Harmony of the Biosphere, Ethnosphere, and Noosphere is needed to transform the Technosphere’s continuous destructions into continuous creations. These “spheres,” actually complex dynamically changing shapes, can be visualized as experiential layers around Planet Earth. Physical measurements, of course, show Earth to be an oblate spheroid surface roughened with ocean deeps, continental plates, ice caps, volcanic eruptions and lava flows.
Earth’ s oceans respond to Moon with tides, its atmosphere to expansions and contractions caused by Sun, to weather such as Ice Ages and Dry Ages, to meteor impacts, and re-arranging of continents from movement of plates. Billions of tons a year are moved by mining, building gigantic concrete and steel cities level whole mountains, create great lakes with dams, artificial rivers with canals, deserts (from soil blown away), and bush and gullies from destroyed forests and plowed soil.
In short, Spheres are ingenious metaphors inspiring Platonic-type theories and magical-religious rites, but taken literally, dangerously oversimplify realities
Nonetheless, Bio-sphere remains a useful metaphor for Life within Earth’s Geosphere, Hydrosphere, and Atmosphere.
Noosphere received its name from Vernadsky, Russian geochemist who first used Biosphere to name the total system of life on Earth.
Nous, Greek for Thought-Intelligence, became Noosphere, when the collective human intelligence began operating beyond Ethnosphere’s cultural totems and taboos and Technosphere’s Panama and Suez Canals, Planetary Air transport, Space ships, Radio, Television, World Market, and The Net. Technospherics dynamics, beyond the will of humans as Marx first saw, now exploit Ethnosphere’s conflicting totems and taboos; its corporate owners and military guardians intensively shove their shit and shinola throughout Biosphere, drastically load Lithosphere, Atmosphere, and Hydrosphere with millions of new chemicals and trillions of tons displacement of rock, oil, and minerals.
As Vernadsky shorthanded it in 1920: Industrial Revolution’s transformations generated a geological force surpassing Ice Ages and Desert Ages in diminishing Earth’s surface’s potentialities.
Noospherians endeavor to integrate Earth’s histories, sciences, arts, politics, enterprises, and adventures in their individual lives and in creative groups, to understand realities, to synergize with each other to increase Nous, their intelligence.
Biosphere signifies the total four billion year old system of Earth life, from first non-nucleated cells to today’s six kingdoms, counting humans as one. Some see a seventh kingdom emerging from industrial-information revolution: humans spliced to a technologic cocoon from conception to separation.
Ethnosphere means all cultures on Earth, all world views replicating key meanings, values, and behaviors for two or more generations. Ethnosphere has fallen under Technosphere’s domination; jobs replace ceremonies as tribal identifiers.
Technosphere: all Technics from Space Travel to Farming to Medicine to Language to Government, War, and Markets…. Technology’s drives are analogues to Life’s: Expansion at all costs, Complexity, and Ability to survive situations from solitary walks to Class and National Wars; from Avant Garde Arts to street markets to World Trade; from Militaries backed with hydrogen bombs, special forces and brain washings, to individuals and tribes defending homelands with jungle craft and transformations of perceptions.
Biosphere (life) gets devastated by no holds barred power and profit driven armed to the teeth Technosphere concentrated on looting (destroying New Guinea’s forests, sucking dry American Great Plains ground water…).
Ethnospheric ethics ignored, or gored, by financial capitalism’s nihilist speculators, astutely evade taxes, laws, and victims.
Technosphere, driven by War and Speculation, maximizes Oligopoly’s obscene Profits, even from cups of coffee by evading local taxes while demanding legal protections. To increase hitherto undreamed of powers, speculators exploit Provincial Wars, World Cities’ Greed; plunder what remains of tribal fishing, hunting, farming, and wilderness.
Efforts to Harmonize Technosphere and Ethnosphere with Human Well-being, Cultural diversity, and species rich Biosphere, get attacked as day dreams, Quixotes tilting Windmills.
