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

Visser on Wilber’s Views of Evolution

From Integral World:

The 'Spirit of Evolution' Reconsidered: Relating Ken Wilber's view of spiritual evolution to the current evolution debates

by Frank Visser

“In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious.” - John Stuart Mill

How should Ken Wilber's stance on evolutionary theory and neo-Darwinism be evaluated? Evolution is a central concept in Wilber's oeuvre as evidenced by expressions such as: "The Spirit of Evolution", "Evolution as Spirit-in-Action" and "Evolutionary Spirituality". For Wilber, evolution is a spiritual phenomenon, both guided by as well as heading towards Spirit. Yet, in mainstream evolutionary theory, the term "evolution" has quite different connotations. Does integral theory have a substantial contribution to make to the subject of evolutionary theory or is it merely producing metaphors that provide meaning and significance for those in search of an uplifting philosophy of life?

Read More: Here

Vitan and the New Age

Vitvan and the School of the Natural Order: New Age Culture with a Do It Yourself Ethic

by Daniel Gustav Anderson

Author's Note: This is a paper I presented at the 2010 Western Literature Association conference in Prescott, Arizona, USA. I think it offers some ways to advance the conversation in integral studies by considering some paths not yet taken, rather than strictly “new” developments: first, to see ways in which integral theory as we know it now relates to the older but still demonstrably “modern” tradition of New Age thought and practice, and more specifically still, to reflect on the contributions made by the great American yogin Ralph Moriarity de Bit, who taught under the name Vitvan and founded the School of the Natural Order. The School persists today at the Home Farm in Baker, Nevada, USA, and also online (www.sno.org), presenting a way of learning that in my judgment has much to offer contemporary researchers in integral studies, integral theory, noetic studies, bioregionalism, ecocriticism, and those interested in cultural life of the North American West. –D.G.A.

In the English-speaking world, the term “New Age” connotes a spectrum of practices and belief systems that are first held to be alternative to dominant or mainstream canons of value, and second more appropriate to contemporary conditions and future growth: hence the name, New Age. Inclusive of its analogues and antecedents, such as spiritism, automatic writing, and Theosophy, New Age practices, doctrines, and communities have been features of the popular-literary, spiritual, and material landscapes of the North American West since before the First World War. One might go so far as to say that New Age is a cultural form indigenous to the American West: this identity of Western places with New Age practices is reflected metonymically in our everyday speech as well as our cultural criticism, as in Michel Foucault's considerations on the “Californian cult of the self” and Slavoj Zizek's dismissal of “Western Buddhism.” You can get my meaning here with a thought experiment: here in Arizona, when your sister tells you that your niece has dropped out of business school at Arizona State and moved to Sedona, what assumptions do you automatically, even unfairly, make just on the basis of that sliver of information?

This paper proposes to consider the writings of Vitvan (birth name: Ralph Moriarity de Bit), who lived from 1883 through 1964, in the context of his itinerant teaching practice and establishment of more or less stable centers of New Age learning in the West, particularly the School of the Natural Order, and primarily in California, Colorado, and especially Nevada, where the school persists today. Vitvan presented his teachings as appropriate to a New Age and hence understandable only to a select few of his contemporaries, and in its synthesis of Shaktism, astrology, Protestant Christianity, and popularized science, it is clearly recognizable as a New Age teaching in contemporary terms. However, Vitvan's pedagogy is unique among other New Age doctrines in its vigorous attempts at very precise conceptual rigor—Vitvan reorganized his teaching in midlife around the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski—and further, Vitvan's community is unique in that it refused to unquestioningly engage in mainstream consumer capitalist exchange, preferring to self-publish comb-bound volumes instead of the mass-produced paperbacks and other media so typical of the seeker scene of the 1970s and the good-living industry for which Oprah Winfrey still serves as a spokesmodel today. This D.I.Y. ethic sets Vitvan and the School of the Natural Order apart from cognate New Age projects, and anticipates certain of its contemporary themes by some decades.

Read More at Integral World

Organicism, AQAL and Integral Theory

Organicism 
By Giorgio Piacenza Cabrera

Abstract: This paper presents Archie J. Bahm’s “Organicism” as a Second Tier Metatheory based upon the analysis of intuited polarity . It shows that AQAL (or Integral Metatheory) can benefit from a more deductive (and Metaphysical) approach that relates with the logical-relational aspects inhering at the core of Integral concepts such as “hierarchy” “inclusiveness” and the central “holon,” aspects whose continued development were somewhat forgotten due to AQAL’s current emphasis on experientially verifiable external patterns.

