DRAWING FROM WITHIN

UNICORN RISING

2012-01-01T09:48:00.003-08:00

UNICORN RISING

grazing on green violets in spring

we hear with gentle hearts

the soft sounds

of new music

from green gold reeds

as the sun warms a new Dayrose

on slender vines

strong enough to weave new clothes

for the Emperor

born from the breath of the Unicorn.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

ICELAND BECOMES FIRST WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY TO RECOGNIZE PALESTINIAN STATE

2011-12-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

Iceland becomes first Western European country to recognize Palestinian state

I am pleased to read this. Oh so many years ago, when my children were in high school, we had an exchange student from Iceland, for a whole year...what a wonderful experience that was...and we all learned so much. I also believe that Iceland was the first country to use fuel cell cars as municipal vehicles...it's worth keeping an eye on Iceland! They have wonderful poetic legends also!

This is from a letter I wrote to a grandchild...one of my favorite stories about Iceland: "I am thinking of you so much up there is the Norse world…have decided to lurk around Norse history websites just to be near you…in my imagination anyway. You might enjoy this (below) which I posted at 12:38 p.m. December 19, 1999, on the poetry forum in the New York Times. I think it says a lot about the power of writing, and especially of poetry.
“ There is a wonderful story in the Icelandic Sagas which tells of a king whose son drowned, and the king laid himself down on his bed and refused to eat, to die of a broken heart. Saying that she would go with him into death because she was devoted to them both, she came to sit silently beside his bed. After a while the king asked, “What are you chewing on?” “Dulse,” she said. “It makes you die faster.” “Then give me some too,” he said.
After another while the king found that he was thirsty, so she gave him some water to drink. Then he asked again and again, because the seaweed had made him very thirsty. She then told him that she had been putting milk in the water, and thus they would not die so soon after all. She said that while they were waiting to die, it would be a good idea if he made a poem in memory of his son, and her brother, whom they both loved. “I will carve in runes the words of your poem, as you say them to me,” she said.
The king agreed, and he began to speak to her of all his sorrow over the loss of his favorite son, and all his fury against the seagod. Then he began to feel better. When he had finished the poem, he got up, made the funeral feast in accordance with the ancient custom, sent his daughter back to her home with handsome gifts, and took up his ordinary way of living. He lived to a great old age.
This fascinating lady would be Thorgerdur, associated with the Goddess of Fate, in Icelandic myth, and daughter of Egill, the great poet."--Barbara Smith Stoff

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: BIRTH AND VIOLENCE? HERE’S THE ANSWER! SEE THIS FILM

2011-02-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: BIRTH AND VIOLENCE? HERE’S THE ANSWER! SEE THIS FILM

BIRTH AND VIOLENCE? HERE’S THE ANSWER! SEE THIS FILM

2011-02-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

BIRTH AND VIOLENCE? HERE’S THE ANSWER! SEE THIS FILM

Still thinking of how to create healthy birthing practices….how about fathers in the birthing room, the baby’s belly crawl and the healing of BPM IV? Janel Miranda and her team have created this amazing film. This definitely offers “epiphany and intelligent hope.” –bss

http://www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com/

The Other Side of the Glass
From boiling water, to waiting in smoke filled waiting room only to see baby from “the other side of the glass,” to now holding his partner’s hand during surgery, men’s role in birth has been defined by the medical establishment. Now, finally on “the other side of the glass,” men are still disempowered and prevented from connecting with their newborn baby in those first minutes of life. (Janel Miranda)

http://www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com/

“The solution is …
“The Other Side of the Glass” covers a broad spectrum … from the Soul and consciousness, to some primal brain development, to father’s stories of their experiences, to how the medical system is a war machine, and how fathers are disempowered by their own birth which most likely included circumcision.” (from the website)

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: ROOTS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE: PSYCHOSPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CURRENT GLOBAL CRISIS

2011-02-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: ROOTS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE: PSYCHOSPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CURRENT GLOBAL CRISIS

ROOTS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE: PSYCHOSPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CURRENT GLOBAL CRISIS

2011-02-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

ROOTS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE: PSYCHOSPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CURRENT GLOBAL CRISIS

by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D.
Following the news from Egypt and still looking for hopeful epiphanies, I have been re-reading the epilogue from —
Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (1985)—wherein Dr. Grof suggests that the current stage of ‘expression’ on the planet is analogous to a stage in the birthprocess, which he refers to as BPM3. (from his schema ‘Basic PerinatalMatrices’) He suggests that one can find correspondences with this stage in the birth process of the individual with the planetary birth process (now) into the next stage of our collective evolution.

He has given me permission to post here a paper which he presented for Eranos in 2008. I know…it’s long for a ‘blog post’…but I find it utterly fascinating. Well worth the read. –bss

Roots of Human Violence
– Psychospiritual Perspective
on the Current Global Crisis
Stanislav Grof
San Francisco, California, USA

June 2008

During the fourteen years when we lived at the EsalenInstitute in Big Sur, California, Joseph Campbell was a regular guest speaker in our seminars and a frequent guest in our house. There was one subject about which he spoke with extraordinary passion and enthusiasm in his lectures
as well as in our private discussions. It was the tradition of the Eranos meetings – gatherings of a stellar group of European thinkers, in which the main guiding force and chief contributor was C.G. Jung himself.As Joseph shared with us his memories of Eranos, the time of these legendary meetings seemed to look increasingly like a golden era sunk irrevocably into a mythic past like the Arthurian legends and their heroes.

But it clearly was not the destiny of Eranos to be relegated to a mythic realm, I would like to express my profound appreciation to John van Praag and to the Fetzer Institute for resurrecting the Eranos tradition and bringing it back to our time. I feel also very grateful for the invitation, which has made it possible for us to participate in this renaissance. It is a great honour and pleasure for me to attend this meeting and to share with you observations and experiences from my research of non-ordinary states of consciousness that I have conducted for more than half a century.

The topic of this meeting could not be more relevant considering the situation we are facing in the world. Since time immemorial, proclivity to unbridled violence – combined with insatiable greed – has been one of the most elemental forces driving human history The number and nature of atrocities that have been committed throughout the ages in various countries of the world, many of them in the name of God, are truly unimaginable and indescribable. Countless millions of soldiers and civilians have been killed in wars and revolutions of all times or in other forms of bloodshed.

In the past, these violent events had tragic consequences

for the individuals, who were directly involved in them, and

for their immediate families. However, they did not threaten

the future of the human species as a whole and certainly did

not represent a danger for the eco system and for the biosphere

of the planet. Even after the most violent wars, nature

was able to recycle all the aftermath and completely recover

within a few decades.

This situation changed very radically in the course of the

twentieth century due to rapid technological progress, exponential

growth of industrial production, massive population

explosion, and particularly the development of atomic and

hydrogen bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.

We are facing a global crisis of unprecedented proportions

and have the dubious privilege of being the first species in

history that has achieved the capacity to eradicate itself and

threaten in the process evolution of life on this planet.

Diplomatic negotiations, administrative and legal measures,

economic and social sanctions, military interventions,

and other similar efforts have had very little success; as a

matter of fact, they have often produced more problems than

they solved. It is becoming increasingly clear why they had

to fail. The strategies used to alleviate this crisis are rooted

in the same ideology that created it in the first place. It

has become increasingly clear that the crisis we are facing

reflects the level of consciousness evolution of the human

species and that its successful resolution or at least alleviation

will have to include a radical inner transformation of

humanity on a large scale.

This morning, I would like to focus in my presentation on

the observations from the study of non-ordinary states of

consciousness that provide new insights into the nature and

roots of human aggression and suggest effective strategies

for working with destructive and self-destructive tendencies

in the human species.

Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

Scientific understanding of human aggression started

with Charles Darwin’s époque-making discoveries in the

field of evolution of species in the middle of the nineteenth

century1. The attempts to explain human aggression from

our animal origin generated such theoretical concepts as

Desmond Morris’s image of the ‘naked ape’2, Robert Ardrey’s

idea of the ‘territorial imperative’3, Paul MacLean’s ‘triune

1 C. Darwin, The Origin of Species and the Descent of Man, Encyclopaedia

Britannica, Chicago, il 1952 (originally published in 1859).

2 D. Morris, The Naked Ape, McGraw-Hill, New York, ny 1967.

3 R. Ardrey, African Genesis, Atheneum, New York, ny 1961.

brain’1, and Richard Dawkins’s sociobiological explanations
interpreting aggression in terms of genetic strategies of the
‘selfish gene’2. More refined models of behaviour developed
by pioneers in ethology, such as Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas
Tinbergen, and others, complemented mechanical emphasis
on instincts by the study of ritualistic and motivational elements3.
However, as Erich Fromm demonstrated in his groundbreaking
book Anatomy of Human Destructiveness4, any
theories asserting that human disposition to violence simply
reflects our animal origin are inadequate and unconvincing.
Animals exhibit aggression when they are hungry, compete
for sex, or defend their territory. With rare exceptions, such
as the occasional violent group raids of the chimpanzees
against neighbouring groups5, animals do not prey on their
own kind. The nature and scope of human violence – Erich
Fromm’s ‘malignant aggression’ – has no parallels in the
animal kingdom.
The realisation that human aggression can not be adequately
explained as a result of phylogenetic evolution led to
the formulation of psychodynamic and psychosocial theories
that consider a significant part of human aggression to be
1 P. MacLean, ‘A Triune Concept of the Brain and Behavior. Lecture i. Man’s
Reptilian and Limbic Inheritance; Lecture ii. Man’s Limbic System and
the Psychoses; Lecture iii. New Trends in Man’s Evolution’, in: T.J Boag &
D. Campbell (Eds.), The Hincks Memorial Lectures, University of Toronto
Press, Toronto, on 1973, pp. 6-66.
2 R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, New York, ny
1976.
3 K. Lorenz, On Aggression., Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., New York, ny
1963; N. Tinbergen, Animal Behavior, Time-Life, New York, ny 1965.
4 E. Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Holt, Rinehart
&Winson, New York, ny 1973.
5 R. Wrangham & D. Peterson, Demonic Males – Apes and the Origins of
Human Violence, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York 1996.
learned behaviour. This trend began in the late 1930s and
was initiated by the work of Dollard and Miller1.
Biographical Sources of Aggression
The authors of psychodynamic theories made attempts to
explain the specifically human aggression as a reaction to
various psychotraumatic situations that the human infant
and child experience during the extended period of dependency
– physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, lack of love,
sense of insecurity, inadequate satisfaction of basic biological
needs, emotional deprivation, abandonment, and rejection.
However, explanations of this kind fall painfully short of
accounting for extreme forms of individual violence, such as
serial murders of the Boston Strangler or Geoffrey Dahmer.
They also do not have plausible explanation for ‘running
amok’, indiscriminate multiple killing in public places followed
by suicide (or killing) of the perpetrator. ‘Running
amok’ was long considered to be an exotic culture-bound
syndrome limited to Malaysia. In the last several decades it
has been repeatedly observed in the West, including among
teenagers on school campuses. There also is no plausible
psychodynamic explanation for religiously motivated combination
of violence and suicide, such as the behaviour of the
Japanese kamikaze warriors or of the Moslem fundamentalist
suicide bombers.
Current psychodynamic and psychosocial theories are
even less convincing when it comes to bestial acts committed
by entire groups, like the Sharon Tate murders, the My
Lai massacre, or atrocities that occur during prison uprisings.
They fail completely when it comes to mass societal
1 J. Dollard, L.W. Doob, N.E. Miller, O.H. Mowrer & R.R. Sears, Frustration
and Aggression, Yale University Press, New Haven, ct 1939.
phenomena that involve entire nations, such as Nazism,
Communism, bloody wars, revolutions, genocide, and concentration
camps.
Perinatal Roots of Violence
There is no doubt that traumatic experiences and frustration
of basic needs in childhood and infancy represent an
important source of ‘malignant aggression’. However, in the
last several decades, psychedelic research and deep experiential
psychotherapies have revealed additional significant
roots of violence in deep recesses of the psyche that lie
beyond postnatal biography1. Thus feelings of vital threat,
pain, and suffocation experienced for many hours during the
passage through the birth canal generate enormous amounts
of murderous aggression that remains repressed and stored
in the organism. As Sigmund Freud pointed out in his book
Mourning and Melancholia, repressed aggression turns into
depression and self-destructive impulses2. Perinatal energies
and emotions thus by their very nature represent a mixture
of murderous and suicidal drives.
The reliving of birth in various forms of experiential
psychotherapy is not limited to the replay of the emotional
feelings and physical sensations experienced during the passage
through the birth canal; it is typically accompanied by
a variety of experiences from the collective unconscious portraying
scenes of unimaginable violence. Among these are
1 S. Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious – Observations from lsd
Research, Viking, New York 1975; Id., Beyond the Brain – Birth, Death, and
Transcendence in Psychotherapy, suny, Albany, ny 1985; Id., Psychology of
the Future – Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research, suny, Albany,
ny 2000.
2 S. Freud, Mourning and Melancholia (1917), se 14.
often powerful sequences depicting wars, revolutions, racial
riots, concentration camps, totalitarianism, and genocide.
Spontaneous emergence of this imagery associated with
the reliving of birth suggests that the perinatal level might
actually be an important source of extreme forms of human
violence. Naturally, wars and revolutions are extremely
complex phenomena that have historical, economic, political,
religious, and other dimensions. My intention here is not
to offer a reductionistic explanation replacing all the other
causes, but to add some new insights concerning the psychological
and spiritual dimensions of these forms of social
psychopathology that have been neglected or received only
cursory attention in earlier theories.
The images of violent sociopolitical events accompanying
the reliving of biological birth tend to appear in very
specific connection with the four basic perinatal matrices
(bpm s), which is my name for complex experiential patterns
associated with the reliving of the consecutive stages of the
birth process. While reliving episodes of undisturbed intrauterine
existence (bpm i), we typically experience images
from human societies with an ideal social structure, from
cultures that live in complete harmony with nature, or
from future utopian societies where all major conflicts have
been resolved. Memories of intrauterine disturbances, such
as those of a toxic womb, rh incompatibility between the
maternal organism and the foetus, imminent miscarriage, or
attempted abortion, are accompanied by images of human
groups living in industrial areas where nature is polluted
and spoiled, or in societies with insidious social order and
all-pervading paranoia.
Experiences associated with the first clinical stage of birth
(bpm ii), during which the uterus periodically contracts but
the cervix is not yet open, present a diametrically different
picture. They portray oppressive and abusive totalitarian
societies with closed borders, victimising their populations,
and ‘choking’ personal freedom, such as Czarist or
Communist Russia, Hitler’s Third Reich, Eastern European
Soviet satellites, South American dictatorships, and the
African Apartheid, or bring specific images of the inmates
in Nazi concentration camps and Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago.
While experiencing these scenes of living hell, we identify
exclusively with the victims and feel deep sympathy for the
down-trodden and the underdog.
The experiences accompanying reliving of the second
clinical stage of delivery (bpm iii), when the cervix is dilated
and continued contractions propel the foetus through the
narrow passage of the birth canal, feature a rich panoply
of violent scenes – bloody wars and revolutions, human or
animal slaughter, mutilation, sexual abuse, and murder.
These scenes often contain demonic elements and repulsive
scatological motifs. Additional frequent concomitants of bpm
iii are visions of burning cities, launching of rockets, and
explosions of nuclear bombs. Here we are not limited to the
role of victims, but can participate in three roles – that of
the victim, of the aggressor, and of an emotionally involved
observer.
Reliving of the third clinical stage of delivery (bpm iv), the
actual moment of birth and the separation from the mother,
is typically associated with images of victory in wars and
revolutions, liberation of prisoners, and success of collective
efforts, such as patriotic or nationalistic movements. At this
point, we can also experience visions of triumphant celebrations
and parades or of exciting post-war reconstruction.
In 1975, I described these observations, linking sociopolitical
phenomena to stages of biological birth, in my book
Realms of the Human Unconscious. Shortly after its publication,
I received an enthusiastic letter from Lloyd de Mause,
a New York psychoanalyst and journalist. De Mause is one
of the founders of psychohistory, a discipline that applies
the findings of depth psychology to the study of history and
political science. Psychohistorians explore such issues as the
relationship between the childhood of political leaders and
their system of values and process of decision-making, or the
influence of child-rearing practices on the nature of revolutions
of that particular historical period. Lloyd de Mause
was very interested in my findings concerning the trauma
of birth and its possible sociopolitical implications, because
they provided independent support for his own research.
For some time, de Mause had been studying the psychodynamics
of the periods immediately preceding wars and
revolutions. It interested him how military leaders succeed
in mobilising masses of peaceful civilians and transforming
them practically overnight into killing machines. His
approach to this problem was very original and creative. In
addition to analysis of traditional historical sources, he drew
data of great psychological importance from caricatures,
jokes, dreams, personal imagery, slips of the tongue, side
comments of speakers, and even doodles and scribbles on
the edge of the rough drafts of political documents. By the
time he contacted me, he had analysed in this way seventeen
situations preceding the outbreak of wars and revolutionary
upheavals, spanning many centuries since antiquity to most
recent times1.
He was struck by the extraordinary abundance of figures
of speech, metaphors, and images related to biological birth
that he found in this material. Military leaders and politicians
of all ages describing a critical situation or declaring
1 L. de. Mause, ‘The Independence of Psychohistory’, in: Id. (Ed.), The New
Psychohistory, The Psychohistory, New York, ny 1975.
war typically used terms that applied equally to perinatal
distress. They accused the enemy of choking and strangling
their people, squeezing the last breath out of their lungs,
constricting them, and not giving them enough space to live
(Hitler’s Lebensraum).
Equally frequent were allusions to dark caves, tunnels,
and confusing labyrinths, dangerous abysses into which one
might be pushed, and the threat of engulfment by treacherous
quicksand or a terrifying whirlpool. Similarly, the
offer of the resolution of the crisis had the form of perinatal
images. The leader promised to rescue his nation from an
ominous labyrinth, to lead it to the light on the other side
of the tunnel, and to create a situation where the dangerous
aggressor and oppressor will be overcome and everybody
will again breathe freely.
Lloyd de Mause’s historical examples at the time included
such famous personages as Alexander the Great, Napoleon,
Samuel Adams, Kaiser Wilhelm ii, Hitler, Khrushchev,
and Kennedy. Samuel Adams talking about the American
Revolution referred to ‘the child of Independence now struggling
for birth’. In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm stated that ‘the
Monarchy has been seized by the throat and forced to choose
between letting itself be strangled and making a last ditch
effort to defend itself against attack’.
During the Cuban missile crisis Krushchev wrote to
Kennedy, pleading that the two nations not ‘come to a clash,
like blind moles battling to death in a tunnel’. Even more
explicit was the coded message used by Japanese ambassador
Kurusu when he phoned Tokyo to signal that negotiations
with Roosevelt had broken down and that it was
all right to go ahead with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He
announced that the ‘birth of the child was imminent’ and
asked how things were in Japan: ‘Does it seem as if the child
might be born?’ The reply was: ‘Yes, the birth of the child
seems imminent.’ Interestingly, the American intelligence
listening in recognised the meaning of the ‘war-as-birth’
code. The most recent examples can be found in Osama bin
Laden’s videotape, where he threatens to turn United States
into a ‘choking hell’ and in the speech of us State Secretary
Condoleeza Rice, who described the acute crisis in Lebanon
as ‘birth pangs of New Middle East’.
Particularly chilling was the use of perinatal language
in connection with the explosion of the atomic bomb in
Hiroshima. The airplane was given the name of the pilot’s
mother, Enola Gay, the atomic bomb itself carried a painted
nickname, ‘The Little Boy’, and the agreed-upon message
sent to Washington as a signal of successful detonation was
‘The baby was born’. It would not be too far-fetched to see
the image of a newborn also behind the nickname of the
Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man. Since the time of our correspondence,
Lloyd de Mause collected many additional historical
examples and refined his thesis that the memory of the birth
trauma plays an important role as a source of motivation for
violent social activity.
The relationship between nuclear warfare and birth
is of such relevance that I would like to explore it further
using the material from a fascinating paper by Carol Cohn
entitled ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of the Defense
Intellectuals’1. The defence intellectuals (dis) are civilians
who move in and out of government, working sometimes as
administrative officials or consultants, sometimes at universities
and think tanks. They create the theory that informs
and legitimates us nuclear strategic practice – how to manage
the arms race, how to deter the use of nuclear weapons,
1 C. Cohn, ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of the Defense Intellectuals’,
in: ‘Journal of Women in Culture and Society’, N. 12, 1987. pp. 687-718.
how to fight a nuclear war if the deterrence fails, and how
to explain why it is not safe to live without nuclear weapons.
Carol Cohn had attended a two-week summer seminar on
nuclear weapons, nuclear strategic doctrine, and arms control.
She was so fascinated by what had transpired there that
she spent the following year immersed in the almost entirely
male world of defence intellectuals (except for secretaries).
She collected some extremely interesting facts confirming
the perinatal dimension in nuclear warfare. In her own
terminology, this material confirms the importance of the
motif of ‘male birth’ and ‘male creation’ as important psychological
forces underlying the psychology of nuclear warfare.
She uses the following historical examples to illustrate her
point of view.
In 1942, Ernest Lawrence sent a telegram to a Chicago
group of physicists developing the nuclear bomb that read:
‘Congratulations to the new parents. Can hardly wait to see
the new arrival.’ At Los Alamos, the atom bomb was referred
to as ‘Oppenheimer’s baby’. Richard Feynman wrote in his
article ‘Los Alamos from Below’ that when he was temporarily
on leave after his wife’s death, he received a telegram that
read: ‘The baby is expected on such and such a day.’
At Lawrence Livermore laboratories, the hydrogen bomb
was referred to as ‘Teller’s baby’, although those who wanted
to disparage Edward Teller’s contribution claimed he was
not the bomb’s father, but its mother. They claimed that
Stanislaw Ulam was the real father, who had all the important
ideas and ‘conceived it’; Teller only ‘carried it’ after that.
Terms related to motherhood were also used to the provision
of ‘nurturance’ – the maintenance of the missiles.
General Grove sent a triumphant coded cable to Secretary
of War Henry Stimson at the Potsdam conference reporting
the success of the first atomic test: ‘Doctor has just returned
most enthusiastic and confident that the little boy is as husky
as his big brother. The light in his eyes discernible from
here to Highhold (Stimson’s country home) and I could have
heard his screams from here to my farm.’ Stimson, in turn,
informed Churchill by writing him a note that read: ‘Babies
satisfactorily born.’
William L. Laurence witnessed the test of the first atomic
bomb and wrote: ‘The big boom came about a hundred
seconds after the great flash – the first cry of a new-born
world.’ Edward Teller’s exultant telegram to Los Alamos,
announcing the successful test of the hydrogen bomb ‘Mike’
at the Eniwetok atoll in Marshall Islands read, ‘It’s a boy.’ The
Enola Gay, ‘Little Boy’, and ‘The baby was born’ symbolism
of the Hiroshima bomb, and the ‘Fat Man’ symbolism of the
Nagasaki bomb were already mentioned earlier. According
to Carol Cohn, ‘male scientists gave birth to a progeny with
the ultimate power of domination over female Nature’.
Further support for the pivotal role of the perinatal
domain of the unconscious in war psychology can be found
in Sam Keen’s excellent book The Faces of the Enemy1. Keen
brought together an outstanding collection of war posters,
propaganda cartoons, and caricatures from many historical
periods and countries. He demonstrated that the way the
enemy is described and portrayed during a war or revolution
is a stereotype that shows only minimal variations and has
very little to do with the actual characteristics of the country
and its inhabitants. This material also typically disregards
the diversity and heterogeneity characterising the population
of each country and makes blatant generalisation: ‘This
is what the Germans, Americans, Japanese, Russians, etc.
are like!’
1 S. Keen, Faces of the Enemy – Reflections of the Hostile Imagination,
Harper & Row, San Francisco, ca 1988.
Keen was able to divide these images into several archetypal
categories. Sam Keen’s theoretical framework does
not specifically include the perinatal domain of the unconscious.
However, the analysis of his picture material reveals
preponderance of symbolic images that are characteristic
of bpm ii and bpm iii. The enemy is typically depicted as a
dangerous octopus, a vicious dragon, a multiheaded hydra, a
giant venomous tarantula, or an engulfing Leviathan. Other
frequently used symbols include vicious predatory felines or
birds, monstrous sharks, and ominous snakes, particularly
vipers and boa constrictors. Scenes depicting strangulation
or crushing, ominous whirlpools, and treacherous quicksands
also abound in pictures from the time of wars, revolutions,
and political crises. As we will see, juxtaposition of
pictures from holotropic states of consciousness that focus
on reliving of birth with the historical pictorial documentation
collected by Lloyd de Mause and Sam Keen represents
strong evidence for the perinatal roots of human violence.
According to the new insights, provided jointly by observations
from consciousness research and by the findings of
psychohistory, we all carry in our deep unconscious powerful
energies and emotions associated with the trauma of
birth that we have not adequately processed and assimilated.
For some of us, this aspect of our psyche can be completely
unconscious, until and unless we embark on some in-depth
self-exploration with the use of psychedelics or some powerful
experiential techniques of psychotherapy, such as the
holotropic breathwork, primal therapy, or rebirthing. Others
can have varying degrees of awareness of the emotions
and physical sensations stored on the perinatal level of the
unconscious.
Activation of this material can lead to serious individual
psychopathology, including unmotivated violence. Lloyd de
Mause suggests that, for unknown reasons, the awareness of
the perinatal elements can increase simultaneously in a large
number of people. This creates an atmosphere of general tension,
anxiety, and anticipation. The leader is an individual
who is under a stronger influence of the perinatal energies
than the average person. He also has the ability to disown
his unacceptable feelings (the Shadow in Jung’s terminology)
and to project them on the external situation. The collective
discomfort is blamed on the enemy and a military intervention
is offered as a solution.
Richard Tarnas’ extraordinary book Cosmos and Psyche –
Intimations of A New Worldview added an interesting dimension
to de Mause’s thesis. In this meticulously researched
study, Tarnas was able to show that throughout history
the times of wars and revolutions showed correlation with
specific astrological transits1; his findings strongly suggest
that archetypal forces play a critical role in shaping human
history.
War and revolution provide an opportunity to disregard
the psychological defences that ordinarily keep the dangerous
unconscious forces in check. Freud’s superego, a psychological
force that demands restraint and civilised behaviour,
is replaced by ‘war superego’. We receive praise and medals
for murder, indiscriminate destruction, and pillaging, the
same behaviours that in peacetime are unacceptable and
would land us in prison or worse. Similarly, sexual violence
has been a common practice during wartime and has been
generally tolerated. As a matter of fact, military leaders have
often promised their soldiers unlimited access to women in
the conquered territory to motivate them for battle.
1 R. Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche – Intimations of a New World View, Viking,
New York, ny 2006.
Once the war erupts, the destructive and self-destructive
perinatal impulses are freely acted out. The themes that we
normally encounter in a certain stage of the process of inner
exploration and transformation (bpm ii and iii) now become
parts of our everyday life, either directly or in the form of
tv news. Various no exit situations, sadomasochistic orgies,
sexual violence, bestial and demonic behaviour, unleashing
of enormous explosive energies, and scatology, which belong
to standard perinatal imagery, are all enacted in wars and
revolutions with extraordinary vividness and power.
Witnessing scenes of destruction and acting out of violent
unconscious impulses, whether it occurs on the individual
scale or collectively in wars and revolutions, does not result
in healing and transformation as would an inner confrontation
with these elements in a therapeutic context. The experience
is not generated by our own unconscious, lacks the
element of deep introspection, and does not lead to insights.
The situation is fully externalised and connection with the
deep dynamics of the psyche is missing. And, naturally,
there is no therapeutic intention and motivation for change
and transformation. Thus the goal of the underlying birth
fantasy, which represents the deepest driving force of such
violent events, is not achieved, even if the war or revolution
has been brought to a successful closure. The most triumphant
external victory does not deliver what was expected
and hoped for – an inner sense of emotional liberation and
psychospiritual rebirth.
Since most of the clients with whom I worked in Prague had
experienced the Nazi occupation and the Stalinist regime,
the work with them generated some fascinating insights
into the relationship between the perinatal dynamics and
the institution of concentration camps and into perinatal
roots of Communism. Time consideration does not allow me
to explore this fascinating material; those readers who are
interested can find the full discussion of these subjects in my
book Psychology of the Future1.
Transpersonal Origins of Violence
The research of holotropic states has revealed that the
roots of human violence reach even deeper than to the perinatal
level of the psyche. Significant additional sources of
aggression can be found in the transpersonal domain, such
as archetypal figures of wrathful deities and demonic entities,
complex destructive mythological themes (such as that
of Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods, or of the Apocalypse),
and past-life memories of violent nature.
C.G. Jung believed that the archetypes of the collective
unconscious have a powerful influence not only on the behaviour
of individuals but also on the events of human history2.
From his point of view, entire nations and cultural groups
might be enacting in their behaviour important mythological
themes. Jung believed that many aspects of the German
Nazi movement could be understood as possession of the
German nation by the archetype of Wotan, ‘an ancient god
of storm and frenzy’. James Hillman amassed in his brilliant
book A Terrible Love of War convincing evidence that war is a
formidable archetypal force that has irresistible power over
individuals and nations3.
In many instances, leaders of nations specifically use not
only perinatal, but also archetypal images and spiritual symbolism
to achieve their political goals. The medieval crusaders
were asked to sacrifice their lives for Jesus in a war that
1 S. Grof, Psychology of the Future, cit.
2 C.G. Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1935/1954), cw 9i.
3 J. Hillman , A Terrible Love of War, Penguin, New York, ny 2004.
would recover the Holy Land from the Mohammedans. Adolf
Hitler exploited the mythological motifs of the supremacy of
the Nordic race and of the millennial empire, as well as the
ancient Vedic symbols of the swastika and the solar eagle.
Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden ignited the imagination
of their Moslem followers by references to jihad, the
holy war against the infidels. American presidents Ronald
Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire and
George W. Bush used in his political speeches references to
the Axis of Evil and Armaggedon.
Carol Cohn discussed in her paper not only the perinatal
but also the spiritual symbolism associated with the language
used in relation to nuclear weaponry and doctrine.
The authors of the strategic doctrine refer to members
of their community as the ‘nuclear priesthood’. The first
atomic test was called Trinity – the unity of Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, the male forces of creation. From her feminist
perspective, Cohn saw this as an effort of male scientists
to appropriate and claim ultimate creative power1. The scientists
who worked on the atomic bomb and witnessed the
test described it in the following way: ‘It was as though we
stood at the first day of creation.’ And Robert Oppenheimer
thought of Krishna’s words to Arjuna in the Bhagavad GÄ«tÄ�: ‘I
am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.’
Psychology of Survival
Let us now explore how the concepts that have emerged
from consciousness research and from transpersonal
psychology could be put to practical use in alleviating the
crisis we are facing in modern world. This work has thus
shown that the roots of human violence are much deeper and
1 C. Cohn, op. cit.
more formidable than traditional psychology ever imagined.
However, this work has also discovered extremely effective
therapeutic strategies that have the potential to assuage and
transform human proclivity to violence.
Efforts to change humanity would have to start with
psychological prevention at a very early age. The data from
prenatal and perinatal psychology indicate that much could
be achieved by changing the conditions of pregnancy, delivery,
and early postnatal care. This would include improving
the emotional preparation of the mother during pregnancy,
practicing natural childbirth, creating a psychospiritually
informed birth environment, and cultivating emotionally
nourishing contact between the mother and the child in the
postpartum period.
The circumstances of birth play an important role in creating
a disposition to violence and self-destructive tendencies
or, conversely, to loving behaviour and healthy interpersonal
relationships. French obstetrician Michel Odent has shown
how the hormones involved in the birth process and in nursing
and maternal behaviour participate in this imprinting.
The catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) function
in evolution as mediators of the aggressive/protective
instinct of the mother at the time when birth was occurring
in unprotected natural environments. Oxytocine, prolactine,
and endorphins are known to induce maternal behaviour
in animals and foster dependency and attachment. The
busy, noisy, and chaotic milieu of many hospitals induces
anxiety, engages unnecessarily the adrenaline system, and
imprints the picture of a world that is potentially dangerous
and requires aggressive responses. This interferes with the
hormones that mediate positive interpersonal imprinting. It
is, therefore, essential to provide for birthing a quiet, safe,
and private environment1.
Much has been written about the importance of child rearing,
as well as disastrous emotional consequences of traumatic
conditions in infancy and childhood. Certainly this is
an area where continued education and guidance is necessary.
However, to apply the theoretically known principles,
parents themselves must reach sufficient emotional stability
and maturity. It is well known that emotional problems are
passed like a curse from generation to generation; it is not
unlike the well-known problem of the chicken and the egg.
Humanistic and transpersonal psychologies have developed
effective experiential methods of self-exploration,
healing, and personality transformation. Some of these
come from Western therapeutic traditions, others represent
modern adaptations of ancient and native spiritual practices.
Besides offering emotional healing, these approaches have
the potential to return genuine experiential spirituality
into Western culture and remedy the alienation of modern
humanity. There exist approaches with a very favourable
ratio between professional helpers and clients and others
that can be practiced in the context of self-help groups.
Systematic work with them leads to an inner transformation
of humanity that is sorely needed for survival of our species.
As the content of the perinatal level of the unconscious
emerges into consciousness and is integrated, it results in
radical personality changes. The level of aggression typically
decreases considerably and the individuals involved become
more peaceful, comfortable with themselves, and tolerant of
others. The experience of psychospiritual death and rebirth
1 M. Odent, ‘Prevention of Violence or Genesis of Love? Which Perspective?’,
presentation at the Fourteenth International Transpersonal Conference
in Santa Clara, California, June 1995.
and conscious connection with positive postnatal or prenatal
memories reduce irrational drives and ambitions. It causes a
shift of focus from the past and future to the present moment
and enhances the ability to enjoy simple circumstances of
life, such as everyday activities, food, love-making, nature,
and music. Another important result of this process is emergence
of spirituality of a non-denominational, universal,
all-encompassing, and mystical nature that is very authentic
and convincing, because it is based on deep personal experience.
The process of spiritual opening and transformation
typically deepens further as a result of transpersonal experiences,
such as identification with other people, entire human
groups, animals, plants, and even inorganic materials and
processes in nature. Other experiences provide conscious
access to events occurring in other countries, cultures, and
historical periods and even to the mythological realms and
archetypal beings of the collective unconscious. Experiences
of cosmic unity and one’s own divinity lead to increasing
identification with all of creation and bring the sense of wonder,
love, compassion, and inner peace.
What began as psychological probing of the unconscious
psyche automatically becomes a philosophical quest for the
meaning of life and a journey of spiritual discovery. People
who connect to the transpersonal domain of their psyche
tend to develop a new appreciation for existence and reverence
for all life. One of the most striking consequences of
various forms of transpersonal experiences is spontaneous
emergence and development of deep humanitarian and
ecological concerns and need to get involved in service for
some common purpose. This is based on an almost cellular
awareness that the boundaries in the universe are arbitrary
and that each of us is ultimately identical with the entire web
of existence.
It is suddenly clear that we cannot do anything to nature
without simultaneously doing it to ourselves. Differences
among people appear to be interesting and enriching rather
than threatening, whether they are related to sex, race,
colour, language, political conviction, or religious belief. It
is obvious that a transformation of this kind would increase
our chances for survival if it could occur on a sufficiently
large scale.
Many of the people with whom we have worked saw
humanity at a critical crossroad facing either collective
annihilation or an evolutionary jump in consciousness of
unprecedented proportions. Terence McKenna put it very
succinctly: ‘The history of the silly monkey is over, one way
or another.’1 We seem to be involved in a dramatic race for
time that has no precedent in the entire history of humanity.
What is at stake is nothing less than the future of life on
this planet. If we continue the old strategies, which in their
consequences are clearly extremely destructive and selfdestructive,
it is unlikely that the human species will survive.
However, if a sufficient number of people could undergoes
the process of deep inner transformation, we might reach a
level of consciousness evolution where we would deserve the
name we have so proudly given to our species: Homo sapiens
sapiens.
1 T. Mc Kenna, Food of the Gods – The Search for the Original Tree of
Knowledge, Bantam, New York, ny 1992.

