An intelligence opens in the space between us — one that none of us holds alone.
Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger call it Interbeing, and the practice that reaches it Emergent Dialogue. They have developed it together over thirty years, and seen it open collective awakenings again and again. The book they are writing shares both the vision and the practice; this page is an introduction, with excerpts from the draft.
Read on ↓
Where there is danger
“Where there is danger,” the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin wrote, “a saving force also grows.” In the early 1800s, the danger was real and present: the French Revolution had descended into terror and mass violence and Napoleon was on course to crown himself emperor, soon to bring bloodshed across the continent. But to Hölderlin, the danger ran deeper than all of this. He could already sense the loss of connection with all of creation that the modern world was bringing. The abundant beauty of Nature was being put under the microscope to dissect and extract what could be used. No longer did the creatures of Earth shine with divine presence—the mystery of aliveness—they were seen as nothing more than mechanized matter. The sense of meaning was draining from the world. To borrow Hölderlin's language: the gods had taken flight.
From the introduction to the draft.
Perhaps, though, it had to get to this point. “Life changes itself only when it needs to,” says the late evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris. This is the saving force. Life leaps beyond danger to make the continuation of life possible. Sahtouris points to a critical moment in the evolution of life on Earth when oxygen was filling the atmosphere and poisoning the bacteria that are our oldest ancestors. A leap happened: bacteria combined as they never had before and formed the cells that then made possible multi-cellular organisms, including us. Countless leaps later, here we are. Danger is present and the saving force grows.
This book is about the saving force that is emerging now. No longer about bacteria coming together to form cells, this saving force is about human beings coming together to create a new way of being, knowing, and loving out of the wholeness that we all are part of. Human beings have participated in the emergences of salvatory power in times past; we experience them as sacred, as the most meaningful of experiences. This time is no less so. Participation in this emergence is an engagement in the creative unfolding of life, together. It happens through the evocative power of language, in an emergent dialogue.
From the introduction to the draft. One paragraph is omitted between the passages above; the text is otherwise verbatim.
The space between
There are moments when most of us feel the presence of something in between. Entering a cathedral lit by emerald, ruby, and sapphire stained glass and fragrant with incense, a quiet falls. … Or the hush that falls as the curtain rises and the intensity of an entire audience's attention in the gap before the first note is played sends a thrill up the spine. Or the inner slowing down that happens during walks through the forest, giving rise to a sense, somehow, of being home. Or the infinite peace that abides at the death bed of a dearly loved one who is taking her last breaths.
Space is not empty — it holds the imaginal. Between human beings, space holds intelligence, information, knowledge, relatedness. … Interbeing is the living presence of the space between. Even more precisely, Interbeing is the space between becoming self-aware through us.
From chapter two of the draft. … marks omitted sentences; quoted text is verbatim.
Like the light
Right now, you are somewhere — at your desk, sitting on a chair or sofa, at home or in a café or on a bus or… wherever. Is there light where you are? You have been in the presence of the light probably without being aware of it. As soon as you read these words and look around you, your awareness of the light changes. Something widens, opens. Nothing has changed — the light didn't do anything. But your awareness now holds the light, which makes it somehow more sensible, more present.
Interbeing is like the light: so present, so close that we rarely are aware of it.
From chapter two of the draft.
Why it matters
The claim is that there is a form of intelligence available between people that is not available to any of them alone — one that can hold real difference without collapsing it, and real unity without flattening it.
That matters because most of what we face now cannot be thought through alone. It is also, quite simply, one of the more alive things a person can be part of. Emergent Dialogue is the practice of getting there on purpose rather than by luck: in board rooms, work teams, community councils, spiritual sanctuaries — any place where a genuine synergy of perspectives is wanted rather than a negotiated average.
The people
Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger founded evolve World and evolve magazine in 2013, and have spent thirty years developing Emergent Dialogue as a practice — a living dialogue field, in their words, for co-creating the future of an open society.
Thomas (1962–2025) was a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, who taught practices of collective emergence at Meridian University. Elizabeth, a developmental psychologist, now continues the work, and is completing their book.
Dr. Elizabeth Debold is a developmental psychologist, author, editor of evolve Magazine and co-founder of the Emergent Interbeing dialogue practice. She received her doctorate in Human Development from Harvard University with a focus on the relation between culture and gender. She has appeared on national US and international media, such as Oprah, NPR, Good Morning Australia, for the groundbreaking research on women’s psychology and girls’ development that she was part of. Elizabeth was Academic Director of the Conscious Evolution Master’s program at The Graduate Institute and has taught at Meridian University. She now co-leads evolve World, the public face of a German charitable education association, where she teaches practices of emergence and collective transformation.
Dr. Thomas Steininger was publisher of evolve Magazine, philosopher, spiritual and cultural thinker and co-founder of the Emergent Interbeing dialogue work. He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna with a special focus on consciousness issues and social evolution. He worked for Austrian radio (Ö1) and as a freelance journalist. Thomas taught at the Master’s Program for “Conscious Evolution” at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut/USA in collaboration with Don Beck, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Allan Combs and others. He was co-director of evolve World and hosted the web radio Radio evolve. Thomas lectured internationally and gave seminars, trainings and retreats on emergent consciousness and cultural development.
Being written now
Interbeing and the Practice of Emergent Dialogue, by Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger, is not yet published. The draft shared here is the first, contextual part; an exploration of Emergent Dialogue as a practice of Interbeing will follow.
An occasional note about the book and the practice. Nothing more.