ME AND THE BIOSPHERES:
A MEMOIR BY THE INVENTOR OF
BIOSPHERE 2

By John Allen

Paperback ISBN 9780907791379
Retail to be determined

Visit the official website here

You would think it would take several lifetimes to attend four universities, earn degrees in engineering, metallurgical-mining, writing, classics, world history, anthropology and business (including a MBA from Harvard), co-found a theater company, earn a reputation as an important novelist, poet, playwright, and documentary film maker, travel to Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Tibet, Turkey, India and Mexico (and stay long enough in each to study their ecologies and the histories of their early civilizations), become a fellow of the Linnean Society, Explorer’s Club, World Academy of Art and Science and the chairman of Global Ecotechnics Corporation (and as such, design, set up and oversee ecological projects in France, Australia, Puerto Rico and England) and still find 15 years to contemplate, develop, and oversee experiments at Biosphere 2, one of the most exciting and inspiring research projects ever created. Yet the extraordinary John Allen (known to his poetry, fiction and drama fans as Johnny Dolphin and to his friends and admirers in the sciences as the “Indiana Jones of ecological science”) has completed all of the above in his first 70 plus years and may very well have several additional incarnations planned for the future.

Next on his long list of extraordinary achievements, however, is seeing the publication of his latest book, ME AND THE BIOSPHERES:  A MEMOIR BY THE INVENTOR OF BIOSPHERE 2, is chronicles not only his adventures, but the driving forces behind them: his relentless passion for art and science, his understanding of the sacred place where the two overlap, and his unbridled curiosity about life generally.

In particular ME AND THE BIOSPHERES chronicles his invention of Biosphere 2 (the first Biosphere is Earth itself), which was constructed in Oracle, Arizona between 1987 and 1989 to be a three-plus acre artificial closed ecological system (an airtight replica of Earth’s environment). Biosphere 2 contained five biomes, including a 900,000-gallon ocean, a rain forest, a desert, agricultural areas, and a human habitat. In 1991, a colony of eight people from seven different countries began a two-year habitation of Biosphere 2. In 1993, a second crew of seven moved in. Experiments conducted in Biosphere 2 continue to be useful to many different scientific communities, including those which study space colonization, health, environment, culture and, most importantly, the role of humanity in Earth’s biosphere.

The joys of reading ME AND THE BIOSPHERE are twofold: We are offered the opportunity to spend time in the company of John Allen, one of the most diversely creative minds of our times; and we are able to look over his shoulder as he sets about creating the world’s largest self-sustaining ecosystem.

John Allen (also known as Johnny Dolphin) is an American visionary, poet, author, scientist and inventor. He has dedicated his life to art, science, cultures and the relationship between humanity and the biosphere.

Read the first chapter of Me and The Biospheres

October 2008

BIRTH OF PSYCHEDELIC CULTURE: CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LEARY, THE HARVARD EXPERIMENTS, MILLBROOK, AND THE SIXTIES

By Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner
With Gary Bravo

Paperback ISBN 9780907791386

The popularity of films like What the #S*! Do We Know? might suggest that we are only just getting around to questioning the nature of consciousness.  In fact, those who lived through the turbulent sixties will recall that there was indeed an exceedingly earnest and widespread movement at the time which, had it not been for controversies over the movement’s approach and the technological acceleration and eliminative materialism that erupted in the decade following, might have continued uninterrupted.  Now, at a time when we find ourselves back at square one in our attempt to illuminate the truth about the human mind and its spiritual connections, we would be wise to reflect on the results of the work of the most influential pioneers of the sixties.

Birth of Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about the Harvard Experiments, Leary, Millbrook and the Sixties shines a bright light on the climate of the sixties and experiments undertaken by Professors Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and then-graduate student Ralph Metzner.  Based on a series of recent (2003 to 2005) conversations between the survivors of that distinguished trio, Metzner and Alpert, facilitated by psychiatrist/writer Gary Bravo, the book describes their initial experiments with mind-altering substances while at Harvard.  It goes on to cover experiments they conducted after being dismissed from Harvard, their trips to India and their reflections looking back through time at all of the above. It is filled with intriguing photographs marking and illuminating the events brought to life through the text.

Experiment advisors, supporters and participants who appear in the pages of this astonishing account include Aldus Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Arthur Koestler, William Burroughs, and many other well-known personalities from that time period. Other participants include convicts, graduate students, and Vedantist monks.  In addition to an overview of the experiments themselves, the conversations in this book offer vividly-recalled descriptions of particular trips, providing many insights into the nature of hallucinogens and the possibility of transcending social conditioning.

No understanding of the history of the sixties would be complete without some grasp of the work of Leary, Alpert and Metzner, the backlash to their experiments, and the way in which drug use became absorbed into society thereafter.  Nor can any diligent attempt to study the spectrum of the human mind exclude what we have learned from them about the impact of psychedelic drugs. 

Dr. Richard Alpert, also known as Baba Ram Dass, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who is the author of the bestseller BE HERE NOW. Along with Timothy Leary, he was dismissed from his professorship at Harvard University in the early 1960s for his experiments on the effects of psychedelic drugs on human subjects. He is also known for his travels to India and his association with the Hindu guru, Neem Karoli Baba. He is the founder of several organizations dedicated to expanding spiritual awareness.

Ralph Metzner is the author of several books, including THE PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE, which he co-wrote with Leary and Alpert. Dr. Metzner is currently a psychotherapist, and a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was formerly the president. He has been involved in consciousness research, including psychedelics, Yoga, meditation, and Shamanism, for over 40 years. He is a co-founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, a non-profit educational organization devoted to healing and harmonizing the relationship between humans and the Earth.  Currently, he is working on developing the foundations of ecological consciousness or Green Psychology.

Gary Bravo, a staff psychiatrist for Sonoma County Mental Health in Santa Rosa, CA, has written numerous articles on psychedelics, psychiatry and transpersonal psychology.