The work of The Mindshift Institute is devoted to fostering life-positive knowledge, that is, wisdom and insights that improve life on Earth and expand our definition of reality. We focus on contributions that we think can help us wake up from what we call “The Trance,” a profound detachment from our inner and outer reality.

Each of us is in a trance, to one degree or another. We cannot awaken from our trance alone, but together, we can lovingly assist one another in waking up and perceiving new truths. Such life-positive new knowledge can have a transformative impact —if we are open to it, let it into our hearts and consciousness, and then see what emerges that has meaning for us.

We have invited these outstanding pioneers in new knowledge to participate in our conference because something unique and crucial emerges when connections are made among their individual contributions. We live in an interconnected, participatory universe and that is the spirit of our conference.

Conventional Science Moves Toward Frontier Science

The work of frontier scientists is far from the mainstream scientific work that most of us are familiar with.  However, in a very exciting new development, the leading edge of conventional science in physics, biology and consciousness studies is moving closer to new discoveries in consciousness, quantum physics and the study of anomalies.

This is evident in recent reports from the highly-regarded British publication New Scientist which published a special article on a controversial area of science, parapsychology. The editors carefully examined the published research data, the methodologies used in garnering the information, and the conclusions based on the various studies. They found the research impeccable and the findings incontrovertible—“para”psychological phenomena are real and deserve serious scientific scrutiny.

In June and July 2007, New Scientist featured the following articles on its cover: “How the Universe Got Its Laws—and Our Surprising Role in Shaping Them” and “Reality Check—Does the Universe Exist When No One Is Looking?” The author of the second piece concluded, “Rather than passively observing it, we create reality.” It is encouraging to see mainstream scientists moving closer to the work of frontier scientists.

At Cosmos and Consciousness V: Does Consciousness Create Reality? we are going to join our presenters in examining and exploring new knowledge from the perspective of worldviews that differ fundamentally from the mechanistic materialist picture of reality that has dominated the Western world for centuries.

Worldviews in Collision

This year's conference directly addresses itself to the impact of worldviews on both (1) what we are able to know and (2) what ways of knowing will be most helpful in the search to better understand the nature of reality and our place in it. The unexamined assumptions of worldviews are integral to the trance in every aspect of human life today and too often prevent us from perceiving what is immediately before us.  Too frequently, it is one's worldview, and not scientific evidence, that determines what is considered “real” or not.

Today, the old worldview is collapsing but a generally accepted new worldview has not yet emerged to replace it.  Many brilliant women and men are contributing to the creation of a new picture of reality and face fierce opposition and hostile reactions from the proponents of the dominant worldview.

Cosmos and Consciousness V: Does Consciousness Create Reality? is designed to side-step the futile pro-con, point-counterpoint arguments over whether anomalies of all types are “real” or not. Instead, we will ask everyone to join us in putting our familiar Western worldview in abeyance only for the day. In that way, we can look at new knowledge from new perspectives and see where this leads each of us.

At Cosmos and Consciousness V: Does Consciousness Create Reality? we will be introduced to four extraordinary scientists with worldviews that differ from the dominant paradigm and, at times, from each other. These other models of reality provide an opportunity to explore, examine and understand crucial aspects of nature that mainstream science cannot explain.  From other perspectives, these phenomena are not mysteries—they are actually how nature seems to function.

Dr. Amit Goswami will introduce us to the worldview of “Consciousness as Primary.” He has demonstrated scientifically the validity of ancient concepts that consciousness creates the physical world, the self-aware universe and everything in it.  For Dr. Goswami, consciousness is transcendent, outside of spacetime, nonlocal, all-pervading, the only reality.  Dr. Goswami asks a key question, “What converts possibility into actuality?” which he answers in a word—consciousness. Things look very different indeed from this vantage point, in which consciousness is the ground of being.

Dr. Edgar Mitchell began his odyssey into the study of consciousness as a result of a transcendent experience on his Apollo 14 voyage home to earth from the moon. He will take us with him deep into his scientific worldview, which is light-years from the Newtonian-Einsteinian science that is dominant today and has the potential to radically alter our understanding of the great enigma—consciousness.

Dr. Jenny Wade will share with us her insights into consciousness before birth, in utero, at birth, and after physical death. In her work, she focuses on consciousness itself, not the content or expression of consciousness. Dr. Wade believes a cosmology is needed that accounts for consciousness and can help answer such questions as: Is there awareness without a functioning brain?  Does consciousness predate birth?  Can consciousness survive death? The questions that Dr. Wade examines cannot even be asked in the present mechanistic-materialist paradigm. Such phenomena are by definition not possible. But when seen in the context of other worldviews, we can come to a new understanding of these very same phenomena which helps expand our picture of reality.

