I explore science, spirituality, consciousness, the transpersonal, and more weird stuff in my book: Order here, or wherever books are sold.
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When you’re hosting an event on taboo topics at a scientific conference, it’s hard to know what to expect of the audience. Will anyone show up? How open-minded will they be? For our third annual Science & Spirituality event on Oct. 5th at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference, whatever our expectations were, they were exceeded. [***You can read about our 2022 event here and our 2023 event here, here, and from a grad student’s perspective here (and watch the recording here!)***]
Since we never know where the audience is starting from, we try to strike a tender balance between following their lead and gently pushing the edges. At our initial event in 2022, the most controversial topic of conversation was precognitive dreams. But this time, we didn’t have to push the edges very far. For the first time since we’ve held the event, the majority of scientists in attendance were openly questioning the dogma of scientific materialism, sharing extraordinary personal experiences that they could not explain with the conventional scientific paradigm they had been trained in. Like what, you ask? Spontaneous healing, mediumship, energy healing, transcendental meditation experiences, seeing or hearing spirits, astral projection, out-of-body experiences, lucid and precognitive dreams, and consciousness existing outside of our brains. Why does trauma seem to open us up to having more of these experiences? Are the brain and body both involved? What part(s) of the brain (if any) are involved? Which worldviews/philosophies help explain emergent experiences? And so much more. We openly discussed these typically off-limit topics during the three-hour round-table discussion.
Sadly, what hasn't changed is that most scientists feel they cannot share their experiences or perspectives with their colleagues. Aside from the lab that came to the event together, no one felt that they could openly discuss these topics even with their labmates. This wasn’t exclusive to the scientists, either. The non-scientists who attended also felt that there were few, if any, people in their lives that they could openly explore these topics with — they’re just too controversial.
That’s why these spaces where we can explore with curiosity and openness are so very important. Without them, many of us sit silently and uncomfortably with these phenomenal experiences. It’s wild what emerges when you leave your fear at the door.
We also challenged the scientists to consider how their science would be different if they didn’t start from an assumption of scientific materialism. How would you interpret the results of your studies? This may seem like a silly exercise since the entire field of mainstream science stubbornly and decidedly sits under the umbrella of scientific materialism — but having one attendee from last year’s event tell us that the event changed his life and thinking makes us believe it’s worthwhile. (We’ll have more on this soon.)
All this to say, we feel it is time to start hosting monthly online community events so that scientists can connect with each other in a safe, supportive space that encourages adopting and challenging different worldviews. Our first event will be held on January 13th at 5pm PT/8pm ET (stay tuned for more details).
We are sending an ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who attended and bravely shared their personal stories with the group, as well as all who financially supported the event (our GoFundMe is here) — we cannot do these events without your support (we literally paid $420 for two bowls of fruit)!!!
THANK YOU to our donors:
Chase Horstman
Firas Marafie
Todd Bureau
Ian Laming
Jeff Williams
Matthew Pardieck
Randy Graybeal
William Gallacher
William Oliver
Rebecca Hahn
Tom Morgan (ahhh biggest thank you for your continued support — moral, financial, literary and otherwise!)
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This is really cool! Are you going to be doing another event next year?
I love this topic. Thank you for sharing it. As a highly sensitive individual who has experienced metaphysical phenomena, I thought I was alone, but so many of us are out there, and have always been hiding in the closet so to speak. This is important work. I look forward to your call.