Conscientiology & Lucidocracy

Dr. Waldo Vieira is a 70-year-old Brazilian. He is a dentist and a medical doctor and he wears a white hat, a white suit, white shoes and a blue silk tie. He is bald on top and his warm, impish smile peeks out from behind a long, glossy white beard. He looks like a cross between Tom Wolfe and Santa Claus.

Dr. Vieira is the founder of the International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology (IIPC). He devotes himself to the study of out-of-body experience. Over the weekend of May 16, the IIPC held its third International Congress at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Conscientiology is a broad subject. The Congress began with a lecture on "lucidocracy," a form of political theory that seeks to establish the rule of the lucid. The audience was roughly 200 strong and well put together. The women wore dresses and skirt-suits, the men wore jackets and ties, and almost everyone had a notebook or portable computer open on his or her lap. Luis Minero, the speaker, glided through a PowerPoint presentation discussing both the merits and failings of democracy. He said: "Democracy has been good at bringing rice to minorities."

Like Dr. Vieira, Minero is Brazilian and his English is less than perfect. I think he meant "rights," not "rice." The laptops tapped away and Minero went on to explain that despite its successes, democracy is fatally flawed because it is based on the notion of individual equality:

"That all men are created equal is the longest-running superstition of the 21st century. To believe in equality is to say that everyone has the same level of evolution, and this violates one of the primary rules of cosmo-ethics. It is anti-cosmo-ethical."

The second lecture was given by a pair of researchers, one Brazilian and one Japanese-Brazilian. Their subject was conscientiotherapy. "Conscientiotherapy" is a word that would challenge even Julie Andrews' diction, and in the mouth of the Japanese-Brazilian quickly turned to porridge. The lecture was unintelligible, so I skipped out in favor of an interview with Leonardo Firmato, director of the IIPC's New York office.

Firmato said that the IIPC is a nonprofit scientific research group. It is staffed by volunteers and funded by the sale of books and the teaching of courses. Dr. Vieira's more than 1000-page book Projectiology sells for $140. An introductory 40-hour course at the New York office costs $315.

I asked Firmato how he got interested in conscientiology. He said that he started reading Dr. Vieira's book while still an engineering student. At the age of 16 he had his first out-of-body experience (OBE).

"Okay, so my first OBE happened in the afternoon laying down in my bed. I used some very simple techniques of relaxation and then I had a complete lucid takeoff from my physical body. I actually had a takeoff from the physical to the astra-physical, and I was able to float around my room. I really wanted to make sure this was an OBE, so I went to my desk and I recorded the position of every object on it. When I came back to my physical body I went back to the desk to examine the objects and I saw that everything was in the same position. So I knew it was a real OBE."

According to Firmato, the basis of conscientiology is understanding the reality of the OBE. Once this is understood it gives rise to a variety of related questions, and new conscientiological disciplines like lucidocracy and cosmo-ethics must be developed to answer them. I asked him to describe a typical cosmo-ethical dilemma.

"For instance, when you go outside the physical body, you can go wherever you want. Let's say there is a person you like very much and you are interested in, but she does not want your company in the physical realm. With an OBE you can go to her house and sneak in on her when she is not aware of it. But now you have an ethical question. If you cannot go physically to her house, is it okay to go when you're having an OBE?"

Firmato stressed that there are no final answers to such questions. Conscientiology is a research movement, not a dogma, and skepticism is encouraged at every step. In all the IIPC offices there is a sign that says: "Don't believe in anything. Not even what you hear here."

Dr. Vieira himself repeated that line when he spoke on Saturday afternoon. It was the highlight of the Congress, but Dr. Vieira played down the event with typical modesty. "This is not personal institution," he said. "My personality you forget, please. If you want to make criticism, don't talk my personality, talk my ideas."

For all his charm, Dr. Vieira's speech was something of a disappointment. His fractured English, combined with the complexity of his ideas, made the lecture difficult to follow. A sample: "Parabrain is the brain of the psychosoma. Parabrainwashing is the third category of brainwashing. Fifcheen centuries the Catholic have been inside this. The Jew people who are fifchy centuries inside this. This is parabrain brainwashing."

The man next to me fell asleep, and I decided to leave early. Just before I left Dr. Vieira told a story about a Wall Street financier who wanted very much to meet with him. The financier sent a plane down to Brazil to pick him up, and offered a great deal of money for him to come to New York. Dr. Vieira would not be governed by the rich man's whim for any price. "And this Wall Street man was fantastic wealthy," said Dr. Vieira. "He had more than a MILLION DOLLARS!"

Shades of Austin Powers, and a reminder that the conscientiologists are not yet ready to take on the Catholics or the Jew people.