Synergetic Press was founded in 1969 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After 40 years of publishing, we are still fiercely independent. We believe that our job as publishers is to advance the most relevant and far-reaching work we can find in the fields of biosphere science, ethnobotany, cultures.
We publish works that are timeless, and we keep them in print. Since our inception, one of our primary concerns has been the relationship between people and the environment.
In
2009 we published John Allen’s ME
& THE BIOSPHERES: A MEMOIR BY THE INVENTOR OF BIOSPHERE 2,
winner of the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award for Best
Autobiography in 2010, and Best Biography/Memoir in 2009 New Mexico
Book awards, this is the definitive autobiography of one of the most
luminous minds of our time. See below or click the Biospherics tab
for more information.
ISBN 978-0-907791-37-9
Paperback
$39.95
In 2010 we
published BIRTH
OF A PSYCHEDELIC CULTURE -- Conversations about Leary, 
the
Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties, by Ram Dass and
Ralph Metzner, an in-depth examination of the legacy
of the 1960's by the two surviving facilitators of the mind-altering
Harvard experiments that touched off a revolution in psychology.
For more info, or to order, click
here.
ISBN 9780907791386
* PAPERBACK * 264 PGS *
$29.95
Our backlist includes books such classics in ethnobotany as VINE OF THE SOUL: MEDICINE MEN, THEIR PLANTS AND RITUALS IN THE COLOMBIAN AMAZONIA by Richard Evans Schultes and Robert F. Raffauf; WHERE THE GODS REIGN: PLANTS AND PEOPLES OF THE COLOMBIAN AMAZON, also by Schultes; and the AYAHUASCA READER: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE AMAZON"S SACRED VINE, edited by Luis Eduardo Luna and Steven F. White.
There are often subtle ties between our titles. For instance, Richard Evans Schultes mentored Timothy Leary, Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner at Harvard. The classic film documentary on Ornette Coleman, ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA, directed by Shirley Clarke and produced by Synergetic Press’ founder, Kathelin Hoffman Gray, features contributions from some of our authors, most notably William S. Burroughs (UNCOMMON QUOTES, Audio Book) and John Allen, who also writes fiction and poetry under his nom de plume, Johnny Dolphin.
The creation of Biosphere 2 by John Allen was a continuation of the pioneering work of seminal Russo-Ukrainian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, whose essays on GEOCHEMISTRY AND THE BIOSPHERE we released in their first authoritative English translation in 2006.
There is an active synergy between our selections: our writers inspire one another and inspire their readers. In an age of apathy and materialism, our authors challenge readers to want more for themselves and their planet and to rise to their fullest potential as mindful beings.
RECENT RELEASES
ISBN 9780907791409 NOVEMBER 2011 |
FAR OUT AND FAR AWAYJohnny Dolphin FAR OUT AND FAR AWAY A NOVEL OF EMERGENT EVOLUTION portrays humankind’s colonization of a planet called Lichen some fifteen thousand light years distance from Earth’s solar system and some twenty thousand into the future. Scientist-poet-author Johnny Dolphin has imagined what we humans could become
were we willing to consciously participate in our own
evolution. He sings a vivid story of space exploration
beyond our Sun by nomadic explorers called Mongols, all
told with humor and poetic PERILOUS PASSAGEby Terry Wilson This story is an account of Wilson's lifetime apprenticeship under the master shamanic practitioner, Brion Gysin, the hidden master of the avant-garde, of whom William Burroughs said, "He is the only man I respect." The book focuses on events as they developed just prior to and after Gysin's death in 1986. This book details the extreme psychic "Third Mind" effects known as The Process, and includes transcribed audio hallucinations, notes, cut-ups, the interview format, and collaged material. Perilous Passage is a cautionary tale about the uses and abuses of power, a paranoid espionage thriller. Like Gysin and Burroughs, Wilson treats language itself as a parasitic invader which must be resisted, broken up and reassembled. This book is about how the magic was passed on and carried into the future.
Ian MacFadyen, The London Magazine, Dec/Jan 2006
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Me and the Biospheres:
A Memoir by the Inventor of Biosphere 2
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Anyone suffering from the Global Warming Blues will cherish this uplifting account of the most ambitious environmental experiment of our time: Biosphere 2, a miniature Earth under glass, the world’s largest laboratory for global ecology. John Allen’s memoir, Me and the Biospheres is a rich and complex narrative, filled with rollicking adventure, exceptional camaraderie and mind-bending science. Almost as astonishing as the structure is the story of how it came to be. Back in 1969, Biosphere 2 was a mere seed in the luminous mind of writer, actor, philosopher, inventor, and scientist John Allen. He prepared for the manifestation of Biosphere 2 by assembling smaller projects: the creation of a ship to study ocean and river ecologies and cultures; a rainforest enrichment project; a theater group; a world-class art gallery and more. As awe-inspiring as the great cathedrals, Biosphere 2’s building and operation demanded the efforts of the most diverse team of scientists, engineers, artists and thinkers from around the world with whom John Allen worked closely for decades. Me and the Biospheres also is an account of the singular life John Allen has led: his travels to Egypt, Vietnam, Nepal, Tibet and India, his meetings with people like Buckminster Fuller, William Burroughs, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman. From building developments in Iran to adobe houses in New Mexico, from Harvard Business School to cafés in Tangiers, from board meetings in Fort Worth to mystical moments with Sufi sages, John Allen has impacted millions of people with manifest integrity. His humorous and Whitmanesque memoir is a tribute to the ingenuity and dauntlessness of the human mind. Me and the Biospheres is a passionate call to reawaken to the beauty of our peerless home, Biosphere 1, the Earth. VISIT THE OFFICIAL BOOK AND AUTHOR SITE HERE, www.meandthebiospheres.com
Praise for Me and the Biospheres Mark Twain once famously said that reasonable men bend themselves to the ways of the world therefore it stands to reason that only unreasonable men can change it … John Allen is an unreasonable man, a visionary, a poet and a true polymath which makes him a square peg in a very round hole and this gets up the noses of people who want business as usual even if what they are doing quite plainly doesn't work. Tim Smit, Founder and Chief Executive, Eden Project, Cornwall, England
The Biosphere 2 project was surely one of the great scientific and technological enterprises of our time. Building a working model of the Earth’s biosphere is essential preparation for the coming era of space travel and manned exploration of other worlds. |
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In Memory of Ira Cohen We at Synergetic Press regret to announce the passing of our friend and author Ira Cohen, poet, film artist, photographer, and literary shaman. Ira Cohen was born in New York City to deaf parents, learning to spell with his fingers at the age of one (which may help to explain his acute sensitivity to the tactile and visual quality of words). Often called the “Father of Mylar Photography,” Ira Cohen was an extraordinary creative force, influencing and inspiring people all over the globe. He died of renal failure April 25th in the city of his birth and will be much missed. For a full obituary, see: New York Times |
Photo by Ira Landgarten |
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