Around 2011, during the original inception period of Seymour Projects, the life and work of the following individuals were of particular influence to Melissa Unger, she hopes they will inspire you too:
Abraham Maslow, Alan Watts, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Alice Miller, Anne Morrow Lindberg, Benoit Mandelbrot, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, David Bohm, Dean Radin, PhD, Dr. Elaine Aron, Gabor Maté, Georgia O’Keeffe, Glenn Gould, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Hesse, J.D. Salinger, Jackson Pollock, Jiddu Krishnamurti, John Cage, John Bradshaw, John. E. Sarno, M.D., Joseph Beuys, J.M. Barrie, Kazimierz Dąbrowski, Ken Kesey, Margaret Mead, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, Marshall McLuhan, Max Planck, Merce Cunningham, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Muhammad Ali, Nikola Tesla, Oliver Sacks, Patti Smith, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Pina Bausch, Rabindranath Tagore, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ram Dass, Raymond Moody, Robert. S. De Ropp, Rupert Sheldrake, Sheldon B. Kopp, Stanislav Grof, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Porges, Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary, Victor Frankl, Virginia M. Axline, Walt Whitman, William James.
Then in 2023, Melissa came across a book that perfectly sums up the ethos that Seymour Projects had evolved into over the years. The book by Stephen Nachmanovitch is called FREE PLAY. Published in 1990, it perfectly captures what Seymour Projects is endeavoring to offer individuals via our various frameworks. It’s a wonderful book and a great companion to the direct experiences we provide. More about the book here.
A quote we love from this great book:
“There is an old Sanskrit word – lîla, which means play. Richer than our word, it means divine play, the play of creation, destruction, and re-creation, the folding and the unfolding of the cosmos. Lîla – free and deep, is both the delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love.”
+ Here are a few links to articles and endeavors that also provided ground for our early inspiration:
cultivating imagination
Prospective Psychology
Boredom- A Good Thing
Exploring Mental Imagery
global consciousness
The Concept of the Noosphere
Princeton’s Global Consciousness Project
Morphic Resonance
Collective Unconscious
exploring states of consciousness
Dissolving the ego without drugs or religion – An overview of Transcendent Experience
Surrealism and the subconscious
Carl Jung’s Red Book
Institute of Noetic Sciences
Mind Science Foundation
Sussex Center for Consciousness Research
NeuroArts Blueprint
Mind Lab (IAM Lab) at John Hopkins
Journal of Psychology Research and Behavior Management
thinking differently about psychedelics
Article about Psylocibin from the New York Times
New information about Psylocibin & creativity
Article about Psylocibin from The Washington Post
Scientists take LSD to examine effects on visionary & analytical thinking
Journal of Psychopharmacology- studies available for download
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
art brut | outsider art | visionary art
What is Visionary Art?
“We are aware of our precarious imbalance: of our persistent and ever-increasing production of power and our inadequacy of purpose; of our critical analytic ability and our creative paucity; of our triumphantly efficient technical education and our ineffective, irrelevant education for values, for meaning, for the training of the will, the lifting of the heart, and the illumination of the mind.”
– Gerald Heard (1889-1971)
British-born American historian, science writer, public lecturer, educator, philosopher.