Go to: MENU BIOS: Edward Arroyo Peter Benjamin Joseph Caezza Ben Ezzell Algirdas Kanauka Stanley Krippner Lori Marcus Bruce McKeever Marc McNaughton Laurie McRobert Ted Pedersen McCagie Rogers Barbara Smith Alicia Soriano Andrius Stankus James Stoll Robert Tartz Raja Tripathi

A number of professional persons are participating in the MYTHSEEKER Project—persons who are specialists or authorities in fields ranging from software technology to the humanities, to archetypal psychology and the creative arts. There is a Board of Directors/Advisors serving in an advisory capacity, some of whom are also helping directly with tangible aspects of the project. There is a group of Consultants who will implement the prototype and Initial Commercial Product. Both groups share deep excitement about the purpose and import of the project and what it can accomplish. Biographical summaries are offered below. McCAGIE BROOKS ROGERS McCagie Brooks Rogers is a software systems analyst and consultant, writer, and explorer of worldwide mythic and meditational endeavor. He has conceived the MYTHSEEKER Project to apply computer technology to overcoming the fragmentation and violence of our times, to search for new mythic frontiers. McCagie has worked in aerospace and commercial software applications of data communications protocol architectures. He has been on the technical staffs of The Aerospace Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, IBM Corporation, and Computer Transmission Corporation (TRAN) among other organizations. His accomplishments include coordinating protocol architecture standards for future space systems, showing how international mulilayer data communications protocols can be applied by analogy to satellite communications. He has published technical papers in the protocol software field and has taught here and abroad about data communications software and network architectures. McCagie Rogers has explored mythology and systems of spiritual endeavor from the viewpoint of existential psychology. He has done research in South India, Guatemala, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. McCagie has studied Huichol shamanism with Brandt Secunda to understand this primordial form of experience. For ten years he was a student of ancient Jain systems of meditation from India based on mantra sound and visualization. A major principle of this teaching is to respect all serious approaches to the mystery of existence. McCagie has a master's degree in transpersonal foundations from California State University, Long Beach, involving multi-disciplinary foundations for what has become the MYTHSEEKER Project. These studies included psycholinguistics and cognition, theory and practice of the expressive arts therapies, and shamanic continuities underlying the expressive therapies. In his extensive thesis he formulated a qualitative model of world-emergence and related control operations. The model gives a foundation for MYTHSEEKER design. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Wesleyan University where he was in the College of Quantitative Studies, studying mathematics and investigating existentialist psychology and philosophy. He also has a diploma from the Technical Entrepreneurship Program offered by the Center for Education and Continuing Economic Development at West Los Angeles College. McCagie is intrigued by primal world-structure existing within us at an archetypal level, and by deep continuities of consciousness we share with our proto-human precursors and our evolutionary descendants. McCagie lives in Eagle Rock, California, and may be reached at mccagie@earthlink.net Return to the top of the page EDWARD R. ARROYO Edward R. Arroyo is a producer, designer, and principal owner of MakeBelieve Studios, a computer graphics and animation company that specializes in film, television, and Internet applications. He has over twenty years in the entertainment industry in set decoration and art direction. As an engineering-then-philosophy graduate of UCLA, he has been strongly interested in the influence of staged environments and how they modify behavior. In film and TV, sets help to set the tone for telling a story, all the while being "transparent" in the background. Edward is currently involved in several projects. One of these is Electric Coffee which is a TV broadcast variety show which will be compositing live action with computer-generated sets. The concept includes creation of a new venue and network among the cyber-cafes and coffee houses springing up around the world. Coffee houses have historically been places where new art, music, and thought have been shared and previewed. He is moving this to a fresh new level, integrating computer-generated sets and virtual realities as a next stage for presenting emerging talent. Edward is also working on More To The Story which is a magazine format TV pilot. Unlike other TV shows, More To The Story will devote entire shows to single topics such as scientific discoveries, supernatural phenomena, and mysterious occurrences. The show's uniqueness will be the extent to which subjects are explored and reported. Its first episode will be focused on exploring the crop circle phenomenon. He will be creating the computer-generated set for the show as well as a digital setting for each subject and title opening. Edward Arroyo is involved with the MYTHSEEKER Project in helping to develop multimedia and virtual worlds that will establish the visual design for eventual dynamic interactive personal experience. The project's visual purpose will be to present an aesthetic facility for exploring the