What is Vantage Quest?

"Vantage Quest . . . is a doorway without dogma."
- - Philip N. Richins, M.Ed.

• Vantage Quest is a personal transformation tool on CD designed to produce deep relaxation states.

• The sound of Vantage Quest produces unique consciousness states through subtle energy brain wave entrainment.

• >Vantage Quest is a synthesis of scientific research, ancient tradition, and modern technology.

• The reverie Vantage Quest induces enhances creativity and generates insights, reflection, growth, and healing.

Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. says of Vantage Quest:

"Over the millennia, sound has been one of the powerful tools used to alter consciousness, and to transform moods and feelings. Vantage Quest follows in this venerable tradition, utilizing cutting edge technologies to provide deep, intense experiences for its users that they can use for enhancing personal enjoyment, evoking mental imagery, identifying bodily energies, and intensifying sensations and perceptions. The number of effects are diverse and potentially beneficial. People who utilize Vantage Quest will find that it challenges their creative potential in a variety of ways."

Renowned psychologist and author, Dr. Krippner researches consciousness, parapsychology, and alternative healing. The author or co-author of more than five hundred books and journal articles, his most recent titles, Spiritual Dimensions of Healing, and Personal Mythology, are available at your local bookseller.

Vantage Quest's developer, Carlisle Bergquist, is a co-author with Dr. Krippner of The Magenta Phenomenon, an exploration of a Brazilian healer. The article appears in The Journal of Exceptional Human Experience, 1994. To find out more about these exceptional encounters in Brazil, read Carlisle's on-line essay Creativity, Healing, and Shamanism.

The sound you hear on Vantage Quest is literally hand-crafted and edited using both digital and analog equipment to create the Harmonic Matrix. No other psychoacoustic recordings or devices contain this unique auditory stimulation. Vantage Quest is presented on Compact Disks to better reproduce the complexity and intensity of its audio signals.

Vantage Quest is not a motivational tape, a set of problem solving techniques, nor is it music embedded with subliminal messages. It actually alters consciousness. There are many products on the market that generate shifts in consciousness using a technique called "binaural beat." Binaural methods generate a phantom oscillation by feeding slightly out of tune audio signals into opposite ears so that the brain's neural firings (brain waves) follow it. Though this method works, we believe it is essentially like asking the brain to synchronize distortion, that is, it tries to tune what is out of tune.

1. Vantage Quest produces the synchronization effect through a sound design we developed called a Harmonic Matrix. This process is unmatched in any other product. It does not use subliminal messages or binaural pulses to produce the entrainment effect.
   
   
2. It works safely, effectively, and quickly. You are not required to go through a lengthy training; yet, extended use leads you to ever deepening states of awareness.
   
   
3. Vantage Quest requires no expensive special equipment. There are no peculiar eyeglasses or processors to buy. You need only your home stereo CD player, and a good pair of headphones.
   
   
4. Unlike other trance-inducing products that stimulate Theta and Alpha brain wave activity, Vantage Quest excites a broad range of brain wave frequencies with its Harmonic Matrix. This produces an exceptional state of clarity along with the deeply relaxed state.
   
   
5. The complete Vantage Quest System (when released), will include 12 CDs designed to entrain different Harmonic Matrices; thus, you can select the appropriate one and "tune" your experience as desired.

Use Vantage Quest with headphones just as you would listen to a favorite CD (compact disc).  You don't need an expensive set, but they should be the large kind that cover your ears.  Earphones, like those you use with a "Walkman," are less effective.  These are very low tones so the bigger the speaker size the better. 

• Use Vantage Quest at a convenient time each day, or as often as you can.  A regular time is best to establish your rhythm.
  
  
• Find a time and place you won't be disturbed. No cat in the lap. No phone calls. Don't try to listen while you do other things. Vantage Quest's sound stimuli are subtle, so outside distractions will override the experience. Set aside some time just for yourself. Time you can look forward to each day with Vantage Quest.
  
  
• Sit relaxed in a comfortable position and listen to the tones on the CD. Let your imagination wander off in them. Use a good pair of headphones. If you lie down you will probably fall asleep.
  
  
• Take a few minutes to regain a more alert state of consciousness after listening before returning to your normal activities.
  
  
• CAUTION: Do not use Vantage Quest while operating an automobile or any dangerous equipment.

Vantage Quest is not suitable if you suffer from a seizure disorder.  The strong sound stimuli may affect you.

Vantage Quest does not use any subliminal messages or hypnotic suggestions to produce its effects. Thus it is easily adapted for several different uses. Each Vantage Quest CD contains 3 tracks.

• Track #1 has a brief guided imagery induction leading into VQ's Harmonic Matrix and then an awakening at its end. Track #2 contains only the Harmonic Matrix. Track #3 contains just the awakening.
  
  
• Track #2 may be used when you no longer need the vocal induction to relax, or when you wish to repeat the track for a longer experience. Track #3 is just to bring you back home again.

Specific Applications of Vantage Quest.

Vantage Quest is a doorway to an expanded state of awareness, or "reverie" that will introduce you to new parts of yourself. It unleashes your natural creative force. Whether you work in the arts, or work on yourself, seek solutions to a business problem, or search for the healing powers within your being, Vantage Quest is an effective aid.

Creativity is not just the "arts." It is nature at work. All of us experience times when everything seems to flow. We tune-in with the world around us and solutions to problems seem to come easily. We find a new Vantage. These are the moments of true creativity.