Organicism complements Integral Theory and has fundamental divisions mirroring Ken Wilber’s quadratic holon aspects. Interestingly, unlike Wilber discovering universal holon patterns through observation of piles of answers of methods and theories visibly displayed before him during a brainstorming retreat, the a priori rational patterns in Organicism were discovered mostly by analytic exercise through the method of polar analysis. In this sense we can affirm that Organicism shows that deduction can indeed complement induction in the creation of Integral Theories (which are also theories of theories or metatheories). In my view, this has important consequences in relation to giving priority to the work of uncovering Exterior-based patterns through Integral Methodological Pluralism vs. giving priority to pattern forming essences that are prior to exteriority but can be disclosed by the use of reason. What is certain for me is that the patterns coincide and complement each other and this in itself is important to explore and inspect much further.

In another paper (“Integral Quadrants in History”) I show that some modern era individuals and -quite possible- a pre-hispanic culture also arrived to similar (and complementary) discoveries in relation to the quadratic aspects which seem to be discoverable through keen dialectic intellectual processes which are also available to mystery, deduction and reflection.

Organicim is a 2nd Tier philosophy developed before the early 1950’s by the late emeritus professor Archie J. Bahm. It makes use of the experienced, dynamic, polar relations of existence which are mapped along 2 axes defined by 4 extreme polar values. The fact that polar relations come naturally to the intuitive mind and that, thereafter, these can be carefully analyzed eventually leading us the discovery of patterns that complement Integral Theory’s quadrants, needs also to be observed.

As I understand and extrapolate from Organicim, the origin of holons is tied with the dynamic of complementary poles and two of any complementary pair gives rise to 4 extreme polar values basically corresponding to Integral Theory’s “Four Corners of the Kosmos.” These 4 extreme polar values (called by Archie J. Bahm extreme one pole-ism, extreme other pole-ism, extreme aspectism and extreme duality) express 4 basic polar and holon-associated relations which match AQAL’s “Interior” “Exterior” “Individual” and Collective” observed dimensions of existence. The ultimate result is a conceptual method for complexly dealing with complex existence.

I think that, essentially, Bahm’s Organicism was developed through a thorough logical analysis of the intuited polarities that become apparent when reflecting upon experience. In a sense we could call Organicism a Theory that came about through a priori deduction. In contrast, -if I understood Ken Wilber’s explanation adequately- the quadratic aspects of AQAL Theory were discovered by observing already formed patterns that grouped various theories. In other words, generally speaking, AQAL (and more in relation to quadrants) was discovered more through an a posteriori observation of the facts or through induction. Since Organicism is based on a more thorough logical analysis that begins with the inextricable relations of fundamental polarities, it seems to complement the pattern-recognition procedures involving AQAL Theory.

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.

Reflections of an Integral Theory Student - Part 1

The “Crazy” Creative Ideas of an ONLINE Integral Theory Student at JFKU - Part 1 ©

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 The “Forgotten” Buddha Mind...

Regarding the Heart Sutra in Vajrayana: Since form changes, it has no real substance and it is empty. Form is Emptiness-Emptiness is Form. Also, Wilber intelligently adds that modernity discovered that Form is Evolving biologically and in other aspects. This is an important observation that needs to be considered by Buddhists and others but I always felt particularly uneasy about the continuous need to counteract an alleged nihilism with which Buddhism can be interpreted. I found that there is a less known but historically important school of Tibetan Buddhism, one in which the concept of an essence is rescued. This would make Buddhism more compatible with Western and Indian forms of non dual mysticism. The once politically repressed Jonang Monastery espouses a tradition called “Maha Madhyamaka” which Wilber and other Integral thinkers would do well to revise to boost their discourse on Non Duality. It affirms that all phenomena are empty except that the Buddha Mind is not empty of itself. This has consequences.

On the Subtle Realms…

We need a clearer map of the subtle realms since they range from the archetypes to the lower astral, the psychic, the mental and may be combined in different proportions with physical matter, thus producing subtler and denser levels even of physical matter.