[Stanislav Grof presented this paper at Eranos, in Switzerland, in 2008.]

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT BABIES ARE TEACHING US ABOUT THE ORIGINIS OF VIOLENCE

2011-01-14T11:46:00.000-08:00

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT BABIES ARE TEACHING US ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE

While the funerals are still going on in Tucson, David Chamberlain has said that I may share this paper on the web. Having known him and his dedicated research since 1982, I feel so very strongly that the insights he offers here can be of help in our current societal dilemma. It takes only some minutes to read this paper which has been so many years in the making.--bss

WHAT BABIES ARE TEACHING US ABOUT VIOLENCE*
by David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D.

[This paper was the Presidential Address at the 7th International Congress of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), San Francisco, September 1995 on the theme “Birth & Violence: The Societal Impact.” Published in the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, 10(2), 57-74, Winter, 1995. For copies contact dbchamb@pacbell.net]

WHAT BABIES ARE TEACHING US ABOUT VIOLENCE*
by David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT
Because of their keen awareness and proven learning ability before birth, babies are a major, though generally unacknowledged, source of knowledge about the early origins of violence. Clinical and experimental evidence reveals that babies are exposed to considerable violence in the womb and at birth. Many premature babies live in a veritable “theatre of violence”. Babies carry destructive imprints of early rejection and separation.

In a violent society which accepts anguished birth as “normal,” babies born in bliss set a higher standard for birth which we have not yet understood. These babies at least demonstrate that violent birth need not be the norm and they may also be warning us that birth without the baptism of violence may be a necessary ingredient for life without violence.
_______________________________________________________________________
[* This paper was the Presidential Address at the 7th International Congress of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), San Francisco, September 1995 on the theme “Birth & Violence: The Societal Impact.” Published in the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, 10(2), 57-74, Winter, 1995. For copies contact dbchamb@pacbell.net]

Introduction

We probe the connections between birth and violence at a time when society seems more and more violent, and more and more people seem genuinely concerned about it. Parents, legislators, criminologists, policemen, theologians, and psychologists are among the millions who are asking why people willfully injure and destroy each other. The result of all this activity is a massive and multiplying literature measured in thousands of articles, books, conferences, and media productions. Nevertheless, the roots of violence in the prenatal/perinatal era are rarely explored.

Our approach is to respect all sources of knowledge and all types of evidence including experimental, clinical, and personal experience. We like to engage parents, professionals, therapists, clients, and babies in the task of understanding early development. Babies are a source of knowledge about ourselves, a revelation of human nature, and babies can be “bellwethers.” Bellwether is a term used by shepherds to designate the lead sheep, the one who wears a bell. I ask you to think about how babies can lead us and what they can teach us. This reverses the usual idea that they should follow and learn from us. But think about it: Would this violent world be better off if we tried to be more like them or if they tried to be more like us?
We do well to watch babies closely. They are like a mirror we can hold up to discover ourselves as fully sentient, fully conscious beings. Babies can also serve (if we let them) as an “Early Warning System” for humankind. This is hazardous duty for babies, teaching us, warning us of danger. In this respect, they are like the beautiful, singing canaries that coal miners once took into the bowels of the earth to warn them of deadly gasses. Babies have several important things to teach us.

1. Babies are teaching us the origins of violence.
Until recently, the prevailing scientific habit has been to treat the earliest period of human development--from conception to birth--as an insensitive, unconscious, period of physical growth. Babies are teaching us quite the opposite: they are highly sensitive, reactive, and impressionable participants throughout gestation and birth. However, this is still the minority view in both medicine and psychology.

The belief which has blocked understanding for a hundred years is the idea that no intelligence is possible and no learning or memory can occur until after birth, when the construction of the brain is more advanced. If this were true, it would follow that babies cannot care about anything, know anything, or learn anything--certainly nothing about love and violence. The false idea that prenates cannot learn is still given credence in academic circles, permeates the fundamental assumptions of developmental psychology, obstetrics and neonatology, still casts a shadow over nursing, midwifery, and childbirth education, and still confuses each new generation of pregnant parents. The mistaken belief that babies are not sentient is the main reason why scholars rarely look for the roots of violence in the earliest human experiences.

Potentially, babies have a lot to tell us and they are busy communicating with the psychologists, obstetricians, neonatologists, nurses, midwives, childbirth educators, and parents who will listen to them. Babies have been demonstrating awareness, vulnerability to influence, and intelligence (e.g., Verny & Kelly, 1986, Klaus & Klaus, 1985, Chamberlain, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1994). For two decades we have had proof that full-term newborns, prematurely born babies, and even babies in utero are capable of classical conditioning and habituation (e.g., Rovee-Collier & Lipsitt, 1982, Leader et al, 1982). More recently, with refinements in both learning theory and experimental methodology, newborns have demonstrated tactile, auditory, and olfactory learning, imitation learning, and verbal learning (e.g., Van de Carr, 1992, Busnel et al, 1992, Meltzoff & Moore, 1977, Ungerer et al, 1978, and Balogh & Porter, 1986). Recognition learning of musical passages, stories, voices, native language sounds and even children’s rhymes have been shown at birth and during intra-uterine life (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980, Moon, Cooper, & Fifer, 1993). You may not be familiar with the latest in the series of important experiments by Anthony DeCasper and colleagues, where French mothers repeated a child’s rhyme three times a day from week 33 to 37 gestational age. After four weeks of daily rhymes, babies recognized the rhyme they had heard but showed no recognition of a different rhyme (DeCasper et al, 1994).

Since the evidence for learning in utero and at birth is now overwhelming, we can assert that babies are capable of learning violence both before and during birth.

2. Babies are teaching us they are no strangers to violence in the womb.
Let us pause a moment to clarify definitions of violence and trauma. The dictionary says simply that trauma is a body injury produced by violence. In the psychiatric domain, trauma is a shocking experience which has a lasting effect on mental life.

Babies are exquisitely sensitive to their surroundings in the womb. Between 10 and 15 weeks, their mothers’ cough or laugh will get most fetuses moving within seconds (Tajani and Ianniruberto, 1990). Babies do not live in a fortress but in a mother. If she is assaulted, babies will learn about violence; if she is generously loved, babies will learn about love. A fetus whose mother received an electric shock while she was ironing sat bolt upright and immobile in the womb for two days--long after the mother had recovered. Inez Correia (1994) has measured the effect on the fetus of a mother viewing brief portions of a violent movie. Fetuses were upset along with the mother. They share the world of emotion.

You will perhaps recall that Sontag and Wallace back in 1934, using a primitive apparatus to measure heart and respiratory activity in the mother and fetus, discovered that when a pregnant patient was pursued by a psychotic husband, the baby was alarmed right along with the mother. Recently, a news story in California brought to public attention the background of Robert Harris who was executed in the gas chamber by the State of California. Harris was born three months early after his mother was kicked brutally in the abdomen by her angry husband and began hemorrhaging. This was only the first of many violent experiences this murderer-in-the-making suffered at the hands of his mother and father, a violence he later turned on innocent animals and people. At age 25, he shot two teenagers point blank, laughed at them after he pulled the trigger, and calmly ate the hamburgers they had just bought for lunch. We could not find a more dramatic example of a life that began and ended in violence.

Now that amniocentesis is common, babies in the womb frequently confront a needle entering their private territory. Studies show they react fearfully, defensively, and sometimes aggressively (Ianniruberto and Tajani, 1981). This was brought to my attention again when an acquaintance told us of her experience during amniocentesis. Her husband, the doctor, and the ultrasound technician all saw little Claire bat the side of the needle! The technician said, “Take it out!” When the doctor reinserted the needle, the fetus again attacked it , forcing the doctor to remove the needle. The husband and doctor were in a nervous sweat. The doctor said he had never before seen a baby bat a needle. The parents had an instant lesson in prenatal psychology: they had no idea that a baby this age could sense the intrusion of a needle (and with eyelids fused), have such strong feelings and take such effective action.

Ultrasound is revealing the hidden life of twins in utero. These pictures demolish the old theory that social relationships begin after birth. By 20 weeks, twins manifest a range of behaviors from affectionate to aggressive. Several observers have reported twins hitting each other. At 24 weeks g.a., monoamniotic twins were filmed having a boxing match with repeated rounds of a few minutes each. Rest periods separated rounds when one would strike with his hand and the other would strike back. (Ianniruberto & Tajani, 1981). They also filmed twins who were in different amniotic sacs. These brothers hit each other by pushing the dividing membrane. Obviously, we must enlarge our understanding of the roots of violence.

Much of the violence which takes place in utero is the silent, invisible type: the injuries cannot be discovered until much later. Babies are trying to alert us to this damage but we are slow in learning. Included in this category are (1) psychic damages conveyed through attitude, and (2) brain damage inflicted through neglect. Bustan and Coker (1994) have uncovered the lethal consequences of rejection. In a cohort of 8,000 pregnant women, divided into those who wanted and those who did not want the pregnancy, the unwanted were 2.4 times more likely to die within the first month of life. In a cross-cultural study of planned and unplanned babies in the U.S. and Greece, the planned (and welcomed) babies were already showing higher levels of cognitive processing and greater attachment to their mothers at three months of age than the unplanned babies (Row & Drivas, 1993). This is especially significant considering that roughly half of the pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned.

Recent studies of violent criminals have revealed they often have poorly functioning brains. These poorly-built brains were constructed under adverse conditions during pregnancy. Research psychologist Adrian Raine finds enough evidence to justify labeling criminal behavior a clinical disorder resulting from structural and metabolic problems in the prefrontal area, as well as from other brain injuries and dysfunctions (Raine, 1993; Raine et al, 1994). Psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis has studied juveniles on death row and found a pattern of neurological impairment, paranoid misperception, hypervigilence, and low IQ’s among these children (Lewis et al, 1988). Doctors Raine and Lewis fully appreciate that a combination of factors ultimately determines violent criminal behavior, but we must take note that brain-based origins of violence begin in the prenatal period. Having a sub-optimal brain means that life is more difficult, frustration is never ending, and self-control is marginal. This can lead to misery, crime, and even death--all from prenatal causes. Recent news from Children’s Hospital, Boston adds to our understanding of SIDS. Using positron emission tomography brain scanning, researchers discovered that SIDS babies have a deficit in the “CO2 detection system.” A fully functioning brain wakes a baby when the CO2 gets too high. We are looking at another violent consequence of impaired brain growth in utero.

A likely cause of abnormal brain growth is the ingestion of drugs and chemicals, legitimate or illegitimate. These substances can cause silent, invisible damage. Dangers of exposure to alcohol in utero are well known. The list of destructive effects now include evidence for slowed cognitive activity in infancy (S. Jacobson et al, 1993). Prenatal exposure to the invisible environmental toxin PCB also compromises cognition: tests show less efficient visual discrimination and poorer short-term memory (J. Jacobson et al, 1992). Epidemiologists now think that breast cancer may originate in utero from excessive exposure to estrogen (Trichopoulos, 1990; Ekbom et al, 1992).

Another impediment to normal growth may be the frequent use of ultrasound. In a randomized controlled trial involving 1400 women in Western Australia, women who had ultrasound five times during pregnancy gave birth to babies with lower birth weight than women who had ultrasound only once (Newnham et al, 1993). Low birth weight reflects suboptimal brain growth, which brings us back to our starting point: having a poorly constructed brain may lead to problems of cognition and self-control that increases the likelihood of violence and crime.

The safety of obstetrical anesthetics has been a concern over several decades. Psychologist Yvonne Brackbill began reviewing the literature in 1979 showing the effects of maternal anesthetics on infants (Brackbill, 1979; Brackbill, McManus, & Woodward, 1985). A seven-year study of over 3,000 babies showed long-lasting effects on their behavior and muscular functions. Many children born to mothers given drugs were slow to start sitting, standing, and walking. By age seven, some of these children were lagging in language learning skills of perception, memory, and judgment. In Sweden, Bertil Jacobson and colleagues studied the birth experiences of adult addicts and found a connection between obstetric pain medication and eventual amphetamine addiction (Jacobson et al, 1988). Opiate addiction was linked with the use of opiates, barbiturates, and nitrous oxide at birth (Jacobson et al, 1990). More recently, a study of epidural anesthesia via continuous infusion of bupivacaine and fantanyl was found to upset newborn visual habituation as well as immediate novelty preference (Brumitt, 1994).

