Located at the heart of Tuscany, Island of Knowledge is a retreat for human flourishing designed to inspire a world-changing mindset for a better planetary future.
We believe that profoundly immersive threshold experiences are gateways towards heightened personal growth, meaningful sense-making, and purposeful leadership.
THE FOUNDERS
Founded by the award-winning scientist, professor, and author Marcelo Gleiser and his wife Kari, an experiential psychologist, Island of Knowledge promotes powerful encounters between people and knowledge, combining self-discovery, science, and different disciplines in an intimate and reserved context.
Click below to view the bios.
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Marcelo Gleiser is the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, a world-renowned theoretical physicist and public intellectual. He’s authored hundreds of technical and nontechnical papers and essays, and seven books in English translated to 18 languages. His writings explore the historical, religious, and philosophical roots of science, past and modern. Gleiser is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House, and founder and past director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth. He co-founded National Public Radio’s 13.7 Science and Culture blog, and currently writes weekly for BigThink.com. In 2019, he became the first Latin American Templeton Prize laureate, an honor he shares with the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the scientist Freeman Dyson.
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Dr. Kari Gleiser is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of complex trauma and dissociation. She is a senior faculty member in the AEDP Institute, a psychotherapy training institute for clinicians in an attachment-based, experiential and transformational model of therapy. She has co-developed an “intra-relational” model of parts that imports AEDP’s relational and experiential interventions to patients’ internal systems of dissociated self-states. Dr. Gleiser teaches and consults internationally. She holds an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychotherapy from Boston University.
MEET THE AMBASSADORS
Everard Findlay
Everard Findlay is a Global Systems Strategist with over two decades of experience in fostering cross-disciplinary connections for educational, economic, environmental, and social growth. As the founder of Everard Findlay, LLC, he has collaborated with heads of state, leaders, Ivy League institutions, artists, and foundations to align public, private, and NGO sectors, creating deep ecosystems and transformative opportunities for sustainable growth and innovation.
Findlay serves as a Board Member of the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report where he functions as an Interdisciplinary Strategist and Development Expert. He is also an Advisory Board Member for the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, and a Mayoral-appointed Chair of Communications at GrowNYC, New York City’s Council on the Environment. He is a Global Ambassador for Morehouse College and the lead strategist for Cornell University Extension Nassau, where he oversaw the design of the Dynamic Learning Center to promote community cohesion and environmental education.
Lourenço Bustani
Lourenço Bustani was born to Brazilian diplomats and spent the first half of his life jumping from country to country. In 2006, he co-founded Mandalah, the first consultancy globally to introduce the notion of purpose-led innovation, and recognized by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in 2021. A seasoned entrepreneur and investor, Lourenço is also a Board member at Sistema B, the Brazilian arm of the global B-Corp certification movement, and President of the Board of Phaneros Institute, a non-profit institution in Brazil pioneering clinical research and training of healthcare professionals to treat mental health disorders. In 2018, Lourenço managed the campaign for the Brazilian Presidency of Marina Silva, a leading global environmentalist and current Minister of the Environment & Climate Change. Lourenço was included in Fast Company's list of the world’s 100 Most Creative People in Business (#48) and recognized by GQ as one of the 10 Most Inspiring CEOs in Brazil. He holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science and international Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
THE VENUE
Oratorio di Barottoli
Situated in the heart of Tuscany, on the hills above the town of Monteroni d’Arbia and 20 minutes from Siena and one hour from Florence, Barottoli is a registered historical site with origins dating back to the 13th century.
At that time, pilgrims traveling from Canterbury, England, to the Vatican along the famous Via Francigena would seek housing and pray to an image of the Madonna in an old farmhouse located in the village of Radi. In the late 1500s, a nobleman from the Spanocchi family erected a church to house the painting of the Madonna and an adjacent magnificent villa for their residence and to host the pilgrims. During the 1600s the Oratorio grew in popularity attracting crowds of worshippers, becoming the site of 39 miracles sanctioned by the Archbishop of Siena in 1616.
