A conversation with Bence Ganti  

Several years ago, I gave a talk at the European Integral Conference about how integral is not yet global.  At

that time, Integral Theory was mainly a Western, and perhaps to a good

degree Californian, concept. My Indian, East Asian, and South American

integral friends found themselves marginalizedby a US/European

understanding of human development.  

Since then, the situation has has evolved in new

ways. Bence Ganti, the main organizer of the European Integral

Conferences has organized Integral conferences also in South Africa and

in Latin America.  What has he learned about the emergence of integral perspectives globally? On May 26-31, 2020, he will organize again the European Integral Conference in Hungary, this year with the title “Global Integral Awakens.”  The

main presenters will include Robert Kegan and Otto Sharmer, but also

Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq from Greenland and Lin Xuanyun from the integral

movement in China.What new forms of integralism are emerging around the world?

This week on Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger will talk with Bence Ganti about the awakening of a global Integral.

Ein Gespräch mit Abhishek Thakore  

Abhishek Thakore, founder of the Blue Ribbon movement in India and the South Asian Youth Conference,

has  a vision for a new dimension of conscious social activism. He is

bringing people together in new forms of shared relationship to allow

them to develop new  co-consious fields where conflicts can be

transformed into creativity.

South Asia is one of the most troubled zones on this planet.

Countries like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh have been in

conflict and in a state of cold war for decades. Between India and

Pakistan, this conflict could turn into a nuclear war at any moment.

In this context, Abhishek Thakore brings young leaders from these

different countries together in conferences and in online gatherings to

create seeds of shared understanding and dialogue between their

different communities. His vision is a bold one: in coming together in

this way we develop “new sense organs” where it is possible to see our

human experience from a much bigger perspective–a perspective beyond the

usual ethnic and national boundaries. If we develop global online

networks rooted in interconnectedness, we can create new sense organs

for a global human consciousness.

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger talks with Abhishek Thakore about his experience in creating creativity from conflict in the Blue Ribbon Movement and the South Asian Youth Conference.

A dialogue with Elizabeth Debold  

How can we use the power of the internet for a new form of spiritual activism? Elizabeth Debold is the creator of One World Bearing Witness, an annual 24-hour online vigil that will take place for the third time on this coming weekend December 7th and 8th. Thousands ofpeople of all continents will gather together in their homes, houses of worship, community centers, and sacred spaces through the global connective power of the internet to bear witness to Earth, our Mother and Home.

They will be guided by spiritual leaders, sacred activists, and wisdom keepers like Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, Charles Eisenstein, Pi Villaraza from the Philippines, Ruth Langford from Tasmania, and others who will explore and deepend the realization that we belong to Earth and that our nonseparation with Earth matters to the health of this beautiful planet. What is the purpose of such a gathering? How is this a new form of activism? What is the relationship between this form of activism and more direct action?

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger will talk with Elizabeth Debold about how we can use the power of the internet for new forms of global spiritual activism.

An interview with Hanzi Freinacht   

The Listening Society by Hanzi Freinacht speaks in a new and fresh way about how humanity can get beyond the many crises of our time. It offers us metamodernism.  

This isn’t just a new term or slogan but a deep examination of the

fault lines that are fragmenting our society. For about thirty years, postmodern philosophy has

been popular as a critique of our modern world’s roots in reductionism

and materialism–and of course, its culmination in the neoliberal

economy.  

The story of science and progress, postmodern philosophy said, is not

necessarily true. Viewed from the perspective of the oppressed and

weak, the progress of civilization often amounts to little more than

exploitation, smoke screens, excuses, and a more systematized

oppression.

While this is an important and valid critique, the postmodern

approach has its own onesidedness. With its pluralistic relativism,

where there is no truth anymore, postmodernity created its own

limitations. As a worldview where everyone and no one is right at the

same time, it had a hard time to offer a new vision for our human

future. Metamodernism has an answer to both of these limitations.

Metamodernism entered the scene only once the

Internet and the social media became truly dominant factors in people’s

lives. It is a new worldview – some call it integral – which combines a

modern faith in the potential of human development with a stark

postmodern critique.  This perspective, presented by Hanzi Freinacht in

his books, offers a view of reality as a long developmental journey

towards greater complexity. But it’s not only this process of

complexification, because the metamodern also values existential and

spiritual depth.What would a metamodern approach mean for the evolution

of human society and culture? 

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger talks with Hanzi Freinacht about the vision of metamodern society.

Diese Woche in unserem weltweiten englischsprachigen Programm:

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden created a miracle in the last century.

Why? In only a few decades, they went from poor feudal agricultural

societies to rich, progressive, post-industrial democracies.

Tomas Björkman thinks there is a secret to the miracle. Together with Lene Rachel Andersen, he wrote The Nordic Secret. They claim that this surprising developmental leap happened thanks to the German educational concept of Bildung.

In the 19th century, the Nordic countries developed in a unique

program for free consciousness development for people in rural

Scandinavia. At times more than 10% of the population went through these

programs, which laid the foundation for a mature, self-responsible

democratic society. They also explore the close relationship between Bildung

and contemporary developmental psychology, such as the similar concepts

of “ego-development” and “transformative learning.” Their book raises

the question: Can we use newer developmental models to create change in

societies that are under stress today?

