The Daily Evolver

My vision of a peaceful Colorado summer of slowed-down punditry and ramped-up gardening has been disturbed by a specter of menace entering the scene. While never reaching a crisis level, it has nevertheless presented a real-life dilemma that has taxed whatever integral capacities I have, and has proven to be potent grist for my daily evolving. In this podcast I share the story of my bully and me.

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.

Every first-tier worldview wants to dominate the world, and given a chance they will run roughshod over all who dissent. But as humanity grows (and we individual humans grow) each worldview has to contend with opposing worldviews, a process that constrains the totalitarian impulses of each. In this way, worldviews, even as they stay true to their essence, become less dangerous as they arise in an ever more complex, multi-stage world or person. But they’re still there, or rather here, living and breathing in our developmental stack, and we just have to click on a news site to see that the worst of humanity can break out at any time. In this episode I explore this phenomenon of horizontal development as it applies to red “warrior” consciousness and culture, using examples from General Butt Naked, an infamous Liberian warlord turned evangelical Christian minister, to current popular art such as Game of Thrones, to the President of the United States, a master of red energy. I also discuss the integral practice of relaxing the repression of worldviews within ourselves and liberating the precious gifts that each stage brings.

My guest, Fleet Maull, is a criminal justice activist and integralist who shares the story of his time in prison and the work it has inspired. In the 1980s Fleet was a contemplative psychology graduate and student of Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa. But a double life caught up with him as he was convicted of drug trafficking, and he ended up serving 14 years in prison. While behind bars, Fleet sought to put his Buddhist training to work and began teaching meditation in the prison chapel, eventually founding the Prison Mindfulness Institute and The Prison Hospice Association. Today Fleet continues his work in what he calls mindfulness-based emotional intelligence training, which has proved to be remarkably successful in sparking transformation for people inside and outside of prison. In this conversation Fleet shares wisdom gained from decades of work with countless prisoners, virtually all of whom, he discovered, had been victimized themselves, the realization of which was central to their healing. Fleet reflects on the evolution of the social justice movement, and the challenge that woke activism brings. He seeks to integrate the best of the personal- and social-responsibility models, as well as brain science, into a more inclusive view of whole system transformation. I talked to Fleet as he took a break from an in-depth training program he was conducting for law enforcement and corrections officers in Ottowa, Canada. Fleet Maull’s’ new book, Radical Responsibility, is available for pre-order. Anyone who pre-orders it between now and May 13th will be enrolled in his 8-module, $397 Radical Responsibility online course for free.

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Keith Witt about what he calls “the seductive power of quadrant absolutism,” riffing on the quadrant model (part of the AQAL Model) developed by integral philosopher Ken Wilber. Quadrant absolutism denotes the propensity each us of has to see the world through the lens of a preferred dimension of reality – the inner world vs. grounded reality, for instance, or through relationships rather than tasks (see illustration). These preferences, innate and learned, help us create internal models of everything – the world, ourselves, other people – and rely on these models to function. We project our models onto events to better understand and put them in context. We resist input that contradicts our models and struggle with people who see the world differently. As a result we may miss out on the fruits of entire dimensions of reality. The good news is that seeing our native perspective is a powerful way to expand beyond it and to grow into integral stages of consciousness. As Dr. Keith says, “The awakening to a stable teal worldview involves being much more open to high-velocity shifts in perspectives.”

By Jeff Salzman The Democratic field for US president is taking shape fast. Today I have a freewheeling conversation with Corey DeVos of Integral Life about our impressions of the emerging landscape, with a special focus on Marianne Williamson, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

By Jeff Salzman From the earliest clans to today’s multicultural societies, we can see the circle of moral consideration that human beings and cultures have granted to others has increased, stage by stage. Traditional societies (amber altitude) are built on racial and religious identity and enforce overt and often brutal hierarchies. Modern societies (orange altitude) in turn seek to grant legal rights to all, as we have seen with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, laws against discrimination against women, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the legalization of gay marriage. The postmodern project (green altitude), is to correct less overt biases embedded in the structures of society, and in the hearts and minds of each of us. In this episode, I talk with Diane Musho Hamilton about how the process of authentic inclusion continues to emerge, and what she’s learned from her work in diversity training and mediation. Diane Musho Hamilton is a Zen teacher, mediator and meditator. She is the author of The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just About Anyone.

