I find it essential to be able to relax completely irrespective of anything that is going on in the environment at certain times. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that I want to work out, so rather than disturb my wife, I float in the tank and work out the idea at great length and in the detail. I am then able to put it down on paper or to dictate it in the morning.

For a businessperson, a scientist, a professional of any sort, this is a boon: to be able to think, free of physical fatigue of the body. The methods allows one to become free within a few minutes.

In certain cases the gravitational-field-countergravity forces in the body cause pain because of arthritis, broken bones, or some sort of disease. The tank is specifically beneficial to these people in that it relieves these pains in a way that nothing else can.

The tank is an asset to anyone who leads a very busy life. It allows one to attain rest faster than one can in a bed in a darkened room. It allows one to experiment with states that one could not otherwise experiment with safely: states of being, states of consciousness. For example, one can ask the question: "If I am fatigued from a long day's work, what can the tank do for me?"

Floating in the tank after a busy day's work brings a great relief. Suddenly all of the stimulation of holding one upright against gravity disappears. One realizes that a good deal of the fatigue accumulated during the day is caused by keeping one's body uupright in a gravitatoinal field. From a neurophysiological standpoint, one has immediately freed up very large masses of neurons from the necessity of constant computations (as to the direction of gravity, the programming by visual and acoustic inputs, by temperature changes, etcetera). For example, one's cerebellum is now freed for uses other than balancing the body.

In summary, then, the tank experience is a very refreshing one, a resting one. If one wants to push further than this, one can do so to the limits of one's mental discipline and to the limits of one's imagination.

Dr. John C. Lilly "The Deep Self"

In the current climate of jolting change, business people will look for any new source of ideas. take the case of Wayne Silby, founder of the Calvert Group, one of the first and largest socially responsible investment funds. Silby shuns competition in favor of cooperation in his work.

An example of this principal came when there was a dramatic change in the banking industry. The early growth of Calvert and many similar funds was due to the fact that they could offer 13 or 14 percent returns, while their major competitors, the banks, could offer only about 5. When legislation was about to be enacted that would allow the banks to offer money-market deposit accounts, the basis of Calvert's competitive advantage appeared to be on the verge of being destroyed.

Silby already had been designated Calvert's corporate daydreamer. Even before the legislative threat, he and his associates had conducted brainstorming sessions, with the participants lying on their backs in order to produce a more meditative state. But since his company had grown to almost two billion dollars in assets, and the bank's money-market deposit accounts might severely cut into that base, Silby decided to take more extreme measures than simply lying on the floor. Specifically, he meditated in a floatation tank, which is soundproof, light proof, and buoyant.

He explains, "To get new ideas you need to have a space where your mind chatter and judgments in your mind about who you are and what you are doing are turned down. And you can get in touch with a deeper part of yourself that can start revealing patterns that are pretty awesome."

The solution he came up with in the floatation tank was a financial instrument that allowed Calvert to cooperate rather than compete with banks. It worked by funneling Calvert customer money into twelve to fifteen banks market-rate deposit accounts with the highest returns. This gave Calvert an extra fee from the banks for servicing accounts, providing FDIC insurance for the investments. and allowed its customers to conveniently bypass the upper limits on bank market-rate deposit accounts and invest almost any amount in them, because Calvert could spread the money around the banks with the highest returns. And it led Calvert instrument to produce a higher yield than 98 percent of the individual bank accounts, resulting in some $800 million in maintained and increased business.

The New Paradigm In Business Edited by Michael Ray and Alan Rinzler for the World Business Academy pg.5