But daydreams differ from nightmares. We can critique, test, improve daydreams. Inspiring dreams can, if coherent with data, transform to creative visions to birth ideas which at right time and place, with right ideas, right skills, and right people, transform drastically impoverished situations into health and wealth.
Which, for examples, those vectors did by transforming Fascist, Imperialistic, War worshipping, Western Europe to a bastion of peace in l945-48, in Rebirthing Classical Cosmic Thought in Firenze in one generation in the l400’s, and in Saving the Redwoods, Yellowstone Hot Springs, and other Wildernesses from commercial devastation in USA.
Harmony easily arises between biospheric aligned bodies, but not between bodies specialized to serve class, corporate, or national interests hostile to wilderness and spontaneity. This harmony, embodied here and here on occasion by two or three who understand realities, can, with intelligent action, spread to groups; on occasion, to communities.
Of course, brain washings, epidemics of regional wars, profit maximizing, overpopulation, and indoctrinations, keep wars and psychoses raging, state power and financial profiteering vertiginous.
But here in a dome co-designed with Bucky Fuller and Bill Dempster, I vibe with bodies adaptable to many conditions: desert, jungle, ocean, world city, farming, high tech; to many cultures, philosophies and world views; I glimpse in each one here, flowers of a planetary, hard core, experienced, life enhancing, emerging culture.
I grok wizards assembled here, handy with tools like hoes, shovels, hammers, saws, compasses, machines, computers, networks, conversations, parties, events, movements, cost analyses; eloquent in body and gesture language, technical exactitude, street jargons, wilderness ecstasies, pregnant silences.
I see also a working sample of creative Biospheric-ethnospheric-technospheric-noospheric subsystems: a sparkling glint in the eye of Reality.
This bioregion, the Cerrillos Hills, gives geological setting to that glint. It’s magical forms survived human-caused flash floods and drought’s erosions, a process begun by Folsom and Modern Man’s ferocious overhunting.
On this Ranch, one can see drastic soil erosion, begun by l880’s ruthless mining and ranching, halted, but not yet restored, by hand carried tons of rocks to make strategic small dams, by giving up cattle and horses, re-building soil, growing orchard and gardens.
I don’t give up Hope in the Future; wish I could have more Faith in the Present, more Charity toward the Past. I happily see here, embodied in different ratios by each of us, allegiance to those Values, which we need to challenge this disastrous era.
I belong to that School that never prays except by actions, but here I must use words.
I pray that humanity, at least its tested cadres and uncorrupted newcomers, work side by side with all Fellow Life Forms to Harmonize Bodies and Technics. That they stop bowing to super profits looted from humans and biosphere by oily crusades, bulldozed wildernesses, and body degenerating foods.
Each week, new statistics are released regarding the economy. They are almost always focused on things like productivity and industrial output. But in many ways, that output is dependent on something else: Mother Nature. It is from the Earth that we gather the raw materials to create everything we make. We prospect for oil and metals and benefit from the diversity of the plant and animal life, for everything from ingredients for pharmaceuticals to bees pollinating the crops we eat. All of those resources have a distinct economic value, but no one has taken on the task to calculate, in real dollar terms, the value of the natural resources the entire world uses. Until now. Joining us tonight is environmentalist Tony Juniper, who has written the book “What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?” (published by Synergetic Press). He explains the reason why we need to protect the environment for our own economic good.
No literary festival is complete without a little environmental disaster – population explosion, global warming, mass extinction, they’re all guaranteed to fill a tent. Here at the Edinburgh international book festival some authors are looking beyond the state we’re in and trying to plot a way out of this mess.
For Tony Juniper the answer is in the numbers – in forcing politicians to add the work nature does for us for free into their economic calculations. He discusses the vital role played by the vultures in India with Erik Hirschfeld, and explains how ransacking the Earth would no longer turn a profit if business was obliged to account for the cost of environmental degradation.
