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A Summary of My Psychological Model--Or,
Outline of An Integral Psychology
Ken Wilber

The Death of Psychology and the Birth of the Integral

In 1983, I stopped referring to myself as a "transpersonal" psychologist or philosopher.1 I began instead to think of the work that I was doing as "integrative" or "integral." I therefore began writing a textbook of integral psychology called System, Self, and Structure, a two-volume work that, for various reasons, has never been published. I have just recently, however, brought out a one-volume, simplified outline of integral psychology called, appropriately enough, Integral Psychology--Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy. This article is a summary of that book, and hence a summary of my present psychological model.

But it is true that integral psychology fits none of the existing four forces (behavioristic, psychoanalytic, humanistic, or transpersonal). The claim of integral psychology is that it "transcends and includes" the four forces, but that claim is exactly what the four forces all sharply dispute. In any event, my own opinion is that integral psychology is not a transpersonal psychology; it appears to be more encompassing than anything that today calls itself transpersonal. Nor do I believe that transpersonal can or will become truly integral; all of its main factions are rooted in models that seem demonstrably less than integral. I believe that the field of transpersonal psychology in this country has become a rather specialized field, confined largely (but not totally) to the Bay Area, and that as such it is a very important but restricted endeavor. Some critics have said that it has become a California fad, like hot tubs and psychedelics, but I think that is too harsh. I do believe, however, that it has narrowed its focus, on the one hand, and loosened its quality standards, on the other, and thus it has ceased to speak to all but a relatively small group. Because of this, it has continually failed to achieve recognition by the American Psychological Association and it is now all but impossible to get funding for transpersonal research or to be taken seriously outside the converted. The relative lack of substantial research has increasingly moved it into mere ideology, or opinions divorced from any credible evidence.

My hope is that integral psychology, in moving outside of transpersonal psychology and building more bridges to the conventional world, will provide a complementary approach to move consciousness studies forward, while maintaining a respectful and mutually beneficial dialogue with the four forces. I have long been a strong supporter of all four forces of psychology, and I will continue to do so. 2

Some critics have called integral psychology a fifth force, but I don't think that is a useful way to proceed (and it can also become an unfortunate game: okay, then I have the sixth force...). Besides, I believe the four forces of psychology are slowly dying, and being the fifth force of that death march is perhaps not desirable. Psychology as we have known it, I believe, is basically dead. In its place, in my opinion, will be more integral approaches.

Put differently, my belief is that psychology as a discipline--referring to any of the four traditional major forces (behavioristic, psychoanalytic, humanistic/existential, and transpersonal)--is slowly decaying and will never again, in any of its four major forms, be a dominant influence in culture or academia. (The following explanation requires familiarity with my "all-quadrant, all-level" [AQAL] model; for those unfamiliar with this model, it will be explained later in this article, and you might come back to this introduction after you have finished.)

At this point in Western history (basically, an amalgam of traditional, modern, and postmodern currents)--and specifically at this time in America (circa 2000)--we are going through a period of an intense flatland cascade, a combination of rampant scientific materialism (the orange meme) and the "nothing but surfaces" of the extreme postmodernists (the green meme): in short, interiors are out, exteriors are all; there is no depth, only surfaces as far as the eye can see. This puts an intense selection pressure against any sort of psychology that emphasizes solely or mostly the interiors (psychoanalytic, humanistic/existential, and transpersonal).

This is compounded by numerous specific social factors, such as the medical/insurance and "managed care" industry supporting only brief psychotherapy and pharmacological interventions. Again, the interior psychologies are selected against in this negative cultural current. The only acceptable approaches to psychology are increasingly the Right-Hand approaches, including biological psychiatry, behavioral modification, cognitive therapy--and remember, "cognition" is defined as "cognition of objects or its," and thus cognitive therapy is not so much an interior exploration of depths but simply a manipulation of the sentences one uses to objectively describe oneself (cognitive therapy in general works with "adjusting your premises" so that they match scientific, objective, Right-Hand evidence)--and, finally, an increasing, almost epidemic, reliance on the use of medication (prozac, xanax, paxil, etc.), all of which focus almost exclusively on Right-Hand interventions. (See, for example, the superb Of Two Minds, by Tanya Luhrmann; the "two minds" are, of course, the Upper-Left and Upper-Right approaches to psychology, and Luhrmann leaves no doubt as to which is winning the survival race; if I may be allowed a pun, interiors are out, exteriors are in.) Silly things like trying to find out why you behave in such a fashion, or trying to find out the meaning of your existence, or the values that constitute the good life, are not covered by insurance policies, and so, in this culture, they basically do not exist. Three of the four forces (psychoanalytic, humanistic/existential, and transpersonal) are thus, once again, selected against; a negative cultural pressure is moving them to extinction and in some ways has already succeeded, so that these major forces are one jot away from dinosaur status. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, as we will see.)

The old behaviorism (one of the four forces) has survived, but only by morphing into much more sophisticated forms, two of which are now dominant: cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. It is important to note that both of these endeavors are quintessentially Right-Hand approaches. Cognitive science focuses on the Upper-Right quadrant--the exteriors of individuals--and studies those holons in an objective, scientific, empirical fashion: human consciousness is viewed as the result of neurophysiological mechanisms, organic systems, and brain neural networks that summate in individual awareness. Psychopathology is viewed as a pathology of these organic pathways, and cure involves fixing these organic pathways (usually with medication, sometimes with behavioral modification). All of this is conducted in third-person it-language.

Evolutionary psychology focuses on the objective organism (Upper Right) and how its interaction with the objective environment (Lower Right) has resulted, via variation and natural selection, in certain behaviors of the individual organism, most of which originated to serve survival (which is defined, as LR truths always are, as functional fit). Thus, you tend to behave in the way that you do (e.g., males are profligate sex fiends, females are nesting homebodies), because a million years of natural selection has left you with these genes. (I am not contesting the truths of evolutionary psychology; I am pointing out that they are Right-Hand only.)

In both of those dominant forms of present-day psychology, there is no introspection to speak of, no searching the interiors, the within, the deep, the Left-Hand quadrants. There are only objective its scurrying about in objective systems, networks, and the empirical web of life: no within, no interiors, no depth. And thus, once again, the three major forces of interior psychology (psychoanalytic, humanistic/existential, and transpersonal) are left to slowly wither, which slowly they are.

In my opinion, the only interior psychologies that will survive this new sociocultural selection pressure are those that adapt by recognizing an "all-quadrant, all-level" framework, for only that framework (or something equally integral) can embrace both the Right- and Left-Hand realities. Thus the Left-Hand or interior psychologies can securely hook themselves to the tested truths of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology without succumbing to the reductionism that says there are only Right-Hand realities. That is, the only psychologies that will survive will be those that plug themselves into an AQAL formulation, which fully concedes the biological, objective, empirical, and cognitive components of consciousness, but only as set in the four quadrants. This integral approach concedes the relative truths of the dominant Right-Hand psychologies but simultaneously paints a much broader and more encompassing picture of consciousness and Kosmos.

The integral approach is thus constantly on hand to point out all of the correlations of the exterior events in brain and body (the Upper-Right quadrant studied by cognitive science and evolutionary psychology) with the interior events in mind and consciousness (the Upper-Left quadrant studied by interior psychologies), and to further show how all of them are inescapably anchored in cultural and social realities as well (the Lower-Left and Lower-Right quadrants)--with none of those quadrants being reducible to the others. As an extraordinary number of scholars have pointed out, the arguments against reductionism are simply overwhelming; an AQAL formulation therefore stands as a constant reminder that we can in fact fully honor the truths in all four quadrants without trying to reduce any of them to the others. As the severe limitations of the merely objectivistic, exterior, Right-Hand approaches become clear to individual researchers (as they almost always eventually do), an integral framework thus stands available to help them make the leap to a more comprehensive approach.

If the only psychologies that will survive are psychologies that are plugged into an "all-quadrant, all-level" framework (which includes behavioral, intentional, cultural, and social dimensions, all of which stretch from matter to body to mind to spirit)--such a psychology is not really psychology as we have known it. That is, a four-quadrant psychology is no longer psychology (which is why integral psychology is not actually a fifth force, although many people will continue to call it such). Rather, integral psychology is an inherent feature of a Kosmology, and its practice is a movement of the Kosmos itself. This is why I believe the four forces will continue to wither, and their places will increasingly be taken by various forms of integral psychology that adapt to this new cultural selection pressure (or Eros) by recognizing niches of reality as yet unoccupied (namely, an AQAL space), into which they can evolve with the assurance of survival by adapting to yet higher and wider dimensions of reality. The integral claim is that because an AQAL formulation is more adequate to reality, evolution into a consciously AQAL space has inherent survival value. Correlatively, less adequate and comprehensive approaches will increasingly face extinction pressures.

This might well leave the four forces as historical dinosaurs.3 At the same time--and this is the claim of integral psychology that the other psychologies dispute--any truly integral psychology will "transcend and include" all of the important truths of the four forces. Nothing is lost, all is retained; even dinosaurs live on in today's birds. The test of any integral psychology is to what degree it can accept and coherently integrate the valid research and data from the various schools of psychology--not just the four major forces, but developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive sciences, phenomenological/hermeneutic approaches, and so on. Of course this is a daunting challenge, perhaps forever unreachable; but as of today we know too much to ever settle for less.

What follows is my own version of an integral psychology. More specifically, it is a succinct summary of the "Upper-Left quadrant" of my model (as I will explain in a moment). Since this is a simple summary of evidence and arguments developed elsewhere, I will rarely quote other authorities in this presentation; works of mine that I reference do so extensively, and interested readers can follow up with those references. And, of course, each of these topics is discussed more fully in Integral Psychology (let me say that the fact that this book, within two months of its publication, has become a bestseller gives me hope that this fledging field will soon be flourishing).

Here are five of the main components of human psychology that any comprehensive or integral model might want to address: developmental levels of consciousness, developmental lines of consciousness, normal and altered states of consciousness, the self or self-system, and what I call the four quadrants (which include culture and worldviews, neurophysiology and cognitive science, and social systems). Let's take them in that order.



Levels or Waves

Not all components of the psyche show development, but many of them do, and those developmental aspects or stages need to be taken into account. They are not the whole story of the psyche, but they are an important part. We live in an evolutionary universe, and those currents of evolution appear to operate in the human mind as well.

There is abundant evidence that some aspects of cognition, morals, psychosexuality, needs, object relations, motor skills, and language acquisition proceed in developmental stages, much as an acorn unfolds into an oak through a series of process phases. These stages or levels of development are not the rigid, linear, rungs-in-a-ladder phenomenon portrayed by their critics, but rather are fluid, flowing, overlapping waves.

I use all three terms--structures, levels, and waves--to describe these developmental milestones. "Structure" indicates that each stage has a holistic pattern that blends all of its elements into a structured whole. "Level" means that these patterns tend to unfold in a relational sequence, with each senior wave transcending but including its juniors (just as cells transcend but include molecules, which transcend but include atoms, which transcend but include quarks). And "wave" indicates that these levels nonetheless are fluid and flowing affairs; the senior dimensions do not sit on top of the junior dimensions like rungs in a ladder, but rather embrace and enfold them (just as cells embrace molecules which embrace atoms). These developmental stages are concentric spheres of increasing embrace, inclusion, and holistic capacity.

