Merlin Stone Remembered Read online

  About the Authors

  DR. CAROL F. THOMAS holds a master of arts degree in American literature from Stetson University, and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Connecticut. She also holds a PhD in literature and psychology from Union Institute and University, and a doctorate in applied theology (DMin) from Pittsburgh’s Theological Seminary. She taught women’s studies, psychology, and literature at the University of Connecticut, Bowie State, as well as at additional colleges and universities. She also taught creative writing for Saint Leo University and for Gavle University in Storvik, Sweden. During her sojourn of eleven years at the University of Connecticut, she enjoyed private practice as a member of Shoreline Psychiatric Associates. At the Niantic Correctional Institution, she taught for Mohegan College and was instrumental in facilitating the publication of a book of art and poetry written by the incarcerated women and published by the State of Connecticut’s Counsel for the Arts. She has published a book on the Women’s Movement and three books of poetry. Dr. Thomas’s husband is a practicing surgeon, and they have four sons and six grandchildren. She and her husband had a horse ranch in Oklahoma, where they resided for a number of years, and have a home in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida, which is now their retirement home.

  LEONARD SCHNEIR was born in Brooklyn, New York. He lived at home with his sister, Renée, and his mother, Betty. His father, Irving, a shoe manufacturer, only occasionally lived with them. In 1947, at the age of seven, Lenny’s family moved to Kew Gardens, Queens, where he became an expert at roaming the streets, as his memoir amply recounts. He received his bachelor of science in business administration in 1962, from the University of Denver. Thereafter, he served in the army, rising to sergeant E5, honorably discharged in 1968. After a series of jobs, first for his father and at other sales positions, he moved to his home at 184 6th Avenue, New York City, that same year. There, he settled into the life of a professional poker player. Later, he became a major collector of gambling memorabilia in partnership with the American playing-card authority Gene Hochman. As an expert in that area, Lenny authored the book Gambling Collectibles: A Sure Winner (Schiffer Publishing: Atglen, PA, 1993). Lenny met Merlin in September 1976, and she moved in soon after. They lived at their Sixth Avenue residence until 2005, at which time they moved to Daytona Beach, Florida. Since Merlin’s death, Lenny continues to live in Daytona Beach.

  DR. GLORIA F. ORENSTEIN has just retired as Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies (Emerita) from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is the author of The Reflowering of the Goddess and The Theatre of the Marvelous: Surrealism and the Contemporary Stage and was co-editor of Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. In the seventies, she co-created the Woman’s Salon for Literature in New York City. Gloria has lectured widely on surrealism, ecofeminism, salon women, shamanism, and how the Goddess has been reclaimed by contemporary feminist artists and writers. She has also been a student of the Shaman of Samiland, in Lapland, Norway. Most recently she has written for In Wonderland, the book that accompanied the exhibition “In Wonderland,” on surrealist women artists who migrated from Europe to the Americas, where their work flourished. Now, in retirement, she says she continues to read about everything she wished had been taught in academia but was omitted from the curriculum—including lost civilizations and cosmic mysteries.

  DR. DAVID B. AXELROD was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, but settled on Long Island, New York, for forty years after his college studies. He holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MA from The Johns Hopkins University, an MFA from the University of Iowa, and a PhD from Union Institute. Best known as a poet, Dr. Axelrod is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards and author of twenty books of poetry. As a professor in the State University of New York system, he taught creative writing and ran conferences and visiting writers programs. In 1976, he founded Writers Unlimited Agency, Inc., a nonprofit writers cooperative, which he directed until 2009, when he turned the leadership over to his son, Daniel Axelrod, a professional journalist currently completing a PhD at the University of Florida. Dr. Axelrod’s three daughters continue to live and work professionally in the New York area. Since 2009, when he moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, he is the founder and director of the Creative Happiness Institute, Inc., a nonprofit, educational organization that presents programs in creative writing and alternative health.

  Llewellyn Publications

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Copyright Information

  Merlin Stone Remembered: Her Life and Works © 2014 by David B. Axelrod, Carol F. Thomas, Lenny Schneir, and Merlin Stone.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  First e-book edition © 2014

  E-book ISBN: 9780738744001

  Cover design by Ellen Lawson

  Cover photo courtesy of the estate of Merlin Stone

  Interior photos courtesy of the estate of Merlin Stone

  Color insert image: www.istockphoto.com/#16034084

  “Chapter 10: Unraveling the Myth of Adam and Eve” from When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone, copyright © 1976 by Merlin Stone. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House LLC for permission.

  Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Llewellyn Publications

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.llewellyn.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For Merlin Stone,

  a most remarkable woman.

  With profound and everlasting love.

  —Lenny

  “In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life,

  the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion,

  God was a woman. Do you remember?”

  —merlin stone, when god was a woman

  Merlin Stone, 1969.

  Contents

  Preface by Carol F. Thomas

  Editor’s Note by David B. Axelrod

  I Want to Love Your Wife by David B. Axelrod

  introduction: Transforming His/story into Her/story: Merlin Stone’s Dramatic Entrance onto the Stage of Our Story by Gloria F. Orenstein

  merlin stone timeline

 
; my life with merlin stone: a memoir by Lenny Schneir, as told to David B. Axelrod with Carol F. Thomas

  Poems by Lenny Schneir

  merlin in her own words: Excerpts from Talks and Articles selected by Lenny Schneir

  unraveling the myth of adam and eve, Chapter 10 from When God Was a Woman

  ancient mirrors of womanhood: A Reflection on the Poetic Genius of Merlin Stone by David B. Axelrod

  three thousand years of racism: Recurring Patterns in Racism by Merlin Stone

  unpublished writings by Merlin Stone

  the importance of merlin stone by Lenny Schneir, with David B. Axelrod

  merlin stone, artist and sculptor by David B. Axelrod

  i remember merlin by Cynthia Stone Davis

  a gallery of merlin stone photos and artifacts

  four color photo gallery

  a great sense of hope: letters to merlin stone

  the legacy of merlin stone: One Feminist’s View by Carol F. Thomas

  epilogue by Carol F. Thomas

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography and Works Cited

  Preface

  —Carol F. Thomas

  This book is lovingly dedicated to Merlin Stone—ardent feminist, artist, sculptor, art historian, persistent, tireless, and courageous traveler, researcher, writer, lecturer, and speaker. Merlin traveled the globe, alone, gathering material to explicate and illuminate what many scholars, psychologists, and historians have called “the biggest hoax” in the universe—the Adam and Eve creation story and the continuing biblical accounts of patriarchy, male dominance, and superiority and mastery as dictated by a father god. Although Stone’s observations were formulated in the context of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, she asks an enduring question in the preface to her first book, When God Was a Woman: “How did it actually happen? How did men initially gain the control that now allows them to regulate the world in matters as vastly diverse as deciding which wars will be fought … to what time dinner should be served?” (Stone, xi).

  In contemporary American culture, a majority of the population continues to believe in a divine father god who protects them, rewards their behavior, and provides them with a heavenly and eternal life. It was Merlin Stone who, through her hands-on archeological evidence and anthropological findings, revealed that there was an extremely complex socio-religious structure in which women were seen to be the autonomous creators of new life.

  Mary Daly published Beyond God the Father in 1973. She, along with other authors who called patriarchy into question, were part of a growing movement that encouraged Stone’s research to document just how much of our human history has been suppressed. Stone proved that the earliest civilizations considered the woman divine in her role as Goddess and mother of the world. The Goddess was understood to be the sacred, sole creator of human life; she was honored and revered. Later, when male-worshipping religions developed, they sought to erase from history the feminine leadership, perspective, and values that had existed for at least eight thousand years.

  As Gloria F. Orenstein explains in her introductory essay for Merlin Stone Remembered, Merlin definitively established that there were earlier matrilineal communities. The patriarchs, with their need for male dominance, competition, and tribal warfare, reduced women in every respect, rendering them disenfranchised, unwanted “others.” Though much progress has been made since Merlin wrote her groundbreaking books, male “mastery” still continues to this day in corporate and religious institutions.

  In her exhumation of women’s history, Stone illuminates the crucially important female contributions to the development of humanity that patriarchy has attempted to obliterate. Where is the desire to create nonviolent communities, countries, nations, and peoples? What happened to the wisdom, stateswomanship, intuition, understanding, nurturing, and love that were evidenced in matriarchal societies?

  In 1976, Merlin Stone completed a thorough and extensive investigation to discern if the human condition was doomed to the ongoing delusions of divine male protection. Stone’s research suggests another way—a way to understand our relation to ourselves, one another, and the planet Earth. The planet—skies, water, soil, and all its inhabitants—is in jeopardy. We need a new origin story inclusive of innovative visions of science, spirituality, human community, and especially gender equality.

  At a time when our planet is threatened by various destructive forces, Merlin Stone offers an invitation to discover the tragic transition from matriarchy to patriarchy. There is an alternative way to understand the human condition—cooperative, compassionate, mutually respectful, creative, and inclusive—rewriting the biblical script.

