Fredric Lehrman
Early Life
Fredric Lehrman grew up in mid Manhattan, within a triangle defined by Grand Central Station, the United Nations and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. His view looked north from the 14th floor. He spent hours gazing at tiny people and traffic in the streets below and watching the lights appear in immense skyscrapers as the night fell.
His father, Hal Lehrman, was a well-known foreign correspondent, a president of the Overseas Press Club, and a member of the Council for Foreign Relations. The childhood home was a meeting place for diplomats, expatriate writers, editors, artists and political refugees. As a young boy, Fredric listened to voices from other lands telling stories about life in faraway places, and hearing things that made him realize that newspapers don't tell everything.
His mother, Freda, was an executive in the fashion industry. As a child, Fredric spent many afternoons following her through Bloomingdale's, Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue learning to see what was new.
Education
His education was somewhat unusual even for a New Yorker. He started at Hunter College Elementary School, which had an experimental program for gifted children. There he took lots of tests and got very good at guessing. He then attended the Rudolf Steiner High School, where, besides French and German, he learned how to card and spin wool, to weave, sew, carve wood and play soccer. From there he went on to major in Musicology at Columbia University, with graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
Around this academic track were woven extensive private studies in music with master teachers of the guitar, cello, and voice. He was the first classical guitarist to be invited to participate in the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. He studied Japanese music with Koto master Shinichi Yuize, and Kirana-style singing with the great North Indian vocalist, Pandit Pran Nath.
He was three times awarded grants by foreign governments (France, Germany and Italy) for study in their country.
In order to protect himself from his brother, who was becoming a black belt in Aikido, Fredric turned to Tai Chi, the only effective method of self -defense which was practical for musical hands. For nine years he was a senior student of the late Tai Chi master, Cheng Man-ch'ing, and founded several permanent schools of Tai-Chi Chuan in major U.S. cities. He has explored many other techniques of conscious evolution and systems of biological energy, and has traveled world wide as a consultant and seminar leader on topics related to education, health, business, psychology, and relationship dynamics.
Experiments in Education
He became interested in new educational models, and visited many experimental schools, teaching in a wide variety of classroom settings. Among these have been the Lewis-Waldhams School in upstate New York; Simon's Rock School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; the Societa Dante Alighieri in Rome; the Solebury School, Solebury Pennsylvania, The University of Florida in Gainesville; the School of the Arts in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Mannes College of Music, New York City; Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado; and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Many of these schools went through a productive restructuring in the months following Mr. Lehrman's activity there.
During this period he was also engaged in many entrepreneurial projects. He was a director of Domain, Ltd. a real estate company in Pennsylvania; a partner in the Arnolfini Emprise, a development firm in upstate New York; a director of the Sky Self-education Foundation in San Diego, specializing in cultural trend analysis; a director of Granite Bay Institute, a pataphysical consulting firm based in New York City; and was active in venture capital funding for new technologies. As a consultant his clients have included Microsoft, 3M Corporation, Celestial Seasonings Tea Company; the actress Ellen Burstyn; the Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco; the Center for Soviet American Dialogue, Seattle, and Banana Republic Clothing Stores. He was a senior trainer for LRT International, a relationship training network.
Nomad University
He founded Nomad University in 1986. Through his diverse experience in educational and business settings, as well as his concentrated and extended apprenticeships with masters from various cultures, Fredric has evolved a style of teaching which has been highly successful. His students find that their participation in these programs leads them to a heightened ability to educate themselves in all situations, and to trust their own sensibilities in evaluating information and in setting personal priorities. Nomad University provides a growing network of resources for self-directed education, and brings together outstanding teachers in all fields with students worldwide. (Book and web site in development.)
Psychology of Wealth
In 1994 he received a request from Nightingale-Conant Corporation to create an audio course on cassette which would incorporate the information in his popular seminar "Getting Money Right: The Psychology of Wealth." The result was Prosperity Consciousness, an audio program which has sold over 20,000 copies and is now being translated into several languages. In 1999 he followed this up with a ten CD set entitled, The Inner Factors that Control Outer Success.
Books
As a writer, he is the author of The Sacred Landscape, published in 1988 by Celestial Arts, and considered a classic of its type, and a similar book for children, Loving the Earth. His articles have appeared in New Age Journal and the Utne Reader, he lectures internationally on topics concerning planetary trends and human dynamics, and coordinates Nomad University programs around the world. He is also the founder of Art & Spirit, a new concept in museum design.
He has resided in Seattle, Washington since 1981. His other activities include photography and dragon farming.
