Willis W. Harman

Peace on Earth The Impossible Dream Become Possible

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is collaborating with the U.N. University for Peace in a research program aimed at identifying the essential minimum conditions for sustained global peace. This paper is an input into that research process. It is made available to stimulate thought and to invite critique.

Humanistic Capitalism: Another Alternative

WILLIS W. HARMAN is Director of the Center for the Study of Social Pohcy, Stanford Research Institute, and Professor of Engmeermg-Economic Systems, Stanford Umversity. His academic background mcludes a BS and PhD m Electrical Engmeenng and an MS m Physics. He has been on the faculty of Engmeering at Stanford and other universities since 1949 and has written several engmeenng texts and vanous professional papers. For a period, Bill was active m the Association for Humanistic Psychology, servmg as a member of the Executive Board and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. He has pubhshed several research papers in this field and authored a chapter in Challenges of Humanistic Psychology (edited by Bugental) entitled &dquo;Old Wme m New Wmeskms.&dquo; &dquo;

LSD: Therapeutic Effects of the Psychedelic Experience

Preliminary results of a study of psychedelic therapy are reported. Patients receive LSD and mescaline in a supportive setting following intensive preparation. Subjective questionnaire data from 113 patients reveal a high frequency of claimed benefit, low frequency of negative reaction, and a high relation between claimed benefit and reported “greater awareness of ultimate reality” through the LSD experience. Clinical data on 74 cases including blind ratings of MMPI profiles substantiate the claimed improvement rate. Cases in each of five improvement categories are summarized and before, 2-mo.-after, and 6-mo.-after MMPI data are included. Total improvement rate is above 80%. Follow-ups range from 6 mo. to 2 yr.

The New Copernican Revolution

Let us suppose for a moment that we are back in the year 1600, concerned with forecasting probable future trends. In retrospect it is clear that one of the most significant events in progress was what came later to be called the Copernican revolution. Would our futurist researches have picked this up? They might have, if we were looking at the right things. What was the essence of this remarkable transformation that started with the brash suggestions of Nicholas Copernicus and Giordano Bruno and led to consequences as diverse as a

Science and the Clarification of Values: Implications of Recent Findings in Psychological and Psychic Research1

Willis has been a futurist at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) for over 14 years, focusing on interpretation of contemporary cultural and social change. He is also, since 1977, President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell to foster development of a science of human consciousness. He has been a faculty member of Stanford’s School of Engineering for 30 years, and was recently appointed a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California. His book An Incomplete Guide to the Future (W. W. Norton, 1979) is both a personal statement and an interpretation of the present moment in history.

Rationale for Good Choosing

The following is adapted from my keynote address to the A ugust 1979 annual meeting of the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology at Asilomar. If I were to choose one impact of a science of human consciousness that would do the most to transform society, it would be in the area described below—the way choice is guided, the way we choose the future. It is basically the way choices are guided which makes industrial society different from the Middle Ages and which will make transindustrial society different from the industrial society we have known.

The Umanities in an Age of Science

Many persons today question the meaningfulness of the traditional formulations of some of the basic questions which have been asked in the humanities, and also the validity of the introspective means by which answers have been sought. These challengers often appear to have behind them the great weight of the scientific progress of recent centuries. The basic issue on which the behavioral scientist and the scientific humanist appear to differ so from the poet, the artist, or the religious philosopher has to do with the physical and the spiritual aspects of reality. Predominately, the scientist tends to operate on the implicit assumption that only the physical or sense-perceived world has reality; the poet and the mystic live in both worlds. The behavioral scientist tends to see values as culturally generated and acquired, the poet, as inherent in the structure of things. Questions about the nature of reality are not to be decided by disputation among ourselves, but by conducting such experiments as will enable us to discern what that nature really is. The nature of such experiments and suggestions for the possible resolution of this basic issue form the subject matter of this paper.