What is the evidence, what survives, and how do our beliefs about it affect us?

Friday, September 11, 2020
11:00am-12:15pm Pacific

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In both media and scientific research, much attention has been paid to the questions, “Is there life after death?” and, “What do people believe about the possibility of life after death?” Several studies about Near Death Experiences (NDEs), apparitions and hauntings, mediumship, and reincarnation suggest that consciousness does persist in some form after someone dies.

Join us on Friday, September 11th as three expert panelists explore the current evidence on survival of consciousness research, how it is beginning to gain acceptance in clinical settings, and why people often don’t share that they’ve had an NDE.

While research evidence is strong that some aspect of our consciousness may exist beyond physical death, the ideas about exactly what persists are varied. Do our personalities—with memories, thoughts, and emotions—remain intact indefinitely, or does our consciousness merge with something larger, or something else entirely? World religions certainly have much to say about this topic, but what do people believe? IONS is conducting a study to assess people’s beliefs on what survives physical death. The preliminary results are in and Dr. Wahbeh will share those results. You’ll also be invited to participate in the study yourself.

PANELISTS

Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR is the Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Wahbeh is clinically trained as a naturopathic physician and research trained with a Master of Clinical Research and two post-doctoral research fellowships. She has published on and spoken internationally about her studies on complementary and alternative medicine, mind-body medicine, stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder and their relationships to physiology, health, and healing.

Terri Daniel, CT, CCTP is a hospice and hospital-trained clinical chaplain (interfaith). She is certified in death, dying, and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling, and in trauma support by the International Association of Trauma Professionals. The focus of her work is to assist dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually and socially-spacious understanding of death, grief, and beyond. She is the founder of the Conference on Death and Afterlife Studies, and the Ask Doctor Death podcast.

Leslie Kean is an independent investigative journalist and author of Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife (2017, Crown Publishing Group), a personal story of research into astonishing and thought-provoking information suggestive of survival past death. In 2010, her book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (Crown Publishing Group, 2010) was a New York Times bestseller. She helped produce a 2011 documentary based on UFOs for the History Channel, made by Breakthru Films, an award-winning independent film company. Kean has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, The Colbert Report, and NPR and in USA Today, Vanity Fair, US News & World Report, and Columbia Journalism Review, among other media.

A joint online event from the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Scientific and Medical Network.

September 4, 2020
11:00am-12:30pm Pacific

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How best can we live our truth in the light of death?

Join us for this panel discussion to engage in essential issues about life and death that we all face. What are your key values and priorities? Are you living these now? If not are there any changes you might decide to make?

Psychiatrist and pioneer in near-death studies Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross once told the story of a man who had just retired. He was looking forward to a leisurely pace of life, but was instead given the news that he had only six weeks to live. His words are a wake-up call for us all: “I made a good living, but I never really lived.” In reflecting on their own lives, the dying themselves often convey really important messages about what is truly significant in life: love, family, friendship, happiness, wisdom, courage, forgiveness, authenticity, balance, meaning, service, growth, and finally surrender.

Join us on Friday, September 4th, for this special joint webinar between IONS and the Scientific and Medical Network to hear from three extraordinary panelists who have all spent decades working in the field of consciousness, dying and death. Tune in for what promises to be a valuable and engaging session that may well provide you with fresh hope and inspiration.

HOST

David Lorimer is a writer, lecturer, poet and editor who is a Founder of Character Education Scotland, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society. He has also been editor of Paradigm Explorer since 1986 and completed his 100th issue in 2019. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Survival? Death as Transition, Resonant Mind (originally Whole in One), The Spirit of Science, Thinking Beyond the Brain, and Radical Prince about the ideas and work of the Prince of Wales. He is the originator of the Inspiring Purpose Values Poster Programmes, which has reached over 350,000 young people. He is also Chair of the Galileo Commission which seeks to widen science beyond a materialistic world view.

PANELISTS

Peter Fenwick, MD, is Emeritus Consultant Neuropsychiatrist, Maudsley Hospital and Emeritus Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry. His other appointments included Consultant Neurophysiologist at St. Thomas’s, Westminster and Broadmoor Hospitals. For 10 years he was a Trustee of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health. Dr. Fenwick is Emeritus President of the Scientific and Medical Network and is former Chair of the Board, The Study Society. He is the author, with his wife Elizabeth, of many books on consciousness and death, most recently The Art of Dying. His autobiography, Shining Light on Transcendence, was published last year.

