Walt Whitman Profile

Walt Whitman Profile

Feb 8, 2024 | David Jay Brown, Poets, Profiles

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of American poet Walt Whitman. Although Whitman is now considered one of the most influential poets in American history, his work was controversial during his lifetime, particularly his collection Leaves of Grass, which some critics described as “obscene” because of its overt sexuality.

Walter Whitman, Jr. was born in Huntington, New York in 1819. He was the second of nine children. Both of his parents were Quakers with little education. Whitman’s father was a carpenter, and he was nicknamed “Walt” to distinguish him from his father, Walter Whitman, Sr. At the age of four, he moved to Brooklyn with his family, and they struggled economically.

Whitman generally described his childhood as being “restless and unhappy,” due to his family’s financial difficulties, but he later recalled one particularly happy moment. During a celebration in 1825 at a library in Brooklyn, the Revolutionary War hero General Marquis de Lafayette lifted the young Whitman into the air and kissed his cheek. Years later, Whitman worked at that same institution as a librarian.

Whitman attended public schools in Brooklyn up until the age of 11, after which he sought employment to assist his family. He worked as an attorney’s assistant, had clerical jobs with the federal government, and was a newspaper printer. In 1831, Whitman took a job as the apprentice of Alden Spooner, who was the editor of the weekly newspaper The Long Island Star. Whitman spent much time at his local library, he joined a town debating society and began attending theater performances.

It was around this time that Whitman published some of his earliest poetry in The New York Daily Mirror. In 1835, he worked as a typesetter in New York City, and the following year he moved back in with his family in Long Island, where he taught intermittently at various schools until 1838. Whitman wasn’t happy teaching, and he decided to start his newspaper, which he called the Long Islander. Whitman did everything for the paper; he was the reporter, publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor. He even provided home delivery. After ten months he sold the publication.

Whitman continued writing. During the 1840s, he contributed freelance fiction and poetry to various periodicals, such as Brother Jonathan magazine. In 1842, Whitman wrote a novel called Franklin Evans about the temperance movement. In 1852, he serialized a mystery novel titled Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, and in 1858, he published a self-help guide called Manly Health and Training under the pen name Mose Velsor.

In 1855, Whitman self-published the first edition of his landmark poetry book Leaves of Grass, which he had been working on for around five years. This was his magnum opus. The book was strongly endorsed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a five-page letter to Whitman praising the work, which was printed in the New York Tribune, and this helped to stir up considerable interest in the book. Leaves of Grass, which was widely distributed, quickly became controversial, due to claims that some of the material in the poems was sexually offensive.

On more than one occasion, Whitman was fired or denied work because people were offended by the sexual imagery in his poetry. Although Whitman is largely considered to be gay or bisexual by biographers, his actual sexual orientation remains a mystery, and is debated. Whitman’s sexual orientation has been generally assumed based on his poetry, as he never publicly addressed this.

In 1856, the second edition of Leaves of Grass was published, with 20 additional poems. Then further revised editions were published in 1860, 1867, and five more times throughout Whitman’s life. Whitman continued to edit and revise Leaves of Grass until his death. The title of the poetry collection is an example of Whitman’s self-deprecating wordplay and humor. It’s a pun and meant to have multiple meanings. Leaves referred to the “sheets of paper in a book,” and “grass” was used to denote “things that weren’t of much value.” In other words, Leaves of Grass means “pages of little value.”

Whitman is often referred to as the “father of free verse poetry.” The poems in Leaves of Grass do not rhyme or follow standard rules for meter and length. The collection of loosely connected poems represents a celebration of Whitman’s philosophy of life, as well as his praise of nature and the human body. The first edition only contained twelve poems and the final edition contained over 400. The last version of the book was published in 1892, and is referred to as the “deathbed edition.”

