The Daily Evolver

Hey folks, welcome back to The Daily Evolver! It’s good to be with you again. Today’s episode was initiated by my Integral colleagues, Nomali Perera and Lee Mason of Practical Integral, who invited me to share my thoughts at the end of another year in the human adventure. The integral lens reveals a fundamental force in cultural development: the struggle between worldviews. In 2022 we saw this struggle play out in a geopolitical context, with the events in Ukraine, China and Iran. We saw it within our culture through the battles over covid, gender and race. And we can experience it individually as we grow into integral consciousness and are able to embrace multiple worldviews. Unfortunately, growth is painful and suffering seems to be a feature at every stage. That’s where this episode begins – but not where it ends. Enjoy! Jeff Salzman PS – Over my break, I got more involved in posting on Twitter, and I invite you to “follow” me there @dailyevolver. I’ve found Twitter to be quite stimulating and conducive to providing quick integral insights on current events. Indeed, my next episode will be about Twitter and its new owner, the spiral wizard Elon Musk. Stay tuned!

In this episode, I point out a heartening trend among cultural commentators: an increasing recognition that people, particularly people fighting a culture war, not only think different things, they think differently. A key teaching of integral theory is that human consciousness and culture evolve through stages of development. Each stage has its own receptors, processors and algorithms, and each reveals a different “worldspace” which their subjects occupy. When conflicts arise among people of different worldspaces, there is limited common ground and deep divisions remain that are immune to influence. Philosopher Robert Fogelin refers to this divide as “deep disagreement” where successful argument is not an option. What is called for is integral consciousness, a worldspace occupied by someone who is capable of holding multiple perspectives, a person that Peter Limberg and Conor Barnes describe as a “pan-tribalist participant, who has the ability to communicate across tribes in a way that seems fair and reasonable to each tribe. They would have the mental agility, empathy, and wisdom needed to shift between a multitude of perspectives.” In this podcast, I place the notion of “integral pluralism” in a developmental context, which I think helps us understand it not just as a psychological capacity but as a movement of human history. I also highlight how it helped me consider the high-profile public apologies offered this week by two of my least-favorite people: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chrissy Teigen. Enjoy! For more on the application of integral pluralism in the current culture war, see Greg Thomas’s excellent new essay “Why I Am a Radical Moderate.” June 26th: Grace and Grit: From Book to Movie to Integral Life Practice On another note, my friends and colleagues, Nomali Perera and writer/director Grace and Grit (the movie), Sebastian Siegel, would like to invite you to a zoom call where they’ll discuss the movie, as well as engage in community practice. It is free and open to all. You can find more details here.  

In this episode, I take a look at the “ultimate questions” of religion and philosophy: Who are we? Where are we going? How does one live a meaningful life in a world that is marked by loss and death, but also goodness and beauty?  Throughout history, humanity has come up with many different and often conflicting answers to these questions. Early humans perceived a spirit world where the ancestors were present and available. Traditional cultures posited a transcendent reality – Godhead or Nirvana – with death as an opportunity for liberation from evil and suffering. Modernity deconstructed religion and spirit but produced the insights of psychology, as well as countless therapies for personal growth. The integral approach is to embrace them all and to be illuminated by multiple truths. In that spirit I created this episode by talking to four of my smartest integral colleagues about their views of the ultimate questions: Dr. Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist for over 50 years, talks about the psychotherapeutic approach to trauma and grief. Integral teacher and coach Nomali Perera shares the story of the death of her father and the metamorphosis of meaning it sparked in her. Buddhist priest and integral teacher Diane Musho Hamilton offers guidance on the meditative approach of compassion and soothing presence. And integral philosopher Steve McIntosh brings a theistic perspective, seeing death as a passage in one’s infinite cosmic journey of divine perfection. I feel better – and a little bigger – having had these conversations. I hope they help you expand a bit as well! – Jeff Salzman

Excellent nuanced conversation. – Daniel Schulman Never heard anybody articulate so beautifully the differences between integral self and holistic self; although hearing explained so succinctly, it felt like home. Like many kensho moments when it opens us to a deeper understanding that we can never close again. Thank you. Yellow is still trying to understand and let go, teal accepts. – Steven Webb Great conversation in the transition from one tier to the next. The clear appreciation of the seminal work of Clare Graves, Don Beck and Chris Cowan is wonderful. Thanks to Jeff Salzman and  Nomali Perera. 1:09: 26, well invested! – Albert Klamt What a wonderful conversation, thanks for sharing! A must-listen for every integral person. – Johannes Schunter Enough people have been experimenting with integral consciousness for long enough that some of its contours are becoming apparent. As with all stages of human history, integral both sheds new light and casts new shadows on the human condition. In today’s episode, Nomali Perera, my dear friend and colleague in integral practice for nearly 20 years, and I share a few of our observations. 13:13 – How integral includes, and get hijacked by, previous stages of consciousness 39:14 – “Integral bypassing” – what the maps show us vs the territory we can actually inhabit 52:10 – The qualities of the Yellow/Teal and Turquoise stages of Integral consciousness, and how we can embrace both I hope you enjoy the episode and, if moved, let me know what you think! Send emails to [email protected] or leave me a voicemail here. Nomali Perera is a certified integral coach, facilitator and trainer, and can be found on Practical Integral.com. 

