Grand Rapids is a small town in the state of Michigan, northern USA in the middle of the “Land of Plenty”, surrounded by Lake Michigan and Chicago to the west and Detroit and Lake Huron to the East, one and a half hours on domestic flights from New York.
My visit, in end October 2014, is prompted by an invitation to a lecture by Mr. Larry Dossey – MD, scientist and author.
Dear B
I will be speaking at the Universal Health Solutions Medicine Beyond Medication Conference, focused on #integrativemedicine, October 24-25. The conference will be held in #GrandRapids, Michigan. I would love to have you join me! Medical professionals, students and the public are welcome.
But do you really travel 18 hours over the Atlantic Ocean for a lecture. Normally not so what could give this motivation.
Prior to TSC Conference (Toward a Science of Consciousness) in Tucson in April 2014, I had contact with Dossey about the content of that conference and why he did not consider it worthy to attend. TSC proved in practice to be locked in a physical mechanistic theme whose main objective is assumed to be answering consciousness based on the brain’s biological function.
What you might be able to explaine by such an approach is possibly a brain mind and perception. My interest is the more spectacular consciousness phenomena summarized as transpersonal experiences.
Why would I then still go to Tucson. Well I had expectations about more than what it turned out to be by my involvement in a similar TSC conference in Stockholm 2011. Thought it was worth investigating (the presumed) progress and it was worth it to meet other researchers in the corresponding fields. There were also themes and workshops that could be interesting. But I became in my diary from the conference increasingly critical and I found a possible sort of close to betrayal of participants who sought new information and updated research on consciousness.
By far the greater part of the contents turned out to be brain function (brain mapping) and perceptual possibly interesting for neurologists. There was also an attempt to explain consciousness in quantum physics. Nothing new under the sun came out during these lectures. In practice it turned out that many alternative seekers who attended gave a kind of alibi for a content that was purely illusory.
In fact, the TSC is probably a misleading name. Instead, it should perhaps be named TUB, Toward Understanding the Brain.
Final straw! The last lecture of the Conference on NDE was (Near Death Experiences) from two speakers that practically lacked elementary knowledge of what NDE is. A scientist who killed rats believed to have found the moment of NDE by measuring what he considered to be the moment of death. This study I dismissed in the article in my diary from TSC: “Final day of TSC Near death experience? What!” .
A more famous debater in the area Susan Blackmore paid to debunking earlier claimed to have had an NDE after several hours of gameplay on the Ouija board, stoned on marijuana. The kicks, which she mistakenly called NDE, she has since, quite rightly, dismissed as hallucinations of the brain and from there taken the step to dismiss NDE as phenomena. When such a frivolous observation may prominently at a conference, you have to actually ask both subjects, content and implementation.
This scathing of transpersonal experiences perhaps most scientifically documented phenomenon revealing to the TSC in effect sided with the pseudo-skeptics’. And thus it has allied itself with pseudo-science inquisition in the form it has adopted with the support of IHEU and CSIcop.
Way home from TSC in April went through Tucson Airport and with plenty of time, I took a place in a restaurant. After a while, a couple sat down at the next table. I registered directly charisma and the positive atmosphere around them. Took out my laptop and started writing down ideas about how a conference should be designed that I could find intersting. I also had in mind the meeting with filmmaker Magdalena who was about to make a documentary based on different theories of consciousness, meditation and healing. She had intervewed me and would then fly away and do an interview with Larry Dossey !!! I had told Magdalena that before I leave USA I should meet somebody who might be interested in supporting her project.
There was now this couple next to me and we got to talk about what prompted visiting Tucson. I told them about Magdalena’s projects and about my idea for a new kind of conference. They showed interest in both of these topics and invited me to their small hometown of Grand Rapids in Michigan that they felt would be perfect for such a conference. There is much you can say and promise in such meetings but there was something here that aroused curiosity.
To give an idea of the atmosphere of this meeting, I quote John Wheeler from our meeting on Tucson Airport 2014 April 26th 2014
Creator put us together, consciousness will determine the next steps we take to improve this planet and all its children.
When Larry Dossey invited me to his lecture in this city, I remembered the invitation from Amanda and John and additionally another interesting contact near Grand Rapids that also talked plenty of that particular city. It was too much synchronicity for not taking a quick decision to go.
I also had a feeling that I might be able to learn more about indigenous people (Native Americans) in the area and had an unrealistic desire to get to a meeting. Maybe not the same as I have experienced in Nova Scotia in Canada 1996. Mic Mac indians ritual to the Great Spirit Glooscap.
So when I sit in a car with our host John talking about my desire to learn about the history in Grand Rapids he says he is a Native American and is good friend with the local tribe’s spiritual leader.
This meeting we’ll take place on Thursday 23 visiting the lodge of the spiritual leader. Going North! Hoping to tell more about it soon.
On the Origin of Consciousness 
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