John Hoyle began his search for a map to relieve suffering at a young age, though at that time he didn’t know exactly what he was searching for. He spent his early childhood pondering the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church his family attended. At the age of ten, he became an avid reader of books on western psychology – Jung, Freud and Adler were his boyhood heroes. At fifteen, he found a copy of Be Here Now by Ram Dass in the public library and his interest shifted to Eastern religions. It was at this point in his life that John realized his life’s work would be finding a way to change his state of consciousness.

He was still also drawn to the world of psychology, and while attending Salem State College, he was struck by the extraordinary aliveness of one of his psychology professors, Dr. Cesareo Pelaez. It was through this man that John came to spend twelve years, from age eighteen to thirty, immersed in “The Fourth Way” work of G.I Gurdjieff. During this time, John also completed his mater’s degree at Cambridge and began working individually with clients to develop his own method of clearing and integrating consciousness.

By observing his clients and reading about physics, John began to realize that emotions, like anger or sadness, can either move through the body or get contained by it somehow. In 1997, he founded the Institute of Conscious Studies to further explore his idea. John served as director of ICS for six years. During this time, he worked extensively with Elise Hathaway and Kim Jordan to develop a map of human consciousness as well as a unified theory of the human being. John continues to pursue his interests in Portland, Oregon where he sees individual clients, works with groups, teaches VAI, writes and continues to develop the theory on human evolution. He is the author of the book Voice Activated Integration – An Evolutionary Way to Unlock the Unconscious and Free the Body of the Energy of the Past, and he most recently co-founded an organization called The Inner Politics of Peace through which he plans to teach VAI and present this body of work to the world.