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Marilyn Ferguson

213 quotes

“The individual discovers a new kind of flexible will that helps in the vocation. This will has sometimes been called "intention." It is the opposite of accident, it represents a certain deliberateness, but it doesn't have the iron quality we usually associate with the will.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To Buckminster Fuller, the commitment is "kind of mystical. The minute you begin to do what you want to do, it's really a different kind of life." Remarking on the same phenomenon, W. H. Murray said that commitment seems to enlist Providence. "All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As we shall see, there have always been two "bodies" of the American dream. One, the dream of tangibles, focuses on material well-being and practical, everyday freedoms. The other, like an etheric body extending from the material dream, seeks psychological liberation—a goal at once more essential and more elusive. The proponents of the latter dream have nearly always come from the comfortable social classes. Having achieved the first measure of freedom, they hunger for the second.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As historian James MacGregor Burns noted, they also formulated their protests as official appeals to the king "shipped across the Atlantic after suitable hometown publicity.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hardly anyone expected the American uprising to succeed. Thousands of colonists emigrated to Canada or hid in the woods, certain that the king's armies would tear the colonial regiments to shreds. Nor did a majority of the people support the struggle for independence, even in theory. Historians estimate that one-third favored independence, one-third favored retaining British ties, and one-third were indifferent.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The revolution was in the minds of the people. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. Long before the first shot is fired, the revolution begins. Long after truce is declared, it continues to overturn lives.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although it is rarely noted in histories of the American Revolution, many of the arch-Revolutionaries came from a tradition of mystical fraternity. Except for such traces as the symbols on the reverse side of the Great Seal and the dollar bill, little evidence remains of this esoteric influence (Rosicrucian, Masonic, and Hermetic). That sense of fraternity and spiritual chisement played an important role in the intensity of the Revolutionaries and their commitment to the realization of a democracy.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A New Order of the Ages Begins, says the reverse side of the Great Seal, and the Revolutionaries meant it. The American experiment was consciously conceived as a momentous step in the evolution of the species. The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind, Thomas Paine said in his inflammatory pamphlet Common Sense (1776).”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stuff of revolution, and its first success, must be the ability to innovate. In that sense, there is more revolutionary spirit in the United States today, even on the Right, than elsewhere on the Left. The relative freedom in the United States would make it possible for such a revolution to occur bloodlessly, Revel said.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If that happened, and if one political civilization were exchanged for another, as seemed to be happening, the impact might be felt worldwide by osmosis. This radical transformation would need the simultaneous occurrence of smaller revolutions—in politics, society, international and interracial relations, cultural values, and technology and science.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There also must be an internal critique of injustices, of the management of material and human resources, and of abuses of political power. Above all, there must be criticism of the culture itself: its morality, religion, customs, and arts. And there must be demand for respect of the individual's uniqueness, with the society regarded as the medium for individual development and for brotherhood.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like Transcendentalism, Revel's revolution would encompass "the liberation of the creative personality and the awakening of personal initiative" as opposed to the closed horizons of more repressive societies.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The perturbation would come from the privileged classes, he said, because that is the way of revolutions. They are launched by those disenchanted with the culture's ultimate reward system.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a new prototype of society is to emerge, rather than a coup d'etat, dialogue and debate must occur at the highest levels.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Recall the model of the paradigm shift introduced by Thomas Kuhn: Every important new idea in science sounds strange at first. As the physicist Niels Bohr put it, great innovations inevitably appear muddled, confusing, and incomplete, only half-understood even by their discoverers, and a mystery to everyone else. There is no hope, Bohr said, for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we stubbornly refuse to look at that which seems magical or incredible, we are in distinguished company. The French Academy announced at one point that it would not accept any further reports of meteorites, since it was clearly impossible for rocks to fall out of the sky. Shortly thereafter a rain of meteorites came close to breaking the windows of the Academy.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today we are on the brink of a new synthesis. In the past four centuries western science has experienced a continuous shattering and reforming of its basic concepts. Now the scientific community has begun to recognize striking correlations between their findings and those expressed abstrusely by ancient mystics. This is a convocation of visionary men and women pioneering this new synthesis.