Jeffrey Milburn

Early life and family

Milburn was born on June 22, 1955 the fifth child of Col. Thomas J. Milburn (1913–2003) and Mary Lou Mason Milburn (1915–2005). He spent his first five years in Frankfurt, Germany where his father was stationed as the director of personnel for the National Security Agency for the European Theater.

His mother, Mary Lou Mason, was the daughter of Dwight and Lillian Mason of Missoula, Montana, and a descendent of George Mason, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Milburn had four siblings: Laird Milburn, attorney and Magistrate Judge (ret.) Grand Junction, Colorado; Lt. Colonel Kim Milburn (USAF ret.) Helena, Montana; Candace Van Ark and Craig Milburn, Boulder, Colorado, all born in the United States.

Milburn graduated from Boulder High School (1973), the University of Colorado (1979), and attended the University of Denver (1983) as a special student in the Graduate School of International Studies - Technology and Modernization. He studied abroad during college at the University of Savoy in Chambéry France in a French civilization program affiliated with the University of Colorado.

While a student at Boulder High School in the early 1970s, Milburn was given a wide breadth of experience in the highly progressive music and art programs, which allowed him to study university level classes in both fields. Studying communication arts at the University of Colorado gave Milburn a chance to broaden his art and music background into film and writing, setting up his later art explorations that led him to create the Omni art movement.

Early career (1979–1983)

Milburn's first job was in banking, first serving as a consumer loan officer, then moving through a management training program that exposed him to all aspects of banking, attending the American Institute of Banking courses, and finally moving into a position as a security analyst and trust manager in the Trust Department of The Colorado National Bank in Denver, Colorado.

While working his day job as a banker, Milburn was engaged in Denver's art scene and recorded an album called "Exotique". Although not a commercial success, it created enough interest in his musical and artistic talents that he was invited to many private art parties in the mid-1980s in New York's thriving downtown art scene. Milburn had originated the two main foundational pieces for his eventual museum collection called The Universalist Group in 1981 in his Denver studio situated in the bohemian NoHo section of Denver just across the 15th Street viaduct from downtown Denver. Denver was experiencing a building boom in the early 1980s fueled by Canadian oil money. This building boom is responsible for much of Denver's current skyline.

From 1980 to 1982, Milburn spent many weekends and nights in this small studio experimenting with found objects and canvas creating his first Omni Art assemblage style artworks.

International Space Station (1983)

While working in banking in 1983, Milburn wrote presidential candidate Gary Hart a letter articulating what he thought the young Senator should include as part of his platform in his run for the presidency. In that letter, Milburn described an idea for building an International Space Station that instead of just representing a national interest should be opened up to include the Soviet Union and others as a good-will gesture toward internationalism and cooperation among nations. In the letter Milburn articulated why he felt that it was now time to expand American interests to include nations of all philosophies as a way of expanding democratic ideals globally. Gary Hart wrote back telling Milburn he very much liked the idea and that he would pass it along.

The International Space Station idea came to fruition in 1991 and has played an important symbolic role for the breaking down of barriers of national borders.

Milburn has cited many times in his public appearances that Buckminster Fuller played a very influential role in his life as Fuller was the originator of many groundbreaking ideas including his prediction in his last book, Critical Path (1983), about the eventual breaking down of Nation States ushering in a new global consciousness and sharing of humanity's technological know-how among peoples of the world. This sharing of technological knowledge and intellectual resources would foment what he termed a "design science revolution" that would enable humanity to live within the finite energy supply on planet "spaceship" Earth and establish a sustainable model of development respectful of delicate environmental systems and resources.

In 2007, Milburn helped produce a fundraising dinner for the Presidential Climate Action Project headed by Gary Hart in Aspen, Colorado. Milburn showed Hart the original letter from 1983 upon which Hart exclaimed, "You certainly were ahead of your time. No one was talking about that at all back then."

New York years (1983–1992)

In 1984, Milburn moved to New York City to join the thriving art scene. Working as a chef, party planner and music promoter, Milburn created performance installations in Manhattan's East Village, SoHo, and the Upper West Side neighborhoods before obtaining a large studio 100 miles north of New York City in the Rhinebeck area in Dutchess County, New York, in 1988.

Milburn's studio was situated in the village of Germantown just north of Bard College on the Hudson River. In this studio Milburn completed the remaining pieces of The Universalist Group museum installation that were featured in a one-man exhibition at the Islip Art Museum in 1991.

