Group coherence
The Master Mind (Group Consciousness)
Hill believed that when two or more minds harmonize around a shared aim, a third “intelligence” emerges. In modern terms: group coherence can amplify attention quality, idea generation, and decision clarity—when the group is aligned rather than reactive.
Core idea
The Master Mind isn’t “having smart friends.” It’s the altered state that forms when harmony, shared purpose, and a stable rhythm reduce noise across multiple people at once.
What creates a Master Mind state
- Harmony: emotional alignment and low interpersonal threat.
- Shared purpose: one aim, named clearly.
- Collective rhythm: predictable cadence (meetings, rituals, work blocks).
Hill claimed this state could connect participants to insight beyond any single mind. Whether you frame it as emergent cognition or collective intelligence, the practical question is the same: does the group reduce noise and increase usable signal?
A simple “Master Mind” protocol (30 minutes)
- Open with a 2-minute silence or breath pacing.
- State the one question the group is solving.
- Each person offers one observation (no debate yet).
- One round of synthesis: patterns and options only.
- Close by choosing one next action and one constraint.
Risks (group drift vs group intelligence)
- Borrowed thinking: the group repeats fashionable ideas instead of synthesizing.
- Status games: threat re-enters and signal quality collapses.
- Urgency: rushed decisions become noise-driven.