Portrait of William Irwin Thompson

William Irwin Thompson

July 16, 1938 – November 8, 2020

William Irwin Thompson was an American cultural historian, poet, and public philosopher whose work moved fluidly between scholarship and speculation. Restless with the boundaries of academic life, he explored sweeping themes—from ancient myth to planetary futures—through a lens that was part history, part poetry, and part prophetic vision. His books and lectures combined science, spirituality, and art, challenging the idea that knowledge must be confined to a single discipline.

In 1972, Thompson founded the Lindisfarne Association, an intentional intellectual community named after the medieval monastic center famous for preserving knowledge in turbulent times. Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s integral philosophy of organism and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of planetary consciousness, Lindisfarne brought together scientists, artists, mystics, and activists to explore humanity’s role in the evolving Earth. The association became a hub for conversations about ecology, consciousness, and culture’s deep patterns—an experiment in living thought at the edge of the future.

WIKIPEDIA ➦

1 Document

Filter

Sort

Alphabetic

Date

Duration

Word Count

Popularity

Mentioned in 5 documents

Donald Dulchinos

Neurosphere

According to Donald Dulchinos, the real action on the Internet isn’t in the realm of commerce. It is, plain and simple, in the realm of religion. But not exactly that old-time religion. This book is about the spiritual impact of our increasing ability to communicate quickly and with enhanced evolution. It's about our search for meaning, our hunger for a glimpse at humanity's future development in which, frighteningly or excitingly, the trend is clearly toward increasing integration of telecommunications and information technology with the body itself. Electronic prosthetics, direct neural implants, and the brain's control of electronic and mechanical limbs move the boundary that used to exist between human and machine to some undefined frontier inside our bodies, our brains, and, perhaps, our minds.

Erik Davis

TechGnosis

How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? While the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Erik Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online role-playing games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

Paolo Soleri

Technology and Cosmogenesis

A hopeful antidote to the destruction of man's environment caused by technology divorced from spirituality. Paolo Soleri, the renowned architect, urban planner, process philosopher and alchemist of the new spirituality of science and technology, challenges us to let go of our absolutized views of human life and creation. By this release, he holds that we can be healed by a cosmos in the process of becoming divine.

Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham

The Evolutionary Mind

What could have been the cause for the breakthrough in the evolution of human consciousness around 50,000 years ago? Part of the Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable held at the University of California.

Joanna Macy

World as Lover, World as Self

This overview of Joanna Macy's innovative work combines deep ecology, general systems theory, and the Buddha's teachings on interdependent co-arising. A blueprint for social change, World as Lover, World as Self shows how we can reverse the destructive attitudes that threaten our world.