Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation
Other Research
References and Links
1) Shift Report: In 2007, IONS began publishing The Shift Report, an annual document that charts the transition that appears to be underway worldwide from a rigid, mechanistic, and materialistic worldview to one that is built on a foundation of interconnectedness, cooperation, and the intersection of science and spirituality. Through research, education, and community networking, IONS fosters linkages between apparently divergent ideas and disciplines, exploring familiar territory with a new perspective on what is possible for ourselves and the world at large. The 2008 Shift Report is now available: (www.shiftreport.org)
2) Daniel Simons, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, conducts research on visual cognition, perception, attention, and memory. Particularly fascinating is his research on inattentional blindness, which he defines as people’s “failure to notice unusual and salient events in their visual world when attention is otherwise engaged and the events are unexpected” (Simons and Chabris 1999, 1062).
Website:
viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html
3) Metanexus Institute: Promoting the constructive engagement of science, religion and the humanities in the communal pursuit of wisdom in order to address humanity’s most profound questions and challenges.
Website:
www.metanexus.net/Institute
4) Eck, D. 2006. The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Pluralism Project, Harvard University.
Website:
www.pluralism.org/research/articles/index.php (accessed July 6, 2007).
5) Keltner, D., and A. Cohen. 2003. Berkeley social interaction laboratory. BSI Lab, Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley.
Website:
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/ (accessed July 6, 2007).
7) NCCAM. 2006. Backgrounder: Meditation for health purposes. Publication No. D308. February 2006, updated June 2007.
Website: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/meditation/ (accessed July 13, 2007).
8) Charles Grob, MD, UCLA. For Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at UCLA, psychedelics have proven to be a useful therapeutic tool for patients. Similarly, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School (Griffiths et al. 2006) are engaged in studies of psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms.” Under rigorous laboratory conditions in double-blind protocols, they have shown that with appropriate preparation and in specific conditions, administration of psilocybin causes experiences that meet the criteria of full-blown mystical experiences. In the study, one-third of subjects rated the experience as the single most spiritually significant experience of their lifetimes, and two thirds rated among the top five. Nearly 80 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction two months after the experience.
Griffiths, R. R. , W. A. Richards, U. McCann, and R. Jesse. 2006. Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology 187(3):268–83.
9) Sundararajan, L. 2002. Religious awe: Potential contributions of negative theology to psychology, “positive” or otherwise. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 22(2):174-197.