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with

Tomas Björkmann about what we can learn from this positive

transformation and how to apply it to our current global crises.

Ein Gespräch mit Metsa Nihue

The well known Western practitioner of Shamanism Metsa Nihue released with album Contact a compilation of ceremonial plant medicine songs, called ikaros, some of which are presented traditionally, true to their origin, and others which are a reinterpretation through decades of practice in this work. “As I sing I invoke the Great Spirit, the light and love of the universe through my singing to reach you where you are in time and space. I intend to open your world of hearing, seeing and experiencing – to take you on a journey. With each song I’m calling in the plants, the spirits, people, and energies of the invisible world. I’m connecting all of them through a vessel: me. From this space I am nourishing your kaya (spirit), opening your juente (heart), and clearing your way.”    

Thomas Steininger talks with Metsa Nihue about how the songs of a Shaman can hold meaning in a modern world.

Ein Gespräch mit Rupert Sheldrake

Diese Woche in unserem globalen, englischsprachigen Programm:  

Science doesn’t usually have much to say about spiritual practice. Most of the time, anything “spiritual” is considered by science to be mere superstition. The British biochemist Rupert Sheldrake is widely known for pushing the boundaries of science while using rigorous scientific methods. He has earned few friends in the science academy but has been seen as a careful prophet by many outside. He developed the controversial theory of morphic resonance, to explain how patterns establish themselves in nature and human society, and his book, The Science Delusion, which tries to demonstrate scientifically how scientific materialism itself has becomemore a dogmatic ideology than an open form of rational inquiry.

In his latest book, Science and Spiritual Practice, he wants to find out what science can tell us about seven widespread forms of spiritual practice known in many religious traditions: meditation, gratitude, connecting with nature, relating to plants, rituals, singing and chanting, and pilgrimage and holy places. Sheldrake claims that the scientific results are very clear: spiritual practice works. It changes lives of people in a remarkable way even if one does not subscribe to any particular religious belief system.  

This week in Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with Rupert Sheldrake about what science can tell us about spiritual practice.

Diese Woche ist in unserem globalen und englischsprachigen Programm von Radio evolve Steve Brett zu Gast:

For the past 300 years or more, the West has become used to assuming

that our European and American way of seeing the world is the most 

progressive, most enlightened, and most objective way to see our global

reality. In fact, the Western perspective was not “merely” a perspective

but was considered to be objective reality. Western science and our

understanding of human rights and democracy are great achievements of

what we call the Enlightenment. But when one makes these superior

assumptions, then one does not really hear and see anyone else anymore.

One starts to become blind to the multitude of the human experience. In a

sense, as a culture, we become autistic, incapable of real relationship

and repetitively reinforcing a narrow, materialistic world.    

Steve Brett

lived not only as a British citizen for many years in India, in his

academic research in South Asian Studies, he is focusing on the impact

of British colonialism on India. Together with his partner, Mary Adams, he created the 3rd Space initiative. Through their website,

they  are initiating a dialogue between the civilizations, a dialogue

that allows us in the West to become aware of the shadows of our

dominant and dominating perspective and addresses the specific autism

that blinds us to truly meeting others and the world.

 

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with Steve Brett how to end the autism of the West.

A conversation with Maaianne Knuth

Maaianne Knuth is co-founder of Kufunda, which is both a village and a

learning center one hour outside Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. This

village is a meeting place in many ways–most particularly, it is a place

where African culture meets Waldorf education. While Waldorf education,

developed by Rudolf Steiner, has been spreading rapidly from Brazil to

China, the encounter between Zimbabwean culture and Waldorf holds the

potential to change both. The inspiration of Rudolf Steiner and his

philosophy, Anthroposophy, isn’t just limited to the village school,

though. Recently, Maaianne was a key organizer of an All African

Anthropsosophic Training where teachers, organic farmers, nurses, and

other educators met from all over Africa to explore the practical

potential of Anthroposophy for Africa. Maaianne, who is both Danish and

Zimbabwean, is a sensitive observer of this meeting and the potential

within it for transformation. She invites us to learn from the encounter

between an African culture and Anthroposophy.

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with

Maaianne Knuth about her social learning project in the Zimbabwean

countryside. What can Africa learn from Anthroposophy and what can

Anthroposophy learn from Africa?

A conversation with Maaianne Knuth

Maaianne Knuth is co-founder of Kufunda, which is both a village and a

learning center one hour outside Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. This

village is a meeting place in many ways–most particularly, it is a place

where African culture meets Waldorf education. While Waldorf education,

developed by Rudolf Steiner, has been spreading rapidly from Brazil to

China, the encounter between Zimbabwean culture and Waldorf holds the

potential to change both. The inspiration of Rudolf Steiner and his

philosophy, Anthroposophy, isn’t just limited to the village school,

though. Recently, Maaianne was a key organizer of an All African

Anthropsosophic Training where teachers, organic farmers, nurses, and

other educators met from all over Africa to explore the practical

potential of Anthroposophy for Africa. Maaianne, who is both Danish and

Zimbabwean, is a sensitive observer of this meeting and the potential

within it for transformation. She invites us to learn from the encounter

between an African culture and Anthroposophy.

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with

Maaianne Knuth about her social learning project in the Zimbabwean

countryside. What can Africa learn from Anthroposophy and what can

Anthroposophy learn from Africa?