foundation and structure of one's own personal myth as well as other possible worlds and belief systems. Edward's interest in MYTHSEEKER comes from his desire to develop contextual environments that are immediate and confrontational and yet invisible and subliminal. Edward feels that success of MYTHSEEKER will allow individuals to discover their own will and to explore and cultivate the intimate connections necessary for personal communication, expression, and growth. It is his wish that this will lead to better understanding of one's own common humanity, and to a view of the world in which together we all live. Return to the top of the page PETER BENJAMIN Peter Benjamin is a consultant for planning, designing, and implementing three-dimensional scientific and engineering simulations as well as applications software for authoring systems or end-user automation. He is a graduate in physical chemistry of Harvey Mudd college in Claremont, California, and is a consulting scientist specializing in Internet technology. This involves a wide range of web-related services such as business-direction consulting, design, content creation, and computer services and contract programming. Pete does multimedia creation for audio, animation, video, Shockwave, and three-dimensional VRML virtual reality. He has programmed for over twenty-eight years in a number of computer languages, currently working with C++, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Director Lingo, and programming SQL (Symbolic Query Language) databases. He offers services for Unix and Windows platforms used as servers for the web, email, ftp, and telnet. Benjamin's software development capabilities include applied mathematics for four-dimensional matrix operations, and working with splines, primitive and sculptured surfaces, solids, coordinate spaces translations, rotations and transformations; and ray tracing intersections with primitive objects, surfaces, and solids including reflection, partial transmission, refraction, and transparency. He works with virtual reality algorithms for real physics motion, collision detection, and kinematics; and with Newtonian and classical mechanics areas such as numerical integration in n-dimensional space, for applications involving gravity, electromagnetic propagation through a medium, and also with quantum mechanics. Additional areas of expertise include user interface design for graphical, menu, or command line front ends, and object-oriented design and development. Peter's CDROM titles include Speed Racer which is a virtual reality game, and Welcome To The Future which is a Myst-like game written in the Macromedia Director Lingo programming language. His multimedia experience includes cell and vector based animation, audio, stereo and quad, analog and digital video, with many Internet streaming software projects. Benjamin has many web clients including Ray Charles Enterprises for web site design and CGI database public and administrative programming; and Star Radio 98.7 FM, complete web site implementation including hardware, operating systems, server software for web, email, and ftp. Return to the top of the page JOSEPH CAEZZA Joseph Caezza is an authority in symbolism of ancient religions, including the symbolist interpretation of the ancient Egyptian system of spirituality. He has published numerous papers on hermetic and other themes. Return to the top of the page BEN EZZELL Ben Ezzell is a software engineer specializing in windows-based graphics programming, writer of mysteries and fantasy literature, author of numerous books about computer programming translated into many languages. He has more than two decades of experience including both application design and development. Special experience includes extensive development in graphics, optical-imaging and electronic-imaging systems as well as the design and development of a number of GUI (graphical user interface) systems with emphasis on human-factor engineering. Ben has published more than twenty books on computers and computer programming which have been translated into a number of languages. These have included the first books introducing object-oriented programming in both Pascal and C++, and books on windows programming. Ben's computer industry experience includes designing and directing development of a pre-Windows object-oriented GUI for use by the international gem industry; designing and developing optical-based manufactured parts measurement and tolerancing systems; developing and patenting an optical imaging process for gem stones; designing and maintaining image database and transmission systems; teaching Windows and Windows NT programming for major software companies; developing Windows and Windows NT APIs (application programming interfaces) for database interface services such as Sybase and Oracle; designing and developing network database utility-task management programs; designing and directing development of on-line and hard copy product documentation; experience in the newspaper and publishing industries; and an extensive electronics and computer electronics background. Return to the top of the page ALGIRDAS KANAUKA Algirdas Kanauka has been engaged in military endeavors much of his life. He served as an Air Force officer and crew member on various combat aircraft. He has worked extensively as a systems engineer in the space and defense industry at The Aerospace Corporation, and the Hughes Helicopters division of Summa Corporation. Algirdas Kanauka came to America in 1949 from Lithuania via displaced persons camps in Germany. He attended The Citadel where he obtained