When it comes to consciousness itself, evidence strongly suggests that there are indeed various levels of consciousness, which appear to span an entire spectrum from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious.4 This great spectrum of consciousness is well-known (indeed central) to the world's major wisdom traditions, where one version of it appears as the Great Chain of Being, which is said to range from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. (The Great Chain is actually a misnomer. It is not a linear chain but a series of enfolded spheres: spirit transcends but includes soul, which transcends but includes mind, which transcends but includes body, which transcends but includes matter. This is actually the Great Nest of Being. Some modern thinkers accept the existence of matter, body, and mind, but reject soul and spirit. They therefore prefer to think of the levels of consciousness as proceeding from, e.g., preconventional to conventional to postconventional. My essential points can be made using any of these levels, but because we will also be discussing spiritual or "superconscious" states, let us for the moment simply assume that the overall spectrum of consciousness does indeed range from prepersonal to personal to transpersonal.)5

Based on various types of cross-cultural evidence, many scholars have suggested that we can further divide this overall spectrum of consciousness into seven colors or bands or levels (as with the seven chakras); others suggest around twelve (as with Aurobindo and Plotinus); some suggest even more (as in many of the well-known contemplative texts. See Integral Psychology for over one hundred models of the levels of consciousness, taken from premodern, modern, and postmodern sources). The actual number of these waves is perhaps less important than the simple fact that they exist, just as the actual number of colors in a rainbow is less striking than the rainbow itself. We can legitimately divide and subdivide the colors of a rainbow in any number of ways. I often use nine or ten basic levels or waves of consciousness (which are variations on the simple matter, body, mind, soul, spirit), since considerable evidence suggests that these basic waves are largely universal (or generally similar in deep features) wherever they appear (e.g., the human mind, wherever it appears, has a capacity to form images, symbols, and concepts. The contents of those images and symbols vary from culture to culture, but the capacity itself is a universal that emerges at a particular stage of development).6

But it should be remembered that all of these various codifications of the developmental levels are simply different snapshots taken from various angles, using different cameras, of the great rainbow of consciousness, and they are all useful in their own ways. They are simple categorizations provided by humans; but each of them, if carefully backed by evidence, can provide intriguing clues to this mystery of consciousness.

That these levels, nests, or waves are arranged along a great rainbow or spectrum does not mean that a person actually moves through these waves in a merely linear or sequential fashion, clunking along from body, then to mind, then to soul, then to spirit. Those are simply some of the basic levels of consciousness that are potentially available. But an individual possesses many different capacities, intelligences, and functions, each of which can unfold through the developmental levels at a different rate--which brings us to the notion of various independent modules in the human psyche, which I also call lines or streams.



Lines or Streams

Through the developmental levels or waves of consciousness, move various developmental lines or streams (such as cognition, morals, affects, needs, sexuality, motivation, and self-identity). In any given person, some of these lines can be highly developed, some poorly (or even pathologically) developed, and some not developed at all. Overall development, in short, is a very uneven affair!

The reason appears to be that the numerous developmental lines are to some degree independent modules, and these modules can and do develop in relatively independent ways (but not totally independently).7 Each of these modules probably evolved in response to a series of specific tasks (e.g., cognition of the external world, needs and desires in different environments, linguistic communication, sexual release mechanisms, and so on). Exactly how and why these independent developments occur in the various lines is a topic for much fruitful research.

The important point is that a person can be at a relatively high level of development in some lines (such as cognition), medium in others (such as morals), and low in still others (such as spirituality). Thus, there is nothing linear about overall development. It is a wildly individual and idiosyncratic affair (even though many of the developmental lines themselves unfold sequentially).

The most common criticism of my model is that it is linear, a view I have not held for twenty years. But what about spirituality itself? Does it necessarily unfold in stages? My answer, again, is absolutely not. But before we see why, let's discuss states of consciousness.



States of Consciousness

We are all familiar with several states of consciousness. For example, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Those are some of the "normal" or "ordinary" states. Some of the "altered" or "nonordinary" states include peak experiences, religious experiences, drug states, holotropic states, and meditative or contemplative states. Evidence strongly suggests that a person at virtually any stage or level of development can have an altered state or peak experience--including a spiritual experience. Thus, the idea that spiritual experiences are available only at the higher stages of development is incorrect. States themselves rarely show development, and their occurrence is often random; and yet they are some of the most profound experiences human beings ever encounter. Clearly, those important aspects of spirituality that involve altered states do not follow any sort of linear, sequential, or stage-like unfolding.

What types of higher states are there? Extensive cross-cultural research suggests that there are at least four higher or transpersonal states of consciousness, which I call psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual. (As we will see in a moment, when these temporary states become permanent traits, these transitory states are converted into permanent structures of consciousness, and I call those permanent structures, levels, or waves by the same four names.)

Briefly, the psychic state is a type of nature mysticism (where individuals report an experience of being one with the entire natural-sensory world; e.g., Thoreau, Whitman. It is called "psychic," not because paranormal events occur--although evidence suggests that they sometimes do--but because it is increasingly understood that what appeared to be a merely physical world is actually a psychophysical world, with conscious, psychic, or noetic capacities being an intrinsic part of the fabric of the universe, and this often results in an actual experience of oneness with the natural world). The subtle state is a type of deity mysticism (where individuals report an experience of being one with the source or ground of the sensory-natural world; e.g. St. Teresa of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen). The causal state is a type of formless mysticism (where individuals experience cessation, or an immersion in unmanifest, formless consciousness; e.g., pseudo-Dionysus, The Cloud of Unknowing, Patanjali). And the nondual is a type of integral mysticism (which is experienced as the union of the manifest and the unmanifest, or the union of Form and Emptiness; e.g., Lady Tsogyal, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hui Neng).

As I have suggested elsewhere,8 these are all variations on the natural states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep--which is why a person at virtually any stage of development can experience any of these nonordinary states (because everybody, even an infant, wakes, dreams, and sleeps). However, in order for these temporary states to become permanent traits or structures, they must enter the stream of development (as we will see). Of course, for most people, the dream and deep sleep states are experienced as being less real than the waking state; but with prolonged meditative practice, these states can be entered with full awareness and an expansion of consciousness, whereupon they are said to yield their higher secrets.

In many of the wisdom traditions, the three great normal states (of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep) are said to correspond to the three great bodies or realms of being (gross, subtle, and causal). In both Vedanta and Vajrayana, for example, the bodies are said to be the energy support of the corresponding mind or state of consciousness (i.e., every mental mode has a bodily mode, thus preserving a bodymind union at all levels). The gross body is the body in which we experience the waking state; the subtle body is the body in which we experience the dream state (and also certain meditative states, such as savikalpa samadhi, and the bardo state, or the dream-like state which is said to exist in between rebirths); and the causal body is the body in which we experience the deep dreamless state (and nirvikalpa samadhi and the formless state).

The point is that each state of consciousness has a corresponding body which is "made" of various types of gross, subtle, and very subtle energy (or "wind"), and these bodies or energies "support" the corresponding mind or consciousness states. In a sense, we can speak of the gross bodymind, the subtle bodymind, and the causal bodymind (using "mind" in the very broadest sense as "consciousness").9 The important point is simply that each state of consciousness is supported by a corresponding body, so that consciousness is never merely disembodied.10



The Relation of Structures and States

Now, states of consciousness (with their correlative bodies or realms) contain various structures of consciousness. States contain structures. For example, the waking state can contain the preoperational structure, the concrete operational structure, the formal operational structure, and so on. In Vedanta, these structures or levels of consciousness are known as the koshas (or sheaths). The subtle body, experienced in the dream state (and the bardo realm, savikalpa samadhi, etc.), is said to support three major koshas or consciousness structures--the pranamayakosha (élan vital), the manomayakosha (conventional mind), and the vijnanamayakosha (higher and illumined mind). The reason that both Vedanta and Vajrayana maintain this is that, for example, each night when you dream (when you are in the subtle body), you have access to these three structures (you can experience sexual élan vital, mental images and symbols, and higher or archetypal material--i.e., the dream state can contain all three of those structures), but you do not experience the gross body, the sensorimotor realm, or the gross physical world--those are not directly present. In the dream you are phenomenologically existing in a subtle body experiencing the various consciousness structures supported by that subtle body and contained in that state.

In short, any given broad state of consciousness (such as waking or dreaming) can contain several different structures (or levels) of consciousness. These structures, levels, or waves, as earlier suggested, span the entire spectrum, and also include many of those structure-stages that have been so extensively studied by western developmental psychologists, such as the structure-stages of moral, cognitive, and ego development (e.g., Kohlberg, Gilligan, Piaget, Loevinger, Graves, Kegan, Cook-Greuter, Wade). When, for example, Spiral Dynamics (a psychological model developed by Don Beck et al., based on the research of Clare Graves) speaks of the red meme, the blue meme, the orange meme, and so on, those are structures (levels) of consciousness.

Why are all these distinctions important? Very simply, recognizing the difference between states of consciousness and structures of consciousness allows us to understand how a person at any stage or structure of development can nevertheless have a profound peak experience of higher and transpersonal states --for the simple reason that everybody wakes, dreams, and sleeps (and thus they have access to these higher states and realms of subtle and causal consciousness, no matter how "low" their general stage or level of development might be). However, the ways in which individuals experience and interpret these higher states and realms will depend largely on the level (or structure) of their own development. We will return to this important point in a moment.



Phenomenal States

Finally, within the major structures of consciousness, there are various phenomenal states (joy, happiness, sadness, desire, and so on). The point is simply that within broad states of consciousness there are structures of consciousness, within which there are phenomenal states.11

Notice that neither states of consciousness nor structures of consciousness are directly experienced by individuals.12 Rather, individuals directly experience specific phenomenal states. Structures of consciousness, on the other hand, are deduced from watching the behavior of numerous subjects. The rules and patterns that are followed by various types of cognitive, linguistic, moral (etc.) behaviors are then abstracted. These rules, patterns, or structures are very real, but they are not directly perceived by the subject (just as the rules of grammar are rarely perceived in an explicit form by native language speakers, even though they are following them). This is why structures of consciousness are almost never spotted by phenomenology, which inspects the present ongoing stream of consciousness and thus only finds phenomenal states. This is a significant limitation of phenomenology. That is, phenomenology usually focuses on phenomenal states and thus fails to spot the existence structures of consciousness. Thus, if you introspect the phenomenal states of body and mind, you will never see something that announces itself as a "stage-4 moral thought" (Kohlberg); nor will you find something called "the conformist stage" (Loevinger); nor will you spot "the relativistic stage" (Graves). The only way you spot those intersubjective structures is to watch populations of subjects interact, and then look for regularities in behavior that suggest they are following intersubjective patterns, rules, or structures. Phenomenology is thus a useful, if limited, aspect of a more integral methodology.13



Developmental Aspects of Spirituality

All structures of consciousness generally unfold in a developmental or stage-like sequence, and, as virtually all developmentalists agree, true stages cannot be skipped. For example, in the cognitive line, there is sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational, vision-logic, and so on. Researchers are unanimous that none of those stages can be skipped, because each incorporates its predecessor in its own makeup (in the same way that cells contain molecules which contain atoms, and you cannot go from atoms to cells and skip molecules). No true stages in any developmental line can be skipped, nor can higher stages be "peak experienced." A person at preoperational cannot have a peak experience of formal operational. A person at Kohlberg's moral-stage 1 cannot have a peak experience of moral-stage 5. A person at Graves's animistic stage cannot have a peak experience of the integrated stage, and so on. Not only are those stages in some ways learned behaviors, they are incorporative, cumulative, and enveloping, all of which preclude skipping.

