The Daily Evolver

After Jeff talked about the movie American Sniper on a recent podcast, we received a voice message from a listener who was himself a Navy SEAL sniper just like Chris Kyle. Jake Bullock was in the military from age 18 to 26 and did four tours of duty (three in Iraq and one in Afghanistan), retiring from the military in 2011. What a unique opportunity; a window into warrior consciousness from someone that has a developmental perspective. We quickly arranged a call with Jake and Jeff, and it turned out to be a very interesting conversation! It starts with the story of how a teenage integralist chooses to go off to war. As Jake explains, the warrior identity had always been strong in him. His father was in the military, as was his father’s father. But it wasn’t an obligation to his family or his country that drew him into service. It was the challenge: “I wanted to prove to myself I could do it.” If you haven’t seen American Sniper, you might be familiar with Navy SEALs through any number of heroic, high-profile missions in the news, such as when SEAL Team Six went into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. SEALs are elite, special operations forces trained to operate in all environments (Sea Air Land). “I went through probably two and a half years of training before I even touched a battlefield,” Jake says. “You go through that mental training as well as the physical training, where you are really indoctrinated into this warrior culture.” And yet…during that rigorous training he was reading Sex, Ecology & Spirituality by Ken Wilber. Jake had discovered integral theory at the age of 17. “Everything I learned always seemed to be incomplete,” he said.  “[Integral theory] really tied everything together, with such a comprehensive view of reality.” Excerpt | The most difficult part of being a Navy SEAL sniper So, how accurate is the movie American Sniper? And what is it really like to wake up each day and your job is to kill people who are trying to kill you? Jake gives us first hand-insight: “When you’re in extreme danger…or you’re forced to take a human life, you really do your best to play these psychological tricks on yourself where you take something that…is very, very intense and sometimes life-changing, and reduce it to something that you can deal with multiple times a day, or multiple days out of a week.” Basically, SEALs are just doing the job that they trained for. “When you’re in these special forces units, you’re going overseas and you’re the best equipped soldier on the battlefield,” Jake says. “You’re next to the best warriors on the planet. You know the United States will move mountains to see that you come home safely. You know you’ve got so much training under your belt that you’re very, very prepared for what you’re going to see.” I would be in firefights with these individuals and come face to face with them after the firefight had resolved itself. But I never felt that raw sort of hatred that you would think you would feel when somebody is quite literally trying to kill you. It’s definitely an interesting experience to watch from an integral perspective…to see what I was doing and be the observer for it, and for those that were going through it with me. ~Jake Bullock These soldiers are turned into lethal weapons, sure, but the most interesting thing about modern warfare is how they’re taught not to shoot. They’re trained to use discretion and restraint. Prosecuting war with such moment-by-moment intelligence is a new feature of human development. As Jeff comments, “It’s always dicey to talk about the relative humanity of war, but it does continue to create less and less collateral damage.” Jake concurs, “If I want to give somebody an example of the development of humanity the first thing I point to is warfare. Even 60, 70 years ago, we used to carpet bomb cities. We dropped atomic bombs. And now we have bombs that are so accurate we can drop them through a window because we refuse to accept the deaths of innocent civilians. We go on night raids and we enter these target buildings where we know there are real bad guys, but unless somebody is an immediate, direct threat, we absolutely will not engage them.” Since leaving the military Jake has been adjusting to civilian life and is currently working on his undergraduate degree at Columbia University in New York, where he says there is a lot of support for veterans. He talks about how the bonds he formed with fellow SEALs are stronger than any he’s ever had. “There is an instant brotherhood that cannot be replicated in the civilian world,” he explains. Yet these bonds can make it hard for veterans to form new relationships, particularly with other men. How does he feel when he hears the news about ISIS and the continued troubles in the Middle East?  “Warrior Jake”, he reports, still feels pulled to the battle — while “Integral Jake” works to integrate that power into an ever larger, wiser and more effective identity. It’s a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation with an extraordinary young man. We hope you enjoy it!

