When someone asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization, he replied he thought it was a good idea. It is indeed a good idea because it’s not entirely a reality. Western civilization—more exactly, the Western mind that creates the civilization—has a serious disease. It’s a “dis-ease” that affects all of us of in the West. And now we can have a better idea of what’s behind it.
Take merely these characteristics of the Western mind:
- it sees things as separate, each thing on its own, connected merely by mechanistic relations of cause and effect;
- it’s competitive: each individual is on his or her own, making his or her way in an impersonal and indifferent world;
- it disconnects the mind from the body: the mind only “drives” or “manages” the body as it would a car or an organization;
- it best understands the things it has itself creates: artificial, synthetic things, that can be readily and unambiguously manipulated;
- it disconnects the human from the natural; nature itself becomes the “environment” that humans can manage and manipulate to serve their interests;
- it categorizes, schematizes people and things, viewing them as abstract entities rather than as existing, living realities;
- it deals with the representations of people and things rather than with our living experience people and things;
- and it views all things, nature included, as mechanistic kinds of systems, put together from their parts and capable of being manipulated by acting on their parts.
These traits add up to a dis-ease; to the long-discussed malaise of civilization—of Western civilization. Other civilizations have their own problems and failings, but the above traits are typically those of the Western mind: of the civilization created by the Western mind.
Are these traits purely accidental, just the way the typical Western mind happens to work?
A historical analysis can furnish an explanation why this particular mindset came to dominate the West. The main reason appears to be the separation of the world of values, feelings and spirit from the world of fact and reason at the dawn of the modern age. Following the famous trial of Giordano Bruno, the Church claimed for itself authority over the world of value, feeling and spirit, and allowed science and scientists to investigate the world of fact through reasoning based on observation and experiment.
The original covenant between science and church, concluded on the part of science by Galileo, was reinforced and made into an unquestioned precept by the radical separation of the two worlds by René Descartes. According to Cartesian philosophy there is a complete disjunction between the physical world “outside” the mind (the world of “extended substance” res extensa) from the thinking, feeling world “within” (the thinking substance, res cogitans). Science made great progress by dissecting the outside world into parts and manipulating the parts: this became the basis of modern technology. And the West fell in love with technology, more exactly, with the powers over people and nature conferred by technology. It relegated the felt “inside” world of value, feeling and spirit to religion and spirituality, to be celebrated on Sundays and holidays. It made the manipulation of the “outside” world its true concern: the woof and wharf of modern economics and politics, the way relations between people, and between people and nature are decided and conducted.
This historical backdrop might explain how it is that the West ended up with an impersonal, mechanical, atomized world as its “real” world. But it doesn’t say how the Western mind actually operates; why it sees the world as an impersonal, mechanical aggregate of atomistic parts. But cognitive neuroscience can tell us more.
Roger Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga, and the other pioneers of split-brain research founded the discipline of cognitive neuroscience. They discovered that we have two brains and not just one. We have the right brain and the left brain, more exactly, the right and the left hemisphere of the neocortex. The two brains are different in their functioning, and even in their anatomy. The right hemisphere is wider, longer, larger and heavier than the left. It’s also different in its sensitivity to neurotransmitters and neurohormones, and has a different neuronal structure and organization. It’s differently “tuned“ to our experience.
It’s important to realize that the world is not given in experience in its pristine purity, “just the way it is.” Our input from the senses is organized, interpreted by our brain, with the result that the same sensory stimulus can give rise to very different experiences, very different interpretations. (Think of the famous drawing used by psychologists, where you can see either an elegant young woman, or an old hag.) Our two brains “see” the world each in its own way, and these ways are different. The reason that we have something like a single world-picture is because one of the two brains is dominant. In the West, the left brain is dominant. And here is the clue to the “dis-ease” of the Western mind.
In his seminal book The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist asked, what would it look like if our left brain were the sole purveyor of reality? The whole world would be a heap of bits and pieces; its only meaning would come through its capacity to be used. Our attention would be narrowly focused on the individual bits and pieces, with increasing specialization bringing more and more familiarity with less and less. Information and information-gathering would be substituted for knowledge gained by actual experience. And the kind of knowledge we would gain would be rooted in representations of reality, by abstract cognitive schemes that would seem more “real” than the things we actually experience.
Does this world seem familiar? That shouldn’t surprise you: the left-hemisphere’s view of the world is by and large the Western mind’s view of the world. There are people and things in this world, but there is no “betweenness”—they are connected only by relations of cause and effect, by how one thing affects another, by what one person “does” to another. This world is centered on, and is best when it deals with, the things we ourselves have created. It’s a competitive world, where everyone is separate, and everyone is out for him- or herself. And it’s an impersonal and uncaring world, where to think that there is meaning feeling, and purpose is merely to project one’s own subjective feelings into an impersonal “objective” reality.