But the three great states (of waking, dreaming, sleeping) represent general realms of being and knowing that can be accessed at virtually any stage in virtually any line--for the simple reason that individuals wake, dream, and sleep, even in the prenatal period. Thus, gross, subtle, and causal states of consciousness are available at virtually any structure/stage of development.

However, the ways in which these altered states will (and can) be experienced depends predominantly on the structures (stages) of consciousness that have developed in the individual. As we will see, individuals at, for example, the magic, mythic, and rational stages can all have a peak experience of a subtle realm, but how that subtle realm is experienced and interpreted depends in large measure on the structures of consciousness that are available to unpack the experience.

(Technical point: the lower reaches of the subtle I call the "psychic"; and the union of causal emptiness with all form I call "nondual." This gives us the four major transpersonal states that I mentioned [psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual]; but they are all variations on the normal states available to virtually all individuals, which is why they are generally available at almost any stage of development. See Integral Psychology for a full discussion of this theme.)

Now, under conditions generally of prolonged contemplative practice, a person can convert these temporary states into permanent traits or structures, which means that they have access to these great realms on a more-or-less continuous and conscious basis. In the case of the subtle realm, for example, this means that a person will generally begin to lucid dream (which is analogous to savikalpa samadhi--or stable meditation on subtle forms); and with reference to the causal, when a person stably reaches that wave, he or she will remain tacitly conscious even during deep dreamless sleep (a condition known as permanent turiya, constant consciousness, subject permanence, or unbroken witnessing, which is analogous to nirvikalpa samadhi, or stable meditation as the formless). Pushing through even that level, the causal formless finds union with the entire world of form, a realization known as nondual (sahaja, turiyatita, bhava).

In each of those cases, those great realms (psychic, subtle, causal, nondual) are no longer experienced merely as states, but have instead become permanently available patterns or structures of consciousness--which is why, when they become a permanent competence, I then call them the psychic level (or structure or wave), the subtle level, the causal level, and the nondual. The use of those four terms to cover both structures and states has led some critics to assume that I was confusing structures and states, but this is not the case.14

The important question then becomes: do those four states, as they become permanent structures, show stage-like unfolding? Are they then actually levels of consciousness? In many ways, yes (again, not as rigid rungs but as fluid and flowing waves). For example, a person who reaches stable (permanent) causal witnessing will automatically experience lucid dreaming (because stable causal witnessing means that you witness everything that arises, which includes the subtle and dream states), but not vice versa (i.e., somebody who reaches stable subtle awareness does not necessarily reach pure causal witnessing)--in other words, we have a stage sequence (i.e., the causal is a higher level than the subtle--e.g., the anandamayakosha is a higher level than the vijnanamayakosha, or the overmind is a higher level than the intuitive mind, and so on--exactly as maintained by the great wisdom traditions).

This is why Aurobindo says, of these higher, transpersonal levels/structures: "The spiritual evolution obeys the logic of a successive unfolding; it can take a new decisive main step only when the previous main step has been sufficiently conquered: even if certain minor stages can be swallowed up or leaped over by a rapid and brusque ascension, the consciousness has to turn back to assure itself that the ground passed over is securely annexed to the new condition; a greater or concentrated speed [which is indeed possible] does not eliminate the steps themselves or the necessity of their successive surmounting" (Aurobindo, The Life Divine, II, 26). His overall writing makes it clear that he does not mean that in a rigid ladder fashion, but more as I have suggested: a series of subtler and subtler waves of consciousness unfolding, with much fluid and flowing overlap, and the possibility of nonlinear altered states always available. But for those states to become structures, "they obey the logic of a successive unfolding," as all true stages do. The world's contemplative literature, taken as a whole, is quite clear on these points, and in this regard we justifiably speak of these transpersonal structures as showing some stage-like and level-like characteristics. 15

Again, that is not the entire story of spirituality. In a moment I will suggest that spirituality is commonly given at least four different definitions (the highest levels of any of the lines, a separate line, an altered state, a particular attitude), and a comprehensive or integral theory of spirituality ought charitably to include all four of them. Thus, the developmental aspects we just discussed do not cover the entire story of spirituality, although they appear to be an important part of it.

To give a specific example: If we focus on the cognitive line of development, we would have these general levels or waves in the overall spectrum of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual. Those nine general levels or structures Aurobindo respectively called sensory/vital, lower mind, concrete mind, logical mind, higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind, and supermind, stretching along a single rainbow from the densest to the finest to the ground of them all.

The respective worldviews of those nine general structures of consciousness can be described as: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, aperspectival, psychic (yogic), subtle (saintly), causal (sagely), and nondual (siddha).16

Those are levels of consciousness or structures (stages), during whose permanent unfolding, no stages can be readily skipped; but at virtually any of those stages, a person can have a peak experience of psychic, subtle, casual, or nondual states. Overall or integral development is thus a continuous process of converting temporary states into permanent traits or structures, and in that integral development, no structures or levels can be bypassed, or the development is not, by definition, integral.



Uneven Development

This does not prevent all sorts of spirals, regressions, temporary leaps forward via peak experiences, and so on. Notice, for example, that somebody at the psychic level can peak experience the causal state, but cannot stably access that realm because their permanent development has not yet reached the causal as a stage (or a permanent acquisition or structure). In order for that to happen, they must traverse the subtle realm (converting it into an objective stage) before they can stably maintain the witnessing position of the causal (turiya), because the permanent witness is, by definition, continuously aware of all that arises, and that means that if the subtle arises, it is witnessed--which means the subtle has become a permanently available pattern or structure in consciousness. Thus, stages in integral development, as elsewhere, cannot be skipped (they do not have to be perfected or mastered to the nth degree, but they do have to be established as a general competence. Somebody who cannot witness the subtle state cannot, by definition, be the causal witness--hence, the stage-like nature of these higher structures as they become permanent acquisitions.)17

Still, what usually happens is that because these three great realms and states (waking/gross, dream/subtle, and formless/causal) are constantly available to human beings, and because as states they can be practiced to some degree independently of each other (and might even develop independently to some degree--see Integral Psychology ), many individuals can and do evidence a great deal of competence in some of these states/realms (such as meditative formlessness in the causal realm), yet are poorly or even pathologically developed in others (such as the frontal or gross personality, interpersonal development, psychosexual development, moral development, and so on). The "stone Buddha" phenomenon--where a person can stay in extraordinary states of formless absorption for extended periods--and yet be poorly developed, or even pathologically developed, in other lines and realms, is an extremely common phenomenon, and it happens largely because integral development has not been engaged, let alone completed. Likewise, many spiritual teachers show a good deal of proficiency in subtle states, but little in causal or gross, with quite unbalanced results--for them and their followers. In short, what usually happens is that development is partial or fractured, and this fractured development is taken as the paradigm of natural and normal spiritual development, and then students and teachers alike are asked to repeat the fracture as evidence of their spiritual progress.

The fact that these three great realms/states can be engaged separately; the fact that many contemporary writers equate spirituality predominantly with altered and nonordinary states (which is often called the fourth wave of transpersonal theory); the fact that lines in general can develop unevenly (so that a person can be at a high level of development in some lines and low or pathological in others)--and that this happens more often than not--have all conspired to obscure those important aspects of spiritual development that do indeed show some stage-like phenomena. My point is that all of these aspects of spirituality (four of which I mentioned and will elucidate below) need to be acknowledged and included in any comprehensive theory of spirituality--and in any genuinely integral spiritual practice. 18



A Grid of Religious Experiences

If we combine the idea of levels of development with states of consciousness, and we realize that a person at virtually any level or stage of development can have a peak experience or an altered state, we get a rather remarkable grid of many of the various types of spiritual and nonordinary experiences.

For example, let us use Jean Gebser's terms for some of the lower-to-intermediate levels of consciousness: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, and aperspectival (there are higher, transpersonal structures, as we have seen, but these will do for now).19 To those five levels, let us add the four states of psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual. The point is that a person at any of those five structures can peak experience any of those four states, and that gives us a grid of twenty types of spiritual, transpersonal, or nonordinary experiences.

As was suggested earlier, the reason this grid occurs is that the way in which individuals interpret an altered state will depend in part upon their general level of development. For example, individuals at the mythic level might peak experience a psychic state, but they generally interpret that psychic peak experience in the terms of their mythic structure. Likewise, there is a magic experience of a subtle state, a mythic experience of a subtle state, a rational experience of a subtle state; and so on with causal and nondual.20 Putting these altogether gives us a phenomenological grid of the many types of altered, nonordinary, and religious experiences available to men and women (this is a series of ripe doctoral dissertations waiting to be picked). For more details on this grid, see A Sociable God and Integral Psychology.21



The Self

So far we have explored states, waves, and streams. Juggling all of those--and of crucial importance--is the self (or self-system or self-sense).22 For the striking thing about the levels, lines, and states is that in themselves they appear to be devoid of an inherent self-sense, and therefore the self can identify with any of them. That is, one of the primary characteristics of the self is its capacity to identify with the basic structures or levels of consciousness, and every time it does so, it generates a specific type of self-identity, with specific needs and drives. The self appears to be a functional system (which includes such capacities as identification, defense, tension regulation, and will), and it also undergoes its own type of development through a series of stages or waves (as investigated by, e.g., Jane Loevinger, Robert Kegan, Susanne Cook-Greuter, etc.). The main difference between the self-stages and the other stages is that the self has the job of balancing and coordinating all of them!

This balancing act, this drive to integrate the various components of the psyche, appears to be a crucial feature of the self. Psychopathology, for example, cannot easily be understood without it. The basic structures of consciousness do not themselves get sick or "broken." They either emerge or they don't, and when they do, they are generally well functioning (barring organic brain damage). For example, when concrete operational thinking ("conop") emerges in a child, it emerges more-or-less intact--but what the child does with those structures is something else indeed, and that specifically involves the child's self-sense. For the child can take any of the contents of the conop mind and repress them, alienate them, project them, retroflect them, or deploy any number of other defensive mechanisms. This a disease, not of conop, but of the self.

(Here is a more extreme example: a psychotic might be, among other things, temporarily plugging into a subtle realm and hence begin dream-like hallucinations. The subtle realm is not malfunctioning, it is working just fine; but the self cannot integrate these realms with the gross/frontal structures, and therefore it suffers a severe pathology. The pathology is not in the subtle, it is in the self-system and its failed capacity to integrate.)

