The Daily Evolver

This week I am happy to share an interview with leading integral philosopher Ken Wilber where he discusses his new book, The Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions.

Ken talked for well over an hour about the evolution of human spirituality from its roots in magic and myth and into modernity and postmodernity where, as Ken puts it, “we went from a world where God is everywhere to one where God is nowhere.”

But evolution does not stop there, and Ken lays out what we can expect as we continue to wake up and grow up to higher stages: an ever great sense of wholeness, and the dawning of an identity that expands beyond our temporal minds and bodies.

Enjoy the episode!

Today Jeff talks with John Mariner, who at the age of 78 is a practicing psychotherapist and writer focusing in the area of elderhood from an integral perspective. As John writes:

There have always been Elders at every stage of humanity’s development. They were the wise and compassionate older men and women, never very many, and not always honored and revered during their lifetimes, who lived for the good of this world.

John describes elderhood as a stage of development that includes – and transcends – adulthood. He describes his own experience entering this new territory:

From age 70 until about 74 the question of ‘who am I?’, ‘who am I now?’ was constantly on my mind. At first I didn’t know I was growing out of Adulthood. At first I was an elder masquerading as an adult, carrying on my adult commitments, many of which I have continued into Elderhood. Gradually, I began to recognize the contours of my new home in Elderhood, the smell and the taste and the feel of this new stage of development. I have been transcending and including Adulthood for several years now. It is both joyful and life giving for me to do so, and I hope it may be useful to you.

You can find more of John Mariner’s insights into elderhood, including his beautiful letter to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, here.

In this episode Jeff talks with Corey DeVos of Integral Life about the exhilarating emergence of virtual reality technology and the far-reaching implications it has across the full spectrum of human experience, from entertainment to education, to medicine, art, journalism, spiritual practice, sexuality, communication, and any number of other exciting and potentially groundbreaking applications.

Today Jeff talks with integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt about the arising of big data and its effect on our individual and collective psyches. They share their insights on the fascinating new book, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are.

Keith and Jeff discuss:

The Black Panther, Marvel Studios new blockbuster movie, is the story of a black superhero, written and directed by a black man, Ryan Coogler, with a largely black cast. The overt African lineage is significant and a worthy cultural touchstone. But what is more significant is that these folks have made a movie for all people.

The Black Panther presents a vision of a hidden African land and culture, Wakanda, which harmonizes the spiral of human development — magic (magenta altitude), myth (amber altitude), hypermodernity (orange altitude) and world-centric political ideals (green altitude) — in a way that expresses a true integral sensibility. As Magnola Dargis writes in the New York Times:

“Part of the movie’s pleasure and its ethos … is how it dispenses with familiar either/or divides, including the binary opposition that tends to shape our discourse on race. Life in Wakanda is at once urban and rural, futuristic and traditional, technological and mystical. Spaceships zoom over soaring buildings with thatched tops; a hover train zips over a market with hanging woven baskets.”

This sense of integration is extended to the story as well, which illuminates the struggle of growing beyond a retributionist victim identity to a larger sense of responsibility for one’s self, one’s people, and the whole of the world. It’s a transmission of eros that as Jeff says, “left me giddy with uplift.”

In this episode, Jeff is the guest of Steven T Harper, on his podcast, “What’s Your Theory?”. Steve, a sci-fi author himself, (Kings X Saga) shares his abiding love for the genre, situates The Black Panther in the superhero pantheon, and shows how it is moving the evolutionary ball.