The world of the right brain would be a very different world. While having only the right brain available to us we couldn’t analyze things and express them in language, our experience would be filled with many positive things. We would be making connections between things, seeing the world around us as a whole in which people and things are organic parts. We would be attending directly to our experience, seeing people and things in their presented uniqueness. We would be living in our body, feeling ourselves one with it and the world that surrounds and embeds it. The sense of time, the “flow” of things, would be primary, and we would enjoy experiences where this flow is evident, such as narration, theatre, dance, and music. Because of the betweenness connecting us to the world, we would be more empathetic, tuned to compassion and fellow-feeling, and concern with all things in nature. And our empathies would get a powerful boost by our being aware of our intuitions, of our subtle communication with the world beyond the range of our bodily senses. This perception is within the compass of the nonlocal quantum-receptivity of the sub-neuronal networks of our brain, but is repressed by the narrow rationality of our left hemisphere.
This right-brain world would seem more familiar to traditional people than to most of us in Western civilization. But to many of us it might seem more like regress rather than progress, for it would mean giving up much of our technical prowess and manipulative skills. However, this would not be necessary: we could also combine the world of our right brain with the world of the left. We could hand the things and events presented to our world-tuned right brain to the left for analysis, formulation, and communication, and then allow our right brain to place it in context, so we could reach an integral assessment, and a balanced way of responding. We would see the forest, and still find our way among the trees.
The dis-ease of the Western mind is a product of historical circumstance. But it’s not fated; we could overcome our one-sided heritage of the past. The key to it is using our brain more fully. This would give us a consciousness where the broad, holistic world of the right brain is linked with the pragmatic, skillful world of the left. This “broadband” consciousness without loss of acuity is the hallmark of what I called Quantum Consciousness. QC could be the next step in the evolution of the human mind, and it could be our salvation. Moving toward it by balancing your own approach to reality would be a good beginning toward curing the dis-ease of the Western mind.
Published at Huffington Post
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr. Laszlo,
Indeed, it gives me joy (and sadness too) to read your paper here. What you say so very much needs to be said! A few months ago, I unearthed an old onion-skin, carbon copy of a paper of my own which addresses this same problem. Back in 1970, I wrote it for a graduate class in education…then (so it didn’t get thrown out with old newspapers!) I started to type it into a file on my computer, when other tasks intervened…I think I copied some 700 words of that rather longish paper…and it occurs to me to put those words in here in response to your work. I think we are looking at things from a converging point of view.
Dissociation of Feeling and Thought in Western Society
I. The problem
II. Ancient wisdom
III. Modern psychological research
IV. The man-woman conflict
V. Recent therapeutic attempts at reconciliation between
feeling and thought
(written August, 1970 – for Ed. 564, Psychology of Education – Dr. E.M. Swengel, United States International University, San Diego, California)
By Barbara Smith
I. The Problem
Much of modern psychological effort is directed toward helping the individual achieve a beneficial interaction, a working agreement, between feeling and the intellect. Psychologists of the humanistic school believe that the dissociation of thought from feeling forms the matrix from which our current existential disorientation and paralysis stem. In order for our society to progress and develop, indeed in order that we do not destroy ourselves, the delicately functioning connection between thought and feeling must be restored. This is what we hear from psychologists and educators today. The dis-alignment, or dissociation, has a long history. As soon as man became man and began to think, he began to wonder what to do with his feelings. Why he elected to suppress his feelings has been a much labored-over question since the advent of Freud upon the conscious mind.
II. Ancient Wisdom
Man has always sought to know and understand his position in the universe. By studying mythology we can see his longings, his projected attempts at explanation of his deficiencies, and his amazing grasp of his situation. The myth expresses, in symbolic language, religious and philosophical ideas and experiences of the soul. In this concept lies the real significance of the manifest story which is not only the product of the imagination of “primitive” peoples, but also contains recollections of the past. By extracting the religious, psychological and historical meaning of the myth we can learn a great deal about man, who is forever trying to explain himself. In the myth he expresses the wisdom of the past ages in the specific language of symbols. (Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language, 3:195-196) As we consider the vast quantity of literature which man has produced during his years on the earth, we begin to perceive that there is running through most of it a theme of man’s awareness of his individual separateness, his incompleteness. It appears that his efforts are always directed toward a necessary completion. His perennial conflict is whether to go forward or backward. Thinking often wants to take him forward; feeling often makes him want to go backward.
Living on somewhere in man’s memory there seems to remain an awareness or feeling of a lost oneness with nature. Erich Fromm, in The Art of Loving, expresses it this way: “Once thrown out of paradise—a state of original oneness with nature—man [may feel that he] can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the earlier harmony which is irretrievably lost.” (2:6) But he now finds that he experiences being separated from unconditional love, and his deepest longing is for this unconditional love. (2:35) Not only does he lose the sense of being loved unconditionally, but he experiences a feeling of separateness, of being alone, which gives rise to a feeling of anxiety.