Most psychopathology (on the interior domains) seems to involve some sort of failure in the self's capacity of differentiation and integration--a failure that occurs during what I call a fulcrum of self-development.23 A fulcrum occurs each time the self encounters a new level of consciousness. The self must first identify with that new level (embed at that level, be in fusion with that level); it eventually disidentifies with (or transcends) that level so as to move to a yet higher wave; then it ideally integrates the previous wave with the higher wave.

A miscarriage at any of those points in the particular fulcrum (failed identification, failed differentiation, failed integration) will generate a pathology; and the type of the pathology depends upon both the level of consciousness that the fulcrum occurs and the phase within the fulcrum that the miscarriage occurs. If we have nine general levels or waves of consciousness (each of which has a corresponding fulcrum that occurs when the self identifies with that level), and each fulcrum has these three basic subphases (fusion, transcendence, integration), then that gives us a typology of around twenty-seven major self pathologies (which range from psychotic to borderline to neurotic to existential to transpersonal). Far from being a mere abstract typology, there are abundant examples of each of these types.24

Again, none of this is a rigid, linear type of classification. The various waves and fulcrums overlap to a great extent; different pathologies and treatment modalities also overlap considerably; and the scheme itself is a simple generalization. But it does go a long way toward developing a more comprehensive overview of both pathology and treatment, and as such it seems to constitute an important part of any genuinely integral psychology.

The fluid nature of all of these events highlights the fact that the self-system is perhaps best thought of, not as a monolithic entity, but as the center of gravity of the various levels, lines, and states, all orbiting around the integrating tendency of the self-system. When any aspects of the psyche become cut off from this self-organizing activity, they (as it were) reach escape velocity and spin out of orbit, becoming dissociated, fragmented, alienated pockets of the psyche. Therapy, on the interior domains, thus generally involves a recontacting, befriending, reintegrating, and "re-entry" of the dissociated elements back into the orbit of conscious inclusion and embrace.



Four Meanings of Spiritual

If we focus for a moment on states, levels, lines, and self, we will find that they appear to underlie four of the most common definitions of "spirituality."

In Integral Psychology, I suggest that there are at least four widely used definitions of spirituality, each of which contains an important but partial truth, and all of which need to be included in any balanced account: (1) spirituality involves peak experiences or altered states, which can occur at almost any stage and any age; (2) spirituality involves the highest levels in any of the lines; (3) spirituality is a separate developmental line itself; (4) spirituality is an attitude (such as openness, trust, or love) that the self may or may not have at any stage.25

We have already discussed some of the important ingredients of each of those usages. We have particularly examined the idea of spirituality as involving peak experiences or altered states (#1). Here is a quick review of the other three.

Often, when people refer to something as "spiritual," they explicitly or implicitly mean the highest levels in any of the developmental lines. For example, in the cognitive line, we usually think of transrational awareness as spiritual, but we don't often think of mere rationality or logic as spiritual. In other words, the highest levels of cognition are often viewed as spiritual, but the low and medium levels less so. Likewise with affects or emotions: the higher or transpersonal affects, such as love and compassion, are deemed spiritual, but the lower affects, such as hate and anger, are not. Likewise with Maslow's needs hierarchy: the lower needs, such as self-protection, are not often thought of as spiritual, but the highest needs, such as self-transcendence, are.

This is a legitimate usage, in my opinion, because it reflects some of the significant developmental aspects of spirituality (namely, the more evolved a person is in any given line, the more that line seems to take on spiritual qualities). This is not the only aspect of spirituality--we have already seen that states are very important, and we will see two other aspects below--but it is a factor that needs to be considered in any comprehensive or integral account of spirituality.

The third common usage sees spirituality as a separate developmental line itself. James Fowler's stages of faith is a well-known and well-respected example. The world's contemplative literature is full of meticulously described stages of contemplative development (again, not as a series of rigid rungs in a ladder but as flowing waves of subtler and subtler meditative experiences, often culminating in causal formlessness, and then the breakthrough into permanent nondual consciousness). In this very common usage, the spiritual line begins in infancy (or even before, in the bardo and prenatal states), and eventually unfolds into wider and deeper spheres of consciousness until the great liberation of enlightenment. This is yet another important view of spirituality that any comprehensive or integral theory might want to take into account.

Viewing spirituality as a relatively independent line also explains the commonly acknowledged fact that somebody might be highly developed in the spiritual line and yet poorly--or even pathologically--developed in other lines, such as interpersonal or psychosexual, often with unfortunate results.

The fourth usage is that spirituality is essentially an attitude or trait that the self may or may not possess at any stage of growth, and this attitude--perhaps loving kindness, inner peace, charity, or goodness--is what most marks spirituality. In this usage, you could have, for example, a spiritual or unspiritual magic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual mythic wave, a spiritual or unspiritual rational wave, and so on, depending on whether the self had integrated that wave in a healthy or unhealthy fashion. This, too, is a common and important usage, and any integral account of spirituality would surely want to take it into consideration.

We will soon see that those four uses of "spiritual" are not mutually incompatible. For the moment, recall that earlier in this discussion we focused on a "grid of religious experiences." Notice that that grid is simply what we see if we combine factors 1 and 2/3--that is, if we map the various states of consciousness on the various structure-stages. Thus, even that grid recognizes some of these major uses, suggesting again their widespread importance.

Two general claims: One, those four major definitions are indeed common definitions of "spirituality." They are not the only uses, but they are some of the most prevalent. And two, those four common uses arise because of the actual existence of states, levels, lines, and self, respectively. People seem to intuitively or natively grasp the existence of states, levels, lines, and self, and thus when it comes to spirituality, they often translate their spiritual intuitions in terms of those available dimensions, which gives rise to those oft-used definitions.

As suggested, those definitions of spirituality are not mutually incompatible. They actually fit together in something of seamless whole, as I try to show in Integral Psychology . We can already see, for example, that any model that coherently includes states, levels, lines, and self can automatically give a general account of those four aspects of spirituality. But in order to see how this would specifically work, we need one more item: the four quadrants. (The four quadrants are not to be confused with the four uses of spirituality; the number four in this case is coincidental.) But the four quadrants are crucial, I believe, in seeing how the many uses of spirituality can in fact be brought together into a more mutual accord.



Quadrants

Most people find the four quadrants a little difficult to grasp at first, then very simple to use. The quadrants refer to the fact that anything can be looked at from four perspectives, so to speak: we can look at something from the inside or from the outside, and in the singular or the plural. (For a map of the four quadrants, see the Introductions to CW7 and CW8, posted on this site.)

For example, my own consciousness in this moment. I can look at it from the inside, in which case I see all my various feelings, hopes, fears, sensations, and perceptions that I might have in any given moment. This is the first-person or phenomenal view, described in "I" language. But consciousness can also be looked at in an objective, "scientific" fashion, in which case I might conclude that my consciousness is the product of objective brain mechanisms and neurophysiological systems. This is the third-person or objective view, described in "it" language. Those are the inside and the outside views of my own consciousness.

But my consciousness or self does not exist in a vacuum; it exists in a community of other selves. So in addition to a singular view of consciousness, we can look at how consciousness exists in the plural (as part of a group, a community, a collective). And just as we can look at the inside and the outside of the individual, we can look at the inside and the outside of the collective. We can try to understand any group of people from the inside, in a sympathetic resonance of mutual understanding; or we can try to look at them from the outside, in a detached and objective manner (both views can be useful, as long as we honor each).

On the inside of the collective, we see all of the various shared worldviews (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, etc.), ethics, customs, values, and intersubjective structures held in common by those in the collective (whether that be family, peers, corporation, organization, tribe, town, nation, globe). The insides of the collective are described in "we" language and include all of those intersubjective items that you might experience if you were truly a member of that culture. From the outside, we see all of the objective structures and social institutions of the collective, such as the physical buildings, the infrastructures (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational), the techno-economic base, the quantitative aspects of the society (the birth and death rates, the monetary exchanges, the objective data), modes of communication (written words, telegraph, telephone, internet), and so on. Those are all "its" or patterns of interobjective social systems.

So we have four major perspectives (the inside and the outside of the singular and the plural): I, it, we, and its. Since the objective dimensions (the outside of the individual and the outside of the collective) are both described in third-person it-language, we can reduce the four quadrants to just three: I, we, and it. Or first-person, second-person, and third-person accounts.26 Or art, morals, and science. Or the beautiful, the good, and the true.

Now my major point is that each of the levels, lines, and states of consciousness has these four quadrants (or simply the three major dimensions of I, we, and it).27 This model therefore explicitly integrates first-, second-, and third-person accounts of consciousness at each of the levels, lines, and states. This gives what I believe is a more comprehensive and integral model of consciousness. This "all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states" model is sometimes referred to simply as "all-quadrant, all-level," or AQAL for short. I have explored this model at length in several books, such as Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; Brief History; and Integral Psychology. If we systematically investigate the implications of this AQAL model, we might also find that it opens up the possibility of a more integral approach to education, politics, business, art, feminism, ecology, and so on (see, e.g., A Theory of Everything--An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, to be released by Shambhala in September 2000).

It should be emphasized that this article has dealt almost exclusively with only one quadrant, namely, the interior of the individual (which is called the "Upper-Left quadrant"). But in other works I have dealt extensively with the other quadrants, and my point is certainly that all of the quadrants need to be included in any balanced account of consciousness. What is missing in the other major schools and forces of psychology is exactly this more comprehensive or AQAL approach, which is why I believe integral psychology must move in a noticeably different direction while maintaining a friendly and mutually beneficial dialogue with the other four forces.



The Religious Grid, Revisited

To see why the four quadrants are crucial for understanding even individual psychology, we can return to our "religious grid" as an example. We earlier discussed only the Upper-Left quadrant factors (the interior of the individual), which is fine for the phenomenology of spiritual experiences. But for an integral account, we need also to include the other quadrants.

The Upper-Right quadrant (the exterior of the individual): During any spiritual, religious, or nonordinary state of consciousness, what are the neurophysiological and brain-state correlates? These might be investigated by PET scans, EEG patterns, physiological markers, and so on. Conversely, what are the effects of various types of physiological and pharmacological agents on consciousness? An enormous amount of this type of research has already been done, of course, and it continues at an increasing pace. Consciousness is clearly linked in complex ways to objective biological and neurophysiological systems, and continued research on these correlations is surely an important agenda. This type of consciousness research is now by far the most prevalent in conventional consciousness studies, and I wholeheartedly support it as providing some crucial pieces of the overall puzzle.

Nobody, however, has successfully demonstrated that consciousness can be reduced without remainder to those objective systems; and it is patently obvious that phenomenologically it cannot. Unfortunately, the tendency of the third-person approaches to consciousness is to try to make the Upper-Right quadrant the only quadrant worth considering and thus reduce all consciousness to objective "its" in the individual body/brain--but those cover only one-fourth of the story, so to speak.

Still, this is an incredibly important part of the story. This quadrant, in fact, is the home of the increasingly dominant schools of psychology and consciousness studies that I mentioned in the introduction (e.g., cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, systems theory applied to brain states, neuroscience, biological psychiatry, etc.). This quadrant is exactly the quadrant with which the interior psychologies must correlate their phenomenological findings and in which they must anchor their results, if they are evolutionarily to survive the coming intensification of flatland approaches (or the increasing cultural pressure for objective, exterior, "scientific," third-person methodologies in both research and therapy).

