Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
IT APPEARS, then, that approximately 1–2 percent of the population is at an integral, second-tier stance, but that around 20 percent are at green, poised for that possible integral transformation, for that “momentous leap,” as Clare Graves called it.
What are the conditions that can help facilitate that transformation? Developmental theorists have isolated dozens of factors that contribute to vertical transformation (as opposed to horizontal translation). In my own view, catalytic factors from several dimensions need to be present in order for transformation to occur.1
To begin with, the individual must possess an organic structure (including brain structure) that can support such a reorganization. For most people, this is not a problem. At this point in evolution, most individuals are biologically capable of integral consciousness.
The cultural background must be ready to support such a transformation, or, at the very least, not dramatically oppose it. Even thirty years ago, this might have been a problem. But numerous factors indicate that there is now a cultural readiness for a more integral embrace. To begin with, we have had three decades of the green meme as a substantial percentage of the population, and it has mightily tilled the soil for such a transformation (at least among the green-meme population itself, or among some 40 million Americans; research indicates that approximately the same percentage of the population in Europe is also at green; see fig. 6-2). That, in fact, is what Clare Graves said was the major function of green; namely, to make the entire Spiral sensitive (the sensitive self) and thus ready it for second-tier transformation.
But in order for this to happen, consciousness must go post-green. Paraphrasing Graves, “The green meme must break down in order to free energy for the jump into second-tier. This is where the leading edge is today.”2 Since the major cause of fixation to the green meme is boomeritis, then in order for this integral transformation to readily occur, boomeritis must be addressed and remedied, at least to a substantial degree. (Suggestions for doing so are set forth in Boomeritis.) But the fact is, if you see the problem of boomeritis and recognize its dangers, you are already over that hump.
As for the concrete social institutions and techno-economic base contributing to transformation, there need to be profound technological advances in one or more areas, advances that impose a pressure on individual consciousness. (This, of course, is an old Marxist argument: when the forces of production run ahead of the relations of production, wrenching cultural transformations ensue. This is a partial truth of Marxism that has not been discredited.)
We have recently had several such techno-economic shifts, including preeminently the microchip/digital revolution. That this is the “information age,” and that this constitutes one of the half-dozen major social transformations in history (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational) is so widely known and accepted that we needn’t dwell further on it. All we need note is that global communications have made global and integral consciousness a widespread possibility. This global network of technology, this new nervous system for collective consciousness, does not, however, in any way guarantee that individuals will in fact develop to an integral level in their own case. It facilitates, but does not guarantee. Moreover, global or planetary does not necessarily mean integral. After all, red memes can use the Internet, blue memes can use the Internet, orange memes can use the Internet, and so on. The level or stage of consciousness is determined by interior factors (which we will discuss next), and not merely by exterior structures, no matter how planetary or global.
We come, then, to the last dimension—that of individual consciousness itself—and the factors that facilitate personal transformation (given that the other factors are more or less in place). There are four factors that I think are particularly important: fulfillment, dissonance, insight, and opening.
Fulfillment means that the individual has generally fulfilled the basic tasks of a given stage or wave. A basic competence has been established at that level. The person does not have to perfectly master a given level or stage, but simply function adequately enough to move forward. If the person does not do so, then developmental arrest sets in and further transformation is unlikely. There is a more subjective way to put this: individuals need to fully taste a given stage, get their fill of it, and thus be ready to move on. A person still hungry for the particular food of a given stage will simply not look elsewhere.
On the other hand, if the person has tasted a stage and become fairly full, then he or she is open to transformation. In order for this to occur, some sort of dissonance generally has to set in. The new wave is struggling to emerge, the old wave is struggling to hang on, and the individual feels torn, feels dissonance, feels pulled in several directions. But in any event there has to be some sort of profound dissatisfaction with the present level; one has to be agitated, annoyed, frustrated with it, so that a deep and conflicted dissonance insistently arises. (One of the reasons I wrote Boomeritis was to generate some sort of genuine dissonance in the green meme. This has not, on balance, endeared me to greens, but there it is.)
In any event, one has to be willing to let go of—or die to—the present level. Perhaps one has run up against its inherent limitations or contradictions (as Hegel would say), or one is beginning to disidentify with it (as Assagioli explained), or perhaps one has just gotten tired of it. At this point, some sort of insight into the situation—insight into what one actually wants, and insight into what reality actually offers—usually helps the individual to move forward. Affirmation, volition, and the intention to change can all be parts of insight into the situation, helping to drive consciousness forward. This insight can be facilitated by introspection, by conversations with friends, by therapy, by meditation, or—more often than not, and in ways that absolutely nobody understands—by simply living.
