Program Title: “Awakening to One’s True Purpose.” Our July 18, 2026 program will feature a talk by Jen Bushman is an internationally recognized spiritual teacher, intuitive channel, healer, author, and speaker whose work explores consciousness, soul connection, multidimensional awareness, and energetic healing.
Through private sessions, mentorship, workshops, and public speaking, she guides individuals around the world in awakening their intuitive gifts, reconnecting with their soul purpose, and moving through healing and transformation with greater clarity and alignment.
Jen is currently authoring four books focused on Soul Contracts, The Dimensions, Spirit Guides, and Crystals, bridging spirituality, energy, frequency, and consciousness in grounded and accessible ways.
Her spiritual journey began in early childhood through a deep awareness of energy, nature, and intuitive perception. Following a near death experience at nineteen, she encountered her Spirit Guide, Pink. Several years later, she connected with her ET Spirit Guide, Courtney, experiences that profoundly shaped the direction of her spiritual work and understanding of consciousness.
Jen Bushman is a psychic reader, spiritual teacher, healer, and speaker who helps people understand the connection between consciousness, energy, and personal transformation. Through her work with intuition, soul contracts, spirit guides, dimensions, crystals, and healing, she empowers others to navigate life’s challenges with greater clarity, purpose, and self-awareness.
Psychic since childhood, Jen spent much of her life exploring the relationship between intuition, energy, and human potential before fully stepping into her public work. Today, she works with clients, teaches workshops and retreats, appears on podcasts and media platforms, and is currently writing several books exploring consciousness, soul contracts, intuition, and spiritual transformation.
Known for her grounded approach, humor, and ability to make complex spiritual concepts accessible, Jen invites audiences to explore new possibilities for growth, healing, and transformation. For more information about Jen, go to jenbushman.com
Another not-to-be-missed program for all who can attend! See you there!
About Central VA IONS Community Group: Central VA IONS Community Group is an unincorporated association and a local community group of The Institute of Noetic Sciences, an international association based in Novato, California (www.noetic.org). Central VA IONS is not associated with any religion, religious organization, doctrine or set of beliefs or practices and is open to all. Central VA IONS is entirely dependent upon voluntary donations of its members and friends to support its programs, mailings and other costs, and a love offering is requested at each meeting from those attending in-person or online. Central VA IONS meetings are held each month at
locations announced in its program notices and are open to all. Our website is at www.richmondions.org.
Where/When: In person and online, through ZOOM (Meeting ID: 865 1815 1952, Passcode: 142841) and in
person at Unity of Richmond, 800 Blanton Avenue, Richmond, VA 23221, on Saturday, July 18, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
to 12:00 noon, with Potluck Lunch at conclusion.
Upcoming Meetings:
August 15, 2026: Price Wood, “Things we don’t understand, things we cannot comprehend.”
September 12, 2026: Sandy Ward, Richmond area psychic medium.
October 17, 2026: Mattie Coll, Richmond area pet whisperer and healer.
November 21, 2026: Jean MacInnis, Charlottesville-based pranic healer and pranic healing instructor.
December 12/19, 2026: Tom Coates, on answering the age-old question, “Who Built the Moon?”
In the early 1990s, a series of formative experiences—including communications with her late father, a Chinese Buddhist—led Carole Louie to recognize her abilities as a medium and to pursue reincarnation research. Born to a Southern Baptist mother and a Chinese Buddhist father, Carole discovered her destiny to bridge the past, present, and future. Carole will share her explorations on how memories of past lives have shaped and expanded her worldview. Carole has dedicated much of the last 35 years exploring and often verifying other lifetimes she/her soul has lived and acting as a facilitator for others to pursue similar interests, seeking through her work to explore the spiritual dimensions of consciousness and reincarnation.
