Tucson, AZ: IONS Conference (June 17-21)

The 13th Annual IONS Conference

In Tuscon, I stayed with Josh, an abstract painter, and his wife Anita. I met Josh through a professor at DePauw, Beth Benedix; they were kind enough to host me without even meeting me first! I didn’t get to spend much time with them, except for a couple dinners. Josh's art is just incredible; I’m really attracted to it. His process is fascinating too; and it means so much more to have him narrate his work. I’ve got a few pics on my camera of his stuff. He told me some interesting stories about Maezumi Roshi (a famous American Zen teacher) too. I guess they met when Josh was the director of a university museum. He put together an exhibit on “Seeing and Blindness” oriented towards the local school for deaf and blind. It was E.Asian art oriented; he called and asked Maezumi Roshi to come in and talk about Zen art and vision/blindness as metaphors for wisdom and ignorance. I guess Roshi stayed at Josh’s house, played with the kids, sat zazen on a chair in the morning in Josh’s home gallery. Josh told me a story about how he and Maezumi went out to dinner one night and Roshi ordered a steak. Josh said, “Aren’t you supposed to be vegetarian?” Roshi laughed. I left Josh and Anita's happy, clean-clothed, and well fed. Thanks to them!
The IONS conference was pretty spectacular. The spiritual energy was very high; it felt good to be around so many like-minded people where any minute you could strike up a conversation and just click. It also felt physically good. It was like my subtle body was beaming. I really clicked with a lot of people there; the younger people in particular. I made lots of friends, one of whom, Vlad, drove with me from Tucson to Long Beach; it was a really great, chill ride. We’ll definitely be keeping in touch, especially as he continues to research American institutions where meditation research is being done.

While I was at the conference I volunteered for various activities as a door monitor. It was easy, and I saved some real green!

Full info about conference events is at: http://ionsconference.org/2009/. I attended the major plenary sessions with a variety of different speakers. The specific “pre-conference”, “post-conference”, and “breakout” sessions I went to were:

1. Wednesday (6/17), Daylong

(PW5) Survival of Consciousness: A Matter of Life and Death—Dean Radin and Julie Beischel

Half a dozen classes of scientific evidence exist for some form of survival of consciousness after bodily death; some are more persuasive than others. We will review this evidence and assess the current state of the art. One of the most intriguing classes of survival research focuses on mediums and the information they report. We will examine recent advances in mediumship research methods, and attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a demonstration with certified research mediums. We will also suggest ways of advancing our understanding of the perennial question of survival, which is literally a matter of life and death.

Tim says: This session blew me off my feet and made re-think how consciousness exists beyond death. Dedicated scientists have apparently been researching this topic for years in a lot of different ways. Dean Radin, probably IONS biggest scientist, began with a presentation on the research surrounding consciousness generally and, simply put, whether or not consciousness is an interaction, a bi-product of brain chemistry, or if in some way, or to some degree, consciousness exists independent of the brain structure. The word on the street is that scientific research has already shifted in large part from a materialist paradigm, to one influenced by quantum research. Personally, like most people, I can’t thoroughly describe why, but I’ve read enough to at least follow the argument.

Research of sub-atomic particles now reveals a number of phenomenon that defy a reductionistic, materialist paradigm. What the hell does this mean? For one thing, the behavior of sub-atomic energy depends on our perception of it (as say, waves or particles). Experiments are now able to show that the same particle can appear in two different places at once; some experiments have done this across the distance of a city. Another theoretical claim is that energy behaves “non-locally” on a microscopic level, meaning that what we normally conceive of as particles don’t really exist as particles until we conceive and measure them as such . . . The major hop, skip, and a jump for scientists now is that one’s consciousness exists in a similar field-like way a priori to its concentration at a particular point in something like . . . a brain. This aligns with what spiritual people have been saying for millennia but have never had a way to prove (i.e. we can go out of our mind, connect with other minds, “read” other minds, dissolve into a higher mind, etc.).