Mirmiran and Swaab (1992), of the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research point to damage to the developing brain from pharmaceuticals given to mothers in the third trimester. They report that 80% of pregnant and lactating women are given drugs and warn that the type of brain damage which comes of this is not “grossly evident,” but causes permanent microscopic and biochemical alterations in the formation of neurones, their migration, formation of neurites, synapses, transmitters, receptors, and behavioral states. They say what appears to be a structurally “normal” brain is functionally handicapped.

3. Babies tell us that even “normal” birth is violent.
Babies communicate this with their strong voices, their anguished facial expressions, and by vigorous movements of arms and legs. Are they not famous for crying fiercely at birth? Both parents and professionals expect this, smile nervously, and call it “healthy.” Birth cries are not yet taken seriously, although most of them are clearly a reaction to violence. Screaming babies tell us that something is wrong.

My own attention was drawn to birth trauma by clients remembering birth in hypnosis (Chamberlain, 1990). The great majority (but not all) were actively protesting inappropriate conditions or actions at the time of birth. With ringing clarity they identified what was wrong: the pressure of forceps on their heads, cold rooms, bright lights, needle injections, repeated heel jabs for blood, stinging or blurring eye medicine, being suspended by their feet, hasty cutting of the umbilical cord, separating them from their mother, and isolating them in nurseries. Their cries were cries of pain and protest.

Although many birth professionals have changed their attitude about infant cries, the prevailing practice is to tolerate crying and to continue painful routines regardless of crying. There is no goal of preventing crying. As might be expected, the crying continues. A psychological approach would ask why a baby is crying, and, would work to eliminate the possible causes. French obstetrician Frederick Leboyer in Birth Without Violence (1975) led us in that direction by comparing anguished baby faces with blissful faces.

When neonates cry intensely and are impossible to console, pediatricians often become resigned and counsel parents to accept colic as a difficult developmental phase. A psychological approach, such as that of William Emerson and Raymond Castellino, is to identify what past trauma the baby is expressing and work to resolve it. In this form of therapy, body language and cry language is respected as genuine and helpful communication. Psychologist Aletha Solter (1984, 1995) sees colicky crying as meaningful and potentially therapeutic and teaches parents how to facilitate this.

One of the most violent routines associated with hospital birth in the 20th Century is the practice of male circumcision, a surgical alteration of the penis, in the past always performed without anesthetic, and at the present frequently performed without anesthetics. In my view, this physical and psychic trauma cannot possibly be justified for any of the “medical” reasons which have been proposed over the last hundred years.

Proving that circumcision is, in fact, a trauma with serious consequences should not be that difficult. First of all, a boy is permanently deprived of a functional part of his sexual anatomy. Is this not a serious long-term consequence? In my experience with clients, circumcision has sometimes been the origin of deep distrust between mother and son, or has left the victim with an unconscious impression there is something wrong with his penis. Harder to prove, but a hypothesis we must consider in this violent age, is that this sexual trauma contributes to sexual violence. Note well: prior to the operation, the penis is swabbed--often by a female nurse--with cool disinfectant, creating an erection; then the penis is cut! Marilyn Milos states the problem concisely: “Circumcision is where sex and violence meet for the first time.”

New research by doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has documented that circumcised boys have a more extreme response to routine injections of vaccine at 4 or 6 months of age than do boys who are intact (Taddio et al, 1995). The babies who were circumcised showed more signs of pain and cried longer than intact boys, suggesting a long-term effect. These pediatricians recommend anesthesia for circumcision. However, a survey of primary physicians in that area, who performed circumcisions, revealed that only half used any form of anesthesia. Twelve percent still believed babies do not feel pain, and 35% believed babies do not remember it (Wellington & Rieder, 1993). In the U.S., 60% of male newborns are still being circed, usually with no concern about their pain. Is this not a seedbed for violence in our society?

Research based on over 4,200 consecutive births in Copenhagen found that birth complications like use of forceps, breech delivery, cord prolapse, pre-eclampsia and long labor, when combined with maternal rejection and extended separations in the first year, predispose the victims toward violent crime (Raine, Brennan & Mednick, 1994). Although only 4.5% of the sample had both risk factors, this small group accounted for 18% of all the violent crimes perpetrated by these 4200 people. Earlier studies also found links between obstetric complications and behavior disorders in children (Pasamanick, 1956), perinatal trauma and juvenile delinquency (Lewis et al, 1979), and perinatal complications and criminality (Litt, 1971). More recently, Kandel and Mednick (1991) found a significant correlation between delivery complications (e.g., eclampsia, forceps, ruptured uterus and cord prolapse) and adolescent and adult violent offending. The association was particularly strong for a small group of violent recidivists.
Taken together, this alarming evidence suggests that babies born in the era of hospital obstetrics from 1939 to present were born in violence, baptised by violence. Neither medicine nor psychology understood the formative influence of early pain.

4. Babies tell us the premature nursery is a theatre of violence.
Babies arriving too early find themselves in a surreal environment of needles, lights, incubators, and monitors designed for physical life support, but not for emotional life support. When these special nurseries were designed in 1967, babies were not expected to have thoughts, feelings, or perception of pain. Virtually everything done to children in NICU’s is painful: breathing tubes, suction tubes, feeding tubes going down the throat, monitor electrodes fastened to the skin, intravenous punctures, heel lancing, and endless interruptions and alarms. Over the last 25 years, the number of premature births has risen to over 10%. Obstetrician David Cheek calls it “the tragedy of premature birth” (Cheek, 1994).

In this theatre of violence, babies learn many lessons. Edward Harrison, who entered the NICU at 29 weeks g.a., learned to fear the sound and sight of adhesive tape and bandages. At age 15, he was still carrying in his unconscious mind the experience of having large patches of skin accidentally ripped from his abdomen and chest when monitor pads and tape were removed. He was also phobic about doctors, medical procedures, and hospitals. He would become sick at the sight of the hospital, and could not go for necessary medical care without sedation. Edward was shunted for hydrocephalus, while paralyzed with curare. Although he could not move, cry, or react in any way, he could see, hear, and feel as large incisions were cut in his scalp, neck, and abdomen, as a hole was drilled in his skull, as a tube was inserted into the center of his brain, then pushed down under the skin of his neck, chest, and abdomen and implanted deep in his abdominal cavity. At fifteen, he still will not allow anyone to touch his head, his neck, or his abdomen.

Edward’s experience was not unique. Numerous painful surgeries were routinely done on premature babies without benefit of pain-killing anesthetic, including the most common surgery, PDA, thorocotomy for ligation of patent arteriosus. Necessary for 50% of infants born under 33 weeks g.a. or weighing less than 1500 g., this major operation involves cutting holes in both sides of the neck, another in the right side of the chest, an incision from the breastbone around to the backbone, prying the ribs apart, and tying off an extra artery near the heart. In addition, the left lung must be retracted, and a hole must be cut for a chest tube. All this took an hour and a half, during which time the baby was left completely conscious of pain, and flooded with terror. As impossible as it seems, this was standard practice in neonatal medicine from the discovery of ether in 1846 until about 1986. For 140 years, ether anesthesia was reserved for certain classes of children and adults, but not for babies (Pernick, 1985).

What could the babies tell us about this experience? Being paralyzed, they could not use body language in the usual way. Doctors were convinced the mind was not working and the experience could mean nothing. In reaction to surgery without anesthesia, some babies went into a trance or fell unconscious during or after their ordeals. Doctors said they fell asleep and were fine. However, many babies died, not immediately, but from shock following surgery. Death was their message, like the message of the canaries brought into the mines.

Since 1986, many doctors have changed their minds about infant surgery without anesthesia, and medical societies have generally made new commitments to give babies the same consideration in regard to pain control as they do other patients. If this new path is followed, the total number of pain-traumatized babies could diminish each year. Meanwhile, no one really knows what the consequences to society will be for inflicting so much pain on so many premature babies. Massive pain makes us desperate and irrational, willing to fight and take extreme risks. Pain feeds rage.

NICU alumni are growing up: the very first graduates are now approaching age 30. Their ranks are constantly swelling as those from about 700 nurseries join them. If the percentage of premature babies holds around 10%, it means we are adding about 400,000 per year. We should carefully assess the long-term consequences of such a vast social experiment. Yet, I am not aware of any studies specifically focused on NICU trauma, violent behavior, and crime in this group.

With increasing acceptance of newborn pain perception, the debate now shifts to whether the fetus can perceive pain. That they do is shown by a team of London neonatologists who found that during intrauterine needling, the fetus mounts a full plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin stress response indicative of pain (Giannakoupoulos et al, 1994). Their study of 46 fetuses during intrauterine blood transfusions revealed an increase of 590% of b-endorphin and 183% increase of cortisol after ten minutes of the invasive fetal surgery. Even the youngest premies showed a strong response.

In special care nurseries, pain and suffering are being reduced by several promising trends: a new acceptance of the baby’s intelligence and capacity (e.g., Thoman and Ingersoll, 1989); introduction of pleasurable tactile interactions (Field, 1990; Adamson-Macedo & Attree, 1994); a new treatment approach called “individualized developmental care” which involves intensive listening and involvement with individual babies (Als, et al, 1994); and by new cribs and equipment designed to mimic the sound and movement of the uterine environment (Gatts, Winchester, & Fiske 1992). If neonatology continues to incorporate this kind of psychology, the current violence of the special care nursery may diminish--and with it some portion of societal violence which we have hardly begun to measure. Whatever happens in future nurseries, we must understand that the experience of prematurity is formative in its impact. For example, Stiefel and colleagues (1987) found that preterm babies studied at 12 and 18 months of age show greater sensitivity to even low levels of stress and show less ability to modulate distress once aroused. They do not relate to toys in the same way as full-term (fully-built) babies do. Their way of reacting to life carries a greater potential for emotional imbalance and loss of control--because they were prematurely born.

5. Babies know the destructive impact of rejection and separation.
Ever since the pace-setting work of pediatricians Klaus and Kennell on maternal-infant bonding in 1976, attention has been repeatedly drawn to the destructive effects of untimely separations. In animal studies, the profound effects of separation in the post-partum period have been documented by Harlow (1958) and by Prescott (1971; Prescott, 1995). Separation is both a physical and emotional experience for a baby and can begin anytime in the womb or after birth. Whenever it occurs, it is a stroke of violence.

Few things can compare with the oneness between mother and baby during gestation. The connections are total and holistic, embracing mind, emotion, and sensation. In this intimate world, babies know when they are not wanted, and if rejection persists, the harm worsens. This was thoroughly documented by the landmark study that followed several cohorts of unwanted babies in Finland, Sweden, and the former Czeckoslovakia over a period of thirty years (David et al, 1988). The mothers, repeatedly denied abortions, were forced to bear and raise children they did not want. As their children’s lives unfolded (in comparison with matched control subjects) they proved to be at greater risk for social and psychiatric problems, and were more often delinquent. In the Prague cohort, unwanted children had almost three times the risk of showing up in the Criminal Register. This finding underscores the data of Raine, Brennan, and Mednick (1994) that rejection and post-partum separation paves the road to criminal violence.

This evidence is also coherent with the thesis of Ken Magid (1987) that children with no conscience are those who never had a close relationship with anyone. He typically finds in the family histories of psychopathic killers that they never had an affectionate, supportive relationship with anyone at the beginning of their lives. They started life unattached and grew up unable to follow rules or form lasting relationships. Without guilt, empathy or trust, their actions are callous and cruel; they kill without caring. We say they are suffering from “antisocial personality disorder.”

Some clinical data indicate how early the vulnerability to rejection can be felt, though not necessarily on a conscious level. Psychologist Andrew Feldmar (1974) encountered four adolescents who were repeatedly attempting suicide at the same time each year. When he had put all the facts together, he learned from their mothers that their suicidal compulsion was occurring each year around the time their mothers had tried to abort them--something the adolescent children had never consciously known.

The same fetal sensitivity shown by these self-destructive youth is put to positive use in programs of prenatal stimulation. In every program which has been empirically tested, the efforts of parents to communicate love and welcome to their babies in the womb has been crowned with success. A prominent benefit has been the creation of strong mutual parent-child relationships (Van de Carr & Lehrer, 1988; Manrique, 1993, 1994; Panthuraamphorn, 1993). In the prenatal/perinatal era, anger and violence are natural products of rejection and separation; security and peace are the natural products of communication and love.

6. Babies born smiling teach us something we do not understand.
A client told me about his experience in the delivery room when his son was born. He and his wife had prepared well for this great event, and the birth was smooth. The baby made not one cry and seemed perfectly content. To this father’s surprise, however, the obstetrician proceeded to circumcise the baby, whereupon the baby let out screams of anguish! Not one cry from the birth, but a howling protest about circumcision.

Early psychological research on birth left us with the impression that birth was always violent and painful for babies. Certainly, birth can be painful, but what about those contented babies? What are they telling us?

Obstetrician Frederick Leboyer (1975) was one of the first to look seriously at newborn faces and recognize what they were saying. He got the message and started to rearrange obstetrical practices to suit the babies. This was a stroke of genius. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before? You are familiar with how he dimmed the lights, moved the baby more slowly and gently, created a hushed atmosphere, left the cord intact, put baby on the mother, and waited while the baby settled down. Then he provided bath water near womb temperature, and voila! Faces changed from tortured and irritated to something more composed and--occasionally--smiles! This was a major achievement, although no one could claim that every baby treated in this manner was born in bliss. Birth without violence became a new thoughtform. Unfortunately, Leboyer’s good influence has declined, due in part to a randomized clinical trial in Canada that declared the “Leboyer approach had no advantage” over conventional delivery (Nelson, et al, 1980). I believe the obstetrical measures used in this study failed to appreciate the importance of psychological factors and their long-term implications for mothers and babies.

Reacting to the photos of baby faces in Leboyer’s book, noted Swedish obstetrician John Lind was surprised to see so much anguish. Lind had done thousands of deliveries in Stockholm and decided to take a series of photos of newborn faces there. After collecting 130, he announced that instead of anxiety or pain, baby faces expressed great curiosity and often, great expectations (Lind, 1978). These are rare and important data, speaking volumes about the positive atmosphere for birthing in Sweden.

The world record for happy newborns probably belongs to Thailand, where smiling is more a tradition than a surprise. In Thailand the obstetrician who holds the record for the greatest number of smiling babies is Chairat Panthuraamphorn. With inspiration from obstetrician and prenatal bonding pioneer Rene Van de Carr, Panthuraamphorn designed an experimental program of prenatal stimulation for parents in his hospital in Bangkok (Panthuraamphorn, 1993). From about 20 weeks gestational age, mothers were encouraged to take time each day for a bath, to sit in a rocking chair, relax, look at a beautiful picture and listen to classical Thai music. Panthuraamphorn recommended abdominal massage three times a week, along with breathing exercises, visualization of birth and bonding, and engaged experimental subjects in a multi-sensory program of speaking and singing to the child, playing a game with a bell, and other pleasant interactions. When the babies were measured after birth, the experimental group proved to be significantly more advanced in a variety of measures--including smiling and laughing.

Nearly all of the experimental babies in Thailand smiled responsively during the first five days following birth, something not expected for about six more weeks. Half also smiled spontaneously during the first five days following birth. The control infants were not as joyful: two out of 12 smiled responsively in the first five days, and three smiled spontaneously in the same period. What are these babies teaching us?

Water babies are coming in smiling, too. Statistics for them may be hard to assemble, but both stories and pictures document the fact that some water babies have emerged from the womb smiling, starting underwater! One photo shows a baby on her mother’s tummy, hand on the nipple, and smiling ear to ear seconds after birth. These babies seem to know their mothers have had an ecstatic experience; they express “total peace,” and wear a “Thank-you!” on their faces.

In an age of violence, we do well to watch baby faces carefully and to believe what they are telling us. In the past, we have neither watched nor believed. The scientific response to baby faces and sounds has usually been to deny real emotion at birth--and most certainly before birth--so these expressions have not been of value. Baby faces have not determined the direction of obstetrical practice, in spite of Leboyer’s efforts. We should see all pained, angry faces at birth in the context of the smiling faces. In the past, did we not mistakenly assume gruesome faces and screaming voices were normal? This myth befits a violent society.
Smiling newborns have been trying to teach us a higher standard for birth: birth without violence as a foundation for life without violence. Can we make this a national goal, a “standard of practice” in obstetrics rewarded with financial bonuses, and a basis for mother awards? It would make a difference, I believe, in our society. Almost three thousand years ago, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah poetically described his vision of a world of safety and peace, a world without harm and destruction, where “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6) Babies leading us? Can we let them? I sincerely hope we can.

References

Adamson-Macedo, E. N. & Attree, J. L. A. (1994), TAC-TIC therapy: The importance
of systematic stroking. British J. Midwifery, 2(6), 264-269.

Als, H., Lawhon, G., Duffy, F.H., McAnulty, G. B., Gibes-Grossman, R. & Blickman, J.G. (1994). Individualized development care for the very low birthweight preterm infant: Medical and neurofunctional effects. JAMA (Sept. 21), 272 (11), 853-858.

Balough, R. D. & Porter, R. H. (1986). Olfactory preferences resulting from mere
exposure in human neonates. Infant Behavior and Development, 9, 395-401.

Brackbill, Y. (1979). Obstetrical medication and infant behavior. In Osofsky, J. (Ed.)Handbook of infant development, (pp. 76-125). New York: Wiley.

Brackbill, Y., McManus, K., & Woodward, L. (1985). Medication in maternity: Infant exposure and maternal information. International Acad. for Research in Learning Disabilities. Monograph Series, #2. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Brumitt, G. A. (1994). Epidural anesthesia during labor: Effects on newborn
habituation and novelty preference. Poster, Int. Conf. on Infant Studies, Paris (June).

Busnel, M-C., Granier-Deferre, C., & Lecanuet, J. P. (1992). Fetal audition. Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, 662, 118-134.

Bustan, M. N. & Coker, A. L. (1994). Maternal attitude toward pregnancy and the risk of neonatal death. American J. Public Health, 84(3), 411-414.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1987). The cognitive newborn: A scientific update. British J. of Psychotherapy, 4(1), 30-71.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1990). Babies remember birth. New York: Ballantine Books.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1992). Is there intelligence before birth? Pre- & Perinatal
Psychology Journal, 6(3), 217-237.

Chamberlain, D. B. (1994) The sentient prenate: What every parent should know. Pre- & Perinatal Psychology Journal, 9(1), 9-31.

Cheek, D. B. (1994). Hypnosis: The application of ideomotor techniques. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Cooper, R. & Aslin, R. N. (1990). Preference for infant-directed speech in the first month after birth. Child Development, 61(5), 1584-1595.

Correia, I. B. (1994). The impact of television stimuli on the prenatal infant. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

David, H. P., Dytrych, Z., Matejcek, Z., & Schuller, V. (1988). Born unwanted: Developmental effects of denied abortion. New York: Springer.

DeCasper, A. & Fifer, W. (1980). Of human bonding: Newborns prefer their mother’s
voice. Science, 208, 1174-1176.

DeCasper, A., Lecanuet, J-P., Busnel, M-C., Granier-Deferre, C., & Mangeais, R.
(1994). Fetal reactions to recurrent maternal speech. Infant Behavior and Development, 17(2), 159-164.

Ekbom, A., Trichopoulos, D., Adami, H-O., Hsieh, C-C., & Lan, S-J. (1992). Evidence
of prenatal influences on breast cancer risk. The Lancet, 340 (Oct. 24), 1015-1018.

Feldmar, A. (1979). The embryology of consciousness: What is a normal pregnancy?
In D. Mall, & W. Watts, (Eds), The psychological aspects of abortion (pp. 15-24).

Field, T. (1990). Alleviating stress in newborn infants in the intensive care unit. Clinics in Perinatology, 17(1), 1-9.

Gatts, J. Winchester, S., & Fiske, K. (1992). The safety of partial intrauterine analog transition: A literature review and discussion. Neonatal Intensive Care, 5, 51-57.

Giannakoulopoulos, X., Sepulveda, W., Kourtis, P., Glover, V., & Fisk, N. M. (1994). Fetal plasma cortisol and B-endorphin response to intrauterine needling. The Lancet, 344 (July 9), 77-81.

Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist 13, 673-685.

Ianniruberto, A. & Tajani, E. (1981). Ultrasonographic study of fetal movements.
Seminars in Perinatology, 5(2), 175-181.

Jacobson, B., Nyberg, K., Eklund, G., Bygdeman, M. & Rydberg, U. (1988).

Obstetric pain medication and eventual adult amphetamine addiction in offspring. Acta Obstetrica Gynecologica Scandinavica, 67, 677-682.

Jacobson, B., Nyberg, K., Gronbladh, L., Eklund, G., Bygdeman, M., & Rydberg, U.
(1990). Opiate addiction in adult offspring through possible imprinting after obstetric treatment. British Medical Journal, 301, 1067-1070.

Jacobson, J. L., Jacobson, S. W., Padgett, R. J., & Gail, A. (1992). Effects of prenatal PCB exposure on cognitive processing efficiency and sustained attention. Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 297-306.

Jacobson, S. W., Jacobson, J. L., Sokol, R. J., & Martier, S. S. (1993). Prenatal alcohol exposure and infant information processing. Child Development, 64(6), 1706-1721.

Kandel, E. & Mednick, S. A. (1991). Perinatal complications predict violent offending. Criminology, 29(3), 519-529.

Klaus, M. H. & Kennell, J. H. (1976/1983). Maternal-infant bonding: The impact of
early separation or loss on family development. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby.

Klaus, M. H., & Klaus, P. (1985). The amazing newborn. Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley.

Klaus, M. H., Kennell, J. H. & Klaus, P. (In press). Bonding: Foundation for attachment and independence.

Leader, L. R., Baillie, P., Martin, B., & Vermeulen, E. (1982). The assessment and significance of habituation to a repeated stimulus by the human fetus. Early Human
Development, 7, 211-219.

Leboyer, F. (1975). Birth without violence. New York: Knopf.

Lewis, D. O., Shanok, S. S., Pincus, J. H. & Glaser, G. H. (1979). Violent juvenile delinquents: Psychiatric, neurological, psychological, and abuse factors. J. American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 18, 307-319.

Lewis, D. O., Pincus, J. H., Bard, B., Richardson, E., Prichep, L. S., Feldman, M., &Yeager, C. (1988). Neuropsychiatric, psychoeducational, and family characteristics of fourteen juveniles condemned to death in the U. S. Amer. J. Psychiatry, 145(5), 584-589.

Lind, J. (1978). The family in the Swedish birthing room. Birth and the Family Journal, 5(4), 249-251.

Litt, S. M. (1971). Perinatal complications and criminality. Doctoral Dissertation: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Magid, K. & McKelvey, C. A. (1988). High risk: Children without conscience. New
York: Bantam Books.

Manrique, B., Contasti, M., Alvaredo, M. A., Zypman, M., Palma, N, Ierrobino, M. T., Ramirez, I, & Carini, D. (1993). Nurturing parents to stimulate their children from prental stage to three years of age. In T. Blum, (Ed.), Prenatal perception, learning, and bonding (pp. 153-186). Berlin and Hong-Kong: Leonardo Publishers.

Manrique, B. (1994). What is CEDIHAC-CEDI? Partial results from 2nd day to sixth
year of life. Caracas, Venezuela: CEDI.

McLaughlin, C. R., Hull, J. G., Edwards, W. H., Cramer, C. P., & Dewey, W. L. (1993) Neonatal pain: A comprehensive survey of attitudes and practices. J. of Pain and Symptom Mangagement, 8(1), 7-16.

Meltzoff, A. & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by
human neonates. Science (Oct. 7), 75-78.

Mirmiran, M. & Swaab, D. F. (1992). Effects of perinatal medication on the develop-
ing brain. In Nijhuis, J. G. (Ed.), Fetal behavior (pp. 112-125). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Moon, C., Cooper, R. P. & Fifer, W. P. (1993). Two-day-olds prefer their native
language. Infant Behavior and Development, 16(4), 495-500.

Mosser, C. (1989). Effet physiologique des stimulations sonores chez le premature.
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Paris XII, France.