Whitman’s poetry is intertwined with America’s past, and many scholars consider him to be an important figure in understanding our country’s history, because of his ability to write in a singularly American character. During the American Civil War, Whitman went to Washington, D.C. where he volunteered to work in hospitals caring for the wounded, and when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated Whitman wrote a highly influential poem about him called O Captain! My Captain. According to poet Ezra Pound, Whitman is “America’s poet… He is America,” and Whitman said, “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”

During his lifetime, groups of disciples and admirers of Whitman formed, who would meet to read and discuss his poetry. One group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship, or Whitmanites” and its members held an annual Whitman Day celebration around the poet’s birthday on May 31st.

Whitman died in 1892, at the age of 72. He is buried at the Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.

In 1940 a U.S. postage stamp was created in Whitman’s honor. His poetry has been set to music by more than 500 composers, and his vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat culture and its writers, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s. Here in my hometown, at the Bookshop Santa Cruz, there’s a life-size replica of Gabriel Harrison’s famous drawing of Whitman standing at the front entrance of the store as its mascot.

Some of the quotes that Walt Whitman is known for include:

Keep your face always toward the sunshine— and shadows will fall behind you. 

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul… Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. 

The art of art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. 

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person. 

Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I am satisfied … I see, dance, laugh, sing… I exist as I am, that is enough.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.

In the faces of men and women, I see God.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Edgar Degas Profile

Edgar Degas Profile

Feb 5, 2024 | David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of French painter, sculptor, and printmaker Edgar Degas, who is well-known for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas was prominent among the Impressionists, although he considered himself to be a “realist,” and his artwork is intimately intertwined with dance, as more than half of his work depicts female dancers. Degas helped to bridge the gap between traditional academic art and the radical art movements of the early 20th century.

Edgar Degas was born in Paris, France in 1834. His father was a banker, his mother an opera singer, and his family was moderately prosperous. Degas was the oldest of five children and his mother died when he was 13. Degas was largely raised by his father and several unmarried uncles. In 1845, Degas began his education at a leading boy’s school in central Paris, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he received a conventional classical education. Degas began to paint early in life, and he turned a room in his home into an artist’s studio.

In 1853, Degas graduated from the Lycée with a degree in literature. Then, because of his father’s expectations, he enrolled in law school at the University of Paris, although he lacked the motivation to follow through with this, and applied little effort to his studies. In 1855, Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied drawing, and his father then encouraged his artistic pursuits, taking him frequently to museums.

In 1856, Degas abandoned his education in Paris and left for Italy, where he studied painting and sculpture for three years. While he was there, Degas filled up notebooks with many sketches of historic buildings, people’s faces, landscapes, and quick pencil copies of oil paintings that he admired, as well as notes and reflections.

In 1859, Degas returned to Paris, set up a studio, and began work on several “history paintings,” a genre of painting defined by its subject matter rather than a particular artistic style or specific period. History paintings often realistically depict a moment in a narrative story. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he preferred to be called a “realist,” as he generally aimed to represent his subject matter truthfully and naturally. Between 1860 and 1865, Degas exhibited his work annually at The Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

In 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, and this left him little time for painting during this period. After the war, Degas traveled to New Orleans, where he had relatives, and he stayed for several months. During this time, Degas produced several paintings, many depicting family members.

One of the paintings that Degas created during his time in New Orleans, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, was purchased by the Pau Museum in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France. This was the only work by Degas that was purchased by a museum during his lifetime. In 1873, when Degas returned to Paris, his father died, and his brother had accumulated enormous business debts, so Degas was forced to sell the house and art collection that he had inherited, and he used that money to pay off his brother’s debts. This now meant that Degas was completely dependent on the sales of his artwork for income.

Degas became disenchanted with The Salon and instead joined up with a group of young artists who were organizing an independent exhibiting society, becoming one of its most important core members. This group became known as the Impressionists, and between 1874 and 1886 they held eight art exhibitions. Degas showed his work in all of them, except one, and he had a leading role in helping to organize the exhibitions. However, Degas disliked being associated with the term “Impressionist,” which the press had coined and popularized, and he insisted on using non-Impressionist artists’ work in the Impressionist exhibitions. This resulted in conflicts between the artists, and the group disbanded in 1886.

