2006 bio

Mansur Johnson is a father, Sufi, world traveller, union member, writer, spiritual teacher, photographer, and activist.

In the 1960s, he was a close associate of Sufi Murshid Samuel L. Lewis, the book Murshid is one consequence.

During an intensive three year period in the late 1970s, Mansur joined with Sufi Bryn Beorse to lobby for ocean energy, known as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). His memoir Shamcher of that experience is available. OTEC, hopefully, will pertain when the United States decides to be serious about renewable energy development.

In 1996, after six years of single parenting three of his sons, Mansur developed a relationship with a woman from Europe. The result of that collaboration was Travels with Marianne, a travel book resplendent with photos encompassing eight journeys, including trips to Italy, Switzerland, Crete, Peru, Bolivia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, France, Morocco, Mexico, Guatemala, and Iran .

In 2001, the similarity of the current situation in Colombia with the U.S.-supported genocide in Guatemala in the 1980s, inspired Mansur to join two Witness for Peace delegations to Colombia and resulted in one of the first articles documenting Cola Cola's crimes in Colombia as well as his Spanish language study during four, one month trips to Guatemala. An additional outcome was the article, Guatemala Still Suffers.

In 2005, when the United States began to react negatively to Hugo Chavez, whose use of oil revenues for health care and poverty reduction were changing things for the better in Venezuela, Mansur joined a Global Exchange delegation to Venezuela to support President Chavez. He produced an interview with Global Exchange's Deborah James and a dvd of his Venezuela Teach-In.

His recent visit to China and Tibet with a group of chi kung practitioners resulted in a China retrospective and a desire to explore the five Daoist and four Buddhist sacred mountains in China . A return tour is in the works. Click Contact and indicate your interest. Like other world travellers with a conscience who experience environmental degradation and over-population, Mansur returns awakened and determined to do what he can.