Nelson, N. M., Enkin, M. W., Saigal, S., Bennett, K. J., Milner, R., & Sackett, D.
(1980). A randomized clinical trial of the Leboyer approach to childbirth. New
England J. of Medicine, 302(12), 655-660.

Newnham, J. P., Evans, S. Michael, C. A., Stanley, F. J., & Landau, L. I. (1993).
Effects of frequent ultrasound during pregnancy: A randomized controlled trial. The
Lancet, 342 (Oct. 9), 887-891.

Panthuraamphorn, C. (1993). Prenatal infant stimulation program. In Blum, T. (Ed.), Prenatal perception, learning, and bonding (pp. 187-220). Berlin: Leonardo.

Pasamanick, B. (1956). Pregnancy experience and the development of behavior disorders in children. Amer. J. of Psychiatry, 112, 613-617.

Pernick, M. S. (1985). A calculus of suffering: Pain, professionalism, and anesthesia in 19th century America. New York: Columbia University Press.

Prescott, J. W. (1971). Early somatosensory deprivation as an ontogenetic process in the abnormal development of the brain and behavior. In: I. E. Goldsmith & J. Moor- Jankowski (Eds.), Medical primatology 1970. New York and Basel: S. Karger.
Prescott, J. W. (1995) The origins of human love and violence. Newport Beach, CA:
Institute of Humanistic Science (1829 Commodore Rd., New Port Beach, CA 92660.)

Raine, A. (1993). The psychopathology of crime: Criminal behavior as a clinical disorder. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Raine, A., Brennan, P., & Mednick, S. A. (1994). Birth complications combined with
early maternal rejection at age one year predispose to violent crime at age 18 years. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51, 984-988.

Raine, A., Buchsbaum, M. S., Stanley, J., Lottenberg, S., Able, L., & Stoddard, J.
1994). Selective reductions in prefrontal glucose metabolism in murderers. Biological Psychiatry, 36, 365-373.

Rovee-Collier, C. K. & Lipsitt, L. P. (1982). Learning, adaptation, and memory in the newborn. In P. M. Stratton, (Ed.), Psychobiology of the human newborn (pp. 147-190). London: Wiley and Sons.

Row, K. V. & Drivas, A. (1993). Planned conception and infant functioning at age
three months: A cross-cultural study. Amer. J. Orthopsychiatry, 63(1), 120-125.

Salk, L., Lipsitt, L. P., Sturner, W. Q., Reilly, B. M., & Levat, R. H. (1985). Relationship of maternal and perinatal conditions to eventual adolescent suicide. The Lancet, 1, (# 8429), 624-627.

Solter, A. (1995). Why do babies cry? Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10(1), 21-43.

Solter, A. (1984). The aware baby: A new approach to parenting. Goleta, CA: Shining Star Press.

Sontag, L. W. & Wallace, R. F. (1934). Study of fetal activity: Preliminary report of the Fels Fund. American J. Diseases of Children, 48, 1050-1057.

Stiefel, G. S., Plunkett, J. W., & Meisels, S. J. (1987). Affective expression among pre-term infants of varying levels of biological risk. Infant Behavior and
Development,10(2), 151-164.

Taddio, A., Goldbach, M., Ipp, M., Stevens, B. & Koren, G. (1995). Effect of neo-
natal circumcision on pain responses during vaccination of boys. The Lancet, 345
(Feb. 4, 1995), 291-292.

Tajani, E. & Ianniruberto, A. (1990). The uncovering of fetal competence. In M. Papini,A.Pasquinelli, & E. A. Gidoni, (Eds.), Development, handicap, rehabilitation: Practice and theory, (pp. 3-8). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.

Thoman, E. B. & Ingersoll, E. W. (1989). The human nature of the youngest humans:
Prematurely born babies. Seminars in Perinatology, 13, 482-494.

Trichopoulos, D. (1990). Hypothesis: Does breast cancer originate in utero. The Lancet,335 (Apr. 21), 939-940.

Ungerer, J. A., Brody, L. R., & Zelazo, P. R. (1978). Long-term memory for speech in 2-4 week-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 1, 177-186.

Van de Carr, R. & Lehrer, M. (1988). Prenatal University: Committment to fetal-
family bonding and the strengthening of the family unit as an educational institution. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 3(2), 87-102.

Van de Carr, R. & Lehrer, M. (1992). The prenatal classroom: A parent’s guide for
teaching your baby in the womb. Atlanta: Humanics Learning.

Verny, T. R. & Kelly, J. (1981/1986). The secret life of the unborn child. New York: Dell.

Wellington, N. & Rieder, M. J. (1993). Attitudes and practices regarding analgesia for newborn circumcision. Pediatrics, 92(4), 541-543.

ADDENDUM TO YESTERDAY'S POST REGARDING ANGER IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

2011-01-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

After watching, in the Netherlands, the Tucson Memorial, my friend Jon Turner has sent me this morning some words he wants to add to the paper which I posted yesterday. I am now sharing these below:

**Dedication: On USA Anger Rhetoric & The Victims Memorialized in Tucson, Arizona

"But what we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."
--President Barack Obama Tucson Killings Memorial Speech 12 January 2011

For our Postscript about belonging and individuation, we turn again to final thoughts from Dr. Wayne Guthrie:

"The emotional cloud of distrust and disturbance that surrounds the planet, brought forth and created by the emotions and the misuse of those emotions by man, is that which divides the world at this time. It takes then, men and women with great vision to move beyond that which holds them bound to the emotional world, to begin to bring about a release to this cloud that surely holds man in bondage. It is important that one be free, not of emotions, because that is an integral part of their growth process of the human being upon the earth, but to maintain a balance within the emotional structure. It is that which you have come to master and what you have come to teach."

Having begun with President Barak Obama’s words, we offer his closing words about the 9 year old little beam of light killed that day:

"That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

"I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

"Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called "Faces of Hope." On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child's life. "I hope you help those in need," read one. "I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles."

"If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit."
--President Barack Obama, Tucson Memorial January 12, 2011.

Information on the Whole-Self model is available on www.Whole-Self.info and www.Whole-Self.co.uk , in Greece - www.cosmoanelixis.gr

AFTER TUCSON SHOOTING - LOOKING FOR EPIPHANIES AND INTELLIGENT HOPE

2011-01-11T09:51:00.001-08:00

AFTER TUCSON SHOOTING - LOOKING FOR EPHIPHANIES AND INTELLIGENT HOPE

On January 9, 2011, a headline in The Washington Post reads:
TUSCON SHOOTING REPORTED GLOBALLY AS EVIDENCE OF CHARGED U.S. POLITICAL CLIMATE

My friend, Whitney Vale was the first to alert me to the tragic happenings in Tucson:

"Someone has shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at Ina and Oracle at one of her town hall greet and meets. Yes, that's here in Tucson. Yep, you can carry a gun here in the ol Pueblo."

She went on to say "Epiphanies and intelligent hope are good." Now, through various media I am following the ensuing discussion about this...more closely than is likely 'good' for me..yet, I too look for epiphanies and intelligent hope which may arise from the sudden necessity to take a serious look at what is going on in this country....while holding, if I can, to prayer for an ultimate benevolent outcome..and prayers for all who are closely affected by this.

Even for me, it comes close to home...I once lived in Tucson, and for some reason, during the past two weeks, I have found myself revisiting in my imagination the loveliness of that environ...and then, synchronistically--actually on January 1st--I received a paper from two psychologists in Europe about the bubbling, often unrecognized, and insidious anger deep within the collective unconscious which is now being brought to the surface, in many countries...I have asked them if I can post the essay on my blog and am told it's okay...the paper has been published in an international journal in Europe. Listening just now to Rachel Maddow as she asks if there is something we can do to change things, I am thinking this research may offer a bit of hope...maybe getting at the roots...and offering hope for healing.

WHOLE-SELF DISCOVERY & DEVELOPMENT

INSTITUTE, Inc. INTERNATIONAL

Jon RG & Troya GN Turner, Co-Founders / Co-Directors

Waterrad 92, 1613 CR Grootebroek, NL

Tel: (31) 228 513 630 Email: Whole-Self@quicknet.nl

International Medical Director: Dr. Ellis Snitcher

Website: www.Whole-Self.info & www.Whole-Self.co.uk

UK Co-Director: Michael Reginald Whitley Germany Co-Director: Sigrid Westermann

Greece/Cyprus Co-Director: Olga Gouni Italy Co-Director: Smilja Janjatovic Pugliese

Mexico Co-Director: Maria de Leon Crowhurst

Venezuela Co-Director: Patricia Castillo

By Jon RG & Troya GN Turner

International Society for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine (ISPPM) Congress “Times of Transition: Sense for Belonging and Individuality”

On 29^th & 30^th of October, 2010 at Alanus Highschool, Alter, DE near Bonn

Abstract: Anger is a behavior sweeping through human consciousness like a smokescreen – a firewall to cover emotions humans do not want to feel. When anger in provoked in therapy, it triggers adrenaline – the most addictive substance to the human body. Analysis illustrative of the behavior of anger is the Tea Party Movement during the 2010 midterm election in the USA. The feelings of the behavior of anger morphing into rage, hatred, bullying, and violence can begin even before birth. Several cases with pre and perinatal sources are presented.

Keywords: Anger, Belonging, individualization, evolution, ideology, religion, religious belief, fear, conditioned reflex, smokescreen, firewall, adrenaline addiction, Whole-Self Psychology, Tea Party Movement, President Barak Obama, hatred, bullying, violence, racism, mass movements, President Sarkosy, Anger Racket, Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis Matrix, the brain & anger, prebirth anger, rage, sexual rejection, helpless, hopeless, powerless, inherited cultural hatred, slavery, colonialism, misogyny, misogyny to females, conception, preconception.

Keynote: Dr. Wayne A. Guthrie:

The world, of which you are a part today, is torn asunder because of ideological and religious belief. Few upon the planet today, though they espouse great wisdom and a belief, and profess to have a deep anchor in spiritual understanding, are truly in touch with the depth of their emotions. Thus, you have one part of the world polarized against the other because many fear or fail to understand what it is that is occurring within the human being.

Dr. Guthrie identifies a core challenge facing humanity. In an age of change, an age when humanity is making a tremendous leap in evolution and development of consciousness as well as technology, humanity is being deluged with a thunderous emotional pattern – Anger. Common usage defines anger as a human emotion. In our research, Whole-Self Psychology has discovered other dimensions as well and offers some optional ideas. For example, anger is a conditioned reflex I trigger when something about myself is being reflected to me, in the situation, which I do not want to admit.

Belonging

Before discussing how anger seems to be diminishingly addicting humanity let us define the key motivators in our title, first – Belonging. Belonging can deal with a sense of connectedness with any other people. What usually comes to mind is family roots. My roots help me to identify myself through the branches of the tree of life from which I am the fruit. These roots have for several thousands of years been grouped through race, nation state, country. Another scale of belonging manifests in community. In Conscious Evolution: The Dance of Intuition and Intellect Sheldon and Barbara Smith Stoff trace community back to:

Many animals function best in herds or packs. We notice dogs, elephants, bees, wolves, primates and so many other species form communities. Communities are a result of cohesion, strength and growth. At this time of planetary crisis, it becomes ever more imperative that we create a positive vision for the future. Communities can and should become our basic social unit. Dialogue is a basis for community and is a sustainer for us all.

Individuation

Individuation has been described extensively by Carl Gustav Jung as the gradual integration and unification of the self through the resolution of successive layers of psychological conflict. Defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, individuation is the act or process of individuating, especially the process by which social individuals become differentiated one from the other. And so, we are back to belonging and community.

The Smokescreen of Anger

Whole-Self discovered that anger is not just an innate emotion. Whole-Self Psychology defines anger as a smoke screen, a firewall I hide behind when something is being reflected in me about myself that I do not want to admit. Troya discovered that a smoker can use the smokescreen to hide a secret and introduced that model very effectively in Whole-Self Psychology sessions to help people stop smoking by asking the Whole-Self of the person what secret was there. Actually, we found that in a fiery emotional outburst, anger may not actually be the problem. Anger could be seen as a behavior – even a learned behavior. Since it is a smokescreen and firewall, anger simply may be a cover-up of several layers of emotions culminating in three main patterns I do not want to admit feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless because those patterns exclude me from belonging. The singular promise of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama was the promise of hope that America could change if Americans could change.

In a vision of hope, anticipating the birth of a new movement of community in the USA, the Stoffs wrote:

The vision of hope that is possible today is not based on a unitary leader, but rather a call from a large group of seekers in convergence, not content to see humanness trashed in a sea of violence, greed and domination. This vision will not accept a society where many are manipulated by a few and where inequity is the order of the day. If we have the courage to look closely at events in our time, there will be the realization that humans can indeed do better – that harmony and justice can emerge as the tenor of the day.

Community Synergizes to Action

When individuals unite their beliefs in a common cause their action can synergize. R. Buckminster Fuller discovered that “Synergy means behavior of the whole system unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately”. Another way to define synergy is that the total energy is greater than just the sum of its parts. According to the website Answers.com the phrase “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” is attributed to an old African proverb. In January 1996 publisher Simon & Schuster released Hillary Rodham-Clinton's book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us in which then USA First Lady Hillary espoused more the expansion of government than any true wisdom or insight into the nurturing of children”. And the expansion of government and a ballooning debt in the trillions of dollars passed on to their children and grandchildren has sparked and synergized individual citizens into a political community which created a sum of anger greater than the anger of individual citizens. In the USA, it is acknowledged that the Tea Party Movement was hypothetically conceived and born as a community suffused with anger. While some in the world may not know about America’s angry - political ‘non-party’ as it likes to call itself, it is possible to use the Tea Party Movement as an example of manipulating the masses through anger.

The Tea Party Movement USA Born of Anger

The Tea Party Movement was founded to replicate the angry action of Colonist in Boston, Massachusetts, USA revolting against a tea tax imposed by the British Crown over 250 years ago. The Colonists dressed in the guise of Native Americans boarded a British merchant ship and threw the cargo of ‘royal taxed tea’ into Boston Harbor. In the 21^st Century, emotionally synergized anger brought about the conception and development of the Tea Party. Begun over a year before the November 2010 mid-term election in the USA, its founding and development is a potent example of the smokescreen of anger. What is the truth of its conception?

Roots of the Tea Party Movement

In alignment with the Stoffs visions of hope, The Tea Party Movement is purported to have begun as a grassroots, leaderless movement to represent honest, decent, concerned citizen’s protesting against what was believed to be ‘too big government’ and ‘too high government debt.’

To some in the Tea Party, the vision of reasoned hope President Barak Obama promised was a distraction from action. In alignment with our theme title, these were Americans who simply wanted to belong – to have their voices heard. Basic themes of the Teapartyers touch on the mythic. They decry that big government was overtaxing them and that citizens needed to ‘take back America’. In fact, taxes were significantly lower than in the past and who were they going to take America back from? The true fact is that as in so many European countries debt is the blade hanging over heads their children and grandchildren. This is a basic fear.

Words are tools of communication and can be used to empower or diminish the speaker. Early in its incarnation extremist fractured any vision of hope, for example, by demanding to be heard yet not allowing any reasonable or rational public discussion of health insurance issues. Sincerely, honest citizens often fell prey to angry, often questionable, untrue, even hateful rhetoric on right wing extremist radio and tv against their government and particularly President Barak Obama. They blamed President Obama for everything they angrily disputed against even those circumstances which he had inherited from G.W. Bush of which Obama had no responsibility for creating.

The Tea Party Billionaires

As mentioned above, in a political myth, using populist anger as its banner, the Tea Party Movement is alleged to have its conception as a leaderless self-creating community structure of right-minded citizens. In actuality, the truth is that the Tea Party Movement was lavishly funded by the extreme political right wing rich of the Republican Party. Here is an extended quote from Columnist Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed article revealing the source of the Tea Party Movement financial resources:

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. (Note: Sarah Palin and others stoked fear in the elderly populous that President Obama’s health care system would set up ‘death panels’ to determine which elderly would receive health care or which would be allowed to die. (While being an outright lie it was repeated over and over again.) Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch (pronounced Coke), are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among Americans. The Kochs surely match the in-kind donations the Tea Party receives in free promotion 24/7 from Murdoch’s Fox News, where both Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are on the payroll.

Like I said, the Tea Party has less to do with a grassroots political movement and more to do with power and money. The fat cats financing this “movement” are only too happy to take advantage of those misinformed, misdirected and sometimes intolerant individuals that attend rallies and protests.

The Kochs were shoved unwillingly into the spotlight by the most comprehensive journalistic portrait of them yet, written by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker Magazine. Her article caused a stir among those in Manhattan’s liberal elite who didn’t know that David Koch, widely celebrated for his cultural philanthropy, is not merely another rich conservative Republican but the founder of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which, as Mayer writes with some understatement, “has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception."

The other major sponsor of the Tea Party movement is Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks…under its original name, Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundations.

Conceived in Anger

The Tea Party became co-opted by angry lies and untruths about President Barack Obama. Brainwashing repetition of slogans and insulting signs reminiscent of totalitarian mass demonstrations of the 20^th Century which had led Europe into two World Wars seduced many people. As an example, a fringe group called ‘Birthers’ continue to deny that President Obama was born in the USA and is therefore ineligible to be President. Misdirection and outright untruths by charismatic, manipulative individuals on right leaning radio and TV especially Fox television moved the masses to anger against President Obama and his programs - programs which in fact, had begun to reverse disastrous policies of the previous George W. Bush administration. Obama policies actually pulled the USA back from the brink of an economic depression. They saved the American car manufacturing industry now in profit for the first time in years. He stood up to the banks for unscrupulous greed and actually created a significant profit for America.

When President Obama defied the health insurance industry and brought healthcare to 30 million uninsured Americans his program was irrationally and angrily denounced as ‘Obamacare’ – a ‘Socialist Virus’ in America. Even well after the 2010 midterm elections, extremist politicians declare that the American people, as though they are the vast majority of Americans, are against ‘Obamacare’. The truth is that there is only one point difference in an equally divided electorate (47%) against (46%) for Universal Healthcare. And even more interesting is that in surveys, even those who say they are opposed to Obamacare are in agreement with the specific health supporting provisions of the law. Erstwhile possible 2012 Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin in speeches before fundamentalist anti-abortion groups across the American Midwest continually declares that Obamacare will pay for abortions – an outright lie she keeps repeating to stir religious anti-abortionists to anger against Obamacare.

A Conundrum of Prejudice

It may be difficult for many Americans to admit, but all the smokescreen of anger and rage against President Obama’s vision could be exposing a core of racist virus still infecting American culture after some 200 years of outlawing African slavery. The conundrum that is almost impossible to reconcile is that while his policies which have saved the USA from a staggering depression are decried, Obama’s personal approval ratings are in the high 70%. Perhaps this can be understood from our theme about belonging. The seeming contradiction could revolve around belonging and not belonging, with white skin and other shades of skin color. The disastrous decline in the middle class has accented a growing divide between the 1% rich and the poor. Even the white population is now joining the ranks of the up till now needy tan and brown and black Americans. Again, an interesting truth about America is that within decades the population of white skinned Americans will be overshadowed by other shades of skin color – Latinos, African Americans and Asians.

In expanding their vision of hope for the future of community without prejudice not just for the USA but for the whole world, the Stoffs foresee:

We now have an evolutionary concept of community that far surpasses the bonds of exclusive self-interest. At heart, our concept of ‘who we are’ has grown and expanded to engulf the stars and the nebula as well as the atoms and the dust particles at our feet. The very concept of our community citizenship is evolving accordingly and our actions must keep up with this process of maturation. The evolution of local community will lead to national and international community and then will inevitably lead to a living understanding of our universal connectedness.

Finally, perhaps the most concerning impetus of the Tea Party Movement in the USA 2010 midterm election was putting forward for public office some faintly luminous fanatical personalities who were simply ignorant, as though public office was the reward for winning a personality reality tv show. During the 2010 mid-term election campaign former USA President Bill Clinton cited a survey which summed up the result of mass displays of people trapped in anger, “When people act out anger, 86 percent of the time they make mistakes in their actions.” The overwhelming shift of over 60 House seats from Democrats to Republicans who were originally responsible for the economic crisis during the G.W Bush administration seems to bear out the truth of his statement.

Is Anger Fashionable?

Volatile Tea Party demonstrations of anger trigger adrenaline in participants, the most addictive substance to the human body. So, the more people set up their smokescreen of anger in non-productive ways, without rational resolution, the more addicted they become to their adrenaline. In France, in that 2010 November of discontent, demonstrations of anger raged against President Sarkosy much beyond his law raising the pension age to 62. Noisy public protest demonstrations were instigated by Labor Unions in France and Greece where population’s angry behaviors – street marches - acting out cries against feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless to save economic gains. In that same month of November, university students in London stormed the Conservative Party’s headquarters in angry revolt against its raising tuitions from $5,000 to $15,000 a year. Students also rose up in anger in Italy. In all cases, citizens were vocalizing and behaving with anger because beneath a plethora of fearful inner emotional patterns they were feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless. Anger has become mass media mode of expression instead of expressing true, authentic positions and the emotions they generate. Anger has become fashionable.

The Racket of Anger

For decades when there was a death, some emotive therapies provoked the survivor to feel angry and lash out verbally or even physically with pillows and bats against the dead person. Kelduyn R. Garland, PhD, explains that in Transactional Analysis:

This is called a RACKET. With a RACKET, the anger is not authentic or real, but a ruse, a red herring ‘smoke screen’ to avoid feeling the true, authentic emotions a person is experiencing. It is a substitute to avoid feeling other more vulnerable emotions such as fear or sorrow. The characteristics and dynamics of a RACKET that Whole-Self Psychology is describing, keeps a person unresolved and stuck. It does not set them free to go on living, as occurs when someone deals with true authentic feelings and emotions (i.e.: you know the truth and the truth sets you free.)

Often when people are grieving the death of a loved one, they will ‘get stuck’ in the anger phase of the grieving process and do not progress into experiencing the fears, sorrows helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness they also feel about their loss, which needs to happen for them to complete their grieving process. So firstly, the survivor is not just feeling anger but many other emotions which she or he is not wanting to feel, and therefore cover up with a pseudo feeling of anger - cover up with the behavior of anger. In the first person, I understand what I am actually feeling underneath the anger - the firewall. I explode to cover up my sadness, disappointment, frustration, fear, helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness. Secondly, the dead person, not being able to defend her or himself, the behavior of anger is unresolved anger. Even years later, after Racket acting out, when asked to remember the death, all the emotions of the loss, sadness, pain, etc beneath the anger are still there. The key to healing these disparate emotions is to recognize and to understand what, in the first person, I was actually feeling. There does not have to be RACKET anger in the world if I fully understand the situation.

A Sidebar of Anger is Sexual Discrimination

As we have seen mass protests can cross easily from “big green monster” anger into intolerance then hatred, racism, bullying and violence. So, many mass demonstrations morph into behaviors of anger, even rioting and killings suspended on the religious limbs of the great oak of life called god. Hatred, bullying and violence against sexual orientation could be a solidified adjunct of anger. Forty years ago, Whole-Self Psychology in the Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis Matrix© Question #8, (see Appendix) showed that sexual orientation is already locked in before birth. Humanity is not just male and female. In Conscious Evolution, The Stoff’s remind us of “the discourses of Plato’s Symposium where the bisexual principle has been presented as primal”.

Again, in the first person, if I have felt uncomfortable about my relationship or sexual feelings or preferences, that is, intimate, sexual feelings towards others of my own gender, I can recognize that these feelings or patterns are not bad or wrong, sinful, evil or sick as held in various religions. As in so many of aspects of nature, gender identity is just another variant in natural sexual orientations which actually exist in considerable numbers throughout humanity.

Hate Is A Growth Industry

In November 2010, Dr. Phil, TV Psychiatrist, on CNN discussing five children committing suicide after being bullied by conservative religiously or politically oriented students or adults because they were gay, concludes that “Religious beliefs about being gay or lesbian are obsolete”. Genderwise, the simple truth is that humanity is not just polarized male or female but there are varying shades of sexual coloring including bi-sexual to non-sexual. There is so much anger, fear and hatred by righteously religious and political leaders circulating in the spiritual and psychological veins of humanity many media people are hypothesizing that ‘Hate is a growth industry’. In an interview on the BBC World Radio Service with a man named David in Bolivia, David remarked, “When I die, god will not ask me if I was gay. He will ask me if my life was a pleasure!”

