Robert Evan Ornstein (August 21, 1942 – December 20, 2018) The web page gives the birth year as 1942. was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

, researcher and author. He taught at the

Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute The Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute (LPPI) is a psychiatric teaching hospital, part of the Psychiatry Department at the University of California, San Francisco. It is located at 401 Parnassus Avenue at Hillway Avenue on the Parnassus campus o ...

, based at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and was professor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and founder and chairman of the

Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK) is a non-profit educational charityISHK is a 501(c)3 educational corporation, incorporated in the State of California. Federal Tax ID #94-1705600. and publisher established in 1969 by the psy ...

(ISHK).

Life

Early life and education

Robert Evan Ornstein was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York, USA, and grew up in the city. He was twice high school math champion in a city-wide contest, and "wavered between physics and poetry before compromising on psychology" at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

's Queens College. In 1964 he was awarded a bachelor's degree in psychology at Queens College, and went on to gain a PhD at

, California in 1968. His doctoral thesis was ''On the Experience of Time''.

Career

Ornstein was involved in reconciling the scientific understanding of mind and

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

with other scientific and cultural traditions. His work has been featured in a 1974 ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine article entitled ''Hemispheric Thinker''. In 1969 Ornstein founded the

(ISHK) an educational 501(c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to cross-cultural understanding and to bringing important research on human nature to the general public, most recently The Human Journey website. He was the President of ISHK until his death. Ornstein's book ''The Right Mind'' deals with

split-brain Split-brain or callosal syndrome is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of, or interference wit ...

studies and other experiments or clinical evidence revealing the abilities of the right

cerebral hemisphere The vertebrate cerebrum (brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres ...

. He also wrote on the brain's role in health in ''The Healing Brain'' with David Sobel of

Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente (; KP), commonly known simply as Kaiser, is an American integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. Kaiser P ...

; the way in which human consciousness is unable to understand the fast paced modern world in ''New World New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious Evolution'' with

Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...

; and the way in which our current consciousness has developed in ''The Axemaker's Gift'', with James Burke, a book that addressed the way in which Western culture has developed and our minds along with it. Ornstein worked to reconcile the wisdom traditions of the East and science in ''The Psychology of Consciousness'' and was interested in promoting the modern

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Arko ...

. Shah and Ornstein met in the 1960s. Ornstein's ''The Psychology of Consciousness'' (1972) New Series. Published by

Blackwell Publishing Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

for the AAA. was enthusiastically received by the academic psychology community, as it coincided with new interests in the field, such as the study of

biofeedback Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiology, physiological functions of one's own body by using Electronics, electronic or other instruments, and with a goal of being able to Manipulation (psychology), manipulate t ...

and other techniques designed to achieve shifts in mood and awareness. ''The Psychology of Consciousness'' and ''The Evolution of Consciousness'' introduced the two modes of consciousness of the left and right brain hemispheres and a critical understanding of how the brain evolved. Ornstein considered these, along with his latest book, ''God 4.0: On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called "God"'', his most important writings. The three books together provide a fundamental reconsideration of ancient religious and spiritual traditions in the light of advances in brain science and psychology, exploring the potential and relevance of this knowledge to contemporary needs and to our shared future.

Death

Robert Ornstein died on December 20, 2018. He is survived by his wife, Sally Mallam; his brother Alan Ornstein; sister-in-law Rachel Hawk, and niece Jessie Ornstein.

Partial bibliography

Books written

* ''On the Experience of Time'' (

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Harcourt Brace Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...

, 1972). ** ''4th rev. ed.'' (

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Claudio Naranjo Claudio Benjamín Naranjo Cohen (24 November 1932 – 12 July 2019) was a Chilean-born psychiatrist who is considered a pioneer in integrating psychotherapy and the spiritual traditions. He was one of the three successors named by Fritz Perls ( ...

(

Allen & Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It went on to become one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and to establish an ...

, 1973) * ''The Mind Field'' (

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...

, 1976) ** ''paperback'' (Malor Books, 1996) * ''The Amazing Brain'', with Richard F. Thompson (

Houghton Mifflin Company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financ ...

, 1984) * ''Multimind'' (

, 1986) * ''The Healing Brain'', with David Sobel (

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, 1987). * ''New World, New Mind: Moving Towards Conscious Evolution'', co-authored with

Paul R. Ehrlich Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is an American biologist known for his warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources. He is the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of St ...

( Methuen, 1989) *''The Evolution of Consciousness'', illustrated by

Ted Dewan TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depart ...

(

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

US, 1991) *'' The Roots of the Self'', illustrated by

(

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

US, 1993) *''The Axemaker’s Gift'', with James Burke, illustrated by

(

G. P. Putnam's Sons G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. History The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam and J ...

US, 1995) * ''The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres'' ( Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997) * ''MindReal: How the Mind Creates its Own Virtual Reality'' illustrated by

(Malor Books, 2008) * ''Humanity on a Tightrope: Thoughts on Empathy, Family, and Big Changes for a Viable Future'' co-author

(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010)) * ''God 4.0: On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called "God"'', with Sally M. Ornstein (Malor Books, 2021)

Books edited

* (Hardcover) * (Paperback)

Academic monographs

* ''Physiological Studies of Consciousness'' (

Institute for Cultural Research The Institute for Cultural Research (ICR) was a London-based, UK-registered educational charity,The Institute for Cultural Research's UK registered charity number is 313295.

, 1973)Robert E. Ornstein, ''Physiological studies of consciousness'', ICR Monograph Series No. 11,

, 1973, .

References

External links

*
Official YouTube channel

The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge

The Human Journey website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ornstein, Robert 1942 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American psychologists American non-fiction writers University of California, San Francisco faculty Stanford University faculty Sufi psychology Queens College, City University of New York alumni Stanford University alumni People associated with The Institute for Cultural Research Writers about religion and science