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.
An interview with Ralph Metzner, Author of Birth of a Psychedelic Culture – Conversations about Leary, The Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties with Planetary Spirit Online.
Ralph Metzner who has a B.A. in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University, has been involved in the study of transformations of consciousness ever since, as a graduate student, he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. His latest book, written with Ram Das and Gary Bravo is entitled, “Birthof a Psychedelic Culture – Conversations about Leary, The Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties” He co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience, and was editor of The Psychedelic Review.
During the 1970s, Ralph spent 10 years in the intensive study and practice of Agni Yoga, a meditative system of working with light-fire life-energies. He wrote Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest attempts at a comparative cartography of consciousness; and Know Your Type, a comparative survey of personality typologies, ancient and modern. He was the Academic Dean for ten years, during the 1980s, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he taught courses there on “Altered States of Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.”
He is now Professor Emeritus. He maintains a part-time psychotherapy practice, and conducts numerous workshops on consciousness transformation, both nationally and internationally. His books include The Well of Remembrance, The Unfolding Self, Green Psychology, and two edited collections on the science and the phenomenology of Ayahuasca and Teonanácatl.
Dieter Hagenbach, publisher Deborah Parrish Snyder, Lucius Werthmüller, and editor Linda Sperling
Synergetic Press just returned from the 2nd International Psychedelic Science Conference in Oakland, California hosted by the MAPS Organization (Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). According to the conference website, “over 100 of the world’s leading researchers from 13 countries presented recent findings on the benefits and risks of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, ibogaine, 2C-B, ketamine, marijuana, and more, over three days of conference presentations, and two days of pre- and post-conference workshops.”
Since MAPS had already attracted the global psychedelic intelligentsia to northern California, and furthermore chose to kick-off the event on ‘Bicycle Day,’ the 70th anniversary of Albert Hofmann’s legendary first trip, the occasion provided the perfect venue for Synergetic Press to showcase our bold new authoritative biography, MYSTIC CHEMIST:The Life of Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD. Authors Dieter Hagenbach and Lucius Werthmüller, close personal friends of Albert Hofmann, flew in from Basel, Switzerland to meet us in Oakland and participate in the conference through both on and offsite talks, as well as several book signings.
Each appearance was a resounding success! Dieter and Lucius held the first lecture in the main ballroom, describing Albert Hofmann’s life to a live audience with the same passion and precision with which they write. Their rich slide show presentation revealed many of the rare and illustrative images that enliven nearly every page of their thorough and comprehensive book.
Synergetic had a special advance order of both the soft and hardcover editions shipped directly to the conference center for sale through MAPS. The books flew off the tables as readers lined up to meet the authors, exchanging a brief word of gratitude and personalizing the new purchases with a signature or note.
The authors also had a book-signing and talk at the historic City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, immortalized by the literary mavericks and cultural prophets of the ‘Beat’ scene so long ago. City Lights events manager Peter Maravelis, the Synergetic Press team, authors Dieter and Lucius, as well as the attending audience flowing down the edge of the stairs, brimmed with excitement and honor to participate in this historic intersection of research, publishing and intellectual fellowship.
Back at the MAPS conference, Synergetic Press discovered a bounty of promising new allies through the richly populated halls and lounges of the hotel. By deepening decades-old bonds and discovering wholly new and unpredictable relationships with luminaries in a number of fields, we are emboldened to pursue the next stage of our company’s growth. Whispers of new projects are best kept as such, but suffice to say that following the launch of Mystic Chemist and the upcoming American edition of Tony Juniper’s, What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?(Why Money Really Does Grow on Trees), which is already a best-seller in England, we at Synergetic Press have our hands full with wonderful new content to develop and bring to our readers!
• 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
Ornette: Made In America captures Ornette’s evolution over three decades. Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes, and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell.
The film was recently featured in the New York Times:
“Ornette: Made in America,” which was released theatrically in 1985 and opens again, in a print restored by Milestone Films, at the IFC Center in Manhattan on Friday, is full of such tantalizing stuff: formal juxtapositions, half-sketched implications, parallel experiments of image and sound. By virtue of the footage alone, it’s a valuable time capsule for anyone drawn to Mr. Coleman’s work, particularly in the two decades following the cusp of the 1960s, when his dauntless, affirming vision of free improvisation famously created a crisis of faith in jazz.