Dr. Rudy Schild has recently made astounding astrophysical observations, published in Astrophysics Journal, that challenge the current ideas about black holes and the nature of the physical universe. He has devised a new model that he hopes will bridge the gap between cosmos and consciousness, the objective and the subjective. In his model, Dr. Schild attempts to describe the connections among astrophysical phenomena; quantum science and consciousness; and subjective anomalous phenomena such as out-of-body and near-death experiences.

In the afternoon, Dr. Schild will share this model with all of us--fellow speakers and audience alike--for the first time.  After his presentation, he will then engage his fellow speakers in a spontaneous scientific discussion about his new ideas, following which we in the audience can join in and contribute our own insights. This is a unique opportunity to witness the unveiling of a new model of the universe and participate in a spontaneous scientific response to that model.

PRESENTATIONS

Dr. Amit Goswami

Consciousness, Cosmos, and Evolution
There is a revolution going on in science right now, a genuine paradigm shift.  While mainstream science remains materialist, a substantial number of scientists are supporting and developing a paradigm based on the primacy of consciousness.  Dr. Goswami will speak about the visionary window that quantum physics opens for us, a window through which we can see the potency of the new science.

He will demonstrate how it is necessary to include (1) conscious "downward causation" of actuality from quantum possibility and (2) subtle interior domains of consciousness to make room for life in an otherwise nonliving universe.  Dr Goswami will show how consciousness creates the cosmos and life and guides life’s evolution in the process, resolving the intelligent design/neo-Darwinism controversy.  In addition, he will demonstrate how the new science resolves the neurophysiologist's so-called mind-body problem and the paradox of perception. We will see that, in this new view, the duality of unconscious/conscious, outer/inner, mind/body, subject/person,  are all resolved. 

Dr. Edgar Mitchell

Exploring the Science of Nature's Mind
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell will share with us his insights into the relationship of quantum holograms, entanglement, coherence and resonance to what he calls “Nature’s Mind.”   For Dr. Mitchell, energy is the foundation of all matter and information is the foundation of knowing.  Both arise from and are based in the zero-point energy field of deep space, the very ground of existence.  He believes the evidence makes a strong case for a cosmos that is a self organizing, intelligent, creative, learning, interactive, participatory, nonlocally interconnected, evolutionary system.

Dr. Jenny Wade

Consciousness and Human Capacity: Self, Soul, Miracles, and Life Everlasting
Mind without brain is a scientific conundrum. Evidence of a physically transcendent source of human consciousness comes from the extremes of the life span when the brain and central nervous system are unable to function, according to most standard measures.

Prior to the third trimester, measurable brain activity associated with awareness is virtually nonexistent—yet verified evidence from independent sources substantiates that the fetus is aware, able to recall, and is affected by events around it inside and outside the womb. Verifiable fetal memories go back to the moment of conception.

Likewise, near-death accounts have verified awareness of resuscitation and other activities in the here-and-now when the individual’s measurable brain activity had ceased altogether. A close examination of the evidence rules out the materialist arguments many scientists use to explain away the existence of individual awareness both before life and after death.

The relationship of human awareness to “reality”—including its ability to slip the bonds assumed by conventional science—suggest that the more conscious we are, the more we can shape reality by accessing realms and possibilities now considered “para”-normal but well within the capacity of humanity, including transcending time and space.

Dr. Wade  presents a critical overview of the research that supports traditional concepts of a soul that predates life and survives death and the abilities of avatars, psychics, saints, and others to perform miraculous feats.

Dr Rudy Schild

Introducing A New Scientific Model
Uniting Cosmos and Consciousness
Dr. Schild will share with us his new scientific model of the universe which attempts to unify cosmos and consciousness.  In his new model, he has connected his recent astronomical observations with important new ideas in consciousness studies, and the investigations of anomalies, that dramatically alter our view of the nature of the Universe and provide new insight into the basis of human thought, consciousness, and dreaming.

The dark energy that has always been known to exist (e.g., the Akashic field, chi, orgone energy) and black holes are now understood in a completely different way.  Dr. Schild’s recent astrophysical observations of black holes, or what he now calls MECO objects (Magnetic Eternally Collapsing Objects) indicate that the information contained in quantum holograms is stored up at the relativistic surfaces of the MECO objects.  And it appears that this information is theoretically retrievable using quantum nonlocality.

Astronomer Rudy Schild offers a modified understanding of consciousness, memory, and dreaming that seems to explain many “modern miracles” or anomalous phenomena such as UFO sightings, Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences, precognition, past life experiences, and remote viewing.  In his view, the dark energy that has always been known to exist can now be understood as being at the basis of many anomalous experiences.

In addition, Dr. Schild believes that his new model suggests that our minds can receive, amplify, and transmit this energy and thereby connect our “souls” to our “Creator."

 

 Call the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce

for information on lodging, restaurants or directions to Rangeley

1-800-MT-LAKES or 207-864-5571