A Teacher

Robert B. Stone

1916-1999 New Thought Silva Method / New Thought Self-Development

Trained mental projection and the powers of the mind

The transmission

Robert B. Stone (February 26, 1916 - January 5, 1999) was an American author, lecturer, and one of the principal popularizers of the Silva Method, the mind-training system created by Jose Silva.

An MIT graduate, MENSA member, and elected member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Stone moved to Honolulu in 1969 and taught for years at the University of Hawaii on “activating the powers of the mind.” He served as a Silva lecturer and Ambassador-at-Large for some two decades, carrying the method to several nations, and was the author or co-author of more than eighty books, several written directly with Jose Silva.

His best-known title in this lineage, The Secret Life of Your Cells, drew on Cleve Backster’s controversial experiments suggesting that living cells and plants register human thought and emotion, marshalling them as evidence that mind extends beyond the skull.

Within the Atlas, Stone functions as a bridge figure: he translated the Silva Method’s structured visualization and “mental projection” exercises into accessible books for a mass audience, blending New Thought mental-causation with a scientific-sounding, experiment-citing idiom and a strand of Hawaiian Huna gathered during his decades in the islands.

What they gave

Popularizing the Silva Method: Wrote and co-wrote the most widely read introductions to Silva’s structured mind-training, spreading it internationally.

Mental-projection technique: Taught disciplined visualization and “going to level” as a repeatable mind-power practice.
Biocommunication argument: The Secret Life of Your Cells used Backster’s research to argue that thought affects living matter at a distance.
Prolific bridge author: Across 80-plus books he linked New Thought, Silva training, and Huna into accessible self-development.