PROTO: Turn On, Tune In, Bliss Out

Dr. James Hardt hopes his DIY neurofeedback tech will fire up the global brain.

By David Pescovitz Photography by Howard Cao

BLUE. THE COLOR OVERWHELMS ME AS I STEP inside a nondescript office park building across the street from the San Jose airport. There’s blue everywhere. Blue carpet. Blue walls. Blue fabric draped here and there. Even the wall art, cosmic fantasy framed prints that are the New Age equivalent of black light posters, is heavy on the azure.

The cracked geodes decorating the conference table are bluish-purple. This is the Biocybernaut Institute, home to neurofeedback technology that the inventor believes could someday be used to awaken the global brain. Enter the mind-machine maker himself, ...

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