Marjorie Hines Woollacott, Ph.D., has been a neuroscience professor at the University of Oregon for more than three decades and a meditator for almost four. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation for 35 years, she has co-authored a popular textbook for health professionals that is in its 5th edition, and has written more than 180 peer-reviewed research articles—several of which were on meditation, the topic that motivated her to write the book Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind.
As a neuroscientist, Marjorie Woollacott had no doubts that the brain was a purely physical entity controlled by chemicals and electrical pulses. When she experimented with meditation for the first time, however, her entire world changed. Woollacott’s journey through years of meditation has made her question the reality she built her career upon and has forced her to ask what human consciousness really is. Infinite Awareness (winner of the 2017 Parapsychological Association Book Award, Eric Hoffer Book Award, and the Nautilus Book Award) pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical and infinitely powerful mind.
Website: marjoriewoollacott.com
Marjorie is the president of an organization called The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences, which she co-founded with Gary Schwartz at the U. of Arizona. The organization hopes to help impel the paradigm shift away from materialism.
Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.
Interview recorded April 22, 2018
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
YouTube Video Chapters:
- 00:00:00 – Introduction and Background
- 00:03:26 – A Mantra for Anxiety Relief
- 00:06:13 – The Life-Changing Initiation
- 00:08:59 – Integrating Science and Spirituality
- 00:11:49 – The Excitement of Consciousness Studies
- 00:14:29 – The Lack of Curiosity in our Worldview
- 00:17:13 – The Connectedness of All Beings
- 00:20:08 – The Disconnect between Scientists and General Public
- 00:23:04 – The Shift in Scientific Consciousness
- 00:26:01 – Consciousness as a Universal Substratum
- 00:29:06 – The Implicate Order and Karma
- 00:31:59 – The Consciousness in Every Particle of the Universe
- 00:35:02 – The Filtered Theory of Consciousness
- 00:38:12 – The Enlightened Master’s Consciousness
- 00:41:17 – Cultivating Non-bounded Reality
- 00:44:13 – Idealist Monistic Philosophies
- 00:47:00 – The Numinous Consciousness
- 00:50:02 – The Manifestation of Consciousness
- 00:52:48 – The Effects of Meditation on the Brain
- 00:55:34 – Stillness of the Mind and Pure Consciousness
- 00:58:21 – The symbiotic relationship between science and spirituality
- 01:01:24 – The Limitations of Randomized Controlled Trials in Determining Effectiveness
- 01:04:04 – Subtleties and Realities of Perception
- 01:06:53 – Exploring Subtle Realms of Perception
- 01:09:45 – The Mechanics of Awareness
- 01:12:30 – The Nature of Consciousness and Binding
- 01:15:19 – The Subtle Body and its Faculties
- 01:18:19 – The Experience of Atheists
- 01:21:08 – The Power of Positive Thoughts and Non-Local Consciousness
- 01:24:15 – Exploring the Hypotheses of Consciousness
- 01:27:05 – Ken Wilber Interview
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