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This year, IONS hosted the 61st Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association (PA), an international scientific society affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the largest scientific organization in the world). Attendees gathered together from August 2nd-5th for this academic-style conference to discuss the topic of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The primary objective of the PA is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences.

Please enjoy this except from the book Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights written by IONS past president Willis Harman and Howard Rheingold.

The most ordinary and the most extraordinary manifestations of our minds are not entirely unrelated phenomena, but rather the extreme ends of a continuum of creative consciousness.

Each of our six ground-breaking IONS scientists work on multiple exciting research projects. All of which investigate the Science Team’s overall hypothesis that everything is interconnected, and that embodying that awareness reveals information and energy not limited by space and time, which can create breakthroughs in transformation, innovation, and well-being. Each one of these studies answers a piece of our larger research question.

The base of the ancient Mayan wisdom is their calendar, the Tzol-Kin. A month has 20 days and each day carries a specific quality. All their knowledge and wisdom comes from observation of nature, so the “20 Nawales” as they call these 20 days are archetypical qualities that can be easily grasped in it´s basic meaning, but from there one can go deeper and deeper as they are very profound and complex as well.

The counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory have now been experimentally confirmed with unprecedented rigor. Yet, the question of how to interpret the meaning of these predictions remains controversial. A Wikipedia table summarizing different interpretations of quantum mechanics included no less than fourteen entries at the time of this writing. New interpretations regularly appear.

An important part of IONS mission is to encourage society’s institutions to pay more attention to the connection between science and spirituality to ease suffering and promote thriving. As part of this, we have been engaged in a collaborative effort to help providers and policy-makers in the field of mental health care recognize the importance of spirituality in most people’s emotional and psychological lives.

As a licensed psychotherapist, I encourage people to “hear voices” and to “see” non-physical beings. No, I’m not crazy. In fact, for 12 years I was a subject-matter expert for the Board of Behavioral Science Examiners, which regulates licensing for the State of California. I am even certified by the state to provide Continuing Education Units to train other psychotherapists to help people “hear voices.”

There have been a large number of articles published about Artificial Intelligence lately, most with varying topics of focus. Some discuss how AI applications will eventually replace numerous human jobs, potentially disrupting global economies and bringing about a transition toward a more utopian society. Some discuss the advances in medicine and healthcare which will likely occur, thereby increasing human lifespans and quality of life dramatically (which are actually already occurring). Yet other articles discuss the potential dystopia for General AI to run amok through an accident of logic that leads our machines to protect all of humanity from harm and death… by first killing all of humanity to ensure no additional harm can come to anyone. There… problem solved. And frankly, any and all of these potentials are awaiting to be realized (or not) as we develop AI capabilities and move into tomorrow’s now.

“When I think in terms of how intention can guide you into being in the right place at the right time, that has happened so often in my career that somebody could say ‘well, that’s like magic’.”
– Dean Radin, PhD