Jerry B. Brown

Jerry B. Brown (born November 9, 1942 in Paterson, New Jersey) is an anthropologist and ethnomycologist.

Jerry B. Brown (Anthropologist)
Born (1942-11-09) November 9, 1942
NationalityAmerican
Alma materAntioch College (BA), Cornell University (PhD)
OccupationAnthropologist, Ethnomycologist
Spouse(s)Julie Brown
Websitepsychedelicgospels.com

Education and early career

In 1965, Brown graduated from Antioch College with a B.A. degree in Philosophy and Religion and received his doctorate degree in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1972. From 1972 through 2014, he served as founding professor of anthropology at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami.[1]

Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers

From 1968 to 1971, Brown conducted field work on the California farm workers movement for his dissertation at Cornell. In fall 1968, United Farm Workers (UFW) union founder Cesar Chavez asked him to co-coordinate the national grape boycott from the union headquarters in Delano, California.[2]

Brown conducted a city-by-city analysis of the impact of the national grape boycott, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture weekly reports of table grape shipments to 41 North American cities,[3] which led to a successful boycott strategy. He also coordinated an international boycott which resulted in blockades of California grapes by longshoremen on the docks of London, England and Malmo, Sweden. His roles are documented in Chapter 2, “Capitalism in Reverse,” and Chapter 3, “Workers of the World, Unite!” in the 2012 book From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement by Dartmouth University historian Matt Garcia.[4]

In 1972, Brown wrote his doctoral dissertation for Cornell University on The United Farm Workers Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970: An Evaluation of the Culture of Poverty Theory.[5]  This monograph documents the early years of Chavez’s movement through the success of the grape boycott in achieving collective bargaining contracts with California grape growers.

Nuclear power activism and research

In 1979 Brown founded Floridians United for Safe Energy (FUSE).[6][7] In 1983, the organization intervened before the Florida Public Service Commission to prevent Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) from charging ratepayers $500 million for the replacement of corroded steam generators at the Turkey Point nuclear generating station near Miami, Florida.[8][9]

From 1998-2003, he was a Research Associate with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), coordinating the national baby teeth study (also known as the “Tooth Fairy Project”), the second baby teeth study in American history.[10] It found an unexpected increase in Sr-90 in U.S. baby teeth, suggesting that “it is likely that, 40 years after large-scale atmospheric atomic bomb tests ended, much of the current in-body radioactivity represents nuclear reactor emissions." [11]

From 2013 to 2018, Brown directed the World Business Academy’s Safe Energy Project, with a mission to close California’s remaining nuclear power plants - the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), which closed in 2013 after replacement steam generators failed and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant planned close in 2024/2025[12] - and to accelerate the state’s transition to 100 percent renewable energy in ten years through the “California Moonshot Project”.[13] The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a permanently closed nuclear power plant located south of San Clemente, California, on the Pacific coast, in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV. The plant was shut down in 2013 after replacement steam generators failed; it is currently in the process of decommissioning.

Ethnomycology

In 1975 he designed and annually offered a course on “Psychedelics and Culture” at Florida International University. In 2006, he discovered an image of the psychoactive Amanita muscaria mushroom sculpted into the forehead of a green man in Rosslyn Chapel, a fifteenth century Church in Scotland. Mycologist Paul Stamets confirmed that this was a “taxonomically correct Amanita muscaria.”[14] This was the catalyst for his ten-year search for psychedelic mushroom images in Christian art.

Temptation in the Garden of Eden, Chapel of Plaincourault, France, c. 1291.

