Missing Ralph Abraham

A Last Lunch with a master investigator of chaos and the structures of consciousness

The Last Lunch, Santa Cruz, March 2024: old friends Nick Herbert (left) and Ralph Abraham along with yours truly

This past month we lost a mathematical giant and surfer of conscious states at the very edge of chaos: Ralph Abraham. Along with Rupert Sheldrake and Terence McKenna he was third member of the Trialogues, epic conversations recorded in the 80s and 90s which mesmerized and challenged a new generation of seekers (including me). I have a lot to thank Ralph for. Back in 1998 he drove Terence and his son Finn (just turned twenty) up here to Ancient Oaks. This act set off a pinball run of events in my life lasting until today. After Terence’s passing, Ralph and I got to know each other much better. He drove up here again a decade later to deliver a box of cassette tapes of the whole Trialogue series. Instead of being lost to analogue history, these digitized recordings helped power up the Psychedelic Salon Podcast. We started to meet periodically for lunch in Santa Cruz talking metaphysics, mathematics, psychedelics and abiogenetics. I also joined his Hip Santa Cruz project, sitting in story circles 2-3 times per year to capture the remarkable oral history of aging but very lucid counterculture figures and their transformative effect on society. Ralph also supported my DigiBarn Computer Museum by donating numerous artifacts including his network of early NeXT Computers which were used to visualize math (including those famous strange attractors). 

His story of how psychedelics (particularly LSD) powered insights for his mathematics from the 1960s powered my own interest in the topic. I cited Ralph’s 2008 essay Mathematics and the Psychedelic Revolution in my coming-out-of-the-psychedelic-scientist-closet article It’s High Time for Science. His definitive telling of the story of psychedelic evolution of tech and math helped charge up the case for the creation of the Center for MINDS itself:

“There is no doubt that the psychedelic evolution in the 1960s had a profound effect on the history of computers and computer graphics, and of mathematics, especially the birth of postmodern maths such as chaos theory and fractal geometry. This I witnessed personally. The effect on my own history, viewed now in four decades of retrospect, was a catastrophic shift from abstract pure math to a more experimental and applied study of vibrations and forms, which continues to this day.” - Ralph Abraham

At our last lunch back in March, 87 year-old Nick Herbert, one of our prized residents here at Ancient Oaks, joined me to meet with 87 year-old Ralph. They both moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains in the late 60s and crossed paths many times socially. It was delightful to witness two true wizards in (sometimes hilarious) discourse!

Ralph’s legacy goes on, from his many books and articles, pioneering work in dynamical systems theory and math visualization, and aiding society through his work guiding young people to enter exciting creative lives at the Ross School, and his visionary quest for an Akashic physics with Kolkata mathematician Sisir Roy.

Missing you Ralph: Last Selfie flanking and appreciating Ralph Abraham, Nick Herbert (left) and yours truly (right) - photo credit Kathryn Lukas-Damer

My final thoughts and feelings go out to his lovely wife and partner of many decades, “Rainbow” Ray Gwyn Smith. 

- Bruce Damer

See also: Wallace Baine’s excellent article for Lookout Santa Cruz: Intellectual explorer Ralph Abraham was always looking for the Big Picture.