The annual Science and Nonduality Conference creates a unique forum to bring preeminent thinkers from various fields of science into dialogue with spiritual teachers and practitioners, and members of the public seeking answers to the big questions in life, with the goal of contributing to healing the rift between science and spirituality. We also support the emergence of a new kind of spirituality, one not entrenched in dogmatism, but which is responsive to the latest findings in physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology, and ecology.
Since the Scientific Revolution, when empirical discoveries began to undermine religious doctrine, tension grew between those who sought truth through rational inquiry based on observation and those who accepted truths based on the authority of religious dogma. While the liberation of science from religion resulted in tremendous advances in science and technology, it also lead to the fragmentation of knowledge and to a science no longer engaged with the big questions: what it means to be human, to be conscious, to be a seeker of meaning amid the vagaries of life.
CONFERENCE > SPEAKERS SAND
Oct. 23 – 27, 2013 SAN JOSE, CA
Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D.
Psychiatrist and one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology
Stan Grof, M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist with more than fifty years experience researching the healing and transformative potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness. His groundbreaking theories influenced the integration of Western science with his brilliant mapping of the transpersonal dimension. He is one of the founders and chief theoreticians of Transpersonal Psychology and received an Honorary Award for major contributions to and development of the field of Transpersonal Psychology from the Association for Transpersonal Psychology in 1993. Dr. Grof is also the founder of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA) and its past and current president. He has organized large international conferences throughout the world and continues to lecture and teach professional training programs in Holotropic Breathwork and transpersonal psychology. Currently, Dr. Grof is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, and teaches at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA www.stanislavgrof.com/
Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas), ph.d.
Founder of the Diamond Approach®
Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas), was born in the Middle East, but at age 18 he moved to the USA to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph.D. in physics, where he was studying Einsteirn’s theory of general relativity and nuclear physics, when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him more and more into inquiring into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature. Hameed is the founder of the Diamond Approach® – a spiritual teaching that utilizes a unique kind of inquiry into realization, where the practice is the expression of realization. Freedom is living our realization, a dynamic enlightenment where our transcendent nondual truth lives personally in the world. This inquiry opens up the infinite creativity of our Being, transforming our lives into a runaway realization, moving from realization to further realization. Almaas‘ books include: The Inner Journey Home, Essence , The Pearl Beyond Price , Luminous Night’s Journey , and The Unfolding Now.
https://www.ahalmaas.com/
Deepak Chopra, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing
Deepak Chopra, M.D is the author of more than 70 books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His medical training is in internal medicine and endocrinology, and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and an adjunct professor of Executive Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University Columbia Business School, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, and a Senior Scientist at the Gallup organization. For more than a decade, he has participated as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine, an annual event sponsored by Harvard Medical School’s Department of Continuing Education and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. www.choprafoundation.org
Cassandra Vieten
President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences
Cassandra Vieten, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and Faculty Member/Psychologist at California Pacific Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry. She received her PhD in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She completed her pre- and post-doctoral research training at UCSF, working primarily on the biological and psychological underpinnings of addiction and alcoholism. Cassandra is co-author of Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life and author of Mindful Motherhood: Practical Tools for Staying Sane During Pregnancy and Your Child’s First Year. https://noetic.org/
Menas Kafatos
Professor of Computational Physics and Director of Excellence at Chapman University
Dr. Menas Kafatos is The Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics and Director of Excellence at Chapman University. He received his B.A. in Physics from Cornell University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. After postdoctoral work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, he joined George Mason University and was University Professor of Interdisciplinary Sciences there from 1984-2008. He has authored and co-authored numerous books including The Conscious Universe, The Non-local Universe and Principles of Integrative Science. He is a recipient of the Rustum Roy Award from the Chopra Foundation, which “honors individuals whose devotion and commitment to their passion for finding answers in their field is matched only by their commitment to humanity” and the IEEE Orange County Chapter – Outstanding Leadership and Professional Service Award. He has been interviewed numerous times by national and international TV networks, newspapers and radio programs.
https://chapman.edu/CS/pcse/faculty/kafatos.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menas_Kafatos
Susana Martinez Conde, Ph.D.
