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Today I am joined by my dear friend and colleague, Diane Musho Hamilton, to honor our brother-in-arms, Terry Patten, who recently passed away at the age of 70. Terry was beloved by many in the Integral community, and Diane and I had the privilege to teach and work with him for nearly 20 years.

As Diane recounts, Terry was “the consummate integralist”, awake to his own mind, body and spirit, and dedicated to the wellbeing of all: family, friends and the world at large. I think of him as Integral’s “Zorba the Greek”, whose warmth, laugh and sheer ecstatic transmission could turn any gathering into a celebration. Above all Terry was an activist, championing what he called the “revolution of the heart”, an integration of:

In our conversation, Diane and I reflect not just on our extraordinary friend, but also on the history of the Integral movement, the evolution of its ideas and practices, and the countless people who have been uplifted by the evolutionary vision. For anyone watching this episode, there is a photo show at the end. I hope you enjoy! – Jeff Salzman

Terry Patten’s life’s work is articulated in his final book “The New Republic of the Heart, An Ethos for Revolutionaries”. You can find out more about Diane Musho Hamilton, and contact her about her offerings, here.

The cover version of the song Spirit in the Sky is credited to Black Feathers.

Here are some end-of-year-musings about our current moment in the evolution of consciousness. I bring an integral lens to look at cultural polarization, effective governance, Covid, progress, our biggest dangers, and the challenge of the millions of stories people tell about all of it. Enjoy and here’s to a bright 2021! – Jeff Salzman

In his remake of West Side Story, master filmmaker Steven Spielberg demonstrates how to bring a classic work of art into the present. Integrating the 60-year old Broadway musical’s cultural context into our own, his West Side Story expresses colliding worlds with deep sympathy and goodwill to all.

And the sheer cinematic transmission! From the iconic opening, with its call-and-response whistle echoing through the tenements of New York City, the film’s every moment is lit with the sparkle of humanity. It exudes the passion of youth, the grittiness of street life, and the deep liquid space of the gang and family. What a joy to be in the hands of a great artist (and leader of great artists, as cinema is our most collaborative of art forms) at the height of his power.

West Side Story tells a tale of race, culture and class conflict with a flamboyantly American flavor. It is the story of star-crossed young lovers (inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), ethnic warfare, and the relentless march of modernity. In Spielberg’s hands, all of these conflicts are woven into a drama that is both particular and universal, and ultimately heartening. As Time Magazine’s critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote: “I had no idea I needed this West Side Story until I saw it.”

I hereby nominate this beautiful film for status as an integral work of art, and in this episode, I make my case. I hope you enjoy it and the movie too! – Jeff Salzman

Welcome to a new episode of Post Progressive Inquiries, where my co-host Steve McIntosh and I talk with people who are co-creating the next stage of human development.

Our guest today is David Storey, a professor of philosophy from Boston College. David discovered integral thinking outside of academia, as did most of us, but is now bringing its principles to bear on his teaching. Whether the subject is history, religion or the emerging ethics of environmentalism, David’s focus is on helping his students to learn how to communicate across worldviews.

David, Steve, and I cover a lot of territory in our conversation. In the first part, we talk about how academia is itself evolving, particularly in its warming to developmental theory and in its engagement with the culture at large. In the second half, we discuss how to bring more cultural intelligence to humanity’s climate challenge, and highlight David’s new essay in the Post-Progressive Post: Why We Will Grow Together or Grow Apart.

I hope you enjoy the episode – and check out the Post-Progressive Post! – Jeff Salzman

David Storey also hosts the podcast, Wisdom@Work, where he talks with philosophers who have gone beyond the Ivory Tower to build careers outside of academia. Steve McIntosh is the founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, and author of many books on integral theory including his latest, Developmental Politics.

I have studied, taught and practiced meditation for over 30 years. I consider meditation, arising in its endless variations, to be indispensable to spiritual development and I sing its praises regularly on this podcast.

I have also occasionally spoken about my experience years ago when an intense period of mindfulness meditation triggered a multi-year siege of anxiety which began to heal only when, after much suffering, I cast off the instructions of my teachers to “just keep meditating” and got up from the cushion and fled a retreat.

A few weeks ago I ran across an essay written by meditation teacher, Dan Lawton, called When Buddhism Goes Bad; How My Mindfulness Practice Led Me to Meltdown. A committed meditator for ten years and a full-time teacher in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction system, he described his similar (though perhaps more extreme) experience of anxiety and dissociation triggered by meditation.