The children’s author Gill Lewis has been charting the relationship between man and beast in three novels for children featuring an osprey, a dolphin and now an Asian black bear. We caught up with her among the foliage of Edinburgh Zoo to explore whether fiction can change the emotional climate of the debate.
Back in Charlotte Square, Tony Ryan’s answer to our predicament is staring us all in the face. He tells us what’s wrong with organic farming and makes the case for genetically modified food, but according to Ryan the only hope for mankind is in solar power. The technological solutions are within our grasp, he says, all we need is the political will to make it happen.
Larry Goulder and Tony Juniper respond to the notion that environmental actions are bad for the economy. Goulder states that looking at the costs of environmental action in a broad sense shows that environmental actions are actually beneficial for the economy because they eliminate later repercussions. Juniper says the key is getting those doing the environmental damage to pay for the costs of their polluting.
An emerging area of economics aims to put a price on nature as a way to justify preserving it in societies dominated by the wisdom of markets. A mountain stream, for example, provides many economic benefits beyond people who own property near it or drink water from it. The same is said of bees that pollinate our food, wetlands that clean water, and trees that drink up carbon dioxide. If nature were a corporation it would be a large cap stock. Putting a precise tag on something long seen as free is a conceptual leap. However many large companies are starting to realize the extent to which their profits rely on well-operating ecosystems. An economist and sustainability professional discussed ecosystem services and the economic value of the natural world.
Speakers:
Larry Goulder, Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Stanford University Tony Juniper, Associate Professor, University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership; Special Advisor to The Prince of Wales International Sustainability Unit
– Danielle Torrent
Photo by: Sonya Abrams
Commonwealth Club of California
July 25, 2013
Chapter 6 describes how natural systems underpin the water cycles that sustain the human economy.
Pages 153-159. I open this chapter with a visit to the Sumapaz Paramo and later describe how The Nature Conservancy is working with local partners to maintain the water services provided by this amazing living system.
Page 160. For an overview of water-related statistics, see: Fry, A. (lead author) (2006). Water: facts and trends. World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Page 161.There is a lot of technical material published on coccolithophores and the production of dimethyl-sulphide. A good summary on the roles played by these plant plankton can be found online.
Page 162. I write about how the Amazon basin rainforests recycle rainfall, in the process taking water far into the interior of South America. For a non-technical summary on this see: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/LBA/.
A more technical paper can be found at: Aragão, LEOC. (2012). The rainforest’s water pump. Nature 489, 217–218. View Paper
Page 162. I mention how pollen grains released by rainforest trees and other plants helps to seed cloud formation. This article provides more information and has further suggested reading as well.
Pages 163-164. I talk about Cloud forests and the importance of these in maintaining water supplies. I cite the example of the cloud forests in the Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania. For background on how such water supply values might be maintained, see: Lopa, D. et al. (2012). Towards operational payments for water ecosystem services in Tanzania: a case study from the Uluguru Mountains. Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 46(1), 34–44.
Pages 165-166. I write about how attitudes have changed toward forests conservation in Brazil, in part because of a wider appreciation of the value these ecosystems deliver in terms of water services, and how this has helped galvanize action to cut deforestation. A news story from May 2012 provides some background on how much the deforestation rate has declined.
Page 168. I talk about the example of Lake Naivasha in Kenya and how its water supply is subject to pressure from flower-growing. This paper sets out a good summary of the issues and possible solutions: Mekonnen, M. Hoekstra, A and Becht, R. (2012). Mitigating the Water Footprint of Export Cut Flowers from the Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. Water Resource Management 26:3725–3742.
Pages 168-169. I write about the concept of embedded water. Waterwise gives a good summary of this idea, and some examples of the embedded water in different products and goods.
