The First Leg of My Book Tour

For the past two weeks I’ve been traveling up and down the West coast giving talks on integral philosophy at various venues. Most of these talks consisted of a 40-minute power-point presentation, designed as a general introduction to integral consciousness, followed by about 40-minutes of questions and discussion. The first event was hosted at the Marin county home of my friends Deborah Boyar and Terry Patten, where I met a variety of distinguished integralists, including Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughn. Some of the attendees had even driven up from Los Angeles, and I was struck by how much enthusiasm and agreement there was for this emerging integral worldview. In fact, many people I spoke with throughout this leg of the tour reported feeling a palpable “morphic field” that is pulling us into this new integral phase of history.

Another Bay area highlight was speaking at The Institute of Noetic Sciences where I was met with a gracious reception. And as expected, I was confronted with some predictable anti-modern comments, such as the “crime of property ownership which the Native Americans could not fathom.” In response, I acknowledged the important dignities of the tribal and warrior cultures of the Indians, but tried to explain how an indispensable aspect of modernism’s dignities includes the economic empowerment of the average individual through advent of the freedom of ownership.

At one New Age bookstore talk I received a comment that the philosophical idea of “the good” did not comport with the principles of “non-violent communication.” The questioner even quoted Rumi as inviting us to “meet in a place beyond good and evil.” My polite response was that the integral philosophy of evolution is chiefly concerned with the improvement of the human condition, and that it effectively transcends the “black and white” conceptions of good and evil characteristic of the traditional level. Nevertheless, I emphasized that the idea of “the good” is a very important concept that we need to hold onto, even as we recognize this value’s dialectical metamorphosis through the growth of the spiral of development.

One of the most frequent questions was: “how long do we have until civilization collapses?” To this I responded that although regression in cultural evolution is always a possibility, and the threat of global warming is perhaps the most dire ever faced by our society, I do believe that it is still possible to evolve our way to a more sustainable civilization. The dynamics of the spiral show us that the pace of cultural evolution responds to emergent life conditions, and the growing awareness of the urgency of global warming is itself a problematic life condition which demonstrates the limitations of postmodernism, and which is itself helping to catalyze the rise of the integral worldview. I explained further that there is a strong current within postmodern culture for a “doomsday scenario” — it serves to relieve one’s sense of responsibility to work for a better world today because it reinforces the belief that “it will soon be over anyway.” However, I expressed my opposition to this way of thinking and emphasized that we have a duty to retain the moral courage of optimism and continue to work to raise consciousness from wherever we find it.

The crescendo of the trip was my talk at Seattle’s “integral loft,” where I gave a more advanced presentation entitled: The Natural Theology of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. The talk was booked solid with a waiting list — I didn’t count, but it seemed as though there were 60 people in attendance. Despite the rigorous philosophical character of the talk, attention was rapt and the questions at the end were great. Afterwards I met many of the wonderful Seattle integralists who were excited to be part of this emerging movement. My integral loft host, Susan Cannon of KORE leadership, was surprised by the turnout for this intensely philosophical subject, but we concluded that philosophy is actually becoming exciting again in the 21st century because people can now begin to use it in their everyday lives. That is, with the rise of the integral perspective people are beginning to use philosophy to raise their own consciousness and the consciousness of others.

For the next leg of my tour I’ll be heading to Boston and New York in January, including a stay with the good folks at What Is Enlightenment? Magazine in Lenox, Massachusetts. After that, it looks like I’ll be going to Southern California in February.