PART I | PART II | PART III

PART I

THE DEMISE OF TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Shambhala: We have several topics we'd like to cover, so we should get right to it. First, your resignation from the transpersonal psychology movement. That caused quite a stir. You're supposed to be its foremost theorist, yet you walk away from it.

KW: Well, as I mentioned in a previous post on this site ["A Summary of My Psychological Model"], I quit referring to myself as a transpersonal psychologist in 1983. I guess because I never said much about it publicly, few noticed that I had basically resigned from the movement almost two decades ago. But at the time, this was a very difficult decision, rather upsetting to me, and I didn't make it lightly.

Shambhala: Do you consider yourself part of the transpersonal movement today?

KW: No, I don't.

Shambhala: Tell us about that.

KW: Well, the basic difficulty is that transpersonal psychology, to its great credit, was the first major school of present-day psychology to take spirituality seriously. Yet because there is a great deal of disagreement as to what actually constitutes spirituality itself, there is a great deal of disagreement as what constitutes transpersonal psychology. These are not minor inner tensions as one might find in, say, the various schools of psychoanalysis or Jungian psychology. They are instead major internal divisions and barbed disagreements as to the nature, scope, and role of transpersonal psychology itself. This makes the field more rife with political schisms and warring ideologies. This is why, I believe, that in three decades, and aside from one or two specific theorists, the actual school of transpersonal psychology has had no major impact outside of the Bay Area, and it is today, many people agree, in an irreversible, terminal decline.

What's left of the four forces (behavioristic, psychoanalytic, humanistic, transpersonal) will survive, if they survive at all, only by being taken up and into a fully integral approach [see "A Summary of My Psychological Model," section "The Death of Psychology and the Birth of the Integral," posted on this site.]

Shambhala: We'll come back to the integral approach later. But first, what are the major factions of transpersonal psychology as you see it?

KW: There are basically four of them, with many variations.

One, there is the magic-mythic group (using those words in a strictly Gebserian sense). This is an important dimension of human consciousness, and it needs to be included in any integral psychology. However, it is not, in my opinion, the highest or deepest reaches of being. This approach, it seems to me, therefore tends to confuse prerational mythic forms with postrational and formless spirit. It often tends toward the New Age, the mythopoetic movement, and various romanticisms that make it almost impossible to build bridges to the mainstream.

Two, there is the altered states group, which usually eschews development, stages, and sustained practice and looks instead to temporary nonordinary states, often induced by drugs or breathwork. This stance is often, but not necessarily, coupled with an eco-primitivism, a eulogizing of foraging tribal consciousness, which is claimed to be "nondissociated" (but is more likely simply "predifferentiated"), and this eco-primitivism is joined with extensive use of psychotropics, often ayahausca. Now I believe that the existence of altered and nonordinary states is also a very important part of a more integral psychology, but taken in and by themselves, they lead to many difficulties, because the notion itself ignores other, equally important aspects of the psyche, as well as an enormous amount of research that cannot be fitted into an altered states model. This approach often ends up with a back-to-Eden stance, and this retro-Romantic orientation also makes it very difficult to build bridges to the mainstream. And so this group, as does the previous group, renders transpersonal psychology isolated and alienated from the larger currents in the world, which is what in fact has happened, unfortunately.

Three, often allied with the nonordinary states school, but conceptually distinct, is the postmodern group, which attempts to read nondual awareness through the lens of pluralistic relativism, postmodernist critiques of universalism, and occasionally intense attacks on the perennial philosophy. There are many important truths in this postmodern approach, I believe, but taken in and by itself, it also leads to many problems, not least of which is boomeritis. [For a discussion of boomeritis, see A Theory of Everything and the Introduction to volume 7 of the Collected Works , posted on this site.] The author, having chided everybody else for their nasty universalisms--which are said to oppress and dominate people--then claims that his views about relativism are themselves universally binding on all cultures and all peoples. Hmmmm. Anyway, there are some very competent scholars working this green-meme approach, but I don't believe they have added anything especially new to the postmodernist dialogue of the past thirty years. In fact, critics say that "postmodern transpersonalists" have simply repeated what have now become rather tired clichés developed by other theorists. The problem, in my opinion, is that they have basically introduced a strong dose of postmodern performative contradictions into transpersonal psychology and thus weakened any moment of authentic transcendental consciousness. This, too, has done little to distinguish the field in the eyes of the larger world.

