Institute promotes worldview inspired by
astronaut

Looking down on Earth during the Apollo 14’s return from the moon, Edgar Mitchell realized that life on this planet encompasses more than what scientific research provides.

As a result of this epiphany, he founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1971, said Devaa Haley Mitchell, the director of member engagement for the institute. (Devaa Mitchell is not related to Edgar Mitchell.)

The term “noetic” comes from the Greek word nous, which Devaa Mitchell described as “a kind of intuitive consciousness where people have direct and immediate knowledge beyond what is available to the five senses and power of reason.”

The institute uses scientific research to construct and promote a united worldview. “We believe that the way you perceive the world often creates the world,” Devaa Mitchell said. “What we are trying to do is show, through science, that we’re all deeply interlinked and connected.”

Research in noetic science encourages unity by defining principles of reality and human nature that are consistent across space and time.

Recently, the center conducted a study that showed that mind/body practices such as prayer and meditation decrease medical problems in teenage mothers and increased mother/child bonding. “We’re finding that less mainstream tools are actually having a concrete effect on people,” said Devaa Mitchell.

To promote noetic scientific research, the center holds events and sponsors communities that gather across the globe to explore consciousness.

The most ambitious of the center’s events is the biennial conference that, in the past, has drawn an international audience of as many as 1,500 people. The next conference, “Consciousness and Healing: Essential Shifts for Personal, Social and Global Transformation,” will be held July 6^th – 11^th in Alexandria, Va.

The institute is located in Petaluma, Calif., but has many individual members and community groups based in 19 countries around the world. Members receive a quarterly magazine, Shift: At the Frontier of Consciousness, and have many opportunities to participate in the center’s research and events.

The organization is not affiliated with a particular religion, but deals explicitly with issues of spirituality. “It does speak to some of the spiritual principles that undergird our reality that perhaps describe the true nature of reality more accurately than science has in the past,” Devaa Mitchell said.

— Ashley Lawson