Jean Houston

Jean Houston, PhD, scholar, philosopher, and researcher, is one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time. She is long regarded as one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement.

Thirty-six years ago, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Houston founded The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal teacher of the Mystery School, a program of cross-cultural, mythic, and spiritual studies dedicated to teaching history, philosophy, the new physics, psychology, anthropology, myth, and the many dimensions of human potential. For more than 20 years, the Mystery School has taken place on both the East and West coasts.

Houston is a prolific writer and author of 29 books, including The Wizard of Us: Transformational Lessons from Oz; Jump Time; 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 The Passion of Isis and Osiers. She is also the creator of a national nonprofit organization, The Possible Society, which encourages the creation of new ways for people to work together to help solve societal problems.

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 has directed two three-year courses in human capacities development and a program of cross-cultural mythic and spiritual studies for more than 20 years.

Houston has worked with numerous corporations, including Xerox, Beatrice Foods, General Electric, and Rodale Press. She has also worked with governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, and the Department of Energy.

Houston served as advisor in human and cultural development for UNICEF, and to presidents of the United States. Since 2003, she has worked with the United Nations Development Program, training leaders in human and cultural development. Over the last 45 years, Dr. Houston has worked in over 108 countries to teach, to create community solutions, to cross-pollinate cultures and to ignite latent human capacities.