Page 169. I cite a figure of 4650 litres as the per capita level of water consumption in the UK (including embedded water). This is a little higher than the one presented by waterwise (see above) but is based on a rigorous analysis from researches working with WWF. The basis of their estimate can be seen in: Chapagain, A. and Orr, S. (2008). UK Water Footprint: the impact of the UK’s food and fibre consumption on global water resources. Volume one. WWF-UK.
Page 170. I describe a journey through South Australia and crossing Goyder’s Line. This web site offers some more background on this boundary set out in 1865 to mark the limits of settled agriculture in that part of the world.
Page 171. I write about climate change impacts on coffee and tea growing in East Africa. The Report from the adaptation workshop held in Kericho on Climate change adaptation in the Kenyan tea sector provides some maps that illustrate the point I am making very well.
Page 171. On the area of irrigated cropland in the world and how this has increased over time see Howell, T.A. (2001). Enhancing Water Use Efficiency in Irrigated Agriculture Agronomy Journal 93:281–289. While this review is mainly about the USA, global figures are included.
Pages 171-172.I mention how in some parts of the world groundwater is being abstracted more quickly than it can replenish, including in some regions of India and China, the world’s two most populous countries. For an overview on groundwater depletion, see: Foster, SSD. and Chilton, PJ. (2003) Groundwater – the processes and global significance of aquifer degradation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 29; 358(1440): 1957–1972.
Pages 172-173. In this chapter I mention the remarkable wetlands outside the Indian metropolis of Kolkata and how the city’s sewage is ‘treated’ there. I wrote about a visit to this place some years previously. This article is available via The Guardian web site.
Pages 173-174. I also mention how the Nakivubo swamp, Kampala, Uganda, helps to deal with sewage waste from the city. The figures I cite were presented in a case study on the value of wetlands produced by IUCN and entitled NAKIVUBO SWAMP, UGANDA: managing natural wetlands for their ecosystem services.
Pages 174-175.There is a mention of a programme in Tanzania to protect cloud forests that replenish river flow. More details can be found in a case study document produced by IIED can called Tanzania – Equitable Payments for Watershed Services (EPWS) programme.
Page 175. More details on the programme in Mexico whereby landowners are paid to protect areas of forest can be found in: Morrison, A. (2010) Enhancing Carbon offsets for sustainable land use, Scolel Te, Mexico. TEEB.
Pages 177-179. For a few more details and more sources on the story of how New York invested in land management to secure its water supply see P10 of TEEB (2009). – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers.
Pages 179-181. For further details on the partnership to conserve the paramo habitats that supply Bogota with water, see Water Funds Business Case: Conservation as a Source of Competitive Advantage, produced by a range of organisations, including the Global Environmental Facility. It can be found on-line at: http://www.sabmiller.com/files/pdf/water_funds_business_care.pdf
In the chapter called Eco-innovation I describe how evolutionary processes have brought about an incredibly wide range of solutions to survival challenges, many of which already are (or could be) the basis of solutions to problems faced in the human world. The potential application of these natural innovations can be seen across, among other things, medicine, farming and engineering.
Page 77.The estimate that at least 25 to 50% of the value of the US pharmaceutical market is based on substances derived from wild species comes from TEEB. The source is:TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers 2009, Table 1 page 17.
Page 85. For an introduction on antibiotic resistance and how Streptomyces group of Actinobacteria might be a source of new antibiotics see for example: Ceylan, O. et al. (2008). Isolation of soil Streptomyces as source antibiotics active against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. EurAsian Journal of BioSciences 2, 73-82. This paper can be accessed online.
Pages 86-87. I mention how a compound found in the blood of horseshoe crabs assists in ensuring the sterility of medical treatments used by humans. A good summary of how these animals assist in protecting human health can be found online.
Pages 87-88.For a way into the literature on cone snails and how they offer the prospect of developing powerful new painkillers, this piece from National Geographic is helpful.
