Last Updated on July 27, 2025 by pg@petergamma.org
Pharmacologist Diego Hangartner with a degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Zurich has some qualities of a „superhuman“.
Throughout his life, he has been a high-level sports person: he was in his youth Swiss champion in rowing multiple times, and participated in world championships.
In the following video, he talks at the University of St. Gallen, where the „superhumans“ in Switzerland can learn about economics:
Diego Hangartner also participated with other „superhumans“ in scientific studies. He was one of the around 18 „superhumans“, who where described in the following video by Daniel Goleman with the title:
“Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators”
The data of these superhuman brains where published 20 years ago in the following PNAS paper:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0407401101
Diego Hangartner described this in the following video:
Diego discribes in the above video, that he participated in this studies with other mediators from the beginning. And these where Matthieu Ricard, Mingour Rinpoche, etc. And these scientific studies about meditation are still going on. And Diego still pariticipates in those. They where going on in Geneva, but also in Lion in France. Diego Hangartner has spent more than 10 years in Dharamshala India. Did he became a „supermeditator“ there, at the place, the Dalai Lama the 14. lives?
He is now such a skilled meditator that he was able to demonstrate this at the Art Museum Zurich:
As Switzerland’s largest art museum, the Kunsthaus Zürich offers attractive exhibitions of international stature. One of the stature in the museum was „superhuman“ Diego Hangartner.
Also the curriculum vitae of Diego Hangartner is that of a „superhuman“.
- he received innumerable formal teachings, both public and privately, from His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Teachings to Swiss-Tibetan Community
- University of Zurich, Geneva, and ETH Zürich
- Universities of Oxford, King’s College, England Build and run for profit organizations (Pharmaceutical Company, Pharmacy, Restaurant)
- Worked closely with many world-renown individuals, authors and researchers:
- The Dalai Lama, India
- Dan Goleman, Author of Emotional Intelligence, USA
- Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist Monk and Author, Nepal
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness Pioneer, USA
- Richard Davidson, Neuroscientist, USA
- Richard Ernst, Nobel-Prize Winner
https://www.diegohangartner.org/personal
Another „superhuman“ who participated in the above mentioned scientific studies mentioned by Daniel Goleman was Matthieu Richard. He mentioned this in the following talk:
But for Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org
disappointing from „superhuman“ Diego Hangarnter is, that 20 years after Matthieu Ricard gave the above talk, Diego gave a talk at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich which had a very similar content than the talk of Matthieu Ricard which was given 20 years ago:
Did nothing new happen in meditation research in the last 20 years? What has happened was „Altered Traits“:
This book which was a best-selling book which was released about 13 years after Matthieu Ricard s best selling book „Happiness“.
And since we find in „Altered Traits“ basically no new data about the above mentioned „superhumans“, does this not rise the question, if these „superhumans“ really exist?
20 years after these scientific studies, Peter lost his interest in these „superhuman“ meditators, since he does not know of new scientific data.
And Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org interest has been directed towards other superhuman such as „Milarepa“, which are described in the following video by Sadhguru:
Milarepa became from a sinner to a saint in Tibet. According to some statements, he had killed more than 80 people by his occult power. And then he meditated in a cave where he ate needles until his skin turned green.
But later on he became a saint in Tibet, the most famous author of this country, and founded also his own school:
And Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org learned a lot from Milarepa about meditation. Peter heard of people who have spent many years in solitary retreat talking only to a psychotherapist. And all these therapists offered was psychotherapy, drugs and everything else which is necessary to survive.
But these treatments where not really satisfying for some people. Since psychotherapists did not offer practical instructions what to do against mental suffering. And is it not much more interesting, eventually more effective, and also a much waiser to learn for instance from Milarepa how he got rid of mental suffering?
And that was to meditate in a cave until Milarepa mastered his mind.
The life of Milarepa is still interesting for the meditators of today. But Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org still misses a really convincing scientific proof from „superhumans“ such as Diego Hangartner about the effect of meditation. We have such scientific proofs from John Kabat Zinn, and Zindel Segal, etc.
But do we really have much more than a popular scientific book from Richard Davidson about science and meditation?
And which psychotherapist in Switzerland teaches according to „Altered Traits“? What is your opinion about this topic? Write it in the comments below.