From meditation and martial arts to inventing methods of scanning the body for inflammation, studying electrical skin resistance, and hypnosis to teaching people to train their brainwaves, (all while dealing with two broken necks, diabetes, and a stroke) Maxwell Cade was quite the character.
In 1969, a biophysicist and psychologist named Maxwell Cade arrived at the thing he wanted to spend his life studying: the altered states of consciousness capable of being experienced – or even induced – in the human brain.
In collaboration with Dr Ann Woolley-Hart at St Bartholomew’s Research Hospital in London, Maxwell Cade started off using an ESR (an electrical skin resistance monitor) to try to detect disease in patients before the symptoms of disease appeared. However, the two scientists realised the ESR was better at detecting temporary changes in emotions.
The ESR was used by the psychologist Carl Jung during some of his experiments into the unconscious mind, and the device passed from him to Dr Morton Whitby, who then passed it to Dr Woolley-Hart.
Cade and Woolley-Hart published a few papers on hypnosis and psychic phenomena in the 1960s (and some work on Transcendental Meditation in the 1970s, some practitioners of which had claimed to have lost touch with the physical plane, but were, in fact, catnapping).
Maxwell decided to use the ESR monitor in some of his experimental hypnosis studies, and found that gently guided hypnosis was similar in mental state to meditation. Woolley-Hart and Cade discovered that different readings on the ESR corresponded to different depths of relaxation. They claimed that there had to be a 50% relative change on the ESR before the subject could feel the first noticeable effects of a different state of consciousness, as the effect of the subject’s mental stress on his / her immune system had to be minimised.
By the early 1970s, Cade was working with people one-on-one, guiding them into states of deep relaxation and giving them empowering suggestions with a view to helping them heal themselves. It so happened that in 1973, Woolley-Hart was diagnosed with cancer, but she refused to undergo radiotherapy and instead got Cade to hypnotise her. Eventually, she said the cancer had disappeared. (She died 20 years later, from something that wasn’t cancer.)
Cade became a teacher of this ESR-hypnosis method, after using friends as relaxation subjects during trials. The meditation and “spiritual training” was improved by the usage of ESR, and further improved when combined with other technology like temperature sensors (ideally kept above 30 degrees centigrade).
At the end of 1973, Cade got hold of a single-channel EEG (electroencephalogram) machine, that could be switched to measure between either alpha, beta, or theta brainwaves. He found that alpha waves appeared during meditation, and gradually discovered the importance of alpha waves in certain Eastern mental techniques he had been familiar with since a young age. He thought that alpha waves weren’t the only requisite for meditation, as alpha waves appear during other states such as daydreaming and detachment from reality.
Cade’s Background
Cade was born on December 3rd, 1918 in Kensington, London, to a well-known actor mother and a postage-stamp-designer father. Before age ten, Maxwell was introduced to mind-training skills by his father, who would play memory games with him. During long walks together, his father taught him yoga and breathing exercises.
By age 12, Maxwell was practicing judo, kendo, and Zen at a Japanese martial arts centre in London. He studied meditation, yoga, and aikido while there, and earned a judo Black Belt in his twenties.
Maxwell had a calm, quiet demeanour, almost taciturn, and became a dedicated competitive swimmer. One day someone swam under him as he was diving and this caused him to break his neck. He spent a year in hospital, but once he got out he went back to competing and came close to swimming the English Channel.
One of Maxwell’s swimming friends introduced him to Sufi teachings.
He initially trained as a physicist and became a student at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London, but seeing as medicine dismissed Eastern ideas and practices, he studied clinical psychology instead, then joined the RAF volunteer reserve in World War II and served as an air cadet navigator. He then transferred to the Royal Naval Scientific Service, working with radar, which was a new discovery at the time.
After the war, he wrote about infrared radiation physics and astronavigation and won national awards. He did some secret scientific stuff for the British government in the Cold War.
In the 1960s, he made a whole-body scanner that could find inflammation in body tissues using infrared heat radiation. The scanner went to market and Max co-authored a book about thermography. However, before he could finish that research, a hit-and-run driver drove into him in front of his office building, breaking his neck for a second time!
After that, Maxwell published about 150 scientific papers on navigation, radiation physics, and clinical psychology in journals, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine & Royal Society of Health, a Member of the Institute of Biology & the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and an honorary member of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis.
Maxwell’s interests were extremely varied. In the 1960s, he wrote a book on exobiology (possible life on other planets) titled Other Worlds Than Ours, and he co-authored a book about ball lightning.
Investigating Healers
Soon after Cade got hold of an EEG in the 70s, a healer named Jose Pogson joined his meditation classes, and Cade was pleasantly surprised to find the healer’s brain was simultaneously producing alpha, beta, and theta waves! This began many years of studying brain rhythms and the relationships between healers and their clients. Cade found that certain other people had multiple brain rhythms.
An electrical engineer named Geoffrey Blundell joined the classes and developed a “Mind Mirror EEG” device with Cade – a machine that showed EEGs from both the left and right hemispheres of the brain using sixteen light-emitting diodes (or LEDs), in real-time. The class was excited to see the patterns of a combination of different brainwaves, as the device could track multiple frequency bands at once, and found that meditation was actually a mixture of alpha and theta waves.