Expanding on ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson’s theory of the entheogenic origins of religion,[15] Brown’s 2016 book, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity hypothesizes that Christianity has a psychedelic history. [16] This idea had been proposed by several scholars, including Boston University classics professor Carl A. P. Ruck in The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist (2001);[17] and most recently by Brian C. Muraresku in The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name (2020). [18]

The Psychedelic Gospels documents evidence of psychoactive mushroom images in European and Middle Eastern chapels, churches, and cathedrals, including Rosslyn Chapel and Canterbury Cathedral in England, Plaincourault Chapel and Chartres Cathedral in France, Saint Michael’s Church in Germany, and the Dark Church of Göreme, Turkey. It presents original photographs of psychoactive mushroom iconography, of both Amanita muscaria and Psilocybe varieties, found in medieval Christian art - in frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, and stained glass windows.

Service

Brown has served in executive roles in unions and nonprofits including: United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO (UFW, 1972-1975), Floridians United for Safe Energy (FUSE, 1979-1985), Business Executives for National Security (BENS, 1985-1986), Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP, 1998-2003), and the National Labor College (NLC, 2009-2011), Currently, he is a director and Fellow of the World Business Academy.

Books
  • Jerry B. Brown and Rinaldo S. Brutoco, Profiles in Power: The Anti-Nuclear Movement and the Dawn of the Solar Age. New York, New York: Twayne/Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997. [ISBN 978-0805738797]
  • Jerry B. Brown, Rinaldo S. Brutoco, et al., Freedom from Mid-East Oil. San Francisco, California: World Business Academy, 2007. [ISBN 978-0979405228]
  • Jerry B. Brown and Julie M. Brown, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2016. [ISBN 978-1620555026]

Peer-review articles

Bibliography

Brown is coauthor of all the articles, except for the 2019 article on “Ayahuasca, Depression and Me” of which he is the sole author.

References
  1. The title of Founding Professor was conferred on Jerry B. Brown (a/k/a Jerald B. Brown) by Florida International University President Modesto Madique and Provost Mark B. Rosenberg on the occasion of FIU’s 30th Anniversary, October 4, 2002.
  2. Garcia, Matthew (2012). From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Work Movement. University of California Press. pp. Chapter 2: "Capitalism in Reverse".
  3. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Marketing Service, “Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Unloads in Eastern, Southern, Midwestern and Western Cities by Commodities, States and Months,” 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, passim. For table on “Carlot Unloads of All California-Arizona Table Grapes in 10 Major North American Markets, 1966 and 1969 Seasons Compared,” see Brown, Jerald B., The United Farm Workers Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970: An Evaluation of the Culture of Poverty Theory, 1972, pp. 212-214.
  4. Garcia, Matt (2012). From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Work Movement. University of California Press. pp. Chapter 2: "Capitalism in Reverse".
  5. Garcia, Matthew. "Resources". Dartmouth University.
  6. "'FUSE' Looks at Turkey Point Safety". The Miami Herald. May 2, 1980.
  7. Florida Supreme Court, 475 So.2d 241 (1985). "Floridians United For Safe Energy, Inc. v. Public Service Commission". RavelLaw.
  8. Florida's Renewable Energy Potential, Hearing before the United States Congress, Ninety-Sixth Congress, Second Session. House Committee on Science and Technology. Subcommittee on Energy Development and Applications, 1981, p. 1.
  9. "21 Dec 1983, 27 - The Miami Herald at Newspapers.com". Miami Herald.
  10. "The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida on June 1, 2003 · 334". Newspapers.com.
  11. Gould, J.A., et al, “The Strontium-90 Baby Teeth Study and Childhood Cancer,” European Journal of Oncology, 5:2:119-125, 2000.
  12. "PG&E to close Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, replace it with renewables, efficiency, storage". Utility Dive.
  13. "Clean Energy Moonshot Explainer".
  14. Paul Stamets, as cited in Jerry B. Brown and Julie M. Brown, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity, Park Street Press, 2016, p. 14.
  15. Wasson, R.G., et al, Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, Yale University Press, 1986.
  16. Jerry B. Brown and Julie M. Brown, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity, Park Street Press, 2016.
  17. Carl A.P. Ruck, Clark Heinrich, et. al., The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist, Carolina Academic Press, 2001.
  18. Brian C. Muraresku, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.