Integral thought - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about "Integral" as a theme in spirituality. For the "Integral Theory" associated with Ken Wilber, see Integral Theory
Integral Theory
Integral Theory is a philosophy posited by Ken Wilber that seeks a synthesis of the best of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern reality. It claims to be a "theory of everything," and offers an approach "to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of...

. See Integral (disambiguation)
Integral (disambiguation)
Integral is a mathematical conceptIntegral may also refer to:in mathematics* integer, a number* Integral symbol* Integral , or Lebesgue integration* Integral...

for other uses.

Integral is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and many other areas regarding a comprehensive synthesizing transdisciplinary framework or multidimensional perspective to a given field. The term is often combined with others such as approach, consciousness, culture, paradigm, philosophy, society, theory, and worldview, Major themes of this range of philosophies and teachings include a synthesis of science and religion, evolutionary spirituality

Evolutionary Enlightenment

Evolutionary Enlightenment is a philosophy that mixes teachings about Enlightenment from Eastern traditions with a Western scientific understanding of evolution....

, and holistic

Holism

Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...

programs of development for the body

Body

With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...

, mind

Mind

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...

, soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

, and spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

. In some versions of integral spirituality, integration is seen to necessarily include the three domains of self

Self (psychology)

The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the...

, culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

, and nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

.

Integral thinkers draw inspiration from the work of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...

, Don Beck, Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser was a philosopher who described the structures of human consciousness, a linguist, and a poet.-Biography:...

, Robert Kegan

Robert Kegan

Robert Kegan is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University. Additionally he is the Educational Chair for the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education and the Co-director for the Change Leadership Group...

, Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American author who has written about mysticism, philosophy, ecology, and developmental psychology. His work formulates what he calls Integral Theory. In 1998, he founded the Integral Institute, for teaching and applications of Integral theory.-Biography:Ken Wilber was...

, and others. Some individuals affiliated with integral spirituality have claimed that there exists a loosely-defined "Integral movement". Others, however, have disagreed. Whatever its status as a "movement", there are a variety of religious organizations, think tanks, conferences, workshops, and publications in the US and internationally that use the term integral.

Integral thought is claimed to provide "a new understanding of how evolution affects the development of consciousness and culture." It includes areas such as business, education, medicine, spirituality, sports, psychology and psychotherapy. The idea of the evolution of consciousness

Spiritual evolution

Spiritual evolution is the philosophical, theological, esoteric or spiritual idea that nature and human beings and/or human culture evolve, extending from the established cosmological pattern or ascent, or in accordance with certain pre-established potentials...

has also become a central theme in much of integral theory. According to the Integral Transformative Practice website, integral means "dealing with the body

Body

With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...

, mind

Mind

, heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

, and soul

Soul

Background and historical figures

The adjective integral was first used in a spiritual context by Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

(1872–1950) from 1914 onward to describe his own spiritual teachings

Integral yoga

In the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, Integral yoga refers to the process of the union of all the parts of one's being with the Divine, and the transmutation of all of their jarring elements into a harmonious state of higher divine consciousness and existence.Sri...

, which he referred to as Purna (Skt: "Full") Yoga. It appeared in The Synthesis of Yoga, a book that first published in serial form in the journal Arya and was revised several times since. Sri Aurobindo's work has been described as Integral Vedanta, and psychology

Integral psychology (Sri Aurobindo)

Integral psychology, in the adaptation of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual teachings, refers to an understanding of the various planes and parts of being, which is essential to the practice of integral yoga.-History of Integral psychology:...

, as well as the Integral Psychology (the term coined by Indra Sen

Indra Sen

Indra Sen MA, LL.B., PH.D. was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, psychologist, author, and educator, and the founder of Integral Psychology as an academic discipline....

) and Psychotherapy that emerges from it. His writings influenced others who used the term "integral" in more philosophical or psychological contexts.

As described by Sri Aurobindo and his co-worker The Mother

Mirra Alfassa

-Early life:Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris in 1878, of a Turkish Jewish father, Maurice, and an Egyptian Jewish mother, Mathilde. She had an elder brother named Matteo. The family migrated to France the year before she was born. For the first eight years of her life she lived at 62 boulevard...

(1878–1973), this spiritual teaching involves an integral divine transformation

Divinization

Divinization or deification is the "making divine", the "deification" of an earthly entity, individual, group, or activity.In Christian theology, divinization is the transforming effect of divine grace....

of the entire being, rather than the liberation

Moksha

Within Indian religions, moksha or mukti , literally "release" , is the liberation from samsara and the concomitant suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation or rebirth.-Origins:It is highly probable that the concept of moksha was first developed in...

of only a single faculty such as the intellect

Intellect

Intellect is a term used in studies of the human mind, and refers to the ability of the mind to come to correct conclusions about what is true or real, and about how to solve problems...

or the emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

s or the body. According to Sri Aurobindo,

(T)he Divine is in his essence infinite and his manifestation too is multitudinously infinite. If that is so, it is not likely that our true integral perfection in being and in nature can come by one kind of realisation alone; it must combine many different strands of divine experience. It cannot be reached by the exclusive pursuit of a single line of identity till that is raised to its absolute; it must harmonise many aspects of the Infinite. An integral consciousness with a multiform dynamic experience is essential for the complete transformation of our nature. — Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 114

Important themes include: Evolution, Involution, the Integral psychology

Integral psychology (Sri Aurobindo)

, Integral yoga

Integral yoga

, and the Supramental principle

Supermind

*Supermind in philosophy of S.Aurobindo*Professor Supermind and Son a comic from the 1940s...

. Major works include: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, and Savitri
Savitri (book)
Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is an epic poem in blank verse by Sri Aurobindo, based upon a myth from the Mahabharata. Its central theme revolves around the transcendence of man as the consummation of terrestrial evolution, and the immergence of an immortal supramental gnostic race upon earth...

. The Mother continued Sri Aurobindo's work of Integral and spiritual transformation after his passing, and founded Auroville

Auroville

Auroville is an "experimental" township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, near Pondicherry in South India. It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa and designed by architect Roger Anger...

, an international community dedicated to human unity, and based on their teachings.

At the same time that Sri Aurobindo was developing Integral yoga, Pitirim Sorokin

Pitirim Sorokin

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was a Russian-American sociologist born in Komi . Academic and political activist in Russia, he emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1923. He founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. He was a vocal opponent of Talcott Parsons' theories...

(1889–1968), a Russian-born Harvard sociologist who advocated a cyclic view of history, began referring to the emergence of a future, spiritually-based integral society which will replace the current "sensate" society. Writing at the same time as Sri Aurobindo, but independently, he began using phrases like "integral philosophy" and "integralist".

It has also recently been noted that Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

(1861–1925) an Austrian spiritual scientist, educator, and esotericist

Esotericism

Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...

who founded Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...

, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals as a self-sustaining system. Biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts...

, anthroposophical medicine

Anthroposophical Medicine

Anthroposophical medicine is a complementary approach to medicine that integrates the theories and practices of modern medicine with homeopathic medicines, physical and artistic therapies and biographical counseling...

, and Eurythmy

Eurythmy

Eurythmy is an expressive movement art originated by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Marie von Sivers in the early 20th century. Primarily a performance art, it is also used in education — especially in Waldorf schools - and as a movement therapy....

, used the term integral in a similar way to Sri Aurobindo and Gebser very early on, by 1906 comparing "integral evolution" with "Darwinian evolution." Jennifer Gidley points to Steiner’s earliest use of the term integral, in reference to integral evolution in a lecture in Paris on the 26 May 1906.

The grandeur of Darwinian thought is not disputed, but it does not explain the integral evolution of man… So it is with all purely physical explanations, which do not recognise the spiritual essence of man's being. [Italics added]

The word integral was independently suggested by Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser was a philosopher who described the structures of human consciousness, a linguist, and a poet.-Biography:...

(1905–1973), a Swiss phenomenologist and interdisciplinary scholar, in 1939 to describe his own intuition regarding the next state of human consciousness

Higher consciousness

Higher consciousness, also called super consciousness , objective consciousness , Buddhic consciousness , cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness and Christ consciousness , are expressions used in various spiritual traditions to denote the consciousness of a human being who has reached a...

. Gebser was the author of The Ever-Present Origin, which describes human history as a series of mutations in consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...

. he only afterwards discovered the similarity between his own ideas and those of Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...

.

The idea of "Integral Psychology

Integral psychology

Integral psychology is psychology that presents an all-encompassing holistic rather than an exclusivist or reductive approach. It includes both lower, ordinary, and spiritual or transcendent states of consciousness. Important writers in the field of integral psychology are Sri Aurobindo, Indra...

" was first developed in the 1940s and 50s by Indra Sen

Indra Sen

Indra Sen MA, LL.B., PH.D. was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, psychologist, author, and educator, and the founder of Integral Psychology as an academic discipline....

(1903–1994) a psychologist, author, educator, and devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. He was the first to coin the term "Integral psychology" to describe the psychological observations he found in Sri Aurobindo's writings (which he contrasted with those of Western Psychology), and developed themes of "Integral Culture" and "Integral Man".

Although these basic ideas were first articulated in the early twentieth century, the movement originates with the California Institute of Integral Studies

California Institute of Integral Studies

California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...

founded in 1968 by Haridas Chaudhuri

Haridas Chaudhuri

Haridas Chaudhuri , Bengali integral philosopher, was a correspondent with Sri Aurobindo and the founder of the California Institute of Integral Studies . He was born in Kolkata. He studied at the Scottish Church College and later at the University of Calcutta from where he earned his doctorate in...

(1913–1975), a Bengali

Bengali people

The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

philosopher and academic. Chaudhuri had been a correspondent of Sri Aurobindo, who developed his own perspective and philosophy. He established the California Institute of Integral Studies

California Institute of Integral Studies

(originally the California Institute of Asian Studies), in 1968 in San Francisco (it became an independent organisation in 1974), and presented his own form of Integral psychology

Integral psychology

in the early 1970s.

Again independently, in Spiral Dynamics

Spiral dynamics

Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development introduced in the 1996 book Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Chris Cowan. The book was based on the theory of psychology professor Clare W. Graves...

, Don Beck and Chris Cowan use the term integral for a developmental stage which sequentially follows the pluralistic stage. The essential characteristic of this stage is that it continues the inclusive nature of the pluralistic mentality, yet extends this inclusiveness to those outside of the pluralistic mentality. In doing so, it accepts the ideas of development and hierarchy, which the pluralistic mentality finds difficult. Other ideas of Beck and Cowan include the "first tier" and "second tier", which refer to major periods of human development.

In late 1990s and 2000 Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

, who was influenced by both Aurobindo and Gebser, among many others, adopted the term Integral to refer to the latest revision of his own integral philosophy, which he called Integral Theory

Integral Theory

Integral Theory is a philosophy posited by Ken Wilber that seeks a synthesis of the best of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern reality. It claims to be a "theory of everything," and offers an approach "to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of...

. He also established the Integral Institute

Integral Institute

The Integral Institute is a think-tank founded in 1998 by American author Ken Wilber. The purpose of the Institute is to gather and attempt to integrate the various viewpoints found in a number of major fields of knowledge...

as a think-tank for further development of these ideas. In his book Integral Psychology, Wilber lists a number of pioneers of the integral approach, post hoc. These include Goethe, Schelling

Schelling

Notable people with the last name of Schelling include:* Ernest Schelling, American composer* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher* Thomas Schelling, American economist and Nobel laureate...

, Hegel, Gustav Fechner

Gustav Fechner

Gustav Theodor Fechner , was a German experimental psychologist. An early pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics, he inspired many 20th century scientists and philosophers...

, William James

William James

William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...

, Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

, Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...

, James Mark Baldwin

James Mark Baldwin

James Mark Baldwin was an American philosopher and psychologist who was educated at Princeton under the supervision of Scottish philosopher James McCosh and who was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at the university...

, Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

, Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

, and Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

.

The adjective Integral has also been applied to Spiral Dynamics, chiefly the version taught by Don Beck, who for awhile collaborated with Wilber.

The Integral Institute

Integral Institute

was co-founded as a non-profit "think-and-practice tank" by Ken Wilber and others in 2001, to promote the theory and its practice. While there is no single organization defining the nature of Integral Theory, some have claimed that a loosely-defined "Integral movement" has appeared, expressed in a variety of conferences, workshops, publications, and blogs focused on themes in integral thought, such as spiritual evolution

Spiritual evolution

, and in academic developmental studies

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...

programs. Others, however, have denied the existence of a single Integral movement, arguing that such claims conflate radically different phenomena.

In the Wilber movement "Integral" when capitalized is given a further definition, being made synonymous with Wilber's AQAL Integral theory, whereas "Integral Studies" refers to the broader field including the range of integral thinkers such as Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber, and Ervin Laszlo.

The project of "The Integral University in Paris" was launched 28 February 2008. So far, the Integral University (“Université Intégrale” in French) in Paris refers to a cycle of conferences organized by the French chapter of the Club of Budapest(1,2) based on an idea put forward by Michel Saloff Coste

Michel Saloff Coste

Michel Saloff Coste is an artist and professor at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, in the Executive Development department, and co-founder of the Club of Budapest France - an international non-profit organisation dedicated to leading citizens into discussing complex global...

. It is not an institute as such, as it is still in its developing stages.

Contemporary figures

A variety of intellectuals, academics, writers, and other specialists have advanced the fields of integral thought in recent decades.

Due to its still ambiguous nature, definitions of Integral psychology and philosophy differ, and lists of Integral philosophers and visionaries also differ, although there are some common themes. While Wilber was the first to nominate Integral philosophers, thinkers and visionaries, similar lists have later been proposed by others. According to John Bothwell and David Geier, among the top thinkers in the integral movement are Stanislav Grof

Stanislav Grof

Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...

, Fred Kofman, George Leonard, Michael Murphy

Michael Murphy (author)

Michael Murphy is the co-founder of the Esalen Institute, a key figure in the Human Potential Movement and author of both fiction and non-fiction books on topics related to extraordinary human potential.- Biography :...

, Jenny Wade, Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh

Roger N. Walsh is an Australian professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, within UCI's College of Medicine...

, Ken Wilber, and Michael Zimmerman

Michael Zimmerman

Michael Zimmerman may refer to:* Michael Zimmerman , American biologist at Butler University* Michael Zimmerman , German historian...

. Australian academic Alex Burns mentions among integral theorists Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser was a philosopher who described the structures of human consciousness, a linguist, and a poet.-Biography:...

, Clare W. Graves

Clare W. Graves

Clare W. Graves was a professor of psychology and originator of a theory of adult human development. He was born in New Richmond, Indiana.-Education:...

, Jane Loevinger

Jane Loevinger

Jane Loevinger Weissman was a developmental psychologist who developed a theory of personality which emphasized the gradual internalization of social rules and the maturing conscience for the origin of personal decisions...

and Ken Wilber. In 2007, Steve McIntosh

Steve McIntosh

Stephen Ian “Steve” McIntosh is an American author, activist, lawyer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and president of Now & Zen, Inc., and an influential writer in the field of integral thought.-Biography:...

added Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

and Teilhard de Chardin. While in the same year, the editors of What Is Enlightenment? listed as contemporary Integralists Don Beck, Allan Combs

Allan Combs

Allan Combs is a consciousness researcher, neuropsychologist, and systems theorist. He considers his most significant work to be the development of a developmental/evolutionary model of the mind using concepts from systems science. Much of this was accomplished in collaboration with his friend and...

, Robert Godwin

Robert Godwin

Robert Godwin is an author who has written about rock music and spaceflight. Early in his career he was a rock music impresario who managed a venue in Burlington, Ontario and founded Griffin Music.-Personal information:...

, Sally Goerner, George Leonard, Michael Murphy

Michael Murphy (author)

, William Irwin Thompson

William Irwin Thompson

William Irwin Thompson is known primarily as a social philosopher and cultural critic, but he has also been writing and publishing poetry throughout his career and received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He describes his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient...

, and Wilber.

