The Daily Evolver

It seems that last week, during my “staycation,” I wandered my way into a five-day food fast. What started as a low-commitment experiment on Monday morning ended on Saturday with me in appreciation of some surprising and powerful results. I was inspired by friends and motivated by a book they recommended, The Complete Guide to Fasting, by John Fung, MD. The book focuses on the physiological benefits of fasting; it turns out our evolutionary history of often involuntary fasting means we’re built for it. But I was most amazed by the psychological and ”subtle body” effects I experienced. My hunger, which throughout my life has often been gripping in ways I can’t (or don’t) control, is for now relaxed. A week past the fast I still feel in a place of choice with food. The ten pounds of belly fat I lost is still gone, and I feel better all around. I’m on an extended state experience, no doubt, and state experiences are temporary. But when practiced and made conscious states create traits. So in fasting I feel that I have found a potent new (yet ancient) tool for growth and health. And it was actually fun! Here’s the story ….

In this episode integral philosopher Steve McIntosh takes us on a tour through the origins of integral theory, starting with Georg Friedrich Hegel, who first explained the mechanisms of evolution in human history, and on through a stream of philosophers who unified the evolution of matter, consciousness and spirit. He also considers a line of developmental psychologists, such as Jean Piaget and Clare Graves, who defined the distinct stages of human growth including the emerging integral stage. Bringing us to the present, Steve appreciates and critiques leading contemporary integral philosopher Ken Wilber, whose AQAL Model is the touchstone of current integral thought. He concludes by sharing what he considers to be his own contributions to integral theory, as well as ideas from other new thinkers who are adding to the canon. Understanding the history of integral thought helps us to situate ourselves in a lineage of philosophy that has itself evolved – and continues to with our participation. Steve McIntosh is author of Integral Consciousness, Evolution’s Purpose, and The Presence of the Infinite. He is co-founder of The Institute for Cultural Evolution.

It is an ironclad principle of human development: you can’t skip stages. Each stage of development builds upon the gains of the previous stages, and if the previous stages are not well installed things don’t work right. Unstable and uneven growth is a feature of today’s world, where four or five stages of development are online competing for dominance. In some places we see people with traditional identities trying to function in modern economies while watching their children be enticed by a globalized, postmodern culture. We may see in ourselves that we do not have some traditional qualities, such as self-discipline, well installed. Or maybe we are weak on modern qualities such as ambition. Environmental factors may be that we were raised in a chaotic, pre-traditional environment, or by postmodern parents who were themselves polarized against earlier value sets. Many forms of bypassing can occur in individuals and cultures today. That’s why integral practice includes a form of reclamation, where we identify and rehabilitate skills from previous stages that are absent or unstable in ourselves, our families and our communities. In this podcast Jeff explains with examples.

In this episode Jeff takes a look at three towering examples of postmodern art, and how they can aesthetically “move us” forward. Cirque de Soleil – a thrilling display of surface without depth The Seinfeld TV Show – a show not “about nothing”, just nothing meaningful The Saatchi Gallery in London — fine art that dares us to say it’s not fine art One is pretty, one is aggressively ugly and one doesn’t care one way or the other. But all are beautiful in the way they move the aesthetic line of development forward by liberating us from ideas of what art should be or do. Featuring a couple dozen images, this episode is best watched as a video.

In this episode of The Shrink and Pundit, Dr Keith Witt talks with Jeff about how to better support children’s development. Dr. Keith argues that the healthy expression of a person’s type (their preferences, gifts and built-in challenges) is based largely on their early relationships. The earlier in development we go, the more impactful the biological and social factors are in determining a child’s personality and typology. Before conception and during gestation, variables in parents will determine who their babies will become. Birth and bonding in the first year have huge impacts with multiple critical periods. This continues throughout childhood, with typological variables forming, being interactively reinforced, and then self-amplifying in personality development. Abuse and neglect are catastrophic to the developing child, increasing the odds of every form of psychological, relational, and physical problem. The less trauma we absorb the healthier the expression of our natural type. We can all get involved in preventing and remediating childhood traumas by providing more attuned care to children of all ages, as well as by supporting their mothers, fathers and the creation of a healthy environment.

Today Jeff is the guest for another in a series of “Integral Chats” with Stephen T Harper, creator of the What’s Your Theory podcast. In this conversation, Steve and Jeff discuss the enduring values of postmodernity (the green altitude of development). Postmodern thought gained traction after World War II and achieved fruition in the 1960’s, as a counter-culture arose to challenge the grand narratives of the previous stages of history, including the religiosity of traditionalism (amber altitude) and the rationality of modernity (orange altitude). Postmodernity called for a sensitivity to the plight of those who had been left out of the march of history thus far, and gave rise to the great movements of civil rights, feminism, gay rights, animal rights and environmentalism. The postmodern altitude of development is widely criticized for its excesses and political correctness (every stage has them), but as developmental theorist Clare Graves said, it also provides the values that “make us worthy” for the momentous leap into second tier integral consciousness.

Today Jeff talks with Stephanie Lepp, creator of one of his favorite new podcasts, Reckonings, which explores the evolutionarily-charged question: “how do we change our hearts and minds?” Stephanie’s guests are people who have shifted their political worldviews, overcome bigotry, and make other kinds of transformative change. In every case these folks have come to some sort of reckoning, a stuck point which required an expanded worldview and change of position. This fulcrum of change is where Stephanie focuses, creating powerful vignettes of evolution-in-action in the lives of people with extraordinary stories. In this conversation with Jeff, Stephanie shares her inspiration, as well as highlights from a few of her favorite episodes.

