The Consciousness Chronicles

		CHRONICLES VOLUME 3 PREVIEW VIDEO CLIPS To purchase please click here. Click on cover thumbnail for large version.

			MENAS KAFATOS ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY Menas Kafatos joined Chapman University in 2008 as the Vice Chancellor for Special Projects and is also Founding Dean of the Schmid College of Science, Director of the Center for Excellence in Applied, Computational, and Fundamental Science, and is a Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics. He received his B.A. in Physics from Cornell University in 1967 and his PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. He has 34 years experience in undergraduate and graduate Earth systems science, hazards, remote sensing and data information systems, physics, computational and theoretical astrophysics, astronomy, and foundations in quantum theory. He has published numerous books including The Conscious Universe, the Non-local Universe (with Robert Nadeau, Springer-Verlag), Principles of Integrative Science (with Mihai Draganescu, Romanian Academy of Sciences Press), and more than 250 articles on computational science, astrophysics, Earth systems science, hazards and global change, general relativity, cosmology, foundations of quantum theory, and consciousness.

			DEEPAK CHOPRA ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY Deepak Chopra, MD is the Founder and Chairman of the Chopra Foundation, and Founder and co-Chairman of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Gallup Senior Scientist. Chopra is known as a prolific author of over fifty-five books with eighteen New York Times best sellers on mind-body health, quantum mechanics, spirituality, and peace. He is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post On Faith and contributes regularly to Oprah.com, Intent.com, and Huffington Post. Chopra’s Wellness Radio airs weekly on Sirius/XM Stars, Channels 102 and 55, which focuses on the areas – success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being, and spirituality. Time Magazine heralds Deepak Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century, and credits him as “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.”

			PAAVO PYLKKANEN ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY Paavo Pylkkanen received his masters degree from the University of Sussex and his doctorate from the University of Helsinki. He was an Academy of Finland researcher 1990-1995 and became associate professor in theoretical philosophy at the University of Skovde, Sweden in 1996, where he initiated a consciousness studies undergraduate program. In 2001 he became an adjunct professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, where he has since 2008 been a temporary university lecturer in theoretical philosophy. While doing his masters and PhD theses Pylkkanen interacted with the physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) and became interested in whether Bohm’s ontological interpretation of quantum theory could throw light on various philosophical problems, especially those in philosophy of mind. Bohm suggested that a new type of “active information” plays a role in quantum processes and in his 1992 PhD thesis Pylkkanen developed further Bohm’s idea that mental causation can be understood in a new way in light of this notion.

			LOTHAR SCHAFER ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY 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.

			CASSANDRA VIETEN ON TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS Cassandra Vieten, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, co-director of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Group at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and co-president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the State of California, and several private donors and foundations, her research has focused on spirituality and health; development and pilot testing of mindfulness-based approaches to cultivating emotional balance (primarily in the areas of addiction and pregnancy/postpartum well-being); and factors, experiences, and practices involved in psychospiritual transformation to a more meaningful, compassionate, and service-oriented way of life. Her primary interest lies in how psychology, biology, and spirituality interact to affect experience and behavior.

			ZA CHOEJE RINPOCHE ON TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS Za Choeje Rinpoche Tenzin Lobsang Dhamchoe was born in 1968. Rinpoche grew up on a small farm with his grandparents. The local village Lama presented Him the birthname of “Choejor Dhondup (Accomplished Spiritual Abundance)”. As a young boy, Rinpoche discovered a love for Tibetan folk tales and spent many hours reading ancient stories to elders in the neighborhood. His enthusiasm of Tibetan literature inspired him to join the Tibetan Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, Varanasi, India in 1982. A year into His studies, at the age of 16, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama recognized Him as the 6th reincarnation of Hor Choeje Rinpoche of Eastern Tibet. He was formally enthroned in 1983 as the 6th Za Choeje Rinpoche at Tehor Khamtsen in Sera Monastery. Under the guidance of His Holiness and Yongzin Ling Rinpoche, He received extensive training in the traditional Tibetan Buddhist method of listening, contemplation and meditation.