Although I do not cite it directly, an excellent work on the many ways in which wildlife has been the source of so many innovations to protect and improve human health is: Chivian, E. and Bernstein, A. (editors), (2008). Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. Oxford University Press. ISBN-10: 0195175093. ISBN-13: 978-0195175097.
Page 90. On the subject of biomimcry there is a great deal written and published. In my book I mention Janine Benyus’s book Biomimicry. The full reference for this is: Benyus, J.M. (1997). Biomimicry : Innovation Inspired by Nature. ISBN 0-06-053322-6.
Page 90. For more on how nature can provide inspiration for engineering also see the International Society for Bionic Engineering:
Page 93.I also write in this chapter about plant breeding and how the diversity found in crop plants and their wild relatives is a vital resource for future food security. There is a lot written on this but an accessible summary has been produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and can be found online.
Page 97.On the rate of loss of genetic diversity in domesticated species, and what the implications of that might be, a good briefing on the issues at hand can be found in the briefing from FAO.
Page 99. When it comes to the total number of species living on Earth, this paper provides the most up to date estimate: Mora, C. Tittensor, DP. Adl, S. Simpson, AGB. Worm, B. (2011) How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? PLoS Biol 9(8): e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127. This can be found online.
Synergia Ranch is still warm with the glow of fellowship following the Frontiers of the Futurecolloquium last Tuesday night where over 70 guests filled the 40+ year-old geodesic dome. Some were old friends and colleagues, while others had simply read about this discussion of the ‘New Bioeconomics’ in the Santa Fe paper earlier that morning.
Prompted by the presence of British author and adviser to HRH The Prince of Wales Tony Juniper, who is here in New Mexico to support the release of Synergetic Press’s newest title What Has Nature Ever Done For Us? and kick-off his West coast tour of book signings and speaking engagements, the bill of speakers at the colloquium was a real “who’s who” of ecological, economic and biospheric thinking and experience.
Once the rows of benches and folding-chairs became filled, and the overflow of guests strewn about the large pillows that formed an intimate circle around the stage-space within the dome, the elegant host Gay Dillingham, cofounder and principal director at Earth International, introduced the first speaker. Mark Nelson holds a PhD in Philosophy, chairs the board of Ecotechnics, runs Wastewater Gardens International, lived in Biosphere II during the two-year closed ecological systems experiment, and manages the farm at Synergia Ranch, mentoring the array of young volunteer farmers that come traveling through on a weekly basis. Mark’s ability to communicate and teach, as well as his humor, shined through as his talk ‘Living Under Glass’ brought the audience through a round of Synergetic initiatives spanning decades and climaxing through the grandiose Biosphere II experiment, an experience which then lead to Mark’s work with Wastewater Gardens International.
It became clear that with all the accelerated life-rhythms and instantaneous feedback of a closed ecological system, living in Biosphere II, like seeing the Earth from space, was for Nelson an ecological gnosis of sorts, through which human-kind’s immersion within a web of life was an inescapable certainty, leading to its own ethical imperative. Mark explained, “One of the big things in Biosphere II was… in a small world, there really weren’t any small actions. Everything has an impact.” The next speaker Randy Hayes flew in from Washington D.C., where he works at Foundation Earth. Hayes, who also founded the Rainforest Action Network and who has been described by the Wall Street Journal as an “environmental pit-bull,” brought a lifetime of experience on the front lines of that tumultuous chasm between ecology and capitalism. His talk, centering around “The Great U-Turn From Cheater Economics to True-Cost Economics” revealed a long-term vision of change, through which ‘ecologizing capitalism’ is merely a short-term intermediary step.
Randy showed us how the myopic corporate view of cost-benefit analysis externalizes so many of the actual costs of industry that are often invisibly passed on to some other individual or entity, and revealed how we need a new way of accounting for this convenient and absurd discrepancy.