The Christian story is remarkable, in part because it’s so unlikely. David Riordan explains: You look at some of the other avatars, like Buddha or Krishna, they were around for a while. For Buddha it was almost forty years that he taught and went through evolutions of that teaching and got feedback. With Jesus you basically see a ministry that was maybe a year to a year and a half, from the time he was baptized by John at the river to the point that he’s crucified on a cross. That’s an extraordinarily short period of time. In that short span, he planted a seed that would grow to resonate with billions of people around the world. In certain times and places, of course, people didn’t have much choice but to accept the Christian doctrine–it was spread by the sword. Many of us—like David and Jeff— were born into it and had to leave it behind for years before circling back and re-discovering the gifts it has to offer. It offers the story of love. “Ken [Wilber] would say that Buddhism is really about the mind and emptiness,” says David, “and Christianity is really about the heart and relatedness, and both those things inform his path.” Excerpt | A postmodern view of miracles Modernity seemed intent on verifying the historical person that was Jesus, emphasizing his humanity. Postmodernity is focused on the message of the heart: love and service, and caring for those left behind. So what does an integral Christian practice look like? In addition to bringing forward the best of modern and postmodern values, it might be bringing back something that we thought we lost: faith. In this recording, David speaks about his awakening to the Christ Consciousness later in life, while he was working as a film producer. For Jeff, a longtime Buddhist practitioner, God came back into his life when he discovered integral theory. “I can’t imagine my spiritual life without both god and emptiness, even though they are doctrinally opposed to each other. With an integral perspective we can hold the tension of those polarities, and find that it’s all the richer.” Integral not only gives us permission to cultivate first, second, and third person spiritual practices, but it tells us we are missing out if we aren’t exploring these perspectives, each representing a unique and irreducible dimension of awakening. An integral inquiry into Christianity brings up many questions. Do you have to believe the stories to get the gifts? Do you need to subscribe to the virgin birth, the walking on water, the crucifixion and resurrection? Do you need to believe in miracles? “I would say there is a postmodern view of miracles,” David says, “because what are most of the miracles about? Most of the miracles are about healing.” Listen to the conversation below, and find out more about the Return to the Heart of Christ Consciousness conference, March 27th–30th at St. Julian Hotel & Spa in downtown Boulder, here. Daily Evolver listeners receive $75 off by using the code DERHCC110 to register.

Yes, folks, I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey…by myself…wearing an overcoat (it’s cold here in Boulder!). I sat off to the side by myself with a tub of popcorn on my lap. It was creepy, but this is what I do for you people. I wish the movie had been creepy. Actually, I wish the movie had been anything at all, besides empty and boring. It read like a two-hour fashion commercial where the characters were modeled rather than transmitted. But, alas, this isn’t a movie review. If you want to know just how bad Fifty Shades of Grey is you can go to Rotten Tomatoes and see 198 reviews averaging a 25 out of 100 rating. Far more interesting is the subject of the movie: BDSM. BD stands for bondage and discipline, and SM stands for sadism and masochism. Fifty Shades of Grey is mainstreaming these practices into the bloodstream of our culture. The movie itself made close to $250 million in less than a week and is expected to exceed $600 million when all is said and done. The Fifty Shades trilogy of books is a huge phenomenon in the publishing industry as well, selling over 100 million copies worldwide. For perspective, the last big publishing blockbuster was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which sold a mere twenty million copies. Why the success of Fifty Shades? Because we’re ready. We’re comfortable with gay everything at this point and send nothing but blessings to Bruce Jenner. But God is too good to let us rest, so … meet the kink community! Don’t you love the name? The kink community! These are the folks who tie other people up, hang them from the ceiling and flog them with a whip. Who bring back the master-slave thing, complete with boot-licking. Who burn, brand, force-feed and sexually penetrate each other with objects including their fists, as we learned in a strangely blasé scene in the movie. [Spoiler alert: regarding anal and vaginal fisting he was pro and she was con.] It sounds like an expose of the secret police in some third world country. But, no, it’s the kink community! In this week’s podcast I bring an integral lens to the emergence of kink into the popular culture. I look at how BDSM allows us to bring primitive energies — including juicy polarities such as predator / prey, and dominance / submission — back online as art and play. And how “experiences of extremis” break us out of our contracted identities into a larger sense of self that is more connected, fluid and fulfilling. Kink is a tonic for the denatured nature of modern and postmodern life. Think about it: when do any of us get to express our pure red energies? When do I get to slap anybody around? Who trembles when I walk into the room? Who begs me for anything? Who in my life is just there to serve my every carnal desire? Nobody, that’s who. And from the submissive polarity: when do I ever get to just really give myself up to another person, to submit utterly? When do I get to lose myself? When do I ever consciously experience pain, humiliation and surrender–these things that I’ve been exhausting my life force trying to avoid? Click here to hear a full conversation between Robin and Jeff. The rise of BDSM in our culture feels like it is right on schedule, not just as sheer experience, but as a therapeutic vehicle for healing into more energy and power. I’m no aficionado of kink, and have never been particularly attracted. But I must say I’m interested, as are a lot of people these days, apparently. In the podcast I explore the fascination, the challenges, and the character of the emerging kink community. I’m joined for the last half by my long-time friend in the integral scene, Robin Reinach, who is a wise and seasoned explorer of this new territory. Who knows? In the sacred world to come we may be busy beating the crap out of each other. Devouring each other. And the lion will lay down with the lamb. FULL TRANSCRIPT

    This week Jeff covers a range of topics, focusing on the controversy over Obama’s remarks about the historical sins of Christianity such as the Crusades, the Inquisition and slavery. Jeff also explores the mindset of the perpetrators of such brutalities, which we saw erupt anew this week with the immolation of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS. In other matters, Jeff notes the explosive growth in Chinese cinema, and it’s evolutionary power. Plus we revisit vaccines…and get to meet the Integral community’s own Navy Seal sniper. Did Obama blow it in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast? He certainly got blow-back, especially for the following comments: Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Murderous extremism is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. I must say, when I first heard he had said this I thought, “No Barack, please! You let me say this shit, not you. You just stand up there and praise Jesus for another two years, and I’ll take care of this other stuff.” But he never listens to me, and so he has gotten creamed from pretty much all sides. Especially from the traditionalists (amber altitude) because his comments feed into their fears that this Obama, which rhymes with Osama, is not really a Christian at all and is actually tilling the land for the Enemy. But even moderates saw it as a gaffe, simply for the unfortunate timing and lack of context of larger events in the world. Indeed, his speech took place two days after the world saw a shocking demonstration of non-Christian atrocity: a thirty-minute, four-camera video edited like a video game with quick-cut graphics, sound effects and a grandiose narrative that led to a stark, brutal scene: a steel cage holding a man in an orange jumpsuit soaked in gasoline who is about to be burned alive. So two days after this, at the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama brings up Christian atrocities of a thousand years ago. Bad timing in my opinion but I will defend his comments on one count: they are 100% true. Christians did all of these things — in numbers that dwarf the deeds of today’s Muslim fanatics. But all of this is so much better understood in a developmental context — and Obama didn’t provide it. His explanation of ISIS was basically that they are evil criminals who are perverting Islam. This explanation represents the orange/green sweet spot that Obama generally tries to hit as President. I’m not sure how much he believes it versus how much he thinks espousing it is proper leadership for the country. The former view would be orange/green and the latter would be integral. Here’s how the view of ISIS evolves according to the altitudes of development: Amber traditionalists: For traditionalists, evil is evil. It’s what the Devil and his minions do in their battle with God and God’s people. For them the whole religion of Islam is evil. Conversely, for Islamic traditionalists Christianity is a religion of heresy and infidels. There’s one true faith and you’re either with us or against us. Orange modernists: ISIS is evil but Islam isn’t, and in fact ISIS is perverting a great religion. This is a more mature and complex view, but we’re still stuck with evil. Green postmodernists: This view of ISIS is that they are power-mad psychopaths. The Obama administration, for instance, is intent on identifying them by term such as “murderous extremists” not “Islamic extremists.” In this view ISIS is ultimately trying to gain power and are cynically using Muslim ideology as a veneer to do so. Thus we see headlines