Finally, if all of those factors fall into place, then an opening to the next wave of consciousness—deeper, higher, wider, more encompassing—becomes possible.
Thus, when it comes to the integral wave, what individuals who are already poised for an integral transformation—who already have tasted green to the full and are ready to move on, who already feel some sort of dissonance with their present state, who already are looking for something deeper, wider, more meaningful—can do to facilitate this “momentous leap” in their own case can be summarized in two parts: we need an integral vision, and we need an integral practice. The integral vision helps provide us with insight, and thus helps us overcome dissonance and face toward our own deeper and wider opening. And integral practice anchors all of these factors in a concrete manner, so that they do not remain merely abstract ideas and vague notions.
Let us also note that, as one’s consciousness begins to find a home in second tier, a genuine Theory of Everything becomes a startling possibility. At the very least, it becomes deeply appealing, speaking as it does to the inherent holism of second-tier embrace.
In the next few chapters, I will outline one version of an integral vision or T.O.E., and explore its usefulness in everything from integral medicine to integral business to integral politics to integral spirituality. (I am not saying that this is the only type of integral vision possible, or even the best. But it is the best that I am aware of; if I knew a better one, I would present that.) Once we have a general grasp of this integral vision—a general overview of a Theory of Everything—we will look specifically at what might constitute an effective integral practice, so that, should you desire, you can make integral awareness a living reality in your own case, and thus bring a more comprehensive approach to the many ways that we can try to help others.
I first attempted to outline this T.O.E. in a book called Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES). Since I am often asked about the book’s genesis, how and why I came to write it, and the critical responses to it, let me interrupt this theoretical narrative with a personal account of each of those items.
SES was the first book I had written in almost ten years, following the events described in Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber. (Ten days after Treya and I were married, in 1983, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. We spent the next five years fighting that disease. Treya died in 1989, at the age of 41. She asked me to write of our ordeal; Grace and Grit was the result.)
The previous book, Transformations of Consciousness (with Jack Engler and Daniel P. Brown), was completed in 1984; I wrote Grace and Grit in 1991; and then I settled down to finally write a textbook of integral psychology that I had been planning on doing for several years. I was calling that textbook System, Self, and Structure, but somehow it never seemed to get written. Determined to complete it, I sat down and begin transcribing the two-volume work, whereupon I realized, with a shock, that four of the words I used in the very first paragraph were no longer allowed in academic discourse (development, hierarchy, transcendental, universal). This, needless to say, put a considerable cramp in my attempt to write this book, and poor System, Self, and Structure was, yet again, shelved. (I recently brought out an abridged version with the title Integral Psychology.)
What had happened in my ten-year writing hiatus, and to which I had paid insufficient attention, is that extreme postmodernism and the green meme had rather completely invaded academia in general and cultural studies in particular—even the alternative colleges and institutes were speaking postmodernese with an authoritarian thunder. The politically correct were policing the types of serious discourse that could, and could not, be uttered in academe. Pluralistic relativism was the only acceptable worldview. It claimed that all truth is culturally situated (except its own truth, which is true for all cultures); it claimed there are no transcendental truths (except its own pronouncements, which transcend specific contexts); it claimed that all hierarchies or value rankings are oppressive and marginalizing (except its own value ranking, which is superior to the alternatives); it claimed that there are no universal truths (except its own pluralism, which is universally true for all peoples).
The downsides of extreme postmodernism and pluralistic relativism are now well-known and widely acknowledged, but at the time I was trying to write System, Self, and Structure, they were thought to be gospel and were as religiously embraced, making any sort of developmental and transcendental studies anathema. I therefore set System, Self, and Structure aside and began to ponder how to continue, feeling rather like a salmon who had first to swim upstream in order to have any fun at all.
One thing was very clear to me, as I struggled with how best to proceed in an intellectual climate dedicated to deconstructing anything that crossed its path: I would have to back up and start at the beginning, and try to create a vocabulary for a more constructive philosophy. Beyond pluralistic relativism is universal integralism; I therefore sought to outline a philosophy of universal integralism.
Put differently, I sought a world philosophy—or an integral philosophy—that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos, a plausible Theory of Everything.
Three years later, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was the result. During that period I lived the hermit life; I saw exactly four people in three years (Roger Walsh, who is an M.D., stopped by once a year to make sure I was alive); it was very much a typical three-year silent retreat (this period is described in One Taste, June 12 entry). I was locked into this thing, and it would not let go.
