Ivy Oneita Duce

Background

Ivy Duce was born on the 25th of February, 1895 in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, the only child of an engineer who worked for the inventor Thomas Edison.

Education

Ivy O. Duce was a classically-trained soprano, but later she decided to study law. However, America entered the First World War before she completed her legal training.

Career

When America entered the First World War, Ivy went to France as a volunteer for the Red Cross. After the war, she spent two years traveling in South America as a representative for an international bank.

Returning to New York, she became an editor for Century magazine. With her husband's involvement and wide influence in international business, she became a diplomatic hostess to heads of state, ambassadors and public figures in the United States and Europe. From 1941 onward, Ivy Duce became closely associated with Rabia Martin and was initiated into the Sufi Order, along with her teenage daughter, Charmian. She was the leader (murshida) of the Sufi Order in 1947-81.

It was back in 1942 that Rabia Martin first heard of Meher Baba from Norina Matchabelli and Elizabeth Patterson. For the next three years, she gathered as much information as she could about his life and work and she studied it deeply. In the spring of 1945, she traveled from San Francisco to spend several months with Norina and Elizabeth in New York City and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. During this period, her conviction that Meher Baba was the Avatar deepened and she felt it was critically important to share this conviction with Ivy Duce.

In the summer of 1945, Rabia Martin revealed to Ivy Duce her knowledge about Meher Baba's presence on earth and her conviction that he was a divine being – the living Avatar. Through Rabia's loving influence Ivy, too, became associated with and friends with Norina and Elizabeth. Urged by Rabia, she began to read Meher Baba's books, messages, and discourses. Ivy opened herself to Baba's internal guidance and began to experience his spiritual presence and his divine love.

Ivy Duce's sound recordings include "The One Real Death, Big Sur Recordings" and "Three Talks, Searchlight Seminars" (Walnut Creek, CA) in 1978. Also, she worked briefly as an operatic singer and for the magazine Century.

Ivy’s first book “What Am I Doing Here?” was published in 1966. She wrote, “How a Master Works, Sufism Reoriented” in 1975. In 1981 with James Mackie she wrote two books “Gurus and Psychotherapists: Spiritual versus Psychological Learning” and “Conversations with a Western Guru: The Termination of the Golden Age of the Ego and the Beginning of Spiritual Awareness” in 1981. Duce also wrote "All about Sufism Reoriented" in 1977 and "Meher Baba and the Sufis".

Achievements

• Ivy Duce was the first Murshida, or spiritual guide, of Sufism Reoriented, an American school of spiritual training established by Meher Baba.

Works

More photos

• book

  • How A Master Works

    (How A Master Works is the chronological story of one woma...)

    1975
  • Gurus and Psychotherapists: Spiritual Versus Psychological Learning 1981

Connections

Ivy Duce was married to James Terry Duce, an American geologist, she had met in South America, who later became an oil executive for the Arabian-American Oil Company. Six years later, their daughter, Charmian, was born.

husband:

James Terry Duce

Terry Duce was an accomplished engineer, businessman, and world traveler.

Daughter:

Charmian Duce