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Marion Institute
October 2003 | Boston Globe| Paul Kandarian

They’re not trying to change the world as much as understand it. When they first gathered in 1992, several friends curious about curious things, they called themselves “The Unifying Hunch Bunch,” as they’d meet to discuss their inquisitiveness about a variety thought-provoking matters.

Ten years ago, the group officially formed as the non-profit Marion Foundation, a name soon to change to The Marion Institute, evolving into a locally based, globally involved think tank of sorts, with a current membership of 400 or so curious souls who host a variety of workshops and conferences on things like health and healing, death and dying, the environment, tools for personal growth, frontiers in science, business in transition and the arts.
           
The Institute also promotes biological medicine, a holistic approach to health, said Margie Baldwin, who founded the group with husband Michael, an investment counselor.

“It’s all about personal growth and transformation,” said Margie Baldwin when asked to sum up what seems to be the lofty spirit of the Institute. “Exploring ourselves and our world and our place in it.”

But mostly it’s about curiosity and scratching the intellectual itch members feel about a variety of topics.

“We began as a casual gathering of friends watching a Bill Moyers/Joseph Campbell film series in 1991,” Baldwin said of Moyers’s interviews with the late scholar and writer. “Out of that group came questions and curiosities. We decided to put on little workshops and invited people over to learn more.” Word spread and the group began to get more formal, sending out articles of interest to each other, then starting a membership.

Health became a huge issue for the group in general but the Baldwins in particular when son Nathaniel was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years ago. The boy received conventional treatment that was successful but left him with huge toxin levels and reduced lung capacity.

The Baldwins sought out treatment to cleanse and strengthen their son’s system, which led to them to Dr. Thomas Rau, director of the Switzerland-based Paracelsus Klinik, a center for holistic medicine. Thus began a friendship with Rau, who has since appeared at workshops for the Institute. Nathaniel Baldwin now works in California.

The Institute has also set up a Biological Medicine Network, and Institute Executive Director Kim Tirrell regularly makes referrals for people calling to ask about it, she said.           

“We’ve had two years of biological medicine seminar so the network is building,” said Tirrell, who administers the Institute with its four full-time and two part-time workers along with a cadre of volunteers.

The Institute’s other myriad involvements include working with grassroots organizations such as The Lionheart Foundation of Cambridge which works with prisoners; Nouvellee Planete, with which the Institute is helping to conserve Peruvian rain forests; and the Kenyan Green Belt Movement, an educational program.

The Institute’s interests are wide-ranging and eclectic. In the past, it has hosted everything from the far-reaching – it once held a workshop on UFOs, with people claiming to have been abducted by aliens in attendance – to the painfully close; Joan Anderson, author of “An Unfinished Marriage,”  lectured on her year-long break from marriage and time of independent self-discovery.

Tirrell said the Institute now has four projects it focuses on: Biological Medicine; socially responsible investing; metahistory, “examining what our beliefs are, the impact of where we are today,” Baldwin said; and its “Explorers' Circle,” bringing to the forefront various grassroots efforts from around the world, Tirrell said.

Membership is comprised mainly of middle-aged women, Baldwin said, since “women come to these things more readily. Men are more threatened, I think, women make the health choices, but that’s slowly changing. Men are realizing that money and work is not all there is, they’re looking for the same connection as everyone else.”

Tirrell said the Institute “has been good at building a community where like-minded individuals can come and talk about what they want, the paranormal or health and healing or indigenous people, allowing people to make a connection and go home with new tools” for coping with or bettering their world.

“People grab hold of different things, what interests me may not interest you, but if you provide a wealth of options, people can make meaningful choices and changes,” Baldwin said. “Everyone comes out a little differently.