Born on April 12, 1932, in Monte Carmelo in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Waldo Vieira graduated in Medicine and Dentistry, followed by post-graduate studies in Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery in Tokyo, Japan. A conscious projector since the age of nine, he has been researching the consciousness and its out-of-body manifestations for more than 50 years. He is the progenitor of the sciences of projectiology and conscientiology, which he outlined in two treatises: Projectiology: A Panorama of Experiences of the Consciousness Outside the Human Body (1986) and 700 Conscientiology Experiments (1994). He is the author of hundreds of published articles and 18 books related to consciousness research, and in 2002 was included in the International Biographical Centre's Who's Who of the 21st Century. He was among the founders of the International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology - IIPC, a non-profit education and research organization based in Brazil. Today there are a full 14 organizations whose existence can be attributed to his pioneering work in projectiology and conscientiology. He is currently pursuing research at the Center for the Higher Studies of Conscientiology (CEAEC), a research center located in Iguassu Falls, Brazil, home to 17 research laboratories and Vieira's personal library of more than 63,000 volumes - one of the largest collections in the world on the theme of the consciousness and the out-of-body experience. There he coordinates teams of researchers who compile entries relating to the broad universe of the consciousness for inclusion in a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Conscientiology.