Although Degas referred to himself as a “Realist” or “Independent,” like the Impressionists he also sought to capture “fleeting moments in the flow of modern life.” However, he didn’t like painting landscapes outdoors like the Impressionists and instead preferred painting in theaters and cafes that were illuminated by artificial light. Degas was particularly intrigued by classical ballet, and the movement of female dancers, which are the subject of many of his paintings.

The sale of Degas’ artwork helped to improve his financial situation, and he was able to begin building up his art collection, acquiring the works of many old masters that he admired, such as Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh. In the late 1880s, Degas developed a passion for creating with other media, such as photography and engraving. He photographed many friends and dancers, and some of the photos were used as a reference for his drawings and paintings.

Throughout his life, Degas worked with many different types of artistic tools. His drawings include examples in pen, ink, charcoal, chalk, and pastel, often in combination with one another, and his paintings were done in oils, watercolor, gouache, distemper, and metallic pigments on a wide variety of surfaces, such as silk, ceramic, tile, and wood panel, in addition to many varieties of canvas textures.

Degas did work in sculpture too, using wax and other materials to make modest statuettes of horses and dancers. In one of his sculptures at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1881, Degas incorporated an actual tutu, ballet slippers, a human-hair wig, and a silk ribbon to enhance visual realism.

As the years went by, Degas became progressively more and more isolated, perhaps due to his belief that “a painter could have no personal life.” After 1890, Degas’ eyesight, which had troubled him for much of his life, deteriorated further. He spent the last years of his life, nearly blind and depressed, although he continued working in pastel until the end of 1907, and is believed to have continued making sculptures as late as 1910. Degas stopped working in 1912 when the impending demolition of his longtime residence forced him to move to new quarters.

Degas died in 1917 at the age of 83. After Degas’s death, the enormous wealth of his output was revealed in a succession of public sales in Paris between 1918 and 1919. Thousands of his previously unexhibited works were sold. After his death, Degas’ reputation steadily grew, and his work began selling for high amounts, with prices ranging from $4,000,000 to $41,610,000. Degas’s work also began to enter major museums, and today can be viewed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

Some of the quotes that Edgar Degas is known for include:

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

Muses work all day long, and then at night get together and dance.

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people’s compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.

I should like to be famous and unknown.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Jackson Pollock Profile

Jackson Pollock Profile

Nov 27, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have admired the work of American painter Jackson Pollock, who was a leading figure in the abstract expressionism art movement, which was characterized by freely associative painting styles that helped the art world to redefine what a painting could be. Pollock is most well-known for developing the “drip technique,” a painting method that involves dripping, pouring, or splashing paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling the artist to paint his or her canvas from multiple angles. Pollock’s revolutionary work influenced many subsequent art movements that followed abstract expressionism.

Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912. His father, who was of Scottish-Irish descent, was a farmer and land surveyor for the government. Pollock’s mother came from an Irish family with a heritage of weavers, and she made and sold dresses. Pollock’s family left Wyoming when he was 11 months old, and he grew up in Arizona and California. Pollock’s childhood wasn’t very stable; his family moved nine times in the next 16 years, and in 1928 Pollock was expelled from two high schools for being a “troublemaker.”

In 1928, Pollock enrolled at the Manuel Arts School in Los Angeles, where he met painter and illustrator Frederick Schwankovsky, who gave him some training in drawing and painting and encouraged his interest in metaphysical and spiritual literature. Schwankovsky was a member of the Theosophical Society and was friends with Jiddu Krishnamurti. These early spiritual explorations may have influenced Pollock, as in subsequent years he embraced the theories of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the notion of unconscious imagery being expressed in his painting.

