Template talk:Integral thought

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1 Sweet irony
2 Removed code
3 Candidates for inclusion in template
4 Comments
5 Exception
6 anony edit
7 82.34.243.235
8 TfD nomination of Template:Integral theory4
9 Saul Williams
10 Revert on Clare Graves

[edit] Sweet irony

The ironic thing is that I stole the code for this template from Template:Creationism2 --goethean ॐ 21:17, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed code

Here is the code that Blainster removed. I'd like to find a good way to put it back in at some point.

States of consciousness:

~~:*Physical (Sri Aurobindo)~~ ~~:*Vital (Sri Aurobindo)~~ ~~:*Mental (Sri Aurobindo)~~ ~~:*Transpersonal~~

[edit] Candidates for inclusion in template

James Mark Baldwin -- Wilber calls him the forerunner of Integral Psych.
Erich Jantsch -- Wilber relies on his self-organizational and co-evolutionary thought in SES. Article is currently a stub, however.

Added

Rupert Sheldrake -- holistic scientist, wilber uses his theory of morphic resonance in his latest work.

Alan says no.

Esalen -- I don't know much about it, but founder Murphy is an Aurobindan.
Edward Haskell (not Eddie Haskell) -- no article (yet).

[edit] Comments

I'm glad you mention Jantsch :-) But I wonder if Integral Theory is a uniform enough beast to be sumamrised in this way. We are looking at a body of knowledge, a completely new interdisciplinary approach that for the first time incoporates both spirituality and esotericism on the one hand, and modern secular, scientific, and critical thinking on the other. Wilber represents one take on this, the most popular because so far no one has published an alternative, hence my own project (still a work in progress) [1] which is based more on Sri Aurobindo's insights than on postmodernism, and is equally as sweeping.

However, while I very much like your idea of an Integral Template, I like it a great deal, so all these comments are meant to be constructive, not to mean that i think this is no good - I find that as yet it is too slanted towards Wilber, although you mention some of the faculties in Aurobindo's Yoga; I just added another one, the Psychic Being. But what about Sri Aurobindo's three classic books - The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, and Savitri? So this has challanged me to come up with a list that can sum up the Aurobindonian perspective. But then we still have Jantsch (and if you have read The Self-Organising Universe you will see there is a helluvalot more in that book - imho one of the classics of modern scientific synthesis, although maybe only recognised as such by eccentrics like myself :-) - then what Ken mentions in SES, although Ken is to be commended for introducing Jantsch's ideas to a wider audience, just as he has done with Sri Aurobindo, and i greatly commend him on both those points. Teilhard, yes, great you include him. Gebser I havent read yet, but apparently Ken gets a lot of ideas from him, and Gebser seems to have been influenced in part by Sri Aurobindo. And then there is Edward Haskell's & co. Full Circle - the moral force of Unified Science, which I intend to write a wiki article, or a few, on. Except that Haskell is known only to a very few, so there is the question of how much and how many sources to include. But he is definitely, absolutely, an integhral thinker, in the current definition of the term.

Baldwin I don't know, so cannot comment.

Sheldrake, I wouldn't call him an "integral" thinker, he is someone like James Lovelock who has come up witha very insightful and fascinating and far reaching explanation, but that doesnt make him Integral, imho.

Also just because Ken likes someone doesnt mean we have to include that person in the template, otherwise you'd have to include a whole lot more names, especially Habermas who is one of Ken's major influences, but I havent studied him so i can't judge. And Alex Grey is a kick ass artist and friend of Ken's but does that make him "integral"?

I don't know if you know about the controversy between Don Beck and Chris Cowan, the former collegues who have fallen out over Wilber.

Finally there is the "alter-integral" movement, for example on [2], you might want to check that out. A lot of it is very critical of the Wilber-Beck brand of Integralism (see also Frank Visser's Integral World discussion forum). All of which shows that the Integral Movement is a lot more amorphous than just the Wilberian camp alone, even though Wilberism is the most well known faction (because Ken is such a successful author, and has a university, etc)

In short, if I had to list Integral Thinkers (not sure about chronological order so you'd have to check), I would list

Aurobindo Ghose
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Jean Gebser
Edward Haskell
Arthur Young
Erich Jantsch
Clare Graves
Ken Wilber
Alex Grey (maybe)

I am sure there are more that could be added, including lots that neither of us have heard of. Where are the Integral activists for example? The Integral novelists?

