![]() | Website, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia page (From his website) "Dean Radin, PhD, is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Associated Distinguished Professor of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). He occasionally gives lectures in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University and has served on doctoral dissertation committees at Saybrook University and CIIS. His original career track as a concert violinist shifted into science after earning a BSEE degree in electrical engineering, magna cum laude with honors in physics, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and then an MS in electrical engineering and a PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. For a decade he worked on advanced telecommunications R&D at AT&T Bell Laboratories and GTE Laboratories. For three decades he has been engaged in frontiers research on the nature of consciousness. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, University of Nevada, Interval Research Corporation, and SRI International." “As science attained unprecedented power through its ability to predict and control certain limited aspects of nature, it also began to overshadow our understanding of ethics and values. History has shown that decisions affecting millions were made on the basis of industrial expediency, technological imperatives, and economic pressures. Just as the absolute power held by the church for centuries had been seductive, the growing power of science had seduced as well.” ― Dean Radin, 'The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'What's been helpful: I wouldn't normally just cut/paste a bio from someone's website but I did so in this case to make clear that Dean Radin is no amateur scientist fascinated by the possibility that magic's real. Instead, Dean is an accomplished academic who's attempting to do hard science out on the edges of consciousness studies - it only looks like magic. Dean's goal is to aggregate centuries of psi-related anecdotes and experimental data into a recognized field of consciousness science that will inform a new model of reality, one continually shaped by data from a new class of psi experiments. And despite how dry I just made that sound, it really is fascinating to hear his rap, as you can tell by the view count on this first video - it has a podium, power point slides and everything and still has over 630,000 views. So on that note … ![]() ![]() |
Posts Tagged with d radin
Supernormal
Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities (2013) Dean Radin, PhD In his recent book, Dr. Radin explores a fascinating question; what would we learn about the validity - or lack of same - of psychic phenomenon if we analyzed the anecdotal information we've recorded over the years with scientific rigor? "Gaining a deeper understanding of consciousness will play an increasingly important role in twenty-first -century science. If the evolution of knowledge in this century exceeds that of the last, which seems likely, then we can look forward to a future that's likely to redefine our concepts of reality far beyond any of the strangest concepts we've encountered so far." --Dean Radin, 'Supernormal'After a nice walk-through of yoga's origins and its shorter history in the U.S., Radin focuses on the 'supernormal' abilities linked to the yogic siddhis (powers achieved by advanced meditatives) during his detailed analysis, using data from controlled experiments in peer-reviewed scientific journals. (I definitely picked up some tidbits about my newly reinvigorated yoga practice!) Radin also takes a quick look at some of the other methods people use to alter consciousness: extreme sports, psychedelics and shamanism, for example. And because there are so many methods, many people end up encountering the 'supernormal' at least once in their lives. It is for this reason, Radin argues, that a belief in spirit beyond form has persistently arisen in all human cultures. After further discussing the way in which beliefs color our perceptions, Dr. Radin dives into a thorough examination of the experimental data surrounding each of the siddhis; it gets pretty deep into math and statistical explanations but if you're up for it, the book makes an interesting case about the nature of 'supernormal' phenomenon. |