“An electrifying, fast-paced journey into the deep potential of the human brain.” – David Eagleman
“Stealing Fire is a beautifully written must-read for anyone interested in living up to their full potential. Kotler and Wheal have produced a user manual for having your brain to drive high performance.” – Peter Diamandis
“The North Star we’ve been waiting for – finally, a distillation of the upper reaches of the human experience unveiled! I am so excited for this book to reach the world!” – Jason Silva
For millennia we have grappled with the limitations of the body and the mind. We’ve resorted to meditation, psychedelics, music, prayer, and a host of other techniques to experience alternate states of consciousness and discover the limits of what the human brain is capable of. But for the majority, these states of consciousness have remained a mystery. Stealing Fire offers a spellbinding account of how we can hack into these altered states to lead richer and more productive lives.
The mainstream response to the words “altered states of consciousness” involves conjuring up images of drug-addled junkies and hippy-dippy psychonauts. But Stealing Fire is more than just about drugs. It’s about how to achieve higher states of consciousness, develop a deeper awareness of the self, and fine-tune the neurochemistry of the brain to accelerate performance and reach peak cognitive functioning.
They refer to this state as ecstasis (loosely from the Greek, meaning “to get outside of oneself.”) It’s those moments when we’re “in the zone”, when we’re fully focussed, when the self dissolves, when we transcend ourselves, when temporal existence vanishes, and when action and awareness merge. There is much overlap and synchronicity between Kotler and Wheal’s state of ecstasis and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi state of flow.
Through conversations with elite Navy SEAL members, Zen masters, ace athletes, transcendental music DJs and digital artists, combined with a scintillating exposition of the neurobiology of psychedelics and visits to Googleplex, Burning Man, Branson’s Necker Island, and Red Bull’s training centre, Kotler and Wheal offer thought-provoking insights into the inspiration that altered states offer.
They divide these flow states into three specific categories: “In-the-zone” moments experienced by ace athletes and elite commandos; contemplative mystical states achieved through chanting, music, dance, meditation, sexuality and wearable technologies; and finally, psychotropic states achieved through a range of psychedelic and consciousness-altering substances.
The four signature characteristics of these states are identified by the acronym STER: Selflessness, Timelessness, Effortlessness, and information Richness. And they identify the four forces of ecstasis as being Psychology, Neurobiology, Pharmacology, and Technology. A study of these four forces allows us to examine long-standing beliefs about flow states, mystical states, and psychedelic states from a scientific perspective – thus separating it from myth and superstition. What they advocate is taking an empirical, research-based and evidence-based approach to the myriad consciousness altering techniques we’ve developed over the ages, including, yoga, martial arts, tantric sex, isolation tanks, drugs, chanting, fasting etc.
The title of the book, Stealing Fire, is a reference to the gift of fire that the Titan Prometheus stole from Olympus and offered to humans for their eventual salvation. To Kotler and Wheal, this fire is symbolic of the mysteries of the mind and the secret potentials of the human body. The book is about modern-day Prometheuses who are leveraging the forces of ecstasis to offer new insights into how to live a fuller, deeper, more meaningful life.
Stealing Fire operates along similar lines as Drive by Daniel Pink’s and Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg’s. Written in a fast-paced, engaging style, and replete with anecdotes and exquisitely researched case-studies, the book offers first-hand reporting into how we can ignite passion, fuel creativity, accelerate problem solving and usher in a revolution in human performance.
For the longest time we’ve ritualised the attainment of achieving altered states of consciousness. What Kotler and Wheal show the reader is that is it possible to hack into these states and not have to spend months and years focussing on what to eat, wear, believe, and do – recommending a sort of Cliff Notes to esoteric techniques.
What they suggest is instead of treating our mental states as default Operating Systems we are born with, that we manipulate our brain states like a User Interface – thus bypassing and overriding a lot of the default settings of the brain to get faster, more successful results. Using the four forces of ecstasis we are now able to make precise adjustments to the functioning of the brain and body through visual and auditory feedback loops to gain revolutionary insight, inspiration, and information.
Achieving altered states is now a trillion-dollar underground economy. But Kotler and Wheal end their book by reminding us to be mindful not to use the four forces of ecstasis merely for recreation or as a distraction. If they don’t make us more energetic, empathetic, and ethical afterwards, then they are not worth pursuing. They end on a powerful note: that ecstasis doesn’t absolve us from our humanity. It connects us to it.
