Fidel Castro receives some very shocking news! Actually, halved ping pong balls cover the eyes of biofeedback guru Jack Gariss. (Image by "Life.")

The article, “Flow Gently, Sweet Alpha,” published in a 1972 issue of Life magazine, is a participatory journalism piece by Jane Howard about the biofeedback craze of the time. Howard travels to several locales–New York, Los Angeles and Laredo, Texas–having electrodes glued to her head, learning to “program her dreams,” taking imaginary excursions through cubes of metal and enrolling in a “Mind Control” course in search of enlightenment. Being hooked up to a biofeedback machine for 45 minutes cost $145. Jack Gariss, one of the L.A. spiritual gurus featured in the article, had an earlier career as a screenwriter, earning a credit for The Ten Commandments. An excerpt from the piece:

“Mind Control does not use hardware. ‘Those machines are hopelessly obsolete already,’ one instructor told the 50 or so of us in my class. ‘We’re light years ahead of them. In these four days we’ll open up a channel that will make you feel like you can walk on water. You’d better start with puddles, though, until you’re used to being at your alpha level.’

The Silva Mind Control Institute of Laredo, Texas, was founded a year ago by a visionary electronics technician. ‘None of what you’ll learn here is new,’ our instructor told us in the New York City branch. ‘But José Silva is the first man in history to arrange these ideas in their proper sequence. It took him 26 years’ research.’

Mind Control has 50,000 graduates in 50 states and three foreign countries. In four days we would be graduates, too. We would learn all sorts of things. But first we had to stand up, one by one, and say what our zodiacal signs were, what we did for a living, and why we had come.

‘I’m a Gemini and a barber, and I heard this course was really far out.’

‘I’m a Serpico and a stockbroker, and I figured all this alpha stuff might give me insights about the market.’

‘I’m a waitress, Pisces with Capricorn rising, and I’ll try anything once.'”