Marc Ian Barasch
Encyclopedia
Marc Ian Barasch is a non-fiction author
, film and television writer
-producer
, magazine editor, and environmental activist. Major books written by Barasch are The Healing Path (1992), Remarkable Recovery (1995), Healing Dreams (2001) and Field Notes on the Compassionate Life (2005). He has been an editor at New Age Journal (which won a National Magazine Award and a Washington Monthly Award for Investigative Journalism under his tenure); Psychology Today (where he was a finalist for the PEN Award); and Natural Health. He has also done journalistic writing for Conde Nast publications on the arts and the environment. He is founder and C.E.O. of the Green World Campaign (2006–present).
As editor
-in-chief of New Age Journal in the early 1980s, he was a spokesman for what demographer Paul Ray
labelled "the Cultural Creatives
." Barasch's cogent, critical, and not infrequently witty perspective influenced a movement which, ignored by mainstream media
at the time, has become a driving force in American society. Barasch, a practicing Buddhist, spoke of an "emergent civilization" whose spiritual
and environmental
values would inform social, economic, and political practice. He radically revamped what had been an obscure, small-circulation magazine serving a parochial audience into a national publication that won a National Magazine Award and attracted a wide readership. At the same time, Barasch wrote skeptically of what he called "new-age Calvinism
" and of what he viewed as the woolly-mindedness of some of his cohorts. Barasch went on to edit other national publications (Psychology Today, Natural Health) where he produced a noticeable tilt toward the interests and concerns of the "cultural creatives" (lately grouped under the marketing term,"LOHAS").
The Jungian psychoanalyst Claire Douglas, reviewing Barasch's book Healing Dreams in the Washington Post, cites "a poetic intensity" and "trail-blazing contributions to dream research." Barasch's bestselling study of spontaneous remission, Remarkable Recovery (with researcher Caryle Hirshberg) was the subject of a Newsweek
article and garnered wide attention in the medical world. (E.g., oncologist Dr. Moshe Frenkel of M.D. Anderson Hospital has acknowledged the book as an impetus for a multi-institutional study of spontaneous remission and a Remarkable Recovery Registry) Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life http://www.compassionatelife.com a work of literary nonfiction blending scientific findings on altruism and empathy with psychology, spirituality, and a first-person exploration of human potential, attracted the support of figures like South African Nobel Prize
winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu
. Following its publication in 2005, Barasch lectured extensively around the U.S. calling for compassion and empathy to become "central organizing principles for civic life." In a seminal talk at an Episcopal "servant leadership" retreat in Asheville where he and theologian Karen Armstrong were the featured speakers, he proposed a renewed emphasis on compassion as the linking point of all religions. The book was re-published in 2009 in paperback as The Compassionate Life.
In broadcast media, Barasch's script for a 1992 global television special "One Child, One Voice" addressed world environmental issues with a blunt urgency. When advertisers shunned it, maverick broadcaster Ted Turner
distributed the show minus commercials to 160-odd countries, appending his own on-camera appeal, and a 2002 re-edited broadcast won a regional Emmy Award, and was nominated for a national Emmy Award
. Barasch has executive produced TV specials for the Discovery Channel and England's Channel Four, and developed film projects at Columbia Pictures. Barasch is credited as a founding producer of the National Public Radio Show "E-Town" (sometimes called the "environmental Prairie Home Companion"). In 2005, he created a short-lived media partnership with Fred Fuchs, former head of Francis Coppola's American Zoetrope Studio and arts and entertainment chief for the Canadian Broadcasting company) to produce entertainment with spiritual, cultural, and environmental values. Barasch has also produced film shorts to promote environmental causes.
