Wednesday, September 23, 2009

From Bear to Bull --Noetic Science

In a recent WSJ article entitled Bull to Bear (article taken down for some reason so I can't point to it), the topic centered around whether or not we are out of the recession and into some sort of recovery. One of the tag lines of the article was "the deeper the slump, the zippier the recovery".

But most fascinating to me was the following quote by an English economist by the name of Arthur C Pigou, that gets right to the point of the article:

" The error of optimism dies in the crisis, but in so dying, it gives birth to an error of pessimism. The new error is born, not an infant, but a giant".

How many times have we heard in this past year that the end of the free world as we know it was at hand? How many times have our leaders in Washington cautioned that our financial system was on the brink of disaster. How scared have you been in the past year? I for one, have never experienced the depths of pessimism (which is uncharacteristic for me in general) that I suffered this past year not just about our country, but my business, my outlook, everything." And so the new error is born, not an infant, but a giant".

Fast forward to Dan Brown's new book, "The Lost Symbol". The book introduces a relatively new field of study called Noetic Science which in a nutshell is the study of the affect of human consciousness on the physical world. And get this, Noetic Science also studies the affect of "collective consciousness" . From Cassandra Vieten of the Huffington Post--Noetic experiences are real, they influence our health, our behaviors, and our lives, and they provide important clues about who and what we are and what we may be capable of. So real life noetic scientists are dedicated to their rigorous exploration, and to the potential that it holds for human consciousness.

Okay, I know that sounds heavy. The dots I'm trying to connect in this post are this: Could it be that we, as a collective group of Americans got "so negg'd out" over this recession/depression that collectively, we made things worse? Could we have been so overwhelmed by the negative media and the negatives all 'round us, that we (noetic scientifically speaking of course) affected business and our attitudes in this country? It's very interesting to realize that perhaps we have (as a group of Americans) more impact on our country than we realize. Think about 9/11. Remember how together we were? Remember how we reacted so positively about our country/our President/ and our future after the attack? Our collective consciousness pulled us out of the 9/11 debacle because our country came together. All I'm asking is if the same thing happened on the negative side this past year--??

Wrapping this all up and coming to a close, I don't think in all of my years, I have witnessed such a collective amount of pessimism this past year, born a giant this pessimism, and now, with the enlightenment via Dan Brown of a real term called Noetic Sciences, I will never underestimate the power of positive (and negative) thinking, particularly in the form of collective human consciousness.

On a future post, perhaps I will explore Prayer and a collective effort herewith. I personally believe that "Noetic Science" whatever that really is--validates the existence of God and His powers.