The Brain And Anger

Kelduyn R. Garland, from her forthcoming copyrighted book Grief: a Transitional Journey discusses some physical dimensions and dynamics of anger:

There are three primary areas of the human brain, reptilian, mammalian and frontal lobe/neocortex. Reptilian is the part of the brain which deals with survival and elicits a fight, flight or freeze response to the world. The Mammalian part of the brain elicits emotional and nurturing responses for care giving and protection. The Neocortex is the reasoning and problem solving part of the brain that puts the ’brake’ on the reactionary responses of the reptilian brain. When you have a person who is not in touch with themselves, as Guthrie described in the Keynote cited above, these three areas of the brain do not function in harmony and people react from a reptilian survival mode. This is illustrated in the old TV show the Incredible Hulk which, as explained by my nine year son after having watched the show in which the main character is morphed into a green monster when he experiences anger told me that, “When you get angry you turn into a big green monster!”

Whole-Self Psychology knows that under certain conditions and certain situations anger may be an effective, legitimate behavior. Sometimes it can be uniquely productive to appropriately stimulate right action. Garland continues:

When people are aware and in touch with themselves, as mentioned by Guthrie, these three parts of brain function in harmony with each other so that the anger energy becomes a feedback mechanism to mobilize the person to bring back into balance and harmony something (situation/ circumstance/agreement) that has gone awry. When the three parts of the brain function the survival responses of fight, flight or freeze are tempered by the reasoning and problem solving abilities of the neocortex can be of good benefit personally, societally and on a planetary level.

Understanding our biological dimension is important but the key to our reasoning and problem solving abilities lies in the consciousness infusing that biology. The Stoff’s expanding a possible future belonging to our community, project that that consciousness is discovered in the vibration of love infusing the human community:

We hope in our present human condition, for the future, and at a very deep level we understand that the individual who does not share love shrinks as a person and becomes as if dead. Such a person perishes though he still walks the earth. To find the way of spirit requires living in the “divine matrix” by giving and receiving the force of love. This love comes from the spark within and the cosmic force without. Consciousness, our most precious gift also comes from the spark within connected to the spiritual. This love is ours to pass along. It is constantly replenished. This is the great lesson of life. It is our great hope to fulfill our responsibility in the chain of hope and of love. To live in hope is to wish to experience the reality of love, and then to share that love.

When that love inspired by the Stoffs vision is lost, hope is lost. And when hope is lost it morphs into hopelessness, along with helpless and powerless. And, when I feel those feelings I do not want to feel, I cover them up with anger. Whole-Self agrees that addressing the anger is necessary but through understanding it must go beneath and not just acting out the behavior of anger feeding into adrenaline addiction.

Anger and Fear

The pattern of the learned behavior of anger being an aspect of fear is found in a personal communication from Barbara Findeisen, former President of the Association of Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health. It was in connection with an historic prebirth case which was featured on the Oprah Television program:

The subject on Oprah was actually about a mother and her 20 year old daughter and abortion. Oprah’s people contacted me after receiving a letter from the mother. After an accident, the daughter’s doctor told her that some damage was actually from the womb or birth. The mother had tried in many ways to abort the baby but had never mentioned it to her daughter. Oprah's people flew them to see me at Pocket Ranch in California where on camera the mother told the full story to her daughter for the first time. I did birth work therapy with the daughter. It was very amazing to see the healing that took place. It was much more about fear than anger.

Anger: A Culture of Fear

Professor Frank Furedi writing about the worldwide Culture of Fear describes how:

Fear has acquired a powerful cultural vibration and is constantly encouraged by the unprecedented level of suspicion towards the human species that prevails at the beginning of the 21^st Century.

Ultimately, fear is a vibrational emotional pattern of also being helpless, hopeless and powerless which humanity covers over with a behavior of anger. It was amazing that Findeisen’s prebirth pattern event could be televised worldwide. While Barbara writes that 'it was much more about fear than anger', we have experienced, in other cases, that there is often some lifelong antagonistic behavior of anger or hatred between a child and mother simply from the child non-consciously ‘knowing’ that mother had even a fleeting thought to abort during pregnancy. At the 9th ISPPM Congress Jerusalem, Israel, a paper was presented showing that even when mother changes the fleeting thought of termination to deep wanting and love, the child is born and lives his or her life in the pattern of mother’s emotional fleeting despair moment. For the unfolding consciousness of the preborn, this flash may be sensed as a threat to its very existence. But, what actually is encoded is a possible vibrational pattern of mother’s fear of being pregnant, or a future burdened with a baby, or subjectively, a fear of being a bad mother. The consciousness of baby is in mother’s consciousness, in her mind and in her emotions, experiencing and being educated by mother’s consciousness. The fleeting thought of termination could be a shared life threatening instant for both. It is a clear illustration of Brekhman’s model of mother/child communication.

Because mother’s feelings which are generated are unbearable, her child has lifelong non-conscious fear, even terror, covered over by anger towards mother. These patterns are not released by acting out a behavior of anger as some therapies would attempt to do, but by, as Findeisen shows, specifically through professionally trained prebirth and birth psychology.

Prebirth Symbiosis

Are these mother’s feelings or my feelings? Whole-Self Psychology, Philosophy and Education hypothesizes that just as each of us is the synthesis of our parent’s genetic coding which gives us our physical characteristics, there is also a synthesis of the charged emotional-mental patterns of our parents from the nine months of their pregnancy. Every human being begins life in symbiosis with her or his mother by being psycho-spiritually, energetically attracted and attached to mother’s mind by her charged ideas and thoughts; and, to her emotional body by sharing her charged feelings and emotions - even before conception.

Symbiotic Communication

Symbiotically, as Grigori Brekhman has shown, there exists a communication system between mother and her unborn child on all levels during pregnancy and at birth. Cracks in the mother/baby symbiosis are widening where mother cannot accept her pregnancy. It begins in pregnancy when she directs thoughts of abortion or termination in her non-conscious communication with her not yet born. An increasing number of women are presenting that they have no feelings of love or acceptance towards their babies; when even at the birth of their babies they were still unable to open those channels of mutual emotional communication or connection with their babies. When that happens their babies are born with those non-feeling patterns. This results in an increase of young people growing up without love, compassion or empathy for themselves and any other person. When mother has repulsion and rejection even death wish towards her baby those are the charged patterns baby is born with. In the anthology Phenomenon of Violence edited by Prof Brekhman and Prof Fedor-Freybergh there is clear evidence of the roots of violence in gestation, birth, infancy and childhood.

Can Baby Be Born Angry?

What about reports of babies being born angry? Prebirth and Whole-Self Psychology have shown, and as Brekhman proved in his mother/baby communication study, the consciousness of preonates being in mother’s consciousness are being educated by mother’s charged mental/emotional experiences. When during pregnancy, mother is feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless and she covers over those feelings with a smokescreen or firewall of anger, and at birth, baby feels helpless, hopeless and powerless, baby has already been educated to react with anger.

Disastrous Consequences of Prebirth Anger

Olga Gouni shared a case in which she visited a mother pregnant with twins in hospital because her sack had broken. The mother told of her anger because her husband’s work had him living in another the country. In the Whole-Self session, the male twin, through the mother, told that because he was feeling so much anger he kicked hard and broke the sack. Having been educated by mother’s anger he lashed out replicating mother’s anger and causing a potential disaster. Prognosis is that because of the loss of amniotic fluid there could be critical problems for the boy’s life and if he should live for possible diminished mental and emotional capacity. There are pregnant populations exposed to disastrous cataclysms all over the world being educated to and igniting the firewall of anger. Baby can be born angry.

A Prebirth Anger Case In Action

Sigrid Westermann, Whole-Self Co-Director in Hamburg, Germany reports in some detail the case of a young man locked in patterns of anger and rage:

The client, Robert, a young man, fresh in his job, presents with aggression against corporate management. A famous company tries to come into a consortium of companies. The managers assign Robert the job of facilitating the corporate merger. From the beginning, Robert feels bad about taking on such a venture. Physically, he senses this feeling in his stomach and in his back. But he ignores these feelings. Robert also presents that he has problems with personal relationships with women as well. And, especially, he has difficulties with his mother. She had inherited between 1 and 2 million Euros which she lost to a con artist. Robert’s girlfriend also disappoints him.

Robert works hard to bring the company into the consortium. Then Robert realizes that the management’s intention to merge is false. It only wants to benefit from publicity. Robert is unable to control the situation. In fact, the management not only does not support him, but blames him for the failure and for all the lost money and effort.

The Whole-Self Psychology approach is used to help Robert to resolve his disastrous situation. With his eyes closed, Sigrid invites Robert to
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings you are feeling.' Robert: "Anger!"
          'Feeling that anger, please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience your feelings beneath the anger.' Robert: "I feel I am being treated unfairly being at the mercy of the management. I feel powerless."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience your non-conscious belief in that moment.' Robert: "Business is small minded, without imagination. Everyone in business are prisoners. It is like a mental sanatorium."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the first time in your life when you have those feelings of anger and powerlessness.' Robert: "Shortly before I am born I feel good. I am relaxed. Everything is okay. And than I am born and it is cold, much too flamboyant, and there is nothing to eat." (At that time in Germany, babies were placed in a newborn nursery and only given to mother for feeding every four hours).
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings in the nursery.' Robert: "Anger!"
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings behind the anger.' Robert: "I am treated unfairly at the mercy of the management – I am powerless."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings you have towards your mother.' Robert (answers from his mind): "My mother is a brilliant fairytale-telling mother, but she is not able to bring that fairytale into the world."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience how that makes you feel.' Robert: (again mental answers) "Your own source is wrong. The source of your life is wrong. Fantasy is wrong. Look what comes out of that?" (mother was not that successful).
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience how that makes you feel.' Robert: "I have so much to say but no one is listening to me. My heart contracts. I either betray my body or my ideals. My heart is now contracting, my legs are cold and paralyzed."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience how those make you feel.' Robert: "Anger."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings behind the anger.' Robert: "Rage."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the feelings behind the rage.' Robert: "Hopelessness, I will die anyway!"
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience were the feelings are located in your body.' Robert: "In my heart - Like a death-shot." (His father died of a heart-attack when he was 40).
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience what your mind is doing now.' Robert: "My mind stops, halts!"
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the condition your emotional body is feeling because of that pain in your heart.' Robert: "Becoming smaller."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the connection with your spiritual source feeling that pain in your heart.' Robert: "The source is still there but I have difficulties to connect with it - to get the information that can help me."
          'Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the non-conscious belief you have at this moment.' Robert: "I will pay them back when I am grown up."
          Robert has realized that his anger, rage and need for revenge were actually cloaks - cover-ups for what Whole-Self Psychology calls trigger feelings which are helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness - feelings he did not want to feel. The actual trigger feeling he had all his life was not those diminishing feelings but the good, relaxed feeling he felt before his birth which when he entered his little body with his first breath changed to helpless, hopeless and powerless catalyzed later by a fear of dying of starvation.

Robert was able to acknowledge and heal the patterns from the beginning of this life. He understood that all his life he had created situations of anger which where covering up feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness. He could now face and no longer be at the affect of fear triggered by relaxed feelings. Afterwards, having released the pattern of good, relaxed feelings changing to powerlessness covered up by anger and rage towards his mother – the lifelong, infantile feelings which had controlled his behavior towards her and other women as well, were dissipated. Now that he was safe and relaxed, Robert was able to find a woman, to marry, and, to have a baby. (Before he only had relationships where he was disappointed by the woman). Now he was able to feel good and relaxed without becoming punished afterwards.

Whole-Self PAM Discovers Gender Rejection Trauma

An even more devastating trauma pattern can be the sense of rejection for being the ‘wrong’ sex. Anita, an American mother, single, in her early 60s, presents being melancholic. She feels weary, tired of life, not interested in life and filled with fears and anxieties. Through her Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis Matrix, Anita discovers the core familiar emotional patterns which had became the pillars of her life. She discovers the source of the stark contrasting contradiction between her male and female polarities. Anita discovers that in the act of intercourse mother feels that while her partner is feeling love and desire towards her as she is gripped in sadness. She feels sad, lonely with a sense of revulsion and anger within herself. Her feelings toward her partner include revulsion and disgusting rejection.

In her Whole-Self PAM, using her creative imagination, Anita senses her father's sperm is optimistic, adventuresome, excited, happy, creative, full of life, fun. While in stark contradiction her mother's egg does not want anything as she is overwhelmed with repulsion for life, fear, anxiety and resistance. Continuing her prebirth creative visualization, Anita senses that when mother's egg sees father's sperm coming towards her, she is trapped, paralyzed in fear, locked and wants to be left alone. Again, in contrast, her father's sperm is happy. He says, 'The goal is there, so let's go for it'. The feeling is fun.

As mother's egg is surrounded and engulfed by the hundreds of father's surviving sperm trying to penetrate into her, she reaffirms that she does not want this to be happening. She rejects everything. The sense is an overwhelming repulsion for life building up and compounding fear, anxiety and resistance. Anita discovers the sensation as if something is going to happen that the egg really does not want to happen. She now experiences that the formation of her female ego is violation! Then comes another discovery. In her Whole-Self PAM, Anita senses her fetal consciousness floating in pleasant peacefulness. This peace is shattered when it is sucked into the wall of the womb. Anita realizes that this anchoring is the source of her lifelong feelings of being trapped, stuck and locked.

Then, Anita discovers the source of her most familiar feelings in life. While most people discover diminishing feelings come from a specific traumatic event during the pregnancy, Anita, as some also have found, learns that there can be a pervasive, continuous state of diminishing reality – what the consciousness believes is real. For Anita's mother the ongoing situation of being trapped at home is a constant struggle being disappointed and unhappy in her life. She judges herself to be guilty, unaccepted, unable, incapable, powerless, indifferent, apathetic, unrecognized, stupid and inept. While Anita discovers her mother's trauma, she also discovers the actual source of her own pandemic comes from her own birth – GENDER REJECTION. Devastation sweeps through her when she is revealed to be a girl when 'it' was supposed to be a boy. When asked about her life purpose, Anita replies, "I wish I knew! It seems not to be of any purpose, and this pisses me off!"

Angry words indeed. After her Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis session, Anita’s perspective on life is significantly enhanced.

In The Case Of A Thought Of Abortion

The important point is that prebirth psychology is able to help a person to realize and understand the physical and emotional circumstances of helplessness, hopelessness and powerless which mother may have been experiencing which motivated mother to consider an abortion. As mentioned above, in cases where there is extreme life-long conflict between a child (even an adult child) and mother, prebirth psychology can help the client to realize that because during gestation a child is symbiotically experiencing and being emotionally educated by mother's thoughts and emotions, a child non-consciously 'knows ' what mother was even fleetingly considering. In Whole-Self Psychology, we help the child recognize a distinction that the mother did not ‘not want the child’ but because of circumstances did not want a baby, the pattern of anger toward mother can be gently released. Because of gestational symbiosis the child believes that conflicts are its own. Profound healing in the relationship can happen when a child realizes that the conflict patterns where actually mother’s during her pregnancy. It is also noteworthy that should an abortion be mother’s chosen option, the consciousness of the baby does not die or cease to exist but simply moves on to another potential mother who will give her or him the life learning possibilities she or he needs for its consciousness development or evolution.

The Prebirth Source of Intimacy

Trust is a key element in relationships. Where do primary shared beliefs of individuals such as trust or mistrust which permeate a culture come from? In the Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis Matrix a key moment is during sexual communication. Brazilian Psychotherapist Suely Moliterno in her paper Moments Before Conception has shown in Prebirth regression cases that:

The thoughts, feelings and physical sensations experienced by the parents during their sexual relation, will be assimilated by the new born human being as his own. During his life the individual has a tendency to carry on with him all those feelings which will manifest in his present effective sexual relationships.

Prebirth Source of Hatred

So, a most essential element in human relationships is trust. Olga Gouni, in her paper Prebirth Psychology in Action analyzed the consciousness of anger in a number of clients in Cyprus. She especially noted the cultural, universal mistrust in relationships within the Cypriote community. When I was teaching in Limassol, Cyprus in the Summer of 2006, I met a woman who had a son 32 years of age. Meeting me, he mentioned that he could not understand his very strong burning hatred for Turks. Later, I asked his mother what had been happening during her pregnancy. She told me that in 1974, the year of his birth, Turkey had invaded Cyprus. The Cypriote community was deeply traumatized. I asked her if she had felt any hatred toward the Turks while she was pregnant. She said ‘No!’ I knew that answer was coming from her personality. So, I asked her if we could work with her Whole-Self. She agreed. When I invited her Whole-Self to take her back to 1974 to remember what was happening specifically for her, she realized that the husband of her first cousin who was to be her son’s godfather - had disappeared. She said that she had searched frantically for him and to her surprise recognized that she was feeling great hatred toward the Turks. She was able to tell her son what had happened to her during his gestation and the hatred she had not realized she was feeling. And she could share that her anger was actually a cover-up for her patterns of being helpless, hopeless and powerless during her pregnancy - and blaming the Turks. The son understood his hated was her hatred not his hatred and was able to start to release it. So, what we discovered is that prejudice and racial and ethnic hatred can be rooted in prenatal patterns. We are all seeking belonging. And, our identity comes from the individuation – the actual separation of self from the symbiosis with mother at birth beginning life.

Prebirth Memories of Slavery and Echoes of Colonialism

In 2010, there emerged major concern about human trafficking and human slavery especially of child labor and women, and men too, in the sex trade in the modern world. Consummate helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness of these slavery victims had not been recognized nor thought possible. We have pointed out before the impact of slavery on mass consciousness through the research of Sauci Bosner, a Whole-Self Psychology Therapist in Amsterdam. Bosner developed a project entitled Prebirth Memories of Slavery and Echoes of Colonialism. While focused on Central and South America in which generations of victims are suffused and suppressed in anger and rage because of being helpless, hopeless and powerless the same principles apply worldwide to modern human trafficking and slavery. Bosner writes:

Such horror patterns have impregnated in stagnated identities of survivors, witnesses, victims, collaborators and perpetrators of atrocities. Irregardless of age, class, gender and race, all too often socio-economic and political interests of minorities have cast giant shadows of atrocities, devastation, destruction and death on countless victims in the southern hemisphere: victims who were never offered options in their personal or professional evolution; victims who did not know that ‘NO!’ was also an answer; victims entangled in the human treadmill of helplessness, hopelessness and Power-lessness; victims who have transferred these patterns onto their children and their children's children (Epigenetics). Without Consciousness, Without Choice, Without Hope, change and personal professional growth remain unrecognized birthrights and become destiny.

Shirley Ward, in her definitive study: Anger Related to Preconception, Conception and the Pre- and Perinatal Period in the International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine (Fall 2006) based on the work of Lloyd de Mause states:

Violence is displayed in the form of war, riots, murder, torture, terrorism, and crime all of which seem to be escalating. Many of these forms of violence can only come from individuals collectively. War would be the greatest struggle between nations. National Leaders may take us into war as they act out their own prenatal dynamics in gruesome ways - and others follow their own dynamics. From the field of experiential psychotherapy the answer to the cycles of violence, war, and death-rebirth is to stop the acting out, and relive these cycles of violence at their preconception and pre and perinatal origins – in order to find peace.

Whole-Self Four Points of Victimness

Olga Gouni, makes four Whole-Self Psychology points about victimness. In the first person again, I have raised my survival mechanism of anger or retaliation, or having lost power. I am trapped in self-judgments and diminishing life decisions that place me in the position of the victim:

1. I oppose seeing the causative traumatic event and lock myself in my trauma

trance pattern.

2. I attract and get involved in life experiences that will keep proving to myself

any diminishing self-judgments that I have made.

3. I create a future for myself based on the non-conscious diminishing decisions I

have made, and, finally,

4. I contribute to the perpetuation of diminishing patterns in the world.

Attachment and Bonding

Attachment and Bonding are critical for healthy and holistic human development. When a newborn enters the world and healthily attaches to mother/father right after birth and continue during infancy and toddlerhood, the effects generate essential normal neurological development, as well as appropriate social skills and behaviors and emotional balance. Early attachment relationship creates health and trust - yielding lifelong, safe and appropriate and supporting relationships and success. Kelduyn R. Garland, also a pioneer in Reactive Attachment Disorder treatment describes:

Parent and child attachment is a biological and psychological need – rooted in thousands of years of evolution since the development of the mammalian brain. This bonding is critical for healthy emotional, social and physical development. The fraying of this attachment and bonding process spawns violent temperament, personality and behavior, and is a causal dynamic underlying Reactive Attachment Disorder. This fraying is a dynamic phenomena that knows no cultural, status or socio-economic boundary, and underlies the violence that is increasingly pervading societies throughout the world to global impact proportions.

John Bowlby in the UK, pioneered Attachment and Bonding theory. Kate Moss offers a comprehensive definition and description in What is Attachment? on the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children (ATTACh) Website: www.attach.org:

Attachment is a reciprocal process by which an emotional connection develops between an infant and his/her primary caregiver. It influences the child’s physical, neurological, cognitive, and psychological development. It becomes the basis for development of basic trust or mistrust, and shapes how the child will relate to the world, learn, and form relationships throughout life. Healthy attachment occurs when the infant experiences a primary caregiver as consistently providing emotional essentials such as touch, movement, eye contact and smiles, in addition to the basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing.

Because it is so important as an increasing reproductive crisis, Whole-Self Psychology has discovered that when mother has no feelings or diminished loving communication in pregnancy, baby is born with no feelings. Subsequently, with no feelings of love and acceptance and a diminished ability to communicate, RAD children have no conscience. These are the children who in their anger and rage kill other children, their families or strangers. Research in Reactive Attachment Disorder shows that sibling murder can be a symptomatic behavior. RAD children can act out aberrant, even murderous behavior because they have no feelings or conscience.

Reactive Attachment Disorder

As mentioned above, every human being begins life in symbiosis with her or his mother by being psycho-spiritually, energetically attracted and attached to mother’s mind by her charged ideas and thoughts; and, to her emotional body by sharing her charged feelings and emotions - even before conception. When the enhancing symbiotic process is interrupted, Reactive Attachment Disorder can lock into the child (See Appendix 2) and as the news reports, because of unmitigating, unrelenting, explosive anger and rage develops into today’s dysfunctional, anti-social, disruptive, moralistic, psychopathic, even sociopathic children or adult sexual and/or murderous predators and terrorists. The simple beginning is, again as mentioned above when the symbiosis is ‘non-feeling’ resulting in a lack of any human love, compassion or empathy for the self or any other living creature – animal or human.

Two faces of Reactive Attachment

Whole-Self Psychology hypothesizes that Reactive Attachment has two faces: Reactive Attachment Disorder – RAD and Reactive Attachment Order – RAO. Both RAD and RAO babies lack healthful Attachment and Bonding patterns. Both have diminished emotional capacities of not having feelings. Both strongly develop their mental capacities (even when there can be apparent initial mental deficiency) to compensate for their diminished emotional capacities.

RADs, without conscience, go into dyslogic and aberrant behaviors.

RAOs, with conscience, go into logic and beneficent behaviors.

In RAD and RAO pregnancies the communication system described by Brekhman may not be functioning: first, in the mother, then, consequently, in baby. In RAD parents this non-communication can be because they are against having a baby and they may even try to abort what they judge to be ‘a thing’. In RAO parents this can be because even though not wanting a baby - say for medical reason - they are resigned and acceptive to the birth. As Thomas Verny has pointed out, some mothers and fathers are ‘managers’ and some are ‘parents’. The RAO mother who feels no love towards her baby mentioned above is ‘a manager’. She can take care of the physical needs of ‘this baby’ but she has no emotional capacity to love ‘her baby’.

Terrible Tyrants and Diabolical Dictators

Jon C. Sonne, MD, did monumental, research on the prebirth horrors of the 20^th Centuries most raging and destructive dictators. Sonne discovered how they all experienced horrendous gestations:

Tyrants such as Hitler, Franco, Stalin, Mussolini, Hussein, Milosevic, and bin Laden, have all demonstrated murderous hostility toward any one person or group who does not agree with them completely, or toward any group or person who has or aspires to have positions in society in which self and desire processes in social interactions are respected and affirmed, including those of different ethnic, racial or religious identifications and beliefs (symbolic “undeserving” siblings).