Cade’s findings validated ancient practices like meditation and energy healing by showing these neurological changes.
Cade also investigated phenomena such as telepathy, remote viewing, clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, and psychic healing. He found that in certain meditative states, two people could have oddly similar brainwave patterns, even if they were separated by distance. This supported theories of non-local consciousness, an idea often used in quantum physics and parapsychology.
During his investigations into OBEs and NDEs, Maxwell found that many people who had these experiences (seeing their bodies externally, entering a state of peace / unity with the universe, gaining knowledge or visions beyond normal understanding) had an “Evolved Mind State.”
Skeptics often attributed OBE and NDE experiences to brain chemistry and oxygen deprivation. However, Cade’s research suggested a neurological signature which was different to normal dream states or hallucinations.
Cade discovered that remote viewers (people able to “see” distant places or events without physically being there) displayed high levels of Theta wave activity, similar to states of meditation / trance. This aligned with research done by the American government’s “Stargate Project” which looked at the possible military applications of remote viewing.
Over time, Cade and his colleagues (including Blundell and Cade’s wife Isabel) correlated the Mind Mirror patterns with ESR readings, meditative states, and temperature readings. They invented a map of consciousness from this and began the Awakened Mind movement.
Cade named the combination of alpha, beta and theta waves the “State 5 pattern” or the pattern of an awakened mind. He split this into 5a, a temporary awakening or “Sabikalpa Samahdi” the Sanskrit for lucid awareness, and 5b, permanent awakening during daily life or “Nirbikalpa Samadhi” in Sanskrit. The Awakened Mind pattern 5a was present in people who were very competent and interested in what they were doing – artists, creative people, TV and radio producers – but 5b was uncommon.
Even less common was state 6 or Creativity / the Evolved Mind, which Cade claimed could be present in psychics, healers, and yoga practitioners.
The states of consciousness are:
Waking Consciousness – Mostly Beta waves (13–30 Hz), associated with logical thinking and problem-solving.
Meditative States – Increased Alpha waves (8–13 Hz), which are to do with relaxation and creativity.
Creative and Intuitive States – A combination of Alpha and Theta waves (4–8 Hz), often seen in artists, mystics, and those with psychic abilities.
The Awakened Mind State – An unusual balance of Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta waves (0.5–4 Hz), observed in experienced meditators, healers, and individuals who claimed psychic or paranormal abilities.
The Evolved Mind State – A state of deep transcendence where all brainwave frequencies synchronize, often associated with mystic experiences and peak states of consciousness.
Cade then went on to use the Mind Mirror to study psychic healers’ brainwaves and the brainwaves of their patients, both whilst in the same room and also whilst they were being healed remotely. The healers claimed to use chi, bioenergy, or prana, and according to the Mind Mirror these healers’ brains were producing Beta waves (conscious focus), Alpha waves (relaxation), Theta waves (intuition), and Delta waves (deep unconscious states). It was also revealed that the patients’ brainwaves synced up to match those of the healers’.
Most healers, including some Indian swamis, showed consistent “awakened mind” states, though one healer showed stage 6, which looked like an egg shape on the Mind Mirror with a little bit of beta and delta brainwaves thrown in.
Woolley-Hart wanted to try studying cancer patients using the Mind Mirror to see if certain mental states would help cure the disease, but her hospital colleagues declined on the basis that the device needed thorough evaluation. A computer programme was constructed to simulate a Mind Mirror, but there was no difference found between it and the hospital’s own EEG.
What Happened Next?
During the last 15 years of his existence, Maxwell Cade wrote many papers on such things as Zen, yoga, mystical states, and things to do with healing and consciousness. With the help of a student, he wrote The Awakened Mind: Biofeedback and the Development of Higher States of Awareness, co-written by Nona Coxhead. This influenced trusts and healing centres in England and got attention from the BBC, which filmed Maxwell Cade teaching with people hooked up to the Mind Mirror.
Cade not only had his neck broken twice, but he was diagnosed diabetic at 38 and exposure to radar beams during his work with the Navy caused his sight to fail. In the early 1970s, he suffered a stroke but forced himself to try to keep teaching, but his speech was too incomprehensible for the class to understand him. A healer visited him at his home the next morning and “laid hands on him” and 18 hours later, his speech had cleared, though he still had issues typing that persisted for a bit longer.
In March 1985, Cade went to hospital for a prostate operation and died of shock a few hours later.
Maxwell’s only regret was not being able to convince the public that brainwave changes represented alterations in consciousness. Decades later, other researchers cottoned on to the idea.
Cade’s work influenced many different fields, including neuroscience and the development of biofeedback (which is now used for anxiety and stress reduction and performance enhancement), meditation / the mindfulness movement being more accepted in the West, parapsychology, energy healing, and holistic medicine.
The Maxwell Cade Foundation was established in the UK after Maxwell died in 1985. The foundation organised information on the Mind Mirror EEG and consciousness, and handed out his papers to people interested in his work.
Papers written by Cade on a variety of subjects are available to download and read here: https://institutefortheawakenedmind.com/books-cds-and-videos/ if you scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Sources:
https://www.mindmirrorportal.com/biography-of-max-cade/
Maxwell Cade
https://themindmirror.com/pages/resources
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/feb/11/guardianobituaries
Nightwalks 