In 1930, Pollock moved to New York City, where his older brother was living, and he studied drawing, painting, and composition at the Art Students League. In 1936, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros introduced Pollock to the use of liquid paint at an experimental workshop, and he later used paint pouring as one of his painting techniques. During this time Pollock’s painting style was part of the regionalism movement that depicted realistic scenes, and his style slowly began to become more abstract.

Around this time, Pollock began drinking too much. In 1937, he began treatment for a problem with alcoholism by undergoing Jungian psychotherapy. In 1938, he suffered a nervous breakdown, which caused him to be institutionalized for about four months, and his treatment involved being engaged with his art. Pollock was encouraged to make drawings and to see Jungian concepts and archetypes expressed in his paintings, as a way of exploring his unconscious mind.

From 1938 to 1942, Pollock found work as an easel painter with the Federal Arts Project, a federal program that helped struggling artists find employment during the Great Depression. In the early 1940s, Pollock moved to Springs, New York, and began developing his “drip” technique, with his canvases laid out on the studio floor. Pollock’s technique typically involved pouring paint straight from a can or along a stick onto a canvas lying horizontally on the floor.

In 1942, Pollock met the artist Lee Krasner at a gallery exhibition. They became romantically involved, influenced one another’s art, and in 1945 the couple was married. Krasner had extensive knowledge and training in modern art, and she introduced Pollock to many collectors, critics, and other artists who would further his career.

In 1943, Pollock signed a gallery contract with Peggy Guggenheim, and he did his first wall-sized work, a huge 8-by-20-foot abstract oil painting titled Mural. The painting was commissioned for the entrance hall of Guggenheim’s townhouse in NYC. In the foreword to the exhibition catalog, a New York Times reviewer described Pollock’s creativity as “…volcanic. It has fire. It is unpredictable. It is undisciplined. It spills out of itself in a mineral prodigality, not yet crystallized.” Mural represents Pollock’s “breakthrough into a totally personal style in which compositional methods, and energetic linear invention, are fused with the Surrealist free association of motifs and unconscious imagery.”

Between 1947 and 1950 was Pollock’s “drip period,” when he produced some of his most famous abstract paintings. The process involved pouring or dripping paint onto a flat canvas in stages, often alternating weeks of painting with weeks of contemplating, before he finished a canvas. A whole series of famous paintings were created during this period, such as Full Fathom Five, Lucifer, and Summertime. Pollock also created more mural-sized canvases, such as One, Autumn Rhythm, and Lavender Mist.

In 1949, Life magazine did a four-page spread of Pollock’s work, and the accompanying article suggested that he might be the “greatest living painter” in the United States. Then, at the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style of painting. He began attempting to balance abstraction with depictions of figures in his paintings and used darker colors.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pollock had one-man shows of new paintings nearly every year in New York. His work was handled by Peggy Guggenheim through 1947, then by the Betty Parsons Gallery from 1947 to 1952, and then by the Sidney Janis Gallery from 1952 onward.

After 1953, Pollock’s health began to deteriorate, and his production began to wane, but he still produced a number of important paintings in his final years, such as White Light and Scent. In 1956, Pollock died in a single-car crash while under the influence of alcohol.

Four months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Pollock did not profit financially from his fame. During his lifetime, Pollock never sold a painting for more than $10,000 and was often hard-pressed for cash, but in 2016, his painting “umber 17A sold for $200 million. Now considered an “iconic” master of mid-century Modernism, his work influenced the American art movements that immediately followed Abstract Expressionism — such as Happenings, Pop Art, Op Art, and Color Field painting.

One of the things that I’ve found most intriguing about Pollock’s art is how it continues to be controversial, almost seven decades after his death. It’s not uncommon to hear people say“It’s just the flinging of paint!” This leads me to believe that Pollock’s critics, be they of his time or ours, are largely wrong — for it’s hard for me to understand why people would get so worked up over an artist, almost 70 years after his death unless there’s something in his work that truly matters.

Some of the quotes that Jackson Pollock is known for include:

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements… the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.

On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.

The secret of success is… to be fully awake to everything about you.

