Barbara Marx Hubbard (born Barbara Marx; December 22, 1929 – April 10, 2019), American futurist, author, and public speaker. She is credited with The Wheel of Co-Creation 2.0 and concepts of "The Synergy Engine" [1] and the "birthing" of humanity. [2]
A Jewish agnostic, [3] Barbara Marx was the first of four children of Irene (née Saltzman) and Louis Marx, a toy maker. In her youth she attended the Dalton School in New York City. She studied at L'Ecole des Sciences Politiques at La Sorbonne in Paris during her junior year of college, [4] and received a B.A. cum laude in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College in 1951. [5] In 1951, as well, she married artist Earl Hubbard, whom she'd met in Paris in 1949. They settled in Connecticut and started a family.
As an author, speaker, and co-founder and president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Hubbard posited that humanity was on the threshold of a quantum leap if newly emergent scientific, social, and spiritual capacities were integrated to address global crises.[ citation needed ]
She was the author of seven books on social and planetary evolution. In conjunction with the Shift Network, she co-produced the worldwide "Birth 2012" multimedia event. [6]
She was the subject of a biography by author Neale Donald Walsch, The Mother of Invention: The Legacy of Barbara Marx Hubbard and the Future of "YOU". [7] Deepak Chopra called her "the voice for conscious evolution". [8]
Hubbard was an American modern-day female futurist. Throughout her life, she had questioned what would make life easier as well as make people happy. For Hubbard, she did not like the molds that were expected out of herself as well as others, and in the 1970s she started speaking at futurist conferences about her findings. Those aided in her interest to the movement and resulted in her attending, speaking at, and creating conferences. With that, she dedicated her life to sharing the potential today's modern world has in achieving a better society and came up with the idea of "birthing" humanity. [9] In 1998, she had written and published a successful book titled “Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential". [10] which was about her futurist ideas in making a better society as well as focusing on what the conscious mind can do if it is aware of its power. Hubbard went as far as creating her own organization called the Committee for the Future and later created others such as Women of Vision in Action, The Alliance for the Advancement of Conscious Evolution as well as 7 others. [11] Hubbard helped set modern futurism into momentum and took measures to make sure the ideas continued beyond her. [12] She also co-chaired a number of Soviet-American Citizen Summits, introducing a new concept called "SYNCON" to foster synergistic convergence with opposing groups. In addition, she co-founded the World Future Society, and the Association for Global New Thought. [13]
Hubbard's daughter Alexandra Morton is a marine biologist and her sister Patricia Ellsberg was married to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. [14]
Hubbard fell ill with knee swelling on April 3, 2019, and was taken to the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, Colorado, to receive treatment. She was later sent to the hospital emergency room. On April 6, a doctor reported that she had not woken from treatment easily and her condition continued to worsen. On April 8, Hubbard expressed that she was preparing to leave and died on April 10. [15]
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being.
Transhuman, or trans-human, is the concept of an intermediary form between human and posthuman. In other words, a transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include improved intelligence, awareness, strength, and/or durability. Transhumans appear in science-fiction, sometimes as cyborgs or genetically-enhanced humans.
The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the Theosophy movement, and Henry Steel Olcott, the society's first president. It draws upon a wide array of influences among them older European philosophies and movements such as Neoplatonism and occultism, as well as parts of Asian religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
Conversations with God (CWG) is a sequence of books written by Neale Donald Walsch. It was written as a dialogue in which Walsch asks questions and God answers. The first book of the Conversations with God series, Conversations with God, Book 1: An Uncommon Dialogue, was published in 1995 and became a publishing phenomenon, staying on The New York Times Best Sellers List for 137 weeks.
Robert Evan Ornstein was an American psychologist, researcher and author.
Andrew Cohen is an American spiritual teacher. He is an author, former editor of What Is Enlightenment? magazine, and founder of the global spiritual community EnlightenNext, which dissolved in 2013.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship (TRF) was founded in 1909 by Max Heindel with the aim of heralding the Aquarian Age and promulgating "the true Philosophy" of the Rosicrucians. It claims to present Esoteric Christian mysteries or esoteric knowledge, alluded to in Matthew 13:11 and Luke 8:10, to establish a meeting ground for art, religion, and science and to prepare the individual through harmonious development of the mind and the heart for selfless service of humanity.
Neale Donald Walsch is an American author of the series Conversations with God. He is also an actor, screenwriter, and speaker.
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is an article written by Bill Joy in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy warns:
The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.
The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.
Stephen Ian McIntosh is an American author, lawyer, and entrepreneur. He was the founder and former CEO of Now & Zen, Inc., a boutique alarm clock company. He writes on the subject of integral thought.
In Theosophy, Maitreya or Lord Maitreya is an advanced spiritual entity and high-ranking member of a reputed hidden spiritual hierarchy, the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. According to Theosophical doctrine, one of the hierarchy's functions is to oversee the evolution of humankind; in concert with this function, Maitreya is said to hold the "Office of the World Teacher". Theosophical texts posit that the purpose of this Office is to facilitate the transfer of knowledge about the true constitution and workings of Existence to humankind. Humanity is thereby assisted on its presumed cyclical but ever-progressive evolutionary path. Reputedly, one way the knowledge transfer is accomplished is by Maitreya occasionally manifesting or incarnating in the physical realm; the manifested entity then assumes the role of World Teacher of Humankind.
The Affiliated New Thought Network, or ANTN, based in La Mesa, California, is an organization of New Thought centers and individuals across the United States and internationally that was founded in 1992. Recognized as a cooperative fellowship, it is an intrafaith organization. Originally for independent Religious Science ministers, today it includes all forms of New Thought organizations and individuals who want to be affiliated.
The concept of conscious evolution refers to the theoretical ability of human beings to become conscious participants in the evolution of their cultures, or even of the entirety of human society, based on a relatively recent combination of factors, including increasing awareness of cultural and social patterns, reaction against perceived problems with existing patterns, injustices, inequities, and other factors.
Faith Rivera is an American singer-songwriter. Rivera founded the independent record label and publishing company Lil' Girl Creations in 1996.
Dana Klisanin is a psychologist, futurist, and author best known for her research and writing in the field of digital altruism and the impact of the digital era on heroism. Her research was recognized in 2012 by the American Psychological Association with an award for Early Career Scientific Contribution to Media Psychology. In 2017, Klisanin was the recipient of the President's Outstanding Woman Futurist Award, as recognized by the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF). In 2020, Klisanin was named one Forbes' "50 Leading Female Futurists." As a novelist, Klisanin is the author of Future Hack, the first installment in a series entitled Chronicles of G.A.I.A.
The Oracle Institute is a 501(c)(3) educational charity founded in 2004 by Laura M. George and located in Independence, Virginia. Oracle operates a multi-faith spirituality school, an award-winning publishing house, the Peace Pentagon HUB and conference center, and programs that support pluralistic and progressive values. Oracle's stated purpose is to serve as "An Advocate for Peace and a Vanguard for Conscious Evolution," and its formal mission statement is an adaptation of Thomas Jefferson's Act for Religious Freedom.
Within the system of Theosophy, developed by occultist Helena Blavatsky and others since the second half of the 19th century, Theosophical mysticism draws upon various existing disciplines and mystical models, including Neo-platonism, Gnosticism, Western esotericism, Freemasonry, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Amy Karle is an American artist, bioartist, and futurist whose work focuses on the relationship between technology and humanity, specifically how technology and biotechnology impact health, humanity, society, evolution, and the future. Karle combines science and technology with art and is known for using living tissue in her work.