			MAUREEN SEABERG ON SYNESTHESIA Maureen Seaberg is a NYC-based journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, the Daily News, Irish America, ESPN the magazine and on PBS and MSNBC. She won a scholarship to the inaugural Norman Mailer Writers Colony in 2009. She is also a synesthete and synesthesia researcher who is on the organizing committee of the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference for the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Maureen is also author of Tasting the Universe, a study of synesthesia. Her forms of synesthesia include grapheme (letters and numbers), colored days of the week, months and music and some motion-to-hearing synesthesia. She is a graduate of Penn State University and holds a certificate in superior-level Spanish language from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid.

			BERIT BROGAARD ON SYNESTHESIA Berit (Brit) Brogaard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri. She is the American editor of the international philosophy journal Erkenntnis and Vice President for the Central States Philosophical Association. Before returning to the States she held a research fellowship at the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, where she worked on perception and the contents of consciousness, with David Chalmers (author of: The Conscious Mind). She has a background in neuroscience from University of Copenhagen and a Ph.D. in philosophy. Her current research is located at the intersection of philosophy of mind and psychology. Her most current empirical project investigates the potential adaptive advantages of certain types of attitudes towards the consequences of intentional action. She is also the P.I. of a synesthesia research team that studies unconscious color processing in subjects with higher synesthesia.

			JASON PADGETT ON SYNESTHESIA Jason D. Padgett is a number theorist with Acquired Savant Syndrome from Anchorage Alaska, currently living in Tacoma Washinton. The beauty of numbers and their connection to the pure geometry of space time and the universe is shown in his fractal diagrams. Fractals are shapes that when decomposed into pieces, the pieces are the same or similar to the whole. His is currently studying how all fractals arise from limits and how E=MC2 is itself a fractal. When he first started drawing he had no traditional math training and could only draw what he saw as math. Eventually a physicist saw his drawings and helped him get traditional mathematics training to be able to describe in equations the complex geometry of his drawings. He is currently a student studying mathematics in Washington state. His drawing of E=MC^2 is based on the structure of space time at the quantum level and is based on the concept that there is a physical limit to observation which is the Planck length. It shows how at the smallest level, the structure of space time is a fractal.

			PIM VAN LOMMEL ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE END OF LIFE Pim van Lommel, M.D., born in 1943, graduated in 1971 at the University of Utrecht, and finished his specialization in cardiology in 1976. He worked from 1977-2003 as a cardiologist in the Hospital Rijnstate, Arnhem, the Netherlands, and is now doing full-time research on the mind-brain relation. He published several articles on cardiology, but since he started his research on near-death experiences (NDE) in survivors of cardiac arrest in 1986 he is the author of over 20 articles (most of them in Dutch), one book and several chapters about NDE. In November 2007 his book ‘Endless Consciousness’ (Eindeloos Bewustzijn) was published in The Netherlands, which is a bestseller with more than 125.000 copies sold. The book is available in English by Harper Collins, entitled: Consciousness Beyond Life. The Science of the Near-Ddeath Experience.

			RUDOLPH TANZI ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE END OF LIFE Rudolph E. Tanzi is the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Tanzi has been investigating the genetics of neurological disease since 1980 when he participated in the study that led the first disease gene to be found by genetic analysis (Huntington’s disease). In 1987, Dr. Tanzi isolated the first familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD) gene, known as the amyloid ß-protein (A4) precursor. In 1995, he co-discovered the second two FAD genes: presenilin 1 and 2. Dr. Tanzi is currently carrying out genome wide screens to identify additional AD genes. His research the role of zinc and copper in neurodegeneration has led to successful clinical trials for AD.

			PETER FENWICK ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE END OF LIFE Peter Fenwick is Consultant Neuropsychiatrist emeritus to the Epilepsy Unit at the Maudsley Hospital, which he ran for twenty years. He is presently appointed as a Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry and Southampton University, and Honorary Consultant Clinical Neurophysiologist at Broadmoor Hospital. Dr Fenwick has a long standing interest in brain function and the problem of consciousness and has published a large number of research papers related to altered states of consciousness, and abnormalities of consciousness and behaviour. One of his main interests for some years has been near death experiences and the dying process, and he is at present carrying out a research project in hospices in the UK, Holland and Japan into the experiences reported by the dying and their carers around the time of death. He has co-authored several books with his wife, most recently "The Art of Dying". Other titles are a study of near death experiences, “The Truth in the Light”, and of dreams “The Hidden Door.”