There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.

When I’m painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s only after a get acquainted period that I see what I’ve been about. I’ve no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own.

Modern artists unravel inner universes, expressing energy, motion, and latent forces.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Carlos Castaneda Profile

Carlos Castaneda Profile

Nov 27, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of cultural anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, who is the author of a dozen popular books, that have sold more than 28 million copies and been published in 17 languages. Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe the supposed training that he received from a wise trickster shaman in Mexico that likely never existed. Despite Castaneda’s accounts probably being fictional, they are still wonderful stories that contain valuable spiritual knowledge, as it seems that the “wise trickster shaman” was Castaneda himself.

Carlos César Salvador Arana was born in Cajamarca, Peru in 1925. Or maybe it was in Sao Paulo, Brazil? Different sources make different claims about his birthplace, and much about his early life remains mysterious because Castaneda offered conflicting autobiographical information. His surname, “Castaneda,” was his mother’s maiden name.

In 1951, Castaneda moved to the U.S., and he became a naturalized citizen in 1957. Castaneda studied anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees. According to Castaneda’s writings, he met an unusual man in Arizona during the early 1960s named Don Juan Matus, who he described as a Yaqui “sorcerer” from Sonora, Mexico, and was supposedly a powerful shaman who could allegedly manipulate time and space. (The Yaqui are a Native American people that are indigenous to Mexico.)

Castaneda said that he became Don Juan’s apprentice, and in 1965 he returned to LA and began writing about his experiences. In 1968, Castaneda published The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, a mass market book that also served as his Master’s thesis in the School of Anthropology at UCLA. The book claimed to document the events that took place during Castaneda’s supposed apprenticeship with Don Juan between 1960 and 1965. The book was not only accepted as Castaneda’s master’s thesis at UCLA, but it also became a New York Times bestseller that sold more than 10 million copies.

This bestselling book was followed by two more books about the teachings of Don Juan, which were also written while Castaneda was still an anthropology student at UCLA, and they became equally successful: A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan. Castaneda was awarded a Ph.D. from UCLA based on the work described in these books. However, these accounts of the legendary Yaqui sorcerer are now considered to be fictional by other anthropologists, as there is no evidence that Don Juan Matus ever really existed.

However, the stories were considered factual at the time that they were published, and they even convinced Castaneda’s doctoral committee at the UCLA School of Anthropology to award him with their highest academic honor. Although many critics have questioned the reality of Don Juan, Castaneda always insisted that everything he wrote was true. Despite this controversy over the authenticity, Castaneda’s books became extremely popular due to their engaging storytelling, and their explorations of consciousness, altered states of mind, and spirituality that dovetailed with the zeitgeist of the time.

Around 1972, Castaneda stepped away from the public eye and bought a large multi-dwelling property in Los Angeles, which he shared with some of his students. Two of his students, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau, also wrote books about their experiences with Don Juan’s teachings from a female perspective. Castaneda endorsed both of these books as authentic reports of Don Juan’s teachings: The Sorcerer’s Crossing and Being-in-Dreaming.

Castaneda became a well-known cultural figure during his life, although he rarely appeared in public forums, and he developed a mysterious reputation. Castaneda was the subject of a Time magazine cover article in 1973 that described him as “an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla.” In 1974, Castaneda published his fourth book, Tales of Power, which chronicled the supposed end to his apprenticeship with Don Juan, although future books by Castaneda describe further aspects of his supposed training. Castaneda wrote a total of twelve books about the “teachings of Don Juan.”

In the 1990s, Castaneda and his students developed a shamanic system that they called Tensegrity, which is said to be a modernized version of the teachings developed by the Indigenous shamans who lived in Mexico, in times prior to the Spanish conquest. This name for this system was taken from a term coined by the late philosopher Buckminster Fuller to mean “a structural principle based on a system of isolated components under compression inside a network of continuous tension.” In 1995, Castaneda and his students created Cleargreen Incorporated, an organization to promote this shamanic system. Cleargreen continues to teach workshops today.