The hard part had to do with hierarchies. Granted, dominator hierarchies are deplorable, and oppressive social rankings are pernicious. Postmodernism has fortunately made us all more sensitive to those injustices. But even the anti-herarchy critics have their own strong hierarchies (or value rankings). The postmodernists value pluralism over absolutism—and that is their value hierarchy. Even the eco-philosophers, who abhor hierarchies that place humans on the top of the evolutionary scale, have their own very strong hierarchy, which is: subatomic elements are parts of atoms, which are parts of molecules, which are parts of cells, which are parts of organisms, which are parts of ecosystems, which are parts of the biosphere. They thus value the biosphere above particular organisms, such as man, and they deplore man’s using the biosphere for his own selfish and ruinous purposes. All of that comes from their particular value hierarchy.
Feminists have several hierarchies (e.g., partnership societies are better than power societies; linking is better than ranking; liberation is better than oppression); systems theorists have hundreds of hierarchies (most natural systems are arranged hierarchically); biologists and linguists and developmental psychologists all have hierarchies. (Even those memes that don’t recognize hierarchies—such as beige or purple—still have hierarchical structures). Everybody seemed to have some sort of hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn’t. The problem is, none of them matched with the others. None of the hierarchies seemed to agree with each other. And that was the basic problem that kept me locked in my room for three years.
At one point, I had over two hundred hierarchies written out on legal pads lying all over the floor, trying to figure out how to fit them together. There were the “natural science” hierarchies, which were the easy ones, since everybody agreed with them: atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, for example. They were easy to understand because they were so graphic: organisms actually contain cells, which actually contain molecules, which actually contain atoms. You can even see this directly with a microscope. That hierarchy is one of actual embrace: cells literally embrace or enfold molecules.
The other fairly easy series of hierarchies were those discovered by the developmental psychologists. They all told variations on the hierarchy that goes from preconventional to conventional to postconventional, or in a bit more detail, from sensation to perception to impulse to image to symbol to concept to rule to formal. . . . The names varied, and the schemes were slightly different, but the hierarchical story was the same—each succeeding stage incorporated its predecessors and then added some new capacity. This seemed very similar to the natural science hierarchies, except they still did not match up in any obvious way. Moreover, you can actually see organisms and cells in the empirical world, but you can’t see interior states of consciousness in the same way. It is not at all obvious how these hierarchies would—or even could—be related.
And those were the easy ones. There were linguistic hierarchies, contextual hierarchies, spiritual hierarchies. There were stages of development in phonetics, stellar systems, cultural worldviews, autopoietic systems, technological modes, economic structures, phylogenetic unfoldings, superconscious realizations. . . . And they simply refused to agree with each other.
G. Spencer Brown, in his remarkable book, Laws of Form, said that new knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield. The history of human beings is certainly testament to that fact. An individual runs into a problem, and simply obsesses about that problem until he or she solves it. And the funny thing is: the problem is always solved. Sooner or later, it yields. It might take a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, or a millennium, but the Kosmos appears to be such that solutions are always forthcoming. For a million years, humans looked at the moon and wanted to walk on it. . . .
I believe any competent person is capable of bearing problems in mind until they yield their secrets; what not everybody possesses is the requisite will, passion, or insane obsession that will let them hold the problem long enough or fiercely enough. I, at any rate, was insane enough for this particular problem, and toward the end of that three-year period, the whole thing started to become clear to me. It soon became obvious that the various hierarchies fall into four major classes (what I would call the four quadrants [see below]); that some of the hierarchies are referring to individuals, some to collectives; some are about exterior realities, some are about interior ones, but they all fit together seamlessly.
The ingredients of these hierarchies are holons. A holon is a whole that is a part of other wholes. For example, a whole atom is part of a whole molecule; a whole molecule is part of a whole cell; a whole cell is part of a whole organism. Or again, a whole letter is part of a whole word, which is part of a whole sentence, which is part of a whole paragraph, and so on. Reality is composed of neither wholes nor parts, but of whole/parts, or holons. Reality in all domains is basically composed of holons.
This is also why, as Arthur Koestler pointed out, a growth hierarchy is actually a holarchy, since it is composed of holons (such as atoms to molecules to cells to organisms—what we also called nested hierarchy or actualization hierarchy, which is why holarchies are the backbone of holism: they convert heaps to wholes, which are parts of other wholes, limitlessly). The Kosmos is a series of nests within nests within nests indefinitely, expressing greater and greater holistic embrace—holarchies of holons everywhere—which is why everybody had their own value holarchy, and why, in the end, all of these holarchies intermesh and fit perfectly with all the others.
