New Evolutionary Landscapes

The Mountain Path, or New Evolutionary Landscapes

by Jeremy Johnson

Excerpt: We've fragmented our consciousness. But in a more multi-dimensional vision of human evolution, perhaps to fragment is also to venture towards a new whole.

Evolutionary cycles tend to go through relatively stable periods, followed by chaotic extinctions, from which life bounces back in new complex wholes.

It may be that the cosmos has a universe pull, a natural tendency to work in such an archetypal pattern of expansion and contraction. Teilhard believed it was the force of love that pulled us into greater complexity and consciousness, the force of the future itself, tugging life like the moon does the sea. Perhaps in the mind of an angel, the future and the past are not divided by the linear arrow of human time, but instead overlap and fold upon each other so that they are interpenetrating and intersecting at infinity. The eternal and the temporal are woven right into each other, so that our dimension is merely nested in infinity.

In the course of human evolution, many of us are theorizing and speaking about "evolving ourselves." But if we want to dance with the angels on the head of a pin, we are going to have to begin to think like angels ourselves. How are we going to speak of multidimensionality without beginning to at least open up to it?

Read More @ Single Eye Movement

The Psychology of Spirituality

The Psychology of Spirituality

by Dr. Stephen Diamond

Christmas is once more upon us, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Chanukkah too has started, celebrating a miraculous event occurring centuries before Christ (who, as a Jew, presumably celebrated Chanukkah) was born. Both--despite their commercialism--are prominent religious holidays in the Judeo-Christian tradition. So perhaps this is an apropos time of year to reflect here on the psychology of spirituality and religion.

Psychologically speaking, religion is conceived, created and perpetuated by virtually every culture throughout history to provide meaning, comfort and succor in the face of the stark, disturbing, anxiety-provoking existential facts of life: suffering, misfortune, meaninglessness, isolation, insecurity, disease, evil, loss, and ultimately, death. The impressive longevity, ubiquity and tenacity of religion in human affairs attests to its relative efficacy in this regard. Religion may be further understood as a means of seeking to acknowledge, comprehend and honor the "numinous" aspects of existence: fate; destiny; mystery; wonder, beauty or awe; the irrepressible powers of nature; the perception of some intelligent and loving grand design in the universe; the organic interrelatedness of all things; the insignificance and impermanence of the personal ego and transcendent immensity of the cosmic, transpersonal or spiritual realm beyond both ego and material reality; and the ineffable yet transformative subjective experience of oneness with the cosmos and its creator. Religion traditionally provides a container, language, symbolism, and structure for such archetypal spiritual experiences.

Read More Here: Psychology Today

Cultivating Postformal Adult Development

Cultivating Postformal Adult Development: Higher Stages and Contrasting Interventions

By William R. Torbert

As this chapter will discuss, the practice of action inquiry and the Vedic/TM method are the only two educational interventions that have empirically been shown to facilitate adult developmental transformation beyond formal operations. The primary concern of this chapter is to present experiential tastes, theoretical outlines, and empirical findings of the action inquiry approach to adult learning, adult development, and leadership.

The Vedic/TM approach and the empirical research relating to it is well discussed in Alexander's chapter in this volume and will be reviewed only briefly later in this chapter in order to compare its educational process and documented outcomes to the action inquiry approach.

The action inquiry approach to adult learning, development, and leadership is to integrate inquiry into action, rather than separating them into reflection, on the one hand, and action, on the other hand-into "ivory tower" vs. "real world." On a personal scale, this implies an attempt to widen and deepen one's awareness meditatively in the very midst of one's workaday action. On an interpersonal scale, integrating action and inquiry implies speaking in ways that simultaneously assert, illustrate, and inquire into others' responses.

On an organizational scale, integrating action with inquiry results in the creation and re-creation of liberating structures that simultaneously increase participants' awareness, empowerment, and productivity . On all three scales, the action inquiry approach is intended to invite reframing of assumptions and developmental transformation at appropriate moments.

