Science as a Spiritual Practice, Julia Mossbridge

As a scientist compelled to investigate time and consciousness, I have learned that what attracts me to science as a discipline is what attracts many mystical seekers to their paths. In this talk, I will discuss the process of surrendering and not knowing the answer, posing a question, listening to the answer, and shifting our behavior in response to the answer as the basic process of science — and the parallels to spiritual practice will be made clear. In addition, I will ask for a discussion of ways in which we can shift science education toward teaching science as a spiritual practice, and I hope we will all come away with useful insights about this shift.

Julia Mossbridge is a Staff Scientist and the Director of the Innovation Lab at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), the Science Director at Focus@Will Labs, and a Visiting Scholar in Psychology at Northwestern University. She seeks to understand how time is perceived by the conscious and subconscious minds. She is honored to be the 2014 winner of the Charles Honorton Integrative Contributions award. Dr. Mossbridge received her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences from Northwestern, her M.A. in Neuroscience is from UCSF, and her B.A. with highest honors in neuroscience from Oberlin College. Mossbridge is the author of Unfolding: The Science of Your Soul’s Work (New World Library, 2002) and co-authored Transcendent Mind: Re-thinking the Science of Consciousness (APA Books, 2016) with Imants Baruss.