When I read his story, I felt an instant siblinghood. His essay validated my experience and brought clarity to the risk inherent in lifting a transformational spiritual practice out of its traditional culture where any resulting “hell realms” and “dark nights” are recognized and metabolized.

He writes:

As meditation practices have exploded in popularity in the West, they have brought with them an array of adverse experiences far beyond the typically-billed benefits of lower stress, decreased anxiety and reduced pain. The terrain of fractured, disruptive and altered states of consciousness has often been explored in Buddhist teachings through the centuries, but when these practices made their journey into Western culture, a sufficient understanding of the downsides of meditation was lost in transit.

One way to avoid adverse effects is to integrate mindfulness practice with somatic, psychological and interpersonal work. For instance, both Dan and I ultimately found relief from our psychic pain through a trauma therapy called Somatic Experiencing, founded by the psychologist Peter Levine.

My ordeal also undoubtedly fueled my later participation in developing Integral Life Practice (ILP) at the Integral Institute in the early 2000’s. ILP is a comprehensive synthesis of transformational practices and is currently offered in many forms through Integral Life. I just wish I had had it 10 years earlier!

If an online search of “adverse effects of meditation” is any indication, the potential dangers of modern mindfulness practice are becoming more apparent. Dan highlights the work of Dr. Willoughby Britton, Director of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Brown University, who studies both positive and negative effects of meditation and has found that 37% of meditators studied report negative impacts on functioning and 6% had “lasting bad effects.” Dr. Britton has founded Cheetah House, a non-profit organization “that provides resources about meditation-related difficulties to meditators-in-distress and teachers of meditation-based modalities.”

Meditation is a powerful and precious tool and I offer this podcast in the spirit of helping us to develop a less naive and more mature relationship with it. I hope you are enlightened by my conversation with Dan Lawton.

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If you haven’t already, check out my new YouTube show, “This Week in The New York Times”, hosted by the Post-Progressive Post, where I look at news stories through the lens of cultural and consciousness evolution.

Good rationality demystifies the world and bad rationality disenchants it. This week I look at two examples of the casual blindness of mainstream culture to all things divine.

Along the way, I look at how a divine Other can be brought through modernity, cleansed of fundamentalism, and experienced directly as the 2nd Person of Spirit. The deep meaning this brings to life (and death) is the ultimate antidote to anxiety and depression. Enjoy the episode!

Hey folks, here’s some commentary I did live today as the Inauguration for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was unfolding. As always I looked for interesting integral angles, and think I found some. Also, I finally made peace with JLo!

Enjoy and let me know what you think at [email protected]. – Jeff

Photo of National Mall: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Rand Stagen is well known in the integral world as founder of the Stagen leadership academy. Stagen is the gold standard for leadership training, focused on long-term, disciplined, “leadership practice” which integrates psychological and even spiritual dimensions. I consider Rand to be one of most effective practitioners of applied integral thinking out there, and I enjoyed this conversation immensely. I hope you do too.

“Post-Progressive Inquiries” is a co-production of the Daily Evolver and the Institute for Cultural Evolution. My co-host is the founder of the Institute, Steve McIntosh.

You can find out more about Rand Stagen and the Stagen Leadership Academy here.

In this episode I share some clips from Newsmax, the cable news network that is the new home for Trump people who have left Fox News for not being supportive enough of the President.

Though inspired by the mendacity of his election fraud claims, the reporters hew closer to the truth than Trump does (The National Report), except when they opt for a good old-fashioned rant (Diamond and Silk). The result is a more differentiated mediaverse, required for the integration to come.

I end on a happy note, with uplifting evidence of the evolution of consciousness in the person of five-year-old Tianna.

“While we can easily plateau in our adult development, we don’t have to. In fact, there seems to be no upper limit to how much we can grow. The latest stages of human development remain a Mystery waiting to be lived.”

… so says Thomas McConkie, founder of Lower Lights, a spiritual community that is practicing a new approach to integral spirituality. Based in Salt Lake City as well as operating virtually, Lower Lights seeks to integrate the three pillars of mindfulness, adult development and the wisdom traditions to discover Universal patterns of growth and transformation.

In our conversation, Thomas discusses the doctrines, practices and rituals he and his community have developed to, as he says, “address the whole human being, always in relationship to a larger whole.”

I consider Thomas to be one of the brightest young innovators in the emergent field of integral spirituality. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Thomas McConkie has joined with Integral theorist Terri O’Fallen to create Spectra, a 9-month “journey of transformation” for a cohort of 20-25 people. You can find out more about the program here.