Willis W. Harman (August 16, 1918 – January 30, 1997) was an American engineer,

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

, and author associated with the

human potential movement The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...

. He was convinced that late industrial civilization faced a period of major cultural crisis which called for a profound transformation of human consciousness. Over a career lasting some four decades, he worked to raise public awareness on the subject through his writings and to foster relevant research through the nonprofit research institute

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

, the

Institute of Noetic Sciences The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is an American non-profit parapsychological research institute. It was co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell,Pfeffer, Elizabeth''Stars aligned: Astronaut's mission seeks to answer life's b ...

(IONS), and the

World Business Academy In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

(WBA). He served as president of IONS for two decades, and he was a cofounder of the WBA. His many books include volumes coauthored with the futurist

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities (a t ...

, who put forward similar views, and the mythologist

Joseph Campbell Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the ...

Early life and education

Willis W. Harman was born in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

on August 16, 1918. His father was a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

engineer and his mother was a music teacher.Cornish, Edward, ed. "Futurists and Their Ideas". In ''The study of the future: an introduction to the art and science of understanding and shaping tomorrow's world''. Transaction Publishers, 1977, pp. 157–62. He attended the

Western Washington College of Education Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...

before moving on to graduate from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 1939 with a BS in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. After graduation, he worked for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

and then joined the Navy as an electrical officer. He was stationed on the

USS Maryland (BB-46) USS ''Maryland'' (BB-46), also known as "Old Mary" or "Fighting Mary" to her crewmates, was a . She was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the seventh state. She was commissioned in 1921, and serving as the flag ...

but was ashore at his home near

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

during the 1941

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Harman received his MS in physics and

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in electrical engineering from

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 ...

in 1948.

Academic career

Harman taught for several years at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

before joining the Stanford faculty in 1952 to teach electrical engineering and physics. In 1966, his faculty line was transferred from the Department of Electrical Engineering to the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems (since absorbed by the Department of Management Science and Engineering) at the behest of founding chair Bill Linvill. In 1954, he attended a summer seminar on ethics, meditation, and the spiritual life that had a transformative effect on both his thinking and his career.Harman, Willis. Untitled chapter in Frederick Franck, Janis Roze, and Richard Connolly, eds., ''What Does It Mean to Be Human?'', pp. 79-80. He later said of this experience that it "opened up vast areas I didn't even know were there. It completely changed my concept of what is important in education, and in time led to various activities in the field of humanistic psychology." Harman became convinced that Western culture was facing a spiritual and moral crisis stemming from the ravages of industrialism and its economic logic, which he came to call the "World Macroproblem".Gibson, Donald. ''Environmentalism: Ideology and Power'', p. 66. As Harman saw it, "If you look at the assumptions underlying our economic system – especially the ones regarding the prerogatives of ownership – and then you look at the goals we humans have about how we want to live our lives, there is no compatibility. The assumptions can never lead to the goals." In his view, this crisis that called for development of both an "ecological ethic" and a "self-realization ethic". In short, society needed to transform its institutions to support the personal development of individual human beings within an environment of limited resources. Because Harman considered humans an integral part of the natural world, he saw individual self-realization and environmental sustainability as synergistic rather than contradictory paths forward. Harman also recognized the large (and often problematic) role that unconscious processes play in human culture and foresaw that work was needed to better understand how such processes might be harnessed in positive ways. Harman incorporated his new perspective in a popular Stanford graduate seminar called "The Human Potential" that covered topics ranging from

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally cal ...

psychedelic drugs Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

.Roberts, Thomas B. ''Psychedelic Horizons'', n.p. In 1980, he was appointed a

regent of the University of California The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university sy ...

by Governor

Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...

."Willis W. Harman"
''SFGate'', February 6, 1997. He served as a regent for ten years.

