"I have come to the conclusion that until we can explain the savant we
can't explain ourselves," said Dr. Darold Treffert, often considered the world's
leading expert on savants.
I've been watching videos of savants, and come away with this same thought. They make me think of many things. Because of the autism factor, I think of how the druids communicated mind to mind. Because of the ability to put something out in very specific detail, whether it be a drawing, an answer to a calculation, or a specific date and day related to a particular time in history, I think of an ability to tap into an informational field in the waking state, something dreamers are aware of in an altered state and something Jane Roberts (of the Seth books) was probably aware of in an altered conscious state. In the latter case, I would say from her being in an expanded awareness within Seth's own conscious state.
What the savants share in common often is a sense of creativity. The author of The Magical Child, Joseph Chilton Pearce, talks about how his son played the piano well until he went to school and then it had an effect on his playing. Many speak of how school kicks the creativity out of us. Among them are the multi-degreed and former CIA spy Robert Steele. There is also a scene in A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash says the same thing. Indeed, history is replete with those who have started, and in many cases stayed, away from the mainstream of doing things and gone on to accomplish remarkable things.
I'm not anti-school so much as I am anti-system and against set ways of thinking that may amount to cattle mentaility and ritualistic lifestyles. This enforces somebody's wishes for our control. The irony being that the harder we work within the confines of the system, the more the elite, who may do our thinking for us if we don't do our own, make.
When I was taking an English class, we were asked to read some stories about those who relied on hunting as a means to support themselves and those who were slave owners. I seemed to be the only one in the discussion forum who noticed the stark similarities in personality traits. Those being of arrogance, laziness, and lack of empathy for other beings. Besides the need for character building, in a modern-day parallel (and from the worker's perspective), this would seem to relate to the denigration of our own sense of identity by the loss or the lack of our creative expressions. When this happens, it seems at times to lead to a sense of self-dislike and in turn this to a superficial glue in terms of societal bonds--a sense of duty without regard to a sense of honor always. Leading us to wonder if the highest honor isn't to acknowledge our own creative impulses and remember that like the savant and the creative geniuses among us, there should always be a sense of childhood wonder and expression. This is something the writer, artist, engineer, and inventor understand, and something I think in a myriad number of ways many feel is missing from their working lives.
FOND DU LAC, Wisconsin
(CNN) -- Forty-four years after starting work at a children's
psychiatric ward in Wisconsin, Dr. Darold Treffert still struggles to
explain how the human brain is capable of producing the remarkable feats
he witnessed there.
One boy had memorized Milwaukee's bus schedule and could say where all the buses were at any moment in the day. Another could put together complicated puzzles without hesitation -- even if the pieces were upside down. A third boy could list world events that happened on any given day.
Treffert came to realize these boys have savant syndrome, and thus began a lifelong quest to understand how people with sometimes severe mental disabilities could exhibit what he calls "islands of genius."
Treffert says a savant's brilliance generally falls into a single category: lightning-fast math skills or calendar calculating or spatial skills or near picture-perfect memory or musical ability.
Such dazzling mental skills defy easy explanation. (Watch the mystery of savants -- 3:38)
"I have come to the conclusion that until we can explain the savant we can't explain ourselves," said Treffert, often considered the world's leading expert on savants.
Treffert, an adviser on the movie "Rain Man," serves as the unofficial arbiter of who qualifies as a "prodigious savant" -- possessing skills that would dazzle even without a disability. There are only about 100 recognized prodigious savants in the world.
Jazz pianist Matt Savage is one of them. The home-schooled New Hampshire teenager was diagnosed with autism as a child and did not like to be exposed to any noise until he was 6. Audio therapy and a toy piano unlocked his gifts.
"Our house had been completely quiet," Matt's mother, Diane, said. "No music. No sound. And then my husband and I heard 'London Bridge' being played perfectly down in the playroom. We looked at each other. Matt had just started playing: from nothing to playing perfectly."
Matt, now 14, releases his seventh album on his parents' record label this month. Even he does not understand how he is able to play as well as does, improvising effortlessly on the piano.
"It kind of transfers from the brain to the fingers. It goes through your body. That's how it feels," Matt said.
Stephen Wiltshire is another prodigious savant. His genius is the ability to see something once and draw it in exquisite detail -- even something as complicated as a city skyline. (Watch brain scans look for the secrets of genius -- 2:05)
George Widener, too, is a prodigious savant. Widener says he has been diagnosed with a mild form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. He knows without thinking the day of the week for any year in the past or future. He now uses these calendar skills to produce critically acclaimed artwork, combining his love of numbers and calendars with an astonishing memory of days and dates in history.
Listening to Widener is like flipping through a stream-of-consciousness almanac:
"June 7th, that was the date Robert the Bruce died in 1329. He was the first king of Scotland. That was a Wednesday. I remember reading Daniel Boone, 1769, started a survey on June 7th in Kentucky ... King Louis the 14th became king, 1654. That was a Wednesday."
Orlando Serrell did not possess any special skills until he was struck in the head by a baseball when he was 10. He has remembered where he was and what he was doing almost every day since.
Serrell is what Treffert calls an "acquired savant," someone who exhibits savant skills after suffering a head injury or a stroke to the left hemisphere of the brain. Treffert believes the brain injury somehow frees acquired savants from the language and logic that rules our everyday lives. (Listen to a savant's extraordinary musical gift)
"We tend to think of ourselves as having this blank disc in the marvelous piece of equipment called the brain, and what we become is everything we put on this disc. And I'm saying there is much more to us. That we come with software," Treffert says.
