Pragmatic Applications

In addition to extending the PEAR research agenda to many more participants and topics, and providing broader and more effective educational outreach to its own and related communities, ICRL also aspires to stimulate commercial development of an array of derived consumer products that convincingly display their capacity for scientific and personal applications. More effectively than archives of research data or philosophical argumentation, these pragmatic demonstrations can verify the validity of anomalous phenomena at the same time that they enhance human quality of life.

The typical route for new technologies to spawn useful products normally begins with years of institutional basic research that generates sufficient fundamental knowledge for promising applications to be identified. This phase then evolves into more focused applied research to delimit, qualify, refine, and optimize the potential product lines in the context of their appropriate markets. Then follows development of viable production facilities and manufacturing methods, along with establishment of effective marketing, distribution, advertising, assessment, and quality control strategies. Eventually, if this gauntlet has been run astutely, and if the public interests and needs are propitious, a beneficial and profitable array of products may emerge and be utilized.

Our approach to the development of practical products follows a somewhat different course. Historically, an enduring body of basic research, well-reported and well-debated, has largely failed to enlist the interest of the scientific establishment despite a widespread, if somewhat restrained, public interest in these phenomena. The availability of an effective and attractive line of products and their utilization would inevitably erode this credibility firewall and force more circumspect attention from a broader research community. At the same time, they would provide useful tools to encourage self-exploration, which in turn could lead to a deeper subjective understanding of the nature of consciousness. In other words, successful applications may drive the knowledge base, rather than the other way around, with profound practical, cultural, and spiritual implications for both the public and private sectors of our society.