Miriam-Webster defines the term noetic no•et•ic \ nō-ˈe-tik from the Greek noēsis/ noētikos, as meaning inner wisdom, direct knowing, or subjective understanding; the first known use of which was in 1653. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as of, or pertaining to the mind or intellect; characterized by intellectual activity.

Noetics is considered a branch of metaphysics – the branch of philosophy that studies the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity and possibility, including questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter. It is also considered a form of parapsychology, the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc.

Institute of Noetic Science

Needless to say, the study of noetics is not new. The Institute of Noetic Science (IONS) was established in 1973 by the late Apollo 14 mission member Dr. Edgar Mitchell — the sixth person to walk on the moon— and uses modern scientific approaches to study the interconnectedness of humanity and the nature of reality.  Dr. Mitchell, an engineer and astrophysicist, was inspired by his return trip to earth and founded the institute one year after retiring from government services. He left a decades-old legacy that continues to this day through the institute, which conducts scientific research into some of the most intriguing mysteries of the human experience. Researching such areas as spontaneous remission, meditation, consciousness, alternative healing practices, consciousness-based healthcare, spirituality, human potential, psychic abilities, psychokinesis, extra-sensory perception (ESP), lucid dreaming, telekinesis, presentiment and survival of consciousness after bodily death, the institute has citations to more than 6,500 articles.

Dean Radin

IONS Chief Scientist, Dr. Dean Radin MS, Ph.D. has authored and co-authored hundreds of technical articles, 125+ peer-reviewed journal articles, nearly 50 book chapters, four best-selling books. He has spoken at numerous prestigious schools worldwide for the US government and has appeared in numerous interviews and podcasts around the world as well as documentaries. For over 30 years, Dr. Radin has been engaged in research on the frontiers of consciousness. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at the University of Nevada (as Director, Consciousness Research Laboratories), Bell Labs, GTE Laboratories, Princeton University, the University of Edinburgh (as a visiting Fellow) and SRI International ( as a visiting scientist on a classified program of psi research) as well as other academic and industrial facilities including the Interval Research Corporation, a Silicon Valley consumer electronics laboratory over which he was in charge of a research program, and was President of the Boundary Institute (a nonprofit research think-tank dedicated to the exploration of the boundaries between physics and consciousness).

Dr. Radin has served several times as President of the Parapsychological Association (PA), an international organization of scientists and scholars interested in psi phenomena whose mission is to: Promote scholarship and scientific inquiry into currently unexplained aspects of human experience; Disseminate responsible information to the wider public and to the scientific community; and Integrate this information with knowledge from other disciplines. The PA is an elected affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).