Books. Well Ken repeats himself a lot, so you only need one of his books

So I'd suggest for books

The Life Divine (philosophy)
Synthesis of Yoga (yoga/spirituality)
Savitri (mystic poetry)
The Phenomenon of Man (science and religion)
The Ever-Present Origin (art and culture)
The Self-Organising Universe (science and systems theory)
Spiral Dynamics (maybe?)
Sex Ecology Spirituality (Wilber's opus)

probably there are more that could be added

Ideas. Well, this is a really tough onme. Wilber and Aurobindo are light years apart, as Rod Hemsell and I have both explained. So Ideas has to represent both, and others mentioned here as well.

I would EITHER scrap Physical, Vital, Mental (simply have Integral Psychology), OR else have Physical, Vital, Mental, Psychic (Aurobindonian definition, not Wilberian!), and Spiritual (ditto) (and scrap Integral Psychology). "Spiritual evolution" is redundant because it goes next to Involution. Is Transpersonal psychology Integral? If so we have to include Stan Grof in the list of people. (well he is at the California Institute of Integral Studies so maybe he should be included anyway)

So, for topics, how about:

Involution, Evolution (links to "Spiritual evolution")
Holism, Holon, Holarchy
Physical, Vital, Mental, Psychic (sensu Aurobindo), Spiritual (ditto)
Science (links to "Integral Science"??? Haskell? Jantsch? This stuff hasnt even been formalised yet), Art (links to "Integral Art" - Alex Grey), Literature (links to "Integral Literature" - is there any? Please don't nominate Boomeritis! lol!), Politics (links to "Integral Politics"), Yoga (links to "Integral Yoga")

Organizations:

Integral Institute (good)
California Institute of Integral Studies (why not? ;-)

Add also

Communities:

Auroville

anyway, I think we've got some neat ideas here :-)

M Alan Kazlev 15:23, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the great feedback, Alan. I have a few responses. I read the blogs of a few people who were or are involved with Wilber's Integral Institute in Boulder, Colorado. One was very frustrated with Wilber's management of the Institute, but said "Integral is bigger than Ken". I agree with that. So I'm open to non-Wilberian version of Integral theory. What you call "alter-Integral", I would simply call the Integral movement.

Alex Gray is a member of Wilber's "Art Branch" of the Integral Institute". That was the basis on which I included him.
Yes, I'm well aware of the Beck/Cowan split. It seems to be a Democrat/Republican thing.
Yes, I've borrowed a copy of the self-organizing universe from the library. A profoundly under-appreciated work.
I'm trying to keep stubs, like vision-logic, off of the template (and also "red links", articles that don't exist yet). That's why I left The Life Divine and Savitri off.

Where are the Integral activists for example? The Integral novelists?

I don't know of any. Add them if you do.

links to "Integral Science"???

There is an article on holistic science...not sure if that should be included. Maybe Jantsch and Haskell can be linked either from their from from a new article on Integral Science. --goethean ॐ 16:02, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

reply

Hi Goethean

I've been giving this whole thing some thought, and came up with some more questions to consider

(1) Problem of Definition. How do we define "integral". We know Wilber is integral (because he popularised the term), and Aurobindo (Integral Yoga). And Gebser perhaps (though i would want to read him first)

But Teilhard never used the term, nor is he referred to by KW (except maybe very fleetingly) or Sri Aurobindo. Yet at the same time what he says is very much in keeping with both of them. So do we define Teilhard as an Integral Thinker? Is there anyone in the Teilhard movement that defines him in this way? Ditto Jantsch. Wilber takes Jantsch as one of his main influences (in his AQAL diagram and in part of SES). But again Jantsch never used the term integral.

(2) Citations/References. Let's take the example of Sri Aurobindo. We say he is acknowledgedas an integral thinker, but by who? If by Wilber we have to make Plotinus and Habermas integral thinkers. I say S.A. is integral because he coined the term, to designate his Yoga :-) and because of similarities with Wilber (evolutionary teleology - unification of all human knowledge and experience), but are their any external links or citations?