Director of the Martinez-Conde Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute
Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde is the Director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. She has published articles in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and writes the „Illusions“ column for Scientific American: MIND. She is a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood and the Magic Circle in London, author of the international bestselling book Sleights of Mind, and producer of the annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest (https://illusionoftheyear.com). Dr. Martinez-Conde is among the premier science communicators in the United States.
Dave Pruett
By profession, Dave Pruett is a former NASA researcher, an award-winning computational scientist, and a lauded emeritus professor of mathematics at James Madison University (JMU). By nature, he is a contemplative, a student of mysticism, and an admirer of Native American spirituality, particularly in regards to reverence for the Earth. His professional and personal attributes merged in late career in two meaningful endeavors: the development of “From Black Elk to Black Holes: Shaping a Myth for a New Millennium,” an acclaimed honors course at JMU that received a 2002 Templeton Foundation Science-Religion Course Award; and the recent publication of Reason and Wonder: A Copernican Revolution in Science and Spirit (Praeger, 2012). Twelve years in gestation, Reason and Wonder–“a love letter to the cosmos” that synthesizes modern scientific insights with ancient wisdom–recently garnered an American Library Association’s CHOICE Award. Dave lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, with his wife Suzanne Fiederlein and daughter Elena.
Dean Radin, PhD
Senior Scientist at the IONS
Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University. 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 over two decades he has been engaged in consciousness research. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, University of Nevada, and several Silicon Valley think-tanks, including Interval Research Corporation and SRI International, where he worked on a classified program investigating psychic phenomena for the US government.
He is author or coauthor of over 200 technical and popular articles, a dozen book chapters, and several books including the bestselling The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997) and Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006). Both of these books are in print, and so far they’ve been translated into six foreign languages. A new book will be published in 2013.
Donald Hoffman, PhD
Cognitive Scientist and Author, Department of CognitiveSciences, U.C. Irvine
Donald Hoffman is a cognitive scientist and author of more than 90 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See (W.W. Norton, 2000). He received his BA from UCLA in Quantitative Psychology and his Ph.D. from MIT in Computational Psychology. He joined the faculty of UC Irvine in 1983, where he is now a full professor in the departments of cognitive science, computer science and philosophy. He received the Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association for early career research into visual perception, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences for his research on the relationship of consciousness and the physical world. He was chosen by students at UC Irvine to receive a campus-wide teaching award, and to be included in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
Hoffman studies visual perception, visual attention and consciousness using mathematical models, computer simulations, and psychological experiments. His empirical research has led to new insights into how we perceive objects, colors and motion. His theoretical research has led to a “user interface” theory of perception—which proposes that natural selection shapes our perceptions not to report truth but simply to guide adaptive behavior. It has also led to a “conscious realism” theory of consciousness—which proposes a formal model of consciousness and the mind-body problem that takes consciousness as fundamental.
Elissa Epel, PhD
Associate Professor, UCSF Department of Psychiatry
Elissa Epel, Ph.D is an Associate Professor at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry. She examines how stress processes lead to early disease precursors, focusing on overeating, abdominal obesity, and immune cell aging, and whether meditation and mindfulness interventions can reverse stress related habits and damage. Epel studied psychology and psychobiology at Stanford University (BA, 1990), and clinical and health psychology at Yale University (PhD, 1998). Epel received the APA Early Career Award), Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research Neal Miller Young Investigator Award, and the Chopra Foundation Roy Rustum award.
Puppetji
Master
Master Puppetji speaks to all. His insightful and useless “Socksangs” are light-hearted reminders that help us open our eyes to a new way of SEEING. A master at squashing illusion with Wizdumb, humor and meaningless insights, Puppetji cuts through the spiritual mumbo-jumbo and gets right to The Truth: According to Puppetji. Considered to be one of our last great enlightened masters, Puppetji selflessly delivers his meaningless words of Wizdumb to anyone who will listen and even those who don’t. Puppetji’s message is simple: “You take life too seriously…Enlighten-up”. www.puppetji.com
Lothar Schäfer, Ph.D.
