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Terence McKenna
Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946–April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants and mushrooms. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, ethnomycology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the " Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture". Critical reception of Terence McKenna’s work was deeply polarized, with critics accusing him of promoting dangerous ideas and questioning his sanity, while others praised his writing as groundbreaking, humorous, and intellectually provocative. Born in Colorado, he developed a fascination with nature, psychology, and visionary experiences at a young age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
:Template:Infobox Writer/doc
Infobox writer may be used to summarize information about a person who is a writer/author (includes screenwriters). If the writer-specific fields here are not needed, consider using the more general ; other infoboxes there can be found in :People and person infobox templates. This template may also be used as a module (or sub-template) of ; see WikiProject Infoboxes/embed for guidance on such usage. Syntax The infobox may be added by pasting the template as shown below into an article. All fields are optional. Any unused parameter names can be left blank or omitted. Parameters Please remove any parameters from an article's infobox that are unlikely to be used. All parameters are optional. Unless otherwise specified, if a parameter has multiple values, they should be comma-separated using the template: : which produces: : , language= If any of the individual values contain commas already, add to use semi-colons as separators: : which produces: : , pseu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies". McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" (in the first chapter of his ''Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man''), as well as the term ''global village.'' He predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The First Three Minutes
''The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe'' (1977; second edition 1993) is a book by American physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. Summary ''The First Three Minutes'' attempts to explain the early stages of the universe after the Big Bang. Weinberg begins by recounting a creation myth from the '' Younger Edda'' and goes on to explain how, in the first half of the twentieth century, cosmologists have come to know something of the real history of the universe. Early in the book, Weinberg explores the origins and implications of the Hubble constant, that the red shift of galaxies is proportional to their distance, and how this is evidence for the expansion of the Universe. He introduces the Cosmological Principle, that the universe is isotropic and homogeneous. He then tells the story behind the discovery of the cosmic microwave background by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965. After giving the reader a basis of understanding of astrophy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. He held the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research on elementary particles and physical cosmology was honored with numerous prizes and awards, including the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics and the 1991 National Medal of Science. In 2004, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society, with a citation that said he was "considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today." He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American writer, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything." In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called " quantum psychology". Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for ''Playboy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RU Sirius
R. U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman in 1952) is an American writer, editor, talk show host, musician and cyberculture celebrity. He is best known as co-founder of ''Mondo 2000'' magazine and its original editor-in-chief from 1989 to 1993. Sirius has written for ''Wired magazine, Wired'' and ''Wired News'', ''San Francisco Examiner'', ''Artforum International, Artforum'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Time (magazine), Time'', ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'' and many other publications. Activities 1980s From 1984 onward, Sirius edited a counterculture magazine that started as ''High Frontiers'' with a focus on recreational drug use. In 1988 it was renamed ''Reality Hackers'' to reflect increased content about digital culture issues. The following year it became ''Mondo 2000''. 1990s Sirius left ''Mondo 2000'' in 1993, and the magazine folded in 1998 after 17 issues. In 1993, Sirius was quoted in ''The Nation'' magazine about the internet and its future. This July 1993 piece, ''The Whole World ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert Sheldrake
Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture that lacks mainstream acceptance and has been widely criticized as pseudoscience. He has worked as a biochemist at Cambridge University, a Harvard scholar, a researcher at the Royal Society, and a plant physiologist for ICRISAT in India. Other work by Sheldrake encompasses paranormal subjects such as precognition, empirical research into telepathy, and the psychic staring effect. He has been described as a New Age author. Sheldrake's morphic resonance posits that "memory is inherent in nature" and that "natural systems ... inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind." Sheldrake proposes that it is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms." His advocacy of the idea offers idiosyncratic explanations of standard subjects in biology such as development, inheritance, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene Robbins (July 22, 1932 – February 9, 2025) was an American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy dramas"). Robbins had lived in La Conner, Washington, since 1970, where he wrote nine of his books. His 1976 novel ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues'' was adapted into the 1993 film version by Gus Van Sant. His last work, published in 2014, was '' Tibetan Peach Pie'', a self-declared "un-memoir". Early life Robbins was born on July 22, 1932, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to George Thomas Robbins and Katherine Belle Robinson. Both of his grandfathers were Southern Baptist preachers. The Robbins family lived in Blowing Rock before moving to Warsaw, Virginia, when the author was still a young boy. In adulthood, Robbins described his young self as being a "hillbilly". Robbins attended Warsaw High School (class of 1949) and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, where he won the Senior Essay Medal. The next year he enro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cliff Pickover
Clifford Alan Pickover (born August 15, 1957) is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, where he was editor-in-chief of the ''IBM Journal of Research and Development''. He has been granted more than 700 U.S. patents, is an elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and is author of more than 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages. Pickover.com Life, education and career Pickover graduated first in his class from Franklin and Marshall College, after completing the four-year undergraduate program in three years. He received his PhD in 1982 from Yale University's Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, where he conducted research on X-ray scattering and protein structure. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Pinchbeck
Daniel Pinchbeck is an American author and journalist. His books include '' Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism'', the New York Times best seller ''2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl'', ''Notes from the Edge Times, How Soon is Now,'' and ''When Plants Dream.'' He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Art Forum, The Village Voice, and Esquire. He is a co-founder of the web magazine ''Reality Sandwich'' and of the website Evolver.net, and he edited the North Atlantic Books publishing imprint Evolver Editions. He was featured in the 2010 documentary ''2012: Time for Change'', directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He is the founder of the think tank Center for Planetary Culture, which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki. Family and background Pinchbeck's father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter, and his mother, writer a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Hicks
William Melvin Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian and satirist. His material— encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy— was controversial and often steeped in dark comedy. At the age of 16, Hicks began performing at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas. During the 1980s, he toured the United States extensively and made a number of high-profile television appearances, but he amassed a significant fan base in the United Kingdom, filling large venues during his 1991 tour. He also achieved some recognition as a guitarist and songwriter. Hicks died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994, at the age of 32. In subsequent years, his work gained significant acclaim in creative circles—particularly after a series of posthumous album releases—and he developed a substantial cult following. In 2007, he was number six on Channel 4's list of the "100 Greatest Stand-Up Comics", and rose t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Abraham (mathematician)
Ralph Herman Abraham (July 4, 1936 – September 19, 2024) was an American mathematician. In 1968 he became a member of the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and later stayed on as a professor emeritus of mathematics. Life and work Abraham earned his BSE (1956), MS (1958), and PhD (1960) from the University of Michigan. His PhD thesis, titled ''Discontinuities in General Relativity'', was written under the direction of Nathaniel Coburn. Prior to joining UCSC, he held positions at the University of California, Berkeley (research lecturer in mathematics; 1960–1962), Columbia University (postdoctoral fellow and assistant professor of mathematics; 1962–1964) and Princeton University (assistant professor of mathematics; 1964–1968). He has also held visiting positions in Amsterdam, Paris, Warwick, Barcelona, Basel, and Florence. He founded the Visual Math Institute at UCSC in 1975; at that time, it was called the "Visual Mathematics Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