Arthur M Young, Ed Haskell, neither mentioned by KW or any current integral thinkers (except me). Because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a research project, we need references, citations, whether on-line or in point, to back up this inclusion. Ok as far as i'm concerned there's no doubt that Young and Teilhard are "proto-integral" thinkers, i.e. they each formulated an evolutionary teleological "theory of everything", although neither provided a systematic detail or organisation of human knowledge. Haskell did propose a reorganisation and harmonisation of human knowledge, so he's as integral as Ken, although no-one has herad of him. But if we are to include these individuals, we need references from outside wikipedia

3) Separate followings Sri Aurobindo again. Now he has a big following, and apart from very few exceptions they know nothing of Integral Theory, nor do they care. As far as they are concerned taht is just intellectual ideas. And the cause wasn't helped when Wilber iused the name for a book ("Integral Psychology") that had previously been used by Indra Sen for his book about the psychological system of Sri Aurobindo.

So if I put this template on the Aurobindo pages, it will seem like Aurobindonism ackmowledges Integral Theory. It doesnt. It's just some people like ourselves who group it altogether (ok in more case i'm both an Aurobindonian and an Integralist, but i'm not typical of Aurobindonians). Maybe we can just include the template on the main Aurobindo page? i'm considering making my own template for the Aurobindonian section as a whole

This is the problem, as i said. Integral Theory is so new. So we are as much researchesr as encyclopaedists (from this context Wikinfo would be a much better vehicle for this than Wikipedia)

To just go over what you said

I read the blogs of a few people who were or are involved with Wilber's Integral Institute in Boulder, Colorado. One was very frustrated with Wilber's management of the Institute, but said "Integral is bigger than Ken". I agree with that.

So do I - absolutely.

So I'm open to non-Wilberian version of Integral theory. What you call "alter-Integral", I would simply call the Integral movement.

Yes, very good point. It is more alter-wilberian Integral than alter-Integral

Alex Gray is a member of Wilber's "Art Branch" of the Integral Institute". That was the basis on which I included him.

What we have are sects or camps in the Integral Movement. There is the Wilberian Camp (which i sometimes facetiously refer to as Wilberanity, no disreepsect to Ken intended :-) this includes Alex Grey, etc; there is the "Alter-" camp which could be considered the "left wing" of the movement, there is the Aurobindonian camp (i mean the intellectual Aurobindonians, e.g. the Second International Conference on Integral Psychology

Yes, I'm well aware of the Beck/Cowan split. It seems to be a Democrat/Republican thing.

It's more than that, it's really about the interpretation of Clare Grave's teachings (the "left"/Alter-IP side with Cowan) and also charges of copyright violation and other not very proper things against the Wilber-Beck camp

Yes, I've borrowed a copy of the self-organizing universe from the library. A profoundly under-appreciated work.

I agree!

I'm trying to keep stubs, like vision-logic, off of the template (and also "red links", articles that don't exist yet). That's why I left The Life Divine and Savitri off.

Look at Life Divine again - i wrote a lot on it :-)

But sure - no stubs

Where are the Integral activists for example? The Integral novelists?

I don't know of any. Add them if you do.

No Integral novelists that i know about

links to "Integral Science"???

There is an article on holistic science...not sure if that should be included. Maybe Jantsch and Haskell can be linked either from their from from a new article on Intergal Science.

Yes, Jantsch, Haskell, Arthur M. Young, & Teilhard (science+religion, so maybe he goes under Integral Religion too :-)

M Alan Kazlev 08:22, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone should complain about us putting Aurobindo or Gebser on the list. Teilhard de Chardin, Jantsch, Young, on the other hand could be thought of as "quasi-integral thinkers". --goethean ॐ 14:38, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I filed the ideas and organizations under each thinker. maybe this will make the implicit claim of the template more modest — we are alleging less of a unitary movement. --goethean ॐ 15:29, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, we can explain the extent to which each integral theorist was explicitly integral on the Integral theory (philosophy) page. --goethean ॐ 16:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have creatd an alternative template at: Template:Integral_theory2. Let me know which you like better. --goethean ॐ 19:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the second one, because as you point out, it doesn't put everyone into the same bin. I also made a couple changes in the subheads, and moved the artist, musician, and institute into the influencers list because they would not seem to qualify as theorists. Thoughts? --Blainster 00:05, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your changes are good. Your "Influencers of integral theory:" text is more accurate, but aesthetically less pleasing to me. We could also have a third section of "integral artists". They practice the theory that theorizers create. I like this classification system better than the original "Ideas/thinkers/Organizations" method. However, the drawback is that you have to identify each idea with a thinker. I put "Integral psychology" under Ken Wilber, and I think that Alan will have a problem with that — Aurobindo had an integral psychology, also. --goethean ॐ 01:11, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, here is a version that includes lots o links: Template:Integral_theory/draft/2.