a B.S. in electrical engineering. He subsequently earned an M.B.A. from the University of Dayton; and obtained both an M.S. in systems management and a doctorate in public administration from the University of Southern California. After Lithuania regained independence from the former Soviet Union, Dr. Kanauka became a consultant to the Lithuanian Army General Staff and currently spends much of his time in Lithuania. He is a founder of the Strategic Development Center which is a think tank in Vilnius, Lithuania. Through his efforts the Center works on political, defense, economic, and social problems deemed of highest national priority. Al has for years been a strong student of the humanities, geopolitics, history, the arts, comparative religion, and spiritual movements. He explores European mythological traditions such as the Grail legendry, Nordic mythology, Richard Wagner's operas, the history of the Cathars, Gnosticism, the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff, as well as the writings of Carl Jung and Herman Hesse. Al sees great possibilities in the MYTHSEEKER Project because he believes its use of virtual reality technology can tie together many directions of spiritual search with a great tour de force. Return to the top of the page STANLEY KRIPPNER Stanley Krippner is a professor of psychology at Saybrook Institute in San Francisco. He has served as president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and the American Psychological Association's Division of Psychological Hypnosis. He and David Feinstein are co-authors of Personal Mythology: The Psychology of Your Evolving Self and The Mythic Path: Discovering the Guiding Stories of Your Past—Creating a Vision for Your Future. Return to the top of the page LORI MARCUS Lori Marcus' career spans over twenty five years in the arts, education, and business. Her interest in art and the creative imagination has found expression as artist, designer and consultant, international art dealer and curator, and educator. As designer and consultant she has created interior environments reflecting the uniqueness of each client. As art dealer and curator her focus has been to promote emerging artists commenting on the human condition. As educator she has developed teacher-training programs for public school systems and has taught arts programs publicly and privately. She is the co-founder and national director of The Pulsart Foundation, a non-profit, international, multidisciplinary arts organization. Lori graduated from the Pratt Institute in New York City. In the 1970's she established a real estate and land development company that pioneered in energy-efficient, solar-receptive homes. In the 1980's she founded and continues to direct an interior design firm focusing on environmental safety and energy efficiency. Her passionate interest in the arts, humanities, and technology, blended with a metaphysical view, has reached a synthesis propelling her new company, VisionTech. VisionTech's inaugural projects support a new art paradigm called "MetaArt". The core concept is the relationship between color, light, sound, the spoken word, and vibrational medicine. She envisions working with artists, scientists, and alternative health practitioners who focus on the relationship between the arts and healing. Lori's "HeArt" projects include "The Healing HeArt," a multimedia, mobile, immersive event environment to be presented where people gather. "The HeArt of Home" is an audiovisual book and video to assist people in achieving perfect environment via visioning. "The HeArt Center" is a community-based project to integrate with medical facilities, designed to support patients and practitioners, and to enhance healing and wellness through immersion in light, color, and sound. Return to the top of the page BRUCE McKEEVER "For most of my working life I've been a computer engineer. I've designed computers and systems using computers. In 1960 I did the architecture and arithmetic logic of the first floating point coprocessor, the General Electric 225 Auxiliary Arithmetic Unit. This, along with the GE225 CPU, was the computer that the BASIC language was created on at Dartmouth. My boss at the time and I share the patent for the first commercial Fast Fourier Transform system. FFT systems ushered in Digital Signal Processing, which now everyone uses who has a CD player. It was a pleasure in August 1989 to watch on television a product designed and built by others, with the critical aid of my vibration analysis system, still working perfectly 3 billion miles away as it sailed past Neptune, sending pictures back to Earth. "Providing the brain wave spectral analysis tools used in the first sleep studies at Stanford, where measuring the stages of sleep and the first correlation with REM was done, was satisfying. It is indeed very satisfying to help save lives, even indirectly by providing diagnostic equipment for surgeons. By extending the Analogic AP400 Array Processor and doing the necessary microcoding to do fast parallel beam reconstruction, it was possible for many of my customers to build Positron Emission Tomography systems that let doctors get rapid unblurred images of the soft tissue organs of patients without need for dangerous exploratory surgery. "When McCagie first introduced me to MYTHSEEKER, I knew instinctively that this was valuable. I focus less on it being a neutral, priesthood-free gateway to new spiritual experiences, and more on it being an impersonal, non-threatening, computer- based mirror for a person in trouble to reach deep down and look inside. More than a generation has