on progressive sites such as: “Charlie Hebdo has nothing to do with religion.” But yet the assassins didn’t shoot up a crowd of tourists at the Eiffel tower, which would have been much more effective in terrorizing the world and hurting France. Instead they took pains to hunt down cartoonists who had insulted their religion. So what’s the integral view of brutality? How does integral theory explain a rampaging mob of militants who blitz the countryside killing and crucifying people, stealing girls, beheading people and burning them alive? Integral has the most astonishing explanation of all: brutality is perfectly normal human behavior. Except, that is, for the last  0.1% of human history (a couple hundred years). Before that humans were busy with plunder, conquest, beheading and burning people alive — the whole horror show. This is simply standard-issue pre-modern behavior. But will it work for ISIS in the 21st Century? Clearly it has so far. But to be effective, terrorism has to constantly raise the shock value, and so last week we were subjected to the immolation of the pilot instead of “just another” beheading. From a military perspective, however, this latest atrocity may turn out to be a blunder on ISIS’s part. The deed — and its media dissemination — is so dastardly that it may actually galvanize the more civilized Arab world against them. Jordan for instance has been understandably ferocious in their response. This could be a turning point in the psyche of the Arab world. But whether or not it is successful actually misses the real point of ISIS’s motivation, which is: they believe in what they’re doing. They believe that Allah has sent them to rout the infidels and bring forth His kingdom on Earth. They are far less worried about being successful than they are about being faithful. We miss this point when we focus just on the brutality of ISIS and call it evil, crazy or power-mad. Because there is another feature of red/amber development that is equally significant: it is magical. Holy warriors don’t think rationally — heck, rationality is two stages in their future. They think magically. ISIS’s story goes something like this: “Look at you, you infidels, with your tanks and your planes and your bombs. You have no idea who you’re up against. We are army of Allah, the one true God. I’d much rather be on my side with Allah than on your side with your big army.” Don’t forget, this is the same God that parted the Red Sea for Moses and the ragtag Israelites, and then drowned the Pharaoh’s chariot army that was in pursuit. It’s the same God who empowered David to kill Goliath. This God, like all super-hero red/amber gods, specializes in miraculous victories against impossible odds. So ISIS warriors fight for the same reason people have always fought: because they think they will win, and gain something in the effort. History shows that people will fight against impossible odds when they think they can win. And they will only be disabused of this notion when they lose, lose, lose. And as for Obama, why did he bring up historical Christian atrocities? He had to know the reaction he was going to trigger. I think he, too, thought he was right. He was also taking into account that moderate Muslims are listening. As I said, this week’s immolation of the pilot may mark a turning point in the consciousness of moderate-leaning Muslims, and the prayer breakfast was a good setting to speak to them. It was, after all, attended by religious leaders from over 100 countries, and widely publicized throughout the Middle East. So Obama was apparently taking into account the politics of the world, not just the politics of the US, and was willing to risk the indignation of conservatives to do so. History may be kinder to this speech, and Obama’s world-centric sensibilities, than the knee-jerk reaction of the outrage industry here in the US. But still, some days it’s harder to be an Obamapologist than others. FULL PODCAST AND WRITTEN TRANSCRIPT The Daily Evolver | Episode 112 | The Banality of ISIS

This week Jeff takes a look at the movie American Sniper and Fox News’ rising star Megyn Kelly, to make the case that conservative culture is evolving by taking on the best of green altitude values. And it’s not just a one-way street. The left also evolves by taking on the best values of amber altitude traditionalism, such as the gay rights movement’s argument for marriage and military service. This year’s Super Bowl commercials also moved the ball… You can listen to the entire podcast at the bottom of this post. Or if you prefer to read, the full written transcript is there as well. For a quick listen check out the excerpt below which focuses on the controversial new movie, American Sniper. Excerpt | “Chris Kyle is no John Wayne” American Sniper tells the story of Chris Kyle, “America’s deadliest sniper in the Iraq War”. Kyle is credited with a record number of kills: 165 “confirmed kills” and another 95 “claimed kills” (which is where the bullet hits the target but death cannot be confirmed). Let me stop here and let our liberal blood curdle over the fact that there’s such a thing as a count of “kills” … that such distinctions are even made, and that racking up a high number