[00:00:00 - 00:00:11] Monogamy represents a deepening of bonding into a kind of lifelong project that is entirely [00:00:11 - 00:00:13] spiritual. [00:00:13 - 00:00:20] Not that it doesn't have a physical and an ecstatic and an erotic side, but it all goes [00:00:20 - 00:00:28] together to create something that should not be expected of adolescents and should not [00:00:28 - 00:00:32] be preached as the ideal at all stages of life. [00:00:32 - 00:00:39] And this is pretty much how it's handled in a number of non-literate societies. [00:00:39 - 00:00:50] Marriage is taken very seriously, but before marriage a different set of rules obtains. [00:00:50 - 00:00:56] So that's not a solution for those of us who are already into middle age or beyond, but [00:00:56 - 00:01:06] it certainly gives indication of how we might think about it in raising our own children. [00:01:06 - 00:01:07] I want to add something if I may. [00:01:07 - 00:01:12] I think the objectification of women, which is not unique, it's only just marketed and [00:01:12 - 00:01:19] packaged so very expertly in the West, but the making women commodities really completely [00:01:19 - 00:01:21] messes up the whole deal. [00:01:21 - 00:01:27] Because if it is just an exchange of commodities, why stick with one commodity? [00:01:27 - 00:01:31] That is not just the Western thing, but it's just a collection of body parts, like the [00:01:31 - 00:01:38] pinup girl or boy, which is a way of getting into that. [00:01:38 - 00:01:43] And I think that it really hinges, but it's very much the woman who's been the objectified [00:01:43 - 00:01:45] one, Joan. [00:01:45 - 00:01:51] The other one was sort of a blip of reaction in this transitional time. [00:01:51 - 00:01:56] And I think that's something we have to get through before we can really work that out. [00:01:56 - 00:02:08] It's very hard to realize the power of woman as commodity in this society until you are [00:02:08 - 00:02:11] away from it. [00:02:11 - 00:02:17] I remember, well, this happens every time, but I remember particularly in the Amazon, [00:02:17 - 00:02:25] we had been about three weeks up this river, a group of about six of us, women and men. [00:02:25 - 00:02:31] And we came to this village and there was the obligatory meeting with the head man of [00:02:31 - 00:02:36] the village to let them know that we would be collecting plants in their area and so [00:02:36 - 00:02:38] forth and so on. [00:02:38 - 00:02:42] And we had been away from Iquitos by now, I guess, a month. [00:02:42 - 00:02:46] And we came into the Maloca and it was dimly lit. [00:02:46 - 00:02:55] And then he lit a little kind of a candle and there was a girly calendar of the most [00:02:55 - 00:02:57] innocuous sort. [00:02:57 - 00:03:07] I mean, the kind that Spark Plug Company produced in the United States, very mild. [00:03:07 - 00:03:13] And I was trying to deal with this guy and I was absolutely riveted. [00:03:13 - 00:03:17] I could not tear my eyes from it. [00:03:17 - 00:03:27] And I was even thinking, it came upon me, was it conceivable that without blowing everyone's [00:03:27 - 00:03:34] mind, especially the fellow members of my party, could I get this away from this guy? [00:03:34 - 00:03:43] And then of course, other things happened and time passed. [00:03:43 - 00:03:50] And then later I was back in Iquitos and I came upon this same calendar in a libraria [00:03:50 - 00:03:51] there. [00:03:51 - 00:03:59] And it had no power whatsoever because in Iquitos I was saturated in these images, just [00:03:59 - 00:04:01] the news vendors on the street. [00:04:01 - 00:04:03] And this is very mild stuff. [00:04:03 - 00:04:06] It's a Latin Catholic country. [00:04:06 - 00:04:14] But the power of this image is why it's used to sell everything from cigarettes to debentured [00:04:14 - 00:04:18] bonds. [00:04:18 - 00:04:21] And it is dehumanizing. [00:04:21 - 00:04:28] It is dehumanizing because it takes us to literally to the surface. [00:04:28 - 00:04:30] Everything is flattened. [00:04:30 - 00:04:40] This is again this flattening of the primacy of experience, reducing everything to a sensation [00:04:40 - 00:04:43] empty of emotional content. [00:04:43 - 00:04:47] And if you can do it with women, you can do it with anything. [00:04:47 - 00:04:54] I want to stop on that because if you take just that away with you, as I think I said [00:04:54 - 00:04:59] sometime either last night or today, that what my work indicates is something that once [00:04:59 - 00:05:04] you articulate it, it sounds obvious, but somehow it's been overlooked. [00:05:04 - 00:05:08] And it's very simply this, that the way that a society structures that most fundamental [00:05:08 - 00:05:13] of all relations, the relations between the female and the male half of humanity, because [00:05:13 - 00:05:17] that's what women and men are, that that profoundly affects everything. [00:05:17 - 00:05:21] It doesn't just affect our individual life choices and roles as women and men, which [00:05:21 - 00:05:27] we of course experience very clearly and now we're very aware of it, but it affects every [00:05:27 - 00:05:29] one of our social institutions. [00:05:29 - 00:05:32] And that's really the objectification of women. [00:05:32 - 00:05:34] The domination of women is the template. [00:05:34 - 00:05:36] It's the model. [00:05:36 - 00:05:41] Because if you can do that to your female twin, if you can do that to the person with [00:05:41 - 00:05:48] whom you have the most intimate relationship, then why not do it to somebody whose difference [00:05:48 - 00:05:54] is not one of sex, but of color or of hairdo or of politics or religion? [00:05:54 - 00:05:55] It's the template. [00:05:55 - 00:05:56] It's the model. [00:05:56 - 00:06:00] And so what I really want to say to you is that these issues that we have been so thoroughly [00:06:00 - 00:06:08] socialized to think of as "just women's issues" are the central core issues that we'd better [00:06:08 - 00:06:11] start paying attention to. [00:06:11 - 00:06:17] And I am very definitely making a statement here that I passionately want to share with [00:06:17 - 00:06:18] you. [00:06:18 - 00:06:24] Because it's so obvious, you know, if you really think about it, but we've been so conditioned [00:06:24 - 00:06:28] not to, and of course the reason that we're so conditioned to think of it that way is [00:06:28 - 00:06:33] because if once we start thinking of this way, then we are challenging the very basis, [00:06:33 - 00:06:36] the very foundation of the dominated system. [00:06:36 - 00:06:38] And it extends into everything. [00:06:38 - 00:06:41] And I really want to say this one thing, and it's about language, because you've spoken [00:06:41 - 00:06:43] about language. [00:06:43 - 00:06:46] I never used to be aware of anything, I think. [00:06:46 - 00:06:49] I mean, I think that's really the only way one can describe my former state. [00:06:49 - 00:06:52] But anyway, but I certainly was not aware. [00:06:52 - 00:06:54] I was aware of a slight sense of discomfort. [00:06:54 - 00:06:56] Well, more than slight. [00:06:56 - 00:07:02] When I went to college and everything was the study of man and mankind, and all of the [00:07:02 - 00:07:05] examples were male-centered because the message was very clear. [00:07:05 - 00:07:07] I was here, but I really had no business being here. [00:07:07 - 00:07:09] None of this was really directed to me. [00:07:09 - 00:07:13] But it was so, you know, wasty away, and I thought I was uncomfortable because I hadn't [00:07:13 - 00:07:17] found the right guy or wasn't wearing the right blouse or, you know, I mean, I had no [00:07:17 - 00:07:18] consciousness. [00:07:18 - 00:07:24] But now it's very clear to me that the whole use of male-exclusive language, the term "man" [00:07:24 - 00:07:31] instead of "human," the term "mankind" instead of "humankind," the term "he" instead of "she [00:07:31 - 00:07:41] or he or we," that that's a way of really linguistically almost short-circuiting. [00:07:41 - 00:07:46] It's really a way of short-circuiting any partnership circuitry in our head, okay? [00:07:46 - 00:07:48] And it's tremendously important. [00:07:48 - 00:07:50] I think you've been using the word "history" a lot. [00:07:50 - 00:07:51] Is it about his story? [00:07:51 - 00:07:54] And I was thinking you could use the word "her story" also. [00:07:54 - 00:07:58] Well, you know, I was thinking about that because the title of this is the, you know, [00:07:58 - 00:07:59] past history. [00:07:59 - 00:08:00] I was thinking how about our story? [00:08:00 - 00:08:01] Good, yeah. [00:08:01 - 00:08:06] Because I kind of like to move from prehistory to history to our story. [00:08:06 - 00:08:11] I know that sometimes we play with words because we just got married and I had the same experience [00:08:11 - 00:08:15] of feeling real resistant to being owned and all of that. [00:08:15 - 00:08:18] Someone said, "Mrs. Charles Brent." [00:08:18 - 00:08:23] And I said, "No, but this is Mr. Linda Brent." [00:08:23 - 00:08:29] And, you know, when I make some sense and reverse the thing, it doesn't seem so -- I mean, [00:08:29 - 00:08:33] it wasn't that it was awful to be called that because I'm proud to be married to him and [00:08:33 - 00:08:34] husband. [00:08:34 - 00:08:38] It was just that if you start reversing it that way and how absurd it sounds to call [00:08:38 - 00:08:44] him Linda Brent, then it makes it how absurd it is to call me Charles Brent. [00:08:44 - 00:08:47] You know, where it doesn't sound so absurd otherwise. [00:08:47 - 00:08:50] So I think when we start noticing those things, just to reverse them. [00:08:50 - 00:08:51] Yeah. [00:08:51 - 00:08:53] No, I think that's a very, very good thing. [00:08:53 - 00:08:56] This is how we're all beginning to notice these things and it's fun. [00:08:56 - 00:09:00] It's a little uncomfortable, but it's much more fun than that. [00:09:00 - 00:09:04] Well, there's a fellow, Dr. Warren Farrell, who's doing that. [00:09:04 - 00:09:07] He talks about walking in someone else's shoes. [00:09:07 - 00:09:12] He has interesting workshops because he has the women line up in rows according to their [00:09:12 - 00:09:17] insides and then he has the men's line up in chairs and turn around so the women can [00:09:17 - 00:09:18] see him. [00:09:18 - 00:09:20] Oh, wonderful. [00:09:20 - 00:09:22] Oh, my God. [00:09:22 - 00:09:28] It's quite impactful to experience other witnesses and heal. [00:09:28 - 00:09:32] I think experiencing it really makes a difference. [00:09:32 - 00:09:34] David, do you want to add something? [00:09:34 - 00:09:37] Oh, okay. [00:09:37 - 00:09:42] No, you have to get up. [00:09:42 - 00:09:43] Watch your head. [00:09:43 - 00:09:47] As we see a plane, we're keeping something off because then you can close it. [00:09:47 - 00:09:51] And so you can see yesterday as you said, a test story. [00:09:51 - 00:09:54] But mystery is mystery. [00:09:54 - 00:10:04] I want to say something about this question that Tina asked me that Robin brought up this [00:10:04 - 00:10:11] morning about the whole duality of us and them, us being partnership models and them [00:10:11 - 00:10:13] being the dominant. [00:10:13 - 00:10:18] And I was really pleased by that in lunch and thinking about how to get away from that [00:10:18 - 00:10:24] because in our own work together to shift this paradigm in the