Professor of Physical Chemistry (emeritus) at the University of Arkansas
Lothar Schäfer is a Distinguished Professor of Physical Chemistry (emeritus) at the University of Arkansas. His research in the areas of Physical Chemistry, Electron Diffraction, Applied Quantum Chemistry, and Computational Chemistry led his team to develop the first real-time gas electron diffraction instrument in which diffraction data are recorded on-line, enabling the first pulsed-beam, Time-Resolved Electron Diffraction studies of laser-excited molecules. Additionally, they performed the first quantum chemical geometry determinations of peptide molecules, predicting structural trends in proteins a decade before they were experimentally observed. He is the author of the book, „In Search of Divine Reality – Science as a Source of Inspiration which has been translated in Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Since 1998, Dr. Schaffer has given more than 160 public lectures in the US and abroad. He has been a guest on CUNY-TV and Chopra radio.
Francis Lucille
Advaita Teacher
Francis Lucille is a spiritual teacher of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta (non-duality). He became a disciple of Jean Klein, a French Advaita teacher whom he met in 1975. This was the beginning of a close association that lasted until the death of his friend and spiritual master in 1998. Jean Klein’s own guru, „Panditji“ Rao, whom he met in India in the nineteen-fifties, was a college professor in Bengalore who taught Sanskrit and belonged to a lineage of traditional Advaita Vedanta teachers. www.francislucille.com
James Austin, PhD
Professor of Neurology, Author
James Austin is Emeritus Professor of Neurology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. His formal Zen training began in 1974 in Kyoto with Nanrei Kobori-Roshi, an English-speaking Rinzai master. Since then, his quest as a Zen practitioner has been to clarify how brain research can help us understand the meditative transformations of consciousness. His earlier MIT Press publications include: Zen and the Brain (1998), Zen-Brain Reflections (2006), and Selfless Insight (2009). In the latest book Meditating Selflessly (2011), he presents a simplified approach to everyday meditative practices summarized in terms of many do’s and don’ts. https://zenandthebrain.weebly.com/index.html
David Loy
Zen teacher
David Loy, PhD, was the Besl Family Chair Professor of Ethics/Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati from 2006 to 2010. His books include „Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy“ (Yale University Press, 1988). He is an authorized teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, where he completed formal koan training under Zen Master Yamada Koun Roshi. For more information: www.davidloy.org
RICHARD LANG
Richard Lang spends most of his time working to make more available the Headless Way – a modern, experimental way home to who we really are. Richard discovered headlessness in 1970 when he met Douglas Harding, author of On Having No Head. They became friends. Since then he has travelled widely giving hundreds of workshops, written two books and produced a CD and videos that share the headless way experiments. He is part of a world-wide community of friends who value headlessness. Richard set up headless.org and is encouraged by the growing numbers of people who visit, do the experiments, and see who they really are.https://www.headless.org/
Peter Russell
M.A., D.C.S., F.S.P.
Peter Russell is a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, of The World Business Academy and of The Findhorn Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club of Budapest. At Cambridge University (UK), he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind he changed to experimental psychology. Pursuing this interest, he traveled to India to study meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. He has written several books in this area — The TM Technique, The Upanishads, The Brain Book, The Global Brain Awakens, The Creative Manager, The Consciousness Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to God. https://www.peterrussell.com
RUPERT SPIRA
Artist and Non-duality Teacher
From an early age Rupert was deeply interested in the nature of Reality. For twenty years he studied the teachings of Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Shankaracharya, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, twelve years ago. Francis introduced Rupert to the teaching of Jean Klein, Parmenides, Wei Wu Wei and Atmananda Krishnamenon and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience.
Rupert’s first book is „The Transparency of Things,“ subtitled „Contemplating the Nature of Experience,“. His second book, „Presence Volume I The Art of Peace and Happiness and Presence Volume II The Intimacy of All Experience“ has been currently released by Non-Duality Press. www.rupertspira.com