Wow a great stimulating conversation. – Mary Linda Landauer These two guests were particularly interesting. a fascinating discussion. – Dave Cardano A couple weeks ago I received an email from my old pal Jason Lange with the question: “What’s your pulse on all the ‘conspirituality’ out there?” I’d never heard the term “conspirituality”, but I understood what he meant when he described “the weird convergence I’m seeing of ‘spiritual’ friends going hard right, Trump, even QAnon.” What an interesting phenomenon! I’ve seen some of it myself, even in the integral world. Is it a reaction against the recent eruptions of mean green? An evolutionary regression brought on by stressful life conditions? Or perhaps a strange integration, as is the way of evolution, of the split-off fragments of earlier stages? Or … do they see something true that the rest of us are missing? I wanted to know more, so I invited Jason and our colleague Nomali Perera, who has a keen cultural eye, to a conversation. I learned a lot (what a world!) and trust you will too.  – Jeff Salzman 1:00 Conspirituality, what a great word! 16:13 Can we even know what’s true? 20:00 Trump, the mind-blower 20:58 Vaccines and the DNA of the USA 40:58 Who or what has authority in the face of conspirituality? 42:21 Healthy American nationalism and Biden 45:16 The emerging Integral political right 52:52 So, what now? Some ideas to move forward Nomali Perera is an integral coach and consultant, and can be found at Practical Integral. Jason Lange is a filmmaker and evolutionary guide and producer of the podcast, Do the Evolution. 

In today’s episode I recount my own evolution through the spiral of development and share how the integral vision has illuminated my world(s). I was approached for this interview by two dear friends: Nomali Perera, with whom I’ve worked on many integral projects since 2004, and Lee Mason, whom I’ve come to know more recently. Nomali and Lee are both coaches, facilitators and teachers in the integral arena, and have teamed up to create a series of offerings called Practical Integral. In addition to this interview, they asked me to join them in producing short introductory videos on each of the five dimensions of Ken Wilber’s AQAL Theory (all Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States and Types). It was a perfect lockdown project that we enjoyed thoroughly, and the videos, Back to Basics: Introducing Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, are now available on their site. I encourage you to check them out (and perhaps send them to someone who might enjoy hearing the lived experience of integral consciousness more than the fine points of theory). I hope you enjoy both the interview and the new video series. And please do get in touch with Nomali and Lee if you are interested in integral facilitation and coaching. About Lee Mason and Nomali Perera Based in Amsterdam, Lee Mason will be teaching the fourth edition of his comprehensive Integral Flourishing course, starting on September 14th, 2020. Nomali Perera, a certified Integral Master Coach will be offering three new  Immunity to Change™ group coaching sessions in August and September. You can find more details on www.practicalintegral.com.

By Jeff Salzman In September 2007, I along with partners Nomali Perera, Ross Hostetter and Jason Lange, co-founded Boulder Integral in a sweet old church in Boulder, Colorado. Four years later our group passed the baton to Robert MacNaughton and his team, who renamed it The Integral Center. Although our approaches were different, Robert’s and my goals were the same: first, to provide a bricks-and-mortar center for the study and practice of integral theory, attracting integral teachers and practitioners from all over the world. The second goal was to create a place for local integral enthusiasts in Colorado to take root and grow into … well, whatever a community of integralists can grow into. After a dozen years of significant success in the first goal and many wild and wooly attempts at the second, our integral adventure has come to an end. Or, better yet, it goes forward, as the fire of integral consciousness that was lit and continues to shine through the many thousands of people who sojourned to the Integral Church. In this conversation, Robert and I commiserate and commemorate the life of the Boulder Integral Center, and share some of the lessons we learned from our intense, surprising and ultimately fruitful experiment in integral community-building. Robert MacNaughton is a leadership consultant and facilitator who specializes in the fields of Integral business and experiential education. Robert focuses on supporting leaders with execution strategies, designing work culture, and navigating interpersonal conflict both personally and professionally. Robert is leading an Aletheia, Integral Circling Intensive in Boulder, June 21-23rd. This Aletheia is unique in that it’s limited to only 8 participants. Learn more and apply here: http://integralcentered.com/Aletheia.