been raised without any moral roots to sustain them against the demands of increasingly aggressive and manipulating society and governments. Government- run schools train robots for the new world order, not teach individuals how to think for themselves. But something in the minds of us all can recognize that something is missing, something is wrong. McCagie's MYTHSEEKER may be the important human development tool that opens the next millennium to individual freedom again. To be free you must know who you are." Return to the top of the page MARC McNAUGHTON Marc McNaughton is a graphics design specialist in the commercial print industry, and a consultant in graphic design, founder of Topaz Design. Return to the top of the page LAURIE McROBERT Laurie McRobert received her Ph.D. in philosophy of religion from McGill University. An independent scholar, she has taught at McGill University and continues to be a discussion leader at Thomas More Institute in Montreal. She has published many essays and articles in books and journals on the subject of philosophical dynamics ranging from the dynamics of radical evil to that of nonlinear thinking. (See for example Fackenheim: German Philosophy and Jewish Thought, University of Toronto Press, 1992.) She is currently at work on a book that examines the dynamics of virtual reality and its impact on the 21st century imagination. "I was intrigued by the MYTHSEEKER project because I saw the potential in helping people to understand their archetypal nature—some call it spiritual nature—through mediums they would well be familiar with and ensconced in by the 21st Century. Multi-mediums through which they could enter into have an interactive dialogue with "living archetypes" that would help them understand the spiritual side of their natures. We may be caught up in an electric age but the nature of our psyche will never change because the archetypal language will always remain the same. It is a phenomena worth exploring from every perspective be it quantum or biochemistry. "A project such as MYTHSEEKER is a vital one for the future well-being of our peoples, because it is a way to balance the science/technology push by educators today. Slowly the educational system in the U.S., as I see it from the distance of Montreal, is chipping away at the poetic-instinctive-nature that each one of us inherits. Educators are not nurturing the silent symbolic language of our right-hemisphere brains and as this part of the curriculum slips out of our school systems we are going to be left with a lot of robotic-type left-hemisphere thinking people." Return to the top of the page TED PEDERSEN Ted Pedersen was a computer programmer/systems analyst in Seattle. He has a degree in computer science from the Seattle Central Community College, where he developed a job search program for graduates and two courses in using computers for the State of Washington. He moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a computer consultant (University of Southern California, Los Angles Rapid Transit District, Hughes Aircraft, Los Angeles Musicians Union), while beginning to write fulltime for film and tv. Since 1980, he has been writing animation scripts for tv. During the past three years, he has started writing books, and has a dozen (primarily childrens and young adult books) published, including Internet For Kids which has been an international success and a revised edition was published in December, 1997. His newest book, Make Your Own Web Page! will be published in November, 1998. Ted is now working on creating original content for the Internet and translating his book design background to the World Wide Web. Return to the top of the page BARBARA T. SMITH Barbara T. Smith is a pioneer performance artist and art educator. Among the innovators in the field, she did her first performances in L.A. in the 1960's and subsequently has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her work reflects a personal (mythic) spiritual quest reflecting real life issues in universal perspectives using innovative non-theatrical structures. She has been among the founders of several early alternative arts spaces including the Women's Building in L. A. and part of the dynamic of the women's movement from its inception. The performances focus on sexual/spiritual unification, the insights from new paradigms in science, and ritual events which incorporate food and nurturance and often contain elements of trial or ordeal. Smith has taught performance art in major colleges and universities in Southern California, at Ohio State University, Illinois State, the University of Arizona, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of New South Wales in Australia. Barbara Smith graduated cum laude from Pomona College in 1953 with a minor in comparative religions, studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in 1965 and with Steve Paxton and Alex Hay in the late 60's. She received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, in 1971. She began the study and practice of Buddhism in 1973 and attended many New Age workshops (e.g. with Brugh Joy et al) in 1974-1976. She took workshops from Brandt Secunda and Michael Harner in shamanism. In 1984 she became a student of Harley Swiftdeer (Cherokee and Navajo traditions) and in 1987 also with Twylah Nitsch (Seneca medicine woman) participating in numerous ceremonies and healing practices. These many teachings have informed her performance art. In 1991-93 she created, along with Dr. Roy L. Walford, a two-year durational or time-based performance called "The 21st Century Odyssey" in which