What if one of the most powerful catalysts for human evolution has been hiding in plain sight—so familiar we’ve underestimated it? In this experiential presentation, Emmy Award-winning composer and filmmaker Gary Malkin draws from the core arc of his TEDx message and his forthcoming book, The Resonance Revolution, to explore music not as entertainment or mood enhancement, but as an underutilized human technology for state regulation, emotional range, and collective connection. Through guided demonstrations—spoken wisdom set to carefully composed music, immersive contemplative media, group alignment experiences, and practices that cultivate comfort with silence—participants will investigate how music can settle overstimulated cognition and create conditions in which the analytical mind and the heart’s discernment work in partnership rather than tension. At a deeper level, Gary’s inquiry will address a civilizational threshold, i.e., that we cannot sustain outer peace without cultivating inner peace, and inner peace remains elusive without developing grief and trauma literacy. In a world shaped by unprocessed loss, polarization and chronic overstimulation, music may offer a reliable pathway toward the emotional maturity required for unity consciousness—not as ideology, but as lived experience. This session invites the Richmond IONS community into a grounded exploration of music as a bridge between science and spirituality, regulation and reconciliation, personal coherence and collective transformation, and ultimately, toward a world that works because we have become mature enough to sustain it.
The tug-of-war between spirituality and materialism has been a central issue of Western philosophy for at least 2,500 years, since Socrates and Democritus or even earlier. More commonly referred to today as the mind-body problem (whether mind begets body or body begets mind), the way we choose to answer this question has enormous implications for us, both individually and collectively, on a multitude of levels. Our distinguished 30th anniversary guest speaker, Ed Kelly, has been studying unusual manifestations of consciousness, through the lens of psi phenomena, for nearly 54 years, and has been responsible for several of the most groundbreaking and scholarly works ever published on the subject.
Our December 13, 2025 program will feature a talk by Mary Ruberry, artist and author, on her book, Messages from The Tara. We know that we are beings of Light and Love, yet often we find ourselves engulfed in the 3-D world of distractions and busy-ness, and lose sight of our true nature. As we move into the New Golden Age, humans are transitioning away from leading with the rational mind and instead leading everyday life from the heart — or “heart mind.” Mary will discuss simple techniques for overcoming challenges to achieving a Pure Heart in the quest to live heart-led. She will also discuss what the great Tara has imparted in her divine messages to help us transform from outmoded paradigms and into enlightened patterns of thought that align with Nature. Some of the topics addressed by The Tara include: Free Will, Sadness/Depression, Unity Consciousness, Ego, Emotions, Patience, Time, Energy, and the Higher Self/Divine Will. She will also detail elements of the New Age that we are entering, and gives advice about how to navigate the changes. The Tara explains her inspiration as follows: “I am giving you these messages to help those who want to rise above the commonplace. There are luminous individuals who can make a significant difference in this present time. I want to reach those people as much as possible to: (1) encourage them on their path, in their leadership role, (2) show them clearly and simply how to peel away modern thinking and habits that hold them back, and (3) I want to spur them on to new patterns of thought, new ways of perceiving, new ways of leading, new practices to replace those that do not work.” The Tara’s insights are profound indeed and Mary is thrilled to have the opportunity to share some of her wisdom with you (from her book: Messages from The Tara: A Book of Wisdom for New-Age Leaders). She will have books to purchase if you are interested.
The Druze are a unique and deeply spiritual community whose roots trace back to 11th-century Egypt, yet whose cultural and metaphysical traditions remain largely hidden from public view. In this engaging and thought-provoking presentation, Khattar invites us into the heart of Druze identity—where culture, ethics, and the soul’s journey through multiple lifetimes are intimately intertwined. This talk will explore the foundational beliefs of the Druze faith, including its esoteric origins, its emphasis on unity and divine knowledge, and its strict tradition of spiritual secrecy. We’ll examine how Druze culture has preserved its distinct identity across centuries, despite political upheaval and geographic dispersion. At the center of the presentation is the Druze belief in reincarnation—known as taqammus—a concept that is not metaphorical but lived and accepted as fact within the community. Khattar will share compelling stories of Druze children who recall past lives with astonishing detail, and how these memories are investigated and often validated by elders. We’ll also compare Druze reincarnation with similar beliefs in Hinduism and Buddhism, and reflect on what these ideas suggest about consciousness, memory, and the continuity of the soul.
Nelson Marquina, MSc, PhD, DC, President, Founder and Chief Science Officer of Laser Biotech International.