Creating is a natural act. A tree doesn't have to think to grow, it just surrenders to the process of nature. Vantage Quest's innovative sound helps you surrender in a similar way and thus allow growth, creativity and healing to occur.

"Vantage Quest is a powerful resource for women with poor body images. Through accessing the deep consciousness states, women are able to re-establish the vital connections between their mind and body that are so often disconnected by negative body perceptions. The deeply relaxed state the brain wave frequencies induce can be a helpful tool for women to begin healing these connections and assist them in channeling their creativity and growth potential toward greater body satisfaction."

Monica A. Dixon, PhD., R.D.
Author, Love the Body You Were Born With, Berkeley Books, 1996

The best way to understand the usefulness of Vantage Quest is to try it for yourself, as a tool for "applied reverie". The results for each individual are qualitatively different, as you'll see by reading what users have to say.

Let your own experience speak for itself.

Vantage Quest has three strong roots in scientific research, ancient traditions, and modern technology. These roots are distinctly different and contribute to Vantage Quest's diverse applications.

Scientific Research

Research studies on the brain and its functions have made dramatic advances in the last two decades. One area of research has focused on the brain's electrical activity and the states of consciousness associated with various frequency ranges of that activity commonly called brain waves. The ranges of brain wave activity are divided into regions called Delta (below 4 cycles per second, or Hz.) associated with deep sleep, Theta (4-7 Hz.) associated with pre-sleep and vivid imagery, Alpha (8-13) a calm relaxed state, Beta (14-35 Hz.) our day to day alert consciousness, and Gamma (above 35 Hz.) which seem to be associated with peak performance. Evidence has also been found of very high frequency waves that may be associated with the special abilities exhibited by some healers and psychics. Research in these subtle energies is still developing. Research has also demonstrated a harmonic pattern across these various regions of brain wave activity.

Carlisle Bergquist, developer of Vantage Quest, extended this research with further studies applying it to creativity enhancement. The research focused the brain's frequency following effect, or tendency to entrain with rhythmic stimuli, and thereby alter consciousness states.

Ancient Traditions

Sound has for millennia been a locus of enlightenment, a pathway to the deep reaches of our psyche. For twenty thousand years of recorded history, shamans have used sound to venture into other worlds on behalf of their cultures. They are the developers of the early science of consciousness. Before the advances in modern physics that now describe the tiniest subatomic particles as interference patterns of various sound frequencies - "nodes of resonance" - these many myths in some way implicated sound as causal in creation. Sound -- vibration -- grants us such passage because it is the core of our being.

Many religions describe sound in their creation stories, the exploration of consciousness, and healing rituals. The creation stories of the western religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity all say that God spoke and all became manifest. The Chinese religion Taoism speaks of "the Great Tone of Nature." Hindu cosmology tells of Nada Brahma -- sound, the creator God. Similar ideas can be found in the beliefs of indigenous peoples around the globe.

Ancient esoteric traditions also include sound in their teachings. Sufism and the Kabballa both describe humankind as having a core of sound, or a "root frequency." The mystical writings of A. A. Bailey, H.P. Blavatsky, and Rudolf Steiner, along with those of the Rosicrucian Order all describe core frequencies that form the basis of human existence. Shamans have known these secrets for thousands of years and used sound to carry them on their travels into altered states.

Vantage Quest is not a spiritual or esoteric tradition. Thus, Vantage Quest espouses no specific doctrine but, like these traditions, it is based on a premise that we are in essence Resonant Beings. Resonance that provides a pathway to the higher creativity and healing found at our core. To learn more about the use of sound in various traditions read, Doorways In Consciousness: An Exploration of Resonant Being.

Modern Technology

Recording is both a science and an art. The finest in modern recording technology and talent were used to develop and record Vantage Quest. Angel Balestier, owner of Group IV Recording and ALB Productions, has been engineering and producing hit records since his days with Jimi Hendrix all the way to the opening sequence of the 1996 Olympic Games. Steve Livingston is a music and sound editor for the film and television industry, and a multiple nominee for the prestigious Emmy and Golden Reel awards. Carlisle Bergquist is the former Vice President of Suitewinds Productions and a producer at the Silvery Moon Studios. Carlisle is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice along with researching and writing about the role of creativity in healing. Their combined expertise applied the brains of music to the music of the brain in developing Vantage Quest.

The sound you hear on Vantage Quest is literally hand-crafted and edited using both digital and analog equipment to create the Harmonic Matrix. No other psychoacoustic recordings or devices contain this unique auditory stimulation. Vantage Quest is presented on Brass Foil Compact Disks to better reproduce the complexity and intensity of its audio signals.

Thomas Edison said, "Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." We know where the perspiration comes from but, though many psychological theories have been presented, the source of inspiration continues to elude us. Healing is much the same. We perform the hard work of treatment, but the actual healing "RE-CREATES" health at some other level of the spirit - mind - body connection we can not observe. In both creating and healing our job is to cooperate and allow these higher powers to work.

Vantage Quest facilitates states of consciousness that help you cooperate with the creative cycle. Creativity and healing - creating health - are both enhanced by allowing the mind to relax and enter the deep meditative EEG states that VQ's psychoacoustic sound matrix induces.

The complete Vantage Quest System will include twelve CD's with twelve different tones. Users will be able to further tune their experiences by listening to these various tones.

To learn more about the creative process see: Thoughts Beneath the Trees, a collection of essays on creativity by Carlisle Bergquist.