| The
Science Behind the Book |
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Dan Brown, author of the best-selling book
The Da Vinci Code, has written a new book that features
the noetic sciences prominently: The Lost Symbol.
Dr. Katherine Solomon, the female protagonist,
is described as a “noetic scientist” and
appears to be based on a composite of many
of the leading figures in the real-life
noetic sciences.
The book is an artful weaving
together of fact and fiction, and the real-life Institute
of Noetic Sciences is
mentioned several times in the book, as are many
of the actual experiments conducted by our researchers
and their colleagues.
To coincide
with the publication of the book we've put
together this page of resources to help you go
deeper and learn more about the
science behind the book and the Institute
of Noetic Sciences.
For press or media inquiries please
contact 
Buy 'The
Lost Symbol' from Amazon.com
Go
Deeper: Selected IONS Research on Noetic Topics
Buy
'Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation
in Everyday Life'— Our
book summarizing ten years of scientific research
into the ways that people make significant
shifts in how they view the world and
themselves.
The
word "noetic" comes from
the Greek word nous, for which there
is no exact equivalent in English. It
refers to "inner knowing" or
a kind of intuitive consciousness—direct
and immediate access to knowledge beyond
what is available to our normal senses
and power of reason. As defined by psychologist-philosopher
William James in 1902, noetic refers
to “states of insight into depths
of truth unplumbed by the discursive
intellect. They are illuminations, revelations,
full of significance and importance,
all inarticulate though they remain;
and as a rule they carry with them a
curious sense of authority…”
Noetic sciences use scientific methods
to explore the "inner cosmos" of the mind (consciousness,
soul, spirit) and how it relates to the "outer cosmos" of
the physical world. In other words, they study
how people come to know things or affect things
through experiences or capacities (intuitions,
synchronicities, psi, “after-death” communication,
energy healing, etc.) that have no apparent
rational explanation, and what this says
about the nature of human consciousness.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences is an international
membership organization with
approximately 20,000 members and friends located
in all fifty United States and in nearly fifty
countries on six continents. Keep up with the latest news about
IONS and noetic sciences and help support IONS
and noetic science research by getting more involved.
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