If we compare the birth of an individual to the birth of the human race, then we are dealing here with the emergence of man from the pre-human to the human existence where he is now capable of judging, of making choices, hence the beginning of personal responsibility. The more the human race (and the individual) emerges from primary bonds, the more it separates itself from the purely natural world, the more intense becomes the need to find new ways of escaping separateness. (2:9) This emergence from the matrix is beautifully and yet chillingly expressed in the story of the Deluge in which Pyrrha and Deucalion, lonely survivors in the dead world, hear, as they offer thanks for their delivery, a voice commanding them: “Veil your heads and cast behind you the bones of your mother.” (4:74) The bones could also represent the structure of nature which has produced man, who is now compelled to stand alone and develop his power of knowing, to shoulder the responsibility of making choices of guiding the earth. He does not assent to this obligation easily. He goes forward reluctantly. (to be continued…)
[I might just add here today that the statement "Veil your heads and cast behind you the bones of your mother" has always given me chills just to read it...trying to fathom just what it means...so did we just decide we had to move away from the structure of nature? Did we just decide to be half-brained??? And here we are now still with this great wound. Surely we must develop more holistic patterns within our educational system. --bss May 4, 2010]
Dear Ervin,
These points you outline are very important for understanding how cultural evolution has been tied with psychological functioning/capacity. You point to McGilchrist’s wonderful new book, which is an accomplished illustration of these ideas. Many of these ideas were also discussed in Julian Jaynes seminal classic ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’.
In the 1980s there was much work on this being published by neuroscientist Dr. Robert Ornstein (from his ‘Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge’ – ISHK). Some of these works (‘Mindfield’; ‘Multimind’; ‘New World New Mind’) explored these ideas also in relation to traditional wisdom teaching stories. Such materials as Sufic teaching stories – as in the Mulla Nasrudin corpus – were specifically constructed to activate right-brain activity and to coordinate a cerebral balance between left-right functioning. These stories testify to ancient wisdom’s understanding of the need to stimulate a conscious/quantum evolution, before this was validated by modern science. If such practices/traditions are capable of forming people of heightened capacities, what does this infer for such a generalized evolutionary jump/shift for our species? And it may just be that this shift in conscious evolution is awaiting us as new forces/energies/circumstances compell us to rewire our minds for a ‘new world’….
Thank you for the stimulating post….
Kingsley
Hello,
I am now reading a book by you,Ervin Laszlo. I enter your site to find out more. Very interesting things to think,say,feel,write.
I am now in a “process”of my life in define me as a spiritual person (whe I say spiritual I mean all the cognitive and feeling processess). I am surprised day by day to find that the reality I was living wasn’t proper for me. I change my life in about 2 years (relationship, way of thinking, job,country..) just because I need it to live what I was dreamed for. But in the same time I discover that some extrasensory qualities were being developed.
Humans are capable of much more than living on o material life. There are so much more to discover, to feel….it’s so much beauty around us and most of them don’t see it. We kill each other with own hands.
I live some moments of true happiness, but in the same time I suffer, not for me…but for what I see around.
How can I help? Will somebody listening to me?Am I important if I don’t have big accounts, big cars, properties, some honorable positions? I think the answer is No.
Simplity, real truth, heart spoken are not wanted in this world.
Thank you for all good energy that you spread around and thank you for reading these words.
D
Kinglsey,
I’m glad you brought Jaynes and Ornstein into the discussion…and the work done in the 1980s in general I think there is a lot of work still going on…but I don’t think it gets much notice in the world of education…I hope I am wrong there. I want to finish putting up my paper on the bicameral mind (partially posted above)–will do so soon.
Check out the Garrison Institute, New York state, and the work they are doing in intregration of ways of being and knowing in the world of education.
Barbera,
I look forward to reading the rest of your paper. Indeed, the flurry of research from the 80s has largely been overlooked. However, Ornstein’s ‘Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge’ (ISHK) has now shifted towards educational and children’s programs for this purpose. Many of the Sufic teaching tales (especially those from Idries Shah) have now been produced as children’s books (Hoopoe Books)- a way to begin activating/stimulating the right-side of the brain! They run literacy programs and donate thousands of books nationwide, including schools, orphanages and libraries throughout Afghanistan.
Perhaps now with quantum science explaining some of the processes of left-right brain activity as well as work on the ‘dis-ease’ of the western mind there will be renewed interest? Let’s hope so…..
Kingsley,
I read your post with real joy! I love the Sufi tales too! And I feel such encouragement as I read of your focus on educational strategies–something which preoccupies me more and more just now. I feel such an obligation to dig out of storage and share some things I learned from all my years of teaching. And thanks for the mention that you are looking forward to the rest of the paper (my prof really liked it …wrote good things about it…I actually think it may make some, even, original, synthesis)…I will make more effort now. My arm and shoulder are giving me some problems right now, and that makes typing difficult. Am having some therapy today. But thanks, I will get the rest of the paper up there for you, and Ervin. It’s a great many years now since I began to focus so deeply upon this dis-ease we have…I could write books about my observations over the years. But, alas, I am 78 years old now…and I definitely feel some anxiety for the preservation of my “archive.”…. Perhaps Quijote’s “good right arm” will help me…!:)
Mr Laszlo,
Is this a disease, or is it a choice? While either one may be asserted, it is important to note that they are both models; different ways of thinking about it. I choose to see it as a choice, and one made in ignorance. People live in their bubbles, foccused on personal gain. And We see these choices among those in the east as well. If it is a disease, then it has spread throughout the world. Anyway, we need to bring our world in line with ancient wisdom. Its not about tearing down, its about integration.