Radin’s research is much more concentrated and scientific. Since the early 20th century, people have been doing experiments to see whether or not one’s intention and concentration can manipulate the physical reality. Dice experiments began to confirm superstitions that one could intend a certain outcome, if they really wanted, or wished, or intended for it to happen. There are more or less two kinds of experiments. The first is with people who claim they can do this and have been working at it for some time. Sometimes their scores are off-the charts in terms of what basic probability would deem. They also do popular surveys with people who’ve never really tried it until then. Even with these experiments, the results are statistically significant. For example, with one die you have a 1 out of 6 chance of getting any of the numbers 1-6. If you get a bunch of people two intend “two”, then all the sudden the average jumps to 2 out of 6, you don’t have a miracle, but you do have something that significantly defies statistical probability and would require an alternative explanation than mere chance. Now instead of using dice, they use “random number generators” to see how someone’s intention can direct the appearance of otherwise random numbers.

The same goes for experiments with spirit mediums who claim to talk to the dead. The second presenter after Radin, Julie Beischel runs her own research lab on mediumship. In experiments like this, as with similar one’s involving telepathy, you isolate a medium from a client and test how accurately they can obtain information about the client’s dead loved one whom they want to contact. They create a system of ‘blindings’ where the medium, the client, the researcher, and the numbers recorder don’t know certain factors in an experiment, so that the medium can’t get information about the dead person without using some alternative psychic means. As with the dice, professionals’ abilities often scored off the charts, while untrained, ungifted people might’ve been statistically significant if not just guessing.

We also got to witness a medium reading, which I’d never seen before. Now there was less blinding, and more cooperation, but it was still pretty impressive what the medium knew (or perhaps deduced) without the client saying anything.

2. Thursday (6/18), Daylong
(PT1) Working with Fields of Consciousness: Practical Strategies for Group Leaders—Chris Bache

For reasons we don’t yet understand, the tendency to synchronize is one of the most pervasive drives in the universe. —Steven Strogatz, Sync
Fields of consciousness spring up whenever we engage in sustained collective activities. Knowing this, how can we accelerate and deepen this natural process? How do we harness the power of these fields to teach, problem-solve, create, or heal? In this workshop, we will explore the dynamics of collective intelligence in group settings. Learn practical, hands-on strategies forged through 30 years of classroom experience: opening and closing fields, strengthening fields, visualization and meditation exercises, and managing episodes of spontaneous resonance.

Tim says: This workshop began with the assumption that consciousness operates in fields to some degree. Chris Bache used this idea to talk about his experience in working with his own college classrooms as fields. As Chris used it, a “field of consciousness” is a degree of higher order that resides to some degree in time and space that guides and structures human organization and interaction. Most of the time, these fields are unconscious; we participate in these structures of higher order without being aware that there is a higher order. For example, we think of driving a car on a busy, jammed freeway. One might be only conscious of one’s own position and perhaps those of nearby cars. But, in fact, there is actually a web of conscious relations spanning for miles that coordinates the spacing between cars so that everyone eventually gets to move, within certain peramaters, in the same direction. Most of us nowadays, can even drive unconsciously. With experience we tap into a network of sensory experience and response that manages our accelerating, breaking, etc. without even thinking!

Chris talked about, the even deeper situation of a classroom. In his experience, his private meditation practice effects his students. They often undergo similar realizations as him when he experienced it that day. As Chris perfected a system of “opening”, “nourishing”, “visualizing”, and “closing” these fields, more and more students began to get more and more out of the class, often having “peak” or even “mystical” experiences of mysteries they had never considered. Chris does all kinds of intention practices. He begins meditating over the class roster when he immediately gets it, psychically intendeding for those ready for the class to stay, and those who would be disengaged to drop and come back another time. To “close” fields, he has very boundaries for what conversations he continues even years afterwards with students. Closure is very important!

