Lapis Magazine

About Us

Lapis magazine was launched in September 1995 with the aim of offering high-quality articles on both the outer world of society and the environment and the inner world of soul and spirit.

It has always been our view that a truly holistic magazine, if it is to be complete, needs to engage with equal intensity with both these arenas of the human experience. Lapis is the magazine of the New York Open Center, New York City’s leading venue for holistic learning for the last twenty years. The Open Center offers a comprehensive range of workshops, conferences, lectures and performances covering the whole spectrum of holistic learning. (In July of 2009, after 25 years at its Spring Street location in downtown Manhattan, the center moved to an expanded midtown location.)

From 1995 until 2001, we published Lapis three times a year. The magazine won the Alternative Press Award 2000 from Utne Reader for excellence in its coverage of the emerging culture. Utne cited “the blending of the modern Western mind with an ancient sense of soul” as the key to Lapis’ editorial alchemy.

Lapis has been edited since its inception by Open Center co-founder Ralph White, who has been deeply involved in the emergence and development of alternative culture for thirty years. He is a writer, speaker, conference organizer, center director and adventurer who can be reached at lapiseditor@lapismagazine.org. The magazine’s managing editor and webmaster is Ingrid Marcroft, who has spent over 20 years creating, translating, organizing, editing and refining writing in English, German and French. She’s a woman of many hats, a student and teacher in the holistic health, esoteric philosophy and spirituality fields since 1991.

Due to intense financial pressures at the Open Center, partly related to the consequences of the September 11th attacks, we had to suspend publication of the printed magazine in the fall of 2001. However we have now returned in an online incarnation and publish new articles, audios and videos frequently. We are also archiving our best articles from the past, and those who wish to purchase back issues of Lapis in its beautiful paper format are able to do so through this site.

We must state our gratitude for the video-editing wizardry of Paul Bashour, who helped us to trim down hours of footage so we could put up our extraordinary clips on YouTube. Most importantly, this entire online launch would not have been possible without the superhuman support of our co-designer and technological consultant, Shawn Ewald.

Interested writers may submit articles for our review. Articles should be between 1,500 and 2,500 words and use short paragraphs for easy readability online.

We are enjoying our experience of rebirth as an online magazine and encourage you to tell your friends about us. If you are from an organization that would like to link to our site, please contact the web master at ingrid@opencenter.org.

We think the world needs media that are spiritually awake and socially engaged. We need media that are sophisticated about the way society and politics work and also totally committed to holistic values. That’s the way cultural renewal will come, and we intend to do our part.

Finally, although an online magazine is much less expensive to operate than a paper one, we always benefit greatly from financial support. So if you are in a position to assist us in our work, please contact the editor or send your donations to Lapis Magazine, 22 East 30th Street, New York, NY 10016. (Please note our new address as of July 31, 2009.) Donations should be made payable to New York Open Center, and designated for Lapis Magazine. Since the Open Center is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, all donations are tax deductible.