After “achieving” union between the causal (almost non externally embodied) awareness and physical (more externally embodied) awareness, or between almost non relative and highly relative awareness, we may continue evolving (beyond separation consciousness) in the densest or in the more subtle varieties of physical worlds. We may also continue or express ourselves in higher subtle realms or (if we choose to) in lower subtle realms, to be of assistance.

On The ‘Gestures’ of Holon Expression…

The gestures (or aspects) of holon expression and unfoldment also interpenetrate. They aren’t just simultaneous. They aren’t just correlated. They interpenetrate according to the logical possibilities available to polar pairs (interior-exterior, one-many).

There’s also a “we” (and an “us”?) between the individual objective (UR quadrant) and the collective objective (LR quadrant). My brain, my atoms are connected to my inner subjective life but also have a participatory presence in collective gestures of reality.

Perhaps the dialectics derived from polar analysis can be used to explore these aspects between upper & lower quadrants, both in the objective and subjective holonic aspects.

Quantum entanglement (like holons) is both an ontological fact and a epistemological concept. It seems to apply to the relation between the individual objective (UR) and collective objective (LR) quadrants/gestures/aspects. Maybe similar facts/concepts also apply to the relation between individual subjective (UL) and collective-subjective (LL) quadrants/gestures/aspects. Just as (probably in accordance to cosmological/physical theory) once all particles were one, all subjectivities could have been one.

Perhaps dialectical polarity-based analysis applies to the relation between interior and exterior-based 3rd person explanations about reality. It may also apply to attempts to analyze the horizontal relations between the interiors and exteriors. In a way, the interiors and exteriors also are ‘explanations’ about reality.

On Whether There Are Other Models Complementing Integral Theory…

In Archie J. Bahm’s “Organicism,” the 8 more widespread metaphysical explanations produced in the human world (various metaphysical answers to what is the nature of reality) are distributed along two axes in specific positions that (in a lineal way complementary to the area-occupying quadrants of IT) derive (under a different nomenclature) from the subjective, the objective, the individual and the collective dimensions. The patterns observed by Wilber were analytically deduced by Bahm using what could be understood as the basis of holons: Complementary poles. This gives support to the possibility of a priori intelligible structures accompanying the observable, empirical, induced quadratic pattern.

The Andean mystic cross or “Chakana,” the Jung-Pauli “Quaternio” and E.F. Schumacker’s “Four Fields of Knowledge” also possess holonic-quadratic characteristics which are previous, similar and complementary to Ken Wilber’s discoveries. http://www.integralworld.net/piacenza5.html

On the “WE” aspect…

Paraphrasing Ken a little bit, basically he says that “the ‘we’ aspect is the mystery: God as a linking hyphen between you and I. It is how Spirit is shared intersubjectively.” I basically asked: then how is Spirit also shared inter-objectively because why there are there detectable systems in every quadrant? Doesn’t this mean that quadrants interpenetrate in a way which is discovered not only by formal deductions but by dialectical implied relations? I see that this also means that the ‘implied’ represents a subjective aspect in inter-objective dynamics.

On including other recurrent (more prosaic rather than ‘divine’) mysteries discovered indistinctively in various stages of personal and cultural development…

If for ‘Integral practitioners’ every major school of thought has elements of truth that need to be recognized and honored, where’s acknowledgement of genuine phenomena associated with subtle energy research (W.A. Tiller’s “Simulator” research), collectively verified Brazilian Kardecian spiritism, ET contactee and abductee testimony and evidence (the Cometa Report, the Disclosure Project, collectively experiences in South America’s contactee group ‘Mision Rahma’), remote viewing (Charles Tart, David Morehouse), presentiment research on future emotions (Dean Radin, Dick Bierman and H.S. Scholte, http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/pdfs/presentiment.pdf), psychokinesis (Robert Jahn, Princeton U.’s PEAR lab), survival research (IANDS, Victor Zammit,), the temporal backward referral debate (Benjamin Libet, S. Hameroff, Paul Davies, Roger Penrose)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet, http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html, http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/enm10a.html

What about genuine (occasionally physically and collectively) verifiable shamanic phenomena that transcend the limits of lineal time-space objective causality? What about possible genuine (still non-scientifically explainable, healing and otherwise) miracles, usually associated with Mythic or ‘Amber’ stage cultures? Can there be intervention upon physical matter coordinated by highly evolved beings in the higher subtle planes? What kind of interactions between subtle levels of matter and gross physical matter can explain any of these events?

