Institute of Noetic Sciences
The Institute of Noetic Sciences ( IONS, German: Institute of Noetic Sciences ) is an American non-profit organization that runs scientific research on telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance and effects of meditation by its own account and sponsors. Noetic is of Greek noetos: derived ( German mentally perceptible) and refers to a theoretical from the Institute intuitive awareness, which is to have access to knowledge that goes beyond what is normal senses and susceptible to reason.
History
The Institute was founded in 1973. Co-founder were the astronaut Edgar Mitchell and businessman Paul N. Temple.
Mitchell took part in the Apollo 14 mission and he was the sixth man on the moon. He expressed repeatedly positive for the existence of psi phenomena and is convinced of the efficacy of distant healing. It is seen that many UFO sightings are due to extraterrestrial visitors " 90 percent sure ". He also states to have experienced military and intelligence circles that facts about the UFO phenomenon to be kept secret. During the Apollo mission he led privately by experiments on extrasensory perception, which remained inconclusive. When he looked upon the earth during the three-day return flight from the space capsule out, Mitchell had a key experience:
"In a peak experience, the presence of divinity Became almost palpable and I knew that life in the universe which not just an accident based on random processes. The knowledge came to me Directly - noetically. It was not a matter of discursive reasoning or logical abstraction. It was an experiential cognition. "
" In an exceptional experience the presence of the Divine was almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes. This knowledge came to me directly - noetic. There was no question of deliberate reasoning or logical abstraction. It was knowledge through experience. "
Two years after that spacecraft Edgar Mitchell founded together with others, the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Activities
The Institute has, inter alia, promoted a comprehensive bibliography of physical and psychological effects of meditation, Bibliography on spontaneous healings as well as studies on the effectiveness of compassionate treatment in the healing of AIDS patients. The current (2006) research and information activities focused on the areas of development of the human being, integral health and healing ( Integral Medicine ) and new worldviews.
From the Institute 's quarterly magazine Shift is: At the Frontiers of Consciousness published. The Institute includes worldwide in approximately 12,000 members, a membership is possible from an annual contribution of U.S. $ 35. Its headquarters are in Petaluma, California on a 81 -acre campus with residence and training opportunities.
Criticism
From the Institute Research supported for Noetic Sciences has been criticized for the lack of a rigorously peer-reviewed reviewed empiricism: Thomas W. Clark, founder of the Center for Naturalism, said in an article on the Hingewandtheit the New Age Movement to limit science in this sense means supported by IONS work. The Institute was suffering from what the humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz as " transcendental temptation " has referred to. This exaggerates the work away from the standard procedure of a verified through peer -reviewed empiricism and into the arms of a dualism that prefer the spiritual over the physical and the Teleological compared to the non- goal-directedness.
Quackwatch leads the Institute in their list of questionable organizations. For inclusion in this list nine criteria has been established to help in identifying organizations that spread unreliable information on health issues.
Mentions
The Institute of Noetic Sciences is " The Lost Symbol " by Dan Brown also mentioned in the novel published in 2009. There the scientist Katherine Solomon performs experiments to prove that the human mind is capable of divine performances. Among other things, it claims that the human soul possesses a mass and the human mind could convert matter.