International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology

The International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology was founded in 1988 in Brazil as the Institute of Projectiology by Waldo Vieira, a dentist and physician who had become interested in paranormal research. Over the years he developed techniques through which he claimed he could teach people to leave their body at will. Projectiology was the name he gave to the study of out-of-the-body experiences and the application of the methods he had developed. His initial findings became the basis of his calling a group of colleagues together to found the institute and his establishing a number of schools to teach his techniques across Brazil. In 1990 Vieira hosted the first International Conference on Projectiology.

Further research, including investigation of Brazilian practitioners of psychic surgery, and mature consideration of the accumulated data, led him to propose that consciousness was the source of out-of-the-body phenomena, and in 1994 he proposed conscientiology as the name of the field of consciousness studies. Subsequently, the name of the institute was expanded to incorporate this new emphasis. Vieira has written a dozen books detailing his research and expounding upon his approach to consciousness research and paranormal studies including Projectiology: Overview of Experience Outside the Human Body and 700 Conscientiology Experiments.

Through the 1990s, almost 100,000 people took courses from the institute's facilities, and a new research facility, the Center for Higher Studies of Consciousness, is being built at Iguassu Falls, Brazil, to help extend its knowledge base and program. The center is building a large library of material from around the world on the issues of primary interest to the institute.

The international headquarters of the institute is located at Rua Visconde de Pirajá 572-6 andar, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22410-002, Brazil. National offices are also operating in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. The institute supports an extensive Internet site at http://www.iipc.org/.

Sources:

International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology. http://www.iipc.org/. May 20,2000.

Vieira, Waldo. Projections of Consciousness: A Diary of Out-of-Body Experiences. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology, 1997.