How much of the (now considered ‘non credible’ ‘otherworldly’) phenomena discovered in -once clearly established- cultural stages should be incorporated into a truly ‘Integral’ mindset? How ‘Integral’ can we really be if we push aside these matters as simply ‘societally useful’ ‘cultural’ ‘mythic’ and ‘pre-scientific’? How can our understandings of holonic unfoldment improve by considering inter-realm phenomena?

A Case for Panentheism?

From Metanexus Institute:

"Neuroscientific Research on the Self: A Case for Panentheism?"
by Anne L. C. Runehov

In order to obtain an interdisciplinary understanding of the world that also includes theology, I believe panentheism, as a potential explanatory model of a God relationship to the world, needs to be revisited. Naturalistic explanations leave out the possible existence of God, and hence deprive millions of religious believers of a satisfactory explanation. The present paper deals with this neglect. It asks the question, if God exists, how then can we understand God’s relationship to the world in a scientific age?

Anne L. C. Runehov: "Neuroscientific Research on the Self: A Case for Panentheism?"

from Metanexus Institute on Vimeo.

Learn More @ AnneRunehov.Com

Non-dual Thinking and Aesthetic Theory

Beyond Beautiful and Ugly: Non-dual Thinking and Aesthetic Theory
By Jeffery A. Bell

“Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal; and yet: as long as the melody has not reached its end, it also hasn’t reached its goal. A parable.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

The self-conscious reference of this essay’s title to Nietzsche’s book, Beyond Good and Evil, might seem misplaced to some since this title is then connected with the notion of non-dual thinking. Is not Nietzsche’s work replete with dualities – master and slave morality, life-denying and life-affirming, active and passive, etc.? This same point, however, could be made regarding an entirely different tradition: Zen Buddhism. Despite the frequent appeals in Zen literature to become free from thinking in terms of dualities,1 this very appeal brings in tow its own dualities – enlightenment and attachment, freedom and bondage, active and passive, etc.

To address this apparent inconsistency we propose, in the following essay, to argue that for Nietzsche non-dual thinking entails affirming ‘that’ which cannot be reduced to being one side of an either/or (e.g., mind or body, appearance or reality, good or evil, sacred or secular, etc.), but is ‘that’ which makes such either/or thinking possible. The ‘that’ which is thought and affirmed by non-dual thinking is not opposed to or other than the realities affirmed by either/or thinking. To state this would be simply to repeat either/or thinking. Nonetheless, there is, as Nietzsche repeatedly makes clear, a difference between master and slave morality, or between what we call non-dual and either/or thinking. Nietzsche’s efforts to understand this difference without resorting again to either/or thinking are best exemplified by the way in which he employs aesthetics and art in order to circumvent the inevitable either/ors that are the stock and trade of traditional metaphysics.

In Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy the importance of art as an alternative metaphysics is explicitly recognized: “I am convinced that art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life…” In setting forth this interpretation of the role of aesthetic theory in Nietzsche, we shall then be able to sketch two important implications. First, we shall find a significant parallel between Nietzsche and Zen Buddhism, a parallel that has received little attention; and secondly we will begin to see how Nietzsche’s implicit aesthetic theory is both supportive and critical of other more traditional aesthetic theories.

Read More: Here

Gebser, Origins and the Mutation of Consciousness

Awakening to Origin

by Jeremy Johnson

Not too many people are familiar with Gebser, including the integral folks who only receive his philosophy through Ken Wilber's plotted maps and points. I'd like to take a few minutes to share with you a few poetic insights Gebser was able to share through his life's work.

For anyone totally unfamiliar with him, Gebser was a prolific intellectual mystic. His writings give you a sense of urgency and awakening, as if every fiber of his being was compelled to put to paper something that only his soul had received by illumination.

I'm writing this blog not so much to make an intellectual case or argument for his ideas, but only to show you the theme he wished readers to consider. His life's work, Ever Present Origin, invites us into a new mode of perceiving the world. It takes the reader through hundreds of pieces of literature, artwork, and poetry throughout the ages, marking the transitions in thinking and relating to the world. We become immersed in a book about the evolution of consciousness, which can't easily be disconnected (if at all) from the evolution of culture.

