Marilyn Ferguson

Marilyn Ferguson (April 5, 1938, in Grand Junction, Colorado – October 19, 2008) was an American author, editor and public speaker known for her 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy, which is connected with the New Age Movement.

After living briefly in Houston, Texas, she moved to California with her second husband, Mike Ferguson, in 1968.

That year, she published her first book, on home economics, with her husband as co-author.

Ferguson soon developed an enduring interest in what came to be known as the "human potential" movement, and particularly the latest research on the potential of the human brain, with its implications for learning, creativity and wellness.

Others alleged that her "new" ideas were merely a repackaging of old notions of positive thinking, and some saw the "New Age" (a term Ferguson herself seldom used) as merely extending the self-absorption that had marked much of the 1970s.

Most persistently, some religious groups contended that the "conspiracy" was an attempt to subvert Christian views.

This inspired her to write The Brain Revolution: The Frontiers of Mind Research (Taplinger, 1973), a successful and broadly hailed popular summary of these discoveries.

Two years later Ferguson launched Brain/Mind Bulletin, a newsletter that served as an ongoing forum for her interest in cutting-edge scientific ideas.

Ferguson published and edited the well-regarded science newsletter Brain/Mind Bulletin from 1975 to 1996.

She eventually earned several honorary degrees, served on the board of directors of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and befriended such diverse figures of influence as inventor and theorist Buckminster Fuller, spiritual author Ram Dass, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine and billionaire Ted Turner.

Ferguson's work also influenced Vice President Al Gore, who participated in her informal network while a senator, and later met with her in the White House.

Ferguson was born Marilyn Louise Grasso in Grand Junction, Colorado.

After graduation from high school she earned an associate of arts degree at Mesa College (now Colorado Mesa University) and later attended the University of Colorado.

During her first marriage, to Don Renzelman, she worked as a legal secretary and became a published author of short stories and poetry in such national magazines as Cosmopolitan.

Later she wrote freelance articles for Time and other publications.

At its peak in the 1980s the publication had a worldwide base of some 10,000 subscribers, ranging from academics and intellectuals to schoolteachers and storekeepers, and helped to popularize the ideas of such notables as Prigogine, neuroscientists Karl Pribram and Candace Pert, physicists Fritjof Capra and David Bohm, psychologist Jean Houston and many others.

In an early commentary in the newsletter Ferguson described her first glimmers of what she called "the movement that has no name" - a loose, enthusiastic network of innovators from almost every discipline, united by their apparent desire to create real and lasting change in society and its institutions.

Her attempt to compile and synthesize the patterns she was seeing eventually led her to develop a second newsletter, Leading Edge Bulletin, and found its culmination in The Aquarian Conspiracy (J.P. Tarcher, 1980), the seminal work that earned her a lasting global reputation.

The book's title led to some confusion, having to do with astrology only to the extent of drawing from the popular conception of the "Age of Aquarius" succeeding a dark "Piscean" age.

The word conspiracy she used in its literal sense of "breathing together," as one of her great influences, the philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, had done before her.

Unabashedly positive in its outlook, the book was praised by such diverse figures as philosophical writer Arthur Koestler, who called it "stunning and provocative," commentator Max Lerner, who found it "drenched in sunlight," and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Robert Muller, who described it as "remarkable" and "epoch-making."

Psychologist Carl Rogers credited her with having "etched, in unforgettable vividness, the intricate web of changes shaping the inevitable revolution in our culture," and said the book "gives the pioneering spirit the courage to go forward."

Philosopher and religious scholar Jacob Needleman predicted that the book would help to make "New Age" thinking "more understandable and less threatening" to the general public in America.

This was borne out by its success, as The Aquarian Conspiracy steadily climbed to the best-seller list and its viewpoint began seeping into the popular culture.

Before long the book was being credited as "the handbook of the New Age" (USA Today) and a guidepost to a philosophy "working its way increasingly into the nation's cultural, religious, social, economic and political life" (New York Times).

Although the book was not explicitly political, it expressed early enthusiasm for the radical centrist perspective.

In the "Right Power" chapter Ferguson writes, "Radical Center ... is not neutral, not middle-of-the-road, but a view of the whole road. From this vantage point, we can see that the various schools of thought on any one issue – political or otherwise – include valuable contributions along with error and exaggeration."

The book was eventually translated into some 16 foreign languages, and Ferguson became a sought-after speaker across North America and around the world, eventually traveling as far as Brazil, Sweden and India to convey her hopeful message.

Indirectly supporting both Ferguson and her critics, the New Age movement, as popularly understood, did thrive in the 1980s and into the 1990s, though this was partially through such pop-cultural manifestations as the autobiographical works of actress Shirley MacLaine and the "Harmonic Convergence" festival of 1987.

While the period was marked by undeniable evolution in the fields of politics, education and medicine, many other ideas and practices were transitory.

Through it all Ferguson remained an optimist, albeit one who did not ignore the depth of society's chronic problems.

This view, most notably expressed by author Constance Cumbey in her 1983 book The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, was restated as recently as 2007, when one online essayist wrote that the Christian church "rightly discerned the New Age movement, as outlined in Ferguson’s book, to be demonically inspired in anticipation of the ultimate unveiling of . . . the antichrist."

It was inaccurately alleged that Ferguson, herself raised and confirmed a Lutheran, had written the book at the behest of the Stanford Research Institute with the goal of overtaking western culture with Eastern mysticism.

In 1985 she was featured as a keynote speaker at the United Nations-sponsored "Spirit of Peace" conference, where she appeared along with Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Such validation did not come without a price.

Ferguson was attacked in some quarters for excessive optimism.

In 1987 The Aquarian Conspiracy was reissued, featuring a new introduction by another of her allies, futurist-author John Naisbitt (Megatrends).

Commenting in advance of the 1988 presidential election, she noted that "there is no panacea for our social maladies" – but there remained the power of belief.

"Our ‘foolish illusion’ that we can effect change fosters in us the capacity to act – and therefore to bring about change."

("The Great Depression . . . The Great Schizophrenia," Brain/Mind Bulletin, October 1988.)