re draft version 1 on the one hand I like this distinction between integral theorists and influencers, because it certainly reflects "Integral Theory" as currently defined (e.g. as i mentioned Teilhard never used the word "Integral"). On the other hand it presents very much a Wilberian perspective, and I fully agree with the statement that "Integral is bigger than Ken". In fact a strictly or literalist Wilberian Integral movement is an oxymoron, it cannot be Integral if it only reflects one perspective. Certainly the CIIS is fully Integral as mentioned in their wiki page. And just because Ken disagrees with it doesnt make any less Integral, if we assume that Integral Theory is more than just what Wilber says it is.

Perhaps as a compromise - those who use the word "Integral" to refer to themselves or any aspect of their work or teaching are Integral Theorists (hence CIIS goes in the Integral Theorisers" category, not "influencers"; others - Teilhard, Jantsch, A.M.Young, etc are theoreticians that influence Integral Thought but are not Integral Theorists, even if their teachings or theories are what we would conbsider to be Integral, and even if were they alive today they might even call themselves Integral. -M Alan Kazlev 02:06, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with listing in the theorist category those who self-identify as integral. Of course that can't apply to those who have died, so that is why the "influencers" category is ideal— we can't presume what they might have said. An organization is by definition an influence, not a theorist. This should not imply reduced importance. --Blainster 03:32, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re draft version 2. Much better, but as Goethean points out, integral psychology predates Wilber, and is bigger than Wilber (see Indra Sen (i need to write a wiki page on him) and Haridas Chaudhuri for two examples of non-Wilberian Integral Psych. Also California Inst. of Integral Studies should not be a subheading of Chaudhuri :-) -M Alan Kazlev 02:06, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The issue with Integral Psychology is that, as listed under Wilber it refers to a book title, not a subject. The article should be renamed to reflect that, and a separate article created for the subject. --Blainster 03:32, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So there are some themes that are common to most or all Integral Thinkers. These should go in a separate category - Integral Themes, or whatever. So:

Integral theorists:
Integral themes:

Involution
Evolution (i.e. Spiritual or Philosophical, shouldn't link to Darwinian)
Integral Psychology

Influencers of integral theory:
Integral artists:

M Alan Kazlev 02:06, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a good way to go as we move ahead, but for now there is no general agreement in the field on naming many of the themes. Goethean and I have discussed the lack of consensus on terminology for states of consciousness. These sorts of things have a need to be nailed down by the theorists in discussions, journal articles, and seminars. Until they do it creates a lot of confusion for them to be talking about (apparently) the same things with different vocabulary. --Blainster 03:32, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In Template:Integral_theory/draft/3, I deleted all of the book titles, organizations, and states of consciousness. Not for the reasons that Blainster mentions, but because I think that the box is already verging on being too big. We could reorganize some of the linked articles so that readers are quickly directly to some of the links that are not included. --goethean ॐ 05:10, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That template is good, Goethean! Only a minor change - Indra Sen is not a major thinker, but he did write the first book called Integral Psychology, essentially it is just bringing together everything Sri Auriobindo said on the subject, plus some commenst on western psychology etc. So he doesn't have to be on the template. Haridas Chaudhuri can stay...hmm, i just did a google search & found out he founded the CIIS. So your earlier version was right - sorry about that!

I would suggest a further category of Integral Organsations. This would have Ken's Intehgral Institute & the CIIS. Don't put Auroville here since we are talking about Integral theory, whereas they are a community. Not sure if we should include isntead the Sri Aurobindo Centre For Consciousness Studies. Yhey are certainly dealing with this topic - see e.g. http://www.saccs.org.in/SECOND/Subjects.htm But i get the feeling they are just a website and a few people who organise these conferences., But maybe, since we want to keep the box at a reasonable size, we should just have II and CIIS under Organisations.

Under Integral Themes, Involution and Evolution should go at the top, because they are the oldest and most universal themes.

Should Integral Ecology have a small "e"? (as you know i only have a capital Y with Integral Yoga to distinguish it from teh nopn-aurobindonian versions)

But yeah, add organisations, and leave out Sen, and it's perfect!