Read More : Here

SOURCE: In Miller, M. & Cook-Greuter, S. (Ed.s), 1994. "Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood", Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 181-203

Sperber and Hirschfeld on Culture, Cognition and Evolution

Culture, Cognition, and Evolution

By Dan Sperber & Lawrence Hirschfeld

Most work in the cognitive sciences focuses on the manner in which an individual device -- be it a mind, a brain, or a computer -- processes various kinds of information. Cognitive psychology in particular is primarily concerned with individual thought and behavior. Individuals however belong to populations. This is true in two quite different senses. Individual organisms are members of species and share a genome and most phenotypic traits with the other members of the same species. Organisms essentially have the cognitive capacities characteristic of their species, with relatively superficial individual variations. In social species, individuals are also members of groups. An important part of their cognitive activity is directed toward other members of the group with whom they cooperate and compete. Among humans in particular, social life is richly cultural. Sociality and culture are made possible by cognitive capacities, contribute to the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of these capacities, and provide specific inputs to cognitive processes.

Although population-level phenomena influence the development and implementation of cognition at the individual level, relevant research on these phenomena has not been systematically integrated within the cognitive sciences. In good part, this is due to the fact that these issues are approached by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, working within quite different research traditions. To the extent that researchers rely on methodological and theoretical practices that are sometimes difficult to harmonize (e.g., controlled laboratory versus naturalistic observations), the influence of these insights across disciplines and traditions of research is often unduly limited, even on scholars working on similar problems. Moreover, one of the basic notions that should bring together these researchers, the very notion of culture, is developed in radically different ways, and is, if anything, a source of profound disagreements.

Read More: Here

Reflections of an Integral Theory Student - Part 3

The “Crazy” Creative Ideas of an ONLINE Integral Theory Student at JFKU - Part 3 ©

By Giorgio Piacenza Cabrera

Accompanying my undertaking of Integral Theory courses online through JFK University, I experienced insights, questions, and variations on the usual themes touched in those courses. If you already are conversant with Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, you might find this collection of reflections intellectually provocative and productive.

On An Unrecognized But Crucial “SHADOW”…

For spiritual transformation, for becoming more Integral, its (validly I think) in vogue to work with our shadows, with repressed aspects from previous stages of individual development. Yet, by observing the modern and post modern biases within many in the Integral Community, I’ve come to see that there’s something wrong and forgotten in the theory of psychological developmentalism normally espoused. I call it the “Inter Stage ‘Content’ Shadow” (or ISCS for short).

Let’s see…It’s easier, less challenging to move from stage to stage holding on to 3rd person concepts than in 1st person experiential content. The content I’m writing about is also cultural-stage related. This content represents meaningful 1st person experiences and discoveries typical of each stage and, when moving to a higher or more inclusive stage, is quite often repressed, thus becoming a shadow, an “inter-stage content shadow.”

The negative or freedom limiting side of the conceptual framework of a previous stage is overcome and transcended in the higher, more conceptually inclusive stage but the specifics of the experiential content is quite often more easily dealt with by repressing it. The healthy transcendence and incorporation/inclusion of is easier first with 3rd person, more impersonal “it” concepts. Content is often included as a repressed shadow, a taboo, a no-no. In fact, this is why “psychical research” and related parapsychological, subtle. Alternative phenomena are suppressed within the scientific and post modern stages.

Being a participant in certain modern-post modern cultures that still hold on to pre modern traditions may assist (even conceptual and ethical Second Tier individuals) in including some of the actual experiential contents of pre-modern stages. An Integral individual that has a pervasive bias or distaste for the value of genuine spirit communication (characteristic of pre modern stages) may not be sufficiently Integral in 1st person terms. An individual that characterizes all miraculous phenomena of the Mythic-Amber stage as only serving a useful social function is not choosing to be as impartial and objective as a modern thinker ought to be because there simply are occasional phenomena that a prosaic scientific explanation cannot deal with. These individuals hold shadows and as long as they do, their Integral life projects will be incomplete (and maybe even dangerously so). By pretending to be the forefront guiding force in cultural stage development they could also perpetuate a form of forgetfulness of all of the creative manifestations of Spirit, a forgetfulness as evil in the long run as the political and human abuses committed by the Churches in times past. For instance we know that Amber churches burned spirit communicants at the stake.

Nonetheless, in spite of the errors, abuse, mistakes and other blindness of the Amber cultural stage, is there room in Integral Theory to recognize Second or Third Tier knowledge encoded by the highest intuitive Intellect in First Tier Myths and dogmas?

The same goes for Post Modern thinkers who –as Wilber rightly points out- are engaged in a reductionist, monological, flattening war against the ideals of order and wisdom of the Orange-Modern and the Amber stages. Maybe this kind of inter stage shadow, having lived so long, having been revived for so long under different kinds of prejudices, is a really serious problem that humanity needs to become aware of heal and transcend if there’s ever any hope of fulfilling the most Integral and loving human potential in the –hopefully- emerging “Integral Age” or thereafter.

