ions, Author at Richmond IONS

Richmond IONS Meeting, June 18, 2016

A presentation by Drs. Tom & Jane Hansen

“Finding and Expressing One’s Self.”

Our June 18, 2016 program will feature a presentation by Drs. Tom and Jane Hansen, Charlottesville educators, authors, songwriters, composers and musicians. Tom has written about the metaphysical Self (Trying to Remember (1995) and Remembering our Oneness (2013)), and Jane about the importance of Self to writers.

Drs. Tom and Jane Hansen will offer their ideas of “Self” via discussion and music. Within this format attendees will travel from the mathematical and metaphysical space of “Flatland,” to Johnny Cash’s thoughts about love, to the possibility that “God” is the “context in which forever takes place,” and elsewhere.

Prompted by songs performed by Tom and Jane, the audience will have opportunities to think about and discuss:

• The idea that “Believing Is Seeing.”
• The power we all have to “Imagine” ourselves and the world to be.
• The claim that we are all spiritual beings who are still in Oneness.
• The hope that “Forgiveness” of each other and the world can be simply a
matter of “Remembering” one’s Self.
• The seemingly outlandish claim that our 3D physical world is an illusion, and perhaps even a “Simulation” that we make ourselves.
• The choice to simply “Let the Mystery Be” and just live our lives.

About Our Presenters:

Tom Hansen, Ph.D., is a retired mathematics education researcher, author of math books and teacher. He began his career in the Peace Corps in Liberia in 1964. Tom was the founder of a non-profit that coordinated citizen exchanges between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. in the 1980s. He was a Non-Governmental participant at the Earth Summit in 1992.

Tom has sung and played guitar for decades, has several CDs of his songs and has performed at numerous festivals, workshops and conferences. He is a member of the Positive Music Association. His 2014 CD, “Book Concert,” consists of songs whose lyrics are all quotes from his Remembering Our Oneness book.

Jane Hansen, Ph.D., is professor emerita at UVA’s Curry School of Education, and began her career, with Tom, in the Peace Corps in Liberia. As a professor her specialty was to teach teachers how to teach K-12 students to write across the curriculum.

She has led workshops for teachers in many states and several foreign countries, including Brazil, Canada, Australia, the Bahamas and Belize. In working with writing her goal is to help others and herself, see writing as a means of expression of Self, as is music. Jane began playing the piano keyboard in fourth grade and now sees both that keyboard and her computer keyboard as equally important means of Self-presentation and Self-expression.

Richmond IONS Meeting, May 21, 2016

Featuring a talk by Debra Diamond

“Life After Near Death.”

Our May 21, 2016 program will feature a talk by renowned Baltimore psychic and medium, Debra Diamond, about her recently published book, Life After Near Death: Miraculous Stories of Healing and Transformation in the Extraordinary Lives of People with Newfound Powers.

Debra Diamond began her quest to better understand the special significance of NDEs about five or six years ago. Just a few years earlier, in 2008, she had had an extraordinary, life-altering experience of her own, wherein she was instantly transformed and catapulted from a secure and well-established position as a prominent and successful Wall Street money manager, investment advisor, frequent media commentator in Forbes and on TV shows like CNBC, and business school professor at Johns Hopkins University.

She gave up all that to become a full-time psychic and medium, almost overnight. Several years into her surprising new career she was asked to do a reading for a man who had had an NDE. She didn’t think twice about it, but the reading itself changed her nonchalant outlook entirely.

In her own words: “When I began to read this man, I realized: this was no ordinary reading. This time, the information I was being shown was literally out of this world. This man’s brush with death had left him with extraordinary gifts, with special powers. This was no ordinary man.”

From then until now, Debra has sought to more fully comprehend the extraordinary gifts that often accompany NDEs. Thoughtful, compelling and engaging, Life After Near Death offers fascinating and often profound new insights into the breadth and depth of individualized NDE special effects, a realm few if any investigators have explored in detail before now.

Debra’s book also is groundbreaking in another way, in that she uses her spiritual channeling, psychic and mediumship abilities as an investigative tool to further inform her NDE research. Her talk promises to be a rare treat for our group and we are very pleased to have her as our May guest speaker.

