Annual Conferences that Explore the Nature of Consciousness
SCS conferences reflects the values and goals of The Society for Consciousness Studies, a professional scholarly organization that honors work of quality from all authentic scholarly traditions, including philosophical, psychological, sociological, and other scientific understandings of consciousness.
Within this broad framework the society explores potential advances beyond the classical and postmodern knowledge paradigms that have dominated science and scholarship during the past century.
Everyone (including members of the public) is welcome to join SCS’s conferences, and learn about the cutting edge of consciousness science!
This year’s conference will be held on Zoom, and can be viewed from anywhere in the world.
The annual conference for the Society for Consciousness Studies was held Sunday December 17, 2023.
The videos from it can be accessed here.
This year’s conference focused on a limited number of invited plenary presentations.
Each speaker is a luminary from a key sub-discipline of consciousness studies who was asked to present about a research project they feel would revolutionize the field.
The schedule for this year was:
| 7:45am | Welcome and introduction |
| 8:00am | Anirban Bandyopadhyay |
| 8:30am | Stuart Hameroff |
| 9:00am | Thomas Brophy |
| 9:30am | Glenn Hartelius |
| 10:00am | Jeffrey Mishlove |
| 10:30am | Arnaud Delorme |
| Conference Closing |
Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD
National Institute of Materials Science, Japan
Bio: Anirban Bandyopadhyay is a Senior Scientist in the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan. He possesses a Masters of Science in Condensed Matter Physics, Computer, Numerical Analysis, and Astrophysics from North Bengal University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Physics from Jadavpur University.
He received his PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata 2004-2005, where he worked on supramolecular electronics and multi-level switching. Bandyopadhyay has developed a resonance chain based complete human brain model that is fundamentally different than Turing tape essentially developing an alternate human brain map where filling gaps in the resonance chain is the key. He has developed unique a quantum music measurement machine and experiments on DNA proteins, microtubules, neurons, molecular machines, cancer. Bandyopadhyay has also developed a new frequency fractal model. His group has designed and synthesized several forms of organic brain jelly that learns, programs and solves problems by itself for futuristic robots during as well as several software simulators that write complex codes by themselves.
Stuart Hameroff, MD
University of Arizona and California Institute for Human Science
Bio: (born July 16, 1947) is an American anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness and his controversial contention that consciousness originates from quantum states in neural microtubules. He is the lead organizer of the Science of Consciousness conference.
Hameroff received his BS degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his MD degree from Hahnemann University Hospital, where he studied before it became part of the Drexel University College of Medicine. He took an internship at the Tucson Medical Center in 1973. From 1975 onwards, he has spent the whole of his career at the University of Arizona, becoming professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Psychology and director for the Center for Consciousness Studies, both in 1999, and finally Emeritus professor for Anesthesiology and Psychology in 2003.
Thomas Brophy, PhD
California Institute for Human Science
Bio: Dr. Brophy is President of California Institute for Human Science, CIHS. CIHS is a mind-body-consciousness based university with programs in Clinical Psychology, Integral Health, and Comparative Religion and Philosophy. As well as being chief executive officer, he teaches Foundations of Integral Studies, and forefront issues of mind-body cosmology at CIHS. He earned a Ph.D. in physics at University of Colorado, Boulder, working with LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) and NASA interplanetary spacecraft projects, and was a National Science Foundation exchange scientist to the Japan Space Program, University of Tokyo. Through partnership with Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, founder of CIHS, he has developed science-consciousness integrative research and teaching programs. He has published several books, peer reviewed scientific articles in premier journals, been a featured presenter at scientific conferences, television documentaries, and Integral spirituality meetings around the world.
Glenn Hartelius, PhD
Attention Strategies
Bio: Glenn Hartelius, PhD, is an innovator in the development and application of tools to develop exceptional leadership skills, based on a psychology of the whole person. He offers these tools in workshop format for organizations, with individualized follow-up for leaders and key individuals.
Exceptional leadership skills are based on simple but subtle mental strategies that change your qualities of presence and positively impact those around you. The ability to connect effectively and authentically with others, the ability to hold a leadership role in a way that builds the confidence of your team, the power to hold a room in a way that inspires—these are skills that exceptional leaders possess but often cannot explain or teach to others. Glenn’s work goes behind the thinking mind, and shows how to easily access and use the invisible factors that power high level leadership skills.
Glenn’s work in whole person approaches to psychology includes founding and chairing a PhD program in Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA, which is a rigorous, research-based doctoral degree. He also serves as Main Editor for one of the major scholarly journals oriented toward whole person psychology, the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies.