world, if we come from [00:10:24 - 00:10:30] a place of duality, if we come from that place that Eve got to when she ate the apple of good [00:10:30 - 00:10:38] and evil, then in a sense we're showing ourselves out from the garden of partnership. [00:10:38 - 00:10:43] And how I think we could get from the duality that's kind of naturally out there in terms [00:10:43 - 00:10:50] of the partnership and the dominates would be to see these people that actually all of [00:10:50 - 00:10:54] us as people in pain. [00:10:54 - 00:10:58] And I thought about that again when we were talking about male and female roles and seeing [00:10:58 - 00:11:04] men as the dominators, it's actually a kind of expression of pain that men have been so [00:11:04 - 00:11:10] out of touch with themselves that they would see women as objects. [00:11:10 - 00:11:15] And such an inability to make contact with themselves makes an inability to make contact [00:11:15 - 00:11:17] with another. [00:11:17 - 00:11:23] And I see the whole pornography thing is kind of painful for all of us, an area where we [00:11:23 - 00:11:30] have just fought after contact real desperately and not been able to come into contact because [00:11:30 - 00:11:34] of not being in contact with our own pain and being in a state of denial. [00:11:34 - 00:11:41] And the sexuality that's been promoted in our culture where it just is an obsession [00:11:41 - 00:11:46] seems to speak of that kind of pain of living in denial. [00:11:46 - 00:11:49] Thank you for sharing that. [00:11:49 - 00:11:53] David wants, I think, to address this issue of dualism. [00:11:53 - 00:11:55] He talked to me earlier. [00:11:55 - 00:11:56] Oh, good. [00:11:56 - 00:11:59] Yeah, no, no, that's a very logistic perspective. [00:11:59 - 00:12:01] I think it's a question of the duality thing. [00:12:01 - 00:12:06] It's so important that it needs to be thought through with a number of different perspectives. [00:12:06 - 00:12:12] All I want to share with you is two perspectives that occurred to me after Robin brought it [00:12:12 - 00:12:14] up this morning. [00:12:14 - 00:12:22] The idea is absolutely essential for us to differentiate what's partnership versus what's [00:12:22 - 00:12:23] dominate. [00:12:23 - 00:12:30] And it is very necessary to go through this us and them process in the same... [00:12:30 - 00:12:32] There's two levels to me. [00:12:32 - 00:12:37] One is in philosophy, dialectics. [00:12:37 - 00:12:44] In order to reach any progression, one way of looking at it, you've got to state the [00:12:44 - 00:12:50] status rather powerfully in order to get the antithesis status powerfully in order to move [00:12:50 - 00:12:53] beyond that towards the synthesis. [00:12:53 - 00:12:58] What we don't want is the synthesis of the dominator and the partnership, but that's [00:12:58 - 00:13:00] the philosophical point. [00:13:00 - 00:13:01] The practical point is this. [00:13:01 - 00:13:08] If you look at the way a child goes about, or if you look at how an excluded minority [00:13:08 - 00:13:13] like the blacks, which you're very familiar, advance themselves. [00:13:13 - 00:13:18] In the case of a child, the child almost always has to go through that period. [00:13:18 - 00:13:24] It happens at earlier stages, but it becomes particularly in the focus during adolescence, [00:13:24 - 00:13:28] where in order to differentiate itself from the parent, it hates that parent, goes through [00:13:28 - 00:13:30] that period, "I'm not you. [00:13:30 - 00:13:31] I don't want it." [00:13:31 - 00:13:34] There's that necessary negativity where they're differentiating. [00:13:34 - 00:13:39] The same thing happened with blacks where there's a lot of white people who felt awfully [00:13:39 - 00:13:41] uncomfortable with black power. [00:13:41 - 00:13:44] They thought, "Oh, nothing worse than Alchem X." [00:13:44 - 00:13:49] Well, Alchem X, the whole black power, was serving a very important function because [00:13:49 - 00:13:51] it was differentiating. [00:13:51 - 00:13:52] "I'm not white. [00:13:52 - 00:13:54] I have nothing to do with white." [00:13:54 - 00:13:57] This was a necessary transition stage. [00:13:57 - 00:14:00] This is just necessary for child to go through adolescence. [00:14:00 - 00:14:06] I feel there's a certain amount of duality that's absolutely necessary as it transitions [00:14:06 - 00:14:08] toward a better state. [00:14:08 - 00:14:12] In other words, I feel that this needs to be articulated because I feel there's a very [00:14:12 - 00:14:18] great danger in saying, "We don't want to have animals. [00:14:18 - 00:14:23] We want everything to be lovely, and yet we do have animals." [00:14:23 - 00:14:27] It is the dominator thing, all that it represents. [00:14:27 - 00:14:34] Sure, these are people that must be dealt with in ways that they are us. [00:14:34 - 00:14:38] They are ideas, but they are ideas embodied in people. [00:14:38 - 00:14:40] They're embodied in us. [00:14:40 - 00:14:47] I think this is something that we must address and not avoid. [00:14:47 - 00:15:00] I just wanted to further discuss that question that we talked about, asking the question [00:15:00 - 00:15:01] about duality. [00:15:01 - 00:15:04] What is the smallest unit of partnership? [00:15:04 - 00:15:10] We were talking about that before, whether it was two or one, whether that conqueror [00:15:10 - 00:15:16] inside me and that partner inside me, which is sometimes mind over body, when my mind [00:15:16 - 00:15:21] says, "Go ahead and eat something that's not good for me," conquers the health that I need [00:15:21 - 00:15:22] to have. [00:15:22 - 00:15:26] I'd just like to hear maybe you both talk a little bit about the idea of