The Integral Paradigm

Just cross-posting this on Gaia com (formerly Zaadz) as well.

My book, previously called Integral Metaphysics and Transformation, will now be called The Integral Paradigm (with apologies to Thomas Kuhn!). I feel that Paradigm is a broader and hence more useful term than metaphysics, even if it is a bit New Agey.

Also, the phrase the Integral Movement (which I previously used) is inappropriate for anything other than the Wilber-Beck-Cohen-etc movement (which I previously called "Integral Movement sensu stricta"). Because it is not a movement as such, but rather a frame of reference (hence "paradigm" a la Fritjof Capra).

Basically I define the Integral Paradigm in terms of seven central interrelated and interweaving themes:

1) Manysidedness (in Jainism Anekantavada), Broadness, All-Inclusiveness)
2) Metaphysics, Esotericism, Gnosis, (Absolutre Reality, Great Chain of Being, evolving body of godhead, etc)
3) Evolution, (includes Spiritual evolution, but also scientific e.g. Darwinian, evolution), Creativity, spontaneity
4) Empathy for all beings, Sentientism, I-Thou (Buber), Participatory epistemology & spirituality
5) Co-Creation, Transformation of self and society, and of all aspects of the being
6) Synthesis of all partial perspectives and practices in a larger or universal integral whole
7) Singularity, Divinization, Perfection (Omega Point, Supramentalization, Transhumanist Singularity, etc)

This represents a radical revisioning previous definitions of Integral philosophy.

Previously, the definition of Integral visionaries has been mostly limited to those recommended or described by Wilber (Integral Psychology), the EnlightenNext editors, and others. So Aurobindo, Gebser, and Wilber are considered integral but not Teilhard. Or Aurobindo, Teilhard, Gebser, and Wilber are integral but not Mahatma Gandhi, Fritjof Capra, or Peter Russell. Hence an emphasis on developmental psychology, postmodern philosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, and so on, which can be found in many Integralist blogs. These are all worthy topics, but they reflect Wilber's interests, not teh Integral Paradigm as such. So the whole thing quickly deteriorates into yet another (albeit benign and useful) New Age religious movement based around a charismatic leader.

In my book I take a very different tack. This is different even to my previous essays, where I was looking for some common stream or thread that can define "Integral". But any such approach is self-limiting.

While it is easy to make fun of the belief that only those who advocate Wilber's AQAL philosophy represent the evolutionary elite, the top 2%, or whatever, what is harder is to define what the Integral Paradigm actually is. My current position is that the classic New Age movement is just as much, or as little, Integral as the Wilber-inspired movement that currently bears the name. Which isn't in any way to denegrate the latter. Or the former.

I emphasise Classic New Age, what Hanegraaff (New Age Religion and Western Culture) calls the New Age sensu stricta. By this is meant people like David Spangler, Jose Arguelles, etc, not dumbed down stuff like The Secret (my original comment on this here, while Stuart Davis provides a more detailed critique). David Spangler rightly attacks such "New Age glamour"; is it any wonder he has decided to distance himself from the whole movement!

Then there is Russian Cosmism; and you have people like Barbara Marx Hubbard; in fact it soon becomes apparent that the Integral Paradigm is much vaster than what is currently referred to as the "Integral Movement".

I've several times even considered scrapping the term "integral" altogether. This is so I don't have to be limited to the Wilber-inspired movement (which is but one contemporary stream of the Integral paradigm, albeit an important one). Unfortunately, there are no good alternatives. "The Cosmic Paradigm" sounds pretentious and silly. So it looks like Integral it is!

Eco-activism, New Age empowerment, and Lightworking

Several months ago I went to two very different workshops. The first was an ecological group, the second Theta Healing. I have already written about both on this blog and alos my zaadz blog. In this post I would like to just comment on my feelings of both in hindsight, what each has left me with. Because in a sense each only provides half the picture.