I think Science is getting close to something with this dark matter dark energy thing. Its very akin to the idea of an akashic field. There is obviously another force at work here that is not directly detectable by current methods of ‘empirical science’. This discovery presupposes questions of God and Spirit. That Particles recieve information from another force or field is already on the scientific table. Where do particles get mass? How are the forces mediated? What about entanglement? Among the scholarly there oftan seems to be an arrogant ignorance that seems to have found all the answers, but quite clearly, there are still questions to be answered.
I Think that its time for integration. This is a spiritual process. The reason the ‘western mind’ went astray is because intentionality became mixed up. Spirituality was lost in a sense, and yes definitely relegated to sundays and holidays. At the same time though, the vast potential of our technological breakthroughs is undeniable. When synthesised with the spiritual aspect, marvelous breakthroughs are bound to happen. Things that will divert energy from the horrors of war, such a vast waste of everything we have.
It is easy to say that the western mind is diseased, but I don’t believe this takes into account the fullness of what is happening. Seeds have been planted and are beginning to take root and grow. A new vocabulary is forming, the centerpiece being “Holistic.” I believe once we realize the enormity of the Holistic Ideal we will realize the integration that is set to take place on a planetary level. Ancient spirituality when stripped of dogma is so liberating and unifying. Forget the differences, let’s focus on the whole. Let’s do something that hasn’t been done yet.
In the last two centuries, our mad drive to expand, conquer, dominate and rule over creation has led us to create a living nightmare in my opinion. The world I live in has been taken to the brink. Others think pollution and war is a beautiful thing. All of our wonderful toys and machines of chaos and destruction, spewing poison while killing and conquering in the name of peace. What ignorant madness.
So yes, this thing could be likened to a disease infecting Mankind on every level, affecting the world and all its living things. But Perhaps this idea alleviates us of the need to take full responsibility because if we are infected by a disease then we need to find a cure. But if we’ve simply made some ridiculous choices, then we just need to make the right choices, realizing that It is us that have done these terrible things.
Taking personal responsibility is a beautiful thing. It liberates and makes us free. Perhaps what the world needs to do is take a time out. Stop pointing the finger of blame, and put this devisiveness aside. Let each of us rather focus on the part we have played in bringing our planet to the brink. This requires deep reflection and a willingness to put away denial, but this is what it is required for us to recover. So lets all get to work doing that!
Dear Kingsley,
I want to thank you again for telling me about Dr. Ornstein’s ‘Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge’…I have been looking around on that site and am encouraged–even excited, about the work he is doing. I want to help out there, if I can…and I hope to get the rest of that paper up here within the next few days
And Dear David Siegert,
Disease or dis-ease…certainly it’s more and more on my mind that not only do we need to recognize the problem, but create a means of correcting it…ways of helping humankind evolve in a more benevolent direction. I do think that is happening…witness Dr. Laszlo’s efforts here (!)…Fritjof Capra’s “The Turning Point” talks about this too…many years ago he was writing that. I remember talking to him one late evening in the dining room at Easalen Institute (circa 1980) about his thinking and his work. He was talking about an important observation–that when a civilization is in decline, there is always a rising culture…scattered in small clusters, and that the task is to facilitate connections between these clusters so that the rising culture/civilization can emerge with strength and stability. I think this comes…maybe from Gibbon…not sure. Many years ago this was. I have been thinking of these things too…all these years. I think we must create educational approaches which support ‘whole-brain’ learning … or which preserve the wholeness that children are born with. Much of our current approach destroys that wholeness along the way, or so I believe….and our souls get lost out there in the bits and pieces.
I am much encouraged to see this discussion coming along here.
–bss
Dear All,
I agree with Barbara’s comment on Capra who made mention of the pockets of a rising culture amid the decline of a present civilization. This reminded me of how Doris Lessing presented a similar scenario in her ‘Shikasta’ (1st book in her 5-book ‘Canopus in Argos’ series): here, a global youth movement was establihsed in order to create a culture to replace the present war-ridden dying culture. In Christopher Bache’s (2000) ‘Dark Night, Early Dawn’ book he tells of transpersonal sessions whereby people explained their visions. In one he states:
“Visually this took the form of energy coming together in swift, contracted spasms that created bright flashes of awareness. I repeatedly saw extended webs of energy suddenly contract and explode in brilliant flashes. In the past these flashes had not endured long and had been swallowed by the inertia of the collective unconscious of our species. Now, however, the flashes were beginning to hold their own. Not only were they not dissolving, but they were beginning to connect with other flashes occurring around the planet.”
This visually represents how seperate energy pockets in our world were now beginning to connect with others and to hold together this network… there are many more such instances/representations of this. It suggests that perhaps in our species collective consciousness there is an awareness that a new type of ‘conscious civilization’ is birthing; and that what we are witnessing is a) the death-throes of the old order; and b) birthing pockets/seeds beginning to manifest in various ways/parts of the globe (including a new generation of children with different sensibilities). As you can see… I have been thinking on this! (indeed, making notes for a new project!).
Best wishes – Kingsley
Dear Kingsley…I have been rereading…and rereading the above comment from you…amazing! I met Bache once!…I am so hopeful and so encouraged from reading this…there are so many individuals out there thinking and projecting such wonderful pictures into the akashic…all is well…even though we have oil gushing all over the gulf of mexico…!!!
