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We are delighted to welcome Diné (Navajo) activist, artist, writer and ceremonial leader, Pat McCabe, to our ConnectIONS Live Series on Friday March 5th at 11:00 am PST to explore what a paradigm for thriving life could look like. According to Indigenous wisdom, every single member of the Sacred Hoop of Life has a perfect design to uphold its part of the Hoop — including humanity. As cracks in foundational beliefs begin to appear, as imposed knowledge gives way to inner feeling, inner knowing, and inner perceiving, we can re-examine this honor we have been gifted, this place humanity has in the circle.

We are delighted to share this Interview with Dr. Luís Portela, author of the newly released The Science of Spirit: Parapsychology, Enlightenment and Evolution. Luís Portela is chairman of the Bial Foundation, a non-profit institution supporting human-centered research, particularly in areas that are poorly explored but susceptible to in-depth scientific analysis. The Bial Foundation has been a generous supporter of IONS for over two decades. We are deeply grateful for their support. Bial is also one of the very few foundations that is a significant supporter of parapsychological research.

The IONS Experience Department was fortunate to share a few moments with Blythe Bohonos of the Calgary IONS Community Group, harvesting history, recommendations, and knowledge about what it takes to form an IONS Community Group.

In last week’s ConnectIONS Live webinar, we will turned the tables in our exploration of Noetic Leadership, with IONS CEO, Claire Lachance taking the role of interviewee. Alan Briskin, Noetic Leadership Executive Advisor, talked with Claire as she discussed her personal and professional noetic experiences, and how they have influenced her leadership of IONS. Claire and Alan also discussed the evolution of the Noetic Leadership Initiative, with an emphasis on practical applications for today’s leaders across a variety of sectors and domains.

Netflix has launched a new docu-series based on the work of Leslie Kean, one of our own ConnectIONS Live speakers who was featured in our webinar “Consciousness After Death.” Inspired by Kean’s 2017 book Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife, the series explores what it means to die, and if death is actually the end of our existence. Weaving together innovative new research with firsthand accounts from those who’ve been close to — and even experienced — death, this series takes viewers on an extraordinary journey into a world beyond human existence as we know it.

According to author and eco-depth psychologist Bill Plotkin, the most fundamental crisis in the world today might be a psychological and spiritual one: the loss of meaning or purpose. All other major crises in our world today — social and racial injustice, addictions and violence, environmental pollution, mass extinction, family dysfunctions, political dysfunctions, climate disruption, war — grow out of this bedrock existential loss: so many people experiencing their lives as empty, or suspecting human life, more generally, to be meaningless.

On February 21, 2021, Theresa Cheung caught up with pioneering scientist and IONS Director of Research Dr. Helané Wahbeh on the White Shores podcast in an episode titled “Your Moonshot.” They embarked on a fascinating discussion about the supernormal research Dr. Wahbeh directs at IONS. We’re pleased to share a snippet from the interview below.

For thousands of years, lucid dreaming has been used as a powerful practice in Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism, shamanic and other spiritual traditions. Lucid dreaming, or being aware of dreaming while in the dream state, holds tremendous potential for exploring consciousness and the nature of the mind, utilizing interconnected conscious and unconscious knowledge for healing, and for personal growth, spiritual insight, and transformation. With the scientific validation of lucid dreaming in 1980, in separate research by Keith Hearne (United Kingdom) and Stephen LaBerge (Stanford University, US), lucid dreaming has become accepted as a unique, scientifically valid state of conscious awareness.

Have you found that your reflection and intention-setting rituals associated with the New Year have continued a lot longer than usual this year? This should not be a surprise to any of us as 2020 was one of the most challenging—and transformative—years in our lifetimes. But still, it’s early February and I am still processing last year—in particular regarding our experience at IONS.

On Friday, February 5, 1971, Captain Ed Mitchell piloted the Apollo 14 lunar module onto the surface of the Moon in the crater named after the Italian geographer Fra Mauro. Exactly 50 years later, in a public ConnectIONS Live program that concluded the six-month Edgar Mitchell Legacy Campaign, IONS celebrated the epiphany that Dr. Mitchell experienced on his way back to Earth, which he described as “seeing things in their separateness, but experiencing them in their unity.”