Conscious Evolution: The Dance of Intuition and Intellect.

By Barbara Smith Stoff and Sheldon Stoff

With deep reading in myth and literature, ones cognition becomes as a rich mother loam wherein spirit can dwell and build that interior castle, from which the indwelling spirit begins to speak through the imagination, the body, and the intellect of the individual. Over time, body, mind, and spirit become one. Then this one can and often does experience the merging within the One.

Through the merging of intuition and intellect, we will comprehend the acceleration of consciousness that is overtaking us. Functioning within a state of universal awareness of our oneness will, in the long run, prove to be much easier than defining ourselves into small groupings of discordant persons and nations. The education and evolution of vibrant communities is our beginning task. The creation of a world with a universal consciousness of oneness is our ultimate realization.

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 nowat this point in time with the world in a general state of confrontation and conflictwe offer this report from our own research and from within this frame of reflection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450263917

Barbara Smith Stoff

DR. SHELDON STOFF is professor emeritus at Adelphi University. During his years as educator and spokesperson for humanistic education, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. BARBARA SMITH STOFF, poet, artist, and producer of Emmy Award–winning Poems of Wonder and Magic, has received multiple academic awards, taught English, comparative literature, and art at various academic levels. They are currently writing a book on evolution and the Akashic Field.

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Dedication

Only a few are we able to mention here, but we want to dedicate this work to all those who have held the lantern for us as we have walked along for all these many years—seeking for pathways which might lead us to a deeper and more comprehensive view of our journey here on our beautiful earth. All of these have stressed the importance of living a life dedicated to responsibility to others, and to the recognition of our all-pervasive connectedness to all that is, and more specifically to the web of consciousness on this planet, and our role in helping this consciousness to evolve in a benevolent and sustaining direction. If this volume serves to strengthen these intentions and endeavors, it will have rewarded us, exponentially, for our own personal efforts in its creation.

As we reflect upon the preparation of this manuscript, we deeply acknowledge, in gratitude, those certain individuals who have provided special light in our lives and who indeed have influenced many in our time: Martin Buber, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Riane Eisler, and Ervin Laszlo.

Martin Buber lived the life of dialogue. He realized that life was all about a full relationship with nature, fellow humans and the spirituality of the cosmos.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, brought forth a deep insight into love of the Divine Wholeness, and the importance of our part in that evolving matrix.

Riane Eisler reached back into ancient history, within the deep psyche of evolving humankind, and brought forth tangible evidence of a lost partnership which must be reinstated now if we are to continue to evolve with wholeness and sustainability here on earth.

To Ervin Laszlo we offer deep thanks for giving us an overall scientific systems theory within which to locate our meandering enquiries and thoughts.

Sheldon Stoff

Barbara Smith Stoff

California, August, 2010

Let us continue with my dear friend in the world of poetry, William Stafford: …it holds together something more than the world…this strange dance…live that dream into stories…and hold them…close at the edge we share…Are you coming? Good: now it is time.

In the ancient myth of the Deluge, 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… We get chills…So 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 systems. Surely we must find ways of helping humankind evolve in a more benevolent direction.

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

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

–Albert Einstein

It was only with the introduction of the concept of the sole male god that women were forced into a subordinate role from which they are slowly emerging after suffering thousands of years of humiliation, virtual slavery and even death. The future of the world depends on the recognition of the equality and balance of both primal forces.

—Sheldon Stoff

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE — LOOKING AROUND

1. Hope Creates the Future: Individual Responsibility Comes of Age

2. We Engage the World: How We Do So Is Our Choice

PART TWO — LOOKING BACKWARD

3. The Lost Golden Age: Equality, Harmony and the Goddess

4. Significant Contributions to the Rise of Patriarchy: How We Created Our Current Dilemma

Alphabet Literacy—The Damaging Effects of Such Exclusive Focus

Judaism—The People’s Religion Was Suppressed by a Patriarchal Elite

Christianity—The Message of Jesus Was Hijacked by a Self-Centered Patriarchy

Islam—Deeper Understanding through a Closer Look at its Origins

PART THREE — LOOKING FORWARD

5. Building Blocks: Creative Partnering

Matrix: Evolution within Consciousness

Meditation: Engineering the Building Blocks and Bringing Together the Inner and the Outer

Education: Process and Subject Matter for Benevolent Evolution

Vision: Community—The Core of Progress

Relationship: The Final Frontier—Love and Compassion

Unity: Drawing Together from the Within

Sheldon’s Afterword

Barbara’s Afterword

Bibliography

About the Authors

Preface

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971—Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient, 1964), known for Christian Realism, said that we, as humans, create ourselves according to the image we hold of ourselves. Thinking long and deeply about this, we believe that, at this point in history, our image of ourselves must intentionally evolve into seeing ourselves as beings dedicated to and working for the benevolent evolution of each and all of us.

