The IAC’s roots date back to 1981, with the founding of the Center for Continuous Consciousness (CCC) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The CCC conducted experimental consciousness research and periodically staged free conferences throughout Brazil. In 1994, the study of the consciousness expanded internationally, mainly to the USA and Europe, pioneered by leaders who are, to date, actively part of the IAC.
The Academy was formally founded in 2000 in its current form, as an organization focused on both research, with its European research center – the IAC Research Campus – and education, via its educational centers worldwide. Today, the IAC is a truly global organization with even broader objectives in education and research, as well as a permanent presence in several countries around the world.
The first president of IAC, Wagner Alegretti (2001-14), has remained a leading researcher in the field since 1982. He was a pivotal member of the CCC and a charter member of other organizations that studied the science of consciousness. As such, in 1988 Alegretti was co-founder of the first organization to work with consciousness science, and was its director for 5 years. Together with Nanci Trivellato, he started the work to make the science of consciousness available to the international community. In addition to Alegretti and Trivellato, several founding and early members of the science remain involved in IAC today, resulting in many decades of collective and international experience in consciousness education.
The IAC’s mission is to provide assistance by clarifying the multidimensional nature of the consciousness and all the implications associated with this reality. The IAC stimulates expanded awareness by offering and disseminating pragmatic information, employing logic, discernment and the highest principles of universal ethics. The Academy’s work is founded on updated scientific precepts and it aims to further human knowledge according to the Consciential Paradigm. The Academy conducts formal scientific research and facilitates advanced multidimensional self-experimentation. It endorses self-critique and encourages individuals to verify the multidimensional nature of existence by themselves.
The IAC is run by a mixture of staff and volunteers. The IAC Team members are from diverse career backgrounds such as: accounting, anthropology, architecture, business, chemistry, clinical research, consulting, dentistry, education, engineering, entrepreneurship, finance, graphic design, human resources, IT, law, medicine, nursing, physical therapy, property development, psychology, social work, and others, thus enriching the vision and adding a multidisciplinary flexibility to the studies.
The IAC’s international educational body is comprised of fully trained instructors from several countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela. IAC instructors go through a rigorous training program that usually takes two to three years to complete, which ensures their level of expertise and experience is of the highest level. Each instructor enriches the IAC with their own formal education, as well as their cultural background.
Although the IAC is an organization which studies and teaches techniques to develop psi capacities, it advocates a sense of healthy, open-minded skepticism. The IAC is not affiliated with any religious, political, or governmental organization and its activities are solely for research and educational purposes.
The Science of Consciousness, like all sciences, is not centered on any single individual or authority figure. The IAC actively encourages all to question any attempt to control, centralize, or homogenize any field of knowledge in order to make the study more open and scientific in nature. The IAC maintains that personal growth and evolution occur as a result of, among others; reason, rigor, equanimity, good will, discernment, persistence, and personal effort; and that responsibility for such growth is non-transferable and unique to every person. Ultimately, it is based on sound personal principles and universal ethics.
The IAC endeavors to inform people about a broader reality to help refine their perspectives based on greater knowledge. The IAC’s standpoint is, rather, the logical expression of ideas and presentation of arguments that ground and solidify existing knowledge, respecting, nonetheless, the freedom of each individual to think and proceed with their lives in whichever way they consider appropriate. Hence, the IAC encourages rationality and personal experiences, without it authentic transformation is rare. The IAC aims to offer its body of research, which is drawn from personal experiences as well as cross-disciplinary research findings from fields such as neurology, psychology, and parapsychology, in the most objective and academic way possible.
The organization conducts research using first (individual experience, subjective), second (developing the ability in others, intersubjective), and third-person (laboratorial) research methodologies. This approach encourages the use of all faculties of the mind (reasoning, discernment, intuition, psychic abilities), to create a more complete and accurate view of the consciousness and reality.
The IAC is committed to the continuation of its research and educational mission of teaching in and developing the field of consciousness studies following sound ethical and scientific principles. These efforts facilitate the distribution of high quality, objective, and neutral information while respecting individual freedom and choice.
As such, the IAC’s work encourages the expansion of varied perspectives coherent with the complex reality of a multidimensional universe. Its scientific periodical, the Journal of Consciousness, is censor-free and open to researchers with different backgrounds and viewpoints. IAC conferences and symposia offer various angles from different research methodologies and scientific philosophies, so as to contribute toward a greater understanding of multidimensional capabilities and to develop the scientific paradigm in a more encompassing and less materialistic way.
In conducting its research, educational and administrative activities, IAC staff, faculty, scholars, volunteers, and Directors aim to remain coherent with the following principles:
- Respect for every individual’s free will.
- Respect for all consciousnesses as equals, considering merit in terms of skills, abilities, specialties, and productive accomplishments.
- Support of volunteers and staff members in the development of consciential and professional qualifications needed to perform their areas of activity within the organization.
- Strive to create an atmosphere of transparency and sincerity that provides constructive open communication to help individuals to increase self-knowledge, develop self-awareness, and evolve, without stigmatization or inappropriate labeling. Staff members and other individuals are encouraged to join this welcoming and positive environment.
- Considers its students, volunteers, members, collaborators, and friends who share its scientific and ethical principles to be the most important element in the work.
- The IAC is a reflection of (1) its body of instructors, i.e. those who directly assist by teaching information that can be vital and libertarian to human beings, and (2) its body of researchers, i.e. those who conduct scientific experiments, scholarly works, and publish their findings, thus systematizing knowledge and performing analysis of phenomena to help expand the field.
- Instructors strive for a well-informed, expert view of the topics taught, so as to be able to transmit the most accurate and meaningful information possible in a universalistic and multidisciplinary manner while, at the same time, being open-minded. Through their practical experience, instructors help to create a larger consensus of the body of knowledge and are thus coherent with what they teach.
- Strive to have an environment in which the bond between individuals is based on their life plan (life purpose), current tasks, and universal ethical affinity regarding objectives; making all staff members an evolutionary family that enjoys working, collaborating, and producing together.
The IAC has promoted the highest number of partnerships between organizations that study the consciousness. To date, the IAC has offered over 200 events in partnership with other organiztions, aiming at integration, exchange of information, and mutual collaboration.
It is the IAC’s aspiration to create opportunities for shared events, planned in partnership with other organizations, in order to favor joint efforts allowing a greater audience to benefit from them. The congresses organized by the IAC are initiatives along these lines, as researchers from a variety of disciplines are welcome to present their approach and viewpoint on the various topics within the scope of each conference.