Following Randy, host and moderator Gay Dillingham gave a deeply personal introduction to the playwright, inventor, and polymath genius behind the Biosphere II experiment himself, John P. Allen. Attention on Allen immediately filled the room with the aura of a living legend as he explained the ‘Harmony of the Spheres,’ a reading that was simultaneously the most technical and yet heartfelt performance of the night. Allen’s incomparable experience and pivotal role in developing the science of biospherics gives him a unique basis for illuminating the esoteric subtleties in truly understanding the relation between the biosphere, ethnosphere, noosphere and technosphere. The controversial Biosphere II experiment demonstrated that humans culture and technics can thrive within a healthy biosphere should we act with appropriate values in the world. The 83-year-old Allen summed up: “I don’t give up hope in the future; wish I could have more faith in the present, more charity toward the past. I happily see here, embodied in different ratios by each of us, allegiance to those values, which we need to challenge this disastrous era.”Read Harmony of the Spheres here. And with this, the entire room swelled with a standing ovation before the audience dissipated into the ranch kitchen for refreshments, hors d’ouevers and stimulating ecological conversations. Finally, special guest Tony Juniper, a former Green Party candidate in England, exec at Friends of the Earth, and Ecological Adviser to HRH The Prince of Wales, had each audience member focused whole-heartedly upon the concrete examples drawn from his new book and demonstrating exactly what Nature does for us. Tony provided rich detail of how disappearing vultures led to a deadly and expensive outbreak of rabies, how the loss of bees has led, in one culture, to the necessity of hand pollination that diverts human labor resources, and how, in the absence of a particular species of frog, a potential wonder-drug for stomach ailments was lost to evolutionary history.
[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYxAddIkQbQ” width=”560″ height=”360″]
But the examples only illustrated the point that we can learn to see what is in Nature now, and how to value those ‘services’ appropriately. Juniper cleverly develops a language that speaks to the bottom-line of big capitalism and inspired us all to realize, in a constructive manner, that intersection between economics and ecology that is so crucial to understanding and transforming unhealthy entrepreneurial and organizational practices. Following this, the colloquium arrived at its full-form with an interactive, audience-led discussion with each speaker sitting side by side as a panel. Questions centered around how to utilize the paradigm shift described through the talks in a practical manner. Randy Hayes shared stories of going head to head in corporate board rooms, Mark Nelson gave more insight from living in Biosphere II, John Allen displayed wise and sometimes counter-intuitive warnings and images, and Tony Juniper drew even more illustrative examples from his research and lifetime work with dedicated ecological thinkers and do-ers. In the end, the colloquium became truly synergistic as new and deep alliances between the speakers, and audience members, emerged that could not have been predicted by summing the parts. The conversation has begun in the emerging discipline of bioeconomics — establishing a means to truly value what Nature does for us. The excitement of this fellowship has sustained and remains a hot topic during dinners at Synergia Ranch. Meanwhile, publisher Deborah Snyder and the Junipers are on the road in San Francisco and Seattle continuing to spread the word about Tony’s groundbreaking work and Synergetic Press’s newest title, What has Nature Ever Done for Us? How Money Really Does grow on Trees.
• Celebrating the 70th anniversary of LSD’s discovery
• A history of science, consciousness research and psychedelic studies
Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD – Only a few discoveries of the 20th century have had such a crucial and meaningful influence on science, society and culture as LSD; this mysterious and extremely potent substance which causes profound changes of consciousness in doses of just a few hundred micrograms. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first experienced its remarkable effects during a self-experiment with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in 1943 at Sandoz Laboratory in Basel. It changed his life deeply, as it also has the lives of millions of people all around the world. His bicycle ride during this first LSD trip became legendary.
