Looking for inspiration? Need a role model? Click your way through the following links. They will take you to websites devoted to people who've made their lives count, by staying true to themselves and contributing to the pool of ideas and information that advance humanity's option for success. Wherever you see the word 'Books', you'll find a link to Amazon.com, and a listing of titles by that particular person.

If you know of someone who is missing, please send an email to dr.rick@talknatural.com, Subject line: Paradigm Shifters/Add To List. This list was researched and compiled by Dr. Rick Kirschner.

Writers, Creators, Prophets, Philosophers and Leaders

• Isaac Asimov
  Here you'll find a comprehensive collection of resources pertaining to Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), the quintessential author, who in his lifetime wrote over 500 books that enlightened, entertained, and spanned the realm of human knowledge.
• Gregory Bateson (anthropologist) -- His books
  Gregory Bateson [1904 - 1980] - Anthropologist, Social Scientist, Cyberneticist - known as Gregory - was one of the most important social scientists of the 20th century. Strongly opposing those scientists who attempted to ‘reduce’ everything to mere matter, he was intent upon the task of re-introducing ‘Mind’ back into the scientific equations. From his point of view Mind is a constituent part of ‘material reality’ and it is thus nonsensical to try to split mind from matter. Adopted by many thinkers in the anti-psychiatry movement because he provided a model and a new epistemology for developing a novel understanding of human madness, and also for his invention of the theory of the double bind. He helped to elaborate the science of cybernetics with colleagues Warren McCulloch, Gordon Pask, Ross Ashby, Heinz von Foerster, Norbert Wiener, etc.
• David Bohm -- books
  David Bohm was one of the foremost scientific thinkers and distinguished physicists of his generation. His best known works include Quantum Theory and The Undivided Universe.
• Joseph Campbell -- books
  Joseph Campbell was an American author best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature and, after earning a master's degree, continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
• Teilhard de Chardin
  1881 - 1955; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary French Jesuit, paleontologist, biologist, and philosopher, who spent the bulk of his life trying to integrate religious experience with natural science, most specifically Christian theology with theories of evolution. In this endeavor he became absolutely enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, an "Omega point" where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity. Long before ecology was fashionable, he saw this unity as being based intrinsically upon the spirit of the Earth.
• Arthur C. Clarke
  Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most celebrated science fiction authors of our time. He is the author of more than sixty books with more than 50 million copies in print, winner of all the field's highest honors. He was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1986. His numerous awards include the 1962 Kalinga prize for science writing, which is administred by UNESCO; the 1969 AAAS-Westinghouse science-writing prize; the Bradford Washbur Award; and the Hugo (2 times), Nebula and John W. Campbell Awards. His bestsellers include Childhood's End; 2001:A Space Odyssey; 2010: Odyssey Two; 2061: Odyssey Three and most recently, 3001: The Final Odyssey, Rama II, The Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed (with Gentry Lee). His most recent work is The Light of Other Days (with Stephen Baxter). In 1968 he shared an Oscar Academy Award nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He co-broadcasted the Apollo 11 , 12 and 15 missions with Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra for CBS.
• Leonardo Da Vinci
  (1452-1519) Renaissance painter and inventor, he had a keen eye and quick mind that led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas. He was a gentle vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons. He was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful of completed paintings.
• Edward DeBono -Creativity- books
  Edward de Bono  is regarded by many to be the leading authority in the world in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. He has written 62 books with translations into 37 languages and has been invited to lecture in 54 countries. He is the originator of lateral thinking which treats creativity as the behaviour of information in a self-organising information system - such as the neural networks in the brain. From such a consideration arise the deliberate and formal tools of lateral thinking, parallel thinking etc.
• Daniel Dennett
  DANIEL C. DENNETT is Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Content and Consciousness: Brainstorms: Elbow Room: The Intentional Stance: Consciousness Explained; Darwin's Dangerous Idea; Kinds of Minds; and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays. He co-edited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter and he is the author of over a hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
• Esther Dyson
  Esther Dyson has devoted her life to discovering the inevitable and promoting the possible. As an active investor and commentator, she focuses on emerging technologies and business models (peer-to-peer, artificial intelligence, the Internet, wireless applications), emerging markets (Eastern Europe) and emerging companies (see below). In 1994, she had already explored the impact of the Net on intellectual property. In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals' lives, Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. She remains an active player in discussions and policy-making concerning the Internet and society.
• Albert Einstein
  Genius among geniuses, time traveller, philosopher, and Time Magazine's Man of the Century for the 20th century.
• R. Buckminster Fuller
  