Milburn's apartment in New York was on 9th Avenue and 48th street in the middle of Hell's Kitchen.

The four propositions (1986)

While vacationing with his family in the summer of 1986, Milburn wrote a series of concepts he felt would progress American democracy and freedom into a more balanced 21st century. He sent these propositions to each administration since then without response except a thank you note from President Bill Clinton. The four propositions are as follows:

Inspired achievements of mankind have been realized with a focus and determination to overcome cynicism, apathy, and inaction. The opportunity to exercise creativity, wisdom, and intelligence has never been greater to fundamentally change human life on Earth.

Originally written in 1986, the Four Propositions are broad-based initiatives designed to address four current dilemmas facing humanity.

Propositions 1&2

The Global Information Agency and The Council on the Family of Man

The Council on the Family of Man provides educational programming and resources for healthcare and socio-cultural issues towards the end of achieving cultural well-being on a global scale.

This educational programming is facilitated by The Global Information Agency delivering multimedia resources regarding population growth, demographics, resource usage rates, environmental impact studies, psycho-cultural research, and alternative cultural offerings. The collection and disbursement of this information is made available through international television broadcasting and cable, the Internet, and print media.

Proposition 3

The Alternative Energy Transportation Initiative

The Alternative Energy Transportation Initiative requires 80% of the output of the automobile and truck industry be powered by alternative energy sources, i.e., electric, fuel cell, and hydrogen within 10 years.

Proposition 4

The Symposium on New Economics

As the Industrial Age continues to evolve into a service society, the global economy has migrated to a multi-leveled value exchange network. The International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, The Federal Reserve Bank, and the European Central Bank continue to use interest bearing debt instruments, commonly termed usury, as a means to allocate and create capital for economic growth and exchange. This system has encumbered economies for hundreds of years with parasitic bureaucracies that have hampered free enterprise, and transferred huge amounts of capital to non-producing sectors of the financial system in the form of interest payments that have continually expanded to the point where they have fostered a heavy malaise upon human culture.

The economic system must support and perpetuate economic growth without encumbering individuals or other social or economic entities with the inflationary and destabilizing use of interest bearing instruments as a means to expand or contract the supply of currency for economic exchange. This fundamental deep flaw in the currency allocation system must be remedied in order for economic activity to be accurately monetized and rewarded, thereby bringing balance, equity, and fairness into the financial exchange system.

In practical terms, this means that the monetary system must be reorganized and streamlined, eliminating interest bearing debt instruments as a way to supply currency to the population and to organizing entities such as municipalities and government entities for the means of economic exchange.

A Symposium of New Economics will provide fresh guidelines for shifting to an entirely new monetary system that does not utilize interest bearing debt instruments as a means to supply currency to the economy revolutionizing an archaic suppressive financial system. Money will be enabled to retain value and act as a true medium of exchange between peoples of the world bringing the standard of living for world citizens as reflected in education, healthcare, housing, nutrition, family planning, and the cultural arts to grow and reach maximum potential.

As concerns of nationalism evolve to responsible global partnerships, guidelines provided by the Symposium will provide measures of human success or failure, enabling individuals the world over to work together for the common vision of supporting all life on Earth in an ecological and socio-political sustainable way.

Milburn continued to seek support and methods of manifestation including founding The Universal Party of America to further these concepts for a more evolved system of democracy and freethinking for 21st century America serving the exigencies of a rapidly evolving global culture.

The Andy Warhol Cookie Jar Exchange (1987)

In New York in 1986, Milburn met Andy Warhol at Interview magazine's New Year's Eve party. Milburn spoke about toasting the New Year standing between Warhol and his escort of the evening, Tama Janowitz, at this event.

A few weeks later, Milburn and Warhol exchanged cookie jars in what would later become to Milburn a symbolic exchange of art movements from Pop art to Omni art. In January 1987 when Milburn gifted Warhol a cookie jar in the shape of a leather clad motorcycle rider, which he had repainted in pastel hues, sequins, and organza scarf. Warhol responded by sending Milburn a 1930s-style cookie jar a few days later. Milburn's cookie jar remained in Warhol's studio until his death. Their nascent friendship lasted under Warhol's death in February 1987. In hindsight, Milburn recalls these events as pivotal because he founded Omni art in the fall of 1988, shortly following the death of Andy Warhol.

