Jean Houston

“In our time we have come to the stage where the real work of
humanity begins. It is the time where we partner with Creation in the
creation of ourselves, in the restoration of the biosphere, the
regenesis of society, and in the assuming of a new type of culture: the
culture of Kindness. Herein, we live daily life reconnected and
recharged by the Source, so as to become liberated and engaged in the world and in our tasks.”

Dr. Jean Houston, scholar, philosopher and researcher in Human
Capacities, is one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our
time. She has long been regarded as one of the principal founders of the
Human Potential Movement and one of the leading experts in the field of
myth and archetype.
 
In 1965, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Dr. Houston founded
The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal
teacher of the Mystery School, a school of human development and
cross-cultural, mythic and spiritual studies, dedicated to teaching
history, philosophy, the New Physics, psychology, anthropology, myth and
the many dimensions of human potential. This school is in its 27th year
and takes place on both the East and West Coasts. She also leads an
intensive program in Social Artistry with leaders coming from all over
the world to study with her and her distinguished associates. This
program in innovative leadership strategies is now in its 9th year. She
is also the Founder and Program Director of the International Institute
for Social Artistry and the Jean Houston Foundation.
 
A prolific writer, she is the author of 26 books including A Passion
for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible
Human, Public Like a Frog, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our
Greater Story, and Manual of the Peacemaker. Her book Jump Time
explores a new Global Paradigm and speaks boldly of a regenesis of human
society. The questions raised in this book and the exciting
possibilities suggested are producing new pioneers – Social Artists –
working on the frontiers of this new global society.
 
As Advisor to UNICEF in human and cultural development, she has worked
to implement some of their extensive educational and health programs,
primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh. Working with the UNDP and
UNHABITAT she has done intensive training of leaders in seven developing
countries in their own development in the light of dramatic social
change. With other international agencies, she has implemented the
social development of indigenous people through the integration of their
unique cultural gifts into their health and educational systems. In
total, she has worked intensively in over 40 cultures and 100 countries.

Dr. Houston served for two years in an advisory capacity to President
and Mrs. Clinton as well as helping Mrs. Clinton write It Takes A
Village To Raise A Child. As a high-school student she worked closely
with Mrs. Roosevelt on developing strategies to introduce international
awareness and United Nations work to young people. She also worked with
President and Mrs. Carter and counseled leaders in similar positions in
many countries and cultures. She has advised such luminous figures as
Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama.
 
Dr. Houston has also worked with numerous corporations, including Xerox,
Beatrice Foods, General Electric and Rodale Press. She has worked with
governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, the
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and the Department of Energy. In
the early nineties, under the auspices of UNICEF, she trained
non-military leaders in Myanmar from departments of education, health,
agriculture and welfare in her methods. In 1993 she brought in her team
to bring new methods of education to Bangladesh (again under the
auspices of UNICEF). Her work established multi-modal education in
thousands of schools.
 
In the past five years she has been a consultant with the United Nations
Development Program, training leaders in developing countries
throughout the world in the new field of social artistry. To date, this
training has occurred in Albania, the Eastern Caribbean, Kenya, Nepal,
and the Philippines. In March 2007, under the auspices of UNHABITAT and
CITYNET, she traveled to Nepal where she trained leaders from 12 Asian
countries in the principles of Social Artistry in order to effect
positive gains in the millennium development goals. So effective was
this training that she was asked by Dr. Monica Sharma, the Director of
Leadership and Capacity Development for the UN, to create an eponymous
foundation dedicated to training thousands of people the world over in
her techniques in Social Artistry who, in turn, would train some 100
million people over a period of ten years. In 2007 and 2008, the Jean
Houston Foundation was formed and has held several trainings of
trainers.
 
A past President of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, she has
taught Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion at Columbia University,
Hunter College, the New School for Social Research and Marymount
College, as well as summer sessions in Human Development at the
University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of British
Columbia. She was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of
Oklahoma in their Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program in 1982.
 
Dr. Houston presented the William James Lecture at Harvard Divinity
School, the Orr Lectures at Wilson, and the Alfred Stiernotte Lecture in
Philosophy at Quinnipaic College. She has spoken at hundreds of
colleges and universities all over the world. She has directed two
three-year courses in human capacities development and a program of
cross-cultural mythic and spiritual studies, now entering its 27th year.
In 2002 she instituted the first summer Institute in Social Artistry
with participants coming from all over the world. 

Today, this ten-day program, now in its ninth year, continues to be
very successful in training Western leaders in social artistry. A
description of this program can be found at www.jeanhouston.org.
 
She has chaired many other academic and scientific convocations
including the 1975 United Nations Temple of Understanding Conference of
World Religious Leaders. Under the sponsorship of the Department of
Commerce, she also help to initiate and then chaired the 1979 Symposium
for leading government policy makers.
 
Her work has been the core of a great many teaching-learning communities
throughout many parts of the world. In 1984, she created a national
not-for-profit organization, The Possible Society, to encourage the
creation of new ways for people to work together to help solve societal
problems. Giving seminars to large groups of citizens in 17 cities
throughout North America, she established ongoing teaching-learning
communities devoted to the enrichment of their citizens and the
betterment of their cities. Currently, she is offering a similar
three-day program on the Magnificent Human and the Possible World to
large groups in many American and Canadian cities.
 
In 1985, Dr. Houston was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award from
the Association of Teachers and Educators. In 1993, she received the
Gardner Murphy Humanitarian Award for her work in psychology and the
INTA Humanitarian of the Year award. In 1994, she received the Lifetime
Outstanding Creative Achievement Award from the Creative Education
Foundation. The following year, she was given the Keeper of the Lore
Award for her studies in myth, archetype and culture. In 1997 she was
made a Fellow of the World Business Academy. In 1999 she received the
Pathfinder award from the Association of Humanistic Psychology. She was
given the Millennium award in 2000.
 
Her PBS Special, A Passion for the Possible, has been widely shown. Her
book drawn from the program was published by Harper San Francisco in
August of 1997.
 
A powerful and dynamic speaker, she holds conferences and seminars with
social leaders, educational institutions and business organizations
worldwide. Her ability to inspire and invigorate people enables her to
readily convey her vision – the finest possible achievement of the
individual potential. That same ability lets her share with her
audiences and students throughout the world the excitement of that
possibility.
 
Jean Houston holds a B.A. from Barnard College, a Ph.D. in Psychology
from the Union Graduate School and a Ph.D in Religion from the Graduate
Theological Foundation. She has also been the recipient of honorary
decorates. She is on both Twitter and Facebook.