TSC 2010 Pre-Conference Workshop

Session 2, Monday Afternoon, April 12 (2:00pm-6:00pm) - Part 1  

Session 3, Tuesday Morning, April 13 (9:00am-1:00pm) - Part 2

Full Day, $125

Location:  Hotel Arizona  HA - Grand Ballroom West

A Victorian’s Guide To Consciousness: James, Myers,

and The Fin De Siècle Gang - then and now

Stanley Krippner, Pim van Lommel, Arthur Hastings, Jonathan Bricklin, Gary E. Schwartz, Adrian Parker, Allan Combs, Bill Barnard

The year 2010 is the centennial of William James’ death. With his passing a whole style of understanding consciousness was soon to fade. Research on consciousness at the fin de siècle and during the first decade or so of the 20th century questioned the boundaries of conscious awareness as well as exploring the possibility of “subconscious” or “unconscious” mental states. This workshop illuminates the study of consciousness as it existed 100 years ago, while developing comparisons with related ideas that exist today. Topics such as dissociation, the existence and nature of the unconsciousness, altered states of consciousness (from hypnosis to psychedelic experiences), as well as discussions of the relationship of consciousness to brain processes, and the possibility of experiences beyond the ordinary as well as its continuation after physical death, were all part of turn of the century theory and research, and are part of the study of consciousness today as well. Time will be allowed aside from the presentations to invite interested participants to dialogue or present thoughts of their own as well.

Pim van Lommel, Division of Cardiology, Hospital Rijnstate, Netherlands. Pim van Lommel, M.D., is a leading cardiologist at the Division of Cardiology, Hospital Rijnstate, Arnhem, Netherlands, who has made an extensive study near death experiences, interviewing over three hundred heart patients at his hospital in Arnhem, Netherlands who had had experienced clinical death. Dr. van Lommel has published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal and lectures widely on near death experiences. His book, Consciousness beyond Life. The Science of the Near-Death Experience, will be available in English from HarperOne in (summer) 2010.

Gary E. Schwartz, University of Arizona. Gary E. Schwartz is a professor in the departments of medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery and Director of The VERITAS Research Program of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona. He has been a professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale University and Director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic. He is the co-author of The Living Energy Universe, and is the author of The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death and The Truth About Medium, and has published many scientific papers and edited academic books.

Stanley Krippner is the Alan Watts Professor of Psychology at the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco. He is an internationally known humanistic and transpersonal psychologist, having written extensively on dreams, altered states of consciousness, hypnosis, shamanism, dissociation, and parapsychology. In 2002 he received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology. Krippner has published over 200 articles, chapters, and books on consciousness and psychology.                                                                                                                    

Arthur Hastings is a Professor and the Research Director at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and a past president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. He is also Director of the William James Center for Consciousness Studies. Professor Hastings has taught at Stanford University, the University of Nevada, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, and has conducted research on remote viewing, hypnosis, dreams, stress, and bereavement. He is the author of With the Tongues of Men and Angels: A Study of Channeling, co-author of Argumentation and Advocacy, Changing Images of Man, and is the Senior Editor of Health for the Whole Person, an award winning book on holistic medicine.

Jonathan Bricklin, New York Open Center. Jonathan Bricklin is the Program Director at New York Open Center and a James scholar. He is the author of the recent book Sciousness (James' term for consciousness without self) and is presently completing a book on the spiritual dimensions of James’ later writings.

Adrian Parker, Gothenburg University, Sweden. Adrian Parker is a faculty member at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 articles and book chapters on clinical psychology and parapsychology. He has held clinical appointments in the adult and child clinical areas in both the UK and in Sweden. He is a member of the Swedish Psychological Association, the British Psychological Society, the Society for Psychical Research, and Council/Board Member of the Parapsychological Association; and Examiner for the Swedish Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

Allan Combs, California Institute of Integral Studies. Allan Combs is a Professor of Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His background is in consciousness studies, neuropsychology, and systems science. Professor Combs is author of over 100 articles, chapters, and books on consciousness and the brain, including The Radiance of Being (2ed), winner of the best-book award of the Scientific and Medical Network of the UK, and Mind in Time: The Dynamics of Thought, Reality, and Consciousness, with Mark Germine and Ben Geortzel and the recent book, Consciousness Explained Better.

Bill Barnard is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University.  He is the author of Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism, as well as the co-editor of Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism, and he recently completed Living Consciousness: Reclaiming the Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson.  Barnard is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the psychology of religion, the nature of religious experience, and the philosophical implications of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He is currently researching the Santo Daime, a Brazilian religious tradition that focuses on the sacramental use of an entheogenic tea."