3. Friday-Afternoon (6/19) Breakout Session
(F6) The ESP Enigma: A Comprehensive Model for Understanding Psychic Phenomena—Diane Powell

Enjoy this scientifically accurate yet provocative model that integrates neuroscience, parapsychology, and physics. Become acquainted with the past century's research on psychic phenomena such as telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis. Discover why some people have more psychic experiences than others. Incorporate this new understanding into your clinical work with people who experience psychic phenomena.

Tim says: Diane Powell’s talk was also pretty riveting, although it was so broad that it’s difficult to summarize. The summary says most of it. I mostly got brief exposure to the latest literature and discoveries about the psychic phenomenon. Probably the two most interesting thoughts I got from her were (1) neuroscientifice research (brain scans and the like) consistently shows amongst psychics of various abilities a highly developed angular gyrus, an area right above the pineal gland. (2) Diane’s current theory is that psychic phenomenon are possible due to reality being fundamentally holographic.

What does that mean? Various neuroscience theories (brain-focused), Chinese medicine (body focused), even reflexology (foot-focused!) stipulate that we hold within our vary own cells, reflections, or holographic representations, of the entire external universe. Following this theory, psychics are just people who have trained themselves to access information which we all fundamentally possess in our unconscious mind (or unconscious body, or collective unconscious depending on your theory). So, telepathics don’t send some kind of a beem from their brain to yours, retrieve information and beem it back! The idea is that, they get in touch with the holographic reflection of the client already within themselves and deeply empathize with that. Even minor acts of compassion are possible because we can already intuit what’s going on in others, because it’s already inside us. Hua-yen Buddhism, fractal imagery, and advanced mathematics come to similar conclusions: the whole is completely immanent in its entirety even within the smallest part. Hua-yen uses the image of “indra’s net”: an infinite web of jewels spanning in all directions. Each jewel reflects all the other jewels within itself. Theoretically, each person reflects the entire universe in that way . . .

No wonder it’s so easy to fall in love!

4. Saturday-Afternoon (6/20) Breakout Session
(S6) From Timbuktu to Santa Cruz, from Segou to Selma: What Does It Mean to Be a Global Citizen?—Coumba Touré

Coumba Touré has participated in and been instrumental in facilitating hundreds of educational workshops, gatherings, and struggles for social change around the world. In this session, she welcomes you into an exciting conversation about bridging divides and navigating through the diverse worlds on our interconnected planet.

Tim says: Very interesting workshop, but I don’t have time to talk about it . . .

5. Sunday-Afternoon (6/21) Post-Conference Institute
(PS4) Technologies for Inner Well-Being—Sadhguru

No other generation has been as comfortable as we are today, but we are still not any more joyful than those who have lived before us. It doesn't matter how much we fix the external aspects of our lives; the basic quality of human life—of being joyful or miserable—remains the same. The way we are within is the way we experience our life. Just as we have a science and technology for understanding and creating external situations through our desires and choices, an inner science and technology is available to us to create our inner situation as well—a technology to take charge of one's ultimate destiny. Join Sadhguru for a guided meditation and an entree into this ancient technology for spiritual evolution and healing

Tim says: I’ve seen a lot of gurus of Sadh Guru’s style in the States and in India, so I approached this talk with a lot of expectations, baggage, and “heard-it-befores” already in my head. Sadhguru took a while to wear on me, but by the end of his 2 ½ hour talk I was on the edge of my seat laughing, practically crying. His insights from consumerism to death were often cliché, but true. The more and more I listened, however, he was throwing curve balls left and right, addressing the audience’s needs. Some good quotes:

“Peace is an invention of the disturbed mind.”

“The mind cannot be contained. It is boundless. No philosophy can contain it. It’s constantly striving for boundlessness . . . The longing for boundlessness isn’t a problem; you’re just using the wrong methods to achieve it.”

“Death is an invention of the ignorant.”