I had never heard of this, but I came across it while searching up a topic that would get this locked/thrown into RATS 
It blew my mind, and it really makes you wonder.
www.redicecreations.com...
In February, 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced the little understood phenomenon sometimes called the “Overview Effect”.
He describes being completely engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness. Without warning, he says, a feeing of bliss, timelessness, and
connectedness began to overwhelm him. He describes becoming instantly and profoundly aware that each of his constituent atoms were connected to the
fragile planet he saw in the window and to every other atom in the Universe. He described experiencing an intense awareness that Earth, with its
humans, other animal species, and systems were all one synergistic whole. He says the feeling that rushed over him was a sense of interconnected
euphoria. He was not the first—nor the last—to experience this strange “cosmic connection”.
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Thanks for posting this article, it was a good read. I also found it very interesting what Mitchell had to say about our concept of God:
Mitchell believes that perhaps both the theologians and scientists have missed the mark.
“All I can suggest to the mystic and the theologian is that our gods have been too small; they fill the universe. And to the scientist all I can say
is that the gods do exist; they are the eternal, connected, and aware Self experienced by all intelligent beings.'
In response to DeRegnier questioning whether or not Mitchell believes in the idea of God, he responds that while he does not believe in the
traditional “grandfather figure” version of God, “we do have great mystery about what is the origin of the universe, how it came to be. There's
a great deal of question as to whether the big bang is the correct answer to the way the universe arose, and under what auspices and conditions. I
don't think we have the full answers to that yet. Hopefully in due course we'll be able to find a much better way to describe all this.”
But while Mitchell does not claim to know how to perfectly interpret his experience, he is certain that it was a glimpse into a largely ignored
reality: People, places and things are all more closely connected than they sometimes appear. He also mentions the need for better stewardship of our
precious planet.
I think many people can relate to his statement that our gods have been too small... It was also Mitchell's sense of universal connectedness, his
epiphany in space, that led him to create the Institute of Noetic Sciences:
As a physical scientist, he had grown accustomed to directing his attention to the objective world "out there." But the experience that came to
him in space led him to a startling hypothesis: Perhaps reality is more complex, subtle, and inexorably mysterious than conventional science had led
him to believe. Perhaps a deeper understanding of consciousness (inner space) could lead to a new and expanded view of reality in which objective and
subjective, outer and inner, are understood as co-equal aspects of the miracle and mystery of being.
After his safe return "home," Mitchell sought out others who likewise felt the need for an expanded, more inclusive view of reality. They resolved
to explore the inner world of human experience with the same rigor and critical thinking that made it possible for Apollo 14 to journey to the moon
and back. In 1973, this small group of explorers founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences—derived from the Greek word nous, meaning something close
to "intuitive ways of knowing." (Dr Mitchell's story is told in the book The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the
Material and Mystical Worlds).
The mission of these noetic scientists was, and has been, to expand our understanding of human possibility by investigating aspects of reality—mind,
consciousness, and spirit—that include but go beyond physical phenomena. They seek to seek to understand the inner world as thoroughly as we have
the outer world—based on the premise that what finds expression in the world at large is a reflection of our interior landscape. Today, three
decades later, the institute carries out its mission as a worldwide research, education, and membership-based organization in Petaluma, California.
www.noetic.org...
[edit on 23/11/08 by ziggystar60]
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