Marilyn Ferguson - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marilyn Ferguson was an American author, editor and public speaker, best known for her 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy and its affiliation with the New Age Movement in popular culture.

A founding member of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, Ferguson published and edited the well-regarded science newsletter Brain/Mind Bulletin from 1975 to 1996. She eventually earned numerous honorary degrees, served on the board of directors of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and befriended such diverse figures of influence as inventor and theorist Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....

, spiritual author Ram Dass

Ram Dass

Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...

, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine

Ilya Prigogine

Ilya, Viscount Prigogine was a Russian-born naturalized Belgian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.-Biography :...

and billionaire 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...

. Ferguson's work also influenced Vice President Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

, who participated in her informal network while a senator and later met with her in the White House.

Youth and early writing career

Ferguson was born Marilyn Louise Grasso in Grand Junction, Colorado

Grand Junction, Colorado

The City of Grand Junction is the largest city in western Colorado. It is a city with a council–manager government form that is the county seat and the most populous city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction is situated west-southwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. As...

. After graduation from high school she earned an associate of arts degree at Mesa College (now Colorado Mesa University) and later attended the University of Colorado

University of Colorado System

The University of Colorado system is a system of public universities in Colorado consisting of three universities in four campuses: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and University of Colorado Denver in downtown Denver and at the Anschutz Medical Campus in...

. During her first marriage, to Don Renzelman, she worked as a legal secretary and became a published author of short stories and poetry in such national magazines as Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

. Later she wrote freelance articles for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

and other publications. After living briefly in Houston, Texas, she moved to California with her second husband, Mike Ferguson, in 1968. That year, she published her first book, on home economics, with her husband as co-author.

The Brain Revolution and Brain/Mind Bulletin

Ferguson soon developed an enduring interest in what came to be known as the "human potential" movement, and particularly the latest research on the potential of the human brain

Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

, with its implications for learning, creativity and wellness.

This inspired her to write The Brain Revolution: The Frontiers of Mind Research (Taplinger, 1973), a successful and broadly hailed popular summary of these discoveries. Two years later Ferguson launched Brain/Mind Bulletin, a newsletter that served as an ongoing forum for her interest in cutting-edge scientific ideas. At its peak in the 1980s the publication had a worldwide base of some 10,000 subscribers, ranging from academics and intellectuals to schoolteachers and storekeepers, and helped to popularize the ideas of such notables as Prigogine, neuroscientists Karl Pribram

Karl H. Pribram

Karl H. Pribram is a professor at Georgetown University, in the United States, and an emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at Stanford University and Radford University...

and Candace Pert

Candace Pert

Candace Beebe Pert is an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opiate receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain.-History:...

, physicists Fritjof Capra

Fritjof Capra

Fritjof Capra is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher College....

and David Bohm

David Bohm

David Joseph Bohm FRS was an American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy, neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project.-Youth and college:...

, psychologist Jean Houston

Jean Houston

Jean Houston is an American scholar, lecturer, author and philosopher who has helped pioneer and motivate the human potentials movement. As a teacher and visionary thinker, Houston holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations worldwide...

and many others.

The Aquarian Conspiracy

In an early commentary in the newsletter Ferguson described her first glimmers of what she called "the movement that has no name" - a loose, enthusiastic network of innovators from almost every discipline, united by their apparent desire to create real and lasting change in society and its institutions. Her attempt to compile and synthesize the patterns she was seeing eventually led her to develop a second newsletter, Leading Edge Bulletin, and found its culmination in The Aquarian Conspiracy (J.P. Tarcher, 1980), the seminal work that earned her a lasting global reputation.

The book's title led to some confusion, having to do with astrology only to the extent of drawing from the popular conception of the "Age of Aquarius" succeeding a dark "Piscean" age. The word conspiracy she used in its literal sense of "breathing together," as one of her great influences, the philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...

, had done before her.

Unabashedly positive in its outlook, the book was praised by such diverse figures as philosophical writer Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...

, who called it "stunning and provocative," commentator Max Lerner

Max Lerner

Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner was an American journalist and educator known for his controversial syndicated column....

, who found it "drenched in sunlight," and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Robert Muller

Robert Muller

Robert Muller was an international civil servant with the United Nations. Assistant Secretary-General for 40 years, his ideas about world government, world peace and spirituality led to the increased representation of religions in the UN, especially of New Age Movement...

, who described it as "remarkable" and "epoch-making." Psychologist Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

credited her with having "etched, in unforgettable vividness, the intricate web of changes shaping the inevitable revolution in our culture," and said the book "gives the pioneering spirit the courage to go forward."

Philosopher and religious scholar Jacob Needleman

Jacob Needleman

Jacob Needleman is an American philosopher. He is professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University.He has published many books, most of which draw from G. I. Gurdjieff....

predicted that the book would help to make "New Age" thinking "more understandable and less threatening" to the general public in America. This was borne out by its success, as The Aquarian Conspiracy steadily climbed to the best-seller list and its viewpoint began seeping into the popular culture. Before long the book was being credited as "the handbook of the New Age" (USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

) and a guidepost to a philosophy "working its way increasingly into the nation's cultural, religious, social, economic and political life" (New York Times).

The book was eventually translated into some 16 foreign languages, and Ferguson became a sought-after speaker across North America and around the world, eventually traveling as far as Brazil, Sweden and India to convey her hopeful message. In 1985 she was featured as a keynote speaker at the United Nations-sponsored "Spirit of Peace" conference, where she appeared along with Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...

and the Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...

of Tibet.

