The Ernest Becker Foundation

The Ernest Becker Foundation (EBF) seeks to illuminate how the unconscious denial of mortality profoundly influences human behavior, giving rise to acts of hate and violence as well as noble, altruistic striving. The goal of the Foundation is to foster a deeper understanding of our creative, heroic, often destructive quest to ensure immortality. To achieve this understanding, the EBF supports relevant dialogue, education, scholarship, and practical applications.

There's a lot of material out there about Ernest Becker. Books, films, articles, lectures...it can be overwhelming. But don't let that get you discouraged! The EBF has three introductory materials tailored specifically for newcomers like you.

1) An extremely engaging introductory audio lecture by Professor Sheldon Solomon can be downloaded directly from this website, and is also available on CD through the EBF. This is a great place to start if you want to understand the theoretical nuts and bolts of Becker's synthesis. (A transcript can also be downloaded.)

2) "Reapy: The Littlest Harbinger of Death" is a short comic written for those unfamiliar with Becker's theories. It provides a brief discussion of Denial of Death and how Becker is being used in social science research today. Download the pdf version.

3) The feature-length documentary Flight From Death introduces viewers to how death anxiety is the root cause of our behaviors on a psychological, spiritual, and cultural level. It is available through the EBF's online store.

What makes people act the way they do? This was the absorbing question of Ernest Becker's intellectual life. He was determined to pursue this question wherever it led him. Because he refused to allow his search to be confined to the boundaries of any one discipline, his academic career, cut short by cancer, was scattered and stormy. From the time when he completed his Ph.D. in 1960 until his death in 1974, he produced a steady stream of books and journal articles of rare and unusual depth in which he outlined his "Science of Man." His works brim with insights for spiritual, pastoral and psychological counseling.