One of the most Influential Psychologists of the late 20th Century.
Dr Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass) was born in 1931. He studied psychology, specialising in human motivation and personality development, receiving an M.A from Wesleyan and a Ph.D from Stanford. He then served on the psychology faculties at Stanford and the University of California, and from 1958 to 1963 taught and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. During this period he co-authored (with Sears and Rau) the book Identification and Child Rearing published by Stanford University Press.
In 1961, while at Harvard, Dr Alpert's explorations of human consciousness led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others, to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals. Out of this research came two books: The Psychedelic Experience (co-authored by Leary and Metzner, and based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead), and LSD (with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller).
In 1967 he travelled to India, where he met The Indian master teacher, Neem Karoli Baba. He studied yoga and meditation and received the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God" Since 1968 he has pursued a variety of spiritual practices, including meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies.
In 1974, Ram Dass created the Hanuman Foundation. Projects developed under its aegis included the Prison Ashram Project, designed to help prison inmates grow spiritually during their incarceration, and the Dying Project, conceived as a spiritual support structure for conscious dying.
His interests include the support of psychedelic research, international development, environmental awareness, and political action.
Ram Dass is a co-founder and advisory board member of the Seva Foundation - an international service organisation. He also works with the social venture network, an organisation of businesses seeking to bring social consciousness to business practices. He continues to teach about the nature of consciousness and about service as a path for self development.