• “For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.” This confident assertion was made in 1980 by the late R. Buckminster Fuller–inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet and cosmologist. As early as 1959, Newsweek reported that Fuller predicted the conquest of poverty by the year 2000. In 1977, almost twenty years later, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed Fuller’s prediction. Their World Food and Nutrition Study, prepared by 1,500 scientists, concluded, “If there is the political will in this country and abroad . . . it should be possible to overcome the worst aspects of widespread hunger and malnutrition within one generation.” Buckminster Fuller was truly a man ahead of his time. His lifelong goal was the development of what he called “Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science”–the attempt to anticipate and solve humanity’s major problems through the highest technology by providing “more and more life support for everybody, with less and less resources.” Fuller was a practical philosopher who demonstrated his ideas as inventions that he called “artifacts.” Some were built as prototypes; others exist only on paper; all he felt were technically viable. He was a dogged individualist whose genius was felt throughout the world for nearly half a century. Even Albert Einstein was prompted to say to him, “Young man, you amaze me!”
  
• Galileo Galilei
  (1564-1652) He devised and constructed a geometrical and military compass, and wrote a handbook which describes how to use this instrument. In 1594 he obtained the patent for a machine to raise water levels. He invented the microscope, and built a telescope with which he made celestial observations, the most spectacular of which was his discovery of the satellites of Jupiter. In 1610 he was nominated the foremost Mathematician of the University of Pisa and given the title of mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He studied Saturn and observed the phases of Venus. In 1611 he went to Rome. He became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and observed the sunspots. In 1612 he began to encounter serious opposition to his theory of the motion of the earth that he taught after Copernicus. In 1614, Father Tommaso Caccini denounced the opinions of Galileo on the motion of the Earth from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, judging them to be erroneous. Galileo therefore went to Rome, where he defended himself against charges that had been made against him but, in 1616, he was admonished by Cardinal Bellarmino and told that he could not defend Copernican astronomy because it went against the doctrine of the Church. In October of 1632 he was summoned by the Holy Office to Rome. The tribunal passed a sentence condemning him and compelled Galileo to solemnly abjure his theory.
• Mahatma Gandhi
  Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869. He entered an arranged marriage with Kasturbai Makanji when both were 13 years old. His family later sent him to London to study law, and in 1891 he was called to the bar. In Southern Africa he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians. It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice, satyagraha, meaning truth force, and was frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led. Before he returned to India with his wife and children in 1915, he had radically changed the lives of Indians living in Southern Africa. Back in India, it was not long before he was taking the lead in the long struggle for independence from Britain. He never wavered in his unshakable belief in nonviolent protest and religious tolerance. When Muslim and Hindu compatriots committed acts of violence, whether against the British who ruled India, or against each other, he fasted until the fighting ceased. Independence, when it came in 1947, was not a military victory, but a triumph of human will. To Gandhi's despair, however, the country was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The last two months of his life were spent trying to end the appalling violence which ensued, leading him to fast to the brink of death, an act which finally quelled the riots. In January 1948, at the age of 79, he was killed by an assassin as he walked through a crowed garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers.
• Stephen Hawking
  He is a man so brilliantly gifted that, despite being unable to use pen and paper, he is able to solve problems by constructing the necessary diagrams and manipulating the complex equations in his head. He has proved himself to be an important force in the development of the science of Cosmology, and is believed by many to be the greatest genius alive today. He now holds the esteemed position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, formerly held by Sir Isaac Newton.
  