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mental states such as loneliness, compulsion, anguish, attachment, pain, and faith are not just "all in the head" but in the brain as well. Brain, mind, and body are a continuum. Our thoughts—intention, fear, images, suggestion, expectation— alter the brain's chemistry. And it works both ways; thoughts can be altered by changing the brain's chemistry with drugs, nutrients, oxygen. The brain is hopelessly complex. Biologist Lyall Watson spoke of the Catch-22 of brain research: "If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't!”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science has always tried to understand nature by breaking things into their parts. Now it is overwhelmingly clear that wholes cannot he understood by analysis. This is one of those logical boomerangs, like the mathematical proof that no mathematical system can be truly coherent in itself.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Greek prefix syn ("together with"), as in synthesis, synergy, syntropy, becomes increasingly meaningful. When things come together something new happens. In relationship there is novelty, creativity, richer complexity. Whether we are talking about chemical reactions or human societies, molecules or international treaties, there are qualities that cannot be predicted by looking at the components.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Half a century ago in Holism and Evolution Jan Smuts tried to synthesize Darwin's evolutionary theory, Einstein's physics, and his own insights to account for the evolution of mind as well as matter. Wholeness, Smuts said, is a fundamental characteristic of the universe—the product of nature's drive to synthesize.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because we have not understood the brain's ability to transform pain and disequilibrium, we have dampened it with tranquilizers or distracted it with whatever was at hand.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because we have not understood that wholes are more than the sum of their parts, we have assembled our information into islands, an archipelago of disconnected data. Our great institutions have evolved in virtual isolation from one another.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not realizing that our species evolved in cooperation, we have opted for competition in work, school, relationships. Not understanding the body's ability to reorganize its internal processes, we have drugged and doctored ourselves into bizarre side effects.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not understanding our societies as great organisms, we have manipulated them into "cures" worse than the ailments.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sooner or later, if human society is to evolve—indeed, if it is to survive—we must match our lives to our new knowledge. For too long, the Two Cultures—the esthetic, feeling humanities and cool, analytical science—have functioned independently, like the right and left hemispheres of a split-brain patient. We have been the victims of our collective divided consciousness.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. Everybody's crew.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This chapter is about politics in the broadest sense. It is about the emergence of a new kind of leader, a new definition of power, a dynamic power inherent in networks, and the rapidly growing constituency that can make all the difference.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the spirit of the Eightfold Path of Buddha, with its injunctions about Right Livelihood, Right Speech, and so on, we might also think in terms of Right Power—power used not as a battering ram or to glorify the ego but in service to life. Appropriate power. p.190”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new person creates the new collectivity," said political scientist Melvin Gurtov, "and the new collectivity creates—is— the new politics." The changing political paradigm concedes that you cannot sort out the individual from the society, nor can you separate "politics" from the people who engage in it. The person and society are yoked, like mind and body. Arguing which is more important is like debating whether oxygen or hydrogen is the more essential property of water. Yet the debate has raged on for centuries.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Crisis: Our institutions—especially our governing structures—are mechanistic, rigid, fragmented. The world isn't working.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Prescription: We must face our pain and conflict. Until we quit denying our failures and muffling our uneasiness, until we confess our bewilderment and alienation, we can't take the next and necessary steps. The political system needs to be transformed, not reformed.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to Confucian writings, wise individuals, wanting good government, looked first within, seeking precise words to express their hitherto unvoiced yearnings, "the tones given off by the heart." Once they were able to verbalize the intelligence of the heart they disciplined themselves. Order within the self led first to harmony within their own households, then the state, and finally the empire.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The discovery of freedom, for instance, means little if we are not empowered to act, to be free for something, not just from something. As fear falls away, we are less afraid of power's Siamese twin, responsibility.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is less certainty about what is right for others. With an awareness of multiple realities, we lose our dogmatic attachment to a single point of view. A new sense of connection with others promotes social concern. A more benign view of the world makes others seem less threatening; enemies disappear.