Dear Kinglsey…
As promised, here is another ‘installment’ from my paper “Dissociation of Feeling and Thought in Western Society”…thank you for wishing to read more! …will post another soon. I do think this topic is important…I think Ervin’s essay addresses this question in a very good way…my paper attempts to suggest some remedies…
III. Modern Psychological Research
According to Erik Erikson in Childhood and Society, experiences during infancy have a far-reaching effect upon the life of each individual. Basic fears, intolerances and anxieties arise from the fact that the human life begins with a long, slow childhood and prolonged attachment to parental figures. (l:411) Anxiety and a sense of having transgressed are then the result of an uneasy childhood transition from the security of the mother’s care to the more exacting demands of the father. Erikson says that “frustrated wishes and especially early, preverbal, and quite vague wishes, can leave a residue of sin which goes deeper than any guilt over deeds actually committed and remembered.” (1:148) He indicates that the manner in which the disengagement from the mother (“paradise of orality”) is handled is the basis of later fundamental attitudes toward the self and greatly the channeling of affective energies. Throughout his lifetime man strives to achieve an adjustment to the loss of the mother (original oneness with nature, feeling, substance, intuition) and a sense of reconciliation or union with the father (who represents reason, responsibility, thought) which will at the same time produce in himself as an individual this genuine maturity, or completeness.
IV. The Man-Woman Conflict
One manifestation of the struggle is the male-female conflict in our society. A recognition and acceptance of the two principles as complementary is necessary for genuine maturity and a feeling of wholeness. Karl Stern, in his The Flight from Woman, has presented some perhaps very original observations on the special need for recognizing male-female complementarity in western society. In this study he has attempted an analysis of the psychological makeup of six philosophers (among them, Goethe, Sartre and Descartes) who have had a lasting influence on western thought. His thesis is that they, through their own flight from interaction with the womanly principle (feeling, intuition, contemplation), have led the society away from appreciation of the feminine, and that this is a great danger to our civilization. He makes some rather bold observations, strongly positing the opinion that only in a balanced blend of masculine and feminine values will the human race reach genuine maturity. He quotes Helene Deutsch (The Psychology of Women: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. New York: Green and Stratton, 1945) in saying that “’woman’ and ‘man’ have, at one time, arisen out of a common origin which is still living on in the bisexual anlage in all human beings. They have differentiated in the course of development without ever being completely separated from one another…The quantity of contrasexual residuals fifer with each person. In the psychic budget of the individual the two components, male and female, must be linked in harmony.” (11:38-39)
Most of us are familiar with the Genesis creation account in the Bible and with the discourses in Plato’s Symposium where the bisexual principle has been presented as primal. Another, perhaps not so familiar example is the story of the trio, Enki, Anshar and Kishar. In this Babylonian legend Enki is born to Anshar, who represents heaven, and Kishar, who represents earth. When this third member appears he is aware of the dual source of his origin. He is pulled toward both, is unable to reconcile in himself both principles, and concludes that he, himself is incomplete, at fault. (7:290)
Our present civilization preoccupies itself with tangible realities and elects to ignore our inner ontogenetic difficulties—if this be so, we will fail to realize our human potential.
According to Dr. Stern, recognition of the feminine sense of balance and creativity will avert this disaster. He implies that man, in our culture, flees from the feminine and at the same time persuades woman that she should give up her womanliness and flee too, over to the masculine. This would leave a culture crippled and denuded of feminine values. (to be continued)
–bss June 12, 2010
Hmmmm….shall I discontinue my efforts to post this long and probably pedantic paper here? I am just thinking of it as a kind of “akashic stash”…
Dear Barbara,
I was taking my time over this post since I wanted a more careful reaction to it: and I thought pertinent points were made in both parts (III & IV). Part III made me think of the research done by Joseph Chiltern Pierce on the role of society & children. He noted how pre-frontal lobe development in the womb was attached to the feeling of fear/security that the child feels whilst still developing at this stage. If there is fear – transmitted through the mother – then pre-frontal lobe growth is reduced as the developmental resources are heightened in the R-complex which deals more with survival mechanisms. Thus, social anxieties can affect a person pre-birth; whether or not this translates into later guilt issues I don’t know. Please also refer to Pierce’s ‘Evolution’s End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence’ for more information.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the part IV snippet too; especially as I feel this energetic matrix is beneath many of our polar struggles. I remember Don Juan (in Carlos Castaneda’s books) mentioning how the male energy was so strong and dominant upon Earth since in reality – in the cosmos – feminine energy was dominant and thus the male energy was attemping to assert itself in its minor role!
