The Founder Behind roXiva

By Jimi simpson, founder & ceo

I have spent most of my working life creating things. Sometimes that has meant software, electronics or physical products. At other times it has meant building companies, solving operational problems or taking an idea that existed only in my head and finding a way to make it real. I have never fitted neatly into a single professional description, and I have never particularly wanted to. What has always interested me is turning an observation into something useful.

roXiva began with one of those observations, although it took me several years to understand its full significance.

My interest in unusual human experiences began after watching the film Insidious. The film itself was fictional, but its depiction of an out-of-body experience stayed with me. I wanted to know whether people genuinely reported experiences of that kind and, if they did, what might be happening. That curiosity led me into research covering consciousness, meditation, perception, neuroscience and the ways in which light and sound can influence experience.

At first, I approached the subject as I would any technical problem. I read, experimented and tried to understand the mechanisms involved. My interest in stroboscopic light came from the belief that its entrainment effects might help create the internal conditions I was looking for in relation to out-of-body exploration.

My original focus was whether carefully structured light could help create and sustain the internal conditions I was looking for in relation to out-of-body exploration. The vivid internal imagery became apparent as the experiments developed. With closed eyes, colours, movement, patterns and an unexpected sense of depth could arise through the interaction between the light and the visual system. That was fascinating, but it was not what first led me to the technology

As the experiments continued, I began to appreciate that the most interesting part was not simply what people saw during a session. It was what could happen around the experience.

Some people emerged feeling deeply relaxed. Others described clarity, wonder, emotional release or a sense that they had briefly stepped outside their ordinary way of thinking. Not everyone experienced the same thing, and no responsible person could promise what any individual would feel. What became clear was that carefully designed sessions could create conditions in which something personally meaningful might occur.

That distinction has shaped the way I have thought about roXiva ever since. We are not creating an experience and placing it inside somebody’s mind. We are creating a carefully structured set of conditions in which the individual can have their own experience. The light, sound, timing and session design all matter, but the internal process belongs entirely to the person using the technology.

When I built the earliest version of what would become roXiva in 2014, I was not setting out to start another conventional technology company. I wanted to make these experiences more accessible, more consistent and easier to explore intentionally. Over time, that early work developed into a sophisticated light and sound platform now used by individuals, practitioners and organisations in many parts of the world.

The technology evolved considerably, but so did my understanding of what it could offer. Through years of conversations with people using roXiva, I began to recognise that state was not merely one part of an experience. It often influenced how everything that followed was perceived.

The same conversation can be received differently depending on the state of the person hearing it. The same technique may feel powerful on one occasion and ineffective on another. Someone who is mentally busy, guarded or overwhelmed may simply be experiencing what is offered from a state that makes meaningful engagement more difficult at that moment.

We often concentrate on the content of an experience while paying far less attention to the condition in which that content is being received.

That realisation changed how I understood roXiva. I no longer saw it simply as a light and sound product. I began to see it as a way for people to explore different internal states more intentionally and, through repeated experience, become more familiar with the differences between them.

A roXiva session does not promise an outcome, and it should never be presented as though it does. Individual responses vary, sometimes considerably. What a session can do is use carefully structured light and sound to encourage conditions associated with qualities such as relaxation, absorption, reflection or stimulation, depending on the session and the person experiencing it.

The value does not come from claiming that everybody will reach the same destination. It comes from creating a reliable opportunity for people to explore what may become available when the conditions of their experience change.

This has also made me think more deeply about how well we understand our own internal experience.

Frustration can shape a conversation before we have recognised that it is present. Mental speed can reduce our ability to listen properly. Excitement, confidence, tiredness, curiosity and apprehension can all alter the way a situation is experienced, often without the situation itself changing.

Becoming more familiar with our own state does not mean attempting to control every thought or feeling. It means becoming better able to recognise the condition from which we are experiencing a particular moment and understanding that it may be influencing what we perceive as possible within it.

This is the broader context in which I now see roXiva.

The quality of the technology matters. The engineering, timing, frequencies, sound design and structure of each session are the result of years of development and deserve to be treated seriously. But none of those things is the final destination. They exist to support experiences through which people may discover something valuable for themselves.

My role is to continue asking questions, building useful tools and listening closely to the people using what we create. I am not interested in presenting myself as somebody who has reached a final answer. Human experience is far too complex and individual for that kind of certainty.

I am interested in building responsibly and describing both the possibilities and the limitations of the technology honestly. That means remaining ambitious about what roXiva can become without making promises about what any particular person will experience. Some of the most valuable moments cannot be manufactured, predicted or reduced to a single explanation.

The future of roXiva will not be defined only by brighter lights, more sessions or additional features. Those developments will continue, but they are not the reason the company exists.

The deeper opportunity is to help people explore their internal experience more intentionally and create conditions in which relaxation, reflection, creativity, insight, fascination or wonder may become more accessible.

I still find it remarkable that an idea sparked by a fictional film eventually led to a technology being used around the world. More important, however, is where the original question has led me.

What began as an interest in out-of-body exploration has developed into a much broader investigation of state, perception and the conditions in which meaningful internal experiences can occur.

That is the work I expect to continue for the rest of my career, because the moments we experience within can profoundly change the way we experience life.