• Aldous Huxley
  Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894. His father was the son of Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist who helped develop the theory of evolution. Huxley felt that heredity made each individual unique, and the uniqueness of the individual was essential to freedom. Huxley felt a moral obligation to fight the idea that happiness could be achieved through class-instituted slavery of even the most benevolent kind. His experiences in fascist Italy, where Benito Mussolini led an authoritarian government that fought against birth control in order to produce enough manpower for the next war, provided materials for Huxley's dystopia, as did his reading of books critical of the Soviet Union. Huxley wrote Brave New World in four months in 1931, before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and before Joseph Stalin started the purges that killed millions of people in the Soviet Union. In 1946, he published The Perennial Philosophy, an anthology of texts with his own commentaries on mystical and religious approaches to a sane life in a sane society. In 1958, he published Brave New World Revisited, a set of essays on real-life problems and ideas you'll find in the novel--overpopulation, overorganization, and psychological techniques from salesmanship to hypnopaedia, or sleep-teaching. They're all tools that a government can abuse to deprive people of freedom, an abuse that Huxley wanted people to fight. In the 1950s Huxley became famous for his interest in psychedelic or mind-expanding drugs like mescaline and LSD, which he apparently took a dozen times over ten years. Huxley deplored the drug he called soma in Brave New World--half tranquilizer, half intoxicant--which produces an artificial happiness that makes people content with their lack of freedom.
• Alfred Korzybski - General Semantics -- His books
  (1879-1950) Scholar and philosopher of language, born in Warsaw. Sent to the USA in 1915 on a Russian military mission, and remained there after World War I, becoming a US citizen in 1940. He is best known as the originator of a system of linguistic philosophy and expression (genereal semantics), and he became the founder of the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. His major work on the subject is Science and Sanity (1933).
• Dalai Lama
  His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, at the hamlet of Taktser in north-eastern Tibet. At the age of two the child named Lhamo Dhondup was recognized as the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. Dalai Lama is a Mongolian title meaning "Ocean of Wisdom" and the Dalai Lamas are manifestations of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Chenrezig. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who have postponed their own nirvana and chosen to take rebirth to serve humanity. In 1950 His Holiness the Dalai Lama was called upon to assume full political power after China's invasion of Tibet in 1949. In 1954 he went to Beijing for peace talks with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. But finally, in 1959, with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa by Chinese troops, the Dalai Lama was forced to escape into exile. Since then he has been living in Dharamsala, north India, the seat of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Since the Chinese invasion, His Holiness has appealed to the United Nations on the question of Tibet. Three resolutions were adopted by the General Assembly, in 1959, 1961 and 1965. In 1963 His Holiness the Dalai Lama presented a draft democratic constitution for Tibet, following this with a number of reforms. However, in May 1990, the radical reforms called for by His Holiness saw the realization of a truly democratic government for the exile Tibetan community. The Tibetan Cabinet (Kashag), which till then had been appointed by him was dissolved along with the Tenth Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies (Tibetan parliament in exile). In the same year, exile Tibetans on the Indian sub-continent and in more than 33 other countries elected 46 members to the expanded Eleventh Tibetan parliament on a 'one man one vote' basis. The parliament, in its turn, elected new members of the cabinet. The new democratic constitution promulgated as a result of this reform was named "The Charter of Tibetans in Exile". The charter enshrines freedom of speech, belief, assembly and movement. It also provides detailed guidelines on the functioning of the Tibetan government with respect to those living in exile. In 1992 His Holiness the Dalai Lama issued guidelines for the constitution of a future, free Tibet. In it, he announced that when Tibet becomes free the immediate task will be to set up an interim government whose first responsibility will be to elect a constitutional assembly to frame and adopt Tibet's democratic constitution. On that day His Holiness will transfer all his historical and political authority to the Interim President and live as a ordinary citizen. In 1987 His Holiness proposed the Five Point Peace Plan for Tibet as the first step towards a peaceful solution to the worsening situation in Tibet. He envisaged that Tibet will become a sanctuary, a zone of peace at the heart of Asia where all sentient beings can exist in harmony and the environment can restore and thrive.
• Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock -Gaia Theorists- books
• Marshall McLuhan
  McLuhan as intellectual and pop icon has become a fixture of late 20C thought. A computer-savvy generation turns to McLuhan as they explore the new media ecology. Baby boomers watch in amazement as the revolutionary impacts of television collide with the effects of the networked medium. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 346 references to McLuhan. His phrases turn up in surprising places. Take for example the U.S. federal court decision to overturn the Communications Decency Act: "Any content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig." Time Magazine (June 24, 1996). Everywhere his metaphors have new currency, his cliches have become archetypes.
• Friedrich Nietzsche -- His Books
  (1844-1900) German philosopher who, together with Soren Kierkegaard, shares the distinction of being a precursor of Existentialism. In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872; Eng. trans., 1968), Nietzsche presented a theory of Greek drama and of the foundations of art that has had profound effects on both literary theory and philosophy. In this book he introduced his famous distinction between the Apollonian, or rational, element in human nature and the Dionysian, or passionate, element, as exemplified in the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. When the two principles are blended, either in art or in life, humanity achieves a momentary harmony with the Primordial Mystery. This work, like his later ones, shows the strong influence of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as Nietzsche's affinity for the music of his close friend Richard Wagner. What Nietzsche presented in this work was a pagan mythology for those who could accept neither the traditional values of Christianity nor those of Social Darwinism. In Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85; Eng. trans., 1954), his most celebrated book, he introduced in eloquent poetic prose the concepts of the death of God, the superman, and the will to power. Vigorously attacking Christianity and democracy as moralities for the "weak herd," he argued for the "natural aristocracy" of the superman who, driven by the "will to power," celebrates life on earth rather than sanctifying it for some heavenly reward. Such a heroic man of merit has the courage to "live dangerously" and thus rise above the masses, developing his natural capacity for the creative use of passion.
  
