Jeremy Griffith’s Biographical Profile

“In the whole of written history there are only two or three people who have been able to think on this scale about the human condition”

Prof. Anthony Barnett, zoologist, author and broadcaster, 1983

Video introducing Jeremy Griffith by Tim Macartney-Snape AM OAM

Read the Transcript of Tim’s talk

Transcript of Tim Macartney-Snape Introducing Jeremy Griffith

Tim Macartney-Snape in studio introducing a recorded talk, 2009

Welcome everyone to the WORLD TRANSFORMATION MOVEMENT (WTM).

My name is Tim Macartney-Snape and I would like to introduce to you this presentation by my very close friend and fellow Patron of the WORLD TRANSFORMATION MOVEMENT, Jeremy Griffith. Jeremy is an Australian biologist and the author of many books and publications about the human condition.

The issue of the human condition, which is humans’ capacity for what has been called ‘good’ and ‘evil’, is really the agonising core issue that we humans have needed to understand about our behaviour—and it is that all-important biological understanding of the human condition, which the discoveries of science have at last made possible, that Jeremy will be presenting here today. The ability to understand this essential aspect of ourselves is what makes the TRANSFORMATION of humans possible, and with that TRANSFORMATION of ourselves comes the TRANSFORMATION of our world — hence the name of the organisation that has been established to support and promote these understandings: the WORLD TRANSFORMATION MOVEMENT.

What you are about to hear is nothing less than the culminating insight of all human enquiry into the nature of our world and our place in it.

As Jeremy has said, the eternal hope, faith, trust and indeed belief of the human race has been that one day the all-clarifying, reconciling, healing and TRANSFORMING explanation of human nature would finally be found, freeing humans at last of their insecure, troubled, good-and-evil-afflicted so-called human condition. And as incredible as it is, it is that greatest of all breakthroughs that has finally been achieved. It is this dreamed of explanation that you are about to hear!

And it comes not a moment too soon, for only the clarifying, dignifying and redeeming biological understanding of the dilemma of the human condition — the understanding of our species’ extraordinary capacity for so-called ‘good and evil’, the understanding of why we humans have been so competitive, aggressive and selfish when the ideals are so clearly to be cooperative, loving and selfless — could heal the underlying insecurity of that condition, and by so doing bring an end to all the devastation, distress and suffering in the world.

Indeed, the great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) , who early in his career had been a follower of the founder of psychoanalysis, the Austrian Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was forever saying that ‘wholeness for humans depended on the ability to own their own shadow’ because he recognised that only understanding of our species’ dark, human-condition-afflicted state could reconcile and relieve the guilt and resulting psychosis of that situation and make us ‘whole’ again.

Similarly, the ancients had emblazoned across their temples the words ‘Man, know thyself’ because again it was only understanding of the psychological reason for why we humans have not been ideally behaved that could heal that condition.

So, knowledge, specifically self-knowledge, is what the human race has been tirelessly working towards since the dawn of consciousness in the hope that some day, some where, some time someone standing completely upright would truthfully and boldly walk right through the middle of all the confusion and seeming madness of our human situation and make sense of it all — and again, amazing as it is, that is what has happened. On the shoulders of all the eons of human enquiry and effort (and indeed benefiting from the courageous efforts of all humans who have ever lived) Jeremy has done just that. That day of days, that greatest of all breakthroughs has at last arrived! That holy grail of the human journey of finding first principle-based, biological understanding of the human condition has finally been found. Ameliorating or healing understanding of ourselves is now here.

From a situation of bewildering confusion and darkness about what it is to be human we have broken through to a world drenched in the light of relieving understanding. The dawn of enlightenment has arrived; the sun is finally coming up to drain away all the darkness from our lives. This is the most amazing moment.