SRI International

From 1967 to 1984, Harman held joint appointments as a senior social scientist at

and director of SRI's Educational Policy Research Center. There he initiated a research program focused on solving the problems posed by uncontrolled industrial development. This work led to his 1976 book ''An Incomplete Guide to the Future'', with its vision of a transindustrial society. Unlike many futurists, Harman did not believe that the future was predictable simply by projecting current trends; consequently, a hallmark of his work is his ability to conceive ideas about the future that don't clearly stem from present tendencies. At SRI, Harman recruited

Alfred Matthew Hubbard Alfred Matthew Hubbard (July 24, 1901 – August 31, 1982), was an early proponent for the drug LSD during the 1950s. He is reputed to have been the "Johnny Appleseed of LSD" and the first person to emphasize LSD's potential as a visionary or tra ...

to the Alternative Futures Project, one of the goals of which was to introduce business and thought leaders to

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

Institute of Noetic Sciences

Harman was invited by astronaut

Edgar Mitchell Edgar Dean Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hour ...

and writer/speaker Christopher Hegarty ("How to Manage Your Boss") to join the

(IONS) in

Sausalito Sausalito (Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sausalito's p ...

in 1973, the year it was founded. He went on to serve as its president from 1978 until his death in 1997. He described IONS' mission as bringing science and religion back together, though in ways that would require fundamental changes in both."Encouraging a 'Global Mind Change'". ''Yoga Journal'', Sept.-Oct. 1989, pp. 64-65. Harman was in charge of "Global Mind Change", then one of four major IONS programs, and was a prophet of Social Media and the Internet. Besides supporting Harman's 1988 book of the same title, it sponsored citizen tours of the USSR and other activities.

World Business Academy

In 1987, Harman cofounded the

with

Rinaldo Brutoco Rinaldo S. Brutoco (born in Toronto, Canada on February 27, 1947) is an attorney and corporate executive. He was raised in Southern California and has remained in California ever since. Education In 1968, Brutoco graduated from Santa Clara U ...

and other businesspeople.Harman, Willis
"Why a World Business Academy?"
World Business Academy website. Originally published 1987. The WBA grew out of his conviction that business would play a critical role in the period of profound social transformation that Harman foresaw. Its goal was to foster smoother change by helping business leaders assume new roles of social responsibility.

Family and death

In 1941, Harman married Charlene Reamer, who survived him. They had three daughters (Billie, Mary, and Susan) and a son, Dean. Harman died of brain cancer."Willis W. Harman; Former UC Regent, Author, Social Scientist"
''Los Angeles Times'', February 5, 1997.

Quotes

:"A noetic science—a science of consciousness and the world of inner experience—is the most promising contemporary framework within which to carry on that fundamental moral inquiry which stable human societies have always had to place at the center of their concerns."White, John. "Homo Noeticus". In John Weber, ed., ''An Illustrated Guide to The Lost Symbol'', p. 122. :"Business has become, in this last half-century, the most powerful institution on the planet; it is critical that the dominant institution in any society take responsibility for the whole, as the church did in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. But business has not had such a tradition." :"The assumptions about economic progress seemed to work rather well during the time when you could equate material progress with general benefit. But that equation doesn’t work anymore. We now have a system that works to the benefit of the few and penalizes masses of people today and in the future."" Transformation Of Business"
An interview with Willis Harman by Sarah van Gelder. ''In Context'', no. 41, 1995. :"All the things that I had been taught all of my life were of value clearly were of no value at all. In a few instants they would be gone. But one thing is of value—and only one.

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

called it 'the Supreme Identity'—the identification with the Divine."

Selected works

*''Biology Revisioned'' (with Elizabet Sahtouris, 1998) *''Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century'' (2nd ed., 1998) *''The New Business of Business: Taking Responsibility for a Positive Global Future'' (with Maya Porter, 1997) * ''Intuition at Work: Pathways to Unlimited Possibilities'' (with Roger Franz and Joel Levey, 1996) *''The New Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science'' (with Jane Clark, 1994) *''New Traditions in Business: Spirit and Leadership in the 21st Century'' (1991) *''Creative Work: The Constructive Role of Business N A Transforming Society'' (1991) *''Global Mind Change: The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think'' (1988/1990) *''Paths to Peace'' (with Richard Smoke, 1987) *''Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insight'' (with

, 1984) *''Energy Futures, Human Values and Life Styles'' (1982) *''Changing Images of Man'' (with

and O. W. Markley, 1982) * ''An Incomplete Guide to the Future'' (1976/1979) * ''Principles of the Statistical Theory of Communication'' (1963) * ''Fundamentals of Electronic Motion'' (1953)

References

External links

Video interview with Willis Harman
* *
World Business Academy website

Institute of Noetic Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harman, Willis American electrical engineers New Age writers University of Washington College of Engineering alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Stanford University School of Engineering faculty SRI International people University of Florida faculty University of California regents 1918 births 1997 deaths Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American academics