In his landmark paper On Tyrants As Abortion Survivors in the International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine, Sonne advanced the thesis that these were all ‘unwanted’ men and all faced horrendous conditions during gestation and early childhood. He suggests the conscious or non-conscious themes of tyrants are:

“No one can have what I didn't get, what is rightfully mine that has been taken away from me.” “I will psychologically or physically destroy these persons, and also anyone who gives or gave to them or supports them.” “Revenge is what I want more than anything else, and this is more important to me than being loved or cared for.” “I hate others, but I also loathe myself so much that if I die in seeking this, I will only have gratified my own wish for suicide.”

Sheila Crouch, Whole-Self Therapist in the UK, offers this perception of such men:

It is the weak male aspect that is causing the problems in society. Insecurity and no empowered male lead models lead men to invent their version which is influenced by the media as much as anything alongside hereditary patterns from cultures and religions. Apparently the real fear men have is that women can create another being and the closer we get to making men redundant the more their fears are realized. Belief systems create reality! So the more women use sons as their insurance policies and shields believing they have no personal power the more we get these despotic types. The more we revere each being and see their gender as no more than having blond or brown hair the better!

Misogyny Towards Girls and Women

Horrendous abuse of girls and women in Afghanistan was at the top of the news at the beginning of 2011. Victimness of girls and women attacked for being female is tragic source of devastating helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness in the world. The main difference is that even though they are feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless girls and women must suffer in silence and are not allowed to express their anger because they are totally incapable of changing their situations for themselves or their families. So is this veiled anger being played out through their husbands and sons? We can only imagine the devastating prebirth patterns of religious zealots, who through distortion of religious texts, practice suppression, hatred and violence towards girls and women. The hypothesis may be explored that during pregnancies misogynist’s mothers might have been consumed with intolerance and hateful anger and rage. Anger and hate can be a prebirth inheritance? The anger and rage and rioting and pillage and murder in the name of the male god by religious extremists is overshadowing and blinding humanity.

What is often ignored is that nature has given us the key. Humanity is composed of two genders, with a few sub categories of genders, of approximately half female and half male. Is humanity disproportioned because of religious distortions? The cosmic irony is that while females are murdered at birth, it is possible that the mythical Armageddon could begin because there will not be enough women for men to mate with. In their landmark book Conscious Evolution the Stoffs trace misogyny to the suppression of the feminine goddess and the ascension of the male god and the dire consequences thus generated:

These actions or events have deprived millions of people, especially women, of the respect, opportunity and equality of life that all humans have as their birthright. They have deprived nations and the world of the brain power and nourishment these women could have provided each of us, given their opportunity. We have all suffered because countless generations of women have suffered. Males, raised in the spirit of misogyny have also suffered with their distorted vision of humankind and their distorted view of human relations and science. It is long overdue that our collective minds and hearts are opened to the plight of half of humanity – our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. The suffering will continue until the problem, the world’s problem, yes, the problem of you and me, is made right. Justice is a strange phenomenon. It must be universal or it is not an accomplished fact.

Is the entrenched male god reveling in his crushing power or is there of vestige of the goddess in him appalled by man’s misogyny? The Stoffs conclude:

We now have a bold, reawakened understanding of divinity to embrace. As difficult as it is within the religious family comprised of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to accept, the balancing of the masculine and feminine energies is the key to human maturity. We don’t believe we will ever achieve the return of partnership community, that of complete equality of the sexes in harmony which will provide the foundation to facilitate its blossoming, unless religion, as social and spiritual scaffolding, leads the way by formally recognizing such equality in public and private practice and by having the courage to firmly denounce past and present distortions. Only then can love flourish within humankind and a period of harmony flower. This is our future if we join together in making it come true.

Non-Violence: A key to Healing Anger

While we have been focusing on violence and victimness, it can be helpful to acknowledge a place for its opposite – ‘non-violence’ which can be a state of ‘resistive responsiveness’ without angry reactiveness. Non-violence can be a recognition and an acceptance of a pattern about myself that I know is true about myself without blaming and attacking someone else and their entrenched power. It can be a recognition or acknowledgement of myself and another when we disagree often in the face of the other person’s overwhelming power and force. Mahatma Gandhi in India is a leading worldwide advocate of non-violence in the face of overwhelming British power and authority during the RAJ. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the USA, described his vision of the promised land of freedom for descendants of African slaves.

While violence is an expression of masses of people, even in streaming together, non-violence can more often revolve around the individual self. It can be a state of recognition of who the other is, appreciation for his gifts to life, respect for his beingness and appreciation and even gratitude for who he is as a background for deep love to grow. Is this a possible source of the Stockholm Syndrome where the victim supports her or his captor? Safety of the individual self is a prerequisite for anything healthy to come and the authentic interest and attention turned to the self or other so that, in the first person, I can recognize who I am and who the other is. When this self lacks conviction, the energy of fear seeps into me resulting in unsatisfied primary need to stand up, or lie down, in non-resistance to my commitment to a high human idea(l) that is at stake. When I am resisting my helplessness hopelessness and powerlessness my high ideal crumbles into an often futile behavior of anger and most likely perpetuates those patterns imprinted with violent reaction from the oppressor towards me. When non-violence has been mastered and brought into patient practice, violence can be healed on both sides of the anger divide.

For our Postscript about belonging and individuation, we turn again to final thoughts from Dr. Wayne Guthrie:

The emotional cloud of distrust and disturbance that surrounds the planet, brought forth and created by the emotions and the misuse of those emotions by man, is that which divides the world at this time. It takes then, men and women with great vision to move beyond that which holds them bound to the emotional world, to begin to bring about a release to this cloud that surely holds man in bondage. It is important that one be free, not of emotions, because that is an integral part of their growth process of the human being upon the earth, but to maintain a balance within the emotional structure. It is that which you have come to master and what you have come to teach.

On an optimistic note, The Final Thought comes from Shirley Ward:

Happy Conceptions Make Happy Babies, Make Happy People, Make a Happy World. ... Conclusively, we live our lives according to the trauma or glory of our conceptions and our births.

Information on the Whole-Self model is available on www.Whole-Self.info and www.Whole-Self.co.uk , in Greece - www.cosmoanelixis.gr

Appendix 1:

Copyrighted Whole-Self Prebirth Analysis Matrix@2008 Question and Meaning of

Specific Question #8:

Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the egg's instant emotional reactions as she is surrounded and engulfed by the surviving sperm (plural) trying to enter her.

Please allow your Whole-Self to let you experience the sperm's instant emotional reactions as he is trying to enter her.

Some 40 years ago, through Question #8), we discovered and taught that sexual preference and attraction is locked in before birth - even before conception!

In Gay Men, could it be that I am locked in my egg/female/receiver? - that my spermatozoid was not attracted to the egg? - that my spermatozoid felt overwhelmed or rejected by the egg? - that my spermatozoid felt an obligation and/or a lack of choice? In Lesbian Women, could it be that I am locked in my sperm/male/initiator? - that my egg might be terrorized by the sperm? - that the egg was disappointed by the sperm? - that the egg felt an obligation and/or a lack of choice? Just recognizing this information about my innate (born with) gender and sexual patterns often releases feelings of fear, guilt or diminishing self-judgments or decisions against myself. If I have felt uncomfortable about my relationship or sexual feelings or preferences, that is, intimate feelings towards others of my own gender, I can now recognize that these feelings or patterns are not bad or wrong, sinful, evil or sick but actually existed even before I was conceived. In human gender I am simply another aspect of a normal sexual being.

Appendix 2:

Some Reactive Attachment Disorder Parameters

The following lists are some diminishing patterns experienced by mother, and through her charged emotional and mental reactions, by baby during pregnancy and by baby after birth.

1) Mother’s sudden and/or traumatic separation from loved ones and for

baby primary caretaker through illness, hospitalization or death.

2) Physical, mental, emotional, or sexual abuse pre or perinatally.

3) Neglect of her needs and/or abandonment of mother during pregnancy

and by baby after birth.

4) Illness with unrelenting pain in both mother and baby.

5) Frequent moves and/or temporary foster family placements.

After birth RAD children can exhibit ‘child from hell’ patterns:

1) Hyper alertness to counter terrors of destruction and survival

reactiveness.

2) Refusal to make or hold eye contact

3) False ‘charming’ acting out.

4) Inappropriate ‘feel goods’ with strangers.

5) Inappropriately demanding and clinging with strangers.

6) Revenge by refusal to receive or give affection or respect with parents

or caregivers.

7) Continuous talking and repeated annoying stupid questions.

8) Poor peer contacts. No friends.

9) Extreme overt and/or sneaky control patterns.

Because of neurological deficiencies RAD Children

1) Do not have conscience nor fear consequences for bad actions.

2) Do not perceive consequences for wrong actions.

3) Can have learning disabilities and developmental delays.

4) Can have critical inability to control reactive impulses.

5) Can have hyperactive behavior.

Because of disturbed emotional development RAD Children can display:

1) Infantile fear and outrageous rage.

2) Incoherent and/or confusing speech patterns.

The speech center seems to be miswired.

3) Aberrant patterns around food and feces.

4) Sneaky stealing of objects and hoarding of food.

5) Stupid crazy lying.

6) Harming self and others, or property.

7) Abusing, torturing and killing helpless animals.

8) A strong attraction to fire, blood, and gore including Video Games.

References:

BBC TV News 1 Nov. 2010 Tea Party Movement: This World

BBC World Service News Radio 23 Nov 2010 David in Bolivia

Brekhman, Grigori I., (2000) The conception of the multiple‑level co‑ordinated action between the

mother and her unborn child: the methodological approach and the methods of research ISPPM

Congress Cagliari, Sardinia, IT 22-24 June

Brekhman, G.I. (2005) Mechanisms & Ways o f Interaction Between Mother and Unborn Child

Mother as a “transmitter” of Violence to the Child. Violence Against Women - Violence Against a

New Generation of Humanity, in Phenomenon of Violence Editors: P.G. Fedor-Freybergh & Grigori

I. Brekhman, News Agalil, Haifa, Israel

Bosner, S. (2006) project Prebirth Memories of Slavery & Echoes of Colonialism

Bowlby, J. Trilogy Attachment & Loss Vol.1(1969) Tavistock Inst. of Human Relations Hogarth Press

NY: Basic Books, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Separation: Anxiety & Anger Vol. II (1973)

Same Loss: Sadness & Depression Vol. III (1980) Same The Making & Breaking of Affectional

Bonds (1979) Same and Reprint Routledge London & NYC.

Chamberlain DB (1994) The Sentient Prenate: What Every Parent Should Know. Pre- & Perinatal

Journal 9 (1) 9-31

Chamberlain DB (1998) Prenatal Receptivity and Intelligence J. Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology

and Health Vol. 12 No. 3-4, 95-117

Chamberlain DB (1998) Babies Remember Birth republished as The Mind of Your New Born Baby

North Atlantic Books

Coleman, Daniel 1996 Emotional Intelligence Bloomsbury Publ. Plc. London

Dr. Phil (2010) on CNN Anderson Cooper 360 October 31.

Emerson, W. (1996) The vulnerable prenate Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10(3):125-142.

Emerson, W. (1999) Shock: A Universal Malady – Pre and Perinatal Origins Six audiotapes & 28 page

Emerson Training Seminars 4949 Bodiga Ave., Petaluma, CA 94952

Fedor-Freybergh, PG (1989) Presidential Address Proceeding 9th ISPPM Congress Jerusalem, March

26-30

Fedor-Freybergh, Peter G., (2000) Neuroendocrinology Letters Editorial Vol.21 No.4 p. 262, (1993)

Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine: A New Approach to Primary Prevention Int. J.

Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine Vol. 5 No.3 pp. 285-292. Preceded by Fedor-

Freybergh, Peter G., (1983) Psycophysische Gegebenheiten der Perinalzeit als Umwalt des

Kindes. In: Schindler, S. Zimprich, H. (eds.)

Okologie der Perinatalzeit, Hippocrates, Stuttgart, pp.24-49

Ferenzi, Sandor (1913) Entwicklungssufen des wirklichkeitssinnes (Stages in the Development of the

Sense of Reality) Int. Zietscrift fur Psychoanalyse, 1, 124-138. Transl. (1924) Psycho-Analysis

Chapter 8 Maresfield Reprints, London

Ferenczi, S. (1929) The unwelcome child and his death instinct. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis 10:

Republished (1955) Final Contributions to the Problems and Methods of Psycho-analysis, Michael

Balent ed, Eric Mosbacher and others translators, introduction by Clara Thompson. Basic Books,

N.Y., p 102-107.

Findeisen Barbara (2010) Personal Communication

Fodor, Nandor (1949) Search For the Beloved: A Clinical Investigation of the Trauma of Birth and

Prenatal Condition Hermitage Press

Frank, Justin, MD (2004) Bush on the Couch ReganBooks HarperCollins Publishers NYC

Fuller, R. Buckminster (1975) Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking Macmillan

Publishing, Co. Inc. NYC

Furedi, Frank (1997 Reprint 2007) Culture of Fear Revisited Continuum London

Garland, Kelduyn R (1986) Unresolved Grief and Grief a Transitional Process December NEONATAL

Network: Journal of Neonatal Nursing.

Garland, Kelduyn R. (2004) The Frayed CordÓ: Unraveling of the Attachment & Bonding Process

InnerConnections www.innerconnections.us

Garland, Kelduyn R. (2011) Grief: a Transitional Journey

Gerber, Richard, (1988) Vibrational Medicine Bear & Company Santa Fe, NM USA

Gouni, Olga (2005) Prebirth Psychology in Action Presented at the 16^th International Congress of

the ISPPM ‘The Anthropology & Psychology of Pregnancy & Birth’ Heidelberg, Germany 2-5 June

Graber, Gustav Hans (1924) Die Ambivalenz des Kindes (The Ambiance of Children) Psychoanalytic

Press Vienna

Guthrie, Wayne A. & Karish, Bella (1989) Pathways to Your Three Selves Zivah Publishers

ISPP was transformed into the ISPPM at the 1986 International Congress in Badgastein, Austria in

the Presidency & Chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Peter G. Fedor-Freybergh. It marked the establishing

of the ISPPM as an interdisciplinary organization. Shortly afterwards Prof. Fedor- Freybergh

established the International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine.

Janus, L. (1989). The hidden dimension of prenatal and perinatal experience in the works of

Freud, Jung and Klein International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Studies 1, 51-65.

Kaplan, H.S. (1980) Forum Intern. Journal of Human Relations. June Issue NYC.

Kafkalides, A. (1980)) The Knowledge of the Womb Corfu, Greece: Triklino House. (English

translation by Sandra Morris 1995. Heidelberg, Germany: Mattes Verlag

Kafkalides, Zephyros (2000) Knowledge As An Emotional & Intellectual Realization of the

Unconscious – Gnosiology, Psychedelic Drugs & Prenatal Experiences ISPPM Congress Cagliari,

Sardinia, IT 22-24 June

Lipton, Bruce H. Nature, Nurture and the Power of Love APPPAH Journal Vol. 13 (1), 1998, 3-10

Moliterno, Suely (2002) Moments Before Conception.

Ney, P.G. (1983) A Consideration of abortion survivors Child Psychiatry and Human Development,

13(3): 168-179. Republished Int. J. of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine, (1998)

10(1): 19-28.

Odent. Michel (1994) Preventing Violence or Developing the Capacity to Love: Which Perspective?

Which Investment? Primal Health Research Winter Vol.9 No.3

Peerbolte, M. Leitaert, (1975) Psychic Energy In Prenatal Dynamics: Introduction p. XXXII Servire

B.V. Wassanaar, NL.

Rank, Otto (1924) Das Trauma der Geburt und seine bedeutung fur die Psychoanalyse (The Trauma

of Birth: Its Meaning For Psychoanalysis) International Psychoanalytic Press Vienna Transl. (1952)

Brunner NYC.

Rich, Frank (2010) New York Times op-ed article.

Rodham-Clinton, Hillary (1996) It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us Simon &

Schuster NYC.

Sonne, J. C. (1994 a) The relevance of the dread of being aborted to models of therapy and

models of the mind. Part I: Case examples. IJPPPM, 6(1): 67-86. (Republished 1995, Pre- &

Perinatal Psychology Journal, 9(3):195-219)

Sonne, J. C. (1994 b) The relevance of the dread of being aborted to models of therapy and

models of the mind. Part II: Mentation and communication in the unborn. IJPPPM, 6(2): 247-275.

(Republished in 1995, Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 9(4): 257-294).

Sonne, J. C. (1996 b) Interpreting the dread of being aborted in therapy. The International Journal

of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine, 8(3): 317- 339. (Republished in 1997, Pre-and

Perinatal Psychology Journal, 11(4): 185- 214.)

Sonne, J.C. (1998 b) The dynamics of dehumanization. Paper presented June 5 at the 21^st Annual

Convention of The International Psychohistorical Association. New York City, June 3-5.

Sonne, J.C. (2000b) Abortion survivors at Columbine. Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology

and Health, 15(1),Fall 2000: 3-22.

Sonne, J. C. (2002) The Varying Behaviors of Fathers in the Prenatal Experience of the Unborn:

Protecting, Loving & “Welcoming with Arms Wide Open,” vs. Ignoring, Unloving, Competitive,

Abusive, Abortion-Minded or Aborting IJPPPM, 14 (1-2) : 33-52.

Sonne, J. C. (2002) On Tyrant Abortion Survivors Aborting IJPPPM 15 (3-4) : 261-276.

Stoff, Sheldon & Barbara Smith (2010) Conscious Evolution: The Dance of Intuition & Intellect

iUniverse Bloomington, Indiana.

Tavris, Carol (1982) Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion Touchstone - Simon & Schuster NYC

Thomas, N & T & Thomas, B. (2002) Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath Families by

Design Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Turner, JR (1988) Birth, Life and More Life: Reactive Patterning Based On Prebirth Events Chapter

27 p 309-316 Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine: Encounter with the Unborn

Editors: Peter G. Fedor-Freybergh and ML Vanessa Vogel, Parthenon Publ. Group NJ

Turner, Jon RG (1990) There Is No Such Thing As Anger: It is Something Else! Life's Streams, Santa

Fe, NM, USA

Turner, JR & TGN (1991) Prebirth Memory Therapy Sept. IJPP Studies Vol.3 #1/2 p.111-118.

Turner-Groot, GN (1991) Seeking a Miracle Life’s Streams Publishing Santa Fe, New Mexico

Turner, JR & TGN, (1992) Discovering the Emotional DNA: The Emotional Continuity for the Unborn

Child Through Prebirth Memory Therapy 10^th ISPPM International Congress Cracow, Poland 15-17

May 92.

Turner, JR & TGN, (1993) Prebirth Memory Therapy Including Prematurely Delivered Patients Pre

and Perinatal Psychology Journal Vol.7 #4 Summer p 321-332

Turner JRG & Turner-Groot TGN (1994) La Therapia Della Memory Prenatale Educazione Prenatale

Italy Anno 1 No.3, 5-11

Turner JRG &Turner-Groot TGN (1997) Personal Growth in Parenting: A Vital Link to Prevention in

Prenatal Psychology, Int.J.PPPM Vol. 9 No.3, 275-286

Turner JRG & Turner-Groot TGN (1998) Conception: A Vital Link in Relationships IJPPPM Vol.10

No.1, 29- 37

Turner JRG and Turner-Groot TGN (2000) Prebirth Memory Discovery in Psychotraumatology II

IJPPPM, Vol.11 (1999) No. 4 13th International Congress 22-24 June 2000 Cagliari, Sardinia, Italia

Turner JRG and Turner-Groot TGN (2001) Psychological Responsibility Bringing Babies to the World

Proceedings the 4th International Conference On Natural Birth February 1-3, 2001

Turner JRG and Turner-Groot TGN (2001) Violence and Pregnancy: A Whole-Self Psychology

Perspective Proceedings OMAEP – The Organization of World Prenatal Education Congress: Towards a Violence-Free

World Porto La Cruz, Venezuela 30 March to 1 April 2001

Turner-Groot, Jon RG and Troya GN (2001) Whole-Self Perinatal Psychology Therapy Keynote

Address for The All Russia Conference Perinatal Psychology and Medicine: Psychosomatic

Disorders in Obstetrics, Gynecology, Pediatrics and Therapy at Ivanova State Medical Academy,

Russian Federation 6 - 8 June 2001

Turner JRG & Turner-Groot TGN (2001) Psychological Responsibility Bringing Babies to the World

Proceedings the 4th International Conference On Natural Birth, Prague February 1-3, 2001

Turner, Jon RG & Troya GN (2002) Prebirth Memory in the Discovery of Prenatal Psychic Space For

the Individual & Society in Prenatal Development Presented XV ISPPM Congress Budapest,

Hungary 19-22 Sept.

Turner, Jon RG & Troya GN (2004) Aspects of Love in Prenatal Psychology 3rd International

Conference on Prenatal Psychology & Medicine June, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Turner JRG & TGN (2006) Why Prebirth Education: A definitive presentation on the urgent need for

Worldwide Prebirth and Birth Education 1^st Pan European Congress H.U.P.P.P.M. Athens, GR 15-

17 Sept.

Turner, JRG & TGN (2006) My Brain Just Did Not Give Me Anything To Say Proceeding 1^st European

Congress on Prevention, Detection & Diagnostics of Verbal Communication Disorders Greece,

Patra 15-17 December

Turner, JRG & TGN (2008) Now Our Brains Give Us Something To Say 2^nd European Congress on

Prevention, Detection & Diagnostics of Verbal Communication Disorders Sofia, Bulgaria

Verny, T. & Kelly, J. (1981) The Secret Life of the Unborn Child. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing

Inc. NY

Verny, T. (1997) Birth & Violence IJPPPM Vol. 9 (1997) No. 1. Reprinted (2005) Phenomenon of

Violence Editors: P.G. Fedor-Freybergh & Grigori I. Brekhman, News Agalil, Haifa, Israel.

Verny, T. & Weintraub, P. (2002) Tomorrow’s Baby Simon & Schuster, NYC.

Ward, Shirley (2006) Anger Related to Preconception, Conception and the Pre- and Perinatal Period

IJPPPM Fall 2006

Westermann S (1996) Die Antwort Bist Du Selbst: Whole-Self Ein Innerer Weg Ryvellus

Medienverlag, Seehaupt-Munchen, DE

Westermann, S. (2000). Der elternschlussel (The parent-key) entwickelt (based on) von Whole-Self-

Methode nach Turner. Beispliele von Pranatalen Pragungen von Verhalten in Beziehun-gen.

lJPPPM 12(1):221-228

UNITY: DRAWING TOGETHER FROM THE WITHIN

2010-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

From CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: THE DANCE OF INTUITION AND INTELLECT
BY Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff

UNITY: DRAWING TOGETHER FROM THE WITHIN

When we speak of the “within”—what are we meaning? Sri Aurobindo often said that, even in our very cells, we are lit by God Light at the core. We are lit by god light…what does that mean?

Richard Grossinger, contemplates this phenomenon we call light in his book The Night Sky. In his chapter on occult astronomy he discusses with a characteristic look at the writings of others [especially Pierre Teilhard de Chardin--who wrote so much about the "within"] and then makes his own intuitive mystical synthesis:

"So we can look at the sky as a screen of hydrogen fires, or we can look at the same light as the divine component of creation transmitted eternally. The sun is the local embodiment of this material, and the Earth is constructed of solar material. When we imagine the primordial seas with their millennial rains and steam, the upheaval of the molten core, the emergence of bare rock, and the clinging life mantle, we can intuit an inside to this process so that the astral is transmitted through the elemental.

