Quick Facts
Biography
Itzhak "Ben" Bentov (also Ben-Tov) (Hebrew: יצחק בנטוב) (August 9, 1923 – May 25, 1979) was a Czech-born Israeli American scientist, inventor, mystic and author. His many inventions, including the steerable cardiac catheter, helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry. He was also an early exponent of what has come to be referred to as consciousness studies and authored several books on the subject.
Early life
Bentov was born in Humenné, Czechoslovakia, in 1923. During World War II, his parents were killed in Nazi concentration camps.
He narrowly escaped being sent to the camps and moved to British Palestine, first living on the Shoval kibbutz in the Negev.
Despite not having a university degree, Bentov joined the Israeli Science Corps, which David Ben-Gurion incorporated into the Israeli Defense Forces one month before Israel declared statehood in 1948. The Science Corps became a military branch known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED. Bentov designed Israel's first rocket for the War of Independence. HEMED was forced to make improvised weapons as there was a worldwide embargo on selling weapons to the Jewish state.
Bentov immigrated to the United States in 1954, and settled in Massachusetts. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1962.
Inventions
Bentov began with a workshop in the basement of a Catholic church in Belmont, Massachusetts in the 1960s. In 1967, he built the steerable heart catheter and attracted the attention of businessman John Abele, with whom Bentov founded the Medi-Tech corporation in 1969.
Abele later recalled of Bentov's workshop,
In 1979, Abele and Peter Nicholas looked to grow the successful business and established Boston Scientific as a holding company to purchase Medi-Tech.
Bentov was the holder of numerous patents. In addition to the steerable cardiac catheter, his inventions ranged included diet spaghetti, automobile brake shoes, EKG electrodes and pacemaker leads.
Patents
| Filing date | Publication Date | Title | Patent No. |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 18, 1965 | July 30, 1968 | Means and method of converting fibers into yarn | U.S. Patent 3,394,540 |
| December 13, 1952 | October 9, 1956 | Method of making laminated plastic tubing | U.S. Patent 2,766,160 |
| December 14, 1961 | November 17, 1964 | Dressing | U.S. Patent 3,157,178 |
| Apr 23, 1962 | January 28, 1964 | Power transmission | U.S. Patent 3,119,283 |
| January 8, 1965 | Apr 11, 1967 | Pump | U.S. Patent 3,313,240 |
| August 7, 1968 | September 20, 1971 | Controlled motion devices | U.S. Patent 3,605,725 |
| March 24, 1966 | October 28, 1969 | Multiple conductor electrode | U.S. Patent 3,474,791 |
| November 5, 1958 | February 20, 1962 | Process of making surface coats for masonry building units | U.S. Patent 3,021,573 |
| March 12, 1962 | January 26, 1965 | Method of encapsulating liquid particles in thermoplastic shell | U.S. Patent 3,167,602 |
| May 16, 1962 | January 19, 1965 | Method of explosively forming fibers | U.S. Patent 3,165,826 |
| August 28, 1969 | May 25, 1971 | Anatomical model | U.S. Patent 3,579,858 |
| June 19, 1962 | September 3, 1963 | Means for administering medicine | U.S. Patent 3,102,540 |
| January 21, 1980 | March 23, 1982 | Dilator | U.S. Patent 4,320,762 |
| December 12, 1966 | January 27, 1970 | Apparatus for making tubes of bonded flexible strips | U.S. Patent 3,491,756 |
| November 24, 1958 | August 28, 1962 | Scratch masking coating composition for masonry | U.S. Patent 3,051,678 |
Spirituality
Bentov was extremely fascinated by consciousness, in particular how it related to physiology. In his 1977 book, Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness, he wrote that "consciousness permeates everything."
Bentov's invention was a seismographic device to record the heartbeat, in particular the aorta's reverberations. Marc Seifer described the results: "During normal breathing, the reverberations in the aorta arc out of phase with the heartbeat and the system is inharmonious. However, during meditation and when the breath is held, the echo off the bifurcation of the aorta (where the aorta forks at the pelvis to go into each leg) is in resonance with the heartbeat and the system becomes synchronized, thus utilizing a minimum amount of energy. This resonant beat is approximately seven cycles per second, which corresponds not only to the alpha rhythm of the brain bur also to the low-level magnetic pulsations of the Earth."
Bentov's studies on consciousness have been widely cited. His findings resulted in a “scientifically verifiable version of the kundalini concept.”
Death and legacy
Bentov was killed on May 25, 1979, as a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 191 that crashed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Moments after takeoff, an engine detached from the plane and tore off part of the wing, sending the plane down. The crash killed all 271 passengers and crew on board and two people on the ground. It is the deadliest single plane crash on U.S. soil to date.
Bentov's daughter, English professor Sharona Ben-Tov Muir, wrote a memoir about her father, The Book of Telling: Tracing the Secrets of My Father’s Lives in 2005. It was not until after his death that she learned about his life in the Israeli Defense Forces and that he had created Israel's first rocket. Searching for answers as to why he never discussed this part of his life, Muir traveled to Israel and researched his years there.
Published works
- Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness, E. P. Dutton, 1977, ISBN 978-0-525-47458-6; Inner Traditions - Bear and Company, 1988, ISBN 0-89281-202-8
- A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness: A Cosmic Book on the Mechanics of Creation, Inner Traditions - Bear and Company, 2000, ISBN 0-89281-814-X
- A Cosmic Book on the Mechanics of Creation with Mirtala Bentov, Dutton Books, 1982, ISBN 0-525-47701-2
- Micromotions of the body as a factor in the development of the nervous system, a centerpiece article published in the anthology Kundalini, Evolution, and Enlightenment by John White, editor, 1998, ISBN 1-55778-303-9