55 pages • 1 hour read
Joe DispenzaBecoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 13-AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Project Coherence: Making a Better World”
Dispenza notes that the world is currently living in a “time of extremes,” vacillating between the old consciousness driven by survival emotions and a future consciousness based on connectedness. He alludes to the increased tension and social, political, and economic upheaval that is occurring worldwide and describes a state of evolution, during which the old must fall away so that a better consciousness can take its place.
He then discusses the history of peace-gathering projects and the empirical evidence that supports their efficacy; studies using lead-lag analysis (which analyzes correlations between people and incidents) have shown that they result in reductions in war, terrorism, and crime by 70% or more. The more people in attendance at a peace gathering event, the greater the positive effects. Dispenza cites the example of the Lebanon peace project, which resulted in a 76% decrease in war deaths, reduced crime, fires, traffic accidents, and terrorism, and an increase in economic growth.
Earth’s relationship to solar cycles, Dispenza argues, can have a profound impact on global events and on humanity. He claims that there is a connectivity between the sun’s energy and the energy of the earth and the living species on it, and increased solar activity is believed to be correlated with human flourishing, innovation, scientific and artistic development, and social change. These increases in energy from the sun amplify the current energy on Earth, whether that energy is positive or negative. This results in changes to the Earth’s energy and people’s personal energy. If a person is living in coherent alignment and meditating regularly, that positive energy can be amplified by increases in solar activity.
The HeartMath Institute found that when the heart is in coherence, other people’s nervous systems can detect the signal it radiates because the heart has the strongest magnetic field in the body. It is believed that elevated emotions can generate a more coherent field environment that can benefit others, and research has been exploring the idea that this works on a global level as well. In response to this, HMI formed the Global Coherence Initiative, which seeks to “activate the heart of humanity to promote peace, harmony, and a shift in global consciousness” (296). They use Global Coherence Monitoring Systems (GCMS), which observe changes in the earth’s magnetic field by monitoring signals generated by human physiological responses as well as activity caused by solar storms, Schumann responses, and signals generated by major global events. The idea is that a community of people across the world, generating the same elevated emotions and energy, can influence the energy of the planet and positively influence the collective consciousness.
Dispenza posits that all living things are connected by an invisible field that communicates information nonlocally, and therefore people can influence each other’s autonomic nervous systems. Thus, a person sustaining heart coherence can cause another person to also go into heart coherence. This discovery led to the development of Project Coherence, a global meditation event conducted online and broadcast through Facebook. These online meditations attracted tens of thousands of participants and their aim was to “[create] a stronger radiating influence of peace and love over the planet” (304).
Chapter 13 ends with a Project Coherence meditation, which encourages the reader to radiate love and elevated emotions out toward the Earth.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Case Studies: It Could Happen to You”
Chapter 14 presents the last set of case studies, demonstrating how the practices in Becoming Supernatural have led others to experience profound physical and spiritual change.
In the first, Stacy experienced severe headaches caused by meningioma, a benign tumor that also caused hearing loss, dizziness, and nausea. Her doctor suggested surgery to remove the tumor, but Stacy decided to pursue alternate healing methods. She attended an advanced workshop where, during meditation, she saw an intensely bright light, and this entered her ear. She had an intense supernatural experience and her hearing in her left ear was restored. The energy continued to move through her body, overwhelming her with a “loving feeling.”
The next introduces Janet, who had what she called a “spontaneous experience” during meditation 25 years earlier, which she repeatedly tried to replicate. She attends a workshop in 2015 during a time when she is experiencing depression and exhaustion. During a meditation, her pineal gland activates and she feels a bright light illuminating it—the same light she had experienced 25 years ago. She surrendered to the intense energy and felt ecstasy and gratitude. By the time Janet left the workshop, she felt her depression had been cured.
In another case study, a woman named Sasha meditates during a Project Coherence meditation and visualizes bringing the Earth into her heart. She feels branches, leaves, and flowers growing out of her body. As soon as the meditation ends, she sees her best friend sent her a photo of moss growing on a rock in the shape of a heart, with a text saying she felt Sasha’s presence.
In the fourth case study, Donna is a spiritual medium (a person who claims to be able to communicate with the spirits of the dead) with “a very analytical mind” (312). She meditates and finds herself surrounded by hundreds of “interdimensional beings.” Her husband, a former army Ranger, was a sniper during his tour in Iraq; Donna understands that these beings are the spirits of people he had killed during his service. During another meditation, Donna helps the beings cross over to the other side.
