Cassandra Vieten is Executive Director of the John W. Brick Foundation, Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences where she worked for 18 years and served as President and CEO from 2013-2019. She is a psychologist, mind-body medicine researcher, author of numerous articles in scientific journals, and an internationally recognized keynote speaker.

Her research has focused on spirituality and health, transformative experiences and practices, and the development of mindfulness-based interventions for emotional well-being. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and completed her research training in behavioral genetics at UCSF. She is the author of Mindful Motherhood: Practical Tools for Staying Sane During Pregnancy and Your Child's First Year, and co-author of Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, and Spiritual and Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice: Guidelines for Psychotherapists and Mental Health Professionals.

Her current projects focus on how mental health care be transformed so that it includes fitness/movement, nutrition, mind-body, and clients’ spiritual and religious beliefs and practices (when relevant) to foster mental and emotional fitness and well-being; what environmental and internal conditions, agents, practices, and states of consciousness stimulate imagination – in particular, the ability to see new possibilities; how cognitive, social and neuroscience along with practices from the world’s wisdom traditions can foster positive change in individuals and in our world (see Consciousness, Communication and Change program and Campaign Science for the political and activist arena), and how introducing people to awe-inspiring ideas and environments can stretch their imagination or help them see things from a new perspective, leading to self-transcendence, shifts in worldview and perspective on life, and other prosocial emotions and behaviors.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded September 14, 2019

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

00:00:00 - Science and Spirituality as Means of Understanding Reality

00:05:25 - Self-realization and the Gita

00:07:45 - A Blissful Epiphany in Space

00:10:40 - The Combination of Science and Spirituality

00:13:40 - The Role of Intuition and Creativity in Inventions

00:15:46 - Reluctance in the scientific community towards psychic phenomena

00:18:17 - History repeating itself

00:21:06 - Paradigm Shifts and Robust Studies

00:23:50 - The Importance of Critical Thinking in Science

00:27:54 - Presenting climate change to skeptics and the importance of collective thinking

00:31:30 - The Power of Authenticity in Activism

00:35:08 - Awakening and Change

00:38:20 - Taking Practice off the Mat: Fierce Love and Social Justice

00:41:38 - The Practice of Perspective

00:45:26 - Destiny and Enlightenment

00:48:31 - The Misunderstanding of Awakening

00:52:04 - The Normalization of Vulnerability and Self-Reflection

00:54:49 - Communicating for Change

00:58:08 - The Institute of Noetic Sciences

01:01:36 - Transformative Education and Spiritual Practices

01:04:56 - The Future of Meditation Science and Research

01:08:30 - The Complexities of Individual Perception

01:12:14 - Exploring the Nature of Reality

01:15:47 - Speculating on the Rules of Robotics

01:18:54 - The Role of Futurists

01:22:17 - Embracing Solutionism

01:25:23 - The Three Key Areas of Focus

01:28:25 - Shifting Perspectives and Fostering Imagination

01:31:56 - The Ripple Effect

01:34:57 - The Future of Virtual Reality Experience