M Alan Kazlev 12:57, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK I made those changes. I removed Koestler. I'm also going to deactivate the red links.

So are we agreed on draft #3? --goethean ॐ 14:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I created a small integral ecology stub.

What about Huston Smith? Have either of you read his recent work? --goethean ॐ 15:57, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Draft 3 looks good! Yeah I'm happy with this. I guess once i've done the write up on Haskell and Unified Science we can add the links.

I've read some of Huston Smith (Forgotten Truth 1976, Beyond the Postmodern Mind 1982), and I like him, even borrowed a few ideas from him! He's an articulate exponent of the "Perennialist" tradition, inspired by the Traditionalist School (Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, etc), and in Forgotten Truth (which i need to do a wikipage on) eloquantly argues for a "universal map" of reality on the basis of evidence from differnet teachings. I guess that's a pretty Integral proposition. Certainly Ken got a lot of ideas from him, but he (unlike Wilber) doesnt seem comfortable with either science or postmodernism (he rejects Darwinism, but then Ken rejects Darwinism too! - see ABHOE 2nd ed 2000, p.20. But in general I think of Integral as incorporating science). Upto you if you want to include him under "influences" M Alan Kazlev 02:35, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I contributed to the Huston Smith article, and have read all the books listed there except Postmodern Mind. His first book, World's Religions is the absolute best in its field. He is a great voice for pluralism. I agree that Forgotton Truth supports perennial philosophy well. Cleansing the Doors is good on positive uses of entheogens. But I was dissapointed by Why Religion Matters because of its negative attitude towards science, as Alan mentioned. I am neutral on including him. --Blainster 09:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If Huston Smith isn't truly an integral thinker, then I'd rather put SES or Life Divine on the template than him. --goethean ॐ 14:50, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Exception

Someone took exception to the location of the template in the Grof article. --goethean ॐ 14:43, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have created a horizontal template for small articles in order to appease our Grofian complainer. Template:Integral theory3 --goethean ॐ 18:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually Goethean, I 've been thinking that we should scrap Grof from the Integral listing. He's better defined as a transpersonal psychologist

here's a page on the curriculum [3] (the site was down when i checked by i went to the google cache

You'll notice where it says

IX-X.Transpersonal Psychology of the High (Ken Wilber's integral psychology)

The spectrum of consciousness and Wilber's quadrants.

Transcendent Self and Integral Psychology - Stanislav Grof vs. Ken Wilber.

Wilber and Grof are presented as opposite perspectives.

So even though Wilber and Grof both explore similar areas, regarding higher states of consciousness, they do it in a different way, following a different approach.

All the other names you have there are good :-)

M Alan Kazlev 04:53, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. The teacher of that course is Ion Manzat. And look who the honorary President of the orginzation is — Grof. --goethean ॐ 02:54, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The syllabus shorthand may only mean to compare Grof and Wilber, rather than to set them at odds. I do not know one way or the other, just suggesting the possibility... --Blainster 03:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] anony edit

this was me. --goethean ॐ 18:45, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 82.34.243.235

I believe that we have been visited by one of Ken's representatives [4], [5]. Happily, they don't seem to have objected too strongly to our material. --goethean ॐ 8 July 2005 16:12 (UTC)

He writes very well! I like the changes he's made! The only thing I find strange is that he says in the Wilber piece http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ken_Wilber&diff=17969442&oldid=17933343 line 26 "As a Buddhist, {Wilber) believes..." Since when did Ken convert to Buddhism?

But otherwise, yeah, good stuff! :-)

M Alan Kazlev 9 July 2005 03:35 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Integral theory4

Template:Integral theory4 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Integral theory4. Thank you. —PrologFan {Talk} 21:28, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Saul Williams

A question was brought up recently about links between the hip-hop poet Saul Williams, who was listed on this template, and integral thought on Talk:Saul Williams. I've been looking for links between Williams and integral thought, but haven't been able to find anything verifiable outside of Wikipedia pages and their copycats (answer.com, etc). I've removed him from the template for now; however, if reliable sources can be found linking him to this subject, I wouldn't object to having my edit reverted. -- H·G (^words/_works) 20:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert on Clare Graves

Graves was not associated with the integral movement of either Wilber or Aurobindo. He is not an integral thinker, but an influence on integralism.

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