partnership [00:15:26 - 00:15:27] on an individual basis. [00:15:27 - 00:15:33] I loved when you earlier came and posed that question and said that your intuition was [00:15:33 - 00:15:37] that the basic partnership really started within us. [00:15:37 - 00:15:50] I agree with you because it's the whole thing of seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole [00:15:50 - 00:15:56] and honoring our body and honoring our spirit and honoring the fact that they're the same, [00:15:56 - 00:15:58] just different aspects of the same. [00:15:58 - 00:16:06] I see it like a prism where you just see different facets of it in different ways. [00:16:06 - 00:16:12] The smallest unit, I think, is every one of us. [00:16:12 - 00:16:14] I thank you for that. [00:16:14 - 00:16:15] Yes. [00:16:15 - 00:16:21] Don't you think that there's been talk about ego? [00:16:21 - 00:16:28] Well, it seems to me ego inflation is what happens when within the partnership of the [00:16:28 - 00:16:37] individual, a dominator model is applied because the manifestation of ego is the denial of [00:16:37 - 00:16:41] intuition, which is a feminine function. [00:16:41 - 00:16:49] People who are strongly egocentric are living in the self-created hell of a dominator society [00:16:49 - 00:16:50] of one. [00:16:50 - 00:16:55] Yes, you wanted to say something. [00:16:55 - 00:17:02] Besides the obvious reasons like fear of change and wanting to maintain status quo or one [00:17:02 - 00:17:12] system, why do you think there's this tremendous reaction or fear or backlash by the fundamentalists [00:17:12 - 00:17:18] against the resurgence of ... I mean, in their literature and sermons and everything against [00:17:18 - 00:17:27] the resurgence of the return to the goddess, the archaic, the New Age movement, anything [00:17:27 - 00:17:38] that smacks slightly different than their traditional or fundamentalist values? [00:17:38 - 00:17:45] Well, they are the bearers of the patriarchic standards. [00:17:45 - 00:17:54] Their lineage reaches right back to Pharaoh, and they see it being threatened. [00:17:54 - 00:18:01] Secularism, which began 500 years ago, threatened them at every step of the way. [00:18:01 - 00:18:08] That's why I said last night, I consider this monotheistic tradition to be the single most [00:18:08 - 00:18:13] reactionary force in human history. [00:18:13 - 00:18:16] Their bailiwick is threatened. [00:18:16 - 00:18:25] The energy that they put into destroying the pagan world was tremendously ferocious. [00:18:25 - 00:18:26] It took them centuries. [00:18:26 - 00:18:35] In fact, they never completely succeeded in dismantling the previous world of pagan sensibilities. [00:18:35 - 00:18:40] Theirs is, I believe, not a natural position. [00:18:40 - 00:18:44] Rion said this morning, "You can do anything you want to partnership. [00:18:44 - 00:18:45] It keeps springing up. [00:18:45 - 00:18:47] It keeps coming back. [00:18:47 - 00:18:50] It has a natural ability to recreate itself." [00:18:50 - 00:18:54] I don't believe this is true of the dominator culture. [00:18:54 - 00:19:03] I believe that it is fragile and frightened and feels itself always being eroded by the [00:19:03 - 00:19:07] simple processes that reside in nature. [00:19:07 - 00:19:10] So it is an untenable position. [00:19:10 - 00:19:16] And if you have an untenable position, you have a siege mentality. [00:19:16 - 00:19:22] I really want to take that to a very personal sense. [00:19:22 - 00:19:28] I think that it is fear and pain that really are the mainstream. [00:19:28 - 00:19:34] And these are the most damaged people, are the ones that really are the most imprisoned. [00:19:34 - 00:19:38] Because we are all imprisoned to some extent still by the dominator model. [00:19:38 - 00:19:45] But in these people, the grip is so fierce and the pain and the fear are so great that [00:19:45 - 00:19:48] it, I mean, because these things happen on various levels. [00:19:48 - 00:19:49] One is the systems level. [00:19:49 - 00:19:52] You know, systems like all, you know, societies are living systems. [00:19:52 - 00:19:54] They tend to maintain themselves, you know. [00:19:54 - 00:19:57] That's just how we know from systems theory. [00:19:57 - 00:20:01] But just on the very individual motivation level, for example, a lot of these women who [00:20:01 - 00:20:07] are so horribly, I mean, who can go around chanting when they wanted this poor aging, [00:20:07 - 00:20:10] you know, Supreme Court Justice to die. [00:20:10 - 00:20:12] Do you remember they were, you know, what was his name? [00:20:12 - 00:20:13] I've forgotten now. [00:20:13 - 00:20:14] Brennan. [00:20:14 - 00:20:15] Beg your pardon? [00:20:15 - 00:20:16] Brennan. [00:20:16 - 00:20:17] Brennan, yeah. [00:20:17 - 00:20:19] They were chanting, you know, they were chanting for death for Brennan. [00:20:19 - 00:20:22] And it was all in the name of we're pro-life. [00:20:22 - 00:20:24] And it was, wait a minute. [00:20:24 - 00:20:27] I mean, what kind of distortion in these women? [00:20:27 - 00:20:28] Well, it's terror. [00:20:28 - 00:20:29] It's fear. [00:20:29 - 00:20:30] It's pain. [00:20:30 - 00:20:31] And they lash out. [00:20:31 - 00:20:34] And that's exactly, you see, the whole lashing out process. [00:20:34 - 00:20:38] You mutilate a child from childhood on to be in pain. [00:20:38 - 00:20:42] You know, be it really through genital mutilation or be it through child beating or be it through [00:20:42 - 00:20:44] psychological battering. [00:20:44 - 00:20:46] You know, all of these ways. [00:20:46 - 00:20:50] And that's, I think, you know, I mean, if you're asking in terms of the mechanics of [00:20:50 - 00:20:51] it, it's very complex. [00:20:51 - 00:20:55] But I think on the individual level, that's really, and it relates to your point about [00:20:55 - 00:20:59] the enemy is, if there is an enemy, it is us. [00:20:59 - 00:21:02] I mean, it is what has become part of us. [00:21:02 - 00:21:04] But we can leave it behind the pain. [00:21:04 - 00:21:09] And the whole thing that we're talking about now is healing, healing ourselves. [00:21:09 - 00:21:10] Yes? [00:21:10 - 00:21:11] Yes. [00:21:11 - 00:21:19] What impresses me about this particular subject is really the call to face the pain. [00:21:19 - 00:21:20] Yes. [00:21:20 - 00:21:26] And instead of looking out there for the source, either be it God or outer space, it's, you [00:21:26 - 00:21:32] know, in which so many of the patriarchal religions head the gaze in that direction, [00:21:32 - 00:21:34] in the skyward direction. [00:21:34 - 00:21:39] And why your question about mind and body, I think it relates to what Rhianna is talking [00:21:39 - 00:21:41] about right now. [00:21:41 - 00:21:45] The call that's being made, and I think the same with your work, is to actually face very [00:21:45 - 00:21:50] deeply what's going on within us, the profound alienation between mind and body. [00:21:50 - 00:21:55] The objectification, not just of the feminine, but of Eros, the objectification of the body. [00:21:55 - 00:22:02] And whether it's, you know, with the visionary vegetables or simply by attending to breath [00:22:02 - 00:22:09] and watching the content of our minds produce in the way that they do, coming to really, [00:22:09 - 00:22:16] as, you know, the oracle Adelphi said it beautifully, "knowing oneself completely, becoming completely [00:22:16 - 00:22:19] aware, hyphen and deepened awareness." [00:22:19 - 00:22:27] So, you know, I really resonate with what you're talking about in terms of coming into [00:22:27 - 00:22:33] this partnership model, mind and body, and how we live this out, you know, in relationship [00:22:33 - 00:22:38] with each other, how actually partnering in the world becomes a context wherein we can [00:22:38 - 00:22:43] discover, we get a very extraordinary feedback when we're off. [00:22:43 - 00:22:47] And why this, you know, evasive maneuvers to, you know, stay in relationship, to stay [00:22:47 - 00:22:54] in community, to persist through the points of extreme pain that all of us experience [00:22:54 - 00:22:59] in facing ourselves, whether it's on a psychedelic substance, you know, or whether it's sitting [00:22:59 - 00:23:05] on the zappos, but really knowing oneself profoundly. [00:23:05 - 00:23:06] Thank you. [00:23:06 - 00:23:12] I was also wondering why, you know, these model fundamentalists and the white south [00:23:12 - 00:23:17] africans, now they are not in very much pain. [00:23:17 - 00:23:21] I mean, white south africans are not generally mutilated. [00:23:21 - 00:23:24] Arab men are not even circumcised. [00:23:24 - 00:23:25] Where are they? [00:23:25 - 00:23:26] No, they are. [00:23:26 - 00:23:27] They are. [00:23:27 - 00:23:28] All right, they are. [00:23:28 - 00:23:35] But their relationship was through, through partnership because the fear that they feel [00:23:35 - 00:23:39] to keep them sitting on top of each other's people, it keeps them there. [00:23:39 - 00:23:42] And the fear gets on them. [00:23:42 - 00:23:46] And that comes from the fact that they know they are causing all this pain. [00:23:46 - 00:23:48] And they are feeling that pain. [00:23:48 - 00:23:50] And they are feeling it. [00:23:50 - 00:23:52] And that is what keeps them. [00:23:52 - 00:23:54] It does not end in our life. [00:23:54 - 00:24:07] I'd like to really reiterate this issue of the selective deadening of empathy because [00:24:07 - 00:24:14] I think that empathy, this awareness that we are talking about, is so much part of this [00:24:14 - 00:24:17] unique miracle that is our species. [00:24:17 - 00:24:25] And the dominator model is so fascinating because here is this gift we have been given [00:24:25 - 00:24:32] and institution after institution, practice after practice is then ingeniously developed [00:24:32 - 00:24:36] to deaden that gift of empathy in us. [00:24:36 - 00:24:41] And, hey, but I think that that's really one of the things. [00:24:41 - 00:24:44] But you can't really kill it off, you see. [00:24:44 - 00:24:45] No, no, you're right. [00:24:45 - 00:24:46] You're right about that. [00:24:46 - 00:24:52] But I think the point here is that, you know, as long as we do not face our own pain, we [00:24:52 - 00:24:54] will create a lust for others. [00:24:54 - 00:24:55] Yes. [00:24:55 - 00:24:56] Wouldn't it… [00:24:56 - 00:24:57] Yes. [00:24:57 - 00:25:00] I think the domineering mentality would be like in a prison. [00:25:00 - 00:25:02] I mean, it's a state of tension. [00:25:02 - 00:25:08] I mean, you would take that feeling of being incarcerated where you had that much fear [00:25:08 - 00:25:10] when there was all that much power. [00:25:10 - 00:25:15] But, see, I think the incarceration image is a very apt one. [00:25:15 - 00:25:22] I spoke about Theodore Rojak, and he spoke of how the 19th century wave of feminism really [00:25:22 - 00:25:29] was one of the things, one of the first really historic frontal challenges to the dominator [00:25:29 - 00:25:32] system, to what he called patriarchy. [00:25:32 - 00:25:39] And he said that the reaction to it was one of terror, you know. [00:25:39 - 00:25:44] But the greatest thing was we had to keep imprisoned not only, you know, the women and [00:25:44 - 00:25:49] the so-called inferior people and the enemy, but the woman that every man, as he put it, [00:25:49 - 00:25:52] keeps locked inside his psyche. [00:25:52 - 