The universe is composed of holons, all the way up, all the way down. And with that, much of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality began to write itself. The book is divided into two parts (three actually, counting the endnotes, a separate book in themselves). Part One describes this holonic Kosmos—nests within nests within nests indefinitely—and the worldview of universal integralism that I believe can most authentically express it. Part Two attempts to explain why this holistic Kosmos is so often ignored or denied. If the universe really is a pattern of mutually interrelated patterns and processes—holarchies of holons—why do so few disciplines acknowledge this fact? If the Kosmos is not holistic, not integral, not holonic—if it is a fragmented and jumbled affair, with no common contexts or linkings or joinings or communions—then fine, the world is the jumbled mess the various specialties take it to be. But if the world is holistic and holonic, then why do not more people see this? And why do many academic specialties actively deny it? If the world is whole, why do so many people see it as broken? And why, in a sense, is the world broken, fragmented, alienated, divided?
The second part of the book therefore looks at what prevents us from seeing the holistic Kosmos. It looks at what I call flatland. In a sense, flatland is simply the failure to grasp the entire spiral of development or the full spectrum of consciousness; the antidote to flatland is an integral vision, which is what SES attempts to provide.
Once the book was conceived, the actual writing went fairly quickly. It was published in 1995. Reviews ranged from very positive (“Along with Aurobindo’s Life Divine, Heidegger’s Being and Time, and Whitehead’s Process and Reality, Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality is one of the four great books of this century”3) to puzzled, confused, or angry (“This is one of the most irritating books of the year, pompous and over-bloated”). But the most common overall reaction to SES was one of what I suppose we might call joy. I was flooded with mail from readers who told of the liberating influence that SES had on their view of the world, on their view of reality, on their consciousness itself. SES is, after all, a story of the feats of your very own Self, and many readers rejoiced at that remembrance. Women forgave me any patriarchal obnoxiousness, men told me of weeping throughout the last chapter. Apart from Grace and Grit, I have never received such heartfelt and deeply moving letters as I received from SES, letters that made those difficult three years seem more than worth it.
One critic wrote of SES that “it honors and incorporates more truth than any approach in history.” I obviously would like to believe that is the case, but I also know that every tomorrow brings new truths, opens new vistas, and creates the demand for even more encompassing views. SES is simply the latest in a long line of holistic visions, and will itself pass into a greater tomorrow where it is merely a footnote to more glorious views.
In the meantime, I personally believe that SES (and the subsequent books fleshing it out)4 can serve as a helpful integral view. A Brief History of Everything is a popular version of SES, and interested readers might start there. Of course, it is not necessary that you agree with all of this vision or even most of it—and, in fact, you will probably be able to improve on it, which would be great. This is simply one version of an integral overview—one attempt at a T.O.E.—useful only to the degree that it helps you to envision your own integral possibilities. Shall we take a look?
Let us start with a sketch of an integral map of human possibilities. In the next three sections I will give a simple overview of this integral model as it appears in humans. This brief overview will be a little bit abstract, and if this is not your favorite type of reading, don’t worry. In chapters 5 and 6 we will look at many concrete examples in medicine, education, business, politics, and so on. In the meantime, you might simply familiarize yourself with the general ideas, all of which are summarized in a simple fashion in the accompanying diagrams.
Since we have already used Spiral Dynamics as one example of some of the levels or waves of consciousness unfolding, we can continue to use that model, and then plug it into an “all-quadrant, all-level” conception, as shown in figure 3-1.5
With reference to figure 3-1, we might note several items. The four quadrants—which will be fully explained in the coming chapters—simply refer to four of the most important dimensions of the Kosmos, namely, the interior and the exterior of the individual and the collective. If you look at figure 4-4, you can see a few concrete examples of some of the holons in each of the quadrants. Figure 3-1 is specifically for human holons. In this section we will focus on the Upper-Left quadrant in humans (or consciousness in an individual); in the next section, we will look at the other three quadrants.
The Upper-Left quadrant (which is the interior of the individual, and which in the simplistic fig. 3-1 only contains one line and eight levels), actually contains a full spectrum of levels (or waves of development—stretching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit; or again, from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to integral to transpersonal, not as rigidly discrete platforms but as overlapping waves); many different streams (or lines of development—the different modules, dimensions, or areas of development—including cognitive, moral, affective, linguistic, kinesthetic, somatic, interpersonal, etc.); different states of consciousness (including waking, dreaming, sleeping, altered, nonordinary, and meditative); and different types of consciousness (or possible orientations at every level, including personality types and different gender styles)—all of which will be explained in the following sections—resulting in a richly textured, holodynamic, integral view of consciousness.
Let us focus, for a moment, on waves, streams, and types. Waves are the “levels” of development, conceived in a fluid, flowing, and intermeshing fashion, which is how most developmentalists today view them. Figure 3-1 gives eight levels of development; but, as we will see, I believe there are at least four higher, transpersonal, or spiritual waves (psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual). Of course, none of these waves are rigid or linear platforms, like so many bricks stacked on top of each other, but rather are fluid, flowing, average modes of consciousness.