Castaneda died in 1998 at the age of 72. He died as mysteriously as he had lived. There was no public service; Castaneda was cremated, and the ashes were sent to Mexico. His death was unknown to the outside world until almost two months after he died when an obituary appeared in The Los Angeles Times.

Some of the quotes that Carlos Castaneda is known for include:

You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.

Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.

Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Candace Pert Interview

Candace Pert Interview

Nov 20, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Scientists

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of the late neuroscientist and pharmacologist Candace Pert, who conducted groundbreaking research that changed the way scientists view the relationship between mind and body, and was a major proponent of alternative medicine. Pert discovered the opiate receptor— the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain— and she paved the way for the field of mind-body medicine.

Candace Beebe Pert was born in 1946 in New York City. Her father was a commercial artist and her mother worked in the courts as a clerk typist. Although Pert was initially interested in studying psychology, she studied biology in college and sought a more solid scientific basis for understanding human behavior. Pert completed her undergraduate studies in biology cum laude in 1970 at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

In 1972, while still a graduate student in her mid-twenties at Johns Hopkins University, Pert discovered the opiate receptor, the molecular-docking site where drugs like opium and morphine bind to nerve cells in the human brain. This breakthrough finding led to the discovery of endorphins— natural, painkilling opiate-like chemicals in the brain, which Pert refers to as “the underlying mechanism for bliss and bonding.”

These findings dramatically increased our understanding of how drugs interact with the nervous system, and how the body and brain communicate with each other. Pert went on to discover numerous receptor sites for other drugs and naturally occurring substances in the brain, and she helped map the chemical communication system that operates between the brain and the immune system. This paved the way for an understanding of mind-body medicine and the biochemical basis for emotions.

In 1974, Pert received her Ph.D. in pharmacology, with distinction, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she worked in the laboratory of Solomon Snyder. From 1975 to 1987, Pert conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she served as Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry in the Clinical Neuroscience Branch. In 1987, Pert founded a private biotech laboratory that she directed for a few years, and then conducted AIDS research in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington D.C.

Pert spent over forty years trying to decode the biochemical language of what she refers to as the body’s “information molecules”— such as peptides and other ligands— which regulate the biochemical aspects of human physiology. Her interdisciplinary model of the “body-mind” explains how these chemicals distribute information simultaneously to every cell in the body. This understanding has unlocked the secret of how our emotions can literally create or destroy our health.

Many people believe that Pert should have won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the opiate receptor— which is considered one of the most important discoveries in the history of neuroscience— but that internal politics interfered with her being properly recognized for her work. In this regard, it is important to note that Pert discovered the opiate receptor only after her supervisor had specifically ordered her to stop looking for it, concluding that it was a fruitless search, and Pert had to continue her research in secret.

Pert’s supervisor, Solomon Snyder, was later awarded the Lasker Award (an award for outstanding medical research) for its discovery without her. Such omissions are common in the world of science; contributions by graduate students in a research lab are rarely acknowledged beyond listing them as the primary author on the published article. However, Pert did something unusual: she protested, sending a letter to the head of the foundation that awards the prize, saying she had “played a key role in initiating the research and following it up” and was “angry and upset to be excluded.” Her letter caused significant discussion in the field, and many saw her exclusion as a typical example of the barriers women face in science careers.

In 1997, Pert’s book, Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, was published. It recounts the story of her revolutionary discovery, the development of her research, and the evolution of her philosophy, as well as the storm of controversy that formed around her work. It reads like a spellbinding action-adventure story and offers a personal and insightful reinterpretation of neuroscience and mind-body medicine.

In 2001, Pert was featured in Washingtonian magazine as one of Washington’s fifty “Best and Brightest” individuals, and she was featured in Bill Moyers’s highly acclaimed PBS television series Healing and the Mind, as well as in the companion book that went with the series. Pert created the audio series Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind, and also a psychoactive CD to enhance healing and personal transformation called To Feel Go(o)d.