she, as "Odysseus," traveled around the world, while Walford, as "Penelope," was sealed with seven others inside Biosphere 2 as its chief medical officer. A major aspect of this interactive project was their e-mail and videophone transmissions to each other and an electronic art space in Santa Monica, the Electronic Cafe International. Persons from across the globe were communicating in real time and local performances were created and images sent one to the others. Barbara Smith currently teaches performance art at Otis College of Art and Design, and yoga in her home. Return to the top of the page ALICIA SORIANO Alicia Soriano is a specialist in software quality assurance in the financial and data imagery access and retrieval industries. Return to the top of the page ANDRIUS STANKUS Andrius Stankus is a specialist in commercial 3D modeling and animation for virtual reality and games, head of an animation group serving a number of major clients. Return to the top of the page JAMES STOLL James Stoll is a Systems Engineer and Biomedical Engineer with more than 20 years of experience in system requirements definition, requirements analysis, design, test and documentation, primarily in areas of communications satellites, remote sensing technology and satellite meteorology. He is currently in aerospace senior-level review capacities, including management and systems engineering for hardware and software areas of tactical weather satellites. He has considerable experience in test and evaluation for military satellite systems. Dr. Stoll has an extensive background in Engineering Analysis, Teaching and Research (Bio-medical). As Research Engineer and Assistant Professor at the University of Washington and University of California, Davis, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Electronics, High Frequency/Microwave Laboratory, Control System Theory, Biomedical Engineering and Respiratory Physiology. Stoll designed and operated a computerized data collection system for a medical laboratory, analyzed data related to the contractile properties of heart muscle; conducted experiments and analyzed data associated with the regulation of breathing. These projects led to publishing and oral presentation of several peer-reviewed technical papers. As Systems Analyst at Spacelabs, Inc., Stoll developed requirements documentation and supported both hardware and software design for a medical patient data management system, based on a Zilog Z-80 computer using Assembly Programming Language. He also supervised initial phases of clinical testing for the system. This assignment required a mix of medical knowledge plus familiarity with physiological transducers and small computer hardware and software. James Stoll has a B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University; S.B. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT; and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.. Return to the top of the page ROBERT TARTZ Robert Tartz is a clinical psychologist who has provided long a short term psychotherapy for adults, families, and children suffering from Depression and Bipolar Disorders, Substance Abuse, Adjustment Disorders, etc. He has recently completed a Ph.D. at the California School of Professional Psychology under the guidance of Stanley Krippner. His research experience has been in areas such as Dream Content from various perspectives, presenting papers at international conferences. He previously worked as Design Engineer and Project Engineer for biomedical instrumentation and embedded microcomputer applications. Robert Tartz is a member of the American Psychological Association. Return to the top of the page RAJA TRIPATHI Rajavashisth Tripathi is a molecular geneticist—Director of Genetic Cardiology Research at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is internationally recognized for his research on genetic aspects of cytokine biology and cholesterol homeostasis. He has received many awards from local and national chapters of the American Heart Association and, most recently, an award from the National Institute of Health for outstanding research on atherosclerosis, which his group has found a way to reverse. Dr. Tripathi is co-director of the Tripathi School of Music and Metabiology. He has also founded The Mindia Foundation with the objective of promoting mythic and mystic exploration of thought processes that bring about metabiological transformations. His current research on musical notation for genetic sequences has led to the development of computer-based software that converts nucleic and amino acid sequences into musical notes. The long range goals of these organizations are to develop a method through which genetic information can be experienced in the form of musical sequences, and to find ways to help understand the Grammar of Genetic Language. Raja Tripathi has for several years been a strong advocate of the MYTHSEEKER Project's purpose and actualization. He views this development as important for a deeper exploration of human evolution based on genetics and other disciplines. The processes involved in mythseeking and metabiology are interrelated in fundamental ways. A cooperative investigation is planned to develop the two in combination. MYTHSEEKER Centers, with their extensive resources, will be important for this to happen. Return to the top of the page MYTHSEEKER MENU: HOME | OVERVIEW | SCENARIOS | APPLICATIONS BIOS | MORTAL REALMS | ETHICS | TERMINOLOGY PARTICIPATION | OUR PATENT | NEWS Mythseeker © 1998 ® McCagie Brooks Rogers Web design by Ted Pedersen This page last updated on August 22, 1998