Through these levels or waves of development flow many different lines or streams of development. We have credible evidence that these different streams, lines, or modules include cognition, morals, self-identity, psychosexuality, ideas of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that can be called “spiritual” (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), communicative competence, modes of space and time, affect/emotion, death-seizure, needs, worldviews, mathematical competence, musical skills, kinesthetics, gender identity, defense mechanisms, interpersonal capacity, and empathy.6
One of the most striking items about these multiple modules or streams is that most of them develop in a relatively independent fashion. Research is still fleshing out the details of these relationships; some lines are necessary but not sufficient for others; some develop closely together. But on balance, many of the streams develop at their own rate, with their own dynamic, in their own way. A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some streams, medium in others, and low in still others. Overall development, in other words, can be quite uneven.
I have indicated this, in a very simplistic fashion, in figure 3-2. Here the levels of development (or the levels of consciousness) are represented on the vertical axis by the Graves/Spiral Dynamic memes.7 I have added what I believe are three of the higher, transpersonal waves (psychic, subtle, and causal), which we will discuss later.8 I have also placed the common Christian terms for the full spectrum on the left (matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit), showing their correlations in a very general fashion.
Through those general levels or waves pass various developmental lines or streams. I have selected only five as examples (kinesthetic, cognitive, moral, emotional, and spiritual), but you can see the uneven development that is theoretically possible (and that empirical research has continued to confirm often happens).
Since the waves of development are actually a holarchy, this can also be indicated in as in figure 3-3. Here, I am using just four major levels—body, mind, soul, and spirit, each of which transcends and includes its predecessors in increasing waves of integral embrace (a true holarchy of nests within nests). And since most lines of development are not linear but are also a fluid, flowing, spiraling affair, figure 3-3 is actually more accurately represented as in figure 3-4. But all of these figures show the uneven, nonlinear nature of most development.
This model sheds considerable light on the fact that, for example, some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal.
This also allows us to spot the ways in which the spiritual traditions themselves—from shamanism to Buddhism to Christianity to indigenous religions—might excel in training certain lines or capacities, but fall short in many others, or even be pathological in many others. A more integral transformative practice might therefore seek a more balanced or “all-quadrant, all-level” approach to transformation (see below).
As for types, see figure 3-5, which uses the enneagram as an example. What I have done here is take only one developmental line (it can be anything—morals, cognition, etc.) and list the levels or waves of development through which this particular stream will tend to unfold (using Spiral Dynamics as an example of the waves). At each level I have drawn the enneagram as an example of what might be called a horizontal typology, or a typology of the personality types that can exist at almost any vertical level of development. The point is that a person can be a particular type (using Jungian types, Myers-Briggs, the enneagram, etc.) at virtually any of the levels. Thus, if a person is, say, predominantly enneagram type 5, then as they develop they would be purple 5, red 5, blue 5, and so on (again, not in a rigid linear fashion, but in a fluid and flowing mesh).9
For many feminists, male and female orientations also constitute a type. Based mostly on work by Carol Gilligan and Deborah Tannen, the idea is that the typical male orientation tends to be more agentic, autonomous, abstract, and independent, based on rights and justice; whereas the female orientation tends to be more permeable, relational, and feelingful, based on care and responsibility. Gilligan, recall, agrees that females proceed through three (or four) hierarchical stages of development, and these are essentially the same three (or four) hierarchical stages or waves through which males proceed (namely, preconventional, conventional, postconventional, and integrated).
The reason that many people, especially feminists, still incorrectly believe that Gilligan denied a female hierarchy of development is that Gilligan found that males tend to make judgments using ranking or hierarchical thinking, whereas women tend to make judgments using linking or relational thinking (what I summarize as agency and communion, respectively). But what many people overlooked is that Gilligan maintained that the female orientation itself proceeds through three (or four) hierarchical stages—from selfish to care to universal care to integrated. Thus, many feminists confused the idea that females tend not to think hierarchically with the idea that females do not develop hierarchically; the former is true, the latter is false, according to Gilligan herself.10 (Why was Gilligan so widely misread and distorted in this area? Because the green meme denies hierarchies in general, and thus it literally could not perceive her message accurately.)