Gebser was able to note that we have undergone at least 4 major mutations: archaic, magic, mythic, mental-rational. These categories, however, must be understood in context of their content. One cannot simply look at the list and understand it, they are best understood by reading the cultural artifacts themselves. Each of them pertain to how we relate to space and time.

Read More From: Single Eye Movement

Earth Day 2010

Happy Earth Day everybody!!! Earth Day was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in held on April 22, 1970. It has fast become a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. Earth Day is now observed on April 22 on virtually every country on Earth.

Below is an interesting post from one of our favorite bloggers. We couldn’t have said it better. From Archive Fire: 

So here we are: April 22, 2010, another Earth Day.The 40th such day in fact. Earth Day is the only institutionally recognized day I actively celebrate. Our species emerged from the thin organic layering of flora and fauna covering this big bad space rock. Scientists call this intricate web of life enveloping the Earth a biosphere. We simply call it home. To be honest, it feels great each year to join millions of people around the planet in celebration of this wondrous and lonely planet.

Here are some things you may or may not know about our home: First, the name "Earth" derives from the Anglo-Saxon word erda, which means ground or soil. It became eorthe later, and then erthe in Middle English - yet humans did not perceive the Earth as a planet until the 16th century.

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. Earth is also the largest, most massive, and densest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago. Life first appeared on its surface within just a billion years. Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents, islands and small pools of fresh water we call lakes. The planet has a circumference of 40,041.47 km (mean), but a surface area of 510,072,000 km2! The Earth's interior is constantly active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days. 

The planet is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity and expansion of the Sun will gradually eliminate the plant's biosphere. Rising luminosity? Yep.

Usually on April 22 I set aside my online explorations and spend the day outside – engaged in activities i believe actually contribute to cultivating a more humane and creative world. But this year, in addition to my offline strategies, I wanted to spend some time with you, the readers, and bang the virtual drum for Mother Earth so that we can celebrate together, in some small way.

Read More: Here

This is what an Integral Sprituality looks like...

The Poetry of Reality is the fifth installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. Source: http://symphonyofscience.com

Does Spirituality Need an Integral Map?

Why Does Spirituality Need Integral?

by Kelly Sosan Bearer

Spirituality is a complex, confusing, and polarizing force in the world. With so many different definitions of the word, we can barely even begin to start the conversation. Some equate spirituality with mysticism as described by the great philosophers; but with the infiltration of New Age concepts of spirituality, many are not sure what the word means anymore. Some don’t distinguish spirituality from religion, while others identify themselves as spiritual but not religious. Some believe they need not commit themselves to any particular path in order to be spiritual, while others actively search for spiritual practices that will fit best with their unique needs. The list goes on and on. These are just a few of the many issues that we are going to look into here at iEvolve.

There are so many forms and types of spirituality today. Some preach love and acceptance; others preach hate and destruction. Many traditions claim that their way is the only way, “the one true path,” which directly contradicts other traditions that say their way is the only way. Why does spirit express itself in such radically different ways? Who is right and who is wrong? Can anything reconcile such radically different points of view?

Enter the Integral Map…

Read More: Here

Encounters With Being and Event

Deleuze’s Encounter With Whitehead

By Steven Shaviro

In a short chapter of The Fold (1993) that constitutes his only extended discussion of Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze praises Whitehead for asking the question, “What Is an Event?” (76). Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1929/1978) marks only the third time – after the Stoics and Leibniz – that events move to the center of philosophical thought. Deleuze wrote less about Whitehead than he did about the other figures in his philosophical counter-canon: Lucretius, the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Foucault.

But Whitehead is arguably as important to Deleuze as any of these other thinkers. It is only today, in the wake of Isabelle Stengers’ great book Penser avec Whitehead (2002), that it has become possible, for the first time, to measure the full extent of Deleuze’s encounter with Whitehead. My work here is deeply indebted to Stengers, as well as to James Williams (2005) and to Keith Robinson (2006), both of whom have written illuminatingly about Whitehead and Deleuze.

“What is an event?” is, of course, a quintessentially Deleuzian question. And Whitehead marks an important turning-point in the history of philosophy because he affirms that, in fact, everything is an event. The world, he says, is made of events, and nothing but events: happenings rather than things, verbs rather than nouns, processes rather than substances. Becoming is the deepest dimension of Being.