In 2006, Barasch founded the Green World Campaign, a nonprofit whose stated mission is linking "holistic" development models like agroforestry with the broader environmental movement. With its motto, "Re-Green the World," the organization has proposed a massive global afforestation effort of billions of trees, connecting donors to grassroots NGOs via media-driven, Web-based campaigns. Barasch, who in an interview called his strategy "green compassion," has focused the group's work on ecological restoration at a village level, planting multi-purpose trees (MPTs) to address a synergistic grab-bag of issues: restoration of indigenous ecology, poverty, sustainable rural economy, soil remediation, cultural preservation, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. The first pilot program was in Ethiopia's Gurage Zone, and work then expanded to Ethiopia's Menegasha-Suba forest; Mexico's San Juan Atzingo forest; Orissa, India; Mindanao, Philippines; Kenya's Great Lakes region; and Bulumbi, Uganda. In 2011, a Green World Campaign office opened in Mombasa, Kenya. Under the direction of a former Lawrence Livermore particle physicist and Peace Corps volunteer, Will Ruddick, and a Kenyan staff drawn from other NGOs, it has expanded its activities into a Green World Schools program; co-management of the 15,000-acre Rumuruti Forest; "clean" cookstoves (low-emissions, low fuel0; a complmentary currency project (Green World Credits); and a fledgling "for-benefit" business based on moringa trees and other indigenous herbs and crops. He serves on the advisory committee of the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat for the International Year of Forests 2011.
Barasch designed an interactive art installation for public participation in "re-greening the world" for a Google-sponsored exhibit at New York's Chelsea Art Museum and the Streaming Museum (a virtual consortium of arts groups in 17 global cities). The project, originally titled "Mission to Earth," culminated in an interactive motion graphics display, "Text TREE," running on a dozen screens in New York's Time Square on Earth Day. He has presented at Art Center College of Design's Big Picture, Oxford’s Visions of Humanity, Mindshare L.A. University of California’s Mind/SuperMind series, et. al.
Barasch had a prominent role in a feature documentary by director Tom Shadyac ("Bruce Almighty," "Liar,Liar") entitled "I Am," a film significantly inspired by Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, and which was theatrically released in 70 U.S. venues to mostly favorable reviews.
Barasch grew up in New Rochelle, New York and is the son of well-known film and television writer/producer Norman Barasch. He was educated at Yale University
, where he studied literature, psychology, anthropology, and film. He was a founding member of the psychology department at Naropa University
in Boulder, Colorado, the first accredited Buddhist-established university in the U.S. A trained musician, he has played and recorded with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a "lit-rock" band consisting of authors Amy Tan, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, and others. He has collaborated as a lyricist with Grammy and Academy Award-winner Alan Menken, composer of "Beauty and the Beast" et al.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, film and television writer
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
-producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
, magazine editor, and environmental activist. Major books written by Barasch are The Healing Path (1992), Remarkable Recovery (1995), Healing Dreams (2001) and Field Notes on the Compassionate Life (2005). He has been an editor at New Age Journal (which won a National Magazine Award and a Washington Monthly Award for Investigative Journalism under his tenure); Psychology Today (where he was a finalist for the PEN Award); and Natural Health. He has also done journalistic writing for Conde Nast publications on the arts and the environment. He is founder and C.E.O. of the Green World Campaign (2006–present).
As editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
-in-chief of New Age Journal in the early 1980s, he was a spokesman for what demographer Paul Ray
Paul Ray
Paul Ray is a member of the Utah House of Representatives in the U.S.. He represents the 13th district which covers North West Davis County. Paul has served since 2001...
labelled "the Cultural Creatives
Cultural Creatives
Cultural Creatives is a term coined by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson to describe a large segment in Western society that has recently developed beyond the standard paradigm of Modernists or Progressives versus Traditionalists or Conservatives...
." Barasch's cogent, critical, and not infrequently witty perspective influenced a movement which, ignored by mainstream media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
at the time, has become a driving force in American society. Barasch, a practicing Buddhist, spoke of an "emergent civilization" whose spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
and environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
values would inform social, economic, and political practice. He radically revamped what had been an obscure, small-circulation magazine serving a parochial audience into a national publication that won a National Magazine Award and attracted a wide readership. At the same time, Barasch wrote skeptically of what he called "new-age Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
" and of what he viewed as the woolly-mindedness of some of his cohorts. Barasch went on to edit other national publications (Psychology Today, Natural Health) where he produced a noticeable tilt toward the interests and concerns of the "cultural creatives" (lately grouped under the marketing term,"LOHAS").
