Highlights of Jose Silva's life and research

Jose Silva's life is more than a great American success story, it is one of the greatest success stories in modern times.

Aug. 11, 1914

Born in Laredo, Texas USA

1918

Father was killed in a terrorist act during the Mexican Revolution

1920-1928

His mother remarried and moved away, so instead of going to school, 6-year-old Jose went to work shining shoes to help support his family. He was always on the lookout for ways to provide services that people would pay him for, and was soon earning more money than most adults.

1928

While at the barber shop reading magazines and comic books to improve his reading skills, he found a correspondence course in electronics repair and began reading it. It made sense to him, and the barber agreed to rent it to him for $1 per Lesson, but only if he would fill out the lessons in the barber's name. He readily agreed.

The barber got a diploma to hang on the barbershop wall, and within a few years Jose Silva had the biggest electronics repair business in South Texas.

1940

Married Paula. They had 10 children and were married until their passing, within a few months of each other, almost 6 decades later.

1944

Drafted to serve in the U.S. Army in World War II. All new recruits were examined by a psychiatrist who asked questions that seemed strange to him: "Do you wet the bed?" "Do you like girls?" To that question he replied, "I'm married and have 2 children, you figure it out."

Then he asked the doctor why he was asking such "funny questions." The doctor referred him to a book The History of Psychiatry. He got a copy and started reading it to see what he could learn that would help him to help his children get good grades in school and achieve success in life.

1945

While stationed in Bowling Green, Kentucky, he heard about Edgar Cayce, the "Sleeping Prophet," who would go into a sleep-like state and provide valuable advice to help people overcome health problems.

1947

A year after being discharged and returning home to Laredo, he was asked to set up an electronics training program at the brand new Laredo Junior College. The U.S. Veterans Administration judged it the best in the entire state of Texas.

1949

After working all day and into the night rebuilding his electronics businesses on both sides of the border, in both Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, he would stay up late reading psychology books by Adler, Jung, and Freud. It was difficult for a man who had never been to school as a student. "These greats in their field cannot even agree with each other," he said. So one night after midnight he threw a book across the room, it slid under the sofa and hit the wall, and he went to bed, finished with his study of psychology.

A couple of hours later he woke up with a strange vision: two sets of numbers lit up in front of him, alternating back and forth: 3-4-3 and 3-7-3. He was up the rest of the night - and all day the next day - trying to figure out what those numbers meant. Were they a message, or some sort of "divine guidance"? That evening he mentioned it to a friend who asked if he had checked the Mexican Lottery.

They drove across to the Mexican lottery office, but it was closed. Then a series of coincidence took them to a Laredo Nuevo store and his friend found a lottery ticket with one of those sets of numbers. He bought it, and it paid $10,000 - equivalent of 2 years salary for the average person.

He got the message. He retrieved the book from under the sofa, and continued his studies.

1950

After reading that Sigmund Freud had used hypnosis briefly, he learned hypnosis and became an outstanding hypnotist.

He discovered that when he hypnotized his children and read their lessons to them, it seemed to make stronger impressions on their brain neurons and they could recall the information more easily.

1953

His daughter Isabel began doing something that hypnotized subjects don't do: She began answering questions before he asked them. "It was like she was guessing my mind," he said. So he began to investigate to learn what was going on.

He realized that she was in a sleep-like state, like Edgar Cayce. He recalled that Cayce began exhibiting his psychic ability after a hypnotist had used hypnosis to help cure him of a health problem.

He also learned about research being done with a new invention called an electroencephalograph (EEG) that could detect and measure brainwave activity in the human brain. The strongest brainwaves, which scientists had named Alpha Waves, were the same as those of a light level of sleep.

If he could just find a way to get people to go in the direction of sleep without actually falling asleep then they could all do what Isabel and Edgar Cayce could do.

He also realized something that people are just now beginning to full appreciate: The tremendous value of ESP.

1953

Wrote to ESP researcher Dr. J.B. Rhine at Duke University and told him he had found a way to help people develop psychic ability. Dr. Rhine replied that ESP cannot be taught, that he hadn't pre-tested his daughter so he didn't realize she was a natural psychic.

Jose Silva thought he knew his daughter well enough to know whether she had functioned as a psychic before he started working with her. He also realized that he couldn't convince scientists unless he did it their way and pre- and post-tested his subjects. So that's what he started doing.

1953 to 1963

He trained 29 more people - both children and adults. None had psychic ability when they started, and they all developed psychic ability.

He was excited, but Dr. Rhine stubbornly refused to change his opinion, even in the face of Silva's careful research.

Frustrated that people wouldn't believe him, he decided once again to end his research. Once again something dramatic happened: As he sat contemplating his decision, his son Ricardo came running and handed him some rolled up papers. It had been raining and Ricardo was dripping wet, but the papers were dry.

He unrolled the papers and the face of Christ stared back at him. Throughout his research he had been motivated by thoughts of Christ, so he got the message. "I felt like He was telling me I had been a bad boy." He went into the bathroom and cried, then got back to work again.

1963-1966

He started the Laredo Parapsychology Association and trained groups of people, using the experience he had gotten at while teaching at Laredo Junior College 20 years earlier to help him develop an effective 4-day training program that was designed to show doubters and deniers - like Dr. Rhine - that their mind had abilities they weren't even aware of, and eventually to guild us to develop our own latent ESP and prove to ourselves - without any prompting from anyone else - that ESP is real.

1965

After spending an estimated $500,000 of his own money on his research, he felt he had gone as far as he could, and tried to find somebody else to take over the work. He offered all of his research for free to the Church, to Educators, and even to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. They all turned him down.

1966

Dr. J.B. Hahn, director of the Mind Science Foundation and a leading parapsychology research, came to Laredo to check out his work. Isabel worked a case on Dr. Hahn's Uncle, and gave him information that even he didn't know. He thought she was wrong, but when he checked he learned that she was right, and he was convinced that Silva had found something tremendously valuable. Dr. Hahn joined Silva in his research and worked with him for the rest of his life.

October 1966

Dr. Hahn spread the world, and that led to the first public class - and the first time Jose Silva had ever accepted any money for using what he was learning to help people: approximately 75 members of the Area Arts Association in Amarillo, Texas.

1966-1969

Travelled throughout Texas teaching his Silva Mind Control course and refining it so that it would appeal to as many people as possible.

1969

Began training Silva Lecturers to teach throughout the United States and Mexico.

1972

Persuaded his brother and research associate Juan, who had experience in setting up overseas operations for a manufacturing company, to join him as Director of Foreign Countries. The course grew quickly.

November 28, 1997

The Silva Mind Control course that he had first taught to artists in Amarillo, Texas in 1966 was now being taught in more than 100 countries around the world and millions of people had benefited. But not as many people were attending as before.

So he knew that he had accomplished his goal: The Silva Mind Control Method had literally changed the consciousness of humanity through the ESP experiences so many people had. Now, instead of most people being doubters, the majority accepted the reality of ESP, that they could learn it, and that it could be very useful to them.

So he created a new course based on the same research, but this time without some of the extras he had to include in the beginning, and with more direct ESP experiences.

On November 28, 1997 he started the first Silva UltraMind ESP System training in Laredo, Texas. He called it "The ultimate of the ultimate."

April 1998

He trained the first group of Silva UltraMind ESP Systems Instructors.

July 1998

Established a new company to manage the new course, and spent the rest of his life teaching and promoting it.

Feb. 7, 1999

After an amazingly productive life - working constantly from the time he was 6 years old, raising 10 children, building a worldwide business and travelling constantly to promote it, he died of natural causes, leaving the new course in the hands of his first child, Jose Silva Jr.