As also suggested in the introduction, the actual effect of this new cultural selection pressure is to select for integral (or AQAL) models, since neither Left-Hand (introspective) nor Right-Hand (objectivistic) approaches will be able to stand on their own, despite their seemingly inherent drive to claim that their way is the only true way. But the pendulum has, for the moment, definitely swung toward the Right-Hand paths, and any Left-Hand paths that do not respond with an integral or AQAL orientation will almost certainly be driftwood on the shore of this new cultural current of Eros.28

The Lower-Left quadrant (the interior of the collective): How do different intersubjective, ethical, linguistic, and cultural contexts mold consciousness and altered states? The postmodernists and constructivists have demonstrated, correctly I believe, the crucial role played by background cultural contexts in fashioning individual consciousness. But many postmodernists have pushed this insight to absurd extremes, maintaining the self-contradictory stance that cultural contexts create all states. Instead of trying to reduce consciousness to "it"-language, they try to reduce all consciousness to "we"-language. All realities, including those of objective science, are said to be merely cultural constructions. To the contrary, research clearly indicates that there are numerous quasi-universal aspects to many human realities, including many altered states (e.g., all healthy humans show similar brainwave patterns in REM sleep and in deep dreamless sleep). Nonetheless, these patterns are indeed given some of their contents and are significantly molded by the cultural context, which therefore forms an important part of a more integral analysis.

Lower-Right quadrant (the exterior of the collective): How do various techno-economic modes, institutions, economic circumstances, ecological networks, and social systems affect consciousness and altered states? The profoundly important influence of objective social systems on consciousness has been investigated by a wide variety of approaches, including ecology, geopolitics, ecofeminism, neoMarxism, dynamical systems theory, and chaos and complexity theories. All of them tend to see the world as a holistic system of interwoven "its." This, too, is an important part of an integral model. Unfortunately, many of these theorists (just like specialists in the other quadrants) have attempted to reduce consciousness to just this quadrant--to reduce consciousness to digital bits in a systems network, a strand in the objective Web of Life, or a holistic pattern of flatland its, thus perfectly gutting the I and the we dimensions. Surely a more integral approach would include all of the quadrants--I, we, it, and its--without trying to reduce any of them merely to the others.29

Of course, the foregoing analysis applies not only to states but also to levels, lines, and self: all of them need to be situated in the four quadrants (intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social) for a more integral understanding, resulting in an "all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states" panoptic.



The Research Agenda

I have tried to show that many of the levels, lines, and states in the various quadrants are, in principle, capable of being investigated via a type of "simultracking" (see "An Integral Theory of Consciousness" in CW7).30 The specific research agenda is spelled out in that essay, but the point is simple enough: in addition to the extensive research that is now being done separately on the various levels, lines, and states in the various quadrants, the time is now ripe to (1) begin detailed correlations of these events with each other; and thus (2) move toward a more integral theory, not only of consciousness, but of the Kosmos at large; a theory that (3) would begin to show us the how and why of the intrinsic connections between all things in existence.31 This would truly be a "theory of everything," at least in outline, even if all of the details remain beyond our grasp.32

In short, whether or not you agree with my particular version of an integral model of consciousness, I believe the evidence is now quite substantial that, at the least, any comprehensive model would want to take into account quadrants, levels, lines, states, and self. This fledging field of integral psychology holds great promise, I believe, as an important part of a comprehensive and balanced view of consciousness and Kosmos.

If the only psychologies that will survive are psychologies that are plugged into an "all-quadrant, all-level" framework (which includes behavioral, intentional, cultural, and social dimensions, all of which stretch from matter to body to mind to spirit)--such a psychology is not really psychology as we have known it. That is, a four-quadrant psychology is no longer psychology (which is why integral psychology is not actually a fifth force, although many people will continue to call it such). Rather, integral psychology is an inherent feature of a Kosmology, and its practice is a movement of the Kosmos itself. This is why I believe the four forces will continue to wither, and their places will increasingly be taken by various types of integral psychology that adapt to this new cultural selection pressure (or Eros) by recognizing niches of reality as yet unoccupied (namely, an AQAL space), into which they can evolve with the assurance of survival by adapting to yet higher and wider dimensions of reality. The integral claim is that because an AQAL formulation is more adequate to reality, evolution into a consciously AQAL space has inherent survival value. Correlatively, less adequate and comprehensive approaches will face extinction pressures.

This might well leave the four forces as historical dinosaurs. At the same time--and this is the claim of integral psychology that the other psychologies dispute--any truly integral psychology will "transcend and include" all of the important truths of the four forces. Nothing is lost, all is retained; even dinosaurs live on in today's birds. The test of any integral psychology is to what degree it can accept and coherently integrate the valid research and data from the various schools of psychology--not just the four major forces, but developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive sciences, phenomenological/hermeneutic approaches, and so on. Of course this is a daunting challenge, perhaps forever unreachable; but as of today we know too much to ever settle for less.

Notes

1. This specifically happened with the publication of A Sociable God. My previous two books, The Atman Project and Up from Eden, were subtitled, respectively, A Transpersonal View of Human Development and A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (they were written as a two-volume set). A Sociable God was originally subtitled A Brief Introduction to a Transpersonal Sociology. But even by that time, the transpersonal field had become, to my mind, problematic. I certainly did not harbor any ill-will toward the field, but at the same time, what I was doing was not confined to transpersonal psychology or transpersonal anything, for that matter. I changed the subtitle to A Brief Introduction to a Transcendental Sociology, and within a few years of that date (1983), I never again used the word "transpersonal" to describe my work (although I do still use it to describe the supramental realms of consciousness).

There are numerous gifted and even brilliant scholars and researchers who continue to publicly define themselves as "transpersonal," including Stan Grof, Richard Tarnas, Brandt Cortright, Jorge Ferrer, Donald Rothberg, Peggy Wright, Michael Washburn, Frank Lawlis, Jurgen Kremer, and many others. I think they represent the field of transpersonal fairly well, and I think that their important research needs to be continued within the rubric of the transpersonal paradigm as it has developed within their collective body of work (with all its many variations and nuances).

Scholars who have publicly identified themselves as "integral" (and have presented integral models or are moving toward such), include Michael Murphy, George Leonard, Roger Walsh, Frances Vaughan, Allan Combs, Don Beck, Susann Cook-Greuter, Francisco Varela, Jenny Wade, Bert Parlee, Tony Schwartz, Robert Forman, Marilyn Schlitz, Antony Arcari, Raz Ingrasci, Keith Thompson, Michael Zimmerman, and many others. Although I can speak for none of those writers, I think it is safe to say that they all are strong supporters of the transpersonal field, but they are also trying to introduce more comprehensive theories and models that build more bridges to the conventional and orthodox world. At this time it seems prudent that both of these schools, integral and transpersonal, while continuing their mutually beneficial dialogue and occasional joint ventures, also focus on their own maps and models and begin applying them in the real world, so that the actual fruits of these various models, and their usefulness in real-world situations, will begin to speak for their relative merits.

2. Thus, even after 1983, I have remained on the editorial board of both the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. I published eight articles in the former and nine articles in the latter. I had, and have, an enormous respect for the respective editors, Tom Greening and Miles Vich, who both moved their journals toward a more integral approach. It is just that, at least in the case of transpersonal, it continued to close in on itself and its growing ideology, and I found the field less and less grounded in research, evidence, and cogent interpretations, to the point that it had not built more bridges to the conventional world, but simply burned them.

3. In order to survive, especially economically, it is likely that humanistic and transpersonal will be forced to coalesce into an awkward hybrid, so that transpersonal can ride the coattails of Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of APA, which is nonetheless regarded as a rather weak division compared to the others. My point is that unless both of these interior psychologies more consciously move toward an AQAL framework, they will increasingly be selected against in the new currents that demand more integral responses.

If the only psychologies that will survive are psychologies that are plugged into an "all-quadrant, all-level" framework (which includes behavioral, intentional, cultural, and social dimensions, all of which stretch from matter to body to mind to spirit)-such a psychology is not really psychology as we have known it. That is, a four-quadrant psychology is no longer psychology (which is why integral psychology is not actually a fifth force, although many people will continue to call it such). Rather, integral psychology is an inherent feature of a Kosmology, and its practice is a movement of the Kosmos itself. This is why I believe the four forces will continue to wither, and their places will increasingly be taken by various types of integral psychology that adapt to this new cultural selection pressure (or Eros) by recognizing niches of reality as yet unoccupied (namely, an AQAL space), into which they can evolve with the assurance of survival by adapting to yet higher and wider dimensions of reality. The integral claim is that because an AQAL formulation is more adequate to reality, evolution into a consciously AQAL space has inherent survival value. Correlatively, less adequate and comprehensive approaches will face extinction pressures.

This might well leave the four forces as historical dinosaurs. At the same time-and this is the claim of integral psychology that the other psychologies dispute-any truly integral psychology will "transcend and include" all of the important truths of the four forces. Nothing is lost, all is retained; even dinosaurs live on in today's birds. The test of any integral psychology is to what degree it can accept and coherently integrate the valid research and data from the various schools of psychology-not just the four major forces, but developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive sciences, phenomenological/hermeneutic approaches, and so on. Of course this is a daunting challenge, perhaps forever unreachable; but as of today we know too much to ever settle for less.

4. See Integral Psychology for dozens of versions of this spectrum of consciousness presented by ancient and modern sources.

5. For a discussion of the Great Nest of Being, see The Marriage of Sense and Soul, Integral Psychology, One Taste, and A Theory of Everything. See also Huston Smith's superb Forgotten Truth, Roger Walsh's Essential Spirituality, and Michael Murphy's The Future of the Body . Arthur Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being remains the authoritative historical overview, although, again, the "great chain" is a misnomer.

6. Research suggests that some of these psychological structures are universal, some are culture-specific, and some are individual. All three are important; but clearly, I do not believe that all structures are universal. However, since I am presenting a cross-paradigmatic model, the structures (basic and transitional) that I usually focus on are those for which we have substantial evidence that they are generally universal and cross-cultural wherever they appear (i.e., they do not necessarily appear in all cultures, but when they do, they show a similar form). These basic levels or basic structures are matter, sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol, concept, rule, formal, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual, which I often group into nine or ten functional units as: sensorimotor, emotional-sexual, rep-mind, rule/role mind, formal-reflexive, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal, nondual. See Integral Psychology.

7. There is moderate to strong evidence for the existence of the following developmental lines: cognition, morals, affects, motivation/needs, ideas of the good, psychosexuality, kinesthetic intelligence, self-identity (ego), role-taking, logico-mathematical competence, socio-emotional capacity, worldviews, values, several lines that might be called "spiritual" (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), musical skill, altruism, communicative competence, creativity, modes of space and time perception, death-fear, gender identity, and empathy.