In his classic book, Adventures of Ideas, Alfred North Whitehead describes the eros of the beautiful, the true, and the good. And to this list of intrinsic values he adds the idea of adventure, without which, he observes, “civilization is in full decay.” In this episode, Jeff Salzman’s guest Steve McIntosh explores Whitehead’s theme of adventure as it relates to the realm of spiritual experience. Steve focuses specifically on the spiritual experience of wilderness, and the spiritual experience associated with entheogens (psychedelic drugs). He compares the locations of these “inner and outer adventures,” using his powerful personal experiences to illustrate. We conclude with Steve considering the theological and political implications of psychedelic spiritual experience. Steve McIntosh is the author of several books on Integral theory, including The Presence of the Infinite. You can find out more about Steve at stevemcintosh.com, and at the Institute for Cultural Evolution.

In less than three months, Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend Indiana, (population 102,000), has gone from political anonymity to the top tier of candidates in the Democratic race for president of the United States. What accounts for Mayor Pete’s blast out of the political gate? His resume certainly ticks the boxes: Harvard graduate, Rhodes scholar, McKinsey consultant, and Afghanistan war veteran. And his performance as mayor of South Bend is by all accounts successful; he won 80% of the vote in his reelection campaign – months after coming out as gay. As the first prominent millennial candidate for president, Mayor Pete embodies his slogan, “It’s time for a new generation of American leadership.” And with his nerdy, earnest, shirt-sleeve persona he is the polar opposite of Donald Trump. But I would argue that Mayor Pete has an X-factor that is greater than the sum of those parts: an Integral sensibility. Evident in his campaign biography, Shortest Way Home, as well as his recent media appearances, is a big-hearted, deeply perceptive, flex-flow mind that is able to hold multiple perspectives and to authentically respect the people advocating for them. I hope you enjoy this analysis of America’s newest political star, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and his impact on our presidential politics.

First of all, let me say that “intellectual dark web“ is the worst name I can imagine for a movement that seeks to illuminate our cultural moment. But, okay, nobody asked me and it appears they’re doing quite well anyway: the intellectual dark web (IDW) has coalesced into a vibrant group of intellectuals, most prominently Jordan Peterson, who are sparking a new international counter-culture known mostly for goring the sacred cows of far left postmodernism (Green altitude). Today’s guest, David Fuller, is at the center of the intellectual Dark Web (IDW) having founded Rebel Wisdom, a YouTube station that has attracted over 60,000 subscribers in less than two years. A veteran producer from BBC News, David made the first documentary on Jordan Peterson, “Truth in the Time of Chaos”, which helped launch Peterson into intellectual stardom. David is also interested in integral theory, and last November he traveled to Denver to interview Ken Wilber for Rebel Wisdom, from which he has recently released the following two videos: Ken Wilber: ‘Jordan Peterson and the evolution of thought’ Ken Wilber: The Intellectual Dark Web, an Integral Conversation? In these interviews Ken is brilliant in appreciating the evolutionary power of the IDW while inviting its audience to the larger, more inclusive integral vision, and the videos have made a powerful impact on the Rebel Wisdom site. One of the top viewer comments sums up the potential that many fans of the IDW see in integral theory: As much as I like Jordan Peterson (and I do very much!), I think Wilber’s Integral Theory is waaaaaay more sophisticated and compelling. It is not full of self-contradictions and cul de sacs. It is not tied to Christianity or the West. It does not demonize Post Modernity and toss it out. I couldn’t agree more, and make a similar case in a two-part series I published on Jordan Peterson last spring, as well as a Rebel Wisdom video where David and his partner Alexander Beiner interviewed me: Part 1: What Jordan Peterson (and His Friends and Foes) Can Learn from Integral Theory Part 2: What Jordan Peterson (and His Friends and Foes) Can Learn from Integral Theory “Is Jordan Peterson Integral?” with Jeff Salzman David Fuller is committed to the further evolution of the intellectual dark web and enthusiastic, as I am, about what integral theory can bring to that project. I hope you enjoy our conversation!