Are you familiar with the work of Riane Eisler? If not, I recommend her ‘The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future’; a classic in the field of masculine/feminine cultures. What a progressive and balanced culture requires, cites Eisler, is not a flight from anything; rather, a co-partnership. Just as Lynn Margulis taught us the lessons of symbiosis and how a bacterial disaster (and hence disaster for our eartly evolution) was averted by a turning from competition to collaboration and partnership, so too are these lessons required for the ongoing global development of our species. There has been a cultural myopia over how to deal withe sharing/balance of power whether it be in material concerns (resources, money, rule) or in emotions and energies. This competative mentality has its limited uses yet holds back a collective species from transitioning, growing, beyond specific boundaries. We are now clashing with these self-imposed boundaries and the results are visible in our world affairs: this is a decisive struggle on how we decide to move forward, or not…
Kingsley…Amazing, and yet not so amazing, to see how we have been reading so many of the same people…Sheldrake, Pearce, Castanada, Eisler! I want to read more closely what you have written here, but for now I will put up here the introduction to our new book, “Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect” … which we have copyrighted and are deciding just how to publish it…whether electronically or paper. Back shortly…
Here I am again…
Kingsley, you write of Joseph Chilton Pearce’s oh-so-important work. He is a long-time friend and colleague of David Chamberlain, whose work we mention in the following intro material. We write of Eisler also as a major inspiration, and, of course, Laszlo! As we state there, too, we strongly believe their research should be incorporated into our general education programs “if we are to have truly efficacious humanistic education.”
Below is an excerpt from ‘Partnership Society…’ If have any opinion or advice regarding the publication of this, we will be grateful. The publishing world is changing very fast right now. And, of course, we will love to have feedback from you on the below words…hoping and trusting that you will find the time!!! We feel that all voices upon this subject are so important. Our original title included the phrase “listen to the gathering voices”…then we changed it. What do you think about the title change? We were deciding to try to sound more scientific rather than poetic–which is more my bent. We definitely could use some feedback!
Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect
Sheldon Stoff
Barbara Smith Stoff
© 2007
Excerpts from the Introduction:
After the Great Fall,
it is that the warrior has danced upon the bones
of our dismembered illusions.
Isis, come now.
Re-member us with new forms, new ideas.
Life must survive.
After the Grail seeking and the Persephone tasks,
tell us what can we envision together.
–Barbara Smith Stoff
It may have been Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who re-focused our postmodern eyes upon the evolutionary path of humankind and our march forward. Looking up from his scrutiny of ancient fossils, he demanded that we think about the future of humankind, and our responsibility thereto. He challenged us to overcome the hurdles and pointed the way toward gains in strength and wisdom:
“The conflict dates from the day when one man, flying in the face of appearance, perceived that the forces of nature are no more unalterably fixed in their orbits than the stars themselves, but that their serene arrangement around us depicts the flow of a tremendous tide—the day on which a first voice rang out, crying to Mankind peacefully slumbering on the raft of Earth, ‘We are moving! We are going forward!’ …
“It is a pleasant and dramatic spectacle, that of Mankind divided to its very depths into two irrevocably opposed camps—one looking towards the horizon and proclaiming with all its new-found faith, ‘We are moving,’ and the other, without shifting its position, obstinately maintaining, ‘Nothing changes. We are not moving at all.’
“These latter, the ‘immobilists,’ though they lack passion, have commonsense on their side, habit of thought, inertia, pessimism and also, to some extent, morality and religion. Nothing, they argue, appears to have changed since man began to hand down the memory of the past, not the undulations of the earth, or the forms of life, or the genius of Man or even his goodness. …
“But the other half of mankind, startled by the look-out’s cry, has left the huddle where the rest of the crew sit with their heads together telling time-honoured tales. Gazing out over the dark sea they study for themselves the lapping of waters along the hull of the craft that bears them, breathe the scents borne to them on the breeze, gaze at the shadows cast from pole to pole by a changeless eternity. And for these all things, while remaining separately the same—the ripple of water, the scent of the air, the lights in the sky—become linked together and acquire a new sense: the fixed and random Universe is seen to move.” [Teilhard de Chardin in The Future of Man]
We observe that we are no longer slumbering peacefully on this raft. We heed the cry of those who fervently believe we can and must change for the better. Let us say at the outset that for long years and especially during the course of writing this book, we have wandered with analytical attention through ancient histories and we have read deeply the words of scientists and futurists, sages and contemplative thinkers. Early on and throughout we have been inspired by promptings, from what Teilhard would call the within, toward the concept of evolutionary convergence.
Looking at history, we find gender discrimination to be a strong factor hindering the evolution of consciousness. We have decided that in our search for truth concerning gender balance and fairness, nothing can stand in our way, there can be no fences surrounding our thoughts, no limitations to our search. That search for truth must be the foundation in our efforts to engage the world and share what we have found even if it defies that which is often never questioned. To the best of our ability, there must be no sleep-walking, no sacred relics, no undisturbed unexamined myths, no religious dogma, no gender or cultural bias left hiding in our attic. A search without openness to wherever it leads is simply no search at all. That leads to the next step. How do we go about such a search? We listen to the gathering voices.
About partnership in particular, it was a 1967 reading of the writings of Edith Stein (who perished in one of Hitler’s death camps) which gave us a strong “heads up.” Twenty years later, in 1987, Riane Eiseler’s The Chalice and The Blade fairly leapt from the publisher’s desk into our hands and has been seeding our thoughts and imagination ever since. Indeed, her work has supported our increasing curiosity and our continuing research.
We are much encouraged by the work and writings of Ervin Laszlo about the behavior of systems in general and how particulars may change, or be changed, during times of crisis. We have followed, for some twenty-five years, the critical research being done by Stanislav Grof and David Chamberlain into the birth experience and how that experience affects personality and world-wide societal development. We feel that their writings should be incorporated into our school programs if we are to have truly efficacious humanistic education.
