17 Facts About Willis Harman

Willis W Harman was an American engineer, futurist, and author associated with the human potential movement.

Willis Harman was convinced that late industrial civilization faced a period of major cultural crisis which called for a profound transformation of human consciousness.

Willis Harman served as president of IONS for two decades, and he was a cofounder of the WBA.

Willis W Harman was born in Seattle, Washington on August 16,1918.

Willis Harman's father was a hydroelectric engineer and his mother was a music teacher.

Willis Harman was stationed on the USS Maryland but was ashore at his home near Pearl Harbor during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Willis Harman taught for several years at the University of Florida before joining the Stanford faculty in 1952 to teach electrical engineering and physics.

Willis 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".

Willis Harman recognized the large 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.

Willis Harman incorporated his new perspective in a popular Stanford graduate seminar called "The Human Potential" that covered topics ranging from meditation to psychedelic drugs to parapsychology.

From 1967 to 1984, Willis Harman held joint appointments as a senior social scientist at SRI International and director of SRI's Educational Policy Research Center.

Unlike many futurists, Willis 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, Willis Harman recruited Alfred Matthew Hubbard to the Alternative Futures Project, one of the goals of which was to introduce business and thought leaders to LSD.

Willis Harman went on to serve as its president from 1978 until his death in 1997.

Willis Harman described IONS' mission as bringing science and religion back together, though in ways that would require fundamental changes in both.

Willis 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.

In 1987, Willis Harman cofounded the World Business Academy with Rinaldo Brutoco and other businesspeople.