In 1988, Milburn moved to Jackson Corners, New York, 100 miles north of New York City and started working on new artworks that would later make up his Universalist Group collection. In 1989, he acquired space in an old warehouse, originally an ice cream factory, in Germantown, New York. There he completed the last of his pieces for The Universalist Group show that was exhibited in a one-man museum installation in 1991 at the Islip Art Museum on Long Island.

Milburn coined this new art, Omni Art, in the fall of 1988 and to commemorate the event published a small ad in the Village Voice as a marker for its origination.

In March 1991, Milburn mounted his one-man museum installation to exhibit The Universalist Group. The curator for the installation was Madeleine Burnside of the Islip Art Museum. The failure of the New York Times to review the exhibition disappointed Milburn who hoped this show would receive the media attention that launched many art careers at the time.

In May 1991, Milburn donated one of the pieces from The Universalist Group to a fundraising event in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theater Center, a benefit for The Mary Magdalene Project that featured a reading of Eve Ensler's stage play, "Ladies," featuring actors Holly Hunter, Liz Torres, Millie Prezioso, Joan Van Ark, and John Larroquette. The piece was called "Liberty" and was given to Madonna in 1993.

Founder of the Omni art movement (1988)

While living in New York, Milburn plunged into the vibrant art scene of the late 1980s working as a waiter and chef for Macy's main store in Herald Square, a music promoter for a subsidiary label of A&M Records, a party planner, and an art personality at various art shows, installations, clubs, and other venues while developing his performance installation style art in the East Village, the Upper West Side, and Midtown Manhattan. It was in the fall of 1988 that Milburn coined the term "Omni" to name the style of art he had created that encompassed a multidimensional understanding of the cosmos based within quantum physics and new science.

Museum installation (1991)

It was in March 1991 that Milburn mounted his first one-man museum installation at the Islip Art Museum in Islip, New York that featured the Universalist Group collection of 12 foundational artworks that encompass Millburn’s thesis of the Omni art paradigm

Boulder years (1992–2000)

Milburn moved back to Boulder, Colorado in June 1991 after his New York museum installation ended and he returned from the benefit in Los Angeles in May. Milburn planned to visit his parents in the summer of 1991 on his way back to New York when he found his family home in disrepair since his mother had suffered a massive stroke in late 1990 and had progressive dementia and his father, also in declining health, was unable to manage the family home without support.

While in Colorado, he continued to develop his performance installation Omni art style, creating a summer arts atelier for students at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and producing various performance installations, concerts, and benefits in the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area. Combining the Omni art pieces with original live music and Kabuki style dance in site specific settings, Milburn continued to develop Omni art to express its multifaceted meanings of the realities and influence of the invisible universe.

He explored the thriving alternative health scene in Boulder. He also visited Santa Fe, New Mexico regularly to deepen his understanding of the emerging consciousness culture there and of homeopathy, herbals, and other natural methods for health, healing, and wellness. Later Milburn remarked that these years were very possibly the most important to mature the Omni Art style and message and to deepen his understanding of its ancient mystical underpinnings and deepen its contemporary interpretive application.

Santa Fe years (2000–2010)

In the fall of 2000, Milburn moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to develop Omni art further and write his book on Omni art. He also finished more musical compositions for performance and started a new series of art works called the Torsion Wave Series, which are based on the extraordinarily advanced research of Russian astrophysicist Dr. Nikolai Kozyrev.

Torsion Wave Art Series (2004–2006)

Milburn's latest creations are a series of artworks called which he described as:

In the early 1900s, Nikola Tesla experimented with two caduceus-shaped spiral coils by feeding them opposing alternating currents. This created self-canceling electromagnetic fields. Amazingly, the “Tesla” coils were able to transmit energy over long distances and represented a profound discovery: a new form of energy. These “waves” did not lose energy at the inverse square of the distance as normal electromagnetic energy does. In fact, even over long distances, these waves lost no energy whatsoever. Tesla's discovery was much too revolutionary to be accepted by society in the 20th century, especially because this energy was “free” energy.

Decades later, in the 1950s, Russian astrophysicist Dr. Nikolai Kozyrev rediscovered these same energy waves in his groundbreaking independent research. During the Cold War, Kozyrev's discoveries were quietly kept secretly locked away behind the Iron Curtain. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union slowly began to reveal Kozyrev's discoveries to the West. Since that time, thousands of academics in the Soviet Union have delved into Kozyrev's discovery of this new form of wave energy. It was Dr. Kozyrev who proved the existence of the ether, or etheric dimension, where the action of these waves of energy constantly occurs.

