TSC2012

TSC Toward a Science of Consciousness 2012

April 9-14, 2012 - Loews Ventana Canyon Hotel - Tucson

Pre-Conference Workshops

Monday, April 9, 2012

9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Location:  SABINO

The Survival of Consciousness After Death Hypothesis: Implications and Applications

            Presenters:                                                                  with guests

            Julie Beischel, PhD     Mark Boccuzzi                      Joanne Gerber              Dave Campbell

The Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential

www.windbridge.org

Workshop Description:

The main research focus at the Windbridge Institute addresses the survival of consciousness hypothesis which postulates that some aspect of consciousness survives the physical death of the brain and the body.  The workshop will include discussions of proof- and process-focused studies (both qualitative and quantitative) involving Windbridge Certified Research Mediums (WCRMs), 20 individuals who report experiencing regular communication with the deceased and whose abilities to report accurate and specific nonlocal information have been demonstrated under blinded laboratory conditions which control for all traditional, local, and sensory explanations for the accuracy of their statements.  Our discussion of mediumship will also include the implications of the resulting data regarding our understanding of the nature of consciousness (including non-human animal consciousness) and the source of the information mediums report.  Finally, we will discuss mediumship as it relates to socially relevant areas such as criminal investigations and grief counseling and recovery.  Our survival of consciousness research also includes investigating technologies that may be useful in enhancing interaction and communication with the deceased (i.e., instrumental transcommunication, ITC).  We will discuss how we objectively evaluate methods of capturing ITC under highly controlled conditions and attempt to develop practical applications for ITC.  The experiential portions of the workshop will include a live demonstration of anomalous information reception by WCRMs Dave Campbell and Joanne Gerber and the attendees using ITC software to attempt to acquire nonlocal, veridical information.

Bios:

Julie Beischel and Mark Boccuzzi have been performing full-time research on anomalous cognition and nonlocal consciousness for a combined 14 years.  They co-founded the Windbridge Institute in 2008 and have since been invited speakers at meetings or organizations including the Rhine Research Center (2009), the San Diego Bereavement Consortium at VITAS Hospice (2009), the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (2009), the 13th International Conference of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS, 2009), the Annual Conference of the Forever Family Foundation: Is There An Afterlife? - An Exploration of the Unseen World (2010), the First Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference (2011), and the Atlantic University Parapsychology and Consciousness Conference (2011).

Julie Beischel received her doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology with a minor in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Arizona in 2003 where she then served as the William James Post-doctoral Fellow in Mediumship and Survival Research and Co-Director of the VERITAS Research Program.  Julie is a full member of the Parapsychological Association and the Society for Scientific Exploration and serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Rhine Research Center, the Forever Family Foundation, and the Association for Evaluation and Communication of Evidence for Survival.  Her mediumship research has been presented at Parapsychological Association, Anthropology of Consciousness, Society for Scientific Exploration, and Toward a Science of Consciousness conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Transpersonal Psychology Review, Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, and the Australian Journal of Parapsychology where she also serves as a Specialist Consultant.  Her research has been funded by the Bial Foundation and the Society for Psychical Research.

Mark Bocuzzi is currently an associate member of the Parapsychological Association and the recipient of a research grant from the Helene Reeder Memorial Fund for Research into Life after Death.  He has spent more than a decade investigating spontaneous cases of apparitions and related haunting phenomena and his instrumental transcommunication (ITC) research has been published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration.  Mark presented his source-of-psi research at the 2011 meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration and his animal psi research at the 2010 Toward a Science of Consciousness conference.  Mark holds a BS in computer science with a minor in broadcast communications. 

Guests:

Windbridge Certified Research Medium Dave Campbell, Glendale AZ

Windbridge Certified Research Medium Joanne Gerber, Boston MA