About Our Presenter:

Debra Diamond is a gifted intuitive, channel, medium, psychic, healer, and now an author as well. She lectures, presents workshops and works with clients individually to assist in healing and expansion to enable them to live richer, fuller and more abundant lives.

She is certified in Reiki, a graduate of the Holistic Studies Institute of New York, has completed mediumship training at the Arthur Findlay College in the UK and has trained at the Carl Jung Institute in Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland.

She has studied in Bali, trained in shamanism and worked with spiritual teachers in Colorado, New Mexico and Cassadaga, Florida. In her previous life on Wall Street, Debra often appeared on CNBC, hosted her own radio show on CNN, was profiled in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, and was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. When not on the lecture circuit, she splits her time between homes in Baltimore and Taos.

Richmond IONS Meeting, April 16, 2016

Featuring a talk by Faith Grieger

“A Door Has Opened for Humanity.”

Our April 16 program will feature a talk by Faith Grieger, a Newton Institute-trained hypnotherapist who conducts a practice in Richmond specializing in past-life regression, Life-Between-Lives (LBL) and Quantum Consciousness (QC) explorations.

Through the exploratory journey of her own life, Faith Grieger has discovered a treasure trove of new tools for unlocking the secrets of who we are at the deepest levels, and of the eternal quest of our souls to advance creation through your lifetime and a multitude of others. She will share that journey and those discoveries with us in her April 16 talk.

Her talk will include group experiential demonstrations of hypnotherapy and regression techniques, of the landscapes, peoplescapes, worldscapes and healing potentials one may encounter in the explorations of other lifetimes, plus the rich tapestry of learning, connections with one’s own soul, spirit guides, councils of elders and more that may be encountered between lifetimes.

Faith also will introduce us to the newest session technique in her toolbox, one which merges spirituality with quantum physics known as Quantum Consciousness. Its aim is to enable exploration of additional realms or fields of consciousness that are otherwise beyond our reach, including stored consciousness (e.g. the akashic field), parallel and alternate realities and lives, interdimensional realms, and eternal consciousness.

Faith will conclude the program with a group regression in which all in attendance will be invited to participate (and share their experiences if they wish to do so). Faith’s presentation promises to be one of our most memorable and we look forward to it with great anticipation.

About Our Presenter:

Faith Grieger is a Richmond native who attended secondary school at St. Catherine’s in Richmond and Holton-Arms in Washington D.C. She graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh with a B.A. in art and sociology.

After living for more than 20 years in Oregon, Florida and Asheville, North Carolina, she returned to Richmond in 2015 and opened her practice under the name of All Souls Center, at 5500 Monument Avenue, Suite T (Monument Professional Building).

Her vocational background and training includes Art, Interior Design, Feng Shui, Astrology, Massage, Reiki, Healing Touch and Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT). She is one of only 200 therapists in the world trained and certified in Life-Between-Lives (LBL) therapy at the Michael Newton Institute and is a former Board member.

She is U.S. Program Director of Quantum Consciousness (QC), founded by Australian Peter Smith, President of the Newton Institute, and she is the only sanctioned facilitator of QC sessions in the world outside of Australia.

Richmond IONS Meeting, March 19, 2016

Featuring a Talk by Krista Springer

“Moving from Mental Mind Chatter into a State of Relaxed Beingness.”

Our March program will feature a talk and experiential presentation by Richmond-based sound healing therapist, Krista Springer. Sound healing, both with vocal tones (sometimes referred to as toning) and with a variety of musical instruments, is a very powerful healing modality that very few of us have directly experienced.

Through Krista’s unique and versatile voice, along with various instruments, individuals are invited during this experiential presentation to move away from the day to day stress and chaos into a place of relaxation and inner peace.

Quieting the mind and body, while at the same time facilitating mental and physical restoration, allows us to return to a state where we can then bring and manifest that which we have received into the now. Through taking time daily to quiet the mind and body and moving into a place of inner peace we can actually accomplish more of that which we are trying to achieve in our lives.

Participants are encouraged to bring any personal intentions or concerns to hold or contemplate within the energetic vibrations of this sound experience.

