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Submitted by: By Eugene Taylor

Submit Date: 2004-09-30

From:
Our Roots:
The American Visionary Tradition

By Eugene Taylor

When Edgar Mitchell first christened the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973, he said that he derived the name from Greek sources, then found it again in William James’ writings. Noetic, meaning visionary understanding, was a principle quality of mystical consciousness, James had said. The mystic state was transient; experienced in a moment, but with effects that lasted a lifetime. It was ineffable in the sense that, while directly experienced, it seemed to be beyond all description. It could not be brought on at will by simply engaging in voluntary operations. One could only alter the conditions for its arrival by spiritual practice. But above all, it was noetic, it carried with it a sense of deep personal knowledge unplumbed by the discursive intellect. In fact, James conjectured, all our rational faculties may find their source in this state.

This insight essentially characterizes a noetic tradition within science and medicine that also has a long history and a potentially viable future. Plato spoke of the nous as the goal of logic. The Rosicrucians and Hermetic philosophers promoted a spiritual science against the pretensions of the institutionalized church. The rational, for Swedenborg, meant the conjoint faculties of logic and religious intuition. Goethe was at once a scientist and poet. Even Einstein claimed that at the farther reaches of the mind, science and religion become one.

Within modern American culture, the noetic sciences have many manifestations, each with its own implications and possibilities. To name but a few: In the shadow of experimental laboratory psychology stands psychical research, which since the 1930s has become known as parapsychology. It has largely confined itself to the laboratory measurement of psychic abilities and achieved only modest result. In the shadow of reductionistic physics stands the physics-and-consciousness movement. Its followers believe that quantum physics may provide a conceptual basis for understanding problems in biology and psychology. In the shadow of physical medicine, we have holistic health, or mind-body medicine, now widely discussed in popular circles and becoming more commonplace in general medical practice. Finally, within the shadow of the neuroscience revolution and the new cognitive psychology of consciousness, we have consciousness research. It is driven by the idea that consciousness is not just another category to be investigated but rather pervades everything we do.

The greatest potential for change, it seems to me, lies in this last area, the scientific study of consciousness. This is because, while there are many different theoretical opinions about the matter, it is generally agreed that the neuroscience revolution now underway, which has at its core the problem of consciousness, may dwarf by comparison the Copernican revolution which preceded it.

As basic research unlocks further knowledge about the biology of cognition, the pervasiveness of consciousness beyond its rational boundaries is becoming more evident. Scientists are becoming more self-reflective; neuroscience research is fostering a torrent of communication across disciplines that previously would not talk to each other; and the neuroscience revolution is clearly generating implications for a more humanistically oriented science far beyond the control of the reductionistic mentality that spawned the revolution in the first place.

Some Implications

It is quite possible that, under these circumstances, an unprecedented opportunity now exists for a massive reassessment of the way mainstream science is conducted. According to one scenario, the present scientific worldview might lose its supremacy and be repositioned as only one of many other useful forms of knowledge in modern culture. According to another, science as we know it could well become transformed to accommodate a more encompassing worldview than the present reductionistic outlook affords. Whichever turns out to be the case, it is now generally understood that the various fields of science are undergoing major alterations.

How much these alterations in science are fueling the tremendous changes now going on in modern society, or whether the current social changes are in fact driving the new scientific revolution, is also hard to tell. In all likelihood, the change will not be merely the replacement of some old ideas by a few new ones. It may involve more than just a change in the content of our awareness, it may involve a basic shift in context—a fundamental transformation of the background which we habitually use to construct meaning.

In such a context, the noetic sciences could emerge as something of a prophetic voice. The mind does influence the body. Consciousness is a potent factor in the biological evolution of the species. It is possible in this modern technological age to foster self-healing. Beyond economic, political, and sectarian concerns, we are a spiritual community linked by an infrastructure of world mythologies. At any rate, because it draws on the fruits of Western science as much as it emphasizes the process of self-realization, the larger visionary tradition, of which the noetic sciences are a part, cannot be summarily dismissed as inconsequential. Rather, bereft of neither history nor significance, it may be a power that the old but still entrenched way of thinking has yet to reckon with.
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Eugene Taylor has a BA and MA in Experimental Psychology and Comparative Religion, and a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Psychology. He is currently Lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Consultant in the History of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. An extended version of his work on the visionary tradition is contained in a forthcoming Noetic Sciences monograph, and a more extensive version will appear in book-length form through Addison-Wesley in the fall of 1994.

