About Portland IONS > History
Overview | History | About the Institute | Past Topics
The Portland IONS group has been meeting on the first and third Sunday of every month at least since 1992. At that time it was a group of five or six meeting at the home of Jean-Claude Balland. We discussed books (I remember "The Holographic Universe"), consciousness, karma—much as we discuss topics now, and already then we talked occasionally about whether meetings should be more structured. Monique Stradal had meetings at her house for a while, then Susan Killoran (at that time Flagel) and I shared the hosting, and Mary Lansing took over from Susan in about 1997. In those early years there was no written communication with members and rarely any planning for meetings.
For years attendance was typically about a dozen people, from an email list of over a hundred, and sometimes on holiday weekends only one or two showed up. On a few occasions we had a speaker or other presenter, most notably Dr. Amit Goswami, Paul von Ward, and Gary Ferguson, who each drew crowds of about twenty-five to thirty. Most meetings, however, were given to open discussions, often around books or magazines that members brought in. Politics and other topics unrelated to Noetic themes were not allowed. However, after 9/11 there was inevitably a shift; we have had many discussions about community, environment, and current events and how to respond to them from a spiritual viewpoint.
In 2001 some members of the group were concerned about the way the meetings were going, wanting greater attendance and more structure. Judy Cooper obtained the names and addresses of IONS members in this area and sent a survey asking what they would like to see the group do, and an invitation to an organizational meeting. This was held in a library in October. It was attended by some thirty-five people, of whom four are still part of the group today.
In recent years we have watched videos and listened to tapes; we "played" with the "Wild pine" video; we had a spoon-bending session, demonstrations of energy healing, kinesiology, flower essences and family constellation therapy, and presentations by a shaman, Allison Yahna, and by Don Clarkson, psychic, life coach, and Tarot instructor. We have continued to have many unstructured meetings in which all attendees could present information, voice concerns, share articles and books, and initiate discussions. Among the topics discussed were crop circles, pining rods, spiritual practices, intentions, and various subjects from the IONS "Shift" magazine. Often the meetings begin or end with a meditation.
Dorothy Larco