With our decision to focus upon the subject of the partnership principle, it is our hope that our work here will offer some understanding of how we got to our present dilemma. We are forced to take the three Abrahamic religions to task. Indeed we are going to slog through the treacherous marshes of religious history. Although arduous and sometimes seemingly counter-productive, reflecting upon where we have been may help us to know more clearly where we want to go. Perhaps more importantly, we hope to offer practical suggestions for change, as we intentionally seek an expanded consciousness.
When born into a culture, we usually simply accept the mores and behavior of that culture. If we take the time to reflect upon this tendency, we may suddenly develop a need to explore beneath the crystallized foundations of our belief systems. Even in religious thought, most of us, when we are young and without fully knowing what we are doing, simply accept what we are told—without questioning. Often there is a fundamental attitude within religious tradition that discourages reading for a comparative overview. Yet, upon further reflection, we can understand that this is a formula designed to place our awareness and thinking into a deep and hypnotic sleep. Certainly it suppresses our faculty for critical thinking.
What if we take up some kind of fish-eye lens for a wider and deeper look around? What if we ask questions about patterns of human behavior and change in those patterns? We might observe that Abraham, for example, had the idea to move us from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice. We might observe that Jesus had the idea to move us from animal sacrifice to the communion banquet. Upon deeper study, far behind the veiled images of Islam currently displayed on television, we might observe that Muhammad actually had the idea that women should be honored as equal partners in society. What happened to that idea?
Many years ago Professor Martin Buber gave us a description of the two basic ways in which we can engage the world. We can look at the world through the lens of the I-It relationship—that view is common today for most of the “civilized” world.
The I-It approach is based primarily upon analysis and intellect. This is a way of behavior, of meeting and seeing that is believed to be essential to an industrial world. This is the way in which most schooling, and indeed religious education, is conducted. This is also a way of distortion, simplification and manipulation. We are not saying that our society can do without analysis and intellect. No complex society can.
It is also obvious to us that a balanced approach to behavior, seeing and knowing, must be utilized if we are to live a fully human existence—leading to growth and maturity. Thus, Dr. Buber provided us with a concept of an all inclusive encounter, the I-Thou relationship. We can choose to engage in I-Thou relationships, with reverence, with love and with the desire to understand. In this work we will endeavor to focus through the lens of these I-Thou relationships and their effect upon all facets of nature, material, human and spiritual. Sadly, as we probe into our history and current events looking for contributing influences from this mode of encounter , we—more often than not—are keenly disappointed.
Dr. Frank Rhodes, then president of Cornell University, said in his Commencement Address on May 29, 1988:
But there is a sense in which today’s graduation may be hazardous to your health, and it will make the setting of meaningful life goals even harder. It has to do with the academic style (analytic) which is so much a part of the campus and which conditioned your outlook over these past several years. This style is marked by reductionist thinking, and its results are abstraction, detachment, moral abstention, and ultimately—in extreme cases—depersonalization. (8)
Asking a new kind of question can precipitate a profound change in our world view, and in our understanding of the entire cosmos. When we change our question, we may begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.
Looking at an ancient belief system, R.A. Schwaller de Lubiez did an exhaustive study of Egyptian culture and reported in his book, Symbol and the Symbolic, that:
We are dealing with a new consciousness, that is, epistemologically speaking, a new state of the power of thought; this seems to have been known to and evident among the Ancient Egyptians, since they constructed all their expression on the knowledge of this dualism of intelligence, which tradition labels Exotericism (intellect) and Esotericism (intuition. (p.55) [Symbol and the Symbolic: Ancient Egypt, Science and the Evolution of Consciousness. New York: Inner Traditions International, 1978]
It is also interesting to note that the Kabbalah, an ancient tradition which has been preserved within Jewish mysticism, describes a mystical pathway to full relationship on the Earth and points to a balance between Hokhmah (intellect, male) and Binah (loving intuition and understanding, female). They must be in perfect balance in order to achieve perfection in knowledge and relationship. In Biblical language “Adam knew Eve…” “To know” one must embrace lovingly whether that be nature, human or the spiritual.
As thought and intuitional feeling come together within the individual, that individual is ready for true partnership.
Reading history upon tragic history, and trying to comprehend truly and fairly, we think that now is the time to offer thoughts about strategies for a deeper healing at the heart of humankind. With Martin Buber and Vaclav Havel, we plead for a change in our consciousness, in our understanding of who we are, and where we are going. Are we aware of our evolving consciousness? Are we evolving toward understanding and partnership?
In our efforts to widen and deepen our concepts and understanding of life and meaning, it may be helpful if we place our inquiries within the larger questions posed by the study of energy fields and general systems theory. It may indeed be especially helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory, the nature of systems, how and why they organize themselves, and how they may change toward a more benevolent evolution.
