# William Irwin Thompson

*1938–2020*

William Irwin Thompson (July 16, 1938-November 8, 2020) was an American cultural historian, poet, and social philosopher who studied how myth, science, and consciousness evolve together. Born in Chicago and educated at Pomona College and Cornell, he taught at MIT from 1965 to 1968 and at York University from 1968 to 1973, serving as a visiting professor at Syracuse in spring 1973. In 1972 he founded the Lindisfarne Association, which he led as founder and president until 1997. He built it into a meeting place for scientists, artists, and contemplatives who shared his conviction that no single discipline could account for a mind capable of building both cathedrals and computers.

His books, including *At the Edge of History* (1971), *Passages About Earth* (1974), and *The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light* (1981), treat evolution as a story running through galaxies, cells, and civilizations. Drawing on figures like Teilhard de Chardin, they connect myth, spirituality, ecology, and cultural transformation. In 1976 he argued that technological expansion, including space colonization, should not become a way to evade ecological responsibility or the harder work of cultural change here on Earth.

## Quotations

- We need to transform our civilization, not simply extend it.