We say that these lines or modules are relatively independent because they seem to be intertwined in certain "necessary but not sufficient" patterns. For example, empirical research has already demonstrated that physiological development is necessary but not sufficient for cognitive development, which is necessary but not sufficient for interpersonal development, which is necessary but not sufficient for moral development, which is necessary but not sufficient for ideas of the good. Further, because the self inherently attempts to integrate these various lines (see below), their independence is dampened by the binding power of the self-system. (See the second edition of The Eye of Spirit in CW7 and Integral Psychology for a further discussion of these themes.)

The idea of relatively independent lines of development is similar to the widely accepted notion of independent modules (linguistic, cognitive, moral, etc.), except that in my view these modules, as they develop, are all subject to the same general levels or waves (preconventional to conventional to postconventional to post-postconventional), and they are all balanced and integrated by the self. But my model does allow us to use the important contributions of module theorists, set in what I believe is a more adequate framework.

8. See Integral Psychology.

9. In my own system, the "body/energy" component is the Upper-Right quadrant, and the "mind/consciousness" component is the Upper-Left quadrant. For a discussion of body/realms--e.g., gross body (Nirmanakaya), subtle body (Sambhogakaya), causal body (Dharmakaya)--as the energetic support or "body" of each of the consciousness levels and states, see SES, note 1 for chap. 14. I often use the words "body," "realm," and "sphere" interchangeably; see Integral Psychology.

10. Even though, for example, it is said that subtle consciousness/energy or the subtle mind/body can detach from the gross mind/body, as in the chonyid bardo realm following death; and the causal mind/body can detach from both the subtle and gross mind/body, as in the chikhai bardo or the clear-light emptiness post-death experience. This sophisticated conception allows consciousness to extend beyond the physical body but never to be merely disembodied (since there are subtle and causal bodies). In my opinion, this is a profound body/mind (or matter/consciousness) nonduality at every level, a conception I have incorporated into my own system.

11. I am indebted to my friend Allan Combs for the notion of "states of mind," although Allan and I have a mild disagreement as to their specific relationships with states and structures of consciousness. Allan has also independently devised a grid of religious experiences. See his Radiance of Being and my Integral Psychology for an overview. It should be noted that Allan would like to do a second revised edition of Radiance to bring his own thoughts up to date. Allan acknowledges that his presentation of my work only covers phase-2 and does not deal with my present model; but the book is otherwise highly recommended.

12. States of consciousness are in one sense experienced by subjects--the dream state, for example--but usually what is actually experienced is some specific, if different or altered, phenomenal state. The individual then compares many similar phenomenal states and concludes they all belong to a broad state of consciousness (such as dreaming, or intoxication, or some such). Thus, both broad states and basic structures tend to be missed by phenomenology's adherence to phenomenal states. See note 13.

13. On the limitations of phenomenology, see several long notes in SES, such as note 28 for chap. 4; and several notes in Integral Psychology, such as note 21 for chap. 14.

First-person phenomenological investigations of consciousness can easily spot phenomenal states and even first-person phenomenal stages. For example, in the "highest yoga" school of Tibetan Buddhism (anuttaratantra yoga), there are ten major stages of meditation, each marked by a very specific phenomenological experience: during meditation, a person first experiences a mirage-like appearance, then smoke-like, then fireflies, then flickering lamp, then a steady lamp (all of these stages are said to result from the progressive transcendence of the gross bodymind); then the individual begins to experience the subtle realms: an expanse like a clear autumn moonlight, then clear autumn sunlight, which takes one to the causal or unmanifest realm, which is an experience like "the thick blackness of an autumn night," and then the breakthrough to the nondual. Those specific experiences appear to be genuine stages in this particular meditative line (they are all said to be necessary and none can be skipped), and any individual, sitting in meditation, could indeed see or spot these stages by him- or herself, because they present themselves as successively perceived phenomenal states. This is why I maintain that the phenomenological method can register phenomenal states and phenomenal stages in the "I" (or Upper-Left quadrant). And this is why the world's contemplative literature is full of these types of states and stages.

But that phenomenological method cannot easily spot subjective structures (i.e., psychological structures in the Upper-Left quadrant, such as those discovered by Graves, Piaget, Loevinger, etc.), nor can it spot intersubjective structures and intersubjective stages (or those in the Lower-Left quadrant, e.g., Gebser's worldviews, Habermas's stages of communicative competence, interpersonal moral stages, Foucault's interpretative-analytic side of the structures of power, etc.). As I suggested in the main text, no amount of introspection by individuals will disclose social structures of oppressive power (e.g. Foucault), moral stages (e.g., Carol Gilligan), linguistic structures (e.g., Chomsky), stages of ego development (e.g., Jane Loevinger), stages of values (e.g., Clare Graves), and so on--all of those are inherently invisible to mere phenomenology. This is why phenomenological approaches tend to be strong in the "I" components but weak in the "we" components.

That is the major reason that the world's contemplative literature is virtually silent on these important intersubjective aspects of consciousness. That is also why research into nonordinary states of consciousness, such as Grof's holotropic model of the mind, produces very partial and incomplete cartographies (both psychedelic research and holotropic breathwork are very good for spotting experiential, phenomenal, first-person states, but incapable of spotting intersubjective and interobjective patterns; hence the lopsidedness of such cartographies and their incapacity to deal with many crucial aspects of consciousnes in the world).

This is perhaps also why many contemporary meditation theorists are so hostile to structure-stage conceptions--their phenomenological methodology cannot spot them, so they assume they are imposed on consciousness for suspect reasons by categorizing theorists.

In short, the phenomenological methods tend to excel in spotting (in the UL) individual phenomenal states and phenomenal stages, but not individual structures; and they miss virtually all of the intersubjective structures and intersubjective stages (in the LL; not to mention all of the Right-Hand patterns, which we are not discussing in this note). A more integral approach would combine I, we, and it dimensions, using research methodologies that are "all-quadrant, all-level" (see below).

14. Nonetheless, using the same terms to cover both the transpersonal structures and the transpersonal states was perhaps an unhappy choice; in my defense, I would say that three decades ago, when many of us were pioneering these ideas, there were only so many terms to go around, and we used them as parsimoniously as possible. In Vedanta, as previously mentioned, the subtle body/realm or sukshma-sharira (experienced in, e.g., the dream state, the chonyid bardo state, and savikalpa samadhi) includes or supports three structures or levels--the pranamayakosha or emotional-sexual level, the manomayakosha or mental level, and the vijnanamayakosha or higher-mental/soul level--and I have, from the beginning, used the world "subtle" to refer to both the overall subtle state/realm (the prana-, mano-, and vijnana-mayakosha) and the highest structure in it (the vijnanamayakosha); the context usually indicates which is meant. In Vedanta, the causal state/realm has just one structure, the anandamayakosha, so there is less semantic problem.

There is a substantial amount of agreement in the traditions (e.g., contemplative Christianity, Kabbalah, Vajrayana, Sufism, Vedanta) about these transpersonal realms, structures, and states--but the terminology used by different scholars to translate them is indeed a semantic nightmare. So let me just say that I use four major terms (psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual) to refer to the various transpersonal occasions, including transpersonal states (e.g., subtle, causal, and nondual states of consciousness, experienced in, e.g., dream state, savikalpa samadhi, deep sleep, nirvikalpa samadhi, jnana samadhi, sahaja, etc.); realms, bodies, or spheres of being (e.g., gross body/realm, subtle body/realm, causal body/realm); and structures, waves, or levels of consciousness (e.g., psychic level or illumined mind, subtle level or intuitive mind, causal level or overmind, and nondual or supermind, to use Aurobindo's terminology for the corresponding levels). For those concerned with these intricacies, the context will usually indicate which is meant. See Integral Psychology for a further discussion of these technical issues.

15. For the definitive cross-cultural study of meditative stages, see Daniel P. Brown, "The Stages of Meditation in Cross-Cultural Perspective," chap.8 in Wilber et al., Transformations of Consciousness. For charts comparing a dozen meditative systems containing stages, see Integral Psychology.

16. See Integral Psychology.

17. We can examine a few of these developmental aspects of spirituality by using Robert Forman's excellent article, "What Does Mysticism Have to Teach Us about Consciousness?" (Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, 2, 1998, 185-201). Forman begins by highlighting three particularly important and apparently universal types of mystical consciousness, which he calls the "pure consciousness event" (PCE), which is a state of formless consciousness with no thoughts, objects, or perceptions; the "dual mystical state" (DMS), where formless consciousness is present (usually as a type of witnessing awareness) simultaneously with forms and objects of thought and perception (but the subject-object duality is still in place, hence "dualistic" mystical state); and the "unitive mystical state" (UMS), where subject and object are one or nondual. In my scheme, the PCE is a causal (formless) state of consciousness. The DMS generally begins as a state of consciousness but increasingly becomes a more-or-less permanent structure of causal witnessing (i.e., the causal state has become a causal structure). The UMS often begins as a temporary nondual state but also increasingly becomes a permanent nondual structure or wave. I agree entirely with Forman that those are three very real and quasi-universal mystical events; I am also in substantial agreement with his conclusions about what these events mean for consciousness studies.

Forman points out, correctly I believe, that these events are often temporary (in which case they are what I call states), but they can become more-or-less permanent acquisitions (in which case I call them structures, even if some of them are "formless" or "structureless"; structure or level or wave simply signifies constancy). As Forman says, "Their discriminating feature is a deep shift in epistemological structure: the experienced relationship between the self and one's perceptual objects changes profoundly. In many people this new structure becomes permanent" (186).

The question then becomes, are these shifts sequential and stage-like? Forman cautiously replies, "Usually." "These long-term shifts in epistemological structure often take the form of two quantum leaps in experience [namely, the shift from PCE to DMS, and then from DMS to UMS]; typically they develop sequentially" (186). Forman then adds "I say typically because sometimes one may skip or not attain a particular stage. Ken Wilber claims sequence. William Barnard, however, disputes this claim of sequence" (186). After several mutually fruitful discussions on this topic, Forman realizes that my position is actually more complex. As we have seen, there are temporary peak experiences of higher realms available at virtually every stage, and thus, for example, even if one is permanently at the DMS, one can still temporarily peak experience the UMS. This makes it very hard to spot any sort of sequentiality, because structure-stages (which are sequential) and states (which are not) can and do fall all over each other. Thus, for these higher events, I maintain that there are both sequential and non-sequential occasions (and that those who claim only one or the other do not have a very integral model).

My further claim is simply this: in the permanent acquisition of these higher competences, certain prerequisites must be met. For example, using Forman's useful categories, in order for the DMS state to be a permanent acquisition, one must have some sort of access to the PCE, because the DMS is a combination of the experience of pure consciousness alongside waking objects and thoughts. Of necessity, there is some sort of stage sequencing, however brief (i.e., one can attain PCE without attaining DMS, but not vice versa). Likewise with the UMS, in which the final barrier between pure causal consciousness and the world of form is transcended (either temporarily as a nondual state, or permanently as a nondual structure). In order for that to happen, consciousness must relinquish all attachments to any particular objects, while the objects are still present (i.e., DMS), or else the hidden attachment will prevent true unity and produce at best a type of pseudo-nonduality. Thus, the DMS must be passed through, however briefly, in order for a permanent acquisition of constant unitive consciousness. That some people do not do so is only to say that some people have a pseudo-nonduality (which, of course, happens all the time but is not particularly a model to be emulated). Thus, one can attain the DMS without attaining UMS, but not vice versa: we have a stage sequence with reference to permanent acquisition.