Ervin Laszlo, often known as the father of systems science, says that as we now face a choice between “collapsing into chaos and evolving into a sustainable, ethical global community” the voices of the few—even the individual—can have a powerful effect for change. He says, in The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads:
Scientists would say we are living in a ‘decision window’—a transitory period in the evolution of a system during which any input or influence, however small, can ‘blow up’ to transform existing trends and bring new patterns and processes into existence. This is similar to the often-discussed ‘butterfly effect’ discovered by U.S. meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s….In periods of relative stability, the consciousness of individuals does not play a decisive role in the behavior of society. But when a society reaches the limits of its stability and turns chaotic, it becomes super-sensitive—responsive to even small fluctuations such as changes in some people’s values, beliefs, world views and aspirations. Many signs point to the fact that we are entering a new period of ecological and social instability, a time rife with chaos but also a window of exceptional freedom to decide our destiny.
Gregg Braden writes of “the existence of a field of energy—The Divine Matrix—that provides the container, as well as a bridge and mirror, for everything that happens between the world within us and the one outside of our bodies.” Drawing upon theorists such as David Bohm and others within the discipline of quantum physics, he describes “deeper or higher planes of creation that hold the template for what happens in our world. It’s from these subtler levels of reality that our physical world originates.” He says:
“The implication of both quantum theory and the ancient texts is that in the unseen realms we create the blueprint for the relationships, careers, successes, and failures of the visible world. From this perspective, the Divine Matrix works like a great cosmic screen that allows us to see the nonphysical energy of our emotions and beliefs (our anger, hate, and rage; as well as love, compassion, and understanding) projected in the physical medium of life.”
In the ancient text, written in Sanskrit five thousand years ago, this encompassing medium is referred to as the Akasha. Braden goes on to say, “The key to surviving our time in history is to create a new way of thinking while we’re still living in the conditions that threaten our existence.”
If we look to ancient wisdom traditions and metaphysical writings, we find abundant theory on individual development. To act in accord, to make a bridge to new ways of thinking, and in the belief that the reported experiences of individual journeys in our studies, and in our consciousness, can be of great significance now—at this point in time with the world in a general state of confrontation and conflict—we offer this report from our own research and from within this frame of reflection. It is our hope that it be considered as making a statement for our progress toward a sustainable future here on Earth.
The charge upon each of us, in all of our relationships, is to see clearly, to understand deeply, and to love much. That is also the charge upon us in writing this book for the issues are fundamental to our very way of life and to our very future. They must be probed with truth as our goal, never to be short-circuited for politically correct language or thought.
Sheldon Stoff
Barbara Smith Stoff
Tucson, Arizona
August, 2007
Barbara – your intro work looks fascinating. I just had a quick skim – am currently travelling for the next week. Will report back after the travels.
Best,
Third time lucky!!
Dear Barbara,
I have finally been settled enough to re-read your extract from ‘Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect’, which I resonated with, as you can imagine from our recent discussions. First, I would say that I prefer your chosen title ‘The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect’ rather than ‘listen to the gathering voices’; as you rightly state, this latter alternative is more poetic yet more abstract. Your chosen title gives the potential reader a clearer idea of what to expect from the text – this is very important if you intend to publish as you need to have a title that includes key words that when googled or put into Amazon will bring up your book.
The ideas you express give an indication that in order to move forward, or evolve, as a collective society we need to embrace a more cooperative and collaborative partnership and sustainability. I sense that you are drawing on both humanistic and scientific systems. You mentioned that “we strongly believe their research should be incorporated into our general education programs “if we are to have truly efficacious humanistic education.””. This is a very important point, and perhaps would benefit from being emphasized more in this introductory extract. In fact, I’m not sure from whereabouts in your text this extract is taken from – I assume it was the introduction? If so, you make a good overview of the background of ideas; yet the introduction would also benefit from some comments about how our education systems could be improved from these new insights.
I especially liked the quote from Dr. Frank Rhodes – perhaps this could be followed-up with some comments from your other work “Dissociation of Feeling and Thought in Western Society”? This fits in nicely with how a rationalistic society has cut-off the growth of intuitive feeling.
Overall this work fits in exactly with the changing paradigm we are entering. Have you approached any publishers? Do you know of the work of David Loye? (Riane Eisler’s partner) – see his website ‘The Darwin Project’ – http://www.thedarwinproject.com/temp.html
Also, if you haven’t already, see his educational program called ‘The Great Adventure’ – http://www.thedarwinproject.com/adventure/distance_learning.html
I would suggest you contact David Loye to see where your work could fit in, or his advice on publishing. This work definately has potential – and I hope you have success with it. Please keep me posted!
With best wishes,
Kingsley
Kingsley!
Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions here. I value them very much. Am off now to necessary tasks for the day, but I will get back to this later today. Again my thanks.
Best,
Barbara
Dear Dr. Laszlo,
Thahk you for your beautiful, informative, and eye opening book on “Science and the Akashik Field”. I have found it absolutely fascinating and love the integral vision, the feelings of wholeness that it gives us, not to mention the very mysteries of the universe and our reality.
The poem you have at the beginning about the Pond, I read over and over because it speaks tons to me and being a poem it holds the essence of the book. I want to tell the world about it and I will do so to my field of influence, giving you due credit, but I will tell it as a shamanic tale. Reading your book has giving me feelings of richness, optimism, creativity, interconnection, belonging, and enthusiasm.
To the contributors on this forum,
I enjoyed and learned so much from your contributions!
Love and Light,
Gerardo Zamora.
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