ions - kn

If there’s one thing we can learn from Presidential election cycles, especially the strange one in 2016, it’s that people believe what they want to believe. It doesn’t matter if the beliefs are objectively true or false, as fact-checking websites demonstrate. Prejudices shape our reality and determine what we pay attention to and what we ignore. Because biases are inescapable, I constantly strive to be mindful and adjust my evaluation of evidence accordingly. That sort of self-reflection is not evident in a review of my 2013 book, Supernormal, published in 2014 in the magazine, Skeptical Inquirer.

One of the key missions at IONS is to bring awareness of and engagement within the noetic sciences to younger generations by supporting emerging scholars and explorers. As part of this effort, Chief Scientist Dean Radin recently gave a talk at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), an innovative university in San Francisco that offers accredited programs in counseling psychology, clinical psychology, consciousness, and transformation.

Julia Mossbridge, Director of IONS Innovation Lab, recently participated in Spiritual Technologies 2.0, an online summit exploring the pioneering tools that power spiritual awakening, growth, and connection. Participating innovators included Ken Wilber, Bill Harris, Mikey Siegel, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, and many more.

IONS research includes the study of extended human capacities — experiences that appear to go beyond the conventional boundaries of space and time.

Hosting “a vibrant community of explorers and change agents who are working together to make a difference in the world” is one of the key functions of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). There are over 175 community groups across 21 countries that meet regularly to hear speakers, explore research, and discuss topics such as transformation, forgiveness, healing, psychic phenomena, and new scientific discoveries. Most important to me, however, is the deep listening and authentic sharing that happens within an IONS Community Group.

On Monday, Dr. Wolfgang Baer presented the research team of Arnaud Delorme, Leena Michel, Alan Pierce, and lead scientist Dean Radin with a check for $1,000 for the Nascent Prize for Best Paper.

I was recently asked to talk about the science of consciousness at Chinmaya Mission in Princeton, New Jersey. While I have been greatly interested in consciousness studies for many decades, this was my first official IONS talk on the topic. I caught myself up on the current evidence for the science of consciousness, and developed a presentation titled “The Science of Consciousness: Personal, Relational, Global and Beyond”. My 20-minute PowerPoint had beautiful pictures, graphs and figures to engage the audience.

These days a lot of people talk about a ‘new paradigm.’ In the modern world there are paradigm shifts taking place everywhere, from ecology, economics and health, to physics and cosmology. For many, however, when we’re talking about the new paradigm, we’re talking about something bigger: an approaching shift in thinking that, when realized, will constitute a deep collective change in the way we see our place in the universe.

Aging can be a discouraging process in our youth-obsessed culture. In popular media, those in the later stages of life are often presented as diminished, having little to offer, and disengaged from meaningful activities.

Sports, fitness and exercise programs in the United States continue to evolve as athletes of all types, both professional and recreational, seek to achieve higher levels of performance.  In doing so, athletes, coaches, trainers, and sports psychiatrists are embracing some of the concepts of the Integral Movement in the West, in order to attain elevated states of athletic functioning and heightened awareness. These somatic mind/body practices integrate Eastern and Western principles, philosophies and exercises to achieve optimal results.  Michael Murphy, who along with George Leonard has introduced the first coherent integral practice in the West,  Integral Transformative Practice (ITP), has termed these approaches “Transformative Practices” and defines them in Future of the Body as “a complex and coherent set of activities that produce positive change in a person or a group.”