Today Jeff is joined by his dear friend and colleague Diane Musho Hamilton for a fascinating conversation about the changing nature of spiritual practice. Together they look at what is emerging in terms of: 1st person practices: how spiritual and psychological methods have integrated to boost the power of both 2nd person practices: the creation of a committed sanga that can move beyond pseudo-community to authentic connection and mutual awakening 3rd person practices: the forms of heirarchy and tradition that carry forward the power of lineage, yet must be translated for contemporary practitioners who are self-responsible instead of submissive Interested? You can join Diane and an international sanga of practitioners for a 10-week inquiry into this important topic, in “The Future of Zen Practice: Exploring the Encounter of Tradition and Innovation”, presented via the Zoom video platform. Diane Musho Hamilton is a leading integral teacher and also a Zen Sensei whose sanga, Two Arrows Zen, operates out of a urban Zendo in Salt Lake City and a beautiful new Mountain Zendo in the red rocks country of Southern Utah.

“Looking to Future Generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker, and we may expect that virtuous habits will grow stronger. In this case the struggle between our higher and lower impulses will be less severe and virtue will be triumphant.” — Charles Darwin Today Jeff talks with Dr. David Loye about his new book, Rediscovering Darwin: The Rest of Darwin’s Theory and Why We Need It Today. In his book David reveals a set of fundamental teachings clearly presented by Charles Darwin, but which have been virtually ignored by his followers for over 100 years. In short Darwin identified two drivers of evolution: competition (“survival of the fittest“), but also and equally what he unabashedly called love, and which he elucidated in terms of compassion, moral sense, appreciation of beauty and even spirit. Scientists built the evolutionary edifice exclusively on the first half of Darwin’s teachings, creating what David calls “the hole in the modern mind” and providing justification for a selfish and disenchanted view of humanity. David argues that re-integrating the second half of Darwin’s teachings is the palliative humanity needs today, and necessary to create a more humane and sustainable world. At age 93, David Loye personifies an important era in the history of evolutionary thought. His extraordinary journey starts with a historic, secret meeting in cold war Budapest among a select group of evolutionary scientists from both sides of the iron curtain. It led not just to his discoveries about Darwin, but to his own evolutionary thinking laid out in 30 books, including insights into “self-organization,” which Ken Wilber calls “one of the most important topics alive today.“ David is joined in this interview by his wife Rianne Eisler, herself a formidable evolutionary thinker and writer. Her most famous book, The Chalice and the Blade, is in its 56th printing. David Loye is a psychologist, evolutionary systems scientist and a former member of the faculty at both the Princeton and UCLA Schools of Medicine. He is a co-founder of two international organizations for updating and expanding evolutionary studies: The General Evolution Research Group, and The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”Mr. Spock, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Today Jeff is joined by fellow integral nerds Cindy Wigglesworth and Corey deVos in this warmhearted appreciation of the venerable Star Trek franchise, one of the oldest and most robust pop culture franchises in existence. Spanning more than 50 years, 741 episodes across six different series (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, and now Discovery), and 14 feature films, the lore and philosophy of Star Trek runs incredibly deep, making it incredibly ripe for an integral voyage into its most significant themes and messages. At its heart, Star Trek is a show about our own evolving morality. The very best episodes across its numerous series are often about how to make the most difficult ethical choices when no easy solutions can be found. But the ethics of Star Trek are not mere dogmatic values floating in some idealistic interstellar vacuum — these values are enacted and renewed time and time again every time they intersect different civilizations and different conflicting notions of “the greater good”. “Universal law is for lackeys; context is for kings.”Captain Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery In other words, Starfleet values are not mere codes of conduct to be memorized and executed. These are not black-and-white values. As Corey says in his review, Star Trek: Discovery and the Moral Arc of the Universe, “it’s about having a very strict Prime Directive, and understanding why it must never ever be broken — and then knowing exactly when you need to break it.” Starfleet values are not inert, they are more like hyper-objects that, when enacted, actually pull the characters (and the audience, and the writers, and the showrunners…) into higher, deeper, more evolved waves of being, inviting all of us to explore more subtle, more sensible, and more sophisticated considerations in our own moment-to-moment ethical algorithms. In this respect, when it comes to its morality, its humanitarianism, its underlying philosophies, and its capacity to activate the better angels of our being, the Star Trek franchise more or less stands alone in our increasingly dystopian media landscape, and continues to offer us an aspirational roadmap to help us climb our way out of the bizarro mirror universe we currently seem to be inhabiting. “Our species can only survive if we have obstacles to overcome. You remove those obstacles. Without them to strengthen us, we will weaken and die.”James T. Kirk, Metamorphosis We often talk about the difference between “integral art” (artworks that are created from an integral consciousness) versus “enacting art integrally” (engaging any given work of art from an integral point of view). Every now and again, we get the rare opportunity to do both simultaneously, as we do here in this integral celebration (and integral enactment) of the Star Trek franchise. So open hailing frequencies, set phasers to stun, and prepare to boldly go where no Star Trek review has gone before. Written by Corey deVos “Live now; make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”Jean-Luc Picard, Inner Light