" … We are encouraged to look anew into the night sky, and it is a hive of cells and souls traversed by divine light and the archetypal data of creation. In Gurdjieff’s system, light carries information from higher worlds into lower ones, information which can be transformed by physical nourishment and breath back into astral thought." (Richard Grossinger in The Night Sky, pp.49-50) (77:49-50)

“...When we imagine the primordial seas…” Can we then be like the ancient small creatures (as so eloquent described by Loren Eiseley in The Immense Journey) learning to survive in the residual tide pools as the oceans receded and withdrew from the land. These small creatures internalized the seawater—that which had been their supporting environment—and developed the circulatory system. Through individuation, having internalized the supporting environment, the codes and mores of our evolving social institutions, we can draw together by using the force of radial energy from the heart. We might think of this radial energy as ‘entropised’ energy which has built up our ‘within’—rather than having been dissipated throughout the aeons—radial energy now makes a rich conserve within the heart of humanity. Radial energy allows for the drawing together from within rather than being pushed together from without—thus allowing the optimum development of the individual as well as, and simultaneously with the whole, the collective, the community, the society,

It is basic to an evolving consciousness to understand that, to a more or less degree depending on circumstances, all persons are bound together in ties of consciousness. We are unified from our initial creation as a spiritual being. Our energy source is shared, thus enabling us to communicate without verbal speech. Reality extends beyond time and space.

Spiritually, we know that we must transcend the i of singularity and appreciate the ties to all life. By transcending the small i we begin to fully appreciate the spiritual bonds uniting us. This is a turning point in our lives, in our very consciousness. We finally know ourselves in togetherness. The isolation of the i has led to greed, aggression and war. Togetherness corrects those ills and accounts for so much more. Relating as companions for the journey, we can move the world forward to an entirely new dimension of being. Of this we are sure, a simple awareness exists within nature, evolving into higher forms as the spiral ascends. We have moved from that simple awareness to a human consciousness that, at this time on earth, must evolve into a higher consciousness of oneness with all that there is, if we are to fulfill our destiny and evolve humanity from the darkness of our age. Aggression, greed, self-centeredness, and war can now be seen in the light of horrible negativity and immaturity. Our evolving consciousness ushers in a new era of maturity and life.

We believe that the unity we seek can begin to be found if we first establish a dialogical connection with the expanded consciousness of what we call “the inner dimensions.” This direct knowledge of unity can be experienced and lived. It is our inner and our outer which together form our authentic essence. Understanding and experiencing this requires an openness filled with courage to change and transcend, to evolve and mature. To be locked into previous immature beliefs is to live within a cage of past shadows.

Again, we come back to the discussion of meditative practice for access to the “within.” The source of this experience is not physical. It is far greater than that. This knowledge, awaiting to be found, now gained by experience, is attained by a leap beyond our physical body, utilizing deep contemplation and/or meditation in order to pierce false blinders and limitations.

By having the courage to go beyond the traditional, the very core of our awareness is expanded. We can learn to live, even for brief moments, in a higher more integrated state of consciousness. Veils are pierced as a greater degree of knowing is lived. The gateway to reality is found as we encounter and go beyond the human made web of appearances and hurdles.

We all have come into the physical dimension for individual, positive goals. We don’t know of any and we can’t seek a supposed God’s plan by e-mail. No such plan has ever been known. It would be the height of folly to suppose that we can find one. We are not slaves, even to God, and can only conceive of individual plans, developed deep within ourselves and with help from our guides, hinted at in mystical experiences. These plans are always developed for our greater good and the good of humankind.

Our goal and that which leads us to a human unity is an internal, intuitional knowing, through individual experience at a higher level, that we are all part of the family of living beings. We can and must make our unique contributions to that in our own unique way. The grand goal is the fulfillment of our individual missions in that grand togetherness—the blending of our temporary world of appearances with that of the everlasting Reality. When we, on this planet, commit to the fulfillment we can begin, step by step, project by project, relationship by relationship, to finally move forward on a beauty path that is a winning one for each inhabitant, and for our individual and collective existence on this Earth. When that inner knowing, accelerated by contemplation and meditation is experienced, the march forward will be one with the hurdles overcome. As we move along the path we slowly gain deeper appreciation and understanding, leaving behind the commitment to a narrow world view.

Emersion and total commitment to a specific institution or world view, although helpful and even necessary in providing early scaffolding, structure and support, if allowed to monitor or censure our thoughts, can also be a barrier. Such entanglements must be cast aside if we are to go forward with complete freedom of unrestricted thinking.

The above recommendation may be viewed as suspicious by those who are afraid of thinking itself. Ralph Waldo Emerson provided a profound response to that thought years ago. He suggested that if we are all meditating on the same source we will achieve answers appropriate for each individual and always moving us toward the common unity where it all began. Meditation can overcome differences in intellectual reasoning since it can take us beyond a school or book or belief driven interpretation of encounter.

If a new self is to be found there must be courage and love in the attempt to ascend the ladder. We have often said that we must go “naked” toward the spiritual domain in meditation. We clearly meant that we go with an open mind, free from all intellectual persuasions or biases. All who have succeeded in meditation would support that recommendation. It is foolish to draw strict parameters if one is seeking a truth beyond the human. That experience is one of an intimacy with our birthright, that final awakening of our expanded consciousness, the experience of inner, loving relationships with all levels of creation, including the Divine. It is the majestic experience of loving knowledge that binds together the unity of humankind and the spiritual where false subjectivity has no home. There, only love and harmony are to be found. Now, here, that time has come.--From CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: THE DANCE OF INTUITION AND INTELLECT by Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff

THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES

2010-12-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES

My soul is balancing out there
and the balance turns on yes...
a light burning through black and white,
press printing new patterns
(this is only flat paper news)
I look down from the horrors
of the Sunday paper
to this cat
(who has become my teacher of late)
here on my lap
(warm ease and somehow here being)
with balance here
with balance here seeming
on a thin thin wire
silver spun from some center...
is pure? will hold?
the center holds
(even to that mountain in the distance there)
Yes.

Trusting the morning hand
for some graceful knot,
I look up to bind...
up and out and level
(even to that distant mountain there)
and back to this flat paper news
whose power leaps quivering from points of pain
dangerously shaking the gossamer line.
Almost I hear the fearsome snap:
a heartpulse...and the line holds.
My soul comes comes home again
from rare space
and I stroke the cat
and we enjoy fragrant tea
with some serenity.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: Preview "THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES"

2010-12-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

DRAWING FROM WITHIN: Preview "THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES"

A ROSE IS A ROSE

2010-05-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

As I read about the standoff in Arizona and, in general, the wild discussions regarding immigration, I have been thinking a lot about this memory:

A CHRISTMAS ROSE (from my journal, December 1980)

Tonight after dinner we walked, and what I saw seems etched into my bones. The “Zona Rosa” is the fashionable place for night revels. With the holiday season and all, the streets are crowded with tourists, obviously, but also many young Mexicans, looking handsome and well-heeled, out for a night on the town. There is a definite air of high celebration. It’s a “nice place.” The people seem happy, kind, polite, and beautiful. There are the old women begging too—a tug at the heart—but at least, I remind myself, they are wrapped up warmly.

Mexico City...It was there amid the sidewalk cafes, the shops, the fashionable restaurants and discoteques that we saw something which I shall never forget. I think I saw the exposed heart of a city of over 14 million people, and it was a touching reminder that there is spontaneous love and caring in the human heart.

A young man, well-dressed and perhaps either going to or coming from a party, apparently drunk, suddenly fell backwards on the red brick sidewalk and gave himself what looked like a severe head laceration. I felt frightened and anxious as I took in the unexpected sight of the blood along with the pots of flowers and bright yellow café chairs. I had a feeling of helplessness in the face of tragedy. And then I became absorbed in observing a behavior which the jaundiced eyes of American city dwellers might do well to remark upon.

A small crowd gathered around him and I listened to the concern, expressed in Spanish, among people who seemed neither to know one another nor the man on the sidewalk. It was suggested and concluded among them that he was most likely “borracho.” One young man kept trying to convince the others that someone should bring some sugar and rub it on the man’s wrists and throat—that it would bring him around if he were in fact just drunk. Some of the people stayed with him, kneeling beside him, bending over him with expressions of concern until the police ambulance came, promptly and without sirens. He was lifted quietly and gently, still unconscious into the vehicle which drove away again in silence—no sirens to deepen the trauma—leaving what seemed to me to be a sobered, saddened crowd on the corner.

As I stood there, I realized that I felt a feeling of warmth, almost of joy, welling up and displacing the shock and horror, because I knew that I had also seen something beautiful, a showing forth of human caring. A Christmas Rose? Years and years hence, my vision will come back to this tableau, when I am in need of it.
--Barbara Smith Stoff

ISRAEL WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE A LESSON FROM THE REDWOODS

2010-03-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

By Barbara Smith Stoff and Sheldon Stoff

Here in the deep shade of the California Redwoods, I think about them. These Redwoods last for centuries and they grow incredibly tall and strong. Interestingly, I am told that they do not put down a taproot, but rather they develop a root system which connects and interlaces each tree with its neighbor. The Jews are like that, and because of their ever ongoing transnational history, they are, or should be, more capable than most of seeing the whole forest.

We humans are all trees in the One forest. Like it or not…our roots are forever entangled. As in the film “Avatar” those who learn to cooperate are the ones who survive.
i
Israeli religious right cites historical biblical bequests from God in order to establish a claim to Jerusalem as temporal and exclusive capital. Is that not a facet of ever-threatening modern fundamentalism? Religious fundamentalism, whatever the brand, offers up distortion, racism and bigotry. So! Jerusalem is no longer the mystical soul of Israel…but merely real estate?

Ariel Sharon was once quoted by William Safire in the New York Times as saying, “Through 4000 years of continuity in our ancestral homeland, Israel’s people have undergone hardship, persecution, Holocaust, terrible adversity. But the nation is stronger than others have estimated. We have overcome all our challenges. The Jewish people are indestructible.”

Historically, one can easily see such a pattern in the interconnectedness of the Jewish people. Even when they are widely dispersed throughout time and geography, they hang together. They support each other. They play the game of life with real passion. And when the game of life itself is threatened, they begin to play the game to preserve the game.

It’s easy to see that they carry social codes which can move the whole human race forward toward harmonious evolution. Possessing superb transnational skills, the Jews have seeded human society with tools of survival and growth. They have made outstanding and benevolent contributions to humanitarian advancement—across the entire disciplinary spread. At the same time, they have done proportionately less harm to humankind.

So what is it with the Israeli government? It seems obvious to me that, even in 1948, the newly formed state of Israel did not reach out with their root system to help the Palestinian people prosper. That fact also seems understandable to me if I look at their circumstances of immediate escape from annihilation, and given the circumstances of the Palestinian protest and war against their rebirth as a state presence.

The new Israel did rise to a noble response though, in the face of Palestinian opposition, in affording them legal rights, universities, and re-integration from refugee camps. No such integration was offered by surrounding states. Even now, Jordan is beginning to deny them refuge. Even now, a Marshall Plan, led by Israel and other interested states, would do a great deal to bring a spirit of peace into the region.

But recent history shows us that the Palestinians were proud, and they allowed their wounds to grow and fester in poverty, and without adequate leadership. While Israel moved forward in social accomplishment and wealth, the Palestinians began to feel more and more like second-class citizens, until their level of suffering simmered to just the right temperature for use as the petri dish for regrowing cast off spores of old hatreds within the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Some say that we create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves. Consider those old spores…Isaac was the chosen one…Ishmael was sent out. And on and on it goes.

And now the whole world is threatened. If Israel’s democracy is extinguished, that light goes out from the rest of the world too. Civilization cannot afford that loss. It’s time for Jewish Israel to recognize and honor its responsibility to the rest of the world…to recognize the importance of its democracy in the overall configuration of that area of the world. And it’s time for the other nations to reach out their roots to join with the roots of the Jews. The world is in an extremely complicated situation right now—politically, economically, morally. We know. We know. But, it’s time we all learn to sing a new tune.

And, it’s time for the Jews to sing a new tune, to let go of their internalized feeling of victimhood and own their true genius, their strength, their vision. It’s time for the Jews of the world to recognize the Palestinians. It’s time for the non-Jews in the world to let go of Anti-Semitic fears and hatreds and join them in that recognition. It’s time to recognize that we are all trees in the one forest. It’s a good time to begin. It’s a good time to create a new song, to tell a new story.

Note: Barbara Smith Stoff, poet and artist, is an Emmy Award Winner in Educational Television. Sheldon Stoff, now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, received his doctorate at Cornell University, is author of Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. They are co-authors of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect. They live in California, specialize in Transpersonal Studies, and are currently writing a comprehensive study of the concept of the Akashic Field.

Facebook

2010-03-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Facebook

Human Culture Plays a Role in Natural Selection - NYTimes.com

2010-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Human Culture Plays a Role in Natural Selection - NYTimes.com

Drawing from Within: Ervin Laszlo FROM MUSIC AND SCIENCE TO WORLDSHIFT 2012: A Visionary Diary of Our Times

2010-02-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

Drawing from Within: Ervin Laszlo FROM MUSIC AND SCIENCE TO WORLDSHIFT 2012: A Visionary Diary of Our Times

Ervin Laszlo FROM MUSIC AND SCIENCE TO WORLDSHIFT 2012: A Visionary Diary of Our Times

2010-02-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

I first began to read Dr. Laszlo during my first experience with cyber-conferencing in 1998-1999. Having retired to a somewhat remote ridge in the Sierra foothills, I was about to embark on a new kind of world exploration, to be sure. He has been a guiding light for me in that process ever since. Now, having just discovered this site…I feel I’ve come home to a warm fire and a wonderful and oh-so-important conversation about what we can do if we so choose. http://www.ervinlaszlo.com

PERSEPHONE
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
http://www.open.salon.com/blog/barbarasmithstoff/2010/02/19/persephone

DECISION WINDOW: MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE OUR QUESTION

2010-01-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

DECISION WINDOW: MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE OUR QUESTION

Is 2010 our decision window? What if we change our question? Today it seems that the whole world must come to terms with a multi-national hydra-headed existential face-off. Thus it becomes, at this point in history, imperative that we work hard to educate ourselves, in order to gain some insight and understanding of our idea of ourselves as human beings in a very large universe, and how that idea is interpreted and played out on the increasingly communal world stage. Thinking about this I have decided to post here some excerpts from the foreword I wrote for my husband’s new book. (Sheldon Stoff, The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. North Atlantic Books, 2009)

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 general systems theory. It may indeed be helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory and the nature of systems and 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.

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 benevolent evolution in our consciousness, in our understanding of who we are, and where we are going. Are we evolving toward understanding and partnership? 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 begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.

**** Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect.
--Barbara Smith Stoff

REMEMBERING LITTLE RUBY BRIDGES ON MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, 2010

2010-01-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

Today is Martin Luther King Day, 2010. Today I like to reflect once again upon the story I heard in San Diego, California, sometime in the early 1980s, from Dr. Robert Coles, of Harvard University, about his conversation with little Ruby Bridges after she had endured the ordeal of being escorted by federal marshals into a previously all-white school in New Orleans, in 1960. As she faced the hostile crowds, the jeering, and even the death threats, Dr. Coles noticed that she walked calmly and her lips kept moving as if she were talking to herself. He later asked her what she was saying. Her response was, “I was saying forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.”

Down through the years, Professor Coles has studied children closely and has written with understanding and vision about his findings. If we are wise, we will ponder his conclusions: "Children, if we can listen to them, will tell us of a life richer in moral values than most grown-ups can comprehend.... If faced by the prospect of total annihilation, young people will try in some way to make sense of the mystery and madness of their lives." If we can just listen to the young ones…
--Barbara Smith Stoff

FROM MY JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 20, 1984

2010-01-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

From my journal – September 20, 1984

In the occult tradition, the eye that ‘sees’ must be washed in the blood of the heart. --Dane Rudhyar

It’s 3:30 a.m. Through the window in the east study I see the moon, a silver crescent held there like a cup. Oh Moon, night goddess who comes to balance and make round the glinting spears of light from rational day; we, poor creatures, crawling on the earth here, are we abandoned here until we all find the heartpoint…flashpoint!! flashpoint!!? Where the horizontal plane of rationality intersects the vertical plane of emotionality, the heart is born. The heart is born on the cross. And moment by moment I must reconcile myself to that crosspoint-flashpoint-heartpoint, the luminous center.

Has Christ really done it for us? Have we only to bring ourselves up to the ‘risen’ vibration that he has brought in for us? Stretched as he was there, he chose to monitor, moment by moment, his attitude and response toward his pain: He chose love. Father, forgive them. I will not give my soul, even in a moment of despair and pain, over to the power of darkness. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. I will not give my soul…the existential ordeal of choice. Flashpoint! A new threshold of luminescence glows in the web of existence called earth, vibrating outward from that birthpoint, shaking the web, even dangerously shaking the web.

I am with you all days…and wherever we are in this web, we are henceforth affected by this new vibration. I can choose this vibration out of all others and my attunement begins. Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world.

Suddenly I am remembering an exercise from our movement group. Working with a partner, one partner says ‘cookie’’ and the other is silent. ‘Cookie, cookie, cookie’…the silent partner listens carefully to the sound in order to learn to distinguish it from all the other intonations in the room. Then everyone goes into motion and the room becomes an arena of movement and varying tones of ‘cookie cookie’ as the task of each of the silent partners is to locate the tone of the original partner and find the way back to the dyad, all this with the eyes closed, attuning to the special sound, a sound which has become special, as a guide. The task is to focus only on that one sound in order to succeed in the exercise. Atonement, attunement.

The existential Jesus whispered “This is possible for me. I can choose forgiveness. This is possible for a human being. This is possible for the human race.” Flashpoint! Flashpoint! The fabric of existence is forever altered. The historical Jesus whispered ‘cookie, cookie’ and that sound vibrates forever through the web of time.

Out of the phantasmagoria of sounds, refractions, reverberations, and echoes, will come those, inevitably, who shape the sounds into words. Saint John says simply, “God is love.” T.S. Eliot says, “Love is God.”

Carlos Castaneda has written six long tales of power and has not mentioned the sound of love. His “cookie:power” permeates our living web of morphic resonance now in 1984 as did the dark tones of William Golding in the 1960s with Lord of the Flies, that darkest of echoes from the great war where power became so completely divorced from the heart…the heartfires of the world had gone out …and then erupted in a great conflagration in the bake ovens of Dachau and Buchenwald. Yet the pervasiveness of clouds seeded by this darkness drifted through the minds of masses of students as they read Lord of the Flies, which was assigned to them by their teachers of literature, to be read and studied and commented upon while their ears were yet full of the drums of war…ears unable at that point to distinguish the gentler sound, “cookie”love.” Into that rumble and din, we now have Castaneda generating sounds, words, echoes into the morphic web and the drums of power drown out the sound of love. The minds of students sift for seeds of wisdom in these dark clouds of words while their ears are muffled by the modern cacophony of television and dystrophic music. Only in the gentleness of the heart can the gentler sounds be heard. Only in the heart. Body, mind, soul, spirit…where is the heart?

“Oh! Beat the world with heart of song!” Where can the sounds of the heart be heard if not through the voice of the poet, the artist, who prays, “O! Mythical father of Icarus, stand me now in good stead as I go forth to forge within the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race!” Can the modern ear be attuned to the voice of the artist?

Hoc est enum corpus meum. The artist makes the bread of life and holds it out to us in holy communion. I will pass by the dark bread and choose that which has more light. I hold out my hand for the white hyacinth. Oh, where are we going with these light bodies?

There are those today who shape sounds into gentler words: William Irwin Thompson says “Time Falling Bodies Take to Light.” Oh, where are we going in this body of light? We breathe in light; we breathe out love. I breath in light, I breathe out love, I breathe in light I breath out love breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out light breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out love breathe breathe breathe…and so the heart of the earth breathes and the heart of fire is kindled within.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

BEWARE OF SARAH PALIN'S "PIT BULL DIPLOMACY"

2010-01-14T18:39:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I was listening to Christine Downing (Mirrors of the Self: Archetypal Images Shape Your Life) as she spoke of a force of great magnitude which is being liberated from the substructures of our consciousness, and the need to reckon with its potential destructiveness. In my own lecture, the following week, I found that I was much preoccupied with what we might do about this. I believe that this force is released through what we might call, in the Jungian sense, the Aphrodite consciousness—Aphrodite consciousness—creative energy which can go awry. The question is—how do we work with this powerful force so that we preserve life on this planet? We are talking here about working with polarized primal energy, and polarized spiritual energy. It seems to me that there is a possibility, if we are mindful, that we have evolved to the point of learning how to handle the polarities for creativity, and the optimum development of the individual concurrently with the optimum development of the collective.

My suggestion is that we need to look at, and understand, the emerging, or evolving, archetypes as they make their way up through the waters of the collective consciousness and stand before us on political platforms. We might just notice, and even study, those that are wanting to take center stage, and then make our choice as to which ones we want to encourage. I believe the future of our world depends upon us and our choices. I was thinking these thoughts a long time ago…

Now…skip down through the years, and I am watching, and listening to, Sarah Palin as she addresses the Republican Convention. For me, her speech bought back schoolyard memories . I think, “I’ve been here before.” Here’s the scene....I am a teacher, and I’ve got lunchtime patrol. This one kid has grabbed the attention and is holding forth—making fun of another student, and the crowd looks up to this student with smiles and clapping approval. I am watching a bully deftly drawing out the would-be-bully in the listeners…bullies-in-training. With 24-7 media, we have all seen more than we need of the ultimate results of that kind of rhetoric, that kind of dynamic—uzzis in the streets and in our classrooms.

So here she is at the Republican Convention for nomination of a political candidate and she says, “You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” As she deftly points her finger at her own rouged lips, I feel a kind of chill…a tremor of warning.

That reference to pit bulls brought back personal memories…memories of counseling a young mother whose small child had been killed by a neighbor’s pit bull—on the sidewalk in front of her home, as she was unloading groceries from her car. Up until that experience, I had never even heard of pit bulls, but you can be sure that I have not had a very high opinion of them since. I simply don’t trust the gut impulses of a pit bull.

And so I am even more astounded when she proudly introduces herself again to the world through a book title: Going Rogue… Looking up ‘rogue’ in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, I find: “a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel; villain; trickster; swindler; cheat.” Hmmmm….I think we need to pay attention, and we need to decide what we want to encourage.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

WHERE IS THAT FISHEYE LENS?

2009-11-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

WHERE IS THAT FISHEYE LENS?
Hmmm...watching the news...it seems to me that the only intelligent move is to back up a bit and pick up the fisheye lens and look at universal humanity...the big picture, the whole...I think it was Einstein who said, "You can't solve a problem at the level of the problem." ??? We've got the political and emotional dramas played out on tv ...and we've got the people in the valley of Ur reconstructing their reed houses...that valley was known as the cradle of civilization, you know....

ELEVEN NOVEMBER

2009-11-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

Oak limbs, bare and dark,
reach across clouds of red maples.
Below...yellow lilies
begin their blooming for another season.
Eleven Eleven Eleven...

--Barbara Smith Stoff

A story about my mother

2009-11-02T07:58:00.001-08:00

A story about my mother’s passing

Posted using ShareThis

PERSEPHONE

2009-11-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

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

The Decline of the English Department

2009-10-23T09:52:00.001-07:00

The Decline of the English Department

Posted using ShareThis

THINKING ABOUT THE RED BALLOON

2009-10-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

There is a book/film about a very lonely little boy...it's called "The Red Balloon." Current news coverage of 'the balloon boy' bring long thoughts about alienation in our society...and what to do about it...how to make things better?....

A memory from long years ago. I am teaching a course called "Introduction to Literature" to first year college students. It happens that I have a great many students from Iran—they always asked, quickly and intensely, to be called Persian…as many college students came here during the reign of the Shah—so I have to think of some creative strategies in these introductions because, although many of them could quote the poet Rumi to me, they were not overly proficient in English.

My own esteemed college professor has told me that when prize winning authors were surveyed as to their purposes and priorities when writing, the general conclusion went like this, "When I have something really important to say, I put it into a children's story." So I have decided to bring in some children's literature, especially those book which have been made into films.

Of course, "The Red Balloon" is at the top of my list—the film having won honors at the Cannes Film Festival, and the book had been a great favorite with my own children. So before assigning the reading of the book, I showed the film to my class and asked them to write down their thoughts after seeing it.

In the back of the room, one of my Persian/Iranian students lifted his hand and said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I have seen that film EIGHTEEN times."

