfectly free, happy and enlightened is to be alone.
- The power of the isolation tank: Floating in an isolation tank for 8 weeks was adequate for Harry Palmer to achieve enlightenment.
- The power of personal investigation: I must see this for myself. I cannot rely on the past achievements or writings of anyone to confirm or deny the efficacy of this approach to enlightenment.
In short, you can see that ITG is all about you: using your self to find The Self. John C. Lilly referred to this as “The Gnostic Viewpoint.” Certainly, there are many definitions and lineages of gnosticism. This particular lineage of gnosticism, known as Isolation Tank Gnosis, was implicitly codified during an interview between Dr. Jefferey Mishlove and Dr. John C. Lilly where the following exchange took place:
MISHLOVE: And you seem to be saying that it’s up to each person to in effect make the same bridge that you have, and to create their own belief system, so that in creating that belief they can move into the state that that belief leads them to, so that they can then discard it again.
LILLY: That’s the gnostic point of view — self transcendence, not transcendence through a church or a group.
The implicit formation of this flavor of gnosticism has been explicitly codifed by Terrence Brannon via this text which has 3 major parts:
- The practice section is the first and most important part. It provides the precise instructions for THE SINGLE RITUAL in Isolation Tank Gnosis.
- The service section is only for people interested in offering practice sessions to others.
- The theory section gives a bit of background on what motivated the founder of ITG to establish this religion.
