Institute of Noetic Sciences

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Edgar Mitchell, co-founder of the institute

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell and industrialist Paul N. Temple[1][2] to encourage and conduct research on human potentials.[3] Institute programs include "extended human capacities," "integral health and healing," and "emerging worldviews." This includes research into topics such as spontaneous remission, meditation, consciousness, alternative healing practices, spirituality, human potential, psychic abilities and survival of consciousness after bodily death, among others.[4] The institute's name is derived from the Greek word nous, meaning direct or inner knowing, a reference to intuition.

The Institute publishes a quarterly magazine called Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness[5] that the Institute's website reports is distributed to approximately 35,000 individuals.[6] Headquartered in Petaluma, California, the organization is situated on a 200-acre (80 hectare) campus housing offices, a research laboratory and a retreat center.[7] The Institute does not grant educational degrees.

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[edit] History

The Institute of Noetic Sciences was co-founded in 1973 by Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut who was part of the Apollo 14 mission, wealthy industrialist Paul N. Temple and some others.[8] During the three-day journey back to Earth aboard Apollo 14, Mitchell had an epiphany while looking down on the earth from space. "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly," Mitchell said of that experience. Following his spaceflight, Mitchell and others founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences.[9]

Among the projects the Institute has sponsored include a bibliography on the physical and psychological effects of meditation, a spontaneous remission bibliography, and studies on the efficacy of compassionate intention on healing in AIDS patients.[10] They have also conducted a number of parapsychological studies into extra-sensory perception, lucid dreaming, and presentiment.[11]

The Institute currently conducts research programs in three principal areas:[4]

Extended Human Capacities

  • Creativity
  • Meditation
  • Psi Studies
  • Wisdom Capacities
  • Subtle Energies
  • States of Consciousness
  • Death, Dying, and Beyond

Integral Health and Healing

  • Biofields
  • Distant Healing
  • Global Medicine
  • Integral Medicine
  • Mind Body Medicine
  • Extended Survival
  • Placebo Expectancy Effects

Emerging Worldviews

  • Integral Intelligence
  • Science of Wisdom
  • Gaia Theory
  • Transformative Practices
  • Cultivating Spiritual Awareness
  • East/West/Indigenous Practices

[edit] Criticism

Research supported by the Institute of Noetic Sciences has been criticized as lacking in strict "peer-reviewed empiricism." In an article that critiqued the New Age movement's detachment from the mainstream scientific community, Thomas W. Clark, founder of the Center for Naturalism, referenced work supported by the Institute as suffering from "what humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz calls the 'transcendental temptation' [that] drives the flight from standard, peer-reviewed empiricism into the arms of a dualism that privileges the mental over the physical, the teleological over the non-purposive."[12]

The skeptical organization Quackwatch includes the Institute of Noetic Sciences on its list of questionable organizations. The list outlines nine criteria they feel are useful in determining the reliability of groups offering health-related information.[13]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Paul N. Temple at the Institute of Noetic Sciences
  2. ^ Paul N. Temple biography at BioGenesis
  3. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. About: History of the Institute of Noetic Sciences
  4. ^ a b Institute of Noetic Sciences. Research: Programs from the Institute of Noetic Sciences
  5. ^ IONS' Magazine, "Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness
  6. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. Publications: Frontiers of Research Articles
  7. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. About the Institute of Noetic Science
  8. ^ Mitchell, Edgar, "The Way of the Explorer", GP Putnam's Sons, 1996. "I wish to thank those who had faith in an idea that led to the founding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences: Henry Rolfs (deceased) and Zoe Rolfs, Richard Davis, Judith Skutch Whitson, Paul Temple, Phillip Lukin (deceased), and John White. And to those who came a bit later to carry the idea further: Osmond Crosby, Brendan O'Regan (deceased), Diane Brown Temple, and Willis Harman."
  9. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. "What the Bleep do we Know?!"
  10. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. Research & Education Projects at the Institute of Noetic Sciences
  11. ^ Institute of Noetic Sciences. Research & Education Projects at the Institute of Noetic Sciences
  12. ^ Clark, Thomas W. "The Specter of Brain Science — or — How the New Age Might Lose Consciousness" Center for Naturalism, November, 2005
  13. ^ Stephen Barrett, M.D. "Questionable Organizations: An Overview". Quackwatch. http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-12. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Noetic_Sciences"
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