Saturday, May 06, 2006
JOHN E. MACK AND SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES
The other day I linked PEER PERSPECTIVES 3, a publication of John E. Mack's Program for Extraordinary Experience Research that morphed into the John E. Mack Institute. PEER is the organization for which Brian Muldoon, one of the creators of the Synthesis Dialogues, was an advisor.
In this edition of PEER PERSPECTIVES is a section titled "At the Forum" which lists the forums, conferences and informal meetings of the past year. The following is one of the entries:
September 1999: Dharamsala, India
Dr. John Mack traveled to Dharamsala, India, where he was part of a symposium invited to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to explore how to create a culture of peace. The convener of this meeting was the Association for Global New Thought, with co-direction from the Synthesis Institute and the Dearborn Institute.
In an interview with New Dimensions radio, Dr. Mack was asked what came into focus from being in Dharamsala.
"What I take from this is a skillful means of interrupting cycles of violence. The strategies, or new forms of power, have to be much more imaginative, inventive, and powerful than ever before.
"Power is the latent, creative energy in the universe. Power is not dominating another person, or conquering another nation.
"The problems in the world, in a large part, derive from the fact that the people who are willing to use that power destructively are less afraid to use it, then those of us that seek a higher level of consciousness. It's as if a higher level of consciousness is synonymous with a retreat from power. But it must not be that way. We must use new, imaginative ways of compassion, persuasion, influence, saying no... All kinds of things which are non-violent, but are also powerful."
There is another entry:
May 1999: San Marino, Italy
In late May, Dr. John Mack and Karin, an experiencer featured in PASSPORT TO THE COSMOS, were invited to discuss the work of PEER at the 7th World Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects and Related Phenomena in the Republic of San Marino, Italy.
Monsignor Corrado Balducci expressed the need for cultures to respect testimony of witnesses, because it is through human beings' perceptions that we ultimately come to know reality in its fullness. Cultures must credit people's perceptions, the monsignor suggested, for if they do not, the institutions cease to develop and become a hindrance to the people's growth.
There is an entry for October 1999: State of the World Forum, San Francisco which indicates Mack participated in an event that also included Rick Tarnas, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Brian Swimme, and Marianne Williamson, among others.
