Two years after splashdown, Mitchell had his answer -- or at least his vehicle for pursuing one. In 1973, he co-founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences with investor Paul N. Temple and a small circle of allies who shared his conviction that mainstream science was ignoring the inner life of the mind. They named it for the Greek word nous, meaning mind or ways of knowing, a term philosopher William James had used in 1902 to describe states of insight that lie beyond the reach of ordinary intellect. The institute's early mission was ambitious to the point of audacity: apply rigorous scientific methods to phenomena that most scientists wouldn't touch -- psychic abilities, meditation, energy healing, the possible influence of intention on physical matter. Mitchell's astronaut credentials lent the venture a credibility that its subject matter might not have earned on its own.

For years, IONS operated from a sprawling 200-acre campus that included research laboratories, offices, and a retreat center tucked into the rolling landscape of northern Marin County. The setting felt deliberate -- close enough to the intellectual ferment of the San Francisco Bay Area, remote enough to suggest contemplation rather than commerce. Willis Harman, a Stanford futurist, served as president from 1975 until his death in 1997, steering the institute through decades when its research drew equal measures of fascination and skepticism. The institute eventually relocated to Novato, California, trading rural seclusion for proximity. Researchers like Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake became associated with IONS, publishing studies on topics that mainstream journals often declined to review but could never quite ignore.

For most of its existence, IONS occupied a quiet corner of American intellectual life -- respected in some circles, dismissed in others, largely unknown to the general public. That changed overnight in 2009 when Dan Brown published The Lost Symbol, a thriller that wove noetic science into its plot alongside Masonic temples and coded manuscripts. Brown referenced ten real IONS experiments in his fictional account. Institute director Marilyn Schlitz read the novel in a single sitting after spotting early Twitter chatter the day before its release. The aftermath was swift: website traffic increased twelvefold, membership applications surged, and journalists from Dateline NBC and NPR began calling. A research institute that had spent thirty-six years working in relative obscurity suddenly found itself explaining consciousness studies to millions of readers who had come looking for the real science behind a page-turner.

IONS has always occupied contested ground. The Roanoke Times described it as an organization devoted to exploring psychic phenomena and the role of consciousness in the cosmos, while also noting that Mitchell's assertions have often been criticized by skeptics. Quackwatch listed IONS among organizations it considered questionable. The institute's defenders point to peer-reviewed publications, meditation research that has gained mainstream traction, and a bibliography cataloging the physical and psychological effects of contemplative practices dating back to 1931. Its critics counter that parapsychological claims remain unproven by the standards of conventional science. The annual Linda G. O'Bryant Noetic Sciences Research Prize, which awards $100,000 to a single scientist, suggests that IONS sees itself as a serious research body rather than a fringe curiosity. Whether the rest of science agrees depends on whom you ask.

In 1994, TBS broadcast The Heart of Healing, a six-hour documentary based on work at the institute, narrated by actress Jane Seymour. The institute has published Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness and its successor, The Noetic Post, maintaining a steady output of bulletins and peer-reviewed papers. Mitchell himself remained involved with IONS until his death in 2016, forty-five years after the spaceflight that changed the trajectory of his life. He had traveled 484,000 miles to reach the Moon and back, but the journey that mattered most to him -- the one he spent the rest of his career on -- was the one that began when he looked out of a capsule window and felt something he couldn't explain with engineering or physics. The institute he built in the hills north of San Francisco is still trying to explain it.