Jeremy Griffith’s History

Born on December 1, 1945, and raised on a sheep station in rural New South Wales, Australia, Jeremy Griffith was educated at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, a school whose visionary approach to education has produced such notable alumni as Rupert Murdoch and HRH The Prince of Wales. He matriculated with first class honors in biology and in 1965 began a science degree at the University of New England in northern New South Wales. While there, Jeremy played representative rugby union football (see www.humancondition.com/jeremy-rugby), making the 1966 trials for the national team, the Wallabies. Deferring his studies in 1967, Jeremy undertook the most thorough investigation ever into the plight of the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine) (see www.humancondition.com/tasmanian-tiger-search) — a search that was to last more than six years, before concluding the ‘Tiger’ was indeed extinct. His findings were internationally reported, with articles appearing in the American Museum of Natural History’s journal, Natural History (see www.humancondition.com/natural-history-tiger), and Australian Geographic (see www.humancondition.com/australian-geographic-tiger). His search also featured in an episode of the national television series A Big Country (see www.humancondition.com/big-country-tiger).

In 1971 Jeremy completed his Bachelor of Science degree in zoology at the University of Sydney and the following year, in the same self-sufficient spirit with which he had undertaken the ‘Tiger’ search, he established Griffith Tablecraft, a highly successful furniture manufacturing business based on his own simple and natural designs, which pioneered the use of bark-to-bark slabs of timber (see www.humancondition.com/griffith-tablecraft). On the subject of creativity, Jeremy is also an accomplished artist (see www.humancondition.com/jeremy-art-work). It was during this time that, at age 27, Jeremy realised that trying to save animals from extinction or trying to build ideal furniture wasn’t addressing the real issue behind the extraordinary imperfection in human life, which is our behaviour, and that what was really needed in the world was a deeper understanding of ourselves — so it was to this issue of our species’ less-than-ideal behaviour that Jeremy turned his attention.

Since 1975 Jeremy has spent the first, often pre-dawn, hours of each day thinking and writing about the human condition, and in 1983 he established the non-profit organisation the World Transformation Movement (WTM), which is dedicated to the study and amelioration of the human condition. The result of that dedication are his many articles and over 20 books about the human condition: his 1983 submissions to Nature and New Scientist magazines (which were rejected, with the then editor of Nature, John Maddox, telling Jeremy that his starting point teleological argument that there is an underlying order in nature ‘is wrong’ — in chapter 3 of FREEDOM Jeremy explains why the truth of the order in nature has been denied); Free: The End Of The Human Condition (published in 1988); Beyond The Human Condition (1991); A Species In Denial (2003), which was a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand; The Human Condition Documentary Proposal (2004); The Great Exodus: From the horror and darkness of the human condition (2006); Freedom Expanded (2009); The Book of Real Answers to Everything! (2011), and in 2016, his summa masterpiece book, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition, and its condensation, Transform Your Life And Save The World. In 2017, Jeremy commenced work on the Freedom Essay Series, an ongoing collection of essays (and videos) designed to help WTM subscribers access all the main subjects covered in FREEDOM in wonderfully illustrated bite-sized portions. In 2020 he wrote How Laurens Van Der Post Saved The World, and presented the one-hour video explanation of the human condition, the transcript of which is provided in the booklet, THE Interview. Since Critical Theory wasn’t taking hold in society when FREEDOM was published, in 2021 Jeremy wrote Death by Dogma as a companion book for both FREEDOM and THE Interview to explain the extreme danger Marxist Critical Theory presents. Since 2021 there have been a number of books by Jeremy that have been published that elaborate on various aspects of the human condition. (All published works are freely available to be read or printed.)

Jeremy’s books have attracted the support of such eminent scientists in the field as Australia’s Templeton Prize-winning biologist Professor Charles Birch; New Zealand’s then foremost zoologist Professor John Morton; Professor Harry Prosen, a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association; Professor Stuart Hurlbert, distinguished ecologist and professor emeritus of biology at San Diego State University; as well as other distinguished thinkers such as Sir Laurens van der Post. A proposal to make a documentary about the human condition, The Human Condition Documentary Proposal, which Jeremy wrote the synopses for, received over 100 endorsements from many of the world’s leading scientists and thinkers, including professors Stephen Hawking and Nobel Laureate Charles H. Townes. See commendations for Jeremy’s work.

See Jeremy Griffith’s full profile for a comprehensive description of his life and work

Article about Griffith Tablecraft in Women's Day magazine (click to read)
Article by Jeremy Griffith published in Natural History, the magazine of The American Museum of Natural History (click to read)
Jeremy Griffith presenting an introductory talk on the human condition