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had won the victory over himself," says the concluding line of George Orwell's grim novel, 1984. "He loved Big Brother." Just as hostages sometimes become fond of their abductors, we become attached to the factors that imprison us: our habits, customs, the expectations of others, rules, schedules, the state. Why do we give away our power or never claim it at all? Perhaps so that we can avoid decisions and responsibility. We are seduced by pain-avoidance, conflict avoidance.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Colin Wilson's science-fiction novel, The Mind Parasites, the protagonist and his associates discover that human consciousness has been victimized, dragged down, and intimidated by a strange parasite that has been feeding on it, sapping its power, for centuries. Those who become aware of the existence of these mind parasites can get rid of them—a dangerous, painful undertaking, but possible. Free of the mind parasites, they are the first truly free human beings, elated and enormously powerful.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just so, our natural power is sapped by the parasites of the centuries: fear, superstition, a view of reality that reduces life's wonders to creaking machinery. If we starve these parasitic beliefs they will die.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as scientists inevitably come across facts that contradict the existing paradigm, so individuals within a society begin to experience anomalies and conflicts: an unequal distribution of power, an abridgement of freedoms, unjust laws or practices... If this conflict is too intense or focused to be suppressed, a revolution eventually occurs in the form of a social movement. The old consensus is broken, and freedoms are extended.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A political paradigm shift might be said to occur when the new values are assimilated by the dominant society. These values then become social dogma to members of a new generation, who marvel that anyone could ever have believed otherwise.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Generation after generation, humankind fights to preserve the status quo, maintaining "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know," a bit of folk cynicism that assumes the unknown to be dangerous. p. 197”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gandhi carried the concept of the powerful committed minority into the twentieth century, first gaining recognition of the rights of Indians living in South Africa and then achieving India's independence from British domination. "It is a superstitious and ungodly thing to believe that an act of a majority binds a minority," he said. "It is not numbers that count but quality.... I do not regard the force of numbers as necessary in a just cause.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The revolutionary principle introduced by Gandhi resolves the paradox of freedom. He called it satyagraha, "soul force" or "truth force." Satyagraha was essentially misunderstood in the West, described as "passive resistance," a term Gandhi disavowed because it suggests weakness, or "non-violence," which was just one of its components.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Satyagraha derives its power from two apparently opposite attributes: fierce autonomy and total compassion. It says, in effect: I will not coerce you. Neither will I be coerced by you. If you behave unjustly, I will not oppose you by violence (bodyforce) but by the force of truth—the integrity of my beliefs. My integrity is evident in my willingness to suffer, to endanger myself, to go to prison, even to die if necessary. But I will not cooperate with injustice.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Satyagraha is the strategy of those who reject solutions that compromise the freedom or integrity of any participant. Gandhi always said it is the weapon of the strong because it requires heroic restraint and the courage to forgive. He turned the whole idea of power upside down. When he visited the mountain hideout of Indian militants and saw their guns, he said, "You must be very frightened." p. 200”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new political awareness has little to do with parties or ideologies. Its constituents don't come in blocs. Power that is never surrendered by the individual cannot be brokered. Not by revolution or protest but by autonomy, the old slogan becomes a surprising fact: Power to the people. One by one by one. p. 240”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found it was ourselves.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hope for real social transformation need not rest on circumstantial evidence. One major arena, health care, has already begun to experience wrenching change. The impending transformation of medicine is a window to the transformation of all our institutions. Here we can see what happens when consumers begin to withdraw legitimacy from an authoritarian institution. We see the rise of the autonomous health seeker, the transformation of a profession by its leadership, the impact of the new models from science, the way decentralized networks are effecting wide geographic change.”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The autonomy so evident in social movements is hitting the old assumptions of medicine hard. The search for self becomes a search for health, for wholeness—the cache of sanity search for health, for wholeness—the cache of sanity and wisdom that once seemed beyond our conscious reach. p. 241”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Within a few short years, without a shot's being fired, the concept of holistic health has been legitimized by federal and state programs, endorsed by politicians, urged and underwritten by insurance companies, co-opted in terminology (if not always in practice) by many physicians, and adopted by medical students. Consumers demand "holistic health," a whole new assortment of entrepreneurs promise it, and medical groups look for speakers to explain it. p. 242”
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source