NOETIC
SCIENCES REVIEW # 27, PAGE 38
AUTUMN 1993
Throughout much of the
first 20 years of the history of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the ideas
we have championed have largely been ignored by the media. Suddenly, in
1993, two major television networks are airing documentary series exploring
the potential of mind-body health: Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers
(sponsored by the Fetzer Institute) on PBS, and our program The Heart
of Healing on TBS. Has the tide turned, and are we likely now to have
more opportunities for similar series on related topics in the years to
come? I think probably so, for several reasons.
Both of those series grew out
of a decade of solid research in mind-body health. Simultaneously, the market
has matured, as more and more people tire of the old ways and turn toward
noetic concerns, including the connection between consciousness and physiological
health. The networks have recognized the shifts, and now seem genuinely
interested in these issues. Signs of this growing market can be seen elsewhere:
for example, a recent New York Times top-ten bestseller list in nonfiction
included Healing and the Mind, Care of the Soul, Women Who Run With the
Wolves, and Embraced by the Light.
I'm confident we will have ample
opportunities in the years ahead to present our ideas on television. The
more significant questions, and the ones for which the answers are not nearly
so certain for me, are "Do we know how to present subtle, complex issues
on television?" and "Do we know how to use television to stimulate
thoughtful reflection, and to engage viewers rather than to mesmerize or
anesthetize them?"
Duane Elgin points out the enormous
potential of television in his forthcoming book Awakening Earth:
Caught
within a rapidly closing circle of problems, the human family is challenged
to reconcile its many differences and actively cooperate in building a sustainable
future. Global reconciliation requires global communication. . . . Just
as consciousness is not 'just another human capacity', television is not
'just another technology'. Television is at the very heart of our capacity
for self-reflective consciousness at a societal scale. . . . [It] is our
social witness—our vehicle for 'knowing that we know' as nations and as
a human family. . . . Television has become the 'social brain' or 'central
nervous system' of the human family.
The context created around the
Moyers' series by the companion book, talk-show and magazine interviews,
and discussion groups in churches, schools, clubs, neighborhoods and families,
transformed the television program into what the industry terms "an
event". The result, it seems to me, is a significant step toward "electronic
democracy". While we do not yet have access to the much-anticipated
interactive television, the creation of discussion groups supported by effective
process and provocative print materials, combined with serious television,
is a beginning in the transformation of television from entertainment to
democratic forum.
Many of us have been strongly
critical of television in the past. I believe that we will all have an opportunity
in the years ahead to play our part—whether by creating programming or organizing
and participating in discussion groups—to explore how we can contribute
to television's becoming a true medium for transformation.
—Winston O. Franklin
Executive Vice-President
| Winston
O. Franklin Is Executive Vice-President of The Institute Of Noetic
Sciences |
|