Joel Pitney

Bio & resources

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, it’s hard to imagine living in a world without democracy and the natural right to live a life of one’s own choosing. These fundamental principles of modernity, which flourished in the salons of Paris during the late eighteenth century, have become so ingrained in our individual and collective psyches that we mostly take them for granted. But the principles of the Enlightenment might never have become manifest were it not for the founding fathers of the United States, who designed the world’s first democratic government and self-determined nation with only their philosophical convictions to guide them.

Fast-forward more than two hundred years to the present, where another group of individuals is attempting to incite a new philosophical revolution that has such profound and broad-ranging implications for human life and the world that some observers of cultural evolution are calling it the second Enlightenment. They’re talking about the emergence of the integral worldview. And thanks to the work of philosopher Ken Wilber and others, this new perspective is helping hundreds of thousands of people around the world—including the editors of this magazine—to start to see the many dimensions of reality, both inner and outer, as multiple reflections of one unfolding process of cosmic evolution. After decades of relative obscurity, an international movement of integral scholars, practitioners, and activists is now working to give this little-known perspective more legitimacy in the public eye. And through a variety of social networks, websites, centers, academic programs, and conferences, they are attempting to build the cultural foundation for what integral theorist and author Steve McIntosh suggests could ultimately be “a new, historically significant level of human civilization.”

The roots of the integral movement go back more than a century to the theories and visions of various philosophers, mystics, and developmental psychologists, such as Sri Aurobindo, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Jean Gebser. But in the last thirty years, so much more developmental work has come to the fore that we now have a variety of maps and established theories to describe these processes of psychospiritual, cultural, and biological evolution and how they are related. Perhaps the most complete synthesis of this recent work can be found in Wilber’s AQAL (All Quadrants, All Levels) model, which is based on years of exhaustive research and spiritual inquiry and brings together the many disciplines through which humanity seeks truth—the spiritual traditions, the physical and social sciences, politics, art, ethics, and psychology—into one comprehensive “theory of everything.” But while AQAL and other theoretical frameworks have been important catalysts for the integral movement, it is clear to many that they are just “maps” and that far more significant than the frameworks themselves is the emerging worldview that they describe. This unifying perspective could not arise at a better time in history, as the complexity of our moral, political, environmental, and spiritual challenges demands a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of reality—one that appreciates the interior dynamics of consciousness and culture that are at play below the surface of every issue.

The attempt to create a cultural movement is not a solitary endeavor. What may be most promising about this new wave of integral activism is that while Wilber continues to remain a central voice, the integral baton is now starting to be carried by a much larger group of people. Jeff Salzman, a Colorado entrepreneur, is one of the new leaders in the movement. In early 2008, he and a small community of integral practitioners transformed a 7,000-square-foot Lutheran church into the Boulder Integral Center as a venue for creating a new culture based on the shared values that are emerging in the integral worldview. Salzman’s group is one among a number of grassroots social networks that are popping up in major cities around the world, from Frankfurt and London to Sydney to San Francisco and New York. Many of these groups meet in online discussions or at in-person “meet-ups,” which serve as havens for those who have been turned on to the transformative potential of the integral worldview to develop their understanding with others who share that same intention. Another new face in the integral movement, Ewan Townhead, is the cofounder of Integral Europe, a web-based community that he hopes will be the central hub for organizing groups and activities internationally. As he points out, “If you really are pushing into an integral stage of consciousness but you don’t have the group or sangha around you to support that, the culture at large will just drag you back.”

For Salzman’s Boulder group and some of the more active networks around the globe, getting together to talk about integral theory has given way to a natural interest in exploring what it means to actually live from this radical new perspective that allows you to see the many dimensions of yourself, culture, and the universe not as separate or fragmented but as interrelated parts of one integrated, evolving whole. As a result, some have established formal organizations and centers to support deeper, more ongoing relationships and practice among their members. In 2007, the Integral Loft was founded in downtown Seattle’s Pioneer Square as a joint venture between the Puget Sound’s leading integral organizations: Pacific Integral, Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems, Kore Leadership, and the Women’s Integral Leadership Circle. This past summer, the Santa Monica Center for Integral Living opened its doors to serve as the integral hub for the greater Los Angeles area. Even Miami Beach is going integral—Florida style—with the 2005 opening of the Standard Hotel and Center for Integral Living, a destination spa, urban resort, and retreat center whose design was based on integral principles. And in Germany, where the integral movement may be more organized than anywhere else in the world, there is a governing body, the Integral Forum, that publishes a quarterly magazine, hosts an annual conference, and oversees more than twenty different integral salons in cities throughout the German-speaking world.