I Cannot Tell A Lie: George Washington Slept Here

Speaking of reincarnation—who would have thought that America’s founders would come back to lead the New Age? Well, Dr. Walter Semkiw, for one. In 2003, Semkiw, working with Kevin Ryerson, who channels the spirit guide Ahtun Re, wrote Return of the Revolutionaries. In it, he argues that many famous founding fathers and mothers have reincarnated as New Age icons in order to carry forward their work of social and spiritual transformation. Semkiw believes that Shirley MacLaine was Robert Morris, who financed the Revolutionary War effort; Neale Donald Walsch was William Walter, a Freemason and Boston minister in the late 1700s; and the list goes on and on. Semkiw himself claims to have been John Adams, whose then-wife Abigail is currently making another go-round as bestselling author Marianne Williamson.

Another New Age icon—Caroline Myss (Ben Franklin’s wife Deborah, according to Semkiw)—has added fuel to the fire with a new book entitled An Autobiography of George Washington. That’s right, autobiography. Myss is planning to publish George Washington’s channeled life story—a story that he is said to have given to a well-respected vaudeville star, playwright, and spiritualist medium named Edith Ellis in 1944. Eerily, the book contains facts that historians had not yet uncovered when Washington bared his heart to Ellis. For example, he confessed that he would have caved in at Valley Forge when his men were reduced to cannibalism—information yet to be discovered in 1944—but a radiant angel appeared and assured him that the nation he was fighting to set free was destined to change the world. Myss, who discovered the manuscript twenty-three years ago, told Pulse, “Normally, I never tamper with this kind of stuff. But I just couldn’t ignore this one. We are living in an atmosphere as volatile as when our forefathers and mothers were trying to bring forth a new beginning, a new nation, and a new spiritual paradigm, which is what America represented in 1776. This time it’s global, and the stakes are higher, but the power of America’s vision could have a real effect if we as a nation reconnect with that vision.”

If the original G.W. has his way, maybe we’ll also find it in our hearts to change his portrait on the dollar bill. Apparently, he always hated that picture (based on the famous painting by Gilbert Stuart)—he said it makes him look stiff.

Here are the Women!

Last year, Microsoft manager Laurel Ross popped the big question to Ken Wilber at an Integral Institute leadership training. She asked him, “Where are all the integral women?” and the dialogue that ensued ended up on IntegralNaked.org. This year she’s joined with four high-powered Houston women to declare that “integral women are everywhere.” Ross, Unity Church executive director Rima Bonario, leadership maven Susan Lieberman, executive coach Judith O’Connor, and spirit-at-work consultant Cindy Wigglesworth argue that “integral women in the world are abundant but seem not to be visible” as leaders because they lead less out loud than men. Integral women leaders, they claim, don’t toot their own horns. Ross’s one-eighty on the “Where are the women?” question came about after WIE senior editor Elizabeth Debold wrote several articles exploring the question herself and calling for a new, evolutionary women’s liberation. The five women take Debold to task, saying that they are seeking “HUMAN development,” not a new feminism or women’s liberation. (You’ll find their full response at wie.org/women—and Debold’s next installment discussing the responses to her articles appears in this issue.) “Traditional male/female labels lose usefulness at higher stages of development,” they believe, and rather than focusing on gender, they call us all to “get back to the bigger agenda—we have a planet to heal.”

Could it be that “female labels” are helpful in getting to those higher stages of development? At the first-ever Women’s Integral Practice Seminar held at Omega Institute last fall, the feminine was in abundance. In fact, psychotherapist and vocal artist Willow Pearson describes the event by saying, “She was born, and she’s a girl.” As she told Pulse, the integral girl was all about “honoring the feminine principle in practice. It came alive through the honoring of the sacred through dance and devotional singing.” Pearson, the co-anchor and seminar curriculum manager of this gathering of seventy-five women, shared the lead with senior Zen student and conflict resolution pro Diane Hamilton, yogini and sacred movement specialist Sofia Diaz, and several others, including pioneering developmental psychologist Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter. What’s the next step? Well, according to Pearson, it’s not about healing the planet, but about reclaiming the feminine face of our spiritual history. As she observes, “When it’s missing, we fail to know who we are.”

Play That Jewish Reggae, Mon

Have you heard the one about the hip-hopping, beat-boxing, reggae-rapping Jew? His name is Matisyahu, and he may be the world’s first Hasidic reggae superstar. Born Matthew Miller, this 26-year-old former Deadhead from White Plains, New York, came from a secular Jewish background but took his first steps onto the spiritual path while in high school, after realizing during a camping trip in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains that “there is a G-d.” Though he experienced moments of inspiration through his love of music, Miller didn’t find his way until he met an old Hasidic Jew one day in a park in New York City. Eventually taking up the mystical mantle of a Hasid, Matthew Miller became Matisyahu Miller, and after going on a yearlong spiritual retreat to contemplate life in the light of his new religion, he decided to begin transmitting his religious passion to unsuspecting audiences with a distinctly original style. Today, he has two CDs available and is playing to sold-out venues in the U.S. and Canada—but not on Friday nights. Despite being outrageously avant-garde, Matisyahu is, like any good observant Jew, strictly shomer shabbos.

Everyone Evolve Tonight

Boom-ta-boom-boom, boom-ta-boom-boom . . . the tribal drums beat as you flail your arms above your head, dancing in ecstasy, absorbed by the primordial rhythms of the so-called purple meme of sociocultural development. Around you on all sides, images of cave paintings, voodoo dolls, unicorns, elemental spirits, and modern street gangs merge in an inchoate transmission of a strangely intimate primal state of consciousness. Within a few minutes, the music and scenery shift. Now you hear the pulse-pounding beat of White Zombie’s raging nineties rock hit “More Human Than Human” as images of ancient Greek warriors, Saddam Hussein, Attila the Hun, and others flash by in rapid red-hued succession. What the heck is going on? Who’s DJ-ing this party, anyway? All you know for sure is that you are attending something called an “integral rave.”

The visionary creation of Integral Institute’s Brett Thomas, Integral raves aim to be fun, enlivening dance parties that also manage to convey—through a multisensory barrage of multimedia—the past, present, and future trajectory of the evolutionary process at the level of human consciousness. And according to the rave reviews some recent participants gave Pulse, the experience certainly seems to deliver. In fact, one person reportedly had a powerful satori, or taste of enlightened awareness, after just a couple of hours of integral partying. Thomas intends to bring his unique brand of evolutionary entertainment—currently limited to members of Ken Wilber’s integral training seminar series—to the general public in the near future. What’s more, Thomas has expressed an interest in partnering with WIE’s parent organization, EnlightenNext, to bring even deeper spiritual themes into his consciousness-raising audio-video onslaughts. So if you like a little excitement with your evolutionary theory, maybe we’ll meet you on the dance floor someday.