Happening Then

In our book ‘Museums and Well-being‘ (out now through Routledge!) we make note of an event that happened at the Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, with Ram Dass. We thought it might be fun to share the image (above) of this event. We found the image of the instagram account of Ram Dass (@babaramdass).

It was really great to come across this poster on instagram, because it confirmed something we had otherwise assumed and not really looked into, that the 1970’s psychedelics/meditation/well-being/wellness side of the counter-culture would have been involved in having happenings at Museums – at the time and not just exhibits about or after the fact – but we hadn’t ever seen a poster for one before until seeing this.

This immediately led us to realise there’s certainly some potentially interesting archival work to do there, we’d love to see more if anyone has any links. We are also intrigued to what extent museums hosted the earlier generation of western seekers at the height of the age of the Theosophists (during the time of Blavatsky and Olcott et al). I’m sure there’s some fascinating archival work to do there too.

Why are we interested in this? Well because all this essentially means that the idea of well-being practices taking place in museums isn’t new, isn’t a fad, and isn’t something without a history of it’s own. This heritage of practice, especially collective, counter-cultural practice, is important in museology, it means those working in this field now are working in a tradition, and one with an archive.

This opens up new possibilities of collective well-being within museology, and also closes down the potential monopolisation of museum well-being; whether that be by the field of medical science, or by NGO’s, that might otherwise develop in the present.

Who was Ram Dass?

For those who don’t know Ram Dass, also known as Baba Ram Dass, and born Richard Alpert, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book Be Here Now, is a seminal text of the counterculture, and helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West.

Dass was dismissed from Harvard in 1963, alongside Timothy Leary, for their controversial work with the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs (we talk about this a little in our book too). He was involved with the Millbrook and psychedelic counterculture (1963–1967), and alongside Leary co-authored the 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience, which was sort of a psychedelic retelling of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, with a somewhat limited, or fantastical, understanding of the Bardo. By 1967 Dass had reached the limit of psychedelics and was looking for something more, he travelled to India and became a disciple of Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba who gave him the name Ram Dass. Later back in the States he had written a manuscript entitled From Bindu to Ojas, this was edited in community ultimately becoming a best-selling book when published under the name Be Here Now, in 1971. The first section of the book inspired the lyrics to George Harrison’s song Be Here Now, written in 1971 and released on his 1973 album Living in the Material World.

Some links:

Be Here Now (book on library archive)

Ram Dass Website

Be Here Now Network Podcast

Neeb Karori Baba Website