In short, Treffert says, there is genius in all of us. How to unlock that genius remains a mystery.
Source: CNN.com
I've been watching videos of savants, and come away with this same thought. They make me think of many things. Because of the autism factor, I think of how the druids communicated mind to mind. Because of the ability to put something out in very specific detail, whether it be a drawing, an answer to a calculation, or a specific date and day related to a particular time in history, I think of an ability to tap into an informational field in the waking state, something dreamers are aware of in an altered state and something Jane Roberts (of the Seth books) was probably aware of in an altered conscious state. In the latter case, I would say from her being in an expanded awareness within Seth's own conscious state.
What the savants share in common often is a sense of creativity. The author of The Magical Child, Joseph Chilton Pearce, talks about how his son played the piano well until he went to school and then it had an effect on his playing. Many speak of how school kicks the creativity out of us. Among them are the multi-degreed and former CIA spy Robert Steele. There is also a scene in A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash says the same thing. Indeed, history is replete with those who have started, and in many cases stayed, away from the mainstream of doing things and gone on to accomplish remarkable things.
I'm not anti-school so much as I am anti-system and against set ways of thinking that may amount to cattle mentaility and ritualistic lifestyles. This enforces somebody's wishes for our control. The irony being that the harder we work within the confines of the system, the more the elite, who may do our thinking for us if we don't do our own, make.
When I was taking an English class, we were asked to read some stories about those who relied on hunting as a means to support themselves and those who were slave owners. I seemed to be the only one in the discussion forum who noticed the stark similarities in personality traits. Those being of arrogance, laziness, and lack of empathy for other beings. Besides the need for character building, in a modern-day parallel (and from the worker's perspective), this would seem to relate to the denigration of our own sense of identity by the loss or the lack of our creative expressions. When this happens, it seems at times to lead to a sense of self-dislike and in turn this to a superficial glue in terms of societal bonds--a sense of duty without regard to a sense of honor always. Leading us to wonder if the highest honor isn't to acknowledge our own creative impulses and remember that like the savant and the creative geniuses among us, there should always be a sense of childhood wonder and expression. This is something the writer, artist, engineer, and inventor understand, and something I think in a myriad number of ways many feel is missing from their working lives.
Savants: Charting 'islands of genius'
By David Martin
CNN
CNN
One boy had memorized Milwaukee's bus schedule and could say where all the buses were at any moment in the day. Another could put together complicated puzzles without hesitation -- even if the pieces were upside down. A third boy could list world events that happened on any given day.
Treffert came to realize these boys have savant syndrome, and thus began a lifelong quest to understand how people with sometimes severe mental disabilities could exhibit what he calls "islands of genius."
Treffert says a savant's brilliance generally falls into a single category: lightning-fast math skills or calendar calculating or spatial skills or near picture-perfect memory or musical ability.
Such dazzling mental skills defy easy explanation. (Watch the mystery of savants -- 3:38)
"I have come to the conclusion that until we can explain the savant we can't explain ourselves," said Treffert, often considered the world's leading expert on savants.
Treffert, an adviser on the movie "Rain Man," serves as the unofficial arbiter of who qualifies as a "prodigious savant" -- possessing skills that would dazzle even without a disability. There are only about 100 recognized prodigious savants in the world.
Jazz pianist Matt Savage is one of them. The home-schooled New Hampshire teenager was diagnosed with autism as a child and did not like to be exposed to any noise until he was 6. Audio therapy and a toy piano unlocked his gifts.
"Our house had been completely quiet," Matt's mother, Diane, said. "No music. No sound. And then my husband and I heard 'London Bridge' being played perfectly down in the playroom. We looked at each other. Matt had just started playing: from nothing to playing perfectly."
Matt, now 14, releases his seventh album on his parents' record label this month. Even he does not understand how he is able to play as well as does, improvising effortlessly on the piano.
"It kind of transfers from the brain to the fingers. It goes through your body. That's how it feels," Matt said.
Stephen Wiltshire is another prodigious savant. His genius is the ability to see something once and draw it in exquisite detail -- even something as complicated as a city skyline. (Watch brain scans look for the secrets of genius -- 2:05)
George Widener, too, is a prodigious savant. Widener says he has been diagnosed with a mild form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. He knows without thinking the day of the week for any year in the past or future. He now uses these calendar skills to produce critically acclaimed artwork, combining his love of numbers and calendars with an astonishing memory of days and dates in history.
Listening to Widener is like flipping through a stream-of-consciousness almanac:
"June 7th, that was the date Robert the Bruce died in 1329. He was the first king of Scotland. That was a Wednesday. I remember reading Daniel Boone, 1769, started a survey on June 7th in Kentucky ... King Louis the 14th became king, 1654. That was a Wednesday."
Orlando Serrell did not possess any special skills until he was struck in the head by a baseball when he was 10. He has remembered where he was and what he was doing almost every day since.
Serrell is what Treffert calls an "acquired savant," someone who exhibits savant skills after suffering a head injury or a stroke to the left hemisphere of the brain. Treffert believes the brain injury somehow frees acquired savants from the language and logic that rules our everyday lives. (Listen to a savant's extraordinary musical gift)
"We tend to think of ourselves as having this blank disc in the marvelous piece of equipment called the brain, and what we become is everything we put on this disc. And I'm saying there is much more to us. That we come with software," Treffert says.
In short, Treffert says, there is genius in all of us. How to unlock that genius remains a mystery.
Source: CNN.com