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, is a social anthropologist, researcher, writer, and charismatic public speaker. She is the ITP Program Chair in the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology at Sofia University and serves as President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. For more than three decades, Marilyn has been a leader in the field of consciousness studies. Her research and extensive publications focus on personal and social transformation, cultural pluralism, extended human capacities, and mind body medicine. She has a depth of leadership experience in government, business, and the not-for-profit sectors. Her broad and varied work has given her a unique ability to help individuals and organizations identify and develop personal and interpersonal skills and capacities needed by 21st century leaders. Her books include: Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind Body Medicine, Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, and Death Makes Life Possible.

Karen Wyatt, MD, is the bestselling author of the book 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying, which contains stories of patients she cared for as a hospice doctor and the spiritual lessons she learned from them at the end of their lives. Dr. Wyatt also hosts the End-of-Life University Podcast, which features conversations with experts who work in all aspects of end-of-life care. She teaches that in order to live life fully we must each overcome our fear of death and embrace the difficulties that life brings us.

Saturdays, August 1, 8, 15
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. (PDT)

We each have a Worldview — the collection of beliefs, assumptions, and “truths” through which we perceive the world and our place in it. A worldview is our personal perspective and it has a tremendous influence on our day-to-day lives.

Adapted from our acclaimed Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) classroom tool, the Worldview Explorations for Families online workshop provides a safe, supportive environment in which to explore your own and others’ perspectives. Together, you and your family will learn what a worldview is, how our individual worldview shapes our experience and beliefs, and how to begin to understand and interact with others whose worldviews are different from our own.

Learn More & Sign Up for Free

Are you willing to receive the gifts that growing older has to offer?

Are you ready to explore ways to expand your perspective on aging?

Then join us for Conscious Aging!

Conscious Aging is a live, online, experiential workshop for older people seeking guidance, meaning making, and connection. You’ll meet once-a-week for six weeks with IONS-certified facilitators and other like-minded adults to:

• Discover what gives heart and meaning to your life, and how you can enrich the years ahead
• Develop the skills of self-compassion to cope more effectively with change and other stressors
• Reveal connection and reduce isolation by recognizing our shared community in the aging process
• Examine how to move from fear and denial of our inevitable losses and death toward embracing a new vision of aging
• Cultivate a personal roadmap for your ongoing journey
• And more!

Registration now open for this first-time online offering.

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All of us age. It is a unifying fact of life. If we can survive adulthood, our last third allows getting closer to being the person we’d like to be. If aging is inherently noetic, then all of us can have access to a quality of mind that senses what is needed without relying solely on rational processes. This is just one of the opportunities that conscious aging offers. Join our panel for a conversation about the noetic wisdom in aging — for ourselves and for our interconnected world.

Noetic Approaches to Aging

Thursday, July 16, 2020
11:00am – 12:15pm (Pacific)

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Presenters

Marc Blesoff used to know everything and trust nothing. Now, Marc knows nothing and he has glimpsed trust. Marc used to believe in coincidence, but he doesn’t anymore. For over 30 years, Marc was a criminal defense attorney, then a mediator. Six years ago, he began facilitating the IONS Conscious Aging Workshops and he hasn’t stopped. It has helped him melt the armor that he’d built up. It has helped him get a clue about who he would like to be. Marc is an IONS Conscious Aging Facilitator and a member of A Tribe Called Aging.

Elizabeth White is an author and advocate for older people, especially those who face uncertain work and financial jeopardy. Her book, Fifty-five, Underemployed, and Faking Normal (published by Simon & Schuster), is for and about the millions of older Americans who, despite career choice and decent incomes, are facing the prospect of downward mobility in old age. Elizabeth White’s TEDx talk has drawn more than 1.7 million views; she is a three-time guest on PBS NewsHour. Her essays have appeared in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Next Avenue and The Washington Post. She is a member of A Tribe Called Aging.

Evalina Everidge has assisted others in navigating life transitions for over 40 years — through community and social justice programs, as a Registered Nurse, as a Board Certified Psychiatric and Mental Health professional for over 15 years, and through a holistic consulting practice. Evalina’s path led her to years in hospice work. Sharing the end of life journey with individuals, their families, and friends was a profound and humbling experience that provided valuable lessons in what really matters. Now retired, Evalina has discovered her passion as a jazz vocalist and as an Age Appreciation Advocate. As an IONS Conscious Aging Facilitator and member of A Tribe Called Aging, Evalina has co-facilitated global webinars, online workshops, and presented at conferences.

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The Overview Effect signifies the profound shift in self-image and worldview experienced by astronauts upon viewing Earth from space.