(For further discussion of these themes, see Integral Psychology; also, with reference to the Vedantic/TM model of the seven states of consciousness, which Forman's work is partially inspired by, see chap. 10 of The Eye of Spirit, second revised edition, CW7.)

One final comment about the UMS and nature mysticism. These two items are often confused, but they are actually quite distinct. Here, from Integral Psychology, is an endnote dealing with this topic (note 14 for chap. 7), using James Mark Baldwin's notion of "unity consciousness" as a beginning point:

Baldwin's "unity consciousness" is a gross-realm unity or nature mysticism (psychic level). It does not recognize archetypal mysticism, subtle consciousness, lucid dreaming, or savikalpa samadhi (all forms of deity or subtle-level mysticism); nor does it recognize formless consciousness (causal), and therefore it does not reach the pure nondual (which is a union of form and emptiness). Union with nature, when it does not recognize the formless state of cessation, is always psychic-level, gross cosmic consciousness, or nature mysticism (not nondual or integral mysticism). Nonetheless, it is a genuine and profound transpersonal experience.

One of the easiest ways to tell if a "unity experience" is gross realm (nature mysticism), subtle realm (deity mysticism), causal realm (formless mysticism), or genuine nondual consciousness (union of the form in all realms with the pure formless) is to note the nature of consciousness in dreaming and deep sleep. If the writer talks of a unity experience while awake, that is usually gross-realm nature mysticism. If that unity consciousness continues into the dream state--so that the writer talks of lucid dreaming, union with interior luminosities as well as gross exterior nature--that is usually subtle-realm deity mysticism. If that consciousness continues into the deep sleep state--so that the writer realizes a Self that is fully present in all three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep--that is usually causal-realm formless mysticism (turiya). If that formless Self is then discovered to be one with the form in all realms--gross to subtle to causal--that is pure nondual consciousness (turiyatita).

Many nature mystics, ecopsychologists, and neopagans take the gross-realm, waking-state unity with nature to be the highest unity available, but that is basically the first of four major samadhis or mystical unions. The "deep self" of ecopsychology is thus not to be confused with the True Self of Zen, Ati of Dzogchen, Brahman-Atman of Vedanta, etc. These distinctions also help us situate philosophers like Heidegger and Foucault, both of whom talked of mystical-like unions with nature. Those were often profound and authentic experiences of gross-realm unity (Nirmanakaya), but again, those should not be confused with Zen or Vedanta, for the latter push through to causal formlessness (Dharmakaya, nirvikalpa samadhi, jnana samadhi, etc.), and then into pure nondual unity (Svabhavikakaya, turiyatita) with any and all realms, gross to subtle to causal. Many writers confuse Nirmanakaya with Svabhavikakaya, which ignores the major realms of interior development that lie between the two (e.g., Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya).

18. For integral spiritual practice, see One Taste and Murphy and Leonard, The Life We Are Given.

A final point about the word "integral" and about Jean Gebser's structures. Although I am a long-time fan of Gebser, I believe his work is now hindering the field of consciousness studies. First, Gebser does not have a clear understanding of the quadrants, so he tends to conflate different phenomenological languages, different validity claims, and different evidential data. Second, his "archaic structure" is, in my opinion, charged with the retro-Romantic (and pre/trans) fallacy. Third, and most troublesome, his "integral structure" actually contains at least five structures (namely, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual; or, to use Aurobindo's terms, higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind, and supermind--all of which are clumsily collapsed into "the" integral structure by Gebser. Although there is evidence that he realized this later in life, he did not live to adequately correct it). In Integral Psychology, I have assembled over one hundred developmental maps from around the world, and the evidence for these higher, transpersonal structures of consciousness is substantial and quite compelling. Even according to more conventional maps, such as Spiral Dynamics, what Gebser calls "integral" actually contains green, yellow, turquoise, and coral structures. In short, I believe Gebser's investigation of "the" integral structure was pioneering but is now outdated.

Nonetheless, I continue to refer to the entire vision-logic realms (and second-tier thinking) as "integral," simply because it has become a very common usage. But clearly, the truly integral "level" is the nondual, which is not actually a level or state but the ever-present ground of all levels and all states (see, e.g., the last chapter of The Eye of Spirit).

Lastly, there is the issue of levels of consciousness and levels (planes, realms, axes, spheres) of reality; for a discussion of this theme, particularly in reference to postmodern, post-metaphysical epistemologies, I refer the reader to a series of long endnotes in Integral Psychology, beginning with note 3 for chap. 1.

19. See note 15.

20. Any of the widely accepted developmental lines can be used to create and research these types of grids. For example, in the cognitive line we have preoperational (preop), concrete operational (conop), formal operational (formop), and postformal (which has various levels, up to and including the transpersonal waves, but this simple division will work for this example). An individual at preop can temporarily experience a psychic, subtle, causal, or nondual state; so can an individual at conop, formop, and postformal. In each case, the individual interprets those states largely in the categories of the cognitive level at which he or she is presently adapted. For instance, a conop experience of a subtle state tends to be interpreted in very literal-concrete terms (just as mythic symbols at that stage are also taken very literally; e.g., Moses actually did part the Red Sea) and often very ethnocentrically ("only those who believe in my God will be saved"); whereas a person at postformal cognition interprets a subtle-state experience in pluralistic, metaphorical, and aperspectival terms ("I experienced a ground of being that is present in all sentient beings but is expressed differently by each, with no expression being better than another"); and someone directly at the transpersonal waves experiences these realms in their self-transcending immediacy, beyond conceptualization, pluralistic or otherwise.

As I said, any of the more dependable models of developmental lines can be used to research these types of grids, such as the self-stages (including research tools) presented by Jane Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, or Robert Kegan; the Graves values scale; Gebser's structures; Maslow's needs hierarchy; Bill Torbert's stages of action-inquiry, and so on. This offers a series of fruitful empirical, phenomenological, and structural research strategies for mapping states onto structures.

21. In this simple example I have used Gebser's structures, which cover the lower-to-intermediate structures (up to centauric vision-logic). But there are higher, transpersonal structures that need to be added to the grid (see note 18), and there are also more sophisticated maps of the lower-to-intermediate structures, such as Spiral Dynamics--e.g., there can be a purple, red, blue, orange, green, yellow, and turquoise peak experience of a psychic, subtle, causal, or nondual state. Also, as a person permanently evolves into higher structures, such as the psychic or subtle, they can still peak experience yet higher realms, such as causal and nondual.

If we use a general scheme--of, say, 12 levels and 4 states--that gives us around 48 types of transpersonal peak experiences and nonordinary states, although in actuality some of the squares in that grid do not occur (e.g., once at the psychic level, one no longer has psychic peak experiences, for that is now a permanent acquisition). But by and large, those 40 or so types of nonordinary and spiritual experiences are very real--and very easy to spot using this grid. I believe that this approach enriches and advances our understanding of these phenomena, the study of which seems to have stalled.

There has been a great deal of research and models based primarily on altered and nonordinary states (Grof, Tart, Fisher, Wolman, White, Goodman, Morgan, etc.), and a great deal of research and models on various structures of consciousness (Graves, Loevinger, Piaget, Gilligan, Fowler, Selman, Perry, etc.), but virtually no proposals for an "all-quadrants, all-structures, all-states" model that combines the best of both. I will return to the importance of this more integral research agenda in the main text.

22. For an extended discussion of the self or self-system, see Eye to Eye(CW3), Transformations of Consciousness (CW4), and The Eye of Spirit(CW7).

23. Individual psychopathology is actually an all-quadrant affair (as we will see), and thus important aspects of its genesis can be found in all four quadrants: there are contributing factors from the Upper-Right quadrant (e.g., brain physiology, neurotransmitter imbalance, even poor diet); Lower-Right quadrant (e.g., economic stress, environmental toxins, social oppression); and the Lower-Left quadrant (cultural pathologies, communication snarls). Treatment likewise can (and ideally should) involve all four quadrants (including psychopharmacology [UR] where appropriate). I am here simply focusing on the important factors in the Upper-Left quadrant. For the contributions of all four quadrants to pathology, see Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; A Brief History of Everything; The Eye of Spirit;and Integral Psychology.

24. See Transformations of Consciousness (CW4) and J. Rowan, The Transpersonal. To say that the self "identifies" with a level is not to picture this in an all-or-none fashion. Even with the proximate self-sense (e.g., as investigated by Loevinger), individuals tend to give 50% of their responses from one level and 25% responses from the level above and below it. As we will see in the main text, the self is more a center of gravity than a monolithic entity. This also includes the existence of numerous subpersonalities (see Integral Psychology).

25. These are not the only four definitions of spirituality. In A Sociable God, I give nine of them. But these four are some of the most common and, I believe, most significant. In A Sociable God, I also distinguish between legitimate (or translative) spirituality, which seeks to fortify the self at its present level of development, no matter how high or low; and authentic (or transformative) spirituality, which seeks to transcend the self altogether (or at least transform it to a higher wave of consciousness). The first three uses of "spirituality" (given in the main text) are different definitions of authentic spirituality, in that all of them involve, at least in part, the idea that real spirituality involves a change in level of consciousness (either temporary, as in #1, or permanent, as in #2 and #3). The fourth usage is a good definition of legitimate spirituality, in that it seeks to promote the health of the self at whatever level it is at, without vertically changing consciousness. As I suggest in the main text, all four of these uses of "spirituality" are valid, in my opinion, and all four of them represent very real and important functions that spirituality can perform. The difficulty, as usual, is that some religious and spiritual movements latch onto just one narrow aspect of the religious impulse in humans and claim it is the only impulse worth acting on, which distorts both legitimate an authentic spirituality and often sets the self in a spiral of deception and deceit.

26. Technically, "we" is first-person plural, and "you" is second person. But I include first-person plural ("we") and second person ("you/Thou") as both being in the Lower-Left quadrant, which I refer to in general as "we." The reason I do so is that there is no second-person plural in English (which is why southerners have to say "you all" and northerners say "you guys"). In other words, when "we" is being done with respect, it implicitly includes an I-Thou relationship (I cannot truly understand thee unless WE share a set of common perceptions).

27. Here is one example of the importance of taking the four quadrants into account when dealing with states and structures.

We saw that all individuals have access to the three great realms/states of gross, subtle, and causal, simply because everybody wakes, dreams, and sleeps. Thus, even an infant has access to these three great realms. But the way in which the infant (or anybody) interprets these states depends in part upon its stage-structure of development (e.g., a subtle state can be experienced by the archaic, magic, mythic, rational, etc. structures, with a different "flavor" in each case). Moreover--and of crucial importance--all of the states and stages are firmly set in the four quadrants (intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social). Thus, an infant is often plunged into the subtle/dream state, but it will not have the dream thought "I must go to the grocery store and buy some cereal," for those specific sociocultural items have not yet entered its awareness. The infant definitely has access to a subtle state, but it has not yet developed the specific structures (of language, cognition, and cultural perceptions) that will allow it to have those specific thoughts in the subtle/dream state.