The Jungian psychoanalyst Claire Douglas, reviewing Barasch's book Healing Dreams in the Washington Post, cites "a poetic intensity" and "trail-blazing contributions to dream research." Barasch's bestselling study of spontaneous remission, Remarkable Recovery (with researcher Caryle Hirshberg) was the subject of a Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
article and garnered wide attention in the medical world. (E.g., oncologist Dr. Moshe Frenkel of M.D. Anderson Hospital has acknowledged the book as an impetus for a multi-institutional study of spontaneous remission and a Remarkable Recovery Registry) Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life http://www.compassionatelife.com a work of literary nonfiction blending scientific findings on altruism and empathy with psychology, spirituality, and a first-person exploration of human potential, attracted the support of figures like South African Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
. Following its publication in 2005, Barasch lectured extensively around the U.S. calling for compassion and empathy to become "central organizing principles for civic life." In a seminal talk at an Episcopal "servant leadership" retreat in Asheville where he and theologian Karen Armstrong were the featured speakers, he proposed a renewed emphasis on compassion as the linking point of all religions. The book was re-published in 2009 in paperback as The Compassionate Life.
In broadcast media, Barasch's script for a 1992 global television special "One Child, One Voice" addressed world environmental issues with a blunt urgency. When advertisers shunned it, maverick broadcaster Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
distributed the show minus commercials to 160-odd countries, appending his own on-camera appeal, and a 2002 re-edited broadcast won a regional Emmy Award, and was nominated for a national Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
. Barasch has executive produced TV specials for the Discovery Channel and England's Channel Four, and developed film projects at Columbia Pictures. Barasch is credited as a founding producer of the National Public Radio Show "E-Town" (sometimes called the "environmental Prairie Home Companion"). In 2005, he created a short-lived media partnership with Fred Fuchs, former head of Francis Coppola's American Zoetrope Studio and arts and entertainment chief for the Canadian Broadcasting company) to produce entertainment with spiritual, cultural, and environmental values. Barasch has also produced film shorts to promote environmental causes.
In 2006, Barasch founded the Green World Campaign, a nonprofit whose stated mission is linking "holistic" development models like agroforestry with the broader environmental movement. With its motto, "Re-Green the World," the organization has proposed a massive global afforestation effort of billions of trees, connecting donors to grassroots NGOs via media-driven, Web-based campaigns. Barasch, who in an interview called his strategy "green compassion," has focused the group's work on ecological restoration at a village level, planting multi-purpose trees (MPTs) to address a synergistic grab-bag of issues: restoration of indigenous ecology, poverty, sustainable rural economy, soil remediation, cultural preservation, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. The first pilot program was in Ethiopia's Gurage Zone, and work then expanded to Ethiopia's Menegasha-Suba forest; Mexico's San Juan Atzingo forest; Orissa, India; Mindanao, Philippines; Kenya's Great Lakes region; and Bulumbi, Uganda. In 2011, a Green World Campaign office opened in Mombasa, Kenya. Under the direction of a former Lawrence Livermore particle physicist and Peace Corps volunteer, Will Ruddick, and a Kenyan staff drawn from other NGOs, it has expanded its activities into a Green World Schools program; co-management of the 15,000-acre Rumuruti Forest; "clean" cookstoves (low-emissions, low fuel0; a complmentary currency project (Green World Credits); and a fledgling "for-benefit" business based on moringa trees and other indigenous herbs and crops. He serves on the advisory committee of the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat for the International Year of Forests 2011.
Barasch designed an interactive art installation for public participation in "re-greening the world" for a Google-sponsored exhibit at New York's Chelsea Art Museum and the Streaming Museum (a virtual consortium of arts groups in 17 global cities). The project, originally titled "Mission to Earth," culminated in an interactive motion graphics display, "Text TREE," running on a dozen screens in New York's Time Square on Earth Day. He has presented at Art Center College of Design's Big Picture, Oxford’s Visions of Humanity, Mindshare L.A. University of California’s Mind/SuperMind series, et. al.
Barasch had a prominent role in a feature documentary by director Tom Shadyac ("Bruce Almighty," "Liar,Liar") entitled "I Am," a film significantly inspired by Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, and which was theatrically released in 70 U.S. venues to mostly favorable reviews.
Barasch grew up in New Rochelle, New York and is the son of well-known film and television writer/producer Norman Barasch. He was educated at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where he studied literature, psychology, anthropology, and film. He was a founding member of the psychology department at Naropa University
Naropa University
Naropa University is a private American liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Oxford University scholar Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda.Naropa describes itself as...
in Boulder, Colorado, the first accredited Buddhist-established university in the U.S. A trained musician, he has played and recorded with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a "lit-rock" band consisting of authors Amy Tan, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, and others. He has collaborated as a lyricist with Grammy and Academy Award-winner Alan Menken, composer of "Beauty and the Beast" et al.