makes you a hero and a legend. This is just naturally repulsive to liberals. Moving into the green altitude of development requires that we at least try to take on the perspective of other people, especially victims. This realization forms the essence of the liberal critique of American Sniper: the movie doesn’t consider the humanity of the people it’s fighting and killing, the Iraqis. It doesn’t consider their motivations, their context, or the fact that they love their families and value their lives as much as we do. But like it or not, conservatives (amber altitude traditionalists) do indeed see killing enemies in war as something to enjoy and take pride in. It makes perfect sense because at the traditional level of development life in general is seen as a universal battle between the forces of good and evil. We are the people who are on the right side of things, thank goodness. We are the chosen people of God. We have a blessed way of life, and we are — and this is always the case in the traditional stage of development — we are under attack by the forces of darkness. This is why for the vast majority of human history people have found killing to be deeply fulfilling. Every dead enemy just makes the world that much safer for us, our people and for the Kingdom of God we are building. There are few things so sweet. This is the essence of the traditionalist view presented in American Sniper. Yet, in American Sniper the traditional “god and country” view is leavened with a sensitivity that recognizes the collateral damage of war, not just for the Iraqis, but for the military families and the soldiers themselves. This is evidence of the evolution of the conservative view. John Wayne never worried about PTSD (and “shell-shocked” veterans of earlier wars were seen as weak and pitiful), but now it’s unpatriotic not to. The integral view is that every perspective is both true and partial, so even though integralists are steeped in green sensitivity, we also seek out the piece of the truth that the traditionalists bring in. And so the question becomes: what in this world is actually worth fighting for, and dying for, and yes, even killing for? Full podcast below includes the excerpt plus further commentary In the rest of the podcast Jeff examines this year’s Super Bowl ads, finding more evidence of cultural evolution, this time as an integration of the polarities of masculine and feminine. He ends by making the case that Fox News’ breakthrough anchor, Megyn Kelly, is likewise widening conservative values to include territory that had been previously held by liberals. Why? Because it works — her ratings are stratospheric and leading the way in Fox’s goal to appeal to independants. Orange cash trumps amber ideology. Ain’t evolution beautiful? The Daily Evolver | Episode 111 | Conservatives Evolve: How American Sniper and Fox News Integrate Liberal…

Above: “Obama’s 2015 State of the Union in Two Minutes” In last Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, President Obama charted the course for the developmental leap from a modern “orange altitude” economy, which is where we are now, to a postmodern “green altitude” economy. He argued for policies such as: Free higher education for everyone who wants it Maternity leave and increased child care Paid sick leave Extending health insurance to more people Higher minimum wage, so that everybody who makes an effort can make a living.  I love how he said it: To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise. Higher taxes on the rich Now I know what many of you international readers are thinking, “Really, this is what you Americans are still working on?” It’s true, America is a good developmental half a stage or more behind other developed countries in regards to family care and even safety net issues. Fundamentally, Obama’s economic vision is to catch up to what is already happening in other rich countries of the world, particularly in Western Europe. I saw elegant evidence of the difference between American and European thinking in a Pew Poll this week which asked people from the United States, as well as people from Germany, France, Britain and Spain, which is more important to them: 1) The freedom to live your life without state interference? or 2) The security of having the state guarantee that everyone’s basic needs are met? It turns out that the views of  Americans and Europeans were perfect mirror images of each other on this basic “security vs freedom” polarity. Europeans choose security over freedom by 60% to 40%. Americans chose freedom over security by 60% to 40%. And that’s how Americans choose the modern Orange system, which is oriented to the individual, over the Green post-Modern system, which focuses on the community at large. The latter is the choice of the Europeans. Paradoxically, America’s relative Orangeness may be one reason for its economic success, which outpaces Europe’s in two important ways. The first is our long-term success: over 70 years America has had the richest middle class in the world. The rest of the developed world is gaining on us, but we’re still out in front. Also second is our success in the short run as well, with America leading the developed world out of the recent Great Recession both in terms of growth and employment. But the inequitable distribution of America’s wealth is too high. It just doesn’t feel right when 90% of new wealth created by the economy is flowing to the top 2% of citizens. That offends the moral sensibilities of modern and postmodern people. So how do we solve this problem? We integrate! The way forward is to harmonize the polarities — freedom and security being two of the primary polarities of life. As we mature we realize that it’s not that we are to choose one over the other.  It’s that we are to see the wisdom in both poles, and be ever more able to tease apart what is best about each. Using this thinking we create a less ruthless meritocracy and a less stagnant collective. We develop a more entrepreneurial flavor to government services, and an ever more humane and flexible workspace provided by private companies. The goal of this integration is a system where people are free to move through their lives and make decisions for themselves and their families unencumbered by unnecessary rules and rulers. Yet at the same time they are connected to and supported by a meshwork of intelligent and responsive systems that catch them when they fall. I think an economy like this is evolutionarily inevitable, the natural consequence of smarter people and systems, and smarter leaders. This is where Barack Obama comes in. One of the best ways to understand how a President thinks is to read his big speeches, and to read Obama’s speeches, including this State of the Union address,  is to feel the multi-perspectival flow of an integral mind. Excerpt | The case for communal values In this 13-minute segment, Jeff dissects the speech and the political ramifications as described above. Full podcast below includes excerpt plus further commentary The history of the American economy reveals a pattern oscillating between individually oriented altitudes of development and communally oriented altitudes of development. It starts when the indigenous Americans (tribal communal values) encountered European conquerors (Red individualistic values). With a weak central government and no advocates for labor, the Red economy evolved over a couple hundred years into to a warlord structure of robber barons and the Gilded Age. The Great Depression ended the Red economy and introduced Amber values (traditional communal values) which took us through WWII, the post-war boom and finally ended in the Great Stagflation of the mid-1970’s. At this point the Amber traditional economy was replaced by Orange altitude Reaganomics (modern individualistic values) which created a boom for the last part of the 20th Century. That ended with the financial and real estate meltdowns the kicked off the Great Recession of 2008. At this point, with the election and policies of Obama, the Green economy (communal postmodern values) is coming online. Jeff explains in the podcast and transcript. The Daily Evolver | Episode 110 | Obama Leads From the Front

In this week’s podcast Jeff explores the Muslim/Western fault lines exposed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, where twelve people were killed in an attack on the satirical magazine by Muslim extremists who were offended by their depictions of Muhammad. In the 2nd half of the show, Jeff is joined by special guest Amir Ahmad Nasr, author of The Future of Islam In the Age of New Media, and My Isl@m: How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind–And Doubt Freed My Soul. Remember, this season we are offering not just the full podcast (in the player at the bottom of this post), but also an edited written transcript, as well as some bite-sized excerpts. EXCERPT 1 AN ASSAULT ON MODERNITY JEFF: “From an evolutionary perspective, Charlie Hebdois less a story about the crazy, violent elements in our society, and more a story of how small a part of our world the crazy violent elements have become.” “I think of it as the pain-versus-gain ratio. As we develop (as cultures and individuals), it takes less and less pain to give us more and more gain. Last week I talked about how Nazi Germany conducted an industrial genocide of six million people, one of the most horrific events in human history. Today, Germany is one of the most civilized, intelligent, pacified, industrious nations on earth, as well as officially the most admired nation on earth. Just seventy years later — it’s astonishing! “Did the historic horror create the present peace and prosperity? I’d say yes. One of the engines of evolution is the realization of the painful consequences of one’s own actions. We realized that there is a better way forward. That there is new insight, new wisdom, and an ever larger circle of compassion available to us. This is built into our development.” EXCERPT 2 INTERVIEW WITH AMIR AHMAD NASR AMIR: “Something big that’s really emerging [in Muslim culture] is the change in the media landscape that has happened over the past two decades. I’m not just talking about the internet and social media, I’m also talking about satellite TV because that’s how it started. Take for instance the series Friends. Friends is subtitled in Arabic and is extremely popular in the Arab world. “You had certain episodes in which Russ and Monica would express their Jewish faith. For some viewers, it’s like, ‘Wait a second. They’re Jewish characters…how interesting;’ but then you just go along and laugh. When American pop culture started being broadcast a lot of people started asking questions like, ‘Why do they get to live like that? Why do they get to do these things? Ooh,let’s tune in.’ “People began to just understand the world differently. And they see that they have a certain kind of individuality that they can express, and they want to express it. And then comes the social media, and now it’s a two-way conversation. It’s not just information being broadcasted at you. You can go and seek information. Saudi Arabia is where you will find the highest consumption of YouTube per capita in the world, often young women educating themselves.” FULL PODCAST BELOW INCLUDES BOTH EXCERPTS PLUS FURTHER COMMENTARY ON: How Integral thinking helps us hold multiple perspectives How the pre-modern Muslim mind is wired for magic, not logic How myth conquers and organizes magic to support more complex consciousness The spirit of blasphemy and it’s place in the ascent of humanity Am I Charlie Hebdo? Yes, as long as I remember I am everybody else as well The Daily Evolver | Episode 109 | Am I Charlie Hebdo? An Integralist Considers the Events in Paris

2014 has been described as a turbulent year in the media, but there isn’t really a turbulent-free option, is there? Is there anything about turbulence that is good? Also, Jeff answers a listener’s question about the moral nature of red: when is violence healthy and when is it pathological? EXCERPT 1 THE LESSON THAT IS, AT FIRST, TROUBLING, THEN REALLY QUITE RELAXING “This is the existential human dilemma: none of us knows for sure whether we’re going to live through the night. There’s no turbulence-free option. I promised I would do an integral view of 2015 so here it is: 2015 is going to be turbulent. Stuff’s going to happen, that’s life on earth. The question is then, ‘How turbulent? In what ways turbulent? Is there anything about turbulence that we can see is actually good?’ With that lens brought into the situation, it turns out that 2014 is certainly a candidate, if not a shoo-in, for being the best year that humanity has ever lived through.” EXCERPT 2 THE MORAL NATURE OF RED: WHEN IS VIOLENCE HEALTHY AND WHEN IS IT PATHOLOGICAL? “We would describe something as being healthy if the person or organism is operating mostly at the leading edge of their capacity. For the vast majority of human history, wiping out the enemy is what healthy societies did. The healthy tribe, the healthy leader, in indigenous red cultures is the one who provided the most calories, safety, warmth and security for his tribe. At red consciousness you would feel toward any competing tribe the same way that people in modern consciousness feel toward an Ebola virus. You just kill them as fast as you can and good riddance.” FULL PODCAST BELOW INCLUDES BOTH EXCERPTS PLUS FURTHER COMMENTARY ON: The Taliban massacre of the Pakistani military’s children The U.S. Senate Torture Report Terri O-Fallen’s insight into ISIS and Al Qaeda Seth Rogan and James Franco Interview Kim Jong Un On living in a Golden Age: let’s be grateful and heartened FULL TRANSCRIPT The Daily Evolver | Episode 108 | Goodbye Turbulence, Hello Turbulence! FULL PODCAST

Frank Visser is arguably the chief critic of Ken Wilber, integral theory and the integral community as a whole. Based in Amsterdam, Frank is publisher of the website INTEGRAL WORLD: An Independent Forum for a Critical Discussion of the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber which hosts over a thousand essays by mostly dissenting voices in the integral scene. Contrast this to Jeff Salzman and his work with the Daily Evolver. Jeff is an unabashed Wilberian and self-described integral evangelist who “sees the animating power of evolution, inside and out.”  Frank and Jeff spoke by phone before the holidays while Frank was getting ready to head out to an island on the coast of the Netherlands. Visser was once an enthusiastic proponent of Ken Wilber’s AQAL model. In 2003 he wrote the book Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY Press), a chronological overview of Ken’s life and work through 2003, and has recently released a new online chapter, “Reaching Out to the World”, covering the intervening years. This new writing is far more critical of Ken and the integral movement and has sparked new controversy, most notably a fascinating and fruitful back-and-forth between Frank and Joe Perez, creator of the outstanding Integral Blog. Joe’s first volley is entitled “Properly Integral: A Response to Frank Visser’s Three Disappointments”, and leads to the rest of the debate. In this podcast Jeff and Frank talk about their differences, which primarily boils down to the question does Spirit exist? Is there a loving intelligence at work in the kosmos? Jeff says “yes”, and Frank says “not so fast.” For Frank, the idea that there is an intelligent force driving evolution, that the substrate of existence is consciousness, or Spirit, is where the line is crossed. To make such claims requires an unhealthy mixing of