In that context, let us imagine a new Round Table in that mythical kingdom of Camelot. Let us then imagine a conversation around that table. Perhaps such a mythical kingdom existed historically. Perhaps it even exists now, in our own dining room, hosted by us, one of us holding a doctorate from Cornell University, the other an Emmy Award winner, artist and poet. Let us then imagine a conversation around this table. Let us listen to the gathering voices.

Guests would be Dr. Martin Buber, many letters and books we have shared, Dr. Ervin Laszlo, many emails and books we have shared, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, many years of reading his books and letters, and Dr. Franz Winkler, M.D., many conversations and books we have shared. Let us listen to the gathering of these steadily engaging voices.

We also include personal stories from our own private journey as well as notes from our considerable research in the libraries of the world. The conversation grows and expands, and takes in even more views, as we travel through history, endeavor to understand where we have come from and how did we get here. There is the pressing recognition that we must expand our awareness, our conscious thoughts and intentions. This is a matter of human survival.

Evolution and dialogue—two main themes come together as we imagine Martin Buber sitting down for a talk with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. And then, in walks Ervin Laszlo, who talks to us about how whole systems change. Indeed a remarkable conversation ensues. If as our dear friend, the late Wink Franklin of The Institute of Noetic Sciences, used to say, We hedge our noetic bet… toward a benevolent shift in our consciousness, then the prognosis for evolution of our entire system can move toward attitudes of respect and reverence for all life. Indeed, we are now joined by many voices, and the Round Table truly is.

An eloquent voice is that of Riane Eisler, in The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics. This outstanding work, published in 2007, continues her invaluable effort toward the development of the partnership way in this world—projecting architectural details for building upon the archeological foundations she so eloquently portrayed for us in The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (1987). What lovely symmetry frames the score of years—1987 archeological digs inspire social creation in 2007. Her work continues to hold a lantern for us in our own excavations and projections for benevolent evolution within our collective awareness and consciousness.

What also comes across so strongly as we review our own work is the congruence of concepts with which we are working in common with Dr. Eisler. Where she describes a dominator system, we draw from Martin Buber’s concept of I-It relationships. Where she describes a partnership system, we describe what I-Thou relationships are inherently and deeply about. In effect, we see Dr. Buber’s concepts as perfectly serving the partnership way by reaching into the heart of society—the individual—and from that focal point of action, creating the foundation for change.

We do believe that unless manipulation, greed and separation (I-It) are transformed and brought into balance with the broad encounters of respect, caring, responsibility, unity and a warm heart [I-Thou], our society cannot positively, comprehensively, and peacefully move forward.

We believe that much of modern psychological effort is directed toward helping the individual achieve a beneficial interaction, a working agreement, between intuition and 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 stems. In order for our society to progress and develop, indeed in order that we do not destroy ourselves, the delicately functioning connection between intuition and intellect must be restored. This misalignment, or dissociation, has a long history. As soon we began to see ourselves as human, and began to think, we began to wonder what to do about our feelings.

So, believing that we must see the problems in order to heal them, we look backward through history. We describe our journey, and after concerted and protracted research we describe what seem to us to be the major factors accounting for societies living with war, poverty, dishonesty, manipulation and self-centered greed. We have, here, exposed the dirty laundry of important components of past and current social patterns, a necessary action if we truly want to fix the problems. We attempt to point out and describe major causes of inept behaviors in our current definition and expression of civilization.

As we look forward, we attempt to explain prime avenues for correction. This is a call for an awakening of consciousness when we are growing out of a world of hatred and a lack of caring and responsibility, all of which lead to incessant war. If you are serious in your wish for change, and have open eyes, please join us. Join an ever growing chorus in recognition of our partnership with life, as we bring attention to the voices for change. We really believe that we, as humans, co-create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves, and that our daily living as individuals will help us all in our valuable journey.

Barbara Smith Stoff

Sheldon Stoff

California

August, 2010

Introduction

All around us, through all the avenues of experience and thought, the universe is irresistibly knitting itself together organically and genetically. In such conditions, how could the Father-God of two thousand years ago (still a cosmos-God) fail to be transformed imperceptibly (the very fact of our worship hastening the process) into a cosmogenesis-God - in other words into some focus or animating principle of an evolutive creation in which our own individual condition is much less that of a servant who works than that of an element that is united. —Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

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!’ …

…a 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.’

…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 the partnership principle in particular, it was a 1967 reading of the writings of German-Jewish philosopher Edith Stein (1891-1942) which gave us a strong heads up. Stein studied with Edmund Husserl, who is regarded as the principal founder of phenomenology. She became a nun, and a martyr. She perished in Auschwitz. Finally, she became a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1987, Riane Eiseler published The Chalice and The Blade, that groundbreaking volume which 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 thirty years, the critical research of Stanislav Grof and that of David Chamberlain into the gestation and 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 [I-Thou] 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 historical change in those patterns? We might observe that Abraham, for example, had the idea to move us from human