• Linus Pauling
  Linus Pauling was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the twentieth century. He is the only individual to date to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes. With a life and career that spanned almost the entire twentieth century, Pauling impacted science, politics, activism, and nutrition. The British journal, New Scientist included him in their list of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, along with Galileo, Charles Darwin Galileo and Isaac Newton. The only other individual selected from the twentieth century was Albert Einstein. Considered to be the most influential chemist since the 18th century founder of chemistry, Lavoisier, Linus Pauling applied quantum physics to chemistry and his discoveries affected the work of all chemists to follow. Pauling is considered the father of molecular biology, which provided the base for biotechnology. In 1954 Pauling received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the Nature of the Chemical Bond. Following the use of the atomic bomb, Pauling devoted much of his time educating the public about the devastating effects of fallout and nuclear weapons. With his wife, Ava Helen, he submitted a petition to the United Nations with the signatures of more than 11,000 scientists. His tireless efforts resulted in the partial nuclear test ban treaty which was signed on October 10, 1963; on that same day the Nobel Committee announced Pauling had been selected for the 1962 Peace Prize. Perhaps best known for his black beret and his crusade for Vitamin C, Pauling demonstrated tremendous courage standing up for his beliefs, at the risk of his reputation and livelihood. Always curious, always investigating, always independent, his colorful life covered almost the entire twentieth century. Terrifically prolific and active until the end of his life, Pauling was a multifaceted genius who provides a model for what one person can accomplish in a lifetime.
  
• Jean Piaget -- books
  
• (1896-1980) Psychologist and pioneer in the study of child intelligence, born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After studying zoology he turned to psychology, became professor of psychology at Geneva University (1929-54), director of the Centre d'Epistémologie Génétique, and a director of the Institut des Sciences de l'Education. He is best known for his research on the development of cognitive functions in children, in such pioneering studies as La Naissance de l'intelligence chez l'enfant (1948, The Origins of Intelligence in Children).
• Ayn Rand
  (1905- )At the age of nine she decided to make fiction writing her career. During her high school years, she was eyewitness in 1917 to the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced from the outset. In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea, where she finished high school. The final Communist victory brought the confiscation of her father’s pharmacy and periods of near-starvation. When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she immediately took America as her model of what a nation of free men could be. Graduating in 1924, she experienced the disintegration of free inquiry and the takeover of the university by communist thugs. Amidst the increasingly gray life, her one great pleasure was Western films and plays. In late 1925 she obtained permission to leave Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives in the United States. She spent the next six months with her relatives in Chicago, obtained an extension to her visa, and then left for Hollywood to pursue a career as a screenwriter.  On Ayn Rand’s second day in Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille saw her standing at the gate of his studio, offered her a ride to the set of his movie The King of Kings, and gave her a job, first as an extra, then as a script reader. She began writing The Fountainhead in 1935. In the character of the architect Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the kind of hero whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as “he could be and ought to be.” The Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers but finally accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. When published in 1943, it made history by becoming a best seller through word-of-mouth two years later, and gained for its author lasting recognition as a champion of individualism. She began her major novel, Atlas Shrugged, in 1946. Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was her greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatized her unique philosophy in an intellectual mystery story that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. Although she considered herself primarily a fiction writer, she realized that in order to create heroic fictional characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals possible. She needed to formulate “a philosophy for living on earth.”  Thereafter, Ayn Rand wrote and lectured on her philosophy — Objectivism. Every book by Ayn Rand published in her lifetime is still in print, and hundreds of thousands of copies are sold each year, so far totalling more than twenty million. Her vision of man and her philosophy for living on earth have changed the lives of thousands of readers and launched a philosophic movement with a growing impact on American culture.
• Carl Sagan
  (1934-96) Sagan was one of America's pre-eminent scientists, educators, skeptics and humanists. He was also a founding member and Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and a member of the Council for Secular Humanism's International Academy of Humanism. Sagan's award-winning 1980 TV series "Cosmos" turned the cosmologist into an international celebrity by exploring scientific understanding of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution from the Big Bang to the origin of life and human consciousness. Sagan's presentation of his subject was so fascinating and comprehensible that "Cosmos" attracted an audience of over half a billion people in 60 countries. The book from the series spent 70 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, including 15 weeks at number 1. "I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." From 1971 until his death Sagan was Professor of Astronomy and Space Science at Cornell University. He also worked for NASA and was responsible for NASA Space Probes Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager I and II interstellar messages, and worked with the Mariner, Voyager and Viking planetary exploration craft.
  
