Mark Edward Koltko-Rivera (born December 7, 1956) is an American scholar, scientist, social critic, and writer who has published books, articles, and blog posts on a variety of topics, including psychology, religion, spirituality, and popular culture. In the academic discipline of psychology, he has received awards for his scholarship regarding the psychology of worldviews and other topics. In the popular press, he has been noted for his writings on the psychological, religious, and historical background to Dan Brown’s novel, The Lost Symbol.
Koltko-Rivera holds a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in counseling psychology from New York University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), and has received awards from three Divisions of APA for his scholarship within psychology. He has reported publicly that he is a Freemason, and he has published scholarship regarding Freemasonry. He also has reported publicly that he is a Latter-day Saint (LDS, or Mormon), and he has published scholarship regarding LDS beliefs and history. Koltko-Rivera has stated that he now lives in New York City with his wife Kathleen Schmid Koltko-Rivera, to whom he has been married since 2000.
Koltko-Rivera has made reference to his early life in a memorial to his late mother that was published on one of his blogs, and in a profile on another Freemason’s blog. Information abstracted from these sources is given below.
Mark Koltko-Rivera was born on December 7, 1956, in New York City, the first of two children of Sophie Koltko and Odilio Rivera, who divorced early in Koltko-Rivera's life. Koltko-Rivera has described himself as bi-ethnic, with ancestry from Poland and Puerto Rico, and has speculated that his mother’s ancestors included Jews in addition to Polish Catholics.
Koltko-Rivera graduated from Regis High School, a Jesuit scholarship school in Manhattan for Catholic boys. During his high school years, he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. He received a B.A. degree, majoring in psychology, from Haverford College.
Significant aspects of Koltko-Rivera’s adult life are mentioned in his biographical sketch on the website of Professional Services Group, Inc., which is summarized below.
After graduating college, Koltko-Rivera worked for several corporate entities while attending graduate school. These include Time Equities, Inc.; the New York metropolitan area office of CSK, a Japanese firm; and Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising firm in New York City. Koltko-Rivera graduated from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education (Lincoln Center) with a masters degree in counseling in 1984, after which he opened a private practice as a psychotherapist, which he conducted until 2000.
As part of his doctoral studies, Koltko-Rivera served as a full-time predoctoral psychology intern for one year each at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center (1994—1995) and at the Sunset Terrace outpatient mental health unit of Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn (1996—1997). The internship experience at Sunset Terrace focused on multicultural psychotherapy, which has been an ongoing area of interest for Koltko-Rivera as evidenced by his subsequent scholarship. While at Sunset Terrace, Koltko-Rivera fulfilled specialty rotations in multicultural research, and in the treatment of adolescent and younger sex offenders.
While still a doctoral student, Koltko-Rivera taught as an adjunct faculty member at New York University, Manhattanville College, and Raritan Valley Community College. After receiving his doctorate, he taught as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Central Florida and Hartford Seminary.
Koltko-Rivera graduated from what was then known as the School of Education (now the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development) at New York University (NYU) with a doctoral degree in counseling psychology in 2000. From May 2000 on, he has worked as Director of Research at Professional Services Group, Inc., first in Winter Park, Florida (2000—2008), and then in New York City (2008 on).
Koltko-Rivera has made contributions to several areas of psychological theory and application. On the basis of these contributions, he was elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, “an honor bestowed upon APA Members who have shown evidence of unusual and outstanding contributions or performance in the field of psychology. Fellow status requires that a person’s work has had a national impact on the field of psychology beyond the local, state, or regional level.” The areas in which Koltko-Rivera has made substantial contributions include the psychology of worldviews, the psychology of religion, humanistic and transpersonal psychology, human factors psychology, and psychological futurism. His contributions in each area are described below.
Psychology of Worldviews
Koltko-Rivera’s NYU doctoral dissertation described his development of the Worldview Assessment Instrument, an instrument to assess certain dimensions of personal worldviews, that is, sets of personal and cultural assumptions about life and the world. He published a theory of the psychology of worldviews, in an article that won the 2004 George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Article in General Psychology from the Society for General Psychology (APA Division 1). In the conference presentation that he delivered upon receiving the Miller Award, Koltko-Rivera described ways to include the worldview construct in comprehensive approaches to research and theory building in psychology. He later published theoretical articles relating worldview to the psychology of religion, peace psychology, and human factors psychology; he has conducted empirical research into the relationship of worldview to attitudes about personal health decisions and human cloning. Koltko-Rivera has stated that his book, The Psychology of Worldviews, is forthcoming from APA Books, in 2010 or 2011.
Psychology of Religion
Koltko-Rivera has made several contributions to the psychology of religion. As a doctoral student, Koltko-Rivera published an article regarding how a client’s religious beliefs might affect the work of counseling and psychotherapy. He has conducted research to develop measures of several psychological constructs relevant to the field, such as religiosity and basis of belief. His work on these and other projects earned him the Margaret Gorman Early Career Award from the APA Division of Psychology of Religion (Division 36) in 2006. The conference presentation that Koltko-Rivera made upon receiving the Gorman Award described how religions influence personal worldviews, which in turn influence personal behavior.
Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology
Koltko-Rivera has published several articles regarding humanistic and transpersonal psychology. In one of his articles in this area, he described how the motivational theory of Abraham Maslow has long been described inaccurately. In this article, Koltko-Rivera made the case that, towards the end of his life, Maslow modified his famous theory so that, at the top of the human motivational hierarchy, there stood not self-actualization, but self-transcendence, the motivation to seek to connect with or contribute to a cause or purpose beyond the fulfillment of the personal ego. This article won for him the 2006 George A. Miller Award, making Koltko-Rivera the first person to win the George A. Miller Award more than once.