As individuals entering the Integral Stage of understanding it would be indolence to pick and choose what we want to include of the experiential wisdom disclosed in previous stages, if we deny any genuine, firsthand experience of the specific contents. To be a truly healing force in the world (and also in the long run) we need to put an end to the bias against first person spiritual experiences of pre modern stages. We shouldn’t limit the Integral Vision to become accepted as soon as possible into the academic, political, scientific world by perpetuating a denial of vital aspects of the Cosmos’ ontological Exterior and Interior meaningful expressions that aren’t not just (as simplistically said) eternally pre-given ‘out there’ but in actual dynamic evolutionary and involutionary relation even with what Post Metaphysical Pluralism considers as ‘creating grooves’ in the emerging, evolutionary process (as with partialness seen from the bottom up and from the exteriors-inwards). The whole situation is far more complex and beautiful and vital for all sentients than the pathetic over simplifications orthodoxically generated in regards to the significant inter-realm relations that our elegant (and otherwise truly promising) “Integral Theory” accommodated in its structure.

On The “Three Eyes” of Knowledge…

Can the "Three Eyes of knowledge" be used to disclose knowledge objectively manifesting in the gross and subtle worlds? Can we use the “cogitatio Eye” (the eye of the flesh) in an expanded sense (not just as an “eye” of the physical body but as an “eye” of the exterior, objective quadratic aspects of the Subtle Body, its exterior envelope-body-vehicle of energy)? Can we use the Subtle Cogitatio Eye for disclosing the objective aspects of the Subtle Realm (even with Integral Methodological Pluralism)?

Quite often it seems that the Subtle World has been diminished or reduced to its interior emotional aspects in the general discussions. There’s a lot of truth to it since through feeling we also sense subtle energies (and proportionally more because a higher ontological realm possesses a greater degree of Interiority than Exteriority than a Gross Realm which is further “away” from the Source in a relative, apparent and contingent sense). Nevertheless, there’s also an objective (albeit more adaptable or less strictly patterned) exteriority in the Subtle ontological realm and this needs to be integrally acknowledged and even scientifically explored.

Also, since the “Meditatio” Eye (the Eye of the Mind) can be used to disclose the mathematical and lawful patterns behind the Gross Realm it can be used to better understand in an intelligible way the Subtle Realm and the Causal Realm. Then again, the “Contemplatio” Eye (the Eye of Contemplation) can be used to experience in a spiritual way the beauty and sweetness, the unity, love and wonder immanent and transcending each Realm.

As INTEGRAL experiencers, intellects; as individuals with (several) bodies, (several levels of) minds and one spirit, we must incorporate San Bonaventure’s traditional view into a more inclusive and higher integrated view to embrace all the levels of reality open to the possibility of functioning with our “three eyes” throughout the Kosmic spectrum. Not doing so is remaining in the shadows in spite of our intellectual and technological achievements and, in spite of the great theoretical and practical promises of Integral Theory as it stands now.

On Wilber 5...

Is “Wilber 5” a stage previous to a higher integration that once again will include more of the essential teachings behind the almost abandoned project of remembering the forgotten knowledge and bringing the Sophia Perennis/Perennial Philosophy back to humanity? Do certain (now “post Metaphysically” disdained) realities exist in actuality at their own ontological level but only potentially for us until we disclose them, while the way we disclose them and interpret them at a specific altitude then becomes a unique co-creation (perhaps a more Integral middle ground position between the suppositions behind a strict Post Metaphysical Myth of the Given Constructivism and absolutely independent pre-existence)? Again, what is not disclosed interpretatively under human methodology and within an altitude does it exist in actuality at its own level but only in a potential way for us?

Moreover, in a holonic Kosmos in which the polarity of part and whole interplays, we can deduce that other ontological levels are required if there are Interior-Exterior-Single and Plural aspects in every occasion or manifestation. Whether they are understood as static or dynamic, as 'eternally pre-given' or as evolving is another matter. There's also potentiality and explicitness between the interior and the exterior the single and the plural, thus involution and evolution can interplay.