Clients and students find Glenn’s leadership skill tools to be highly effective, and he is working with whole person neuroscience research in order to understand the brain and body mechanisms behind these techniques, so these breakthroughs can serve the broader field of psychology as well as in leadership applications. He is CEO and co-founder, with Michaela Aizer, of Attention Strategies, a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation dedicated to researching and disseminating effective attentional strategies for leadership in business, and education.
Jeffrey Mishlove, PH.D.
New Thinking Allowed
Thinking Allowed host Jeffrey Mishlove is a licensed clinical psychologist, an accomplished radio and television interviewer, and one of the most erudite and articulate personalities on television. He is the author of an encyclopedic volume of consciousness studies, The Roots of Consciousness.
Dr. Mishlove is a past director of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and has served as President of the Intuition Network.
Jeffrey holds the only doctoral diploma in parapsychology to be awarded by an accredited American university (University of California, Berkeley). A revision of his doctoral dissertation, Psi Development Systems, was released in 1988 as a Ballantine paperback. This book evaluates methods purported to train psychic abilities. He is also author of The PK Man.
Jeffrey teaches parapsychology to ministers in training with the Centers for Spiritual Living (formerly the Church of Religious Science) through their Holmes Institute. His avocations include financial forecasting (see his occasional Forecasting Systems newsletters), hiking in the Mojave desert and karaoke.
Arnaud Delorme, PhD
University of California – San Diego and Institute of Noetic Science
Bio: Arnaud Delorme, PhD, is a CNRS principal investigator in Toulouse, France, a member faculty at the University of California, San Diego, and a Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. In 2000, Dr. Delorme completed his PhD thesis on visual categorization in humans, monkeys, and machines. Dr. Delorme then moved to the Salk Institute for a postdoc in Terry Sejnowski and Francis Crick’s laboratory where he focused on statistical analysis of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals recorded during various cognitive tasks. He developed the free EEGLAB software for advanced analysis of EEG signals in collaboration with Scott Makeig, software which is now amongst the most used in EEG research worldwide. He was awarded a Brettencourt-Schueller young investigator award and a 10-year anniversary ANT young investigator award for his contributions to the field of EEG research.
Dr. Delorme has a keen interest in the scientific study of consciousness and spirituality. He is a long-time Zen meditator, and has taught in India on the neural correlates of conscious experience in a Master’s degree program for the Birla Institute of Technology. Starting in 2002, he started to look at brain dynamical changes underlying extraordinary states of consciousness, including meditation, psycho-active agents, and mediumship.
The author of over 160 publications, Delorme’s work on mediumship is of particular interest — even with the mainstream. His paper on evidential mediumship and the brain activity of mediums is among the top 1% of articles viewed on the Research Gate platform. Backed by research that spans a decade, Delorme has made a compelling argument that the topic of mediumship is worthy of scientific investigation. Dr. Delorme is also investigating the means by which technology, in particular multi-channel neurofeedback, could be used to assist meditation practice.
Jeffery A. Martin, PhD
Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness, California Institute for Human Science, & Stanford University
Presentation Abstract: Since 2014 the Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness has conducted research with a protocol that has averaged a 65%-75% rate in transitioning people to Fundamental Wellbeing (i.e.: enlightenment, nonduaity, persistent mystical experience, persistent awakening, etc.). In late 2021 we allowed individuals who had previously used the protocol but were not in Fundamental Wellbeing to reuse it. Some of these individuals also independently enrolled in a clinical microdosing program that was designed to help people with depression and anxiety. This presentation will examine the early data from the combination of microdosed ketamine with this well-proven protocol in this transition resistant population.
Bio: Dr. Martin specializes in bringing rigorous empirical research and testing to transformational techniques and theories that have previously been supported anecdotally. Dr. Martin is a leading expert on non-symbolic consciousness (enlightenment, nonduality, mystical experience, union with God/nature, etc.). He holds several graduate degrees and specializes academically in technology, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and transformative studies. A bestselling author and award winning educator, Dr. Martin has co-edited, authored, or co-authored over 20 books and numerous other publications; appeared in a wide variety of media; and lectured broadly in both academic and public forums. Dr. Martin is currently the director of the Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness; Dean of Research at CIHS where he directs the Laboratory for Consciousness Science; and a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at Stanford University.
Past Conferences
YouTube videos from the 2022 conference can be found here.
The list of speakers from the 2022 Conference can be found here.
The list of speakers from the 2021 Conference can be found here.
YouTube videos of the 2021 SCS Conference can be found here.
The list of speakers from the 2020 Conference can be found here.
YouTube videos of 2020 SCS Conference be found here.
YouTube videos of 2017 SCS Conference can be found here.
Sponsors
The Society for Consciousness Studies
California Institute for Human Science
Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness
Transformative Technology Lab
Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)