Shambhala: According to these green-meme or postmodernist critics, the perennial philosophy is supposed to be a source of oppression throughout history.

KW: Well, yes, I know, and modernity is likewise supposed to be the great oppressor. But I believe that shows a rather poor grasp of both the perennial philosophy and the nature of oppression. The really brutal oppressions throughout history were imposed by the likes of Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Sargon of Agade, Ramses, and so on. These guys did not suffer from the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm; they did not impose Kantian frameworks on the world; they did not read Plotinus and memorize the Great Chain of Being before invading and oppressing. If they did anything, they consulted their astrology charts and then beat the crap out of people.

The fact is, throughout history the real forces of oppression have come largely from various techno-economic modes of production. For example, the greatest social oppression generally occurred in advanced horticultural societies and early agrarian societies, which managed to enslave entire civilizations, and which existed long before any of the sophisticated forms of the perennial philosophy. And in any case it is still true that ideology follows the base, not vice versa. The main problem with modernity is that it allowed tribal consciousness to hijack modern technology, and that resulted in Auschwitz [see "The Terror of Tomorrow," posted on this site.] These postmodernist critics have the causes of oppression exactly backwards, in my opinion, and they give, in any event, a curiously selective reading of history in order to arrive at their conclusions.

Shambhala: Namely, the nastiness of everybody except the postmodernist.

KW: [Laughing] Something like that. Although, for some of these schools, foraging consciousness was okay, a type of proto-oneness, which again is a suspiciously selective reading of the evidence.

But look, I have included a great deal of postmodernist thinking in my own work. I am a big fan of many of the great postmodern writers, particularly Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, later Wittgenstein. You can find pages of endnotes in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality that deal with their works at length. And, if you don't mind a little highbrow name dropping, I have quoted with approval sections from Bataille, Althusser, Lacan, Barthes, de Man, Gramsci, Irigaray, Bourdieu, Jameson, Kristeva, Cixous, Bachelard, Baudrillard, Deleuze, and Lyotard. Boomeritis devotes several chapters to their important insights. The many positive and even brilliant contributions of postmodernism are summarized in a full chapter in The Marriage of Sense and Soul . The entire Lower-Left quadrant of my work is a homage to the postmodern genius. But in and by itself, postmodernism is a real dead-end, a fact that is now widely acknowledged (although nobody seems to know what to replace it with). And when used exclusively, it is the home of boomeritis and all the downsides of the mean green meme....

Shambhala: Okay, we'll come back to that. But what's wrong with finding parallels between, say, a certain type of Derridaean deconstruction and Buddhist Emptiness or the Madhymaka school?

KW: There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you keep certain profound differences in mind. The basic aim of deconstruction is to work with language, and while in the waking state or gross realm, attempt to come to a certain type of understanding about the ambiguity, instability, and paradoxicality of signifiers. The aim of Buddhist meditation is to strengthen consciousness so that it can give bare attention to all the phenomena that arise in the waking state AND the dream state AND the deep sleepless state, so that one awakens to an all-pervading consciousness or Buddhamind that is present in all three states--waking, dreaming, sleeping--and thus gain a great liberation from all transient states of being, high or low, sacred or profane.

Shambhala: Once you put it that way, there seems little in common.

KW: There is very little in common. All they share is a certain number of similarities about the limitations of language in the waking state. I find those similarities suggestive and useful, and I have written about that (e.g., in endnotes for SES). But if one merely stays with deconstruction, then one will not take up the arduous practice of yoga, of zen, of meditation, which will transform consciousness beyond the verbal mind altogether--in fact, beyond waking, dreaming, and sleeping, which is something deconstruction not only cannot do, but does not even imagine is possible. But until you are pursuing a yoga in which you remain conscious through the waking state, the dream state, and the deep sleep state, then you are merely identified with the superficial, surface, waking state, and you manipulate linguistic signifiers in that state and imagine that this "deconstruction" is somehow deconstructing samsara, whereas it is merely manipulating a rather surface consciousness and not getting into the deep causes of suffering, such as the attachment to the waking state itself. Deconstruction is something the ego does in the waking state in order to hold onto the ego.