What does exist if it is not disclosed by human methodology? How can Wilber 5 and AQAL integrate the experimentally and methodologically and collectively shared disclosures that –for instance- genuine Instrumental Transcommunication seems to elicit in relation to specifics about life conditions in the sub divisions within the Subtle Realm ?

I think that Ken Wilber has not been careful enough in his –otherwise- wholesome writings in relation to the highly important, emotionally charged, feared, avoided fanaticized-over and unavoidably integrally fundamental concept of “Metaphysics.” There’s a confusion between "Metaphysics" (as Aristotle's writings placed AFTER his writings on physics), "Metaphysics" (as related to experientiable contingent realms of existence that transcend the physical realm), “Metaphysics” as wild speculation about otherworldly things, and "Metaphysics" (as the study of ultimate rational causes and the study of the essential nature of things).

On States As Vehicles for Actualization…

Perhaps States also bring with them the possibility of knowing the wider relationships that exist between realms and can assist us in using the “three eyes of knowledge” more completely in order to disclose and simultaneously actualize into our concrete Gross experience and exterior patterns the Interior reality of more outwardly expressive, inclusive or subtler realms (regardless of the realm where our particular exterior or objective body is operating). States may also be Integral to the way in which the degree of ontological reality and the degree of externalized structures in these realities relate to each other across levels, or, in other words, how the fabric of creation is woven together… but this is a serious matter for further discussion later on.

On A New Kind of Lattice…

With a similar pattern as the one in the Wilber-Combs Lattice, I’m proposing a “lattice” for knowledge:

The 3 “eyes of knowledge” X 3 basic expressions of reality (Gross, Subtle and Causal) = 9 basic ways of acquiring knowledge about reality. This means that the “cogito” or the eye once limited to “the flesh” could be used for Gross exteriority, Subtle Exteriority and Causal Exteriority. This also means that the “meditatio” or “eye of the mind” could be used for understanding the information patterns associated with the Gross, the Subtle and the Causal. Finally, the “contemplatio” or “eye of Spirit” could be used to experience in first person the immanence of Spirit in the Gross (for instance as in nature mysticism), the Subtle and the Causal. Then, a complete non-dual integration in understanding would be possible by experiencing all “eyes” as elements of one Spirit, our highest Self that would simultaneously transcend every possible object of knowledge beyond the Causally-defined, Subtly-defined and Grossly-defined parameters of contingency.

Blended Stages of Development

Blended Cultural Stages in Today’s World and Individual Development
By Giorgio Piacenza

Ken Wilber usually states that every individual must go through stages of development one step at a time. I think that developmental psychologists have shown that this is generally true. Nonetheless, I also think that individuals are very much affected in the way they go through these stages by their cultures (which, among other things, offer support and challenge) and nowadays cultural codes are more mixed than ever before. Today's living cultures are not clearly distinguishable or definable anymore; they are blending and they are also blending stage-wise.

We can also quite evidently say that there are few isolated cultures not affected by modernity's “critical mindset.” Also, as the number of separate cultures diminish, all kinds of ideas, belief systems, myths, codes and paradigms circulate and the modern and globalized system -generally speaking- acts like a framework that supporting them all (as long as the ideas, values and codes of particular cultural groups are not extremely challenged by the modern system in which case an uncomfortable coexistence leads to suppression, oppression and aggression).

My thesis is that the way individuals go through their developmental stages is being modified by these globalized, culturally mixed conditions. For instance, predominantly Red stage, self centered individuals may be conversant with ecology, modern rational methods, local religious myths and so on. With a minimum level of cognition, he or she may adapt to a variety of cultural values, expectations and even demonstrate proficiency in some of the practices and ways of being not representative of Red stage of development. The same would apply for individuals that could be primarily defined as focused upon Amber, Orange and Green stage or ways of being in the world.

So what I am observing here is that the separation between the stages may not be as clear as suggested or apparently emphasized in the world as it is today. The concept of 'less intensely interiorized or lived' 'combined stages' may need to be taken into consideration more actively even in the ethical line of development or ethical mode of being in the world. If the lines of development related with self identity can also be more affected than previously supposed by the multi-stage cultural influences simultaneously present in the world today then the classification of who is primarily in what stage would need to be re-thought, revised, and remodeled carefully. What does it mean when the values associated with any stage are not taken too seriously anymore? Is the world producing 'light' individuals? Is the world producing individuals with less convictions but capable of adopting 'chameleon-like' any set of values adaptively?

Read More Here: Integral World