Have you ever picked up a book that promised to unlock secrets to reality, a kind of spiritual technology for discerning truth from falsehood? I recently found myself diving into David R. Hawkins’s Power vs. Force, a tome that claims to offer just that. It’s one of those books that makes you pause, tilt your head, and wonder: Did I just stumble across a secret manual for decoding reality? Or is this spiritual snake oil with footnotes?
Hawkins posits a revolutionary idea: we can objectively distinguish truth from falsehood using nothing more than our body’s response to statements. The tool? Applied Kinesiology, a technique where a subject’s muscle strength is tested while holding a thought or statement. A “true” statement makes the muscle “go strong,” while a “false” one makes it “go weak.” It’s a bold claim, one that could fundamentally alter how we perceive information.
As a biohacker with my whole genome sequenced, I couldn’t resist. This wasn’t just an interesting theory; it was a testable hypothesis. What if I could muscle test specific statements about my own DNA, and then verify those claims against my raw genetic report? If my body could consistently discern genetic facts I didn’t consciously know, it would be a powerful, objective confirmation of Hawkins’s central premise.
But before we get to my N of 1 experiment, let’s unpack the dense, intriguing world of Power vs. Force.
The Grand Claims of “Spiritual Technology” – Unpacking Hawkins’s Vision
Early in his book, Hawkins drops what he considers his most profound discovery: human consciousness is like a terminal plugged into a universal database. He suggests that everyone, by birthright, has access to an infinite store of truth and genius. Our individual minds are merely expressions of this vast, common consciousness.
This “spiritual technology” promises instantaneous access to truth, a revolutionary breakthrough that could guide individuals and entire societies toward higher consciousness. It’s a compelling vision, offering a direct line to universal knowledge through a deceptively simple technique.
The Map of Consciousness: An Inspirational, Yet Slippery Guide
One of Hawkins’s most influential contributions is his Map of Consciousness, an energetic spectrum from shame (20) to enlightenment (1,000). The critical tipping point, he argues, is 200, which he associates with courage and integrity. Below this level, life is draining; above it, life becomes expansive and empowering.
It’s an inspiring framework for personal growth, highlighting how courage enables us to face challenges and embody integrity. Maya Angelou famously echoed this, stating, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”
However, the vagueness around defining higher levels like love, peace, or enlightenment makes the framework slippery in practice. And then there’s the sobering claim that individuals rarely shift consciousness levels significantly in their lifetime, an idea that feels strangely deterministic, mirroring politically incorrect IQ research.
A Foundation Built on Skepticism?
Despite its inspirational aspects, skepticism creeps in quickly. Hawkins claims perfect reproducibility, yet provides almost no peer-reviewed citations. A claim this extraordinary demands extraordinary evidence, not just anecdotes. Where are the PubMed links?
Furthermore, Hawkins’s biases occasionally surface. He presents capital punishment as a symptom of a guilt-ridden American society, and his commentary sometimes reads like a 1999 op-ed. His lionization of figures like Mikhail Gorbachev and Sam Walton (Walmart) also raises eyebrows when viewed through a more critical, historical lens. It’s hard to imagine that every statement, especially these subjective ones, was literally tested through arm strength.
The prose itself is dense and often abstract, requiring a dictionary to navigate. Yet, beneath the tangled language, compelling ideas emerge: humanity’s recent shift above a collective consciousness level of 200, the idea that most people lack true free will, and the notion that depression or illness might have roots in consciousness. There’s a lot to grapple with, both inspiring and highly questionable.
My N of 1 Experiment: Genes, Goldbach, and a Surprise
To put Hawkins’s “spiritual technology” to the test, I designed a blind experiment. Since I have my entire genome sequenced, I could make declarative statements about specific genes or SNPs that I didn’t consciously know the truth of. Then, I would muscle test those statements and later compare the results against my Sequencing.com genome explorer.
If Applied Kinesiology consistently identified true and false genetic facts without my prior knowledge, it would be a powerful, objective validation. If not, it would cast serious doubt on the method’s claims.
I followed the instructions in Power vs. Force meticulously, having my wife perform the muscle tests on me. We started with a few known truths and lies as a warm-up, statements like “My name is Jonathan Eric Roseland” (true) or “I lost my virginity on my wedding night” (false). The results were strikingly accurate: I went “strong” on all the truths and “weak” on all the lies. Interesting, I thought, a promising start.
Buoyed by this, we proceeded with truth-testing specific gene variants. Over three separate testing sessions, we posed declarative statements like “I carry the rs659366 variant of UCP2.” After each session, I consulted my genome data to confirm the actual truth or falsity of the statement.
The results were, frankly, disappointing. While one session showed a 72.2% accuracy (with a p-value of 0.096, borderline statistically significant), the other two sessions yielded accuracies of 44.4%, no better than a coin flip. If muscle testing worked as reliably as Hawkins described, I would expect a much higher and more consistent accuracy, ideally approaching 100%.
I even tried muscle-testing statements about the Goldbach Conjecture, an unsolved mathematical mystery I’d featured in my novel. Again, the results were lackluster, with a 60% accuracy that was not statistically significant. My spiritual technology for decoding mathematical enigmas seemed equally flawed.
The Unexpected Discovery: A Personal Deception Detector
So, was it all BS? Muscle truth-testing, in the rigorous N of 1 experiments I conducted, failed to consistently outperform random chance. It seemed like a silly waste of time, this “spiritual technology” not living up to its grand promises.
But here’s the really interesting part, the one that made me pause: remember those initial warm-up statements? The ones about my name, where I live, or personal facts? For those, muscle testing was remarkably close to 100% accurate. My body consistently knew a lie from a truth when I was consciously aware of the information.
Deception is a topic I’ve long been interested in, and my experience suggested that while muscle testing might not be a reliable oracle for unknown truths, it seemed to work quite well as a kind of internal lie detector for truths I already possessed. Perhaps it wasn’t about accessing a universal database of all facts, but rather about tapping into my own subconscious knowledge or physiological responses to conscious deception.
Sharpening Your BS Detector: A Final Reflection
Reading Power vs. Force is indeed like walking through a flea market of metaphysics. You’ll find brilliant gems, dubious trinkets, and the occasional statement that strains credulity. The idea of an objective measure of truth is intoxicating, offering a world where falsehood can be instantly exposed. Hawkins’s vision of a consciousness-based future is undeniably inspiring.
On the other hand, the empirical evidence is thin, the writing is often dense, and the conclusions sometimes feel tailored to a preexisting worldview. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Hawkins, in my experience, doesn’t always deliver. Nor did my four N of 1 experiments, at least for objective truth-testing.
Yet, as a piece of spiritual self-help literature, it’s worth grappling with. If nothing else, the Map of Consciousness provides a useful metaphor: courage truly is the fulcrum between stagnation and growth. And the reminder to orient toward truth, integrity, and love, however we define them, is universally valuable.
The practical takeaway is this: don’t swallow Hawkins whole, but don’t dismiss him entirely either. Test the ideas. Experiment with applied kinesiology, perhaps starting with simple known truths and lies, and see what resonates for you. If nothing else, you’ll undoubtedly sharpen your own BS detector. And that, in itself, is a form of power.
