13 Facts About Richard Tarnas

Richard Theodore Tarnas is a cultural historian and astrologer known for his books The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View.

Tarnas' father, named Richard Tarnas, worked as a government contract attorney, former president of the Michigan Federal Bar Association, and professor of law.

Richard Tarnas's mother, Mary Louise, was a teacher and homemaker.

In 1974 Richard Tarnas went to Esalen in California to study psychotherapy with Stanislav Grof.

Richard Tarnas served as Esalen's director of programs and education.

From 1980 to 1990, Richard Tarnas wrote The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View, a narrative history of Western thought which became a bestseller and remained in use in universities as of 2000.

Richard Tarnas is the founding director of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he remains a core faculty member as of 2020.

Richard Tarnas suggests that the characteristics associated with the mythological figure Uranus do not match the astrological properties of the planet Uranus, and that a more appropriate identification would involve the mythological figure Prometheus.

In 2006, Richard Tarnas published his third book, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View.

Richard Tarnas featured in the 2006 film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within, a documentary about rediscovering an enchanted cosmos in the modern world.

In 2008 Richard Tarnas was invited to address members of the Dutch Parliament about creating a sustainable society.

In 2007 John Cleese and Richard Tarnas gave some public lectures together at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and in Santa Barbara.

Cleese and Richard Tarnas then taught a seminar at CIIS called "The Comic Genius: A Multidisciplinary Approach".