INTERVIEW

Interview with James Hardt, Ph.D., Author of The Art of Smart Thinking

Written by Mayra Calvani
Published March 10, 2008
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Describe your creative process for writing this book.

I become inspired when I am discussing my thoughts and ideas with others. And, I can discuss the topics that I have written about in my book very easily because I have been researching these topics and devoting my life to furthering the understanding of brainwaves and their correlation to positive states of consciousness such as peak performance, meditation, forgiveness, and joy ever since I was a student in college. So, to write this book in the midst of 18-20 hour days, I spent time with enthusiastic advocates and supporters of my work who interviewed me and recorded everything I said until I had enough material to organize into a book. I was lucky to have a supportive Graduate from my Biocybernaut Institute's training program become interested and motivated to take the time to put all the interview material into writing. From there it was a matter of organization and of editing and expanding upon what I had said.

Have you ever suffered from writer's block?

No, but I can relate. One time in High School when I was on the debate team I stood up to make my argument in my 10-minute constructive speech and I couldn't speak. No words would come out of my mouth. I stood there for ten minutes in front of the judges, the audience, and my teammates and my opponents and I didn't say anything. My mouth just would not speak. Also, I've seen examples of profound Writer’s Block in my research and in my practice. One time in a Biocybernaut Institute Alpha One training, I had a famous Psychologist who was also a famous writer with 16 books to his name. However, he was in severe writer’s block, and had been struggling unsuccessfully for the last 2½ years to write his 17th book. He felt that to live was to write and his inability to write had him darkly talking, privately, about suicide.

In his Day 1 of Biocybernaut Alpha One training I saw that his left occipital [ O1 ] alpha wave activity was very low compared to all his other channels. In right handers like him, I would expect the left occipital O1 alpha scores to be the second highest, with right occipital O2 being the expected highest. But for this famous author in writer’s block, his O1 scores were a distant last among his 8 EEG channels, which included O1, O2, C3, C4, T3, T4, F3, F4, which are, respectively, the left and right Occipital, Central, Temporal and Frontal sites of the brain.

In his post-feedback training review of his data I told him I knew WHY he was in writer’s block, which riveted his attention. I reminded him that, as a right hander, his left hemisphere handled logical, analytical and verbal processing. But with his left Occipital, O1, channel running a distant last in alpha production, he was not going to be having logical, analytical or verbal creativity. Writer’s block is a lack of verbal creativity.

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Mayra Calvani is a multi-genre author and reviewer. Her paranormal books include Embraced by the Shadows (romantic horror/vampire) and Dark Lullaby (atmospheric horror). She is also the co-author of the nonfiction work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing. Visit her blog, The Dark Phantom Review.
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Interview with James Hardt, Ph.D., Author of The Art of Smart Thinking
Published: March 10, 2008
Type: Interview
Section: Books
Filed Under: Books: Self-Help, Books: Science, Books: Psychology and Self-Help, Books: Nonfiction, Books: Health
Writer: Mayra Calvani
Mayra Calvani's BC Writer page
Mayra Calvani's personal site
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