" If all of this is true about our potential, if human beings can learn as it appears they can learn, why aren't we doing something," I said, "about it?" One thing led to another.

I was writing radio commercials at age 17, so I was already peeking behind the curtain that hides the Wizard of Oz. There was this paradox, of this society in which we let people sell us things all the time, and how intelligent and educated are we going to be that we are going to question what it is that we are being sold?

About the time of the Brain Revolution I was also meditating. I also discovered the formal research of parapsychology. This validated psychic experiences I'd had.

After a particularly poignant paranormal incident, which had to do with my fathers death, it occurred to me that what we in Western society think of as being "real", is a very limited view of the world. From time to time, we all have experiences in everyday life that hint all is not what it seems. Henri Berkson had spoken of the brain as a filter, reducing this whole large body of information to something manageable. Alter the chemistry a little, as William James said, and a whole other kind of experience can happen.

DiCarlo: So even with that book-though you may not have been thinking of it in those terms-you were challenging the predominant paradigm?

Ferguson: Yes I was. Years later, Luis Muchado, who started the first Ministry for the Development of Human Intelligence, a Cabinet position in Venezuela told me The Brain Revolution had inspired him to action. I'd said in conclusion, "If this is all true, why doesn't somebody do something about it?" So he did.

We have to believe we can throw ourselves into life and change things. If there is something wrong with the product, if there is something wrong in the community do something. "Drive-by shootings" are only a symptom of a "drive-by culture." We and our leaders really need to stop, take stock of things and ask, "Is this really right or not?" People are doing that more.

DiCarlo: In The Aquarian Conspiracy you discussed at length the paradigm shifts taking place in many sectors of society, from science to education. How would you characterize let's say, the emerging paradigm in business?

Ferguson: The passing paradigm saw business as the 'be-all' and 'end-all' of society rather than one of its tools for functioning. Economic needs had been seen as foremost, superseding considerations of family, quality of life, health and so on. It seems that we have gotten confused about just what the 'American Dream' is all about. We think it was about rags to riches and Horatio Alger, but the original dream was based upon the freedom to dream. And to make your dreams come true as long as you did not hurt anyone else. It was not to simply 'get rich'.

Now some people dreamed of amassing considerable financial wealth, but that wasn't the point. Our founders were a diverse group. They were in a sense, the children of dissenters-people who had emigrated for political or religious reasons.

How this relates to the emerging business paradigm? For a couple of hundred years commercial interests have dominated. As early as the 1800s people were complaining that their Congressional representatives were bought and sold by special interest groups. So the good of the whole has not always been taken into account.

Quite suddenly, the policy makers, the real movers and shakers, have recognized more the increasingly crucial role of education. It is rather ironic in a way, that because of our entertainment industries- music, videos and television-a couple of generations of people have been raised who are not accustomed to finding pleasure within themselves, thinking for themselves, even imagining for themselves. Education per se could not compete with this extra stimulation, the advertising, the glitzy images. With the declining level of educational standards and performance, these very people who become 'vegged-out' through socialization, are no longer adequate workers for skilled or even semi-skilled positions.