Read More: Here

Love and Integral Evolution

Integral Evolution: An Interview with David Loye

By Russ Volckmann

David Loye is one of those people that the longer you get to know them the more you begin to discover a bit of their depth and breadth of perspective and creativity in the world. His publications speak for themselves. His network with leading scientists and thinkers around the world is equally impressive.

Actually, my first contact was with David’s wife, Riane Eisler, author of the Chalice and the Blade (among other books written with and without David). Despite the fact that they live over the hill from me, I did not meet her face to face right away. Rather, I interviewed her over the telephone for the Integral Leadership Review, which I publish and edit. When I first approached her about doing the interview she suggested that I should interview David, but I did not know David Loye’s work at all. In that interview I discovered more about Riane’s work and the extent of their partnership. In fact, they are prime movers of a partnership approach to leadership that they promote through a nonprofit center and in a Master’s program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

My conversation with Riane piqued my curiosity about David’s work and I bought one of his books, Darwin’s Lost Theory of Love. Here I found evidence of the extraordinary scope and depth of David’s work that made him a natural candidate for an interview. The only question was would I use it in Integral Leadership Review or in Integral Review: such is the quality of his interests and intellect.

Read the Entire Interview: Here

DAVID LOYE is a psychologist, evolutionary systems scientist, World War II veteran and the author of many books on Darwin, moral evolution, evolution theory, history, poetry, love and social action. David is also co-founder of the multinational General Evolution Research Group and World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution.

God, Strings, Emergence and the Future

God, Strings, Emergence, and the Future of the World

By Nicola Hoggard Creegan

This paper is a part of a larger project in which I argue that a reconnection with nature, and a reconceptualization of nature, are necessary accompaniments to a well developed sensus divinitatis. Schleiermacher talks about faith being neither a knowing nor a doing but a kind of feeling, a sense of absolute dependence, and a consequent understanding of all things in and through the infinite. Calvin mentions the sensus divinitatis directly, and also the connection between this sense and the natural world. Like any capacity, however, it may remain undeveloped or under-developed. The sensus divinitatis may be awakened by connection with, and participation in the natural world—as centuries of mystics testify—although this connection is then explained by and made meaningful in sacred narratives.

The twentieth century has not been an easy time for a theology of nature. This was the century of Karl Barth and a turn away from nature in the interests of affirming the otherness and holiness of God. At the same time, neo-Darwinians taught us to look at all order as only design-like (spandrels). The indeterminacy of the quantum level, combined with the random nature of biological mutation, made any sense of divine presence in nature much more difficult to discern.

The resulting mix of positions in science and theology tended to gravitate either towards a deism, like that espoused by the 2006 recipient of the Templeton Prize, John Barrow, or to the process-like position of many others, like Ian Barbour. Even with the latter, however, there is little sense that God is revealed in nature; in a process theology of nature there is only the presence and influence of God understood as a continuous but perhaps indiscernible lure.

Read More: Here

Wilber-Combs Lattice Revisited

The Wilber-Combs Lattice Revisited

by Jan Brouwer

Wilber V is definitely an improvement on earlier stages. In Wilber III-IV there always lurked in the background of his theory some slight uneasiness. For it remained somehow a puzzle how psychological development stages (structures) are to be matched with (higher) states of consciousness. The relative simple answer to this question at the time was: higher states of consciousness, like the ones exhibited by the mystics of world culture, are merely higher stages/structures of psychological development. You first have to go through all of the lower stages of development before the ripeness settles in to realize some of the higher spiritual states. Second tier development can only begin after consolidation of first tier growth. And so it is with third tier development: it can only come after first and second tier development and not before or in between.

This solution to the problem of how states and structures were to be related ('stack the first on top of the latter' as Wilber himself now describes this earlier theory rather derogatively, making higher states of consciousness somehow equivalent to higher stages) was in itself the outcome of a deep crisis in Wilber's philosophy. For Wilber I-II still adhered to Jungian and neo-Romantic notions of spirituality being a return to the glory and innocence of childhood. Enlightenment in this phase was seen as a kind of home coming to 'the trailing clouds of glory' (Wordsworth) of our golden childhood. Children were seen as still possessing spiritual treasures we adults somehow seem to have lost. In this earlier view spirituality is to be defined as the art of finding those lost treasures again. This was Wilber at the beginning of his career.