The epiphany of our founder, Apollo 14 astronaut and 6th man to walk on the moon, Captain Edgar D. Mitchell, is widely regarded as the inspiration for, and the epitome of, the Overview Effect, and the reason why IONS exists.  What’s possible as more and more people have an overview experience — whether through space travel, virtual reality, meditation or other transformational experiences of awe? How might the Overview Effect help cohere collective consciousness around the recognition of our oneness?

Author Frank White will share his perspective as the person who coined the term; former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison will bring her own Overview Effect experience from orbit in the space shuttle Endeavor; and IONS scientist Loren Carpenter will spark our imaginations about how the impact of overview experiences could shift collective consciousness more quickly than we might believe possible.

Collective Consciousness and the Overview Effect
Friday, June 26, 2020
11:00 am – 12:15 pm (PDT)

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Moderator:

Claudia Welss is Chair of IONS and the board science committee, and the creator and curator of this series on collective consciousness. She’s on the board of Space for Humanity, is founding Chair of Invest In Yourself at NEXUS Global, connecting personal to planetary regeneration for a network of social entrepreneurs, impact investors and philanthropists, and is an executive producer of IONS’ Edgar Mitchell Overview Effect VR Experience. Claudia was director of the University of California, Berkeley Haas School’s center for corporate strategy programs, focusing on social and environmental responsibility in the 90s when IONS President Willis Harman first invited her to collaborate with IONS for world change.

Panelists:

Frank White is best-known for his book, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, which is considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of exploration. In his latest book, The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Effect, he asks the fundamental question, “What is the purpose of human space exploration? Why has the evolutionary process brought humanity to the brink of becoming a space-faring species?” Frank is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a Rhodes Scholar. He earned an M.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University.

Mae Jemison is an engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. In 1992, she became the first woman of color to travel into space as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, orbiting Earth for eight days. She later formed a nonprofit educational foundation, through which she is the principal of the 100 Year Starship project funded by DARPA. Mae is also an educator, futurist, and leading voice for scientific literacy, social responsibility, education, and peace. She graduated from Stanford and Cornell universities, holds several honorary doctorates and has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Loren Carpenter revolutionized the entire film industry through his invention of rendering and modeling algorithms for image synthesis and visual effects. In 2001, he and two colleagues were awarded the only Oscar statuettes ever given for computer science. In 2014, Loren retired from his position as Senior Research Scientist in Disney/Pixar’s research division to join the Institute of Noetic Sciences as a scientist. At IONS, he has been primarily involved with experiment design and construction, using his extensive fabrication, computer and electronics skills. His contributions include new instruments for recording and analyzing quantum background noise and instruments for sensing and amplifying mind-photon interaction.

We are at a crossroads in humanity, an evolutionary tipping point. Our collective hearts have been broken open by recent events of senseless violence, and we have seen millions of people standing together in solidarity — calling forth a world in which true justice and equality can be established for all people.

This time also asks each of us to open our collective eyes to truly recognize and repair broken systems based on racism, oppression and the false thinking that perpetuates them ― that is, thinking of the “other” as separate from us.

Our mission at IONS is to reveal the interconnected nature of reality through scientific exploration and personal discovery. We understand that it is not enough to illuminate ideas and research about our interconnectedness, but together as a community we must stand for integrating these ideas and ways of being into the social structures of our time.

To further open the dialogue, we are inviting our community to join together for a special Noetic Global Gathering, Noetic Approaches to Healing and Social Justice. In this 90-minute meeting, we will hear from visionary leaders within the IONS community about how to truly work from a noetic level within ourselves and within the larger society to be part of the solution.

Noetic Approaches to Healing and Racial Justice
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
4:00 – 5:30 pm (Pacific)

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Featuring Luisah Teish, Paulette Pipe, Azim Khamisa, and other special guests.

Luisah Teish is a ritual theater performance artist, a spiritual counselor, and an elder and woman chief in the Ifa/Orisha tradition. She is a writer and the author of six books, including the women’s spirituality classic Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals. Luisah co-authored On Holy Ground: Commitment and Devotion to Sacred Land with Leilani Birely, a Hawaiian Kahuna, and has contributed to 25 anthologies and a host of magazines, including Essence, MS, Shaman’s Drum, and Yoga Journal.

Paulette Pipe is a gifted meditation teacher, best known for hosting the popular meditation/mindfulness practices podcast, “Touching the Stillness.” Paulette heads Touching the Stillness Ministries, a vibrant organization she created to make meditation and mindfulness both practical and accessible for daily application. Paulette is a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle, a project of the Source of Synergy Foundation. She is also Keeper of the Flame for Unity Worldwide Ministries’ Board of Trustees; silently holding sacred space during board meetings, to support its deliberations and decision-making process.