In The Eye of Spirit (chap. 8, “Integral Feminism”), I summarize this research by saying that men and women both proceed through the same general waves of development, but men tend to do so with an emphasis on agency, women with an emphasis on communion.11
This approach to gender development allows us to utilize the extensive contributions of developmental studies, but also supplement them with a keener understanding of how females evolve “in a different voice” through the great waves of existence. In the past, it was not uncommon to find orthodox psychological researchers defining females as “deficient males” (i.e., females “lack” logic, rationality, a sense of justice; they are even defined by “penis envy,” or desiring that which they lack). Nowadays it is not uncommon to find, especially among feminists, the reverse prejudice: males are defined as “deficient females” (i.e., males “lack” sensitivity, care, relational capacity, embodiment, etc.).
Well, we might say, a plague on both houses. With this more integral approach, we can trace development through the great waves and streams of existence, but also recognize that males and females might navigate that great River of Life using a different style, type, or voice. This means that we can still recognize the major waves of existence—which, in fact, are gender-neutral—but we must fully honor the validity of both styles of navigating those waves.12
Finally, individuals at virtually any stage of development can have an altered state or peak experience, including those that are called spiritual experiences, and this can have a profound effect on their consciousness and its development. Thus, the idea that spiritual experiences can only occur at higher stages is incorrect. However, in order for altered states to become permanent traits, they need to enter the stream of enduring development.13
The point is that, even looking at just the Upper-Left quadrant, a more integral map of consciousness is now at least possible, one that includes waves, streams, states, and types, all of which appear to be important ingredients in this extraordinary spectrum of consciousness.
But individual or subjective consciousness does not exist in a vacuum; no subject is an island unto itself. Individual consciousness is inextricably intermeshed with the objective organism and brain (Upper-Right quadrant); with nature, social systems, and environment (Lower-Right quadrant); and with cultural settings, communal values, and worldviews (Lower-Left quadrant). Again, each of these quadrants has numerous waves, streams, and types, only a pitifully few of which are indicated in fig. 3-1. In books such as A Brief History of Everything, The Eye of Spirit, and Integral Psychology, I have given a wide variety of examples from each quadrant, as they relate to art and literary interpretation, feminism and gender studies, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and religion. Here are a few quick examples:
The Upper-Right quadrant is the individual viewed in an objective, empirical, “scientific” fashion. In particular, this includes organic body states, biochemistry, neurobiological factors, neurotransmitters, organic brain structures (brain stem, limbic system, neocortex), and so on. Whatever we might think about the actual relation of mind-consciousness (Upper Left) and brain-body (Upper Right), we can at least agree they are intimately related. The point is simply that an “all-quadrant, all-level” model would certainly include the important correlations of waves, streams, states, and types of consciousness (UL) with brain states, organic substrates, neurotransmitters, and so on (UR).
There is now occurring an extraordinary amount of research into organic brain states and their relation to consciousness—so much so that most orthodox researchers tend to simply reduce consciousness to brain mechanisms. But this reductionism devastates the contours of consciousness itself, reduces “I” experiences to “it” systems, and denies the phenomenal realities of the interior domains altogether. The insidiousness of this reduction of Upper Left to Upper Right is avoided when we take instead an all-quadrant, all-level approach, which refuses unwarrantedly to reduce any level, line, or quadrant to any other.14
The Lower-Left quadrant involves all those patterns in consciousness that are shared by those who are “in” a particular culture or subculture. For you and I to understand each other at all, we need, at the very least, to share certain linguistic semantics, numerous perceptions, worldviews that overlap to some degree (so that communication is possible at all), and so on. These shared values, perceptions, meanings, semantic habitats, cultural practices, ethics, and so on, I simply refer to as culture, or the intersubjective patterns in consciousness.
These cultural perceptions, all of which exist to some degree in ntersubjective spaces in consciousness, nonetheless have objective correlates that can be empirically detected—physical structures and institutions, including techno-economic modes (foraging, horticultural, maritime, agrarian, industrial, informational), architectural styles, geopolitical structures, modes of information transfer (vocal signs, ideograms, movable type printing, telecommunications, microchip), social structure (survival clans, ethnic tribes, feudal orders, ancient nations, corporate states, value communities, and so on). I refer to these interobjective realities in general as the social system (the Lower-Right quadrant).
Figure 3-6 depicts the fact that, throughout history, different theorists have often focused on one quadrant, often to the exclusion of others. The “Right-Hand Paths” have all focused on the exterior quadrants—those items that can be seen with the senses or their extensions. Theorists and researchers of the Upper Right focus on the exterior of individuals—behaviorism, empiricism, physics, biology, cognitive science, neurology, brain physiology, and so on. (Even though the brain is on the inside of the organism, it is investigated in an objective, exterior, scientific fashion, and hence is part of the Upper Right.) The Upper-Right quadrant is what we most often think of as the hard sciences.