00:25:54] And I think that's a very apt image. [00:25:54 - 00:25:56] But, of course, women, too, can be very cruel. [00:25:56 - 00:26:01] And I think it's really very important that we disabuse ourselves of this whole idea that [00:26:01 - 00:26:05] we're talking about, you know, women are terrific and men are, you know, I mean, forget it. [00:26:05 - 00:26:09] Because the dominator model distorts both women and men. [00:26:09 - 00:26:13] It is true that the caring, I mean, that's one of the ironies. [00:26:13 - 00:26:18] You know, really the most important work in the society, which is the caring and the nurturing [00:26:18 - 00:26:23] work of the society, has been relegated to the inferior group, you know, to women. [00:26:23 - 00:26:28] And then we wonder why we can't have social priorities that are more caring if those very [00:26:28 - 00:26:31] people are excluded from power, right? [00:26:31 - 00:26:33] I mean, talk about catch-22 here. [00:26:33 - 00:26:37] So we're back to the quote "women's issues," aren't we? [00:26:37 - 00:26:40] What concerns me once again is this new role of the feminist man. [00:26:40 - 00:26:46] You know, if you go back and you see this image of erotic Pan, who was a consort of the goddess, [00:26:46 - 00:26:51] who, if you go into history enough, was often sacrificed at the end of each year as part [00:26:51 - 00:26:54] of this refeeding the goddess back. [00:26:54 - 00:27:00] It was a blood sacrifice since the man did not bleed. [00:27:00 - 00:27:05] And if you look at some of the Minoans, frescoes, it's very easy. [00:27:05 - 00:27:07] They're beautiful and I wish I had some of them. [00:27:07 - 00:27:11] The role of the man, well, I mean, you see a fresco of a man with fish. [00:27:11 - 00:27:12] He fishes. [00:27:12 - 00:27:13] All right? [00:27:13 - 00:27:16] I mean, you know, in other words, it's a productive role. [00:27:16 - 00:27:21] You see the so-called young prince, which is really fascinating. [00:27:21 - 00:27:26] Most of the recovered Minoan single figures have been attributed to the goddess, [00:27:26 - 00:27:30] with a female priestess as the representative. [00:27:30 - 00:27:34] But they find this one figure of a man and they decide he's the young prince, right? [00:27:34 - 00:27:42] Which is very, very interesting because there's not a trace of any king in the Minoan culture. [00:27:42 - 00:27:49] But nonetheless, he is a beardless youth and he has flowers, you know, and plumes, [00:27:49 - 00:27:51] and he's walking through a garden. [00:27:51 - 00:27:55] I mean, it's hardly your, you know, macho warrior image. [00:27:55 - 00:27:57] I mean, there are other things that men can do. [00:27:57 - 00:27:59] Men did the bull leaf thing. [00:27:59 - 00:28:02] And that was very interesting because it was a partnership with the women. [00:28:02 - 00:28:04] If you look at the bull leafer fresco. [00:28:04 - 00:28:07] So they obviously just did all kinds of things. [00:28:07 - 00:28:10] They just didn't happen to specialize in killing. [00:28:10 - 00:28:13] (laughter) [00:28:13 - 00:28:14] Yes? [00:28:14 - 00:28:16] Would you like to make a summation? [00:28:16 - 00:28:18] Is it time already? [00:28:18 - 00:28:19] Yes, we have one more. [00:28:19 - 00:28:21] Oh my goodness. Yes, I think that we should just... [00:28:21 - 00:28:22] Question over here. [00:28:22 - 00:28:23] Yes, please. [00:28:23 - 00:28:31] I see technology as a symbol of dominant society, dominant culture in China. [00:28:31 - 00:28:37] And I wanted you to address the question, if you could, of what the interface will look like [00:28:37 - 00:28:42] and how we get to innovate to the partnership society with technology. [00:28:42 - 00:28:46] I see, you know, like a clash of technology. [00:28:46 - 00:28:49] I wonder if that's something you want to address. [00:28:49 - 00:28:54] I'm so glad you brought that up because that makes a wonderful, wonderful place [00:28:54 - 00:28:58] for something that I really felt that I want to very much address. [00:28:58 - 00:29:03] What I'd like to suggest is that we look at technology [00:29:03 - 00:29:08] as something that is really a human function, a human capacity. [00:29:08 - 00:29:14] From day one, language is a technology of communication, isn't it? [00:29:14 - 00:29:22] The stick that even chimpanzees use, you know, to help them dig up plants and what have you, [00:29:22 - 00:29:25] that's a technology, it's a tool. [00:29:25 - 00:29:30] Our tool-making capacity is really an extension of natural functions. [00:29:30 - 00:29:35] I mean, an airplane does something that a bird does, but we've built it. [00:29:35 - 00:29:40] So I look at technology neither as the villain or as the savior. [00:29:40 - 00:29:46] I look at technology as something that we-- I mean, other species have some technology. [00:29:46 - 00:29:50] I think dolphins and whales probably would if they had hands, you know, [00:29:50 - 00:29:53] because they seem to have a high intelligence, but they don't. [00:29:53 - 00:29:56] So we have this tremendous capacity for making tools, you know, [00:29:56 - 00:30:00] all the way to the most extraordinary things that we're getting today. [00:30:00 - 00:30:04] That, I think, is a wonderful thing, and it can also be a terrible thing. [00:30:04 - 00:30:09] And we're right back to the issue of technology being used [00:30:09 - 00:30:14] using the template of a partnership or a dominated model of society. [00:30:14 - 00:30:18] I'd like to suggest to you that the invention of machines, per se, [00:30:18 - 00:30:22] did not have to result in these dehumanized assembly lines [00:30:22 - 00:30:26] where people themselves became cogs in the machine. [00:30:26 - 00:30:31] I would