  Merlin Stone, long before anyone else dared to suggest that our planet and our very lives were in danger, submitted the need for the gathered wisdom of women of the world to transform our cultures with true planetary and ecological consciousness. Her core values focused on wisdom, knowledge, the tools and paths to autonomy, freedom from oppression, and the courage and conviction to claim one’s own voice based on life experiences. May this book remind you of the Goddess in all her diverse manifestations and bring you to an even greater appreciation of the work of Merlin Stone.

  [contents]

  Editor’s Note

  —David B. Axelrod

  When my good friend Lenny Schneir asked if I would help with a speech he promised to give at a ceremony to commemorate his life partner, Merlin Stone, I was happy to help. He told me that he had never given a speech. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to more than seven people at a time in my entire life,” he said.

  After a great success before an audience of nearly one hundred women—many of whom were well-known feminists—Len was inspired to tell his personal story about his life with Merlin. They were as close as any couple could be for thirty-four years. Thus, Len sat and told me story after story. He wrote his notes and together we assembled his memoir.

  Thereafter, he asked me to help him compile a book that would celebrate the life and work of Merlin Stone. Understand, however, that I never got to meet Merlin. She passed away just one month before I met Len at a poetry workshop. In fact, Len first got to know me as a poet, then a friend, and when he learned that I also had worked as a professional author in other forms—academic articles, journalism, nonfiction, fiction—he put me to work on this book.

  I am also aware of what an honor it is that I have been given the task of shaping this book. I have three daughters, which, in and of itself, requires me to be a feminist. Not that I need to be “required,” as my entire life as a student of literature and a poet has been devoted to observing, recording, and empathizing with the human condition—and more pointedly the conditions under which women live and struggle.

  As a last word, I’d like to explain the inclusion of various poems in this book. When Merlin contemplated her own mortality, she expressed herself in poetry. In the second of her books on the Goddess, she wrote more than forty poems that are prayers in honor of the Goddess. When I first met Len, he was in mourning for Merlin, and the poem he presented at the workshop was entitled “The Eternal Grief Hotel,” which expressed his deep despair. We have included some of his poems in the book, which I regard as an extension of his memoir. Carol F. Thomas, a lifelong feminist author and professor, has always expressed herself through poetry. We feel poetry to be an integral part of life, and thus including poems here is equally central to the purpose of this book. In that spirit, and as a professional poet, I am including a poem of my own, “I Want to Love Your Wife,” written shortly after I met Lenny in the spring of 2011. It is one more way for me to thank Len for allowing me to celebrate the work of Merlin Stone. Not long into our friendship, I learned that Merlin and Lenny had been life partners and had not married. Still, I’ve kept the original title—believing that they could not have been any closer in their relationship than any husband and wife.

  I Want t
o Love Your Wife

  This poem was written by David B. Axelrod for Lenny Schneir in honor of Merlin Stone.

  I never met her but

  I want to love her

  at least a little, for you,

  my new friend, were

  her friend, her fan, her

  worshipper, married to her

  for thirty-four years

  before illness first

  weakened her, rendered

  her mute, then stole her

  from you. When I

  search her name

  four million links appear.

  She was famous,

  gorgeous, brilliant,

  which you can prove

  to me with clippings

  in albums, books she

  wrote, even her resonant

  voice responding to

  an interviewer on CD.

  I have to love your wife

  or we can’t be friends.

  Not that you’ve compelled

  me. Not that you’ve

  aimed some figurative gun,

  but, in fact, her studies of

  Goddesses are what I

  might read for fun

  and also, when I learn

  to love your wife,

  it will teach that

  male-chauvinist bastard,

  Death, that he can’t win.

  [contents]

  Introduction

  Merlin Stone, circa 1991.

  Transforming His/story into Her/story:

  Merlin Stone’s Dramatic Entrance

  onto the Stage of Our Story

  by Gloria F. Orenstein

  Professor Emerita, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

  A s a professor of women’s studies, gender studies, comparative literature, and the arts for the past forty years, I was privileged to have lived through and participated in the birth of the feminist Goddess movement. Whenever people outside of academia and the women’s movement ask me, “Gloria, after all you have lived through and learned, what do you think is the most important contribution this research has made to your own understanding, knowledge, and life so far?” I am taken aback because it is such a difficult question to answer. There have been so many contributions made through research and activism that one cannot prioritize them. However, I can say, definitively, that Merlin Stone’s book When God Was a Woman had the most profound impact on my teaching and writing—on all that I was involved in since its publication in 1976.