To the contributors on this forum,
I enjoyed and learned so much from your contributions!

Love and Light,
Gerardo Zamora.

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

Best,

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