like to suggest to you that if this prehistoric shift had not happened, [00:30:31 - 00:30:35] that maybe the machines would have been used in a very, very different way. [00:30:35 - 00:30:39] I would like to suggest to you that the great breakthroughs in technology [00:30:39 - 00:30:43] actually came in what we may call more of a partnership-oriented era. [00:30:43 - 00:30:48] In fact, all the basic technologies in which civilization is built came out of that era. [00:30:48 - 00:30:50] They weren't as glitzy as what we've got today, [00:30:50 - 00:30:53] although we know in Crete had the first paved roads in Europe, [00:30:53 - 00:30:56] it had books, it had indoor planning. [00:30:56 - 00:31:00] I mean, it got lost again. We don't find it again until much later. [00:31:00 - 00:31:03] But I mean, they were what we would call, well, they compare very, [00:31:03 - 00:31:08] they're much more high technology than a lot of the so-called developing worlds today. [00:31:08 - 00:31:13] Okay? So, let's look at technology in terms of this template. [00:31:13 - 00:31:17] But the dominator system, I've divided technology, really, [00:31:17 - 00:31:20] and that's a whole new session, okay? [00:31:20 - 00:31:25] By trying to categorize it in terms of different types of technologies, [00:31:25 - 00:31:28] and one is technologies of domination, of destruction. [00:31:28 - 00:31:32] And I'd like to suggest to you that technologies of domination and destruction, [00:31:32 - 00:31:38] be it the use of the greater musculature and the development of this, you know, [00:31:38 - 00:31:43] of the brawn to kill of the so-called classical warrior, or the missile, [00:31:43 - 00:31:46] that that's built into the dominator system. [00:31:46 - 00:31:49] And that really doesn't have that much to do with technology at all. [00:31:49 - 00:31:55] And so that the issue for us isn't let's throw out the baby with the bathwater here. [00:31:55 - 00:31:58] I mean, I don't want to go back technologically. [00:31:58 - 00:32:01] I mean, I think that we don't want to do that. [00:32:01 - 00:32:05] What we want to do is to use the most advanced modern technology, [00:32:05 - 00:32:13] and it almost takes us immediately back to the whole issue of how we use the hallucinogens. [00:32:13 - 00:32:14] Because we're right back there. [00:32:14 - 00:32:17] I mean, you know very well that there have been experiments, [00:32:17 - 00:32:21] not with some of the synthetic drugs, to use them for mind control. [00:32:21 - 00:32:24] I mean, that's the ultimate dominator technology, isn't it? [00:32:24 - 00:32:26] I mean, thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge, [00:32:26 - 00:32:29] because I've just given you in your water supply, you know, [00:32:29 - 00:32:33] the chemical that makes you sort of, you know, completely pliable. [00:32:33 - 00:32:34] Yes, it does. [00:32:34 - 00:32:37] Well, I'm saying, no, no, no, no, no. [00:32:37 - 00:32:41] I made the distinction between hallucinogens and drugs, you know, [00:32:41 - 00:32:43] and pharmaceutical produced drugs. [00:32:43 - 00:32:44] I've had experiments with that. [00:32:44 - 00:32:47] But I'm saying that let's think of technology with those two templates, [00:32:47 - 00:32:50] and I'd really like to leave that as my summation. [00:32:50 - 00:32:53] [indistinct] [00:32:53 - 00:32:55] You're saying that it can't be done with hallucinogens? [00:32:55 - 00:32:57] [indistinct] [00:32:57 - 00:32:59] It's much more powerful than hallucinogens. [00:32:59 - 00:33:01] LSD is much more powerful than hallucinogens. [00:33:01 - 00:33:04] The partnership situation would be democratic. [00:33:04 - 00:33:05] Yes. [00:33:05 - 00:33:06] Sure. [00:33:06 - 00:33:07] And of course the other autocratic. [00:33:07 - 00:33:08] Yes, that's right. [00:33:08 - 00:33:09] And autarkic. [00:33:09 - 00:33:14] And the financial infrastructure would be, [00:33:14 - 00:33:19] one would be laissez-faire private ownership, [00:33:19 - 00:33:23] the other would be shared, centralized. [00:33:23 - 00:33:24] Well, there would be degrees. [00:33:24 - 00:33:27] You might say capitalism is socialism, you know. [00:33:27 - 00:33:29] Maybe oversimplified, but that's what it gets down to. [00:33:29 - 00:33:33] It's somewhat oversimplified, but certainly a more equitable, [00:33:33 - 00:33:35] you know, distribution of wealth, wouldn't you say? [00:33:35 - 00:33:40] And an abandonment of the notion of private property. [00:33:40 - 00:33:44] [indistinct] [00:33:44 - 00:33:46] Let's see, I don't-- [00:33:46 - 00:33:50] They killed a pope for saying that. [00:33:50 - 00:33:52] Let's end in tumult. [00:33:52 - 00:33:55] [laughter] [00:33:55 - 00:33:59] Instead of ending in tumult, could we end just almost on time? [00:33:59 - 00:34:00] Yes. [00:34:00 - 00:34:07] [indistinct] [00:34:07 - 00:34:09] Oh, I thought we just had the summer. [00:34:09 - 00:34:10] [laughter] [00:34:10 - 00:34:14] No, they've got a few more moments. [00:34:14 - 00:34:17] Well, it seems we moved around this afternoon. [00:34:17 - 00:34:23] There's a great concern as to how to realize this in the here and now, [00:34:23 - 00:34:26] one on one, which is encouraging, [00:34:26 - 00:34:31] because otherwise it remains an abstraction. [00:34:31 - 00:34:35] Bringing these models forward into the present isn't easy, [00:34:35 - 00:34:39] because the context for over a thousand or more years [00:34:39 - 00:34:43] has been set by the dominator culture. [00:34:43 - 00:34:52] Nevertheless, what we have going for us is that the partnership way of thinking [00:34:52 - 00:34:55] is really scripted into the bones of the planet. [00:34:55 - 00:34:57] This is how it's always been done. [00:34:57 - 00:34:59] This is how nature does it. [00:34:59 - 00:35:04] The Darwinian model of nature that we've inherited from the 19th century [00:35:04 - 00:35:13] is simply another dominator fiction used to reinforce dominator mechanisms. [00:35:13 - 00:35:20] The fact is that what nature really maximizes is cooperation, integration, [00:35:20 - 00:35:26] and mutuality of support and relationship. [00:35:26 - 00:35:31] What we're really trying to do, what becoming post-historical means, I think, [00:35:31 - 00:35:38] is removing the veil between ourselves and nature [00:35:38 - 00:35:42] that the historical experience has raised, [00:35:42 - 00:35:47] because the historical experience has been an alienating experience, [00:35:47 - 00:35:54] has caused our perceptions to rise to the mere surfaces of things, [00:35:54 - 00:35:58] and our feelings to be completely undercut and invalidated. [00:35:58 - 00:36:05] What we have to do is see more deeply into the context of being [00:36:05 - 00:36:08] and the situation in which we find ourselves, [00:36:08 - 00:36:11] and to see that we are of it. [00:36:11 - 00:36:13] It's a seamless web. [00:36:13 - 00:36:18] The dynamics that rule the biological and natural world [00:36:18 - 00:36:21] are the dynamics that are going to work for us. [00:36:21 - 00:36:24] We didn't fall here out of the sky. [00:36:24 - 00:36:30] We weren't made by a jealous god who set us loose in a kind of reservation. [00:36:30 - 00:36:37] We are of the stuff of this place, and its dynamics can be our dynamics. [00:36:37 - 00:36:44] The problem is one of awareness, realization, recovery of this perception, [00:36:44 - 00:36:49] sharing it, revivifying it, and realizing it. [00:36:49 - 00:36:51] That's all. [00:36:51 - 00:36:56] [applause] [00:36:56 - 00:36:59] I have a real need to clarify something. [00:36:59 - 00:37:03] I really have a need to clarify the cybersoperative issue, [00:37:03 - 00:37:07] because I really don't equate the partnership model [00:37:07 - 00:37:12] with the abolition of private property, and I want to really clarify that. [00:37:12 - 00:37:15] I think that it's much more complex than that, [00:37:15 - 00:37:19] and that as I speak in The Talis and the Blade, [00:37:19 - 00:37:25] that what is going to be emerging, I hope, is a whole new economic model [00:37:25 - 00:37:30] where we put in central value the caring work. [00:37:30 - 00:37:34] That has traditionally, of course, been relegated to women [00:37:34 - 00:37:37] and to so-called effeminate men. [00:37:37 - 00:37:43] We have that opportunity now as we move from industrial to post-industrial society, [00:37:43 - 00:37:47] because we have to redefine what is productive work. [00:37:47 - 00:37:51] I really wanted to leave with this idea that I think we're going into [00:37:51 - 00:37:56] a post-capitalist and post-socialist era. [00:37:56 - 00:38:02] And I just-- forgive me, I don't need to have the last word, but I did want to say that. [00:38:02 - 00:38:04] Well, I'll have the first word tomorrow. [00:38:04 - 00:38:12] [laughter] [00:38:12 - 00:38:16] This is KPFK Los Angeles. [00:38:16 - 00:38:23] We have been listening to the evening of the first day [00:38:23 - 00:38:29] of the seminar, Man and Woman at the End of History, [00:38:29 - 00:38:32] with Terence McKenna and Rhianne Eisler. [00:38:32 - 00:38:38] Rhianne Eisler is the author of the current book, The Talis and the Blade, [00:38:38 - 00:38:43] which has been highly recommended by Helen Caldecott [00:38:43 - 00:38:49] and Dan Ellsberg and Terence McKenna and Ashley Montague. [00:38:49 - 00:38:52] Ashley Montague, the anthropologist, said, [00:38:52 - 00:38:57] "It's the most important book since the origin of species," by Charles Darwin. [00:38:57 - 00:39:03] So that would be the most important book in about 140 years, which, well, [00:39:03 - 00:39:08] that's heavy praise indeed, The Talis and the Blade. [00:39:08 - 00:39:15] We will continue with the second day of the seminar next Tuesday night, [00:39:15 - 00:39:21] Wednesday morning at midnight on Earth Tuesday. [00:39:21 - 00:39:23] I'd like to thank two subscribers, by the way, [00:39:23 - 00:39:28] Marlon Rojas of Los Angeles and Mick Liddell of Northridge. [00:39:28 - 00:39:34] And Marlon has not subscribed for a while, but he's back. [00:39:34 - 00:39:39] And Mick is a starving musician. [00:39:39 - 00:39:45] I know a Mick who's not a starving musician. [00:39:45 - 00:39:50] Anyway, he's subscribing for McKenna, Johnny Otis, Alan Watts, Roy, [00:39:50 - 00:39:53] and Reggie. [00:39:53 - 00:39:58] Terence McKenna, oh, the tapes and Terence's appearance in Los Angeles, [00:39:58 - 00:40:02] which is now not two months away, not three months away, not two months away, [00:40:02 - 00:40:05] not a month away, ten days, a week from Saturday. [00:40:05 - 00:40:09] Terence is going to be in town. More about that in a minute. [00:40:09 - 00:40:12] The tapes of man and woman at the end of history. [00:40:12 - 00:40:15] This is a set of, sorry for the squeaky book. [00:40:15 - 00:40:24] This is a set of five cassettes, and they are available from the Ojai Foundation Wild Store. [00:40:24 - 00:40:31] I believe the set of five is $40, man and woman at the end of history. [00:40:31 - 00:40:38] Their address and phone, if they answer the phone, I guess they do, is Ojai Foundation, [00:40:38 - 00:40:48] Post Office Box 1620, Box 1620, Ojai, California, 93023. [00:40:48 - 00:40:56] The Ojai Foundation, Box 1620, Ojai, California, 93023. [00:40:56 - 00:41:00] And again, the seminar is man and woman at the end of history. [00:41:00 - 00:41:13] Phone number of the Ojai Foundation, area code 805-646-8343, area code 805-646-8343.