The final case study introduces Jerry, who was rushed to an intensive care unit for a blockage in his pancreas. He developed fluid in his lungs, reducing his breathing capacity by 80%. His prognosis was dire; the medical staff told his wife to get his end-of-life paperwork in order. Jerry had recently read You Are the Placebo, so rather than let stress hormones take over, he focused on relaxing and changing his state of being to connect to a different potential in the quantum field. Though he was scheduled for surgery to remove the mass in his pancreas, two days beforehand, the medical staff ran tests and found the mass was completely gone. Jerry had successfully raised his energy in order to heal himself.
Afterword Summary: “Being Peace”
Dispenza clarifies that it is not enough to change one’s state to a positive one only during meditation; it needs to become a habit and a new way of being. It is vital to carry and maintain the energy throughout one’s day and demonstrate peace, thereby conditioning the body to live in this new state. He acknowledges that it will feel unnatural at first to go against one’s habits and social conditioning; it is a challenge to maintain these new habits and states of being without falling back into unconscious programming. Changing one’s energy, and thus changing oneself, requires awareness and attention to one’s inner states. The biggest hurdle is being okay with being uncomfortable, because discomfort is what challenges an individual to grow.
Thinking and demonstrating peace activates the neural networks related to the experiences of caring and giving to others; the repetition of these choices conditions the mind and body, and it will soon become easy and familiar. This then becomes the new automatic state of being. When enough people adopt this state of being, the collective consciousness can evolve and we can emerge as a “new species.” Practicing these concepts regularly makes these electromagnetic signals more coherent and unites communities so that, rather than being reactive to negative events, people can unify during a crisis.
Dispenza asserts that in order to stand up for peace for others, people have to demonstrate and embody peace. He prompts the reader to think about what would happen if people understood how interconnected humans are, saying that it would change the course of history. He believes that humanity is “on the verge of a great evolutionary jump” (322)—a passage from one level of consciousness to another. The innate capacity of human beings is to give, love, serve, and take care of one another and the Earth, and this is the future that Dispenza aims to create through his work.
Chapter 13-Afterword Analysis
The last chapters of Becoming Supernatural take the concepts explored in the book and expand them from the individual level to the global level, showing how when individuals change their energy, it can impact the collective consciousness. Dispenza again weaves a blend of scientific inquiry, practical application in the form of meditation practices, and anecdotal evidence to support his ideas. In this section, he taps into a common aphorism: the idea that one can change the world by first changing themselves. He concludes with an Afterword that connects the message of Becoming Supernatural to a bigger picture, an ideal image of how humanity could progress if more people incorporated mindfulness into their lives and learned to connect to a higher intelligence.
Chapter 13 expands on the theme of The Importance of Meditation and Mindfulness. Rather than focus solely on its potential to induce physical and emotional transformation and benefits for the individual, this chapter outlines how it can influence the collective consciousness and lead to evolution for the human race as a group. Dispenza posits that there is an invisible field connecting everyone; building on the theme of Quantum Physics and Consciousness and the idea that meditation allows an individual to connect to the quantum field and thus connect to everything, this chapter addresses the subsequent benefits for all living things. This idea of connectedness is linked to feelings of love and compassion, and thus, Dispenza makes it clear that the benefits of meditation include an overall increased care for others. Done collectively, the entire species can influence each other positively with the power of their minds alone, and thus the entire collective consciousness receives an upgrade. If enough individuals intentionally raise their energy, Dispenza asserts, it could produce a global effect that creates coherence and order across the planet. He presents the image of a school of fish or a flock of birds, which “appear to be operating from one mind, connected by an invisible field of energy in a nonlocal way” (297). What is interesting, as he points out, is that these groups of animals have no leader; each individual creature is leading because they are acting as a single mind. He returns to this image in the afterword to evoke this image of order and unity, and to emphasize that practicing mindfulness and elevating one’s internal state is an act of leadership.
The concept that all living things are connected in the unified field is also intricately linked with The Power of the Mind over the Body, as Dispenza cites several studies, including those conducted in his workshops, which illustrate how one person’s energy field can affect another person’s biology. The implication of this is powerful; it shows that the human mind not only has the power to induce healing in one’s own body, but in another person’s body. A study by the HeartMath Institute provided evidence of the idea that when a person sustains coherence in their brain and heart, it produces measurable changes both within the body and in the electromagnetic field outside the body. In this study, participants who were trained to raise their emotions and energy using HeartMath techniques were able to cause untrained participants to go into higher states of coherence.
The final set of case studies share powerful examples of both spiritual and physical transformation. In this instance, they range from spontaneous healings to profound spiritual awakenings to connectedness with other people or beings. The chapter’s title, “It Could Happen to You” is a call for the reader to make an effort to produce these profound experiences for themselves and reap the benefits by practicing the techniques in Becoming Supernatural. Additionally, these testimonies, along with the others shared throughout the book, create a diverse and wide-ranging picture of what “becoming supernatural” can encompass.
