Personal development and spirtual growth is something that interests me very much. Our society is becoming increasingly information and technology focussed. And much of our time is spent gathering qualifications, courses for developing initative, learning leadership, time management and a host of other activities that occupy our thinking mind. This leaves little time is free to develop, calm, and live our own life. We all need a way to release the clutter of our daily business.

Having looked at The Sphinx of Imagination as a calming experience -- and very good it is- , it is with great interest I found the Holosync (R) Meditation -- Awakening Prologue -- by Centerpointe.

A quick look at their websites reveals the purpose: ‘Guaranteed to produce deep, super-pleasurable meditative states, razor-sharp thinking, quantum leaps in self-awareness‘.

Bold claims indeed.

And with a price of $179 I’m expecting good shit!

Let’s begin…

At this point I’d rather test it out -- not knowing anything about what it’s claimed to do. So I haven’t read the website.

Holosync Awakening Prologue has 5 tracks: Introduction, The Dive, Immersion, Quietitude, and Oasis.

Track 1… Introduction

I’ve got my headphones on and the house is quiet. Pressing play and after a light delay the pitter patter of rain begins. After a few moments there’s a female introducing the Bill Harris, President of Centerpointe.

Little did I know that Bill would drone-on, in a never changing monotone, for a whole hour!

He enlightens us about the need to expunge childhood problems, in which most of us have uncomfortable memories from our early years that we have never confronted and these can lead to mental problems. Meditation has been used throughout the human age to create deep mental healing and calm. Holosync aims to create a meditation state within, in order to rejuvinate our mind and perform mental healing. (he does mention all this)

Bill makes it clear that Holosync technnology opens the ‘receptive state’ and starts the re-programming. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma brainwave states can be induced. And stress can be reduced, the ageing process seems to slow, IQ improvement, problem solving abilities improve, and more spontaniety -- all these are mentioned as benefits.

WOW, that blew me away!

And then I drifted away. Bill’s montone, which is a bit like how a teacher would speak to a child -- in a soft, smooth manner is like sleeping gas.

Sometime after about 35 mins I drifted off. Waking up when the track went off I remembered most of what Bill was saying. Quite a bit was devoted to bigging-up the Holosync course. We all know, that when we are told something will be good -- we have a subconscious feeling that it is good. I hate that. We should be left to form our own conclusions rather than be told.

I ignore all that stuff anyway, I’ve been around too many Marketers.

The track has finished, all of it is forgettable. Not worth listening to. Even if you listen once, you won’t be inspired to revisit it a second time. It touches on too much to be useful.

Track 2 -- The Dive

It’s raining heavy, like an Asian monsoon. Out in the bay there’s a bouy bell that’s bobbing around on the rough waves, clanging in random tones and rhythms.

The random, and non-imposing nature takes away stress -- as if you’d been taken away from the internet, mobile phones, and appartments and now on a beach, under a light rainstom, with a roof over your head. No distractions. Getting back to oneself.

It’s half an hour and I felt lighter, and less intense as if some forms of burden had been lifted.

This track is quite relaxing and eases you out of today, and whisks you away far away. Somewhere where you can relax and be at one with the world.

Track 3 -- Immersion

Immersion is 30 mins of raining -- and it is my favourite track. The rain has a pleasant relaxing sound to it -- it’s dripping onto a roof, and then gently running off and hitting the floor, and running down a path (similar to the Dive). As the track progresses, the intensity changes, sometimes harder sometimes faster -- then down to quiet. You can imagine being in a rainstorm, stuck in the middle of a forest, with just the tree canopy protection. It’s hammering down and then eases off.

I love this track -- it’s so disarming and relaxing that I feel calmer. I would love it even more if Bill hadn’t appeared 5 mins in the track and begun talking about the frickin holosync website. That was really irritating.

Track 4 -- Quietitude

This track of half an hour starts as a mountain stream, birds, and music. The stream trickles gently and softly in the background throughout the entire track. I found the music (a woodwind instrument) a bit loud and tended to drown out the stream and birds and not particularly melodious. Yet the notes flowed in a nice tranquil way and were quite soothing.

If I’d never heard of Dan Gibson, I’d be really impressed by the natural sounds. Dan Gibson though has all the quality of DAC recordings, and a professional composer doing the music. Nature soundscapes are better from Dan.

I didn’t feel sleepy or relaxed, or rejuvenated, more like I couldn’t wait for it to end. For me the music was too loud and distracting to be useful. I love nature sounds and I just couldn’t connect when the notes were playing.

Track 5 -- Oasis

Continuing through to track 5 reveals more of the mountain stream and a different music. The stream is subtle and we’ve got an extra instrument -- something like you would think of as ‘arabian’, it has the springy guitar style. The flute or woodwind instrument from Quietitude is here too, stringing out some random notes, and the birds have gone.

The piercing woodwind instrument sounds as though it’s trying hard, and is a major distraction, along with the random note playing.

I fast forwarded after 10 minutes and skimmed through the rest, expecting it to get better. It didn’t.

This is an annoying track, and seem as though it’s been constructed by plonking notes down at random. And it’s the piercing, shrill, nature of the music that makes me want to turn it off. I can feel my stress levels going up.

Summary: here’s what I found

A couple of the tracks really made me feel calm (the dive, and immersion). If I was hyper and had a busy day I would have drifted off.

The other tracks were nothing more than irritating. Even after a few listentings I couldn’t find anything but annoyance.

For $179 though -- that’s a lot of money -- and for me it didn’t really do anything. I feel let down.

The claims of anti-ageing, razor-sharp thinking, and quantum leaps in self awareness -- I didn’t experience any of this. If there’s anything in these claims it’s likely to be that you’re calmer, relaxed, lower heart rate, and have emptied your mind a bit. Would I listen to this for 6 months? no way! It is too repetitive. Outrageous claims, and I would imagine if I read the website their would be all sorts of bamboozling graphs and testimonials -- typical of something that’s overhyped.

My rating for: Holosync -- Prologue -, by Centerpointe

5/10.

POOR.

couple of good nature tracks. quite irritating at times. and very expensive. i wouldn’t buy this for $17 never mind $179.

Demo

Edit: I found an audio demo on Youtube which seems to be from Holosync itself. I didn’t really get along with it. Have a listen and try it for yourself. It’s one of the better track in my opinion.

This one is called ‘The Dive’: