Matt, can you explain why the language has to be so difficult, opaque. I guess it is to present the ideas as specifically and comprehensively as the writer wishes them be. But I really can’t see why it has to be “elevated” beyond a straightforward understanding by an fairly intelligent but untrained interested party, such as myself. In this case I am not referring only to Whitehead’s but to your commentary as well.
I am a longtime practitioner of A.H. Amaas’ (aka Hameed Ali) Diamond Approach. The detail of this path is extraordinary but rendered in straightforward language. The language can be followed by the “ordinary” mind. However the meaning can only be apprehended by an “awakened” mind. So there is a barrier to understanding but it doesn’t come from the language. From the vantage of the awake mind one understands that ones experience doesn’t need to conform to the descriptions Almaas renders. They instead give one a context to give credence to and support understanding (understanding here goes far deeper than a mental apprehension) of ones unique and (hard won) fruitions in the practice of this path. Hence, the language is as much a doorway as a description. I have no problem acknowledging that the conceptualizations of the Diamond Approach heavily influence the forms my understanding takes.
I applaud and support and also work toward your aim to bring a truer and more wholesome understanding of ourselves and the cosmos into the world. But again, why the opaque language reserved for a few specialists? How does that help or serve? If I am missing something significant or essential kindly offer an explanation.
Apologies if this post was especially dense or obtusely written. That is likely a product of me writing it with my friend Tim in mind, with whom I've spent so many hours hashing out mutually satisfying ways of wording ideas drawn from the history of metaphysics and contemporary chemical ecology. It is inevitable that we'd begin to invent our own language! I write in a variety of ways, and do take to heart (and head) the criticism. I do want to be understood : )
I think this essay is a brilliant situating of the central questions of Being and Becoming. Especially for students of philosophy, since the ending invokes the need to understand the bifurcated western materialist-idealist tradition. Since Parmenides 6th C BCE this has been going on, which makes it all the more bewildering!. This essay made clear to me the need for a culture that intelligently INTEGRATES the transcendent and immanent aspects of Knowingness, because science now shows us knowing goes all the way down and all the way up... and beyond.....? And that our brain itself is constituted so that we unify the 'immaterial' with the 'material'. We all, are somehow unified in that Knowingness. Thank you Matt as always.
You write, " Whitehead’s concept of “prehension” allows for a continuity between the most rudimentary energetic transactions and full-blown conscious self-reflection. This is not panpsychism in the sense of smearing consciousness haphazardly across the universe, but the recognition of a processual continuum of experiential intensities." Without reducing thinking or consciousness to material states, it would appear our minds do facilitate prehension. For instance, part of the facilitation might come from long-range synchrony across brain regions. Years ago, Varela et al found that "phase scattering," brief instances of desynchrony, punctuated synchrony between thoughts or perceptions. Such could help provide for creative novelty and prevent one "thought" from absolutely determining the next thought. To my knowledge, there is no research on exactly how that might work beyond a shrugging common-sense conclusion that it's part chance, part necessity. Any thoughts from anyone? Please note that I am at least trying to avoid a reductionist account.
It is interesting that this entire discussion seems to be undertaken with only the rational-analytical mind. No evidence is presented from the higher transpersonal states of awareness that are also innate in human beings. This, I feel, is a crippling aspect of CIIS regulating integral philosophers like Ken Wilber and Jean Gebser to the background -- it is, after all, an Institute of INTEGRAL STUDIES. Matt, your analysis of Whitehead is so fine, so profound, I wish is was supplemented by Wilber's work -- but I guess he has a bad name -- for he also deals with "without a divine longing latent in the plenum of potentiae to disturb their evaluative equilibrium (where no pattern is preferred)" how does this happen? -- nicely said. But Spirit or "God" is revealed to be an authentic reality with transpersonal awareness... via psychedelics (temporary insight), but better, via yoga and authentic spiritual disciplines and meditative practices.
Therefore, when "Tim’s challenge presses Whitehead to justify why any eternal or divine element is needed at all, given that science already provides powerful tools (evolution, complexity theory, etc.) for understanding the emergence of form" -- it seems to me that Yoga and interior samadhi states solve this conundrum. In other words, Whitehead -- like Hegel, for that matter -- has no real Yoga. This, my friends, is one of the great values to be gained from integrating the Western mind of science with the Eastern soul of contemplation. I feel Matt's philosophical intuition is leading him in that direction but has yet to find the tools, aka with the proper supporting philosophers, who can help this deeper and more integral understanding to emerge (I don't think Steiner was adept enough at this)... to evolve further forward... to bring a creative synthesis out of previous forms of knowledge.
LOVE the Miles Davis quote -- too cool! Thank you for these brilliant conversations and samyamas. Blessings, Brad Reynolds
I take your point about the import of spiritual experience, which is certainly relevant and at least mentioned in this essay. But it was already too long and I can’t say everything at once.
As for CIIS regulating Wilber and Gebser to the background, what gives you that impression? We study them all the time, probably more so than any other university in the world!
In my mind and heart (and that of the Perennial Philosophy), spiritual experience is the heart of philosophia -- the love of wisdom (sophia) -- so if it is essential, why is it usually buried behind ideas and speculation all the time? Part of the reason, I believe, is that most people don't even acknowledge there is a SPECTRUM of spiritual experiences. Most tend to conflate them all together, not distinguishing, for example, shamanic nature mysticism from yogic subtle mythicism to causal "emptiness" to nondual awakening -- trails of insight that Aurobindo to Wilber to transpersonal psychology blazed -- so why is this not discussed openly? Where are Huston Smith and Frithjof Schuon or Joseph Campbell and Daniel P. Brown, for example, in these discussions? Steiner over them, really? Did not CIIS trump him over the others?
I went to CIIS, and saw how Ken Wilber was attacked by McDermott (who favored Steiner even over Aurobindo) and by Rick Tarnas --- they ridiculed him -- and then Jorge Ferrer came on board in the early 2000s and destroyed respect for the Perennial Philosophy with his "participatory" analysis (thus distorting Wilber's and Aurobindo's work) and his "one ocean, many shores" critique instead of many paths to one mountaintop type of perspective. Plus, Wilber's admittedly sloppy academic writing and the Integral Institute's failure helped nothing either, granted -- but we need to see beyond those weakness to see the brilliance (and truth) of what he offers (beyond AQAL too)... and then Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (a good friend, btw) and others distancing themselves and try to pull the "transpersonal" or spiritual out of integral theory... and on and on.
That's why I say that, Matt. I love you guys, but I witness holes in your approach that I feel a little tweaking would improve significantly. I can hear you reach for some of what Wilber was trying to say, but then do not. Whitehead is great, but he had no Yoga, right? Have you seriously read Wilber's early books (the ones that made him world famous)? (You must have, but esp. Eye to Eye or Transformations of Consciousness? more so than his later "Phase-4" AQAL approach). I saw Wilber attacked relentlessly by Sean Kelly and others... so that's where I get my impression. After over 25 years of seeing the results from the professors coming out of CIIS, I see no evidence that Wilber's work is understood, let alone accepted. Sorry to say -- thank you for letting me express my opinion. Any time you want to talk, I am here. I truly love what you are doing, don't get me wrong -- love it! But...
Hi Brad, I would be especially curious about your experience with ciis. Wilber has called it green, which I find especially true, especially these days when most of the “integral thinkers” have left or retired, though there are a few that do their their best, though spiral dynamically, the center of gravity of the institute has seemed to regress to orange or lower under new management. McDermotts criticism of Wilber, from what I saw, was quite superficial (harsh critique doesn’t resonate so it must not be integral), and while Sean Kelly and friends book (Dialogues with Wilber or whatever) extends this critique, and may even be worthwhile, Wilber’s response pretty much devastates them, though there are better critiques of him that out his center of gravity at orange too. Which is to say the back and forth of integral is mostly orange-green, that is, first tier.
To be fair, it’s not an institute of integral studies, that term was slapped on to pay homage to aurobindo and haridas following the latters death during a time when they were forced to change names to achieve accreditation since “Asian studies” was not viable, and integral is more or less redefined into transdisciplinary these days, with little to no dialogue between departments except when students venture out -- philosophically this means twentieth century Eurocentric for the most part, with EWP holding most of the aurobindian legacy these days, and astrology (“archetypal cosmology”) serving as the basic framework of a holistic approach integrating interiority with cosmos.
I’d disagree whitehead has no yoga, it’s just a western intellectual path, though as I hear it yoga and magic are East and western branches of mysticism, which if you consider it a science of consciousness (as the upanishads do), Cassirer, Whitehead, Aurobindo, Gebser, and Wilber put together a framework that advances this, though even Airobindonis uniting east with western occultism via the mother’s theosophic influence, which Jung and Steiner do too, so there is a triangulation happening that CIIS historically has been doing, albeit in a way that has been experiencing mission drift so to speak for a bit -- though the possibility for deepening into the convergence is possible through the right track, with additional theorization that moves beyond what integral has even done -- where these are combined, it’s true integral yoga, where not, collapses into obsolescence.
Matt -- what teachers are teaching Gebser? Weiss was removed because...? and as I’ve seen there’s maybe one adjunct left who does? Wilber is absolutely gone, maybe included in a chapter by Mickey and friends on varieties of integral ecology and leftover influence from an earlier time in transformative studies and a couple students familiar with Wilber outside -- just my experience. This is just to say “study them all the time” seems a bit of exaggeration -- you are probably one of the very few faculty I’d think who has read gebser. Do you assign them? Not to challenge the assumption CIIS focuses on them more than anywhere else, but only because others simply don’t at all, so relatively, sure.
Brad - CIIS didn’t put steiner over the others -- I think that is McDermotts influence picked up by Matt specifically, though the esoteric tradition is a line that runs through -- which includes others you reference -- but the names you bring up are white, male, and dead, and there are critiques and new research that addresses their limitations, and the survey nature means generalizations and an overarching framework that bridges perennial, transpersonal, and integral into a worldview that is consistent, but really is meant to serve as a way for people to jump into it on their own.
There are serious criticisms of Wilber, Steiner, Tarnas, Ferrer, Aurobindo, etc -- it’s a conversation and people gravitate to whoever and bring them into dialogue. Personally I’d say, drawing on Woutergraaf CIIS could easily be classified as new age, in so far as it is a synthesis of esotericism in the mirror of secular thought, so to speak, bogged down by academia and administration that hinders spiritual pursuit.
There are absolutely holes -- big freaking glaring ones that threaten to sink the ship, just like the already sunk ships you speak of that are more or less driftwood people are clutching to. It doesn’t need tweaking, it needs a complete overhaul, with structural transformation. My sense is it’s in a state of collapse, integral is more or less a buzzword that very few (Matt included) have a relationship to anymore, and the institute is in identity crisis, which they are attempting to resolve. Wilber’s AQAL may be helpful to restore, but also Wilber may very well be obsolete as well -- not that he shouldn’t be read, but that there are people doing work, based on putting his ideas in dialogue with those who have eyes to see his blind spots.
To Matt’s point about Wilber not able to handle the critique, I think this is wrong -- he handled it, and basically showed the critiques have very little water -- Certainly his work has inaccuracies (as meta theories do), as do Sean and Rick and I’m sure even Matt ;) Such is the nature of limited perspective, hence the need for philosophical dialogue -- though CIIS many times cannot handle this either, like Wilber, and demonizes these as “mean [green]” or “unintegral”. Matt’s study of integral is probably one of the best at the institute, though a bit overly restricted to whitehead if I can say that, though I imagine there are professional and administrative pressures responsible.
I took a shot at accounting for some of the tensions in this post, but the general point is there are many versions of integral, all with their shadows, and the quest for truth requires sustained dialogue around these issues if new developments are to emerge and provide anything of value
It could very well be the case that like a star supernovaing, the institute (and integral itself) has collapsed, though the novel elements it produced during a brief window of time, spewed out across the galaxy, can gravitate and recombine in ways that produce new thresholds of complexity whose emergent properties are unprethinkable, while leaving enormous empty holes behind that many still gravitate around, to use an imperfect metaphor.
I have at least three doctoral students whose research is focused on Gebser's structures of consciousness. Eric Weiss certainly brought Gebser (and Whitehead) while he taught as an adjunct for several glorious years before his untimely passing (though no doubt his longer trajectory continues!).
I once bought Eric breakfast and he ran me through the history of integral in like 30 minutes as a thank you, lol: Cassirer, Whitehead, Aurobindo, Haridas, Gebser, Wilber, and his own synthesis with transphysical post-mortem survivalism . Certainly a fun crash course. The way Kerri Welch weaves Gebser into her own texture of time is also dope. Jeremy Johnson’s work seems to have made quite a splash in reinvigorating Gebserian studies, along with Debashish’s reinvigoration of Integral through the last conference that included Gebser along with Aurobindo, Jung, and Teilhard’s.
Would be fun reading what you wrote in any of your classes with Weiss if you had any classes with him and still have the papers.
Very well said, and I tend to agree with the vast majority of your comments. Thanks for that in-depth review. Quite stunning, actually. Particularly your assessment of CIIS, but to be fair, I have not been there for a while. I certainly agree that McDermott brought Steiner in there, and Matt has been one of his big supporters in today's world. What I find most vacant is the lack of genuine yogic and mystical authenticity, as it seems CIIS professors do not understand the profound depths of Buddhism and Vedanta or how God-Realization is needed before any map becomes genuine. Nor do I think you can say Whitehead had a yoga since yoga is about quieting the mind and the fluctuations of consciousness -- it even goes beyond creativity and processes, right? Wilber (as did Aurobindo and Adi Da) provides a decent map to navigate the higher transpersonal realms and states that others tend to collapse into one mush of psychic and magical-mythical thinking. Anyway, you had a great review, I wish I had time to go further in depth and detail. Thank you for your summary and insights.
Debashish and Julich are quite familiar with integral yoga and mystical authenticity, while James Ryan was quite versed I think. But yes, always fluctuating -- my own understanding of Wilber came through Allan Leslie Combs, Russ Volckmann, and Daniel Deslauriers, who specifically modeled their curriculum on AQAL, and then at least three or four in philosophy and religion have included books or chapters that bring in wilberian ecology, with womens spirituality also including readings from Haridas, and that’s just my own experience. Like I say, Wilber is quite well known and there are people who draw on it, and students who dive further in. He’s on most peoples radar I think, though I think there’s a drift away generally, and a move toward supplementing with other approaches to “integral”, that may not really draw on that lineage but would cover what AQAL attempts to do
We miss Allan Leslie Combs, for sure... God bless his soul. Jim Ryan was my adviser at CIIS, way back when, and you're right, he's on top of Aurobindo and Chauduri (some of my faves too). I like Nish Dubashia's posts on FB, for sure, a true integral thinker! I agree with your last comments. as well--we all must move forward since the Intergal Vision is humanity's inheritance and future, not the province of any one man or time. Be well 🙏
I think you must be mistaking academic critical engagement with “attacking.” Academics disagree and nit pick, it’s what we’re trained to do. Wilber wanted to be taken seriously by the academy but couldn’t handle having his (not always so accurate) scholarship critiqued. I am not sure what was going on before I arrived in 2008, but when I got to CIIS there were courses teaching Wilber’s books and a lively discussion. If anything, Sean Kelly was often defending Wilber from caricatured dismissals from students.
The only attacks I’d say were mean-spirited came from the brilliant William Irwin Thompson in his book “Coming Into Being,” which came out of lectures he gave while a visiting faculty member at CIIS in the mid-90s. To be fair, he was also critical of Richard Tarnas.
I read as many of his books as I could get my hands on as an undergraduate. Then I read Gebser, Aurobindo, Whitehead, etc. for myself and realized he was flattening the heck out of them to fit into his grand spiritual conveyer belt model.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s a brilliant synthesizer. But the German idealists were jñāna yogis, and I wonder how deeply you’ve gone into Steiner?
True enough, and the word "attack" was probably defensive on my part since I heard the discussions in person (while at CIIS). And it is true, Sean does have a resonance with Wilber's work, so I was thinking more of his 1997 book (Ken Wilber In Dialogue). And you are correct -- academic debate is the point for academics -- and I do feel Wilber failed to engage it properly over time, which is a shame. Nor did his students, since they got lost in the AQAL map.
Yes, I was in WIT's class back then (It was fantastic overall regardless of what he thought of Ken and Californians :) -- and in Tarnas and Grof's as well (Stan appreciated Ken a lot, Rick not so much). "Flattening the heck out of them"? (Gebser, et al)? That sounds like an overstatement. Wilber added something the Westerners (Whitehead and Gebser) were missing: the higher stages of Yoga and Awakened Enlightenment (as the Buddhists and Hindus express it), but they aren't to blame since Eastern philosophy and teachers were just appearing on the scene. Wilber is much closer to Aurobindo, it is true, but he's much easier to read -- thus his larger audience appeal.
I support the early Wilber (prior to 2000) much more than the later works where he becomes his own "religion" (more than an academic). How you can say the Idealists were Jnana yogis when they didn't do yoga (other than being profound, spiritually-astute beings) is an odd assertion. Not having a Yoga to practice that others could duplicate seems to be a huge hole in their philosophies (too much mind-only), IMO.
Steiner? Not much at all since every time I do, he bores me, even though at times he's brilliant (esp. in the lower stages, like education and politics). I like his focus on the heart. But his psychism is not genuine spirituality but only psychic awareness, not transcendental awakening. I have too many genuine Adepts to read. I wonder how much you have read any of Adi Da? especially his books from the late 1970s or early 1980s? The Enlightenment of the Whole Body (1978) or The Transmission of Doubt (1984) -- a critique of scientific materialism -- or Real God Is The Indivisible Oneness of Unbroken Light (1999)? Probably not at all since he is a Spiritual Master, not an academic, and people use the unfair (and untrue) criticisms about his reputation to avoid genuine Gurus. I thought Wiber was a decent bridge between the West and the East that most have not crossed adequately. Thanks, Matt, truly appreciate you.
Thanks, Brad. So cool that you have first hand experience of so much of this.
I have read very little of Adi Da, but I am hoping to go deeper. As for Steiner, given his sustained criticisms of psychism, I get the sense you haven't yet gone below the surface. He's a tough nut to crack, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss him.
okay, fair enough-- what book would you suggest? The recent one I tried was Harmony of the Creative Word -- I did listen to one of your lectures about his bio-history that broadened my appreciation, so thanks for that. Re: Adi Da -- getting the right book can be tricky -- use your intuition -- but some of the best and easiest to read are the ones now out of print (before He began doing the esoteric capitalization). Yet again, Real God Is The Indivisible Oneness of Unbroken Light (1999) is an all-time fave, where he speaks of science, the Big Bang, evolution, true religion, etc. Tough nuts to crack often provide the best fruit!
Mesle writes: "As an empiricist, Wieman felt comfortable with Whitehead’s explicit effort to develop a metaphysics which was informed by, and informing of, the modern sciences. As a value theorist, Wieman was attracted to Whitehead’s discussion of the process by which all value becomes actual."
Mesle quotes from Bernard Meland, a student and then later colleague of Wieman:
"Bernard Meland, reflecting on Wieman’s period of enthusiasm for Whitehead, remarked that "It is often the very vagueness of an idea which makes it so attractive." And indeed, it was in the vague, groping efforts of Whitehead in Concept of Nature, Science and the Modern World, and Religion in the Making, that Wieman found such exciting prospects for a whole new way to get at the problem of God through the joint efforts of science and religion. "I remember his saying in class," Meland continued, "that there are possibilities in Whitehead’s early writings for a metaphysics that would be just right for us if he would just turn his attention to metaphysics." This interest in metaphysics points to another important aspect of this period. It is during this time that Wieman briefly departed from his resolve to limit his investigation. Only when struggling for a vision of the whole of reality -- of the "wider cosmic processes" -- did he share the special excitement of Whitehead’s endeavor."
I have traced four major strands in Wieman’s thought with the purpose of showing through them the development of his critique of the philosophy of Whitehead.
(1) Wieman was already dealing with an implicitly aesthetic approach to value in his dissertation. But it seems that his encounter with Whitehead, especially in Religion in the Making, brought this aspect of his value theory to much greater clarity and prominence.
(2) Wieman did not derive his definition of God as "that Something supremely important for human well being" from Whitehead. But for a while he did identify this Something with Whitehead’s concept of God -- first with the principle of concretion and then with the primordial order. Whitehead certainly contributed to Wieman’s willingness during this period to think of this Something as a cosmic, rather than exclusively human, process.
(3) Part of the attraction of Whitehead’s philosophy was its strongly empirical character, especially, I think, in Concept of Nature and parts of Process and Reality. Whitehead made it clear that God was not to be exempted from the basic principles governing the rest of reality. His God was not conceived as transcendent to the universe in a way which made it inaccessible to any form of rational, empirical study.
(4) But with the coming of the consequent nature into Whitehead’s concept of God, Wieman became disenchanted. First, it seemed to Wieman that Whitehead had violated the requirements of sound empirical philosophy by indulging in speculation. He felt that Whitehead had yielded to the natural human tendency to conceive of God in terms which offered a merely pleasant feeling about religion without demanding the kind of ultimate commitment to the creative process itself which Wieman felt was urgently needed.
We can see that the universe hangs together and exhibits some creative advance, but how can we possibly know anything about this consequent nature of God? How can we know if it loves or hates, is caring or cold, prehends without loss, or offers us a lure other than those we get from the culture which gives us our conscience?
Wieman was essentially arguing that the natural world itself performs the functions of the primordial and consequent natures of God alike -- so far as they are performed at all. Possibilities are not eternal, he finally concluded. They are themselves simply structures of the material world (SHG 8-9). The events and processes creative of human good are entirely natural. Wieman became increasingly hostile toward religious visions which set the source of human good in a transcendent reality. Such visions make us helpless, he believed, since we cannot possibly study or work with something "wholly other." Appeals to transcendental realities are both debilitating and useless..."
In short, the very last sentence in Mesle's article:
"Wieman believed that the consequent nature of God had been "added on like dome and spire" -- lacking both empirical support and practical value in the search for the sources of human good."
This is fascinating! Thank you for sharing a bit about Wieman's evolving response to Whitehead's evolution from "Concept of Nature" to "Process and Reality." I do not read the consequent pole of God so much as an object we might come to know as expressing this or that nature. I relate to it in a more participatory way, as in some sense inseparable from our own self-consciousness and (which may in fact be the same thing) our consciousness of God. The consequent nature of God is real and effective, in other words, only to the extent that we make it so.
Matt, can you explain why the language has to be so difficult, opaque. I guess it is to present the ideas as specifically and comprehensively as the writer wishes them be. But I really can’t see why it has to be “elevated” beyond a straightforward understanding by an fairly intelligent but untrained interested party, such as myself. In this case I am not referring only to Whitehead’s but to your commentary as well.
I am a longtime practitioner of A.H. Amaas’ (aka Hameed Ali) Diamond Approach. The detail of this path is extraordinary but rendered in straightforward language. The language can be followed by the “ordinary” mind. However the meaning can only be apprehended by an “awakened” mind. So there is a barrier to understanding but it doesn’t come from the language. From the vantage of the awake mind one understands that ones experience doesn’t need to conform to the descriptions Almaas renders. They instead give one a context to give credence to and support understanding (understanding here goes far deeper than a mental apprehension) of ones unique and (hard won) fruitions in the practice of this path. Hence, the language is as much a doorway as a description. I have no problem acknowledging that the conceptualizations of the Diamond Approach heavily influence the forms my understanding takes.
I applaud and support and also work toward your aim to bring a truer and more wholesome understanding of ourselves and the cosmos into the world. But again, why the opaque language reserved for a few specialists? How does that help or serve? If I am missing something significant or essential kindly offer an explanation.
Best of luck…
GH
Apologies if this post was especially dense or obtusely written. That is likely a product of me writing it with my friend Tim in mind, with whom I've spent so many hours hashing out mutually satisfying ways of wording ideas drawn from the history of metaphysics and contemporary chemical ecology. It is inevitable that we'd begin to invent our own language! I write in a variety of ways, and do take to heart (and head) the criticism. I do want to be understood : )
I think this essay is a brilliant situating of the central questions of Being and Becoming. Especially for students of philosophy, since the ending invokes the need to understand the bifurcated western materialist-idealist tradition. Since Parmenides 6th C BCE this has been going on, which makes it all the more bewildering!. This essay made clear to me the need for a culture that intelligently INTEGRATES the transcendent and immanent aspects of Knowingness, because science now shows us knowing goes all the way down and all the way up... and beyond.....? And that our brain itself is constituted so that we unify the 'immaterial' with the 'material'. We all, are somehow unified in that Knowingness. Thank you Matt as always.
You write, " Whitehead’s concept of “prehension” allows for a continuity between the most rudimentary energetic transactions and full-blown conscious self-reflection. This is not panpsychism in the sense of smearing consciousness haphazardly across the universe, but the recognition of a processual continuum of experiential intensities." Without reducing thinking or consciousness to material states, it would appear our minds do facilitate prehension. For instance, part of the facilitation might come from long-range synchrony across brain regions. Years ago, Varela et al found that "phase scattering," brief instances of desynchrony, punctuated synchrony between thoughts or perceptions. Such could help provide for creative novelty and prevent one "thought" from absolutely determining the next thought. To my knowledge, there is no research on exactly how that might work beyond a shrugging common-sense conclusion that it's part chance, part necessity. Any thoughts from anyone? Please note that I am at least trying to avoid a reductionist account.
It is interesting that this entire discussion seems to be undertaken with only the rational-analytical mind. No evidence is presented from the higher transpersonal states of awareness that are also innate in human beings. This, I feel, is a crippling aspect of CIIS regulating integral philosophers like Ken Wilber and Jean Gebser to the background -- it is, after all, an Institute of INTEGRAL STUDIES. Matt, your analysis of Whitehead is so fine, so profound, I wish is was supplemented by Wilber's work -- but I guess he has a bad name -- for he also deals with "without a divine longing latent in the plenum of potentiae to disturb their evaluative equilibrium (where no pattern is preferred)" how does this happen? -- nicely said. But Spirit or "God" is revealed to be an authentic reality with transpersonal awareness... via psychedelics (temporary insight), but better, via yoga and authentic spiritual disciplines and meditative practices.
Therefore, when "Tim’s challenge presses Whitehead to justify why any eternal or divine element is needed at all, given that science already provides powerful tools (evolution, complexity theory, etc.) for understanding the emergence of form" -- it seems to me that Yoga and interior samadhi states solve this conundrum. In other words, Whitehead -- like Hegel, for that matter -- has no real Yoga. This, my friends, is one of the great values to be gained from integrating the Western mind of science with the Eastern soul of contemplation. I feel Matt's philosophical intuition is leading him in that direction but has yet to find the tools, aka with the proper supporting philosophers, who can help this deeper and more integral understanding to emerge (I don't think Steiner was adept enough at this)... to evolve further forward... to bring a creative synthesis out of previous forms of knowledge.
LOVE the Miles Davis quote -- too cool! Thank you for these brilliant conversations and samyamas. Blessings, Brad Reynolds
I take your point about the import of spiritual experience, which is certainly relevant and at least mentioned in this essay. But it was already too long and I can’t say everything at once.
As for CIIS regulating Wilber and Gebser to the background, what gives you that impression? We study them all the time, probably more so than any other university in the world!
In my mind and heart (and that of the Perennial Philosophy), spiritual experience is the heart of philosophia -- the love of wisdom (sophia) -- so if it is essential, why is it usually buried behind ideas and speculation all the time? Part of the reason, I believe, is that most people don't even acknowledge there is a SPECTRUM of spiritual experiences. Most tend to conflate them all together, not distinguishing, for example, shamanic nature mysticism from yogic subtle mythicism to causal "emptiness" to nondual awakening -- trails of insight that Aurobindo to Wilber to transpersonal psychology blazed -- so why is this not discussed openly? Where are Huston Smith and Frithjof Schuon or Joseph Campbell and Daniel P. Brown, for example, in these discussions? Steiner over them, really? Did not CIIS trump him over the others?
I went to CIIS, and saw how Ken Wilber was attacked by McDermott (who favored Steiner even over Aurobindo) and by Rick Tarnas --- they ridiculed him -- and then Jorge Ferrer came on board in the early 2000s and destroyed respect for the Perennial Philosophy with his "participatory" analysis (thus distorting Wilber's and Aurobindo's work) and his "one ocean, many shores" critique instead of many paths to one mountaintop type of perspective. Plus, Wilber's admittedly sloppy academic writing and the Integral Institute's failure helped nothing either, granted -- but we need to see beyond those weakness to see the brilliance (and truth) of what he offers (beyond AQAL too)... and then Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (a good friend, btw) and others distancing themselves and try to pull the "transpersonal" or spiritual out of integral theory... and on and on.
That's why I say that, Matt. I love you guys, but I witness holes in your approach that I feel a little tweaking would improve significantly. I can hear you reach for some of what Wilber was trying to say, but then do not. Whitehead is great, but he had no Yoga, right? Have you seriously read Wilber's early books (the ones that made him world famous)? (You must have, but esp. Eye to Eye or Transformations of Consciousness? more so than his later "Phase-4" AQAL approach). I saw Wilber attacked relentlessly by Sean Kelly and others... so that's where I get my impression. After over 25 years of seeing the results from the professors coming out of CIIS, I see no evidence that Wilber's work is understood, let alone accepted. Sorry to say -- thank you for letting me express my opinion. Any time you want to talk, I am here. I truly love what you are doing, don't get me wrong -- love it! But...
Hi Brad, I would be especially curious about your experience with ciis. Wilber has called it green, which I find especially true, especially these days when most of the “integral thinkers” have left or retired, though there are a few that do their their best, though spiral dynamically, the center of gravity of the institute has seemed to regress to orange or lower under new management. McDermotts criticism of Wilber, from what I saw, was quite superficial (harsh critique doesn’t resonate so it must not be integral), and while Sean Kelly and friends book (Dialogues with Wilber or whatever) extends this critique, and may even be worthwhile, Wilber’s response pretty much devastates them, though there are better critiques of him that out his center of gravity at orange too. Which is to say the back and forth of integral is mostly orange-green, that is, first tier.
To be fair, it’s not an institute of integral studies, that term was slapped on to pay homage to aurobindo and haridas following the latters death during a time when they were forced to change names to achieve accreditation since “Asian studies” was not viable, and integral is more or less redefined into transdisciplinary these days, with little to no dialogue between departments except when students venture out -- philosophically this means twentieth century Eurocentric for the most part, with EWP holding most of the aurobindian legacy these days, and astrology (“archetypal cosmology”) serving as the basic framework of a holistic approach integrating interiority with cosmos.
I’d disagree whitehead has no yoga, it’s just a western intellectual path, though as I hear it yoga and magic are East and western branches of mysticism, which if you consider it a science of consciousness (as the upanishads do), Cassirer, Whitehead, Aurobindo, Gebser, and Wilber put together a framework that advances this, though even Airobindonis uniting east with western occultism via the mother’s theosophic influence, which Jung and Steiner do too, so there is a triangulation happening that CIIS historically has been doing, albeit in a way that has been experiencing mission drift so to speak for a bit -- though the possibility for deepening into the convergence is possible through the right track, with additional theorization that moves beyond what integral has even done -- where these are combined, it’s true integral yoga, where not, collapses into obsolescence.
Matt -- what teachers are teaching Gebser? Weiss was removed because...? and as I’ve seen there’s maybe one adjunct left who does? Wilber is absolutely gone, maybe included in a chapter by Mickey and friends on varieties of integral ecology and leftover influence from an earlier time in transformative studies and a couple students familiar with Wilber outside -- just my experience. This is just to say “study them all the time” seems a bit of exaggeration -- you are probably one of the very few faculty I’d think who has read gebser. Do you assign them? Not to challenge the assumption CIIS focuses on them more than anywhere else, but only because others simply don’t at all, so relatively, sure.
Brad - CIIS didn’t put steiner over the others -- I think that is McDermotts influence picked up by Matt specifically, though the esoteric tradition is a line that runs through -- which includes others you reference -- but the names you bring up are white, male, and dead, and there are critiques and new research that addresses their limitations, and the survey nature means generalizations and an overarching framework that bridges perennial, transpersonal, and integral into a worldview that is consistent, but really is meant to serve as a way for people to jump into it on their own.
There are serious criticisms of Wilber, Steiner, Tarnas, Ferrer, Aurobindo, etc -- it’s a conversation and people gravitate to whoever and bring them into dialogue. Personally I’d say, drawing on Woutergraaf CIIS could easily be classified as new age, in so far as it is a synthesis of esotericism in the mirror of secular thought, so to speak, bogged down by academia and administration that hinders spiritual pursuit.
There are absolutely holes -- big freaking glaring ones that threaten to sink the ship, just like the already sunk ships you speak of that are more or less driftwood people are clutching to. It doesn’t need tweaking, it needs a complete overhaul, with structural transformation. My sense is it’s in a state of collapse, integral is more or less a buzzword that very few (Matt included) have a relationship to anymore, and the institute is in identity crisis, which they are attempting to resolve. Wilber’s AQAL may be helpful to restore, but also Wilber may very well be obsolete as well -- not that he shouldn’t be read, but that there are people doing work, based on putting his ideas in dialogue with those who have eyes to see his blind spots.
To Matt’s point about Wilber not able to handle the critique, I think this is wrong -- he handled it, and basically showed the critiques have very little water -- Certainly his work has inaccuracies (as meta theories do), as do Sean and Rick and I’m sure even Matt ;) Such is the nature of limited perspective, hence the need for philosophical dialogue -- though CIIS many times cannot handle this either, like Wilber, and demonizes these as “mean [green]” or “unintegral”. Matt’s study of integral is probably one of the best at the institute, though a bit overly restricted to whitehead if I can say that, though I imagine there are professional and administrative pressures responsible.
I took a shot at accounting for some of the tensions in this post, but the general point is there are many versions of integral, all with their shadows, and the quest for truth requires sustained dialogue around these issues if new developments are to emerge and provide anything of value
https://open.substack.com/pub/fairytalesfromecotopia/p/a-cultural-history-of-integralisms?r=2frou4&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
It could very well be the case that like a star supernovaing, the institute (and integral itself) has collapsed, though the novel elements it produced during a brief window of time, spewed out across the galaxy, can gravitate and recombine in ways that produce new thresholds of complexity whose emergent properties are unprethinkable, while leaving enormous empty holes behind that many still gravitate around, to use an imperfect metaphor.
I have at least three doctoral students whose research is focused on Gebser's structures of consciousness. Eric Weiss certainly brought Gebser (and Whitehead) while he taught as an adjunct for several glorious years before his untimely passing (though no doubt his longer trajectory continues!).
I once bought Eric breakfast and he ran me through the history of integral in like 30 minutes as a thank you, lol: Cassirer, Whitehead, Aurobindo, Haridas, Gebser, Wilber, and his own synthesis with transphysical post-mortem survivalism . Certainly a fun crash course. The way Kerri Welch weaves Gebser into her own texture of time is also dope. Jeremy Johnson’s work seems to have made quite a splash in reinvigorating Gebserian studies, along with Debashish’s reinvigoration of Integral through the last conference that included Gebser along with Aurobindo, Jung, and Teilhard’s.
Would be fun reading what you wrote in any of your classes with Weiss if you had any classes with him and still have the papers.
Very well said, and I tend to agree with the vast majority of your comments. Thanks for that in-depth review. Quite stunning, actually. Particularly your assessment of CIIS, but to be fair, I have not been there for a while. I certainly agree that McDermott brought Steiner in there, and Matt has been one of his big supporters in today's world. What I find most vacant is the lack of genuine yogic and mystical authenticity, as it seems CIIS professors do not understand the profound depths of Buddhism and Vedanta or how God-Realization is needed before any map becomes genuine. Nor do I think you can say Whitehead had a yoga since yoga is about quieting the mind and the fluctuations of consciousness -- it even goes beyond creativity and processes, right? Wilber (as did Aurobindo and Adi Da) provides a decent map to navigate the higher transpersonal realms and states that others tend to collapse into one mush of psychic and magical-mythical thinking. Anyway, you had a great review, I wish I had time to go further in depth and detail. Thank you for your summary and insights.
Debashish and Julich are quite familiar with integral yoga and mystical authenticity, while James Ryan was quite versed I think. But yes, always fluctuating -- my own understanding of Wilber came through Allan Leslie Combs, Russ Volckmann, and Daniel Deslauriers, who specifically modeled their curriculum on AQAL, and then at least three or four in philosophy and religion have included books or chapters that bring in wilberian ecology, with womens spirituality also including readings from Haridas, and that’s just my own experience. Like I say, Wilber is quite well known and there are people who draw on it, and students who dive further in. He’s on most peoples radar I think, though I think there’s a drift away generally, and a move toward supplementing with other approaches to “integral”, that may not really draw on that lineage but would cover what AQAL attempts to do
We miss Allan Leslie Combs, for sure... God bless his soul. Jim Ryan was my adviser at CIIS, way back when, and you're right, he's on top of Aurobindo and Chauduri (some of my faves too). I like Nish Dubashia's posts on FB, for sure, a true integral thinker! I agree with your last comments. as well--we all must move forward since the Intergal Vision is humanity's inheritance and future, not the province of any one man or time. Be well 🙏
I’ll note I’m on on a phone and apparently can’t edit, so pardon all poorly worded comments above!
I think you must be mistaking academic critical engagement with “attacking.” Academics disagree and nit pick, it’s what we’re trained to do. Wilber wanted to be taken seriously by the academy but couldn’t handle having his (not always so accurate) scholarship critiqued. I am not sure what was going on before I arrived in 2008, but when I got to CIIS there were courses teaching Wilber’s books and a lively discussion. If anything, Sean Kelly was often defending Wilber from caricatured dismissals from students.
The only attacks I’d say were mean-spirited came from the brilliant William Irwin Thompson in his book “Coming Into Being,” which came out of lectures he gave while a visiting faculty member at CIIS in the mid-90s. To be fair, he was also critical of Richard Tarnas.
I read as many of his books as I could get my hands on as an undergraduate. Then I read Gebser, Aurobindo, Whitehead, etc. for myself and realized he was flattening the heck out of them to fit into his grand spiritual conveyer belt model.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s a brilliant synthesizer. But the German idealists were jñāna yogis, and I wonder how deeply you’ve gone into Steiner?
True enough, and the word "attack" was probably defensive on my part since I heard the discussions in person (while at CIIS). And it is true, Sean does have a resonance with Wilber's work, so I was thinking more of his 1997 book (Ken Wilber In Dialogue). And you are correct -- academic debate is the point for academics -- and I do feel Wilber failed to engage it properly over time, which is a shame. Nor did his students, since they got lost in the AQAL map.
Yes, I was in WIT's class back then (It was fantastic overall regardless of what he thought of Ken and Californians :) -- and in Tarnas and Grof's as well (Stan appreciated Ken a lot, Rick not so much). "Flattening the heck out of them"? (Gebser, et al)? That sounds like an overstatement. Wilber added something the Westerners (Whitehead and Gebser) were missing: the higher stages of Yoga and Awakened Enlightenment (as the Buddhists and Hindus express it), but they aren't to blame since Eastern philosophy and teachers were just appearing on the scene. Wilber is much closer to Aurobindo, it is true, but he's much easier to read -- thus his larger audience appeal.
I support the early Wilber (prior to 2000) much more than the later works where he becomes his own "religion" (more than an academic). How you can say the Idealists were Jnana yogis when they didn't do yoga (other than being profound, spiritually-astute beings) is an odd assertion. Not having a Yoga to practice that others could duplicate seems to be a huge hole in their philosophies (too much mind-only), IMO.
Steiner? Not much at all since every time I do, he bores me, even though at times he's brilliant (esp. in the lower stages, like education and politics). I like his focus on the heart. But his psychism is not genuine spirituality but only psychic awareness, not transcendental awakening. I have too many genuine Adepts to read. I wonder how much you have read any of Adi Da? especially his books from the late 1970s or early 1980s? The Enlightenment of the Whole Body (1978) or The Transmission of Doubt (1984) -- a critique of scientific materialism -- or Real God Is The Indivisible Oneness of Unbroken Light (1999)? Probably not at all since he is a Spiritual Master, not an academic, and people use the unfair (and untrue) criticisms about his reputation to avoid genuine Gurus. I thought Wiber was a decent bridge between the West and the East that most have not crossed adequately. Thanks, Matt, truly appreciate you.
Thanks, Brad. So cool that you have first hand experience of so much of this.
I have read very little of Adi Da, but I am hoping to go deeper. As for Steiner, given his sustained criticisms of psychism, I get the sense you haven't yet gone below the surface. He's a tough nut to crack, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss him.
okay, fair enough-- what book would you suggest? The recent one I tried was Harmony of the Creative Word -- I did listen to one of your lectures about his bio-history that broadened my appreciation, so thanks for that. Re: Adi Da -- getting the right book can be tricky -- use your intuition -- but some of the best and easiest to read are the ones now out of print (before He began doing the esoteric capitalization). Yet again, Real God Is The Indivisible Oneness of Unbroken Light (1999) is an all-time fave, where he speaks of science, the Big Bang, evolution, true religion, etc. Tough nuts to crack often provide the best fruit!
I wonder if Tim would be more resonant with the views of Henry Nelson Wieman, which have been beautifully summarized in two articles by Robert Mesle.
In part 1, "Sharing a Vague Vision," (https://www.religion-online.org/article/sharing-a-vague-vision-wiemans-early-critique-of-whitehead/), Mesle references Wieman's early notoriety as someone who could explain Whitehead to others.
Mesle writes: "As an empiricist, Wieman felt comfortable with Whitehead’s explicit effort to develop a metaphysics which was informed by, and informing of, the modern sciences. As a value theorist, Wieman was attracted to Whitehead’s discussion of the process by which all value becomes actual."
Mesle quotes from Bernard Meland, a student and then later colleague of Wieman:
"Bernard Meland, reflecting on Wieman’s period of enthusiasm for Whitehead, remarked that "It is often the very vagueness of an idea which makes it so attractive." And indeed, it was in the vague, groping efforts of Whitehead in Concept of Nature, Science and the Modern World, and Religion in the Making, that Wieman found such exciting prospects for a whole new way to get at the problem of God through the joint efforts of science and religion. "I remember his saying in class," Meland continued, "that there are possibilities in Whitehead’s early writings for a metaphysics that would be just right for us if he would just turn his attention to metaphysics." This interest in metaphysics points to another important aspect of this period. It is during this time that Wieman briefly departed from his resolve to limit his investigation. Only when struggling for a vision of the whole of reality -- of the "wider cosmic processes" -- did he share the special excitement of Whitehead’s endeavor."
As Whitehead became more speculative, especially in Process & Reality, Wieman became more critical. Part 2 by Mesle is titled "Added On Like Dome and Spire," (https://www.religion-online.org/article/added-on-like-dome-and-spire-wiemans-later-critique-of-whitehead/).
"Summary
I have traced four major strands in Wieman’s thought with the purpose of showing through them the development of his critique of the philosophy of Whitehead.
(1) Wieman was already dealing with an implicitly aesthetic approach to value in his dissertation. But it seems that his encounter with Whitehead, especially in Religion in the Making, brought this aspect of his value theory to much greater clarity and prominence.
(2) Wieman did not derive his definition of God as "that Something supremely important for human well being" from Whitehead. But for a while he did identify this Something with Whitehead’s concept of God -- first with the principle of concretion and then with the primordial order. Whitehead certainly contributed to Wieman’s willingness during this period to think of this Something as a cosmic, rather than exclusively human, process.
(3) Part of the attraction of Whitehead’s philosophy was its strongly empirical character, especially, I think, in Concept of Nature and parts of Process and Reality. Whitehead made it clear that God was not to be exempted from the basic principles governing the rest of reality. His God was not conceived as transcendent to the universe in a way which made it inaccessible to any form of rational, empirical study.
(4) But with the coming of the consequent nature into Whitehead’s concept of God, Wieman became disenchanted. First, it seemed to Wieman that Whitehead had violated the requirements of sound empirical philosophy by indulging in speculation. He felt that Whitehead had yielded to the natural human tendency to conceive of God in terms which offered a merely pleasant feeling about religion without demanding the kind of ultimate commitment to the creative process itself which Wieman felt was urgently needed.
We can see that the universe hangs together and exhibits some creative advance, but how can we possibly know anything about this consequent nature of God? How can we know if it loves or hates, is caring or cold, prehends without loss, or offers us a lure other than those we get from the culture which gives us our conscience?
Wieman was essentially arguing that the natural world itself performs the functions of the primordial and consequent natures of God alike -- so far as they are performed at all. Possibilities are not eternal, he finally concluded. They are themselves simply structures of the material world (SHG 8-9). The events and processes creative of human good are entirely natural. Wieman became increasingly hostile toward religious visions which set the source of human good in a transcendent reality. Such visions make us helpless, he believed, since we cannot possibly study or work with something "wholly other." Appeals to transcendental realities are both debilitating and useless..."
In short, the very last sentence in Mesle's article:
"Wieman believed that the consequent nature of God had been "added on like dome and spire" -- lacking both empirical support and practical value in the search for the sources of human good."
This is fascinating! Thank you for sharing a bit about Wieman's evolving response to Whitehead's evolution from "Concept of Nature" to "Process and Reality." I do not read the consequent pole of God so much as an object we might come to know as expressing this or that nature. I relate to it in a more participatory way, as in some sense inseparable from our own self-consciousness and (which may in fact be the same thing) our consciousness of God. The consequent nature of God is real and effective, in other words, only to the extent that we make it so.