Gary Hampson suggested that there are six intertwined genealogical branches of Integral, based on those who first used the term: those aligned with Aurobindo, Gebser, Wilber, Gangadean, László and Steiner (noting that the Steiner branch is via the conduit of Gidley).

Integral psychology

Integral psychology is psychology that presents an all-encompassing holistic rather than an exclusivist or reductive approach. It includes both lower, ordinary, and spiritual or transcendent states of consciousness. It originally is based on the Yoga psychology of Sri Aurobindo

Integral psychology (Sri Aurobindo)

. Other important writers in the field of Integral Psychology are Indra Sen

Indra Sen

Indra Sen MA, LL.B., PH.D. was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, psychologist, author, and educator, and the founder of Integral Psychology as an academic discipline....

, Haridas Chaudhuri

Haridas Chaudhuri

, Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

, and Brant Cortright.

Integral practice

Integral practice is primarily an outgrowth of different integral theories and philosophies as they intersect with various spiritual

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

practices, holistic health

Holistic health

Holistic health is a concept in medical practice upholding that all aspects of people's needs, psychological, physical and social should be taken into account and seen as a whole. As defined above, the holistic view on treatment is widely accepted in medicine...

modalities, and transformative regimens associated with the New Paradigm and human potential movement

Human Potential Movement

The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...

. Some ways to describe integral practice are the experiential application of integral theory, the "holistic disciplines we consciously employ to nurture ourselves and others, and most specifically those practices that both inspire and sustain growth in many dimensions at once," and to "address and support each aspect of life with the goal of fully realizing all levels of human potential...." These self-care practices target different areas of personal development, such as physical, emotional, creative, and psychosocial, in a combined, synergistic

Synergy

Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.The term synergy comes from the Greek word from , , meaning "working together".-Definitions and usages:...

fashion. They may have different emphases depending on the theory that supports each approach, but most include a spiritual, introspective

Introspection

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...

or meditative

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

component as a major feature. The objectives of integral practice could be loosely defined as well-being and wholeness, with, in most cases, an underlying imperative of personal and even societal transformation and evolution.

There is also the question of how to provide necessary customization and individualization of practice, while avoiding a "cafeteria model" that encourages practitioners to choose components according to their own strengths, rather than what is necessary for integral growth and development.

The following can be considered examples of different modalities of integral practice, listed in approximate order of inception: Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga

Integral yoga

; Integral Transformative Practice (ITP), created by George Leonard and Michael Murphy; Holistic Integration, created by Ramon Albarada and Marina Romero; Integral Lifework, created by T. Collins Logan; and Integral Life Practice (ILP), based on Ken Wilber's AQAL framework

Integral Theory

External links

Academic programs

California Institute of Integral Studies, offers programs in integral studies.
Fielding Graduate University, offers programs in integral studies.
John F. Kennedy University, MA in Integral Theory an accredited online Master of Arts degree in Integral Theory.

Conferences

Integral Theory Conference the official site for the biennial Integral Theory Conference held at JFK University.
Integral Leadership in Action the official site for the 4th annual conference on integral conscious leadership.

Organizations

Integral Institute a non-profit academic think tank.
Integral Research Center a grant giving mixed-methods research center based on Integral Methodological Pluralism.

Publications

Conscious Evolution, essays and articles about the multidisciplinary, integral study of consciousness and the Kosmos.
Integral Leadership Review, the site of the online publications Integral Leadership Review and Leading Digest
Integral Life online community website that is the sponsoring organization of Integral Institute, a non-profit academic think tank.
Integral Review Journal, an online peer reviewed journal.
Integral World website and online resource maintained by Frank Visser.
Journal of Integral Theory and Practice a peer-reviewed academic journal founded in 2003 with its first issue appearing in 2006.
Kosmos Journal, founded in 2001, a leading international journal for planetary citizens committed to the birth and emergence of a new planetary culture and civilization.
World Futures: Journal of General Evolution. An academic journal devoted to promoting evolutionary models, theories and approaches within and among the natural and the social sciences.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background and historical figures

Contemporary figures

Integral psychology

Integral practice

See also

External links