Theorists of the Lower Right focus on the exterior of the collective, or the systems sciences—systems theory, the ecological web of life, chaos and complexity theories, techno-economic structures, environmental networks, and social systems. Both of the Right-Hand quadrants are approached in objective, third-person, “it” language, and thus both are usually thought of as “scientific” (the UR being individual sciences and the LR being systems sciences).15
The “Left-Hand Paths” all focus on the interior quadrants. Theorists and researchers of the Upper Left investigate interior consciousness as it appears in individuals, and this has resulted in everything from psychoanalysis to phenomenology to introspective psychology to meditative states of consciousness (e.g., Freud to Jung to Piaget to Buddha). These phenomenal realities are all expressed, not in “it” language but in “I” language (not third person but first person).
Figure 3-6. Some Representative Theorists in Each Quadrant
Theorists of the Lower Left investigate the interior of the collective—all the shared values, perceptions, worldviews, and background cultural contexts that are expressed, not in “I” language or in “it” language, but in “we” language. These theorists include the hermeneutic, interpretive, and phenomenological cultural studies (such as Thomas Kuhn and Jean Gebser). The profound effects of background cultural contexts on the other quadrants have especially been emphasized by the various postmodern writers (from Nietzsche to Heidegger to Foucault to Derrida), even if they overstate the case.
As you will see in the following pages, the integral approach that I am recommending—and which I simplistically summarize as “all-quadrant, all-level”—is dedicated to including all of the nonreducible realities in all of the quadrants, which means all of the waves, streams, states, and types, as disclosed by reputable, nonreductionistic researchers. All four quadrants, with all their realities, mutually interact and evolve—they “tetra-interact” and “tetra-evolve”—and a more integral approach is sensitive to those richly textured patterns of infinite interaction.
I sometimes simplify this model even further by calling it a “1-2-3” approach to the Kosmos. This refers to first-person, second-person, and third-person realities. As I briefly mentioned (and as you can see in figs. 3-1 and 3-6), the Upper-Left quadrant involves “I-language” (or first-person accounts); the Lower-Left quadrant involves “we-language” (or second-person accounts); and both Right-Hand quadrants, since they are objective patterns, involve “it-language” (or third-person accounts).16
Thus, the four quadrants can be simplified to the “Big Three” (I, we, and it). These important dimensions can be stated in many different ways: art, morals, and science; the Beautiful, the Good, and the True; self, culture, and nature. The point of an “all-quadrant, all-level” approach is that it would honor all of the waves of existence—from body to mind to soul to spirit—as they all unfold in self, culture, and nature.
Simplest of all, I refer to this model as “holonic.” As we saw, a holon is a whole that is a part of other wholes. A whole atom is part of a whole molecule; a whole molecule is part of a whole cell; a whole cell is part of a whole organism. Reality is composed of neither wholes nor parts, but whole/parts, or holons. The fundamental entities in all of the quadrants, levels, and lines are simply holons (see SES for a full elaboration of this topic). As Arthur Koestler pointed out, a growth hierarchy is actually a holarchy, since it is composed of holons (such as atoms to molecules to cells to organisms). This is why the only way you get a holism is via a holarchy, and why those who deny all hierarchies have only a heapism, not a wholism.
There is a nice symmetry here, in that Beck and Cowan specifically refer to second-tier thinking as recognizing and operating with “holons.” As they put it, second tier is defined as “Holon: Everything flows with everything else in living systems; second tier stitches together particles, people, functions and nodes into networks and stratified levels [nested hierarchies or holarchies], and detects the energy fields that engulf, billow around, and flow throughout naturally in a ‘big picture’ of cosmic order.” That “big picture” is a T.O.E., and that order appears to be holonic. . . .
What, then, can we say about a more integral model of human possibilities? Before we can talk about applications of an integral vision—in education, politics, business, health care, and so on—we need to have some general notion of what it is that we are applying in the first place. When we move from pluralistic relativism to universal integralism, what kind of map might we find? We have seen that a more integral cartography might include:
Such are a few of the multiple factors that a richly holonic view of the Kosmos might wish to include. At the very least, any model that does not coherently include most of those items is not a very integral model. Much of my writing has been dedicated to trying to present the reader with the conclusions from researchers working with second-tier conceptions, whether from premodern, modern, or postmodern sources. Researchers, that is, who are looking at the entire spectrum of consciousness, in all its many waves, streams, states, and realms. And, beyond that, to present an all-quadrant, all-level view, which is the full spectrum in its multiple modalities—a conception that specifically attempts to accommodate the most amount of evidence from the most number of researchers.
As I said, the above overview is a bit dry and abstract, simply because we had to cover much ground in a short space. In subsequent chapters we will see many concrete examples of these ideas, whereupon they will, I trust, become more alive and vibrant.