At the end of the program there will be a brief time of silence and then time for those who would like to share any thoughts or feelings they may have had in regards to the presentation.

About Our Presenter:

Krista Springer is a certified sound healing practitioner and a certified hands-on integrated energy therapy practitioner (IET). Krista is an accomplished multi-eclectic musician, singer, song writer and composer.

She incorporates both western and eastern instruments, such as Tibetan bowls and gongs, along with the human voice as a healing tool in her practice, and conducts a healing practice under the name of Bio-Energetic and Holistic Therapeutics.

Richmond IONS Meeting, February 20, 2016

Featuring a talk by Richmond nutrition and vitality coach Sally K. Norton

“Dietary Paradox or Evidence?”

Richmond nutrition and vitality coach Sally K. Norton will discuss how dietary myths are hurting your health and what you can do about it.

Fat will give you a heart attack, and vegetables will protect you from disease, or so they say. Think again.

Is kale really your best friend? Could a healthy habit like green juices an smoothies make you sick?

Get some answers during our meeting.

Richmond IONS Meeting, January 16, 2016

20th Anniversary Celebration

Featuring an appearance, via Skype, by Apollo 14 Astronaut and IONS Founder Dr. Edgar Mitchell, and a talk by Richmond Neurologist Anna Hristova, M.D. (“Dr. Ani”)

• A Celebration of Central Virginia IONS Community Group’s 20th Anniversary a Skype appearance by Dr. Edgar Mitchell, IONS Founder and Apollo 14 Astronaut, to help us commemorate and celebrate the 20th Anniversary and Birthday of our Richmond and Central Virginia IONS Community Group, “born” in January 1996.

We are especially thankful for this opportunity since few community groups endure this long and continue to enjoy the broad base of community support ours has. That itself is exciting, gratifying and worth celebrating, and we are doubly excited and gratified that Dr. Edgar Mitchell, IONS’ distinguished founder, will join us on this happy occasion.

Anna Hristova, Richmond IONS • A talk entitled “The Coming Era of the Cosmic Human,” by Richmond neurologist and spiritual philosopher, Anna Hristova, M.D. (“Dr. Ani”). Dr. Ani’s talk will focus on exciting new developments in science and spirituality and the interface between them that signal the dawn of a new era, one she refers to as the era of the cosmic human.

She will explore with us some of the anticipated breakthroughs of this new era, such as how to discover and master the universal energetic matrix, how science, philosophy, religion and other institutions are likely to change, how human consciousness and human potentials are likely to expand, and how we can integrate this new knowledge into our own lives and become transformed from citizens of Earth to citizens of the Galaxy and larger Cosmos.

Dr. Ani is back by popular demand, and we can scarcely imagine a more fitting speaker and topic to launch our second twenty years.

About Our Presenters:

Dr. Edgar Mitchell was an Apollo astronaut and the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14, which landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. The transformational experience of space travel and walking on the Moon inspired Dr. Mitchell to dedicate his life to exploring the frontiers of human knowledge, consciousness and potential here on Earth.

With that objective in mind, he founded The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in 1974 and has been its central and most inspiring figure and chief ombudsman ever since.

Anna Hristova, M.D., popularly known as “Dr. Ani,” is a Richmond area neurologist with 25 years of practice experience and training in some of the best universities in the USA and abroad.

As a neurologist, she is trained to diagnose and treat disorders which result from abnormalities in the brain, spinal cord and remainder of the central nervous system. She also has 30 years of esoteric training and practices on three continents. She teaches how science and fate can merge.

Richmond IONS Meeting, December 12, 2015

Featuring a Talk by Tom Coates

“Peeling Away Layers of the Onion – Soul Stories Lost and Found.”

Our December 12 program will feature a talk by Tom Coates, our group’s only still-active original member. His talk will mark the 240th monthly program of our Richmond area IONS Community Group and pave the way for our 20th anniversary celebration in January 2016. Music will be provided by Dan O’Neal.

Tom’s theme will be “multidimensional explorations into who we are, what we are doing here, and how we create and manifest the world we want.”