But this made Wilber himself (and others) rather uncomfortable at the time. For the data of zone #2 research about psychological development did not match this theory. Researchers like Piaget, Baldwin, Loevinger and others had busted the myth of childhood spirituality being a higher kind of realization. The 'trailing clouds of glory' were proven to be rather chaotic meteorological phenomena, with archaic dark thunderstorms and sudden magical lightings, instead of enlightened celestial glory all of the time. Childhood was proven to be more of a tentative beginning within a gradual spiritual process than the acme of it.

Read More: Here

JAN BROUWER is webmaster of "The Mystical Site" and editor of the online forum Integral Mysticism. He lives in the Netherlands. He can be contacted at archimysticus@planet.nl

Integral Spirituality and Personhood

Integral Spirituality

By Terri O'Fallon

Integral spirituality is the experience of a Sacred, embodied, evolutionary “now”, speaking through us in multiple voices. It incarnates all facets of our lives, inviting past and future into one moment. Integral spiritual practice, then, seems to be a consummate, persistent inquiry of many shades and shadows extending throughout life. Though our assumptions about reality restrict and bind us, they also protect us from tumbling permanently into those amazing states into which we “peak”, but do not yet have the energetic capacity to live in consistently. As the formless universe awakens to itself through form, like a sleeping child, our incarnated being begins to know the Sacred as the Sacred simultaneously knows us.

Living fully into our earthly personhood as we “peak” into the transcendent, two prominent, implicit questions seem to be “Who am I?” and, “Who am I not?” Our embodied, immanent experience is with us in awareness from the day we are born. How can we wake up in consciousness to the everyday sacredness we hold within our flesh, skin, heart and bones, and unite it with the transcendent within which we are coming into being?

A question that arises in more comfortable times is “Who am I?” Steeped in the confidence of our own incarnate measure of knowing, there seems to be no other truth. “This is who I am!” In this full exploration of our knowing, we envision everyone else as having, or needing to have, these same beliefs. “Yes! This is the way the world works”!

But inevitably, a disorienting dilemma arrives; we tremble, wondering how we can survive this torturous and ghastly occurrence. We have no way to make sense of this experience. We flail, squirm and wish we could do something to get out of this agonizing space. Our assumptions and beliefs do not make sense any more. There is a discomfort in every cell in our bodies, for our beliefs are not large enough to make sense of the anguish we feel so deeply. Mind numbing fuzziness creeps into our ordinarily cogent mind; the simple task of making a “to do” list seems impossible; let alone the capacity to carry out a plan. We find ourselves living suspended in this liminal space where the being we once were no longer makes sense, and the being we are yet to be, has yet to emerge.

Read More: Here

Integral Life Coaching

From Integral Life:

Integral Life is launching our brand new coaching service in July. One of the questions we are being asked is why Integral Coaching is different from all the other coaching programs out there. This week we are pleased to let you listen in to a conversation between Joanne Hunt, co-founder of Integral Coaching Canada and her client Huy Lam. If you are interested in what the Integral Coaching method is like, this set of four videos is a must see.

Huy is also launching his Coaching blog later this week on Integrallife.com. Be sure to check it out!

The Coaching Topic

In this first clip Joanne and Huy talk about the topic he chose for his Integral Coaching experience.

Metaphors Aid in Transformation

In this piece, Joanne and Huy explore the power of metaphor in the Integral Coaching method, devising analogies to describe our "current" and "new ways of being."

Current Way of Being: White Crane

In this piece, Joanne and Huy discuss his current way of being metaphor… White Crane!

New Way of Being: Braveheart

In this piece, Joanne and Huy discuss his new way of being metaphor… Braveheart!

Of Faith and Science

From the World Science Festival 2008:

Prominent clashes - both historical and contemporary - have led to the widely held conclusion that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. Yet, many scientists practice a traditional faith, having found a way to accommodate both scientific inquiry and religious teaching in their belief system. Other scientists are bringing science to bear on the phenomenon of religion and spiritual belief - neuroscientists are studying what happens in the brain during religious experiences, while anthropologists are investigating how religion is linked to cooperation and community.

This program provided an intimate look at what scientists have to say about their religious beliefs and what might be revealed by scientific studies of spirituality:

Faith & Science from World Science Festival on Vimeo.