Authors Hagenbach and Werthmüller, close friends of Hofmann, take us on a journey through the 20th century from his mystical childhood experiences with nature; to his chemistry studies with Nobel Prize winner Paul Karrer in Zurich through his discoveries of both LSD and psilocybin at Sandoz; to his adventurous expeditions; to his many years of retirement devoted to philosophy of nature and a rich social life. The authors reveal the eventful history of LSD, which became the subject of numerous clinical studies opening the way for innovative forms of therapy. It fueled the youth movement of the sixties, influenced developments in computer technology and science and helped spawn a new science of consciousness. Albert Hofmann was voted “greatest living genius” in 2007 by the British newspaper, The Telegraph. He lived an active life to the age of 102.
Future generations will see Albert Hofmann as one the most important figures of the twentieth century; a Promethean visionary who helped chart a new trajectory for the evolution of the human species. -Stanislav Grof, Psychiatrist
Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. -Steve Jobs
Albert gave us LSD and now Dieter and Lucius give us Albert in their profoundly important and timely biography, Mystic Chemist, The Life of Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD. Dieter and Lucius tell an inspiring story of how Albert integrated psychedelic mystical experiences into his life, family and culture, suggesting that perhaps we can do so as well and avoid another backlash. As psychedelic research is dramatically expanding, Albert’s life journey deserves to become more widely known. There is much to learn from this book and from Albert’s example. -Rick Doblin, MAPS Founder and Executive Director
Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD, the most potent mind-expanding substance ever found, was an event of multiple synchronicities – it occurred in 1943 in Switzerland, a neutral country, within months of the building of the atomic bomb – as if it was to be a kind of psychospiritual healing antidote to the mass death weapons. It occurred in a country with a centuries-long tradition of alchemy, the psychospiritual counterpoint to reductionist material science – and involved a previously unknown substance that could induce integrative expansions of awareness with profound implications for healing, for creative problem-solving, and for cosmological understanding. Albert Hofmann had the scientific and the spiritual insight to recognize the enormous significance of his discovery and spent the rest of his long life exploring it with an ever-widening international circle of fellow scientists, artists and visionary explorers. The authors of this biography have done a marvelous job of pulling together documentation and commentary, not only about Hofmann and LSD but also the socio-cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s, during which LSD and all mind-expanding drugs played an enormous role – and were made illegal. The story of LSD and its potential role in society is however far from over, as Hofmann himself also thought. Please read this book and stay tuned… -Ralph Metzner, PhD
The best compendium of the birth and transformative effect of one of the greatest discoveries ever made.” -Alex Grey, Visionary Artist
Mystic Chemist is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest innovators of the 20th century. In addition to its meticulous coverage of Albert Hofmann’s 100 years on this planet, the authors have given their readers a marvelous panoply of LSD’s impact on art, biochemistry, psychotherapy, and spirituality, Indeed, it is a book of wonders. -Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Saybrook University
What a gift to humanity, history, and seekers of truth! Tears welled up spontaneously as I read so simply and factually the horrors of the perverted destruction of such marvelous scenes and such harassment and torture of so many wonderful, idealistic people. Having participated in some of those events the authors evoked so tenderly, I found their account brilliantly restrained, which makes those glories and horrors even more eloquent to the discerning.
Deepest congratulations on transmitting an extraordinarily complete account of one of the greatest men I ever knew and whose presence was a direct manifestation of brilliant function, profound being, and illuminated understanding.” -John Allen, FLS, Chairman, Global Ecotechnics Corporation Inventor, Biosphere 2
This book is more than a superb biography of Albert Hofmann, it’s the story of LSD and pretty much covers everything of importance in the scientific, social, spiritual and artistic realms that resulted from his epochal discovery. -Michael Horowitz, psychoactive drug historian, editor of works by Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary
“Visions of Biospheres”– reflections on the state of the world today and possible futures for humanity. Tango will give a brief history on the pioneers of biosphere science, introducing John (one of those pioneers) who will take us on a journey to future biospheres, 15,000 years from now reading from Far Out and Far Away, his recent novel of emergent evolution, and other thought provoking works.