Azim Khamisa serves as the Vice Chair of the IONS Board of Directors. Hailed by dignitaries such as the Dalai Llama, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, Azim delivers his inspirational message to a world in desperate need of forgiveness, peace and hope. Following the murder of his only son Tariq in 1995 through a senseless, gang-related incident, Azim chose the path of forgiveness and compassion rather than revenge, and this amazing choice led to the establishment of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) and the subsequent forgiveness movement which has reached millions.

Kele Nitoto is a second generation African-American percussionist. Born and raised in the Oakland Dance Culture, Kele Has studied with Masters of many styles, becoming proficient in West-African, Congolese, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Peruvian, and Afro-Haitian traditional drumming. A co-founder the Black Dot Artist Collective, Kele has also become one of the Bay Area’s most sought after percussionists for R+B, Hip-Hop and Jazz and has performed throughout the country in dance companies, bands, and teaching workshops and classes. Kele has taught hundreds of workshops and classes over the years with adults and children. He has taught at summer camps, spiritual and workplace retreats, and for countless ceremonies and celebrations. Through it all he continues to explore all aspects of percussive music, and what it can mean to those who hear it.

Indigenous land management practices and the food systems they uphold are more sophisticated and advanced than commonly understood. Join us for this free Noetic Global Gathering with IONS NextGen award winner, Lyla June, PhD, as she shares her doctoral research on the regional scale foodscapes cultivated by First Nations and the ways in which these impact our lives still today. We will explore how, through these practices, human beings can become a benevolent, and even essential, agent within the food webs and ecosystems that surround us.

Noetic Global Gathering
Humans as a Keystone Species:
Learning From Indigenous Land Management, Food Webs, and Ecosystems
July 22, 2020
11:00am – 12:30pm

Register for Free

About the Speaker

Lyla June, PhD, is a poet, musician, human ecologist, public speaker, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. She is a co-founder of The Taos Peace and Reconciliation Council, which works to heal intergenerational trauma and ethnic division in the northern New Mexico. She is also the founder of Regeneration Festival, an annual celebration of children that occurs in 13 countries around the world every September.

She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a degree in Environmental Anthropology, holds a masters degree from the University of New Mexico with a concentration in American Indian Education, and has recently earned her PhD from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In Session 3 of the Consciousness & Healing Series, the IONS team will share information about meditation research and how quieting your mind is good for your health. IONS Scientist Arnaud Delorme, PhD, will discuss mind wandering. IONS Program Development Specialist & Science Liaison Nina Fry-Kizler, MA, will delve into meditation and its effect on the central nervous system, as well as discussing several different types of meditation (contemplative, focused-attention, and expressive) and the importance of finding the right approach for you. Director of Research Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR, will share IONS meditation and clinical research for improving your health and transcendent states. The team will also share simple and practical tips for incorporating meditation into your life for vibrant health.

Meditation for Healing: Quieting Your Mind to Boost Your Body and Experience Transcendence
Friday, May 29, 2020
11:00 am – 12:15 pm (Pacific)

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Register to attend live or receive a link to the video recording. The recordings will be available to the public for a limited time. IONS Members receive unlimited access to all recordings from this webinar series.

We offer this special Consciousness & Healing webinar series as part of our Spring fundraising campaign. Join us live for these free, inspiring, and information-packed sessions!

Panelists

Arnaud Delorme, PhD, is a CNRS principal investigator in Toulouse, France, a faculty member at the University of California, San Diego, and a research scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He is a long-term Zen meditator, and has taught in India on the neural correlates of conscious experience in a Master’s degree program for the Birla Institute of Technology.

Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR, is the Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Wahbeh is clinically trained as a naturopathic physician and research trained with a Master of Clinical Research and two post-doctoral research fellowships. She has published on and spoken internationally about her studies on complementary and alternative medicine, mind-body medicine, stress, and posttraumatic stress disorder and their relationships to physiology, health, and healing.

Nina Fry-Kizler, MA, is a Program Development Specialist & Science Liaison at IONS. A former professor in the Holistic Health Education Masters Program at JFK University, she teaches classes on the psychology and physiology of stress, the challenges of change/transformation, energy models of healing, wellness coaching and mind-body approaches to self-care. Nina was trained in the Mind-Body Medicine Professional Training program from the Center for Mind-Body Medicine and as a Birth Doula through Doulas of North America.