Lindisfarne Association
Encyclopedia
Cultural history
The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
William Irwin Thompson
William Irwin Thompson
William Irwin Thompson is known primarily as a social philosopher and cultural critic, but he has also been writing and publishing poetry throughout his career and received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He describes his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient...
for the "study and realization of a new planetary culture". It is inspired by Jean Gebser
Jean Gebser
Jean Gebser was a philosopher who described the structures of human consciousness, a linguist, and a poet.-Biography:...
's idea of the integral structure of consciousness, and by Teilhard de Chardin's idea of the noosphere
Noosphere
Noosphere , according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς + σφαῖρα , in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". Introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1922 in his Cosmogenesis"...
.
In his book Reimagination of the World, Thompson described his reasons for naming his group after Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...
, an island with a famous monastery (once inhabited by Saint Cuthbert) just off the coast of Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
in the North East of England:
"Although I used the word as a symbol of a small group of people effecting a transformation from one system to another, the word also brought with it the archetypical associations of a small group of monks holding onto ancient knowledge in a fallen world, a world that would soon overrun them during the Viking terror."
History
In 1972, with funding from Sydney and Jean Lanier, and later from Laurance RockefellerLaurance Rockefeller
Laurance Spelman Rockefeller was a venture capitalist, financier, philanthropist, a major conservationist and a prominent third-generation member of the Rockefeller family. He was the fourth child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and brother to John D...
, Thompson founded the Lindisfarne Association, which functioned variously as a sponsor of new age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
events and lectures, and as a think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
and retreat, similar to the Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Lindisfarne functioned through the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in the City and Diocese of New York, is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York...
in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for a number of years. Today Lindisfarne functions as a virtual association of the Fellows and meets once a year at varying locations.
Goals
According to the Lindisfarne Association website, Lindisfarne's fourfold goals are:- The Planetization of the Esoteric
- The realization of the inner harmony of all the great universal religions and the spiritual traditions of the tribal peoples of the world.
- The fostering of a new and healthier balance between nature and culture through the research and development of appropriate technologies, architectural settlements and compassionate economies for meta-industrial villages and convivial cities.
- The illumination of the spiritual foundations of political governance through scholarship and artistic communications that foster a global ecology of consciousness beyond the present ideological systems of warring industrial nation-states, outraged traditional societies, and ravaged lands and seas.
Members
Members of Lindisfarne have included, among others:- mathematician Ralph AbrahamRalph AbrahamRalph H. Abraham is an American mathematician. He has been a member of the mathematics department at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1968.- Life and work :...
- anthropologist Gregory BatesonGregory BatesonGregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
- anthropologist Mary Catherine BatesonMary Catherine BatesonMary Catherine Bateson is an American writer and cultural anthropologist.A graduate of the Brearley School, Bateson is the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Since 1960, she has been married to Barkev Kassarjian, a professor of business management at Babson College...
- poet Wendell BerryWendell BerryWendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
- futurist Stewart BrandStewart BrandStewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
- Zen Buddhist Joan HalifaxJoan HalifaxJoan Jiko Halifax is a Zen Buddhist roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community...
-Roshi - economist Hazel HendersonHazel HendersonHazel Henderson is a futurist and an economic iconoclast. In recent years she has worked in television, and she is the author of several books including Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization, Planetary Citizenship , and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.- Career :Henderson is now...
- ecologist Wes JacksonWes Jackson-Early life and Education:Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After earning a BA in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, an MA in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University, Wes Jackson established and served as chair...
- anthropologist Robert LawlorRobert LawlorRobert Lawlor is a mythographer, symbologist and New Age author of several books.After training as a painter and a sculptor, he became a yoga student of Sri Aurobindo and lived for many years in Pondicherry, India, where he was a founding member of Auroville. In India, he discovered the works of...
- political scientist Merle Lefkoff
- scientist James LovelockJames LovelockJames Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
- biologist Stuart KauffmanStuart KauffmanStuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth...
- biologist Lynn MargulisLynn MargulisLynn Margulis was an American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is best known for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles, and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory, which is now generally accepted...
- author Michael MurphyMichael Murphy (author)Michael Murphy is the co-founder of the Esalen Institute, a key figure in the Human Potential Movement and author of both fiction and non-fiction books on topics related to extraordinary human potential.- Biography :...
- philosopher/author John MichellJohn Michell (writer)John Frederick Carden Michell was an English writer whose key sources of inspiration were Plato and Charles Fort...
- dancer/anthropologist Natasha Myers
- spiritual teacher David SpanglerDavid SpanglerDavid Spangler is an American spiritual philosopher and self-described "practical mystic". He helped transform the Findhorn Foundation in northern Scotland into a centre of residential spiritual education, and is a friend of William Irwin Thompson...
- religious scholar Elaine PagelsElaine PagelsElaine Pagels, née Hiesey , is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels...
- poet Kathleen RaineKathleen RaineKathleen Jessie Raine was a British poet, critic, and scholar writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founder member of the Temenos Academy.-Life:Raine was...
- writer Dorion SaganDorion SaganDorion Sagan is an American science writer, essayist, and theorist. He has written and co-authored many books on culture, evolution, and the history and philosophy of science, most recently "The Sciences of Avatar: from Anthropology to Xenology" and "Death and Sex," which won first place at the...
- economist E. F. SchumacherE. F. SchumacherErnst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became popularized in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s...
- astronaut Rusty SchweickartRusty SchweickartRussell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart aka Schweikart is an American former astronaut, research scientist, US Air Force fighter pilot, business and government executive...
- poet Gary SnyderGary SnyderGary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
- architect Paolo SoleriPaolo SoleriPaolo Soleri is an Italian-American architect. He established Arcosanti and the educational Cosanti Foundation. Soleri is a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National Design Award recipient in 2006.-Early life:Soleri was born in Turin, Italy...
- monk David Steindl-RastDavid Steindl-RastDavid Steindl-Rast is a Catholic Benedictine monk, notable for his active participation in interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science....
- publisher/editor Joy Stocke
- physician/scientist/contemplative Neil Theise
- philosopher Evan ThompsonEvan ThompsonEvan Thompson is professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. He writes about cognitive science, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind....
- architect Sim Van der RynSim Van der RynSim Van der Ryn is acknowledged as a leader in "sustainable architecture." He is also a researcher and educator. Van der Ryn's driving professional interest has been applying principles of physical and social ecology to architecture and environmental design....
- philosopher Francisco VarelaFrancisco VarelaFrancisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...
- Michaela Walsh
- composer Paul WinterPaul WinterPaul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...
- physicist/contemplative Arthur ZajoncArthur ZajoncArthur Guy Zajonc is a professor of physics at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He is also a noted anthroposophist who served as the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America...
- composer Evan ChambersEvan ChambersEvan Chambers is a composer, traditional Irish fiddler, and Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. He received a Doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan...
Current status
The Lindisfarne Association disbanded as a not-for-profit institution in 2009. The Lindisfarne Fellows continue to meet once a year at varying locations as an informal group interested in one another's creative projects.External links
- Lindisfarne Association website at WilliamIrwinThompson.org; Internet Archived version)
- Annals of Earth website
- 2007 Symposium Notes from the Wild River Review