Please join us at Camp Above the Limit (9:15 and B)
John Allen is a pioneer in biosphere science, author, poet, playwright and architect of ideas. His most famous work was the invention, design, construction and operation of Biosphere 2 project, world’s largest laboratory for global ecology ever built. He has created over the last forty years a number of other ecological demonstration projects around the world including designing and building a sailing ship, the Heraclitus, which has sailed over 250,000 miles around the world engaging in ethnobotanical investigations, coral reef research, oceanic exploration, cultural interchange and adventure. His latest writing is on the ethnosphere and humanity’s futures.
Tango Parrish Snyder, publisher of Synergetic Press since 1984, brings out cutting edge books in biospherics, ethnobotany, psychedelics, vanguard fiction and poetry. (www.synergeticpress.com) She is also Exec. VP of Global Ecotechnics Corporation (www.globalecotechnics.com), an international project development and management company. She cofounded and directed the Biosphere Press publishing division for the Biosphere 2 project, set-up its educational programs department, and produced over twenty books, video and educational curriculum titles in the start-up years (1990 -1994). She is also a Director of the Institute of Ecotechnics (www.ecotechnics.edu), non-profit ecological think-tank convening international conferences on global trends and closed ecological systems.
Forthcoming in English from Synergetic Press April 2013 – In Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the discovery of LSD.
“Albert Hofmann was voted greatest living genius in 2007.”
Key book on the history of LSD and the man who discovered it and the history of science, consciousness research and psychedelics.
Synergetic Press recently acquired the English language rights to the seminal book originally published in German, Albert Hofmann and his LSD: An Eventful Life and a Significant Discovery, by Dieter Hagenbach and Lucius Werthmuller. The book will be released in spring 2013, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the discovery of LSD.
Albert Hofmann – an extraordinary person, mystic and researcher who remained open, curious and devoted to creation until the very last breath he drew at the age of 102.
Albert Hofmann is undoubtedly the best known chemist of the 20th century, and his discovery of LSD had a crucial influence on science, society and culture. In 1943 Hofmann experienced the psychedelic effect of the mysterious substance while self-experimenting on his legendary bicycle trip.
His biography takes us on a journey through the 20th century: Starting the mystical nature experiences of his childhood, all the way to his discovery of LSD and Psilocybin at Sandoz in Basel, ranging adventurous travels to the long years of his life’s eve, marked by a profound interest in the philosophy of nature and an extremely rich social life. The authors tell us all about the eventful history of LSD which after its discovery became the object of numerous clinical studies by also of quite a few dubious experiments. They trace the path of LSD becoming the fuel of the US youth and hippie movement in the sixties and paving the way for innovative forms of therapy.
Dieter Hagenbach born 1943 in Basel, studies in architecture and the arts. Founder of Sphinx Publishing House and of Gaia Media Foundation. Initiator and program executive of the international symposium on the occasion of Albert Hofmann’s 100th birthday. He met Albert Hofmann in the mid‐seventies and remained his friend until death. In 1983, he published his book »Insights ‐ Outlooks«.
Lucius Werthmüller born 1958 in Basel, consciousness researcher and parapsychologist. President of the Basel Psi Club. Founding member and board member of Gaia Media Foundation, project leader at international symposia. He met Albert Hofmann while still a child, as he was a good friend of Werthmüller’s parents, and Lucius remained close to him until the end of his life.
“The book is beautiful and very very important. It is so much more than the superb biography of Albert I was expecting; it’s the story of LSD. It pretty much covers everything of importance in the scientific, social, spiritual and artistic realms. And the illustrations! Never have seen so many researchers and participants in the psychedelic revolution been pictured in one book. It is an important work for that alone. The book is a masterpiece.” – Michael Horowitz, Publicist
“Thank you so much for the amazing gift of your Hofmann LSD historic book. The best compendium of the birth and transformative effect of one of the greatest discoveries ever made.” – Alex Grey, Visionary Artist