In short, the three general states are largely given, but the various structure-stages develop. And because all of them are set in the four quadrants, even the states (which are given prior to culture) are nonetheless firmly molded by the particular culture in which they unfold (because they are molded, in fact, by all four quadrants--intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social).

This allows us to see how an infant can definitely experience a subtle or causal state, but that state is nevertheless unpacked only by a preconventional, egocentric, preformal structure, not a postconventional, global, worldcentric structure (which has not yet developed). This more integral view allows us to steer a course between those who maintain that infants are directly in touch with a pure spiritual reality, and those who maintain that infants are narcissistic and preconventional. (See Integral Psychology, chap. 11, "Is There a Childhood Spirituality?")

As the infant develops (through the various levels/structures/waves of consciousness, with all of their various lines), those structures will increasingly provide the content for much of the subtle states (in addition to any truly archetypal material that is given as part of the subtle itself; but even the latter will be molded in its existence and expression by the four quadrants). Thus, at some point, the young child might indeed develop the conventional thought, "I must go to the grocery store," and that thought, molded by all four quadrants, might then invade the dream state. A child in a different culture might dream in French or Chinese; not "cereal" but "baguettes," and so on. In this way, the development in the structures (levels and lines) profoundly influences the content of the general states, which nonetheless are given in their general form.

This also allows us to see how all individuals can have access to the three great realms of being (gross, subtle, and causal), and yet still show stage-like development that colors these realms, for the development in the structures will often give content and form to the states. A four-quadrant analysis of states and structures thus allows us to incorporate the best of the ancient models of consciousness with more modern and postmodern research.

For further discussion of these themes, see Integral Psychology and the websites www.IntegralAge.org, http://surf.to/kenwilber, www.enlightenment.com, and iKosmos.com.

28. Even though the Upper-Right quadrant is today of such dramatic importance (as evidenced by the increasing dominance of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, biological psychiatry, etc.), it is the one about which I have written the least. The reasons for this are simple: (1) this quadrant is investigated by the scientific method, or empiric-analytic inquiry, which is fairly straightforward in its operation and interpretation; (2) there is an enormous amount of work already being done in this quadrant; (3) the data collected in this quadrant, once repeated, tends to be very stable and trustworthy, requiring only modest amounts of interpretation (unlike the interior quadrants, which are made of interpretations). In short, I have written the least about this quadrant not because it is the least important but because it needs the least attention.

In chapter 14 of Integral Psychology I give an overview of this quadrant and its investigation by the field of consciousness studies--particularly discussing the mind/body or Left/Right "hard problem" of consciousness (as summarized in endnote 32 below), and I give several dozen books that have begun the crucially important endeavor of mapping Upper Left and Upper Right correlations, a mapping on which any truly integral psychology will depend.

29. An integral approach also lends itself to a more comprehensive understanding of the various types of unconscious processes. The question regarding any sort of unconscious is: can an event occur that is part of the existence of an individual but does not register in consciousness? The answer appears to be definitely yes; but with an integral model we can be more precise. Evidence strongly suggests that aspects of virtually any level in any line in any quadrant can in fact be unconscious--and can to some degree be made conscious (directly or indirectly) through various techniques. This making conscious the unconscious is said to be connected with various types of liberation. For the kinds of unconscious processes (and liberation) in each of the four quadrants, see Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, note 28 for chap. 4 and note 1 for chap. 14. For the types of the unconscious in the Upper-Left quadrant, see The Atman Project (CW2) and The Eye of Spirit (CW7). I still consider the five types of unconscious in the UL (first outlined in The Atman Project) to be of considerable importance for individual psychology.

30. "An Integral Theory of Consciousness" was first outlined in an endnote in The Eye of Spirit; it was expanded and published, under that title, in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 1, 1997. That essay was revised, with an addition by Roger Walsh, for its inclusion in volume 7 of the Collected Works, which is the version I am referring to in this article.

31. All four of the quadrants have various types of waves, streams, and states (among other items). That is, all four quadrants possess levels of development and lines of development (e.g., grades and clades in biological evolution; technological lines of development through the levels of foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational, etc.); and all four quadrants also show various types of states (e.g., brain states, states of material affairs, gaseous states, etc.). Thus, all quadrants have waves, streams, and states (in addition to aggregates, heaps, patterns, etc). But in the Left-Hand quadrants, these are all ultimately related to consciousness itself (levels of consciousness, lines of consciousness, states of consciousness--both individual and collective), whereas in the Right-Hand quadrants, we find that levels, lines, and states primarily involve matter (e.g., physiological brain states, biomaterial grades and clades, technological modes, etc.). The Left-Hand quadrants are the interiors, the Right-Hand quadrants the exteriors, of each and every holon.

32. This model, because it includes the transpersonal waves (and especially the nondual) also has--or claims to have--an answer to the "hard problem" of consciousness (the problem of how we can get subjective experience out of an allegedly objective, material, nonexperiential world).

The wisdom traditions generally make a distinction between relative truth and absolute truth (the former referring to relative truths in the conventional, dualistic world, and the latter referring to the realization of the absolute or nondual world, a realization known as satori, moksha, metanoia, liberation, etc.). An integral model suggests that, from the relative perspective, all holons have four quadrants, including an interior and an exterior, and thus "subjective experience" and "objective matter/energy" arise correlatively from the very start. From the absolute perspective, an integral model suggests that the final answer to this problem is actually discovered only with satori, or the personal awakening to the nondual itself. The reason that the hard problem remains hard is the same reason that absolute truth cannot be stated in relative words: the nondual can only be known by a change of consciousness, not a change of words or maps or theories.

The hard problem ultimately revolves around the actual relation of subject and object, and that relation yields its final truth only in satori. We could say that what is "seen" in satori is that subject and object are nondual, but those are only words, and when stated thus, the absolute or nondual generates only paradoxes, antinomies, contradictions. The nondual "answer" to the hard problem can only be seen from the nondual state or level of consciousness itself, which generally takes years of contemplative discipline, and therefore is not an "answer" that can be found in a textbook or journal--and thus it will remain the hard problem for those who do not transform their own consciousness.

On the relative plane, the relative solution to the relation of subject and object is best captured, I believe, by a specific type of panpsychism, which can be found in various forms in Leibniz, Whitehead, Russell, Charles Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, David Chalmers, etc., although I believe it must be modified from a monological to a quadratic formulation, as suggested in Integral Psychology (especially note 15 for chap. 14).

David Chalmers, in a particularly illuminating discussion ("Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness," Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 1, 1997), reaches several important conclusions:

(1) "One is forced to the conclusion that no reductive explanation of consciousness can be given" (44). That is, consciousness (or experience or proto-experience--or as I technically prefer it, interiority) is an intrinsic, given component of the Kosmos, and it cannot be completely derived from, or reduced to, something else. In my view, this is because every holon has an interior and exterior (in both singular and plural). Thus, only an integral model that includes consciousness as fundamental will likely succeed.

(2) "Perhaps the best path to such an integrated view is offered by the Russellian picture on which (proto)experiential properties constitute the intrinsic nature of physical reality. Such a picture is most naturally associated with some form of panpsychism. The resulting integration may be panpsychism's greatest theoretical benefit" (42). As I would put it, the general idea is simply is that physics (and natural science) discloses only the objective, exterior, or extrinsic features of holons, whose interior or intrinsic features are subjective and experiential (or proto-experiential). In other words, all holons have a Left- and Right-Hand dimension.

(3) Once that interior/exterior problem is handled (with a modified panpsychism, which suggests that all holons have an interior and exterior), we face a second problem. "The second is the problem of how fundamental experiential or proto-experiential properties at the microscopic level somehow together constitute the sort of complex, unified experience that we possess. (This is a version of what Seager calls the 'combination problem'.) Such constitution is almost certainly required if our own experiences are not to be epiphenomenal, but it is not at all obvious how it should work: would not these tiny experiences instead add up to a jagged mess?... If [the combination problem] can be avoided, then I think [this modified panpsychism] is clearly the single most attractive way to make sense of the place of experience in the natural order" (29). Chalmers echoes Thomas Nagel in saying that the combination problem is central to the hard problem. As Chalmers says, "This leaves the combination problem, which is surely the hardest" (43).

But, as I try to show in Integral Psychology (especially note 15 for chap. 14), the combination problem is actually something that has been successfully handled for quite some time by developmental psychology (and Whiteheadian process philosophy). In essence, with each wave of development, the subject of one stage becomes an object of the next (as Robert Kegan would put it), so that each stage is a prehensive unification of all of its predecessors. In Whitehead's famous dictum, "The many become one and are increased by one." This process, when viewed from the interior, gives us, in healthy development, a cohesive and unified self-sense (reaching from sensation to perception to impulse to image to symbol... and so on up the waves of the Great Nest, where each wave transcends and includes--or moves beyond but embraces--its predecessors, thus gathering together into one the many subunits that precede it; thus each healthy wave successfully solves the combination problem). This same process, when viewed from the exterior, appears as, for example: many atoms become one molecule, many molecules become one cell, many cells become one organism, and so on.

On both the interior and the exterior, the result is not a "jagged mess" because each unit in those series is actually a holon--a whole that is a part of other wholes. As I try to show in SES and BH, both the interiors and the exteriors of the Kosmos are composed of holons (that is, all holons have an interior and exterior, in singular and plural); and thus the "combination problem" is actually an inherent feature of holons in all domains. All four quadrants are composed of whole/parts or holons, all the way up, all the way down, and because each holon is already a whole/part, each holon is an existing solution to the combination problem. Far from being rare or anomalous, holons are the fundamental ingredients of reality in all domains, and thus the combination problem is not so much a problem as it is an essential feature of the universe.

Assuming that the combination problem can be thus solved, the way is open for a holonic model of the Kosmos ("all-quadrants, all-levels"), a subset of which is an integral theory of consciousness. Of course, what I have presented here and in other writings is only the briefest skeleton of such a model, but I believe that these preliminary speculations are encouraging enough to pursue the project more rigorously.

Finally, let me return to the original point. The hard problem can perhaps best be solved on the relative plane with a holonic or integral model. But that is still just a conceptual tool on the relative plane. You can completely learn or memorize the holonic model, and yet you still experience your consciousness as residing "in here," on this side of your face, and the world as existing "out there," dualistically. That dualism is ultimately overcome, not with any model, no matter how "nondualistic" it calls itself, but only with satori, which is a direct and radical realization (or change in level of consciousness), and that transformation cannot be delivered by any model, but only by prolonged spiritual practice. As the traditions say, you must have the actual experience to see exactly what is revealed, just as you must actually see a sunset to know what is involved (cf. Eye to Eye). But the mystics are rather unanimous: the hard problem is finally (dis)solved only with enlightenment, or the permanent realization of the nondual wave. For a discussion of this theme, see The Eye of Spirit, second revised edition (found in CW7), especially chaps. 3 and 11 (particularly note 13), and the revised "An Integral Theory of Consciousness," also found in CW7.


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