Pert lectured extensively about the implications of her research for mind-body medicine, and her work helped to heal the pathological divisions in Western culture between mind and body, science and spirituality. “Finally, here is a Western scientist who has done the work to explain the unity of matter and spirit, body and soul!” wrote physician Deepak Chopra in the introduction to her book.

Pert’s research interests have ranged from decoding “information molecules” to trying to find cures for cancer and AIDS. She held a number of patents for modified peptides in the treatment of psoriasis, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke, and head trauma. One of these, peptide T, was found to be helpful for the treatment of AIDS. Pert has published more than 250 scientific papers on peptides and their receptors, and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. Some of Dr. Pert’s papers are among the most cited scientific papers in human history.

Pert died in 2013 at the age of 67. She is remembered for the important role that she played in how Mind-Body medicine became recognized as an area of legitimate scientific research. According to Pert’s website, her fans refer to her as The Mother of Psychoneuroimmunology and The Goddess of Neuroscience. A book about Pert’s life by Pamela Ryckman was recently published, Candace Pert: Genuis, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science.

I interviewed Candace Pert in 2004 for my book Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse. Candace generates a lot of warmth and positive energy. She gets excited and enthusiastic about her ideas, and she laughs a lot. My impression of Candace was that she was like an octopus, capable of doing innumerable tasks at once. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

David: John Lilly was a big fan of your work. That’s how I first found out about you actually. He used to talk about you a lot.

Candace: I have pictures of him and me. He came to the National Cathedral. He was wonderful. God, that’s such a shame when people have to die. I’ve had people close to me die, and sometimes I think there are some amazing communications and synchronicities, where you think that they are trying to communicate, or some aspect of what has survived is coming back. There are some amazing stories, with things like doors slamming. I’ve had a few things happen at funerals. I’ve been through quite a few funerals in the last few years, and have seen things like leaves swirling at critical moments in the burial ceremony. There’s stuff that seems kind of amazing.

David: What is your concept of God, and do you see any teleology in evolution?

Candace: We don’t have to say that evolution is guided by intelligence, but it’s very clear to me that the process itself— stars cooling, entropy, evolution— is always leading toward more and more complexity and more and more perfection. So, the actual physical laws of the universe are God. You don’t have to invoke anything beyond that. I mean, God is not incompatible with the laws of science. God is a manifestation of that. There’s no incompatibility. We’re not talking about The Bible; we’re talking about the true laws of science. So, I guess that’s why I’m so into truth-seeking because truth-seeking is God-seeking at the same time.

David:  What do you think happens to consciousness after death?

Candace: That’s a great question. Years ago, I had to answer that question to get a big honorarium, so I participated, and what I said then is still relevant. It’s this idea that information is never destroyed. More and more information is constantly being created, and it’s not lost, and energy and matter are interconvertible. So somehow there must be some survival because one human being represents a huge amount of information. So, I can imagine that there is survival, but I’m not sure exactly what form that it takes. I think Buddhist practice is interesting. There’s this whole idea that you’re actually preparing yourself for death, and if you do it just right you can make the transition better.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Sadhguru Profile

Sadhguru Profile

Nov 6, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of Yogi, spiritual teacher, and environmentalist Sadhguru, who is the founder of the Isha Foundation in India. He is the author of several bestselling books and is the recipient of numerous awards for his valuable ecological work. Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev was born in 1957 in Karnataka, India. His father was an ophthalmologist and his mother was a homemaker. He was the youngest of five children.

After Vasudev completed his formal education, he enrolled at the University of Mysore in India, where he performed well studying English literature. After graduating from school, Vasudev built a poultry farm in Mysore. The farm became a successful business, and it required minimal attention throughout the day, so Vasudev was able to pursue other interests during his time off, such as writing poetry.

