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October 2003: Press Release
The Wild Divine Project: A Backgrounder
Kurt R. Smith, founder of The Wild Divine Project, is a man of many passions: Starting companies. His family. Self-discovery. Spirituality. Music. Rock climbing. And these are just to name a few. Little did he know, however, how these passions would converge to inspire his sixth start up, The Wild Divine Project, a Boulder, Colorado-based company which produces multimedia experiences to facilitate healing, transformation, and sustainability.
As a Ph.D. scientist, Smith had already created five high-technology companies, two of which are now owned by Medtronic, Inc., the largest medical technology company in the world providing 60-65 percent of all the cardiac devices that go into people’s bodies. At the end of his tenure there, he began studying integrative and alternative healthcare in the medical system and saw how difficult doing anything revolutionary in that area was. “As I looked for my next step after leaving the corporate world, the question that motivated me was, ‘How can we provide integrative healing tools and services to people in an effective way?’” says Smith. “I came to believe that the answer lay in entertainment-based channels.”
Then, as Smith pursued another of his passions—rock climbing, he unexpectedly stumbled upon what would become one of the key products of a new company. While climbing with a neighbor in Eldorado Canyon outside Boulder, the two started discussing their lives. The neighbor, Corwin Bell, a computer graphics artist, game creator, and instructor at the Art Institute of Colorado, told Smith about an idea he’d had to combine a computer game with biofeedback in order to help people get in tune with themselves and transform their lives.
“Wow, I thought. Here’s an entertainment-based model that can benefit people by providing both preventative and integrative care,” said Smith. Bell joined forces with Smith’s new company and put together a team to create the game, which was named The Journey to Wild Divine. Begun in the spring of 2001, The Wild Divine Project now includes both The Journey to Wild Divine, which will be released in November 2003, and Healing Rhythms, a music arm, which is producing nine CDs of healing music.
"The Wild Divine Project is the company I’ve been gearing towards all my life, amassing the experience and resources to do it,” said Smith. “We called it ‘Wild Divine’ because I believe that we each have a certain amount of divinity in us, which has to do with spirituality rather than any specific religion. For me, this stream of spirituality is about self discovery. Simultaneously, we also have a certain amount of wildness. When the divine meets the wild in balance, then we find the greatest realization of divinity and human–we find the Wild Divine. That’s what the game is about, too. In The Journey to Wild Divine, people are entertained, but they can also experience self discovery and find their own Wild Divine.”
The Journey to Wild Divine
The Journey to Wild Divine is a groundbreaking “Inner-active” computer journey that integrates the power of the spiritual quest with an innovative biofeedback interface and high-end multimedia production. It incorporates mythology and elements of the classic hero and heroine’s journey with state of the art 3D graphics, video and music—including some by another of Smith’s passions, his own Wild Divine band.
What sets The Journey apart from other games, however, is the technology players use to navigate the game. With three biofeedback sensors attached to their fingers, they travel the voyage’s mythical gardens, temples and breath-taking landscapes using their own thoughts and feelings. In addition to entertainment, players have the opportunity to embark on a journey of awareness and master skills that they can bring back to their every day lives. Other benefits include the potential for a clearer state of mind, reduced stress and anxiety, heightened powers of imagination, greater understanding of the mind/body connection and more energy and relaxation.
In developing The Journey, Bell and Smith are also collaborating with various leaders in the field of consciousness and compassionate action on both the spiritual and biofeedback technology aspects of the project. Known as “allies,” they include Jean Houston, a pioneer researcher in human capacities, and Nawang Khechog, a former Buddhist monk and one of Tibet’s foremost world music composers and musicians. From the start, Liana Mattulich, an M.D. and highly experienced biofeedback expert, has helped Bell move The Journey from concept to reality. These associations are synergistic, with the company contributing to the allies’ efforts as well.
Some of the inspiration for the game and its visuals comes from The Wild Divine Project’s location. The Game Studio sits at the mouth of El Dorado Canyon, with its stunning, sheer canyon walls that attract rock climbers from all over the world. A river with cottonwood trees on its banks rushes by, and there’s a nearby hot spring. The canyon was once home to the Ute Indians. The corporate offices are located three miles down the road at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills.
A Larger Vision
As The Wild Divine Project grows, the vision is that it will provide more than innovative products. It will also play the role of meta-network facilitator and community-builder. “It will offer initiatives to help people move beyond their feelings of helplessness in the world,” says Kurt. “In various ways, we’ll give them the tools and connectivity they need to figure out how to do world service.”
Collaboration is Key
At present, The Wild Divine Project is comprised of twelve employees and numerous partners, committed to creating and conducting business using cooperative, caring and sustainable practices. “Everybody’s here for more reasons than having a job or creating a successful product,” said Smith. “We realize that much of life is an inward journey, and all of us believe that what we’re creating is planting seeds that can change the world one day. That type of work takes tremendous solidarity. We’re professionals, but we also truly feel like brothers and sisters and treat each other with respect and love.”
Everything that The Wild Divine Project does—from The Journey y to the way that people work together—is collaborative. “In each of my start ups, I use the ‘Columbus method’ of making things happen,” said Smith. “It says, ‘Hey, we’re going out to sea. We don’t know exactly where we’re going, but we know that something new is out there.’ Together, we leave the port, knowing the trip is high risk, but will be a real adventure.
“We’re also a team in that the employees have significant ownership in the company. Instead of the typical 5 or 10 percent that most companies put aside for employees, we take a huge chunk and say, ‘This is our boat. Let’s make it happen.’”
Smith puts his money where his mouth is in other ways, too. When investment money was short for The Wild Divine Project, he and his wife Lynn put up their own. “In exploring ourselves deeply, we came to this awareness: Maybe this is the reason we’re here—in order to use all the resources we have to bring artistry and spirituality and healing together for the first time, in a way that touches people profoundly,” said Smith. “Hopefully, The Wild Divine Project is a small snowball that starts the avalanche to help the world’s consciousness evolution shift somewhere important.”
The Wild Divine Project® is a small, privately owned company that produces multimedia experiences that facilitate healing and transformation. We are personally committed to creating and conducting business using cooperative, caring and sustainable practices.
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