This integrative attempt points up exactly what I believe is the central issue for cultural and integral studies at the millennium: will we remain stuck in the green meme—with both its wonderful contributions (e.g., pluralistic sensitivity) and its pathologies (e.g., boomeritis)? Or will we make the leap to the hyperspace of second-tier consciousness, and thus stand open to even further evolution into the transpersonal waves of our own possibilities?
One of the questions we are dealing with, in other words, is how to more effectively implement the emergence of integral (and even transpersonal) consciousness at the leading edge. What is required, in my opinion, is not simply a new integral theory or a new T.O.E., important as that is, but also a new integral practice. Even if we possessed the perfect integral map of the Kosmos, a map that was completely all-inclusive and unerringly holistic, that map itself would not transform people. We don’t just need a map; we need ways to change the mapmaker.
Thus, although most of my books attempt to offer a genuinely integral vision, they almost always end with a call for some sort of integral practice—a practice that exercises body, mind, soul, and spirit in self, culture, and nature (all-level, all-quadrant). You will hear this call constantly in the following pages, along with specific suggestions for how to begin a truly integral transformative practice in your own case, if such seems desirable to you.
The applications of this holonic model—in education, spiritual practice, politics, business, health care, and so on—will be explored in chapters 5 and 6. In the meantime, let us return to our major points—the impact of an integral vision on both the leading edge and the average mode—and note the following.
One of the main conclusions of an all-quadrant, all-level approach is that each meme—each level of consciousness and wave of existence—is, in its healthy form, an absolutely necessary and desirable element of the overall spiral, of the overall spectrum of consciousness. Even if every society on earth were established fully at second tier, nonetheless every infant born in every society still has to start at level 1, at beige, at sensorimotor instincts and perceptions, and then must grow and evolve through purple magic, red and blue myth, orange rationalism, green sensitivity, and into yellow and turquoise second tier (on the way to the transpersonal). All of those waves have important tasks and functions; all of them are taken up and included in subsequent waves; none of them can be bypassed; and none of them can be demeaned without grave consequences to self and society. The health of the entire spiral is the prime directive, not preferential treatment for any one level.
Because the health of the entire spectrum of consciousness is paramount, and not any particular level, this means that a genuinely universal integralism would measure more carefully its actual impact. I believe that the real revolutions facing today’s world involve, not a glorious collective move into transpersonal domains, but the simple, fundamental changes that can be brought to the magic, mythic, and rational waves of existence.
Human beings are born and begin their evolution through the great spiral of consciousness, moving from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to perhaps integral, and from there perhaps into genuinely transpersonal domains. But for every person that moves into integral or higher, dozens are born into the archaic. The spiral of existence is a great unending flow, stretching from body to mind to soul to spirit, with millions upon millions constantly flowing through that great river from source to ocean. No society will ever simply be at an integral level, because the flow is unceasing (although the center of gravity of a culture can indeed drift upward, as it has over history—see Up from Eden). But the major problem remains: not, how can we get everybody to the integral wave or higher, but how can we arrange the health of the overall spiral, as billions of humans continue to pass through it, from one end to the other, year in and year out?
In other words, most of the work that needs to be done is work to make the lower (and foundational) waves more healthy in their own terms. The major reforms do not involve how to get a handful of boomers into second tier, but how to feed the starving millions at the most basic waves; how to house the homeless millions at the simplest of levels; how to bring health care to the millions who do not possess it. An integral vision is one of the least pressing issues on the face of the planet.
Let me drive this point home using calculations done by Dr. Phillip Harter of Stanford University School of Medicine. If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of only 100 people, it would look something like this:
There would be
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 North and South Americans
8 Africans
30 white
70 nonwhite
6 people would possess 59% of the world’s wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer malnutrition
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer
Thus, as I suggested, an integral vision is one of the least pressing issues on the face of the planet. The health of the entire spiral, and particularly its earlier waves, screams out to us as the major ethical demand.
Nonetheless, the advantage of second-tier integral awareness is that it more creatively helps with the solutions to those pressing problems. In grasping big pictures, it can help suggest more cogent solutions. It is our governing bodies, then, that stand in dire need of a more integral approach. It is our educational institutions, overcome with deconstructive postmodernism, that are desperate for a more integral vision. It is our business practices, saturated with fragmented gains, that cry out for a more balanced approach. It is our health-care facilities that could greatly benefit from the tender mercies of an integral touch. It is the leadership of the nations that might appreciate a more comprehensive vision of their own possibilities. In all these ways and more, we could indeed use an integral vision for a world gone slightly mad.