As his program title suggests, Tom will use what he refers to as “soul stories,” drawn from his own experience and from his lifelong fascination with and study of the human soul, to inform the subject. And, in keeping with the season, those stories also will include a unique rendering of the life of Jesus and the soul which gave rise to his remarkable life, gleaned from many years of channeling inquiries and guidance.

This is a version of the Jesus story no one is likely to have heard before and underscores that his life was even more extraordinary than commonly believed.

We live in a period of intense transition, one in which many of our most long-held and cherished assumptions about ourselves and our world are being swept away, and one in which it often seems the only constant is rapid, unrelenting, unexpected, unforeseeable, dramatic change.

To help ground us and get us through this topsy-turvy cycle, the program will conclude with a group exercise designed to assist all present to rediscover, reawaken and reconnect with their Authentic Self, the true identity hidden within each of us, and to integrate and sustain that Self through and beyond this sea of change in which we are now immersed. As always, Tom promises some secrets known only to a few will be revealed.

About Our Presenter:

Tom Coates is a Richmond-based lawyer who has represented numerous spiritually oriented and public interest groups throughout his career. He was a co-founder of Richmond’s Ekoji Buddhist Sangha in 1985, and has been a member and contributor of the Richmond IONS chapter since its formation in early 1996.

In his spare time he enjoys reading, creative writing, painting, woodworking, alpine skiing, biking, backpacking, sailing, time travel, metaphysics, and relaxing with his family at their ancient Outer Banks beach cottage or their Appalachian Mountains retreat.

He still reports his most significant unfulfilled ambition of this lifetime is to make love to an extraterrestrial female, preferably of Pleiadean or Sirian origin.

Richmond IONS Meeting, November 21, 2015

Featuring a talk by Ray Jarrad, Tim Taylor & Linda Browne

Program Title: “Rediscovering Atlantis, Its Fate and Unique Healing Energies.”

Our November program will feature a talk by Northern Virginia and Maryland Atlantean researchers and healing practitioners, Ray Jarrad, Tim Taylor and Linda Browne.

Each of our presenters has been fascinated by Atlantean lore throughout their adult lives, and each has researched it extensively and encountered what they have interpreted as other-lifetimes or other-lifetime connections in Atlantis.

Aided both by their objective research efforts and their subjective encounters of Atlantean lifetimes, they have attained an extraordinary depth of knowledge about Atlantis.

They also have rediscovered what they believe are Atlantean healing techniques and energies, and will present their hypothesis that our current cycle of intense transition and expansion is fostering a re-awakening of these extraordinary energies within all of us.

Their presentation will be divided into two segments. The first will explore Atlantis, its culture, fate and legacy. The second will demonstrate the Atlantean healing techniques our presenters have rediscovered and put into practice, and all those present who wish to will have an opportunity to experience them first-hand.

About Our Presenters:

Ray Jarrad resides in Northern Virginia, is a former Naval Officer and is presently employed as an IT Project Manager for the State Department. He holds three masters degrees – in International Relations, Education and Business Administration – and he has amassed over a thousand hours in post-graduate study programs.

He has studied a variety of Reiki modalities, is a master in Usui and Tibetan Reiki, and has, in his fourteen years of Reiki practice, developed his own blend called “Ray’s Radical Reiki,” which includes Atlantean energies he has channeled and Atlantean crystal skull energies.

Tim Taylor resides in Northern Virginia, works in the accounting division of a trade association and has a strong avocation in alternative healing modalities.

He is a Reiki Master, and also a master in Christa and Theta healing techniques. In more recent times he has incorporated Atlantean energies and techniques into his healing practice, which were channeled and downloaded to him several years ago.

Linda Browne, M. Ac., L. Ac., Dipl. Ac., resides in Potomac, Maryland, where she maintains a healing practice using a range of modalities and techniques including acupuncture, colorpuncture, chakra balancing, Access Consciousness Bars, plus her own Atlantean healing techniques.

Linda earned her Master of Acupuncture degree from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, in Laurel, Maryland, is board certified in acupuncture by NCCAOM, a NADA Certified Detoxification Specialist, and a certified Access Consciousness Bars and Body Process Facilitator. Her husband Alec and five-year-old daughter Eve were both integral parts of her lives in Atlantis.