science and religion. “Wilber is a complicated figure, because he argues for spirit but he includes so much scientific material to back up that case…it’s only natural for people who are in the sciences to hold him accountable for how strong is his case.” Of course, the integral project is to integrate the realms of science and mysticism, which have different injunctions and different validity claims, and which have long been estranged. But Frank is skeptical; are we integrating or are we mixing? Probably both, says Jeff, but this is how we move forward. I think you get stronger when you can engage your opposing views, there’s no way out of that. Otherwise you create a bubble and you repeat what you already think and that’s not very fruitful to me. There came a point when I was stepping over to the dark side, so to speak. I was so immersed in all this critical writing that I took up that role to become a focus for it and that’s basically how the website Integral World has received its reputation. I must say that I always am a bit surprised by people who say, well, this is just a junkyard of Wilber bashing or whatever.   ~Frank Visser Part of Frank’s skepticism comes from the fact that spirituality is comforting for us. It’s always been there to explain things that we can’t otherwise understand. When the questions get too difficult, insert “God” and the equation is balanced. And isn’t it nice to know that no matter how troubled the world seems, at the end of the day it’s all okay because, after all, it’s in God’s hands. “If you feel there is a kind of spirit behind everything then of course you’re safe,” says Frank, “because then it will work out in the end. If you don’t have that drive, which is my feeling, things can still progress but you can always fuck it up mightily by depleting the world’s resources and so on.” Do we really need a spirit, an animating force in the equation, when the universe is already wonderful and mysterious beyond comprehension? What does it add? We might even understand reality better without it, says Frank. Jeff counters that such a view ignores the interior dimensions of reality, including consciousness itself. The presence of Spirit doesn’t negate the scientific view, but to take it away diminishes our experience of life because it is an intrinsic aspect of existence. To see this requires spiritual insight, which is generally the result of a spiritual practice. Science works with the principle that seeing is believing, and spirituality works with the converse: believing is seeing. On a good day I can still relate to the idea of a cosmic evolution and a spirit behind everything and the hope that it gives that things will work out and so on. On a bad day (or a good day, depending on how you look at it) I see different things and I’m not so sure anymore and I’m not necessarily unhappy with that. I’m kind of role-playing, I sometimes think. I play this role of the devil’s advocate and I still feel myself connected to the integral field. I don’t know where that ends, but it could also be that in a couple of years I’m done with this and I become more positive in my writings or in my expressions. ~Frank Visser Frank and Jeff go on to discuss the idea of free will, politics and current events, the Big Bang, and artificial intelligence. They disagree plenty, but this is how things work themselves out, says Jeff, “If you look at the history of any significant movement…we need to manage the polarities in order to provide the juice for continued evolution.” Frank adds that we should be playful with our positions and not hold them too seriously. “And of course, there’s a common ground between two positions where you want to have the best for the earth and humanity and all that lives; even a humanist can consent to that. Then you don’t even need to have a spirit behind everything. There’s a common ground for people with good intentions.” Listen or download the podcast below, and here’s to the juice of continued evolution!

In this thirteen minute excerpt of a conversation from September, Jeff  speaks with Ken Wilber about the pain and suffering inherent in a human life, which begins with the nature of emergence itself. The more we develop, the more aware we are, and the more capacity we have to feel pain. If you go back thousands of years, Ken says, a person just had to get from  infrared (Archaic) altitude to magenta (Indigenous) altitude. There are a limited number of things that can go wrong there. But as time goes on: Our own history gets thicker and thicker. There are more and more levels to us, there are also therefore more and more things that can break down, more and more things that can go wrong.That’s why if you look at the whole 14 billion years as a one year calendar, humans appear in the last few minutes of the last hour of the last day, because we had to transcend and include everything that came before. And all of those things that can go wrong involve pain — but not necessarily suffering. Wherever there is an other, there is fear, so the more we are able to transcend our individual selves the better things get. Pain still happens, of course–in fact we’re even more sensitive to everything–but we’re less identified with it.