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Link: http://www.noetic.org/publications/review/issue27/r27_Taylor.html

I found this piece to be very illuminating! Looking for a description of Noetic Sciences, I found an explanation that helps me with my trip in the rabbit hole! Joan
by: joand@zianet.comEugine My grandmother had this visionary experience in 1943/4 of a young soldier who was a son of a distant neighbour and the boy told her: Please, go and sit with my Mother and tell her you have seen me this day. She did so - saying nothing to the woman - but the post-boy arrived with a telegramme saying this son had been shot and killed. So Gran delivered the message she had heard from the boy...never again did she experience anything like that and she was an ordinardy C of E church attender etc, but it shaped her whole future life. Gran had lost 3 babies [in the 1930s], one was a cot-death & the other two were still-born, before my mother was born. Gran believed we shape our own life before we are born - agreeing to the lessons we need to teach AND learn. She died peacefully & lucidly in 1895 [aged 95] looking forward to her future [so was in no way influenced by New Age Belief]! She said, before she died, we should be happy for her and not be sad. She looked forward to seeing her three babies [Old Souls she called them]as she had not seen two of them in life. This was an hour before her death and she died smiling.. Death? Where is your sting? OK, oxygen starved brain - wishful thinking etc but it makes one wonder? cathy England
by: audreyjoycemcc@aol.comHi there, After seeing this movie, I totally can grasp the fun idea of it. Masters of our own universe. Since my childhood I was what I should call now an awakaned soul in search of meanings, what are we, who are we, whats the purpose of life, as I couldnt agree that life is just birth, school, work, love, marriage, children, retirement and then death. Lol, that would be too useless. No there had to be more. My answers started to come when I reached the age of 23. As my spiritual aunt first send me over to a tarot woman. She laid out the cards, and without knowing me, she could tell the past, the present and what was held for me in the future. That completely knocked me of my feet as what she said about past and present was true. So how about the future? Yes, up till now were on track. So how about predestination? hehe. After a few more visits I came in contact with channeling, an entity called Master Asait, allthough he does not approve the stamp of rank people put on everything he just refers to its last incarnation on earth. Ok so were you guys located? A far stellar nebula? Actually, lets say, next door, but we cannot see the house, its there, but it exists on another vibration. Now those that got chemistry class in school all know about Mendeljev. He made a table with all kinds of numbers reflecting the density of materials as we know it, from lead with a high density up till Argon which has a very high number in the chemistry order and as I see it in vibration. But what we should know by now is that it doesnt stop there, so it comes pretty obvious that the higher numbers are invisible for us to detect with our normal senses. We have other antennas (e.g.: intuition) that detect higher number higher energies. SO here comes in what THe bleep do we know. The chemistry of our bodies our brains, what we do not see but somehow still feel/see/hear with those antennas. All chemistry enduced receptors. That even lot some people pick up things from other planes hence the channeling. Is it all good, Godlike, or is it bad, as in the movie, its not so about good or bad, as I feel that nothing goes to waste, and in our dense surroundings (what we can see and go thru) we do not grasp the things we do not see. Yes we see whats on cnn. We see what is happening around us, and in the complexity of our lives we drown, well not quite drown, but try to surface. What is the major key in all this, well everybody is right, and nobody is right, it does not matter who or why. Which makes the circle complete, and tells us, just live your lifes, cause everything happens as it should. There are those who chase the deeper knowledge of life because their souls demand it, and there are those who can be as slick as a layer of ice, where theres no profound issues, well that is ok, nothing more nothing less. For me this movies just explains the chemical enduced triggers of our physical matter in connection to the quantum matter, which has no corners, no ends, no rights, no wrongs, but just is the total glue what bonds everything. Only our ego brains, and because of the control we seek in life pinpoint religions on this quantum matter, as god like in any sense. Be it catholic, muslim, budhism, hindu, whatever, they are all derivates of the quantum source. Well I could go along with this, and even more into details, but that would take too long. For those who understand the movie, great, for those who dont, no worries, its not that important. just live your lives and everything that needs to happen will happen anyway. hehe Predestination..right? Yes, maybe it was meant for you to create your day, ever thought about that?... Love and peace, and just stay calm, theres no rush, weve been here only for a couple million of years, as will become clear one day soon....xxx
by:

this does talk about noetic scince but in a pespective form of its implications not what it is in deffinition none the less it is a good artical and i enjoyed reading it and would recomend it to any one with an idea of noetic scince
by: morpheus_70@hotmail.com

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