The Yale anthropologist Weston La Barre goes far as to argue that `a surprisingly good case could be made that much of culture is hallucination` and that `the whole intent and function of ritual appears to be... a group wish to hallucinate reality`.

Ann Druyan was at the Center as it opened its doors on October 22 2006. His father Samuel Sagan was an immigrant garment worker from Russia in today's Ukraine. Sagan's views on religion have been interpreted as a form of pantheism comparable to Einstein's belief in Spinoza's God.

He advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Sagan wrote the novel Contact the basis for a 1997 film of the same name. The book Cosmos was publiCarl Sagand to accompany the series.