The Ecological workshop did a very good job of reminding me of the mess the Earth is in because of human stupidity (but they didn't and cannot know that human beings - at least those in power - are just puppets of forces from the supraphysical, especially the affective or astral plane (what the Mother calls the vital world). And it pricked my consciousness and reminded me of why I'm here. But when it came to solutions, well i wasn't impressed. But I'm not a march in the streets holding placards activist, or a lie down in front of bulldozers activist, or an organise a filming pof Al Gore's inconvenient truth video to your local community activist, or even a write letters to your local MP activist. And really even if you are one of those (and btw Iabsolutely support all of them, I'm not denigrating this sort pf action at all!) it wasn't very good because the second part which was supposed to be the practical solutions was inefficiently organised, rushed, and the networking not followed up (apart from a Yahoo mail list). To be fair to these people they are new at this too, at least here in Oz, but even so it reminded me of a talk/workship at a ConFest some 20-odd years ago, in which the guy giving the talk and describing all the horrors of what is happening to the Earth ended it on a funny note by saying "father australopithecus, help us!" and stuff like that (calling on the ancestral hominids i guess). And I thought, this is the only solution they have?

The New Age scene is very different. It is all about empowering yourself, thoughts/beliefs create reality, so you are given techniques or initiated into the ability to modify your thoughts and beliefs to engineer your reality. The empowerment that is lacking - or is only present on the gross physical - in eco-spirituality, is present in the New Age, and indeed is the whole subject of the New Age. But conversely the New Age tends to be..., well, narcissistic is too strong a word, but what i mean is it more about oneself, although also of course about healing others, and even when about oneself it is in a positive manner. But there is very little about the Environment for example, except the acknowledgment that the current crisis is something that comes about through negative thinking, and lightworkers are working on healing the Earth. Or there may be some millenialistic element as in Jose Arguelles system (Mayan Prophecy), which in that regard is more like millenialist Christianity than the positive aspect New Age (although it lacks the intolerance of fundamentalist premillenialism). I saw a video of Arguelles talking a month or so ago (this was organised by the local Planet Art Network group) and he seems like a really nice guy btw.

Looking back at the two workshops I went to then, learning Theta Healing was a major turning point in my life, whereas the ecological workshop did not made any change in my life.

So the true Lightworking involves taking the best from both. Ecological and environbmental consciousness from eco-spirituality and deep ecology, and ecological activism, and personal spiritual empowerment from the New Age. It is actually strange that these two have not been combined already, because it is such a logical step, with each complementing the other. Or maybe they have - in fact I'm sure someone must have connected them somewhere - but i just don't know about it.

One reason for the lack or rarity of this synergy may be obstruction due to drugs clouding the consciousness and remoiving the will. I haven't bene to any confests in many many years, but i stopped going because of the degenerate drug use (excessive marijuana). This, I suggest, is where the hippy/alternative movement has run aground; they have become a bunch of druggies, no better than alcoholics in mainstream society or among the older generation. A friend of mine who has the same pure no-drugs attitude that I have, comments on this even in the rainbow gatherings and confests today, although he thinks it may still be possible to get around this. I disagree, and think instead that this is why the alternative movement, with their very perceptive enmvironmental and political consciousness, has not been able to empower themselves. You can't work on the subtle levels if you're head is always cloudy and out of it diue to marijuana in the bvloodstream (and marijuana stays in the bloodstream much longer than alcohol does, it is quite an insidious drug in that regard)

Thus the true lightworker, the true "rainbow warrior" (i don't know if this meme is still big but it was very big in my alternative and confest days some 20-25 years ago), integrates empowerment and magical potency with strong environmental and eco-spiritual consciousness. This is how the Earth is to be saved. Thus both New Age and environmentalism are good, but alos each partial. One gives power, but no map; the other a map, but no power. Okay environmental groups still leave out animal liberation and sentient rights; this is the real weakness in the environmental / social-reform movement that continues even now. Ultimately the lightworker has three areas of healing to do, human, animal, and environmental. Any one alone, or even any two alone, cannot heal this Earth. The healing can only come with all three, and with the power to engineer reality by working with belief and invoking higher spiritual and divine realities.