Religious and other criticism

Such validation did not come without a price. Ferguson was attacked in some quarters for her very optimism. Others alleged that her "new" ideas were merely a repackaging of old notions of positive thinking, and some saw the "New Age" (a term Ferguson herself seldom used) as merely extending the self-absorption that had marked much of the 1970s. Most persistently, some religious groups contended that the "conspiracy" was an attempt to subvert Christian views. This view, most notably expressed by author Constance Cumbey

Constance Cumbey

Constance Cumbey is a lawyer and activist Christian author.-Background:Cumbey was born as Constance Elizabeth Butler to a family of English, German, and French ancestry in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and raised as a Seventh-day Adventist.She was the first of seven children born to her parents...

in her 1983 book The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, was restated as recently as 2007, when one online essayist wrote that the Christian church “rightly discerned the New Age movement, as outlined in Ferguson’s book, to be demonically inspired in anticipation of the ultimate unveiling of . . . the antichrist.” It was inaccurately alleged that Ferguson, herself raised and confirmed a Lutheran, had written the book at the behest of the Stanford Research Institute with the goal of overtaking western culture with Eastern mysticism.

Impact and reissue

Indirectly supporting both Ferguson and her critics, the New Age movement, as popularly understood, did thrive in the 1980s and into the 1990s, though this was partially through such pop-cultural manifestations as the autobiographical works of actress Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...

and the “Harmonic Convergence

Harmonic Convergence

The Harmonic Convergence is the name given to the world's first globally synchronized meditation, announced by José Argüelles, and which occurred on August 16–17, 1987, which also closely correlated to an exceptional alignment of planets in our solar system, see below .The timing of the Harmonic...

” festival of 1987. While the period was marked by undeniable evolution in the fields of politics, education and medicine, many other ideas and practices were transitory. Through it all Ferguson remained an optimist, albeit one who did not ignore the depth of society's chronic problems. Commenting in advance of the 1988 presidential election, she noted that “there is no panacea for our social maladies” – but there remained the power of belief. “Our ‘foolish illusion’ that we can effect change fosters in us the capacity to act – and therefore to bring about change.” ("The Great Depression . . . The Great Schizophrenia," Brain/Mind Bulletin, October 1988.)

In 1987 The Aquarian Conspiracy was reissued, featuring a new introduction by another of her allies, futurist-author John Naisbitt

John Naisbitt

John Naisbitt is an American author and public speaker in the area of futures studies. His first book Megatrends was published in 1982. It was the result of almost ten years of research. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years, mostly as #1...

(Megatrends). While slowly developing a followup work, Ferguson returned her primary focus to reporting on scientific research in Brain-Mind Bulletin. There she continued to explore the links between body and mind and new theoretical models in neuroscience, physics, psychology, education and health until the newsletter ceased publication in 1996.

Aquarius Now

The long-planned Aquarius Now, after near-publication in several previous forms, appeared in 2005. The book, published by Red Wheel/Weiser, was well-received, though less commercially successful. Following its release Ferguson continued to develop projects, share ideas and advise other authors. In 2007 she moved to Banning, California

Banning, California

-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Banning had a population of 29,603. The population density was 1,281.6 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Banning was 19,164 White, 2,165 African American, 641 Native American, 1,549 Asian, 39 Pacific Islander, 4,604 from other...

, near her son and his family.

Death and reaction

Ferguson died unexpectedly of an apparent heart attack on October 19, 2008. Her death was widely noted in the national and international media. The Los Angeles Times described her as a "galvanizing influence," and quoted her U.S. publisher, Jeremy Tarcher, who described his own personal epiphany when he first met with Ferguson and recognized the potential of the information she had collected. The New York Times called The Aquarian Conspiracy "the Bible of the New Age," and mused that the once-radical ideas of her "benign conspiracy" may now seem commonplace.

Offering a tribute on the website beliefnet.com (also on the Huffington Post's website), best-selling physician-author Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...

described Ferguson as "a one-woman movement for hope." He recalled being a young doctor who was studying meditation when he came across The Aquarian Conspiracy in the early 1980s, and realized the book had instantly unified a movement that otherwise seemed to be resigned to the fringes. At her death, Chopra wrote, Ferguson could rest in the knowledge that "a watershed had been crossed," and that her "leaderless revolution" had steadily gained force around the world in the generation since the book was written.

The Aquarian Conspiracy was re-issued in a "Tarcher Cornerstone" edition in August 2009, featuring a new introduction by Jeremy Tarcher. In October 2009, Ferguson received a posthumous Distinguished Alumna award from Mesa State College.

Divorced in 1978, Ferguson was subsequently married to Ray Gottlieb from 1983 to 1991. She retained the last name of her second husband, with whom she had three children: Eric Ferguson (born 1964), Kristin Ferguson Smith (born 1967) and Lynn Ferguson Lewis (born 1969).

Books

The Brain Revolution: The Frontiers of Mind Research (Taplinger Publishing, 1973) ISBN 0800809610, ISBN 9780800809614, ISBN 9780800809614, ISBN 0800809610
The Aquarian Conspiracy (J.P. Tarcher, 1980; 1987) ISBN 0312904185, ISBN 9780312904180, ISBN 9780312904180, ISBN 0312904185, ISBN 0874771161, ISBN 9780874771169, ISBN 9780874771169 ISBN 0874771161
PragMagic: Ten Years of Scientific Breakthroughs, Exciting Ideas, and Personal Experiments That Can Profoundly Change Your Life (Pocket Books
Pocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...

, 1990) ISBN 0671668242, ISBN 9780671668242, ISBN 9780671668242, ISBN 0671668242
Aquarius Now: Radical Common Sense and Reclaiming Our Personal Sovereignty (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2005) ISBN 1-57863-369-9
"Brain/Mind Bulletin"

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.