• Nikola Tesla
  (1856 -1943), Serbian-American inventor and researcher who discovered the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He emigrated to the United States in 1884 and sold the patent rights to his system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse the following year. In 1891 he invented the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used in radio technology. Training for an engineering career, he attended the Technical University at Graz, Austria, and the University of Prague. At Graz he first saw the Gramme dynamo, which operated as a generator and, when reversed, became an electric motor, and he conceived a way to use alternating current to advantage. Later, at Budapest, he visualized the principle of the rotating magnetic field and developed plans for an induction motor that would become his first step toward the successful utilization of alternating current. In 1882 Tesla went to work in Paris for the Continental Edison Company, and, while on assignment to Strassburg in 1883, he constructed, in after-work hours, his first induction motor. Tesla sailed for America in 1884, arriving in New York, with four cents in his pocket, a few of his own poems, and calculations for a flying machine. He first found employment with Thomas Edison, but the two inventors were far apart in background and methods, and their separation was inevitable. In May 1885, George Westinghouse bought the patent rights to Tesla's polyphase system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors. The transaction precipitated a titanic power struggle between Edison's direct-current systems and the Tesla-Westinghouse alternating-current approach, which eventually won out. Tesla soon established his own laboratory, where his inventive mind could be given free rein. He experimented with shadowgraphs similar to those that later were to be used by Wilhelm Röntgen when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Tesla gave exhibitions in his laboratory in which he lighted lamps without wires by allowing electricity to flow through his body, to allay fears of alternating current. The Tesla coil, which he invented in 1891, is widely used today in radio and television sets and other electronic equipment. In 1898 Tesla announced his invention of a teleautomatic boat guided by remote control. When skepticism was voiced, Tesla proved his claims for it before a crowd in Madison Square Garden. In Colorado Springs, Colo., where he stayed from May 1899 until early 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles (40 kilometres) and created man-made lightning, producing flashes measuring 135 feet (41 metres). Returning to New York in 1900, Tesla began construction on Long Island of a wireless world broadcasting tower, with $150,000 capital from the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan. Tesla claimed he secured the loan by assigning 51 percent of his patent rights of telephony and telegraphy to Morgan. He expected to provide worldwide communication and to furnish facilities for sending pictures, messages, weather warnings, and stock reports. The project was abandoned because of a financial panic, labour troubles, and Morgan's withdrawal of support. It was Tesla's greatest defeat. Tesla allowed himself only a few close friends. Among them were the writers Robert Underwood Johnson, Mark Twain, and Francis Marion Crawford. He was quite impractical in financial matters and an eccentric, driven by compulsions and a progressive germ phobia. Caustic criticism greeted his speculations concerning communication with other planets, his assertions that he could split the Earth like an apple, and his claim of having invented a death ray capable of destroying 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles (400 kilometres).
• Alvin Toffler
• Lao Tzu -- books
• Alan Watts
• Bill Wilson - founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
  
• From the rubble of a wasted life, he overcame alcoholism and founded the 12-step program that has helped millions of others do the same. He had his first drink at 22, and his last 17 years later, after alcohol had destroyed his health and his career. As a soldier, and then as a businessman, Wilson drank to alleviate his depressions and to celebrate his Wall Street success. Married in 1918, he and his wife appeared to be a prosperous, promising young couple. By 1933, however, they were living on charity in her parents' house, and Wilson had become an unemployable drunk who disdained religion and even panhandled for cash. Inspired by a friend who had stopped drinking, Wilson went to meetings of the Oxford Group, an evangelical society founded in Britain by Pennsylvania Frank Buchman. And as Wilson underwent a barbiturate-and-belladonna cure called "purge and puke," which was state-of-the-art alcoholism treatment at the time, his brain spun with phrases from Oxford Group meetings, Carl Jung and William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience," which he read in the hospital. Five sober months later, Wilson went to Akron, Ohio, on business. The deal fell through, and he wanted a drink. He stood in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, entranced by the sounds of the bar across the hall. Suddenly he became convinced that by helping another alcoholic, he could save himself.. Incarcerated for the fourth time at Manhattan's Towns Hospital in 1934, Wilson had a spiritual awakening--a flash of white light, a liberating awareness of God--that led to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous and Wilson's revolutionary 12-step program, the successful remedy for alcoholism. The 12 steps have also generated successful programs for eating disorders, gambling, narcotics, debting, sex addiction and people affected by others' addictions. Aldous Huxley called him "the greatest social architect of our century."