Richmond IONS Meeting, October 17, 2015

Featuring a talk by Nick Theo

“Soul Astrology – The Astrology of Self-Discovery.”

Our October program will feature a talk by Virginia Beach astrologer, teacher and regular contributor to the A.R.E. blog, Nick Theo.

Popular Western astrology tends to focus on the interpretation of personality and events. However, as we, as a culture, rediscover our spiritual foothold, we need to reexamine astrology’s true intent.

Astrology’s true role is meant to be a tool for spiritual awareness. Edgar Cayce and several other key New Thought thinkers in the 20th Century reintroduced to us the concept of spiritual purpose.

Thus, the interpretation of your birth chart can indicate what your soul chose to experience in this life. Your chart shows your talents and experiences, and can point you towards a way for you to fulfill these goals by using your free will.

Soul astrology is not a predictive method, but rather, a method that examines your potential expression. You will learn how astrology can be used as a helpful tool for self-discovery.

We are living through a period of intense transition. Many people have met with life altering changes from personal loss through relationships, homes, or jobs. In the second part of the talk, Nick will review and then explain how the current astrological aspects and transits are affecting us individually and as a society.

About Our Presenter:

Nicholas Theo, who works in Norfolk, VA, is a program manager for the UK Alef Trust (www.aleftrust.org), and has done work for organizations including A.R.E. and Atlantic University.

He was raised with the Cayce materials and his interest in astrology started as a teenager. Because the Cayce readings on astrology consistently emphasize the importance of using astrology as a tool for self-discovery and understanding rather than as a primarily predictive system, over the years, his interest in astrology evolved into a side vocation with focused research on the practical application of soul astrology (www.SoulAstrologer.com).

Since 1980, Nick has read charts professionally for individuals and organizations worldwide. In addition, he lectures and teaches in the US and Europe. He is a regular contributor to A.R.E.’s blog at EdgarCayce.org/blog, has an astrology column in Canadian-based Open Roads magazine, and his articles are regularly translated and distributed in China.

Richmond IONS Meeting, September 19, 2015

Featuring a Talk by Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt

“Can We Experience Healthy Lives in Our Troubled World?”

Our September program will feature a talk by Arlington author, clinical researcher, developmental psychologist, and spiritually oriented psychotherapist, philosopher and metaphysician, Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Ed. D., LPC.

Her talk will focus on and explore the multitude of existential, metaphysical, moral and spiritual challenges we face in the modern world that often, if not surmounted, impede, impair or undermine our efforts to build healthy lives for ourselves, our families, and our local, regional, national and international communities.

More and more we recognize that our modern world is creating the context for what the World Health Organization has identified since the year 2000 as a Global Social Breakdown Syndrome. This syndrome is ubiquitous and cross-cultural. No socio-economic group, no matter how privileged or well-heeled, is beyond its reach or immune to it.

While we see its most extreme forms today in places like the Middle East and parts of Africa, we also see its effects across Europe and the United States at individual, community and societal levels.

Dr. Mustakova will examine with us the implications of understanding a healthy life on several levels: physiological coherence, as measured by coherent heart rhythms; relational coherence, as measured by coherence of relationships; and societal coherence, as measured by a systemic “social health” approach to creating a framework for mental health and well-being for all.

She brings a unique focus on the nexus between mindfulness as a path to health and dialectical historical understanding as a path to personal empowerment and well-being in an age of anxiety. Dr. Mustakova is in great demand for speaking engagements both in the U.S. and abroad, and we are very pleased and fortunate to have her as our September 19 guest speaker.

About Our Presenter:

Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt is an Arlington-based psychotherapist and native of Bulgaria who emigrated to the United States at 29. She has taught clinical psychology and related subjects at five universities in four countries (Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Bulgaria and the U.S.).

Now she devotes herself full-time to private practice and has over fifteen years of clinical experience with individuals, couples and families dealing with anxiety and depression, relational dynamics, addictions, and severe mental illnesses.

As a scholar and educator she has authored Critical Moral Consciousness: A Study of Morality in a Global Historical Context (Praeger, 2003), and recently co-authored a volume entitled Toward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era. See www.elenamustakova.net for her full bio.