56 pages • 1 hour read
Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior
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BetaOriginal Foreword-IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Original Foreword Summary
The book’s original Foreword was written by E. Whalen, editor of Bard Press. He begins by posing a scenario in which a person could find the answer to any yes or no (Y/N) question, including those with staggering implications such as the true intentions of party candidates. He then discusses behavioral kinesiology, or the study of muscle movements in response to positive or negative emotional, intellectual, and physical stimuli. The concept was articulated by Dr. John Diamond in a 1979 book, Your Body Doesn’t Lie. Whalen explains that Diamond’s work was the starting point for Dr. David Hawkins’s research on the kinesiologic response to truth and falsehood. Hawkins concluded that there is a type of communal consciousness that he calls a “database of consciousness” (12) which can tell true from false.
Hawkins developed his research into a scale of “relative truth” by which “intellectual positions, statements, or ideologies” (14) could be rated on a range from 1 to 1,000. The scale is, in effect, a map of human experience from the lowest to the highest spiritual development.
Original Preface Summary
In his original Preface, Hawkins first asserts the veracity of kinesiologic muscle testing and then explains that his research applies the testing to differentiate between life-enhancing and life-consuming stimuli and, “most dramatically,” between true and false. He claims that the test results are consistent and can be replicated across cultures, making them scientifically valid. Furthermore, he argues that they can be used to calibrate human levels of consciousness on a scale from 1 to 1,000.
The calibrations reveal a distinction between power and force that Hawkins calls remarkable. Levels on the scale also correlate with sublevels of the perennial philosophy—a school of thought holding that recurring themes in world religions illuminate universal truths. He believes the levels represent “powerful attractor fields within the domain of consciousness itself” (17), fields that can be found in theoretical physics and chaos theory. Furthermore, he believes that the scale has potential uses in nearly every area of human activity—most importantly, as an aid in spiritual growth and even enlightenment.
The idea that everything is knowable and that a person’s thoughts and actions are traceable through time may seem shocking, so Hawkins tries to present his subject as simply as possible. He realizes he is writing both for those who will believe his ideas and those who will not. His approach will be to return to the same concepts over and over. His essential message is that the individual mind is “like a computer terminal connected to a giant database” (21-22) that is consciousness itself. One’s own consciousness has roots in the “common consciousness” of all humankind.
Hawkins originally developed much of this work for a doctoral dissertation. He says it has now been corroborated by research presented in independent studies.
New Foreword Summary
The new Foreword is by Fran Grace, a professor of religious studies at the University of Redlands, California. She explains the need for a revised edition of the book in this Foreword. It incorporates spontaneous revisions Hawkins made while recording the book for audio and addresses the fact that a subject’s calibration can change over time.
Grace states that the book confirms spiritual reality as the essence of human life and divinity as the source of consciousness. Thus, the work “reveals every aspect of human experience to be an expression of, and a pathway to, the Ultimate” (27). She emphasizes Hawkins’s work as a psychiatrist, particularly his approach to treating substance dependency by helping the patient find strength from within the self.
Hawkins’s “Map of Consciousness” links the classic stages of human inner evolution as presented in sacred literature to measurable energy fields. According to Grace, these levels were suggested by mystics throughout the centuries, but Hawkins gives a scientific framework for understanding them. The levels progress from shame, the lowest expression of human spiritual evolution, to Enlightenment, the highest level. The book also explains why certain core principles found in all cultures are true: That love is more powerful than hate, truth and forgiveness are liberating, unconditional love heals, courage empowers, and the essence of “Divine/Reality” is peace.
With each rise in a level of consciousness, Grace argues, the frequency of energy increases. Thus, higher consciousness levels radiate a healing effect, while non-true or negative energy fields induce a weak muscle response.
Hawkins’s discovery of the difference between power and force has influenced many fields. He calls his body of teaching “Devotional Nonduality” because they harmonize the heart and the mind. The teachings emphasize core truths such as kindness and compassion to all, humility, forgiveness, reverence for all life, devotion to Truth, and surrender to God.
New Preface Summary
In his brief new Preface to the 2012 edition, Hawkins stresses the practicality of his methods in helping people to differentiate essence from appearance.
Introduction Summary
Hawkins’s Introduction states that the human dilemma is the misidentification of intellectual artifacts for reality. Humans process enormous amounts of data but don’t understand its meaning. Philosophy and political systems do not answer essential questions. Thought systems share what Hawkins regards as the same “fatal” faults: They don’t differentiate between subjective and objective; they don’t regard the limits of context; they ignore the nature of consciousness; and they don’t understand the nature of causality. He argues that there are no actual causes in the observable world, only effects.
Society is run by force in the form of wars, laws, taxes, and regulations because decision-makers lack the necessary base for effective problem-solving. This base is knowledge of the nature of consciousness as expressed by energy patterns called “attractors.” In a universe where everything is connected, it is not surprising that this knowledge base results from a connection between consciousness, the nervous system, and physics. Tapping into this base reveals truth and brings an experience of awe.
Original Foreword-Introduction Analysis
Hawkins calls the 2012 edition of Power vs. Force the official, authoritative version of the text. The multiple sections of prefatory material, including the original and new Foreword and the original and new Preface, reflect revisions and updates the author has made since the book’s original 1995 publication. Together, the new and revised prefatory matter articulate Hawkins’s major themes and his methodology.
The original Foreword suggests the enormous implications of Hawkins’s methods, while Hawkins’s original Preface asserts the veracity of kinesiologic muscle testing as a way to calibrate human consciousness. Hawkins tries to establish himself as an authoritative researcher because, as he also says in the Preface, there are bound to be skeptics—just as there still are critics decades after the book’s original publication who call kinesiologic testing pseudoscience. His original Preface also stresses the scientific basis for his testing by saying that it can be replicated with high reliability, although this claim has been strongly disputed by medical associations (See: Background).
The original Preface introduces the “remarkable” theme of the contrast of Power Versus Force and the idea of a universal consciousness, the subject of Chapter 8 and all of Part 2. Fran Grace’s new Foreword develops the latter idea to call universal consciousness an expression of the “Ultimate,” expressing the author’s belief in The Divinity of Consciousness. Grace also touches on the concept of nonduality, another of Hawkins’s major themes, The Illusions of Duality and Causality.
As the Introduction is not dated, it seems to belong to the original 1995 edition of the book. Here Hawkins brings up the role of context in limiting an understanding of consciousness and the nature of causality. Later in the book he will go into the physical properties that play into the illusion of causality, another of his main concerns. His purpose here is simply to present the “big picture”— that the study of consciousness has previously lacked a scientific framework that he claims he will provide, with potential applications that can greatly benefit both the individual and society.
Although other writers of the prefatory sections, notably Fran Grace, refer to the “Divine” that is the ultimate expression of consciousness as God, Hawkins does not do so in his Prefaces or Introduction. He is careful throughout the book to include a wide variety of expression of a higher power, such as Deity, Divinity, and Maker. Occasionally he quotes from Christian scripture—as he does in his dedication, “Gloria in excelsis deo” (“Glory to God in the highest,” from Luke 2:14). Nevertheless, he presents Christianity as one religion among many that proceeded from the work of an enlightened being. In this way, he attempts to appeal to a variety of religious beliefs and experiences.
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