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Emanuel is the founder of various large-scale movements. He is also an entrepreneur, writer, journalist, philosopher, philanthropist, quantum physicist, and activist for social transformation who has had many lived encounters with spiritual masters. Emanuel founded Greenheart International in 1985, and is the co-founder of Fundación por el Futuro in Madrid, Spain, serving as President since 1995. He is the founding co-creator of the Global Purpose Movement and Purpose Earth, and a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle. His most current project is developing the theory of the Holomovement as a movement to unite humanity through our collective purpose.
Emanuel Kuntzelman: This is flash forward a few years later after the professor hadn't given us the lecture and I was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris at the time. I had one particular course in the sociology of French theater, which I was really enjoying. The teacher in that course gave us an assignment, and again, it was a paper for the whole course. We had several choices to choose from, but I chose the topic of explaining and analyzing the use of irony between Voltaire and a Romanian French-speaking playwright named Eugene Ionesco.
Whom we had been studying. Ionesco was an early 20th-century abstract playwright, and then, of course, Voltaire. But they were both, in their own ways, kind of funny and ironic about trying to deal with the absurdities of their times in different ways. Anyway, in the end, I decided to write a conversation between Voltaire and Ionesco.
And I got very, very involved in this. I read everything I could about both of them, the use of irony, and it was the two of them talking to each other. In the ways that I thought they would have as people, and also trying to be funny, ironic, insightful, bringing out the spirit of irony in both Voltaire and Ionesco. I remember I gave it to a friend of mine who was in the same class.
Showed him the paper. And he said, this is the most brilliant, hilarious thing I've ever read in my life. I mean, I spent so much time on this. I mean, I was obsessed with it.
I'd sit there with my French dictionary, oh, I need a pun here for this explanation, and trying to figure it out. I mean, I gave my whole heart and soul to that paper. I was so excited about it. And then the day finally came when we got the papers back.
The teacher's handing them out, and then she gets to me and she goes, Mr. Kuntzelman, you'll need to stay after class and come up to speak to me about this paper. Okay, well enough. So I go up there, she puts the paper in the desk.
Big red marks on it. It said, this paper is not acceptable in the academic tradition of French. University and I can't accept it, it needs to be rewritten. And I tried to argue with her, I said, isn't this the point of this education that I'm supposed to understand Voltaire and the UNESCO and do this?
Doesn't this demonstrate that I put in an awful lot of work? And a lot of loving care and maybe understand something about the topic, isn't that the point? And the answer was no, that it had to be done in proper academic procedures with footnotes and the whole thing. The paper was absurd in itself, and unacceptable.
And I walked out of there, and my friend, who'd read the paper, was there waiting for me, and I explained to him what had happened. He said, oh, that is really a bummer. That's unbelievable. That is so unfair.
I can't imagine that. Your paper was great. What are you gonna do? And we were sitting there in the Luxembourg Gardens.
And I said, well, I've come to a decision. I'm going to quit school. And he said, well, let's not...
Paulette Pipe: You.
Emanuel Kuntzelman: Drastic life-changing decisions. I know you're kind of bummed out and all that kind of thing, but don't ruin your whole life. We're a few weeks to the end of the term here and everything's good. And I said, yeah, no, but that's it.
I've been wanting to go on a spiritual search anyway. This has proven to me. I need to get my own education in my own way, and this isn't working, and it's taking up my time and energy, and I'm quitting school. And he said, Well, you just give it a day or two, think it over.
And I said, No, no, actually, I'm gonna quit school right now, so I don't change my mind.
Paulette Pipe: Yeah.
Emanuel Kuntzelman: So anyway, we went back to the apartment. I packed my backpack. He accompanied me down to the metro stop, and I said, tell the dean, tell the people that I was last seen disappearing into the Rue de Bach metro, and I'm on my way for my spiritual search, and I'll see you at the next crossroads.