During the 20th century, the Oratorio was the home of Fabrizio Clerici, the famous Italian surrealist painter, architect, and stage designer. Among Clerici’s many friends and collaborators was Salvador Dali, who visited the Oratorio on several occasions.
Today, the property belongs to the Gleiser family. With profound respect for its illustrious history, the fully restored church has been repurposed to become a state-of-the-art retreat and conference site, while preserving its original beauty and works of art.
OUR OFFERINGS
Leadership Retreats
Our leadership retreats are curated to address the specific needs of our corporate clients. Designed for exclusive groups of senior leadership, we tailor immersive experiential offsites informed by cutting-edge systemic, regenerative thinking for a new leadership attuned to a fast-changing world.
OUR OFFERINGS
Think Tank
Our project of civilization is at a crossroads, besieged by ideological polarization, social disruption, and environmental cataclysm while institutions grow weaker and cynicism about the future is widespread.
To counter this grim picture, we need to reframe the mythos of humankind, to create a narrative that engenders a collective sense of purpose able to transcend the tribal divisions that still dictate social dynamics. This project seeks to incubate a new kind of leadership, one that springs from the confluence of many ways of knowing. We will bring together carefully curated, small groups of distinguished scientists, humanists, artists, and public intellectuals to spend five days immersed in deep discussion about the present social challenges we face. The venue is an essential part of the experiment, a sixteenth-century private church in the heart of Tuscany with roots going back to the 1200s as a sacred pilgrimage place, with 39 sanctioned miracles. Our project thus returns to the birth site of the Renaissance to rethink the human condition and forge new pathways toward our individual and collective flourishing.
Attendance to the workshops is by invitation only.
OUR OFFERINGS
Exclusive Courses
Exclusive courses with limited attendance created and offered by Marcelo Gleiser. The courses are designed for the curious and inquisitive minds who are interested in accessible, high-quality learning about science, philosophy, and religion, and their transformative impact on our culture and our future.
A SAMPLE OF EVENTS
OUR OFFERINGS
Immersive Experiential Learning for Psychotherapists
Dr. Kari Gleiser offers international licensed mental health providers intermediate and advanced training and supervision in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Come to Tuscany to learn from a dynamic blend of AEDP theory and intervention didactics, watching actual therapy sessions, supervision, role plays and experiential learning.
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A live, immersive training format featuring small group clinical supervision of videotaped therapy sessions, didactic instruction on AEDP theory and interventions, as well as moment-to-moment tracking of videotaped sessions. Between 8-10 clinicians will gather live at the Oratorio di Barottoli’s 16th-century church to learn together, build community, and experience the vulnerability and mastery of sharing clinical work. Five core training weekends over the course of a calendar year will span three full days to allow ample time to explore the surrounding Tuscany countryside, dine together and enjoy restorative time on the grounds of the villa.
Completing an AEDP Immersion Course is a prerequisite to apply for core training and some Essential Skills 1 training is highly recommended.
Beginner/Intermediate and Advanced Core Training groups are available, upon request.
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A brand new AEDP training offering! As clinicians, we learn by watching and practicing but perhaps most powerfully, by receiving the techniques and interventions we are studying. This new AEDP training modality allows therapists the opportunity to learn experientially by receiving AEDP interventions from expert AEDP therapists (faculty and certified supervisors) in very small group settings. Groups of 6-8 clinicians will rotate through receiving and witnessing AEDP sessions led by two faculty/supervisors, followed by group metaprocessing. This format allows clinicians to work on expanding receptive affective capacities, building affect tolerance, and learning interventions from the “other chair” to get the embodied felt sense of the model. The 4-5 day workshop will take place in the Oratorio di Barottoli’s 16th-century church, and special emphasis will be placed on connection and community building.
Minimum prerequisites: Immersion, some Essential Skills 1 training, and must be in an established individual psychotherapy (preferably AEDP).