Koltko-Rivera has long taken the position that it is important to conduct quantitative empirical research in transpersonal psychology, and he has conducted such research himself. For his work on these and other theoretical and empirical projects, he received the Carmi Harari Award for Inquiry from the Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32) in 2008. In his Harari Award talk, Koltko-Rivera laid out a plan to propagate a more humanistic orientation throughout psychological science and practice.
Human Factors Psychology
During the years in which he taught or contributed consulting to projects at the University of Central Florida, Koltko-Rivera published several contributions to human factors psychology (a field concerned with the human-machine interaction). He co-authored a paper, delivered at a NATO conference, on ways in which the academic discipline of psychology could contribute to the defence against terrorism. In a variety of conference papers, he has made further contributions to human factors psychology: critiquing the field of augmented cognition; describing how personal worldview and acculturation affect human performance; and relating personality psychology to human factors research.
Psychological Futurism
Koltko-Rivera has paid scholarly attention to the potential social and psychological impact of demographic and technological trends. This area has been called psychological futurism, and is an aspect of futurology. Koltko-Rivera has contributed to and chaired a symposium on psychological futurism, and has published conference papers on the potential societal impact of virtual reality technology and augmented cognition. Koltko-Rivera will edit a special issue of the Review of General Psychology on “The Psychology of Twenty-First Century Issues,” tentatively scheduled to appear in 2011.
Koltko-Rivera has reported publicly that he is a Master Mason, a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Freemason, and a Knight Templar in the York Rite of Freemasonry. Within the Scottish Rite, Koltko-Rivera was the spokesman of his class at the "reunion" (initiation ritual) in the Valley of Orlando, Florida; he later participated in the 14th degree ring ceremony and was initiated into the Knights of St. Andrew service society in that location.
Koltko-Rivera has published articles about a variety of Masonic topics, including how to take a more thoughtful approach to Freemasonry, and why Masons should respond productively to anti-Masonry. In publications directed to Scottish Rite Freemasons, he has considered the attitude of the Scottish Rite toward religion, described personal study programs regarding Scottish Rite symbolism and religion in general, and shared his thoughts upon the occasion of his receiving the 32nd degree of the Scottish Rite.
In his most sophisticated work of Masonic scholarship to date, Koltko-Rivera has described at length a theory regarding the transmission of esoteric knowledge, and the possible relationship of this model of transmission to the origin of modern Freemasonry. His book, Freemasonry: An Introduction (LVX), is available on Amazon. Koltko-Rivera authors two blogs regarding Freemasonry: “Freemasonry: Reality, Myth, and Legend”, which is directed to Freemasons, and “Freemasonry 101”, which is directed to those who have questions regarding Freemasonry.
Koltko-Rivera has reported publicly that he is a Latter-day Saint convert, who has served as an LDS missionary in Japan and later served in the bishoprics (local leadership) of two LDS congregations. The Mormon Literature & Creative Arts on-line database lists a variety of LDS-related publications by Koltko-Rivera, including essays on the challenges facing LDS writers in contemporary culture, and poetry. Koltko-Rivera has published articles on Mormonism in relation to psychotherapy, mysticism, psychohistory, and addiction. Koltko-Rivera authors two blogs regarding the LDS faith: “Mormon From Manhattan: Viewpoints of a Latter-Day Saint New Yorker”, which is directed to Latter-day Saints, and “LDS 101”, which is directed to those who have questions regarding the LDS faith.
Koltko-Rivera authors a blog of social criticism, “On the Mark: Social Commentary From a Reflective Perspective”. On this blog, he has addressed a variety of topics involving politics and popular culture: the television shows Big Love and Star Trek; U.S. President Obama’s restructuring of General Motors; the life choices made by poker champion Chris Ferguson versus those made by former Olympic athlete Michelle Kwan; nuclear disarmament; the extradition of Roman Polanski; lessons to be learned from the life of the late U.S. Senator, Ted Kennedy. He also comments at The Huffington Post.
Dan Brown's Lost Symbol-Related Activities
When Doubleday, Dan Brown’s publisher, began to issue on-line clues about the content of Brown’s then-forthcoming novel, The Lost Symbol, Koltko-Rivera began to author a blog interpreting the clues. He has continued this blog, under the title “Discovering The Lost Symbol: The Blog”, as a forum for him to comment on the contents of the now-published novel. He has stated that the conclusion of Dan Brown’s novel, in which Brown discusses the notion of apotheosis (humans becoming gods), is related to the LDS doctrine of exaltation.
Following the appearance of his Lost Symbol-related blog, Koltko-Rivera was interviewed for articles on the Dan Brown phenomenon by the Religion News Service and the New York Post.
Koltko-Rivera was extensively interviewed in connection with a documentary to be broadcast on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, October 25, 2009, 8-10 p.m. Eastern time: "Hunting The Lost Symbol."
With the Australian puzzlemaster Denise Sutherland, Koltko-Rivera has co-authored a puzzle book featuring three Dan Brown-esque conspiracy narratives revolving around Freemasonry, titled Cracking Codes and Cryptograms for Dummies (Wiley), to be published in November 2009.
Koltko-Rivera has stated that he has been hired to write two chapters for a book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, Secrets of The Lost Symbol (William Morrow/HarperCollins), to be published in December 2009.
Koltko-Rivera has stated that he is seeking representation for his own book on Dan Brown: Discovering The Lost Symbol: Magic, Masons, Noetic Science, and the Idea That We Can Become Gods.