In 1982, at the age of 25, Vasudev had a spiritual experience that changed his life. He drove up a hill in Mysore and sat out on a rock. As he was sitting there, Vasudev had a boundary-dissolving mystical experience that he described like this, “All my life I had thought, this is me…But now the air I was breathing, the rock on which I was sitting, the atmosphere around me— everything had become me.”

After having a similar spiritual experience around six days later, Vasudev shut down his poultry business and he began to travel around India on his motorcycle, seeking insight into his spiritual experience. Vasudev developed a love for riding motorcycles. One of his favorite places to ride was the Chamundi Hills in Mysore, although he sometimes drove as far as Nepal. In 1983, after about a year of meditation and travel, Vasudev felt inspired to teach yoga in Mysore, to share his transformative, inner experience with others.

Vasudev took the name “Sadhguru,” which means “uneducated guru.” A guru is a “dispeller of darkness,” or a teacher, and Sadhguru means a teacher who does not come from a lineage of gurus. In other words, he’s a self-taught guru. In 1992, Vasudev established the Isha Foundation, a nonprofit, spiritual organization and yoga center in Coimbatore, India. The foundation offers a system of yoga that combines postural yoga with chanting, breathing, and meditation. They also have initiatives to improve the quality of education in rural India, and the organization is supported by over nine million volunteers in more than 300 centers worldwide.

Through the Isha Foundation, Sadhguru has launched several ecologically oriented projects and campaigns focused on environmental conservation and protection. In 2017, Sadhguru launched Rally for Rivers, a campaign intended to build widespread support for river revitalization efforts across India, and in 2019, he launched the Cauvery Calling campaign, which focused on planting trees along the Cauvery River, to replenish depleted water levels.

In 2017, Sadhguru received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, for his “contributions to spirituality and humanitarian services,” and in 2018 the president of India awarded him the Rashtriya khel Protsahan Puraskar, an honor for organizing India’s largest rural sports festival. In 2022, Sadhguru completed a 100-day motorcycle journey from London to India, to bring attention to his Journey to Save Soil campaign, which focuses on raising awareness about soil degradation issues and the benefits of using organic matter in farming.

According to India Today, in 2019 Sadhguru was one of the fifty “most powerful” people in India. He ranked number 40, and he was included because his Rally for Rivers campaign was the largest ecological movement ever, with support from over 162 million people. Sadhguru has appeared on many popular talk shows talking about his ecological campaigns, including the Joe Rogan podcast and The Daily Show.

Sadhguru is actively involved in an assortment of diverse and creative fields, such as architecture and visual design. He is the designer of several unique buildings and consecrated spaces at the Isha Yoga Center. Sadhguru also writes poetry and paints, and some of his artwork can be found on display at the Isha Foundation.

Sadhguru has authored over thirty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy and Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. His book Eternal Echoes is a collection of his poetry from 1994 to 2021.

Some of the quotes that Sadhguru is known for include:

Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you: a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting, a bee humming, a raindrop falling, a snowflake wafting along the clear evening air. There is magic everywhere. If you learn how to live it, life is nothing short of a daily miracle.

Whether you are a man, woman, animal, or an ant – the Source of Life is Within You.

A human is not a being; he is a becoming. He is an ongoing process – a possibility. For this possibility to be made use of, there is a whole system of understanding the mechanics of how this life functions and what we can do with it, which we refer to as yoga.

Mind is not in any one place. Every cell in this body has its own intelligence. The brain is sitting in your head, but mind is all over the place.

You may not be able to shape every situation in your life, but you certainly have the potential to determine how you experience every moment of your life.

This is the power of Inner Engineering.

In yogic culture, Growth means Dissolution. You dissolve your limited persona to become as vast as the Universe. When you are nothing, in some way, you are everything.

What happened yesterday, you cannot change. What is happening today, you can only experience. What is tomorrow, you have to Create.

The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life.

The most beautiful moments in life are moments when you are expressing your joy, not when you are seeking it.

If you resist change, you resist life.

by David Jay Brown

Share Story:
Loading...