24 Facts About Richard Alpert

Richard Alpert's best-selling 1971 book Be Here Now, which has been described by multiple reviewers as "seminal", helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West.

In 1967, Richard Alpert traveled to India and became a disciple of Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba who gave him the name Ram Dass, meaning "Servant of Ram," but usually rendered as simply "Servant of God" for western audiences.

Richard Alpert traveled extensively giving talks and retreats and holding fundraisers for charitable causes in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

Richard Alpert eventually grew to interpret this event as an act of grace, learning to speak again and continuing to teach and write books.

Richard Alpert's parents were Gertrude and George Alpert, a lawyer in Boston.

Richard Alpert considered himself an atheist during his early life.

Richard Alpert achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Tufts University in 1952.

Richard Alpert's father had wanted him to go to medical school, but while at Tufts he decided to study psychology instead.

Richard Alpert wrote his doctoral thesis on "achievement anxiety", receiving his PhD in Psychology from Stanford in 1957.

Richard Alpert then taught at Stanford for one year, and began psychoanalysis.

McClelland moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to teach at Harvard University, and helped Richard Alpert accept a tenure-track position there in 1958 as an assistant clinical psychology professor.

Richard Alpert worked with the Social Relations Department, the Psychology Department, the Graduate School of Education, and the Health Service, where he was a therapist.

Richard Alpert specialized in human motivation and personality development, and published his first book Identification and Child Rearing.

Richard Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 "Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experience.

Leary and Richard Alpert were formally dismissed from Harvard in 1963.

Richard Alpert co-authored LSD with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller in 1966.

In 1967 Richard Alpert gave talks at the League for Spiritual Discovery's center in Greenwich Village.

In 1967, Richard Alpert traveled to India where he met American spiritual seeker Bhagavan Das, and later met Neem Karoli Baba.

Richard Alpert corresponded with Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba and mentioned Baba in several of his books.

Richard Alpert founded the Hanuman Foundation, a nonprofit educational and service organization that initiated the Prison-Ashram Project, in 1974.

Richard Alpert co-founded the Seva Foundation by joining with health-care workers to treat the blind in India, Nepal, and developing countries.

Richard Alpert continued to make public appearances and to give talks at small venues; held retreats in Maui; and continued to teach through live webcasts.

Richard Alpert has come to Maui, where I live and write.

Richard Alpert died on December 22,2019, at the age of 88.