Being neither electromagnetic in nature nor relating to gravity as it stands on its own, this wave energy is a spiraling, non-Hertzian electromagnetic wave that travels through the vacuum of space at super-luminal speed - a billion times faster than the speed of light. Because these waves trace a spiraling path, they are called “torsion waves.”

In 1913, Albert Einstein and Dr. Élie Cartan predicted the existence of a static torsion field in a theory that became known as the Einstein-Cartan Theory (ECT).

In all of this research, it has been demonstrated that torsion energy fields seem to play an integral role in explaining the physical action of all matter. Operating through minute forces in matter, they leave a distinctive energy trail and it is because of those trails that they can be detected.

Dr. Kozyrev developed torsion beam balances so that he could measure these very subtle energies. He noticed that in shaking, vibrating, deforming, heating and cooling, all physical objects generate and absorb measurable torsion energy waves. All movement, from the minute vibration of atoms to the vast orbits of planets and stars, leaves definitive traces of torsion waves in the ether. In fact, even the simple displacement or movement of an object generates measurable torsion energy waves. The waves flow in and out of all physical matter and atoms and are, essentially, omnipresent.

The most extraordinary discovery of Dr. Kozyrev is that human thoughts and feelings are generating torsion energy waves as well, identifying human consciousness as a primary contributor to the continuing expansion and creation of the universe. Human thoughts and emotions create torsion waves that travel at superluminal speeds to the far ends of the universe generating information fields of interference patterns. This wave action forms a gigantic hologram that permeates the whole of the universe. Many scientists and researchers now agree that this phenomenon may well provide a definitive model for a “Theory of Everything” that has long eluded physicists, but is now within the reach of human knowledge and understanding.

The Omni Art Salon (2005–)

In 2005, Milburn started the Omni Art Salon, a podcast that eventually drew subscribers from 61 countries. The Omni Art Salon was the first cyber art salon of its kind, and has since expanded to include interviews and conversations with well-known writers, artists, academics, and others exploring the cutting edge of the conscious cultural evolution including interviews with Ray Anderson, Russell Targ, Jean Houston, Gary Hart, Gary Zukav, Mike Gravel, Joan Van Ark, Amit Goswami, John Bogle, Steven Greer, Joshua Greene, Chip Conley, Uri Geller, Matthew Fox (priest), Raymond Moody, Peter Russell, Leonard Shlain, and Guy Finley. In 2007, Milburn published OMNI ART - Language of Consciousness as a treatise and explanation of the multidimensionality representation of his assemblage artworks that make up The Universalist Group.

Milburn explained Omni Art as an exploration of the invisible dimensions of reality that are currently being examined and explored by the world's leading quantum physicists, cultural anthropologists, and scientists. He quoted Buckminster Fuller saying, "90% of reality is invisible". Milburn often referred to this invisible reality as the most important frontier of scientific and artistic exploration.

The initial response to the Omni Art Salon was dramatic with the first few podcasts drawing an audience of 50-100 people that quickly grew to over 25,000 within the first five months and ultimately spread across 61 countries.

After the first two years of podcasting, Milburn began getting requests from publishers to interview their authors and Milburn's unique style of interviewing became sought after by a number of well-known writers and thought leaders. Exploring the realms of quantum physics, Oneness consciousness, and new science has become the hallmark of The Omni Art Salon. The name has changed twice since then, first to “Conversations in Consciousness” and recently to “Fresh Perspectives” to include a broader spectrum of culture, the arts, and science.

Milburn described the change from Pop art that was exemplified by superficiality and commercialism to Omni art as one of an invisible yet powerful convergence of science and consciousness as the language of an emerging cultural revolution. To these ends, Milburn has spent thousands of hours interviewing and conversing with many of the world's foremost thinkers and writers on The Omni Art Salon. Most of these thinkers and cultural contributors are personally exploring the realms of an enlightened understanding of self, consciousness and its effect on human cultural evolution. Milburn feels that this emerging culture promises a deeper appreciation for the subtlety and divinity inherent in all life forms of life and supplies the necessary ingredients to structure an awakened way of life that human culture will eventually embrace.