I thought…oh my…what to say next…So I said, "Well…what did you see in it this time that you have not seen before?"

To my surprise, and real joy, he replied, "This time I saw love."

--Barbara Smith Stoff

MORNING AGAIN

2009-10-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Raining today softly
the world is washed clean
today
a new light
waits in the mists there
in the distant trees
softly
lighting our gaze
toward All Dreaming.
--Barbara Smith Stoff

Drawing from Within: DOE TRAIL LANE

2009-09-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: DOE TRAIL LANE

DOE TRAIL LANE

2009-09-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

It's coming up deer season again. A poem:

DOE TRAIL LANE

Down in the meadow
the crack of the day
is marked at meeting
by the sound of shooting,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

Counting Lane by Lane
cleanly laid out...
Pinto, Polo, Possum,
house by house to the lake,
tall thin saplings fling up
their fretwork and veining,
simply ending up there
in the grey flesh of heaven,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

Down in the meadow
the crack of the day
is marked at meeting
by the sound of shooting,
down at then end of Doe Trail Lane.

Being warm inside this cabin
and knowing, that come dark,
I will be able to nestle myself
with blankets, and lay me down to sleep,
I look at the stars on the covering
my mama sewed for me...
and, hearing a shot,
I look through the window.
I ask for clean release
for the hunted; for the hunter,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

OUR COLLECTIVE DECISION WINDOW

2009-09-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

Shel and I woke up at five o’clock, as we often do, and fell to talking about the expressions of ‘extremism’ so prevalent in the news right now. Before sleep we had watched a film..Not Without My Daughter…based, I believe, upon a true story, which certainly illustrates several brands of extremism. I guess that film had invaded our dreams even, as we both woke up thinking about news-rants. We needed to look for hopeful intimations.

I said that I do not feel than this trend toward belligerence will gain full ascendancy—that there is a growing core of creative and evolutionary thinkers who will ‘sway’ the tide of emotional energy…energy which is harvested, from that subterranean river in the unconscious, by those who are still holding onto the “dominator” model. Shel reflected again on the critical importance Riane Eisler's partnership concept and her clear presentation of that in The Chalice and the Blade. He said, “Well, you know that in a society where those who have a need to “look down upon others” …when they see those “beneath” begin to climb upward…even to the presidency…they begin to get very nervous indeed and try to put them back “in their place.”

In the moment, as I write here, lines from T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis come together in my mind…

“There will be time, there will be time…Before the taking of a “toast and tea…”

and…

“Til we have faces…”

and…then there is…

Ervin Laszlo’s The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads...…the "decision window”…

He 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.

We need to outgrow our “absolutizing instinct”…as William F. Lynch puts it in his wonderful Images of Hope: Imagination as Healer of the Hopeless.

Ah—Let us listen to the gathering voices of imagination and hope.

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER ELEVEN

2009-09-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.colorfromthelightwithin.blogspot.com/

I began to make a painting as I watched the news on the morning of September 11, 2001. I kept thinking of cathedral windows—I kept seeing a Rose Window. And my work with the brushes made the television watching more bearable. As the days went on, I looked back into my journal and saw that on September 12, I had written, “Hope walks through the dusty streets with a golden sieve.” I realized I had been making a sieve on the paper. So I called the painting “Golden Sieve” …. for winnowing truth and beauty from the ashes of destruction.
–Barbara Smith Stoff

Drawing from Within: FOREVER FAMILY FOUNDATION RADIO INTERVIEW

2009-09-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: FOREVER FAMILY FOUNDATION RADIO INTERVIEW

FOREVER FAMILY FOUNDATION RADIO INTERVIEW

2009-09-06T08:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org/SOLRarchives/SOLR031507StoffSmith.mp3

http://www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org/images/StoffSmithCombo.gif

COMMUNITY AT THE TOWN HALL MEETING

2009-09-04T10:21:00.001-07:00

By Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff< /p>

We have attended a "town hall" meeting. It was a long evening. There was much noise and emotion, seemingly no understanding, and little reasoning. Positions seemed to have been firmly taken even before anyone had spoken. We had innocently thought that there would be an honorable presentation of thoughts and facts and that this meeting would offer an opportunity for deeper understanding of the healthcare reform issues. This was not to be. If only for our own self-therapy, we are writing about our thoughts about this experience, while still recovering from a kind of sick feeling.

There were three wonderful speakers...don't know who they were. One was a man who stood up to share with us the reading he had been doing of the actual bill. The crowd laughed at him, and the congressman interrupted him to call for a sudden expression of yays and nays from the entire assembly. Exactly what they were yaying and naying about, I was not sure. Once the shouting subsided, the man was allowed to continue. At this point I began to feel some anger that this man, who had attempted to do his homework and become informed, was laughed at and basically prevented from speaking. Another was a man who brought a five year old girl with him "to see how democracy works"...He spoke of our need to learn to care for each other. And then there was a woman who spoke movingly of her feelings in response to the irrational fear and selfishness stirring in the crowd. Other than that...the atmosphere was just plain toxic and irrational. We have tried to write something of value to counterbalance...a feather in the wind.

The Republican congressman who had called for this town hall meeting presented his position, but did not present "the other side of the argument" for rebuttal or even discussion. There were posters, signs and slogans, and even loud cat-calls by some attendees. Those supporting President Obama were in the minority, and seemed more reasonable in their behavior. Those siding with the congressman seemed absolutely sure of themselves, and their opinions and were very passionate in their spontaneous vocalizing. Very few seemed to take notice of the realities, or points of view, of the others. There was no meeting of minds, no reconciliation, no understanding—just a hardening of positions. It was an experience in futility.

That night both of us had a very restless sleep. Even our dreams seemed to be invaded by all those wildly gyrating placards… "What would Jesus do?" … "No socialized medicine." …"Healthcare is a right."… "Don't take away my freedom!" Often, in our meditations, as we ask for clarity, our inner guidance somehow offers an answer. This morning, after some time, it came:

"You are responsible to your brothers and sisters. Let that responsibility guide you on this path."

So, for us, this is the answer. This is a moral responsibility, a mutual and communal responsibility. We need to join quietly together, as a nation, to forge a new path toward Healthcare Reform. It must meet the test of responsibility to our brothers and sisters. We emphasize responsibility to…Responsibility includes responsiveness to our brothers and sisters. There is a difference between responsibility for and responsibility to. There is a difference between giving the man the proverbial fish and the proverbial teaching him how to fish.

It seems that the direction of the looked-for solution to the problem is guided by the basic assumption about the nature of our human society. One thought, or assumption, is that it's everyone for himself or herself. Another thought, or assumption, is that it's "we're all in this together." Both assessments say something about the basic belief about what is possible for humankind, and whether we as individual participants have some say in the direction humankind takes for the future. Together, let us create a more benevolent path.

SUGGESTED READING:

Robert Reich's blog on the subject of these 'discussions'....

www.robertreich.blogspot.com

Wendell Potter | Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover
http://www.truthout.org/090109T?n
Wendell Potter, Common Dreams: "I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today."

Editor's Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University.
During in his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of
The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the newly released
The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Community: Listen to the Gathering Voices. Barbara Smith Stoff, teacher, painter and poet, is producer of Emmy Award winning "Poems of Wonder and Magic."

Drawing From Within...Why?

2009-07-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

I used to tell my students to look deeper within themselves for wisdom and understanding, and that a worthy life-task is to distill within whatever is good and beautiful, and then draw from that for the outer…as a gift to the without.

Drawing from Within: WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE WITHIN--WHAT ARE WE MEANING?

2009-07-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE WITHIN--WHAT ARE WE MEANING?

WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE WITHIN--WHAT ARE WE MEANING?

2009-07-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

When we speak of the “within”—what are we meaning? Sri Aurobindo often said that, even in our very cells, we are lit by God Light at the core. We are lit by god light…what does that mean?

Richard Grossinger, contemplates this phenomenon we call light in his book The Night Sky. In his chapter on occult astronomy he discusses with a characteristic look at the writings of others [especially Pierre Teilhard de Chardin--who wrote so much about the "within"] and then makes his own intuitive mystical synthesis.

So we can look at the sky as a screen of hydrogen fires, or we can look at the same light as the divine component of creation transmitted eternally. The sun is the local embodiment of this material, and the Earth is constructed of solar material. When we imagine the primordial seas with their millennial rains and steam, the upheaval of the molten core, the emergence of bare rock, and the clinging life mantle, we can intuit an inside to this process so that the astral is transmitted through the elemental …. We are encouraged to look anew into the night sky, and it is a hive of cells and souls traversed by divine light and the archetypal data of creation. In Gurdjieff’s system, light carries information from higher worlds into lower ones, information which can be transformed by physical nourishment and breath back into astral thought. (Richard Grossinger in The Night Sky, pp.49-50)

“When we imagine the primordial seas…” Can we then be like the ancient small creatures learning to survive in the residual tide pools as the oceans receded and withdrew from the land. These small creatures internalized the seawater—that which had been their supporting environment—and developed the circulatory system. Through individuation, having internalized the supporting environment, the codes and mores of our evolving social institutions, we can draw together by using the force of radial energy from the heart. We might think of this radial energy as ‘entropised’ energy which has built up our ‘within’—rather than having been dissipated throughout the aeons—radial energy now makes a rich conserve within the heart of humanity. Radial energy allows for the drawing together from within rather than being pushed together from without—thus allowing the optimum development of the individual as well as, and simultaneously with the whole, the collective, the society.

It is basic to an evolving consciousness to understand that, to a more or less degree depending on circumstances, all persons are bound together in ties of consciousness. We are unified from our initial creation as a spiritual being. Our energy source is shared, thus enabling us to communicate without verbal speech. Reality extends beyond time and space.

(c) Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff
(excerpted from the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect)

Drawing from Within: WHAT IF SONY WERE A BOYSCOUT?

2009-07-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: WHAT IF SONY WERE A BOYSCOUT?

WHAT IF SONY WERE A BOYSCOUT?

2009-07-16T08:00:00.001-07:00

What if we, as Robert Coles counsels us, listen to the young ones???

This story just gets amazinger and amazinger!!!

As grandmother to one of these young ones, you can imagine how I have watched with great interest as this story developed from simply playing with lego toys...and sim games...on the computer...young ones learning to use their minds creatively.

"Six US kids are driving global wildfire detection thinking, overcoming technical as well as legislative barriers which have flummoxed adults, in order to push a detection system prototype through to trial this summer. Watch how this simple idea came about and snowballed to pro bono support from global tech giant Sony electronics." (from Sony's youtube promo)

Then, if you have time, you might scroll down for the three minute 'youtube' at bottom of page...or click on this 'livejournal' link....http://forestguardsony.livejournal.com/522.html ...and then--below that is a link to an article about these kids on softpedia.com...http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/When-Sony-Meets-Smokey-The-Bear-2780-01.html ...

....a world transforming...

with love and hope,

--Barbara Smith Stoff

Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 9:11 PM

Subject: more press on the Lego Guards

More press for the Lego Guards and their Forest Guard, from the tech industry media... curious!

"Ever wondered at night "what if Sony were a boyscout?" Nope, I have not. But for those of you that have, I have news that will fry your display: Sony, probably seeking to gain some good publicity, melt the hearts of those of us that are still waiting for the PS3 to get cheaper or just because it cares about mother nature, having decided to support the Forest Guard team's idea regarding the prevention of forest fires."
http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/When-Sony-Meets-Smokey-The-Bear-2780-01.html

(from Tracy--July 2, 2009)--Alejandro's LegoGuard team's experience just keeps getting more amazing all the time. Coach Heidi has just sent this link to a short YouTube video of the team's experience in Copenhagen and their project Forest Guard. REALLY well done, and quite fun to see my boy in pictures!!

Enjoy!
love, Tracy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Heidi Buck >
Date: Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Subject: Independent UK blog site
To: theteam@legoguards.net

Hello Team,

Here is the UK Independent Forest Guard blog site (it has a link to the You tube video of the 3 minute video promo!!)

http://forestguardsony.livejournal.com/522.html

- Heidi

Drawing from Within: GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC

2009-07-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC

GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC

2009-07-07T09:51:00.001-07:00

GOOGLE AND THE AKASHIC

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUS422108559020090706

"Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that's often difficult to discover." I think we should be thankful to Google and Eric Schmidt, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.

Upon reading the above article "Google's Dark Day"...I just want to say that I appreciate what Google is doing with rare books. I actually see this effort as a way of making accessible the "akashic" if you will. Here is a story which illustrates what I mean, and how Google can work for us.

This story is from our recent work with "The Western Book of Crossing Over...." ...I will quote from pages 82-83 …Lorraine has transmitted from the other side the following fragment of a poem. Sheldon has written it down exactly as it was given to him and included it in his writing of the book. The fragment:

For see, there nothing is in all the world

But only love worth any strife or song or tear.

Ask me not then to sing or fashion songs

Other than this, my song of love to thee.

--From the Arabic, "The Camel Rider"

"As a brief aside, we share the following: When the copy editor set us searching for a source for this poem fragment, we were at first dismayed and then amazed at what we [Sheldon and Barbara] uncovered. Sheldon said, "Where to look? I have never heard of this poem, nor of any reference to it. This just came from Lorraine, and I wrote it down."

After I [Barbara] spent a couple of hours looking for the proverbial needle in that haystack we call the World Wide Web of information now stored in cyberspace, I did find the poem from which the lines are taken. I found By Thy Light I Live: The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt, selected and arranged by W.E. Henley and George Wyndham. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1898, and printed by Ballantyne, Hanson& Co. of London and Edinburgh. The lines are found on page 273, taken from the last stanza of "The Camel Rider." Looking further, I discovered that Wilfrid S. Blunt was born in 1840 and died in 1922. All this certainly leaves me with some deep thoughts about the memory bank in the Akashic Field.

It is not only remarkable that Sheldon was able to record this from Lorraine's transmission, but also that I was able to locate the source. This book is digitized by Google from its resting place in the Library of the University of Michigan. I found the Google commentary rather lovely and poetic in itself, and worthy of reproduction here:

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary from country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations, and other marginal"ia present in the original volume will appear in this file—a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. –Google

"Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture, and knowledge that's often difficult to discover." I think we should be thankful to Google, and not pile up the whole legal system on his Monday morning breakfast plate.

Drawing from Within: The Judgment of the Birds

2009-06-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: The Judgment of the Birds

Drawing from Within: Shel's New Book

2009-06-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Drawing from Within: Shel's New Book

Shel's New Book

2009-06-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Reviews for The Western Book of Crossing Over

2009-06-26T07:52:00.001-07:00

REVIEWS for The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side.
Here are editorial and review comments about this book:

Reviewers' Quotes:

"A book that's one of the most amazing I have ever come across–and for two reasons and not just one. One reason is the fact of the book: written in conversation with the "other side"—with a life-companion who is no longer here but, it appears, still is, and has been over many incarnations, the author's partner.… The other reason is the content. An expression of the purest, clearest love–for everyone and everything, as our task and mission on Earth and throughout our lifetimes. A book to read, to marvel at, to learn from, and to heed in all that we do."—Ervin László

"Now, through their binding love, Sheldon and Lorraine Stoff offer direct testimony to life and consciousness never before so clearly articulated. Through practical answers to practical questions, the Stoffs have succeeded in forging a bridge of consciousness between then and now and what will be."—John L. Mayfield, DC, author of Body Intelligence

"Throughout human history there have been monumental questions which have bubbled up through the elixir of life.• Why am I born?• What is the meaning of my life?• Why does my very being resonate with that one person?• Will I reconnect with relatives and loved ones after they have died?• Will I feel pain when dying?• What will happen to me when I die?• Will I come back again?"For anyone who has sought answers to the above and other questions about life and consciousness, finally there is a fountain of testimony through which flows reason, meaning, and purpose on many levels."There have been guidepost books which have attempted answers: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, even The American Book of the Dead, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's On Death and Dying, Chopra's Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, Sogyal Rimpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying. But are they faint whispers in gathering simple truths for consciousness today? The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side is not esoteric mythological journeying. Now, through their binding love, Sheldon and Lorraine Stoff offer direct testimony to life and consciousness never before so clearly articulated. Through practical answers to practical questions, the Stoffs have succeeded in forging a bridge of consciousness between then and now and what will be."—Jon R.G. Turner and Troya Turner, co-founders and co-directors of the Whole-Self Discovery and Development Institute International, and authors of Birth, Life, and More Life: Reactive Patterning Based on Prebirth Events

"Anyone hungry to know more about the ultimate nature and purpose of human life would be lucky indeed to find this guidebook! The lucky part is holding in your hands a Google map of the trail, a precisely written journal of someone who has just made the journey, or the answers to the final exam before seeing the questions. For this little book on the biggest subject in the world we are indebted to a scholarly, disciplined, and trustworthy pair of Soul Mates, one on earth and the other in heaven communicating back and forth--a rare and priceless perspective on the human odyssey."
David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D, author, The Mind of your Newborn Baby (3rd ed.) North Atlantic Books, now in 14 translations.

Editorial Review:

This reflective series of conversations with his wife Lorraine after her death enables author Sheldon Stoff to take readers on a journey through the process of living, dying, and living again—in the afterlife. Insights gleaned from both Western and Eastern traditions, especially those of Kabbalah, provide a universalist, non-sectarian context for Stoff's experiences. With chapters addressing reincarnation, fulfilling one's life mission, life review, and the significance of finding one's soul mate, The Western Book of Crossing Over presents a transcendent view of human consciousness and what it means to be alive. Packed with fascinating details about the afterlife, The Western Book of Crossing Over builds on the foundation laid by popular psychic authors Sylvia Browne and John Edward, and serves as a passionate reminder of the importance of keeping an awareness of the afterlife in order to live fully and authentically on this side of the life-death divide. Eleven original drawings of the Other Side based on the conversations between the author and his wife by their son Jesse provide a fascinating visual counterpoint to Lorraine's descriptions of the afterlife and her uplifting, ultimately hopeful and joyful messages of love.

Packed with fascinating details about the afterlife, The Western Book of Crossing Over builds on the foundation laid by popular psychic authors Sylvia Browne and John Edward, and serves as a passionate reminder of the importance of keeping an awareness of the afterlife in order to live fully and authentically on this side of the life-death divide. Eleven original drawings of the Other Side based on the conversations between the author and his wife by their son Jesse provide a fascinating visual counterpoint to Lorraine's descriptions of the afterlife and her uplifting, ultimately hopeful and joyful messages of love.

About the Author
Sheldon Stoff, EdD, spent most of his career in academia as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education. A former Education Department Chair at Adelphi University, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue with inspiration from his mentor, the renowned philosopher Martin Buber.

Barbara’s Foreword to The Western Book of Crossing Over….

2009-06-26T07:07:00.001-07:00

Foreword

By Barbara Smith Stoff

Although he had been fascinated with the concept of reincarnation—having begun, while still in his teens, with studies from the New York Psychic Society—Sheldon Stoff, who is now retired from university teaching in education and philosophy, had never thought to ask a question regarding the career and whereabouts of the soul between incarnations. In this book, he keeps company with such as C. S. Lewis (A Grief Observed), in that he finds himself in continuing contact with his deceased wife, Lorraine. During these surprising communications, Lorraine Marshak Stoff, who was married to Sheldon for over fifty years, describes her experience of passing over, and then proceeds to go into details about the soul's ongoing experience and progress between lives.

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 begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.

Today it seems that the whole world must come to terms with a multi-national hydra-headed existential face-off. Thus it becomes, at this point in history, imperative that we work hard to educate ourselves, in order to gain some insight and understanding of our idea of ourselves as human beings in a very large universe, and how that idea is interpreted and played out on the increasingly communal world stage.

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 general systems theory. It may indeed be helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory and the nature of systems and 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 our love, compassion, and understanding) projected in the physical medium of life."

If we look to ancient wisdom traditions and metaphysical writings, we find abundant theory on soul development. Having read deeply in the fields of esoterica for some forty years, I am excited to find validation in the fact that contemporary physicians, psychotherapists, and educators are now providing scientific support to ancient wisdom teachings regarding what we might call journeys of the soul. In particular, through the enduring and painstaking work of researchers such as David Chamberlain, Brian Weiss, and Michael Newton, there is now an expanding body of thought in the exploration of controversial issues involving our understanding of consciousness.

You can imagine my excitement and feeling of good fortune when I found myself in face-to-face dialogue with an individual who had the personal experience of an extended conversation with beings on the "other side."

Sheldon's between-the-worlds dialogue with Lorraine can offer a response to essential questions and, as well, encourage us to keep on asking for more enlightenment regarding our situation and way of progress.

In his introduction, Gregg Braden goes on to say, "The Divine Matrix is written for those of you whose lives bridge the reality of our past with the hope of our future. It is you who are being asked to forgive and find compassion in a world reeling from the scars of hurt, judgment, and fear. 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."

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 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 story. It is within this frame of reflection that Sheldon's book, The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations With The Other Side, can be considered as making a vital statement for our progress toward a sustainable future here on Earth.

Barbara Smith Stoff

Tucson, Arizona

April, 2007

Sheldon's New Book

2009-06-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

2009-06-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

I think this used to be called "vanity press"...now I am thinking that the opportunity which is offered to us via the web is an wonderful tool for communication......as Yeats said..."the soul will out..."

The Judgment of the Birds

2009-06-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

As I watch the news, I reflect upon the role Twitter is playing in the shaping of world events, I remember the news images of the hotel bombing in India last fall...the images of flocks of birds flying back and forth in front of the cameras...the bombed hotel in the background. It was reported that Twitter posts played the first alert role regarding that tragedy too. And I am remembering another story about birds which comes to us from the journals of that keen observer and faithful chronicler of our long evolutionary journey, Loren Eiseley, as he wrote in his most poignant The Immense Journey about the songbirds' protest in the face of imminent danger. He called it "the judgment of the birds"...

I have said that I saw a judgment upon life, and that it was not passed by men. Those who stare at birds in cages or who test minds by their closeness to our own may not care for it. It comes from far away out of my past, in a place of pouring waters and green leaves. I shall never see an episode like it again if I live to be a hundred, nor do I think that one man in a million has ever seen it, because man is an intruder into such silences. The light must be right, and the observer must remain unseen. No Man sets up such an experiment. What he sees, he sees by chance.
You may put it that I had come over a mountain, that I had slogged through fern and pine needles for half a long day, and that on the edge of a little glade with one long, crooked branch extending across it, I had sat down to rest with my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly.
The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep. When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak.
The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling's parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties, drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.
No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death.
And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.
The sighing died. It was then that I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painfully fluttering, another took the song, and then another the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Til suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death. (Loren Eiseley in The Immense Journey, 1946)

Today, under brooding shadow and countering any prediction of doom, one voice after another lifts to remind us that a new world is being built within the hearts of people all over the world. These singers of life, while listening to the lovely promptings from the deep within, and laboring to prove the validity of their cries through the study of sciences, systems theories, and a profound spiritual awakening, are swelling in number as the chorus begins to resound throughout. With such a gathering of voices, if, as many physicists say, the world is truly built on sound, then a new and better world is about to be born. It is our hope that our efforts here will blend into the swelling chorus of those "singers of life."
Barbara Smith Stoff

2009-04-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a poem, important to me...which I have kept close to hand for some forty years...It still speaks to me and instructs me...and delights me...From the within...like Shirley MacLaine in her story (The Camino) of her pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostelo...holding an imaginary heart of unconditional love toward a menacing dog. The dog ceased its attack...and she continued on her way...and so here on the internet...we hold out our stories...

An Introduction to Literature
by William Stafford

Look: no one ever promised for sure
that we would sing. We have decided
to moan. In a strange dance that
we don’t understand till we do it, we
have to carry on.

Just as in sleep you have to dream
the exact dream to round out your life,
so we have to live that dream into stories
and hold them close at you, close at the
edge we share, to be right.

We find it an awful thing to meet people,
serious or not, who have turned into vacant
effective people, so far lost that they
won’t believe their own feelings
enough to follow them out.

The authentic is a line from one thing
along to the next’ it interests us.
strangely, it relates to what works,
but it is not quite the same. It never
swerves for revenge,

Or profit or fame: it holds
together something more than the world,
this line. And we are your wavery
efforts at following it. Are you coming:
Good: now it is time.

-- William Stafford