Shambhala: Got it. Next point: mostly the postmodernists do not draw similarities with the great wisdom traditions or the perennial philosophy, but rather they strongly attack them as being oppressive. As for the perennial philosophy, you yourself have also been a harsh critic of it, so why pick on the postmodernists in this regard?

KW: That's true. Or more precisely, I try to look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of the perennial philosophy, whereas most postmodernists (including postmodern transpersonalists) merely trash it. The strengths of the great wisdom traditions are many, and include the fact that these were some of the great pioneers of higher states and stages of consciousness development, and as such they deserve an enormous amount of honor and respect. Also, to the extent that Spirit is timeless, or has a dimension that is timeless, these pioneers were the first to awaken to that eternal state, and this is an awesome accomplishment, to which the only correct response, it seems to me, is a deep and humble bow, something the strong postmodern ego would never contemplate.

The downsides are also many, however: the perennial philosophy was usually stated in forms that were static and fixed instead of dynamical processes; the psychological and cosmological hierarchies were often too rigid; evolution over geological and phylogenetic time was not understood; the archetypes were therefore stated as unchangeable forms rather than kosmic habits; the quadrants were not sufficiently understood; and so on. Criticisms of the perennial philosophy can be found in almost all my books (see, e.g., Integral Psychology , One Taste , the Introductions to CW volumes 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8, posted on this site). But what I have basically tried to do is take the timeless wisdom of the great premodern traditions and add the complementary truths of the modern and postmodern mind, to give us something resembling a more integral view embracing the truths of all of those great epochs, premodern and modern and postmodern.

Shambhala: You mentioned a fourth group in the general transpersonal movement.

KW: The fourth group is the integral approach. This school claims that it incorporates (or "transcends and includes") the essentials of all of the other schools, but that is exactly what is sharply disputed by all of them. Still, the integral approach includes the magic-mythic, the postmodern turn, the importance of nonordinary states, along with structures, stages, realms, lines, quadrants, and so on. For this reason, the integral approach has demonstrably built numerous bridges to the mainstream and has achieved a modest amount of acceptance in this regard. You can find a list of integral psychologists, or those who follow the integral approach, in "A Summary of My Psychological Model" [posted on this site].

Shambhala: But the integral school is the one that you are now associated with, and you are saying that it is not really a part of transpersonal.

KW: That's right. In my opinion, Integral Psychology is more inclusive than any of the traditional schools of Transpersonal Psychology, which is why it is no longer affiliated with the transpersonal movement. We usually don't even refer to it as a "psychology," but simply the integral approach, since it is basically "all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, etc." and that reaches beyond any form of psychology.

Shambhala: You think psychology is dead anyway.

KW: As a discipline, yes. Has been for almost a decade. It's just not taken seriously outside of its own diminishing circles. It has become a "dusty discipline." It is being eaten alive by the scientific approaches of the Right-Hand quadrants (such as cognitive science) and it is being dissolved and deconstructed by the mean green meme in the Left-Hand quadrants. It seems to be on its last legs.

Shambhala: You outline this, and a possible remedy, in "The Death of Psychology and the Birth of the Integral," the first section in "An Introduction to My Psychological Model," posted on this site.

KW: Yes.

Shambhala: Is this why you resigned as consulting editor at the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology ?

KW: Yes. But look, my point about all four of those groups is simply that, with a few exceptions, not only do those schools not get along, they actually suffer from their associations with the others--and they all basically agree that this is the case. For example, if the tribal-foraging group allows a New-Age speaker at one of its conferences, the audience gets rather angry. If an integral conference has postmodern pluralists or green-meme presenters trying to dominate the discussion with endless processing, the audience gets visibly bored. None of the four groups have much to offer the others, except irritation.

Shambhala: No wonder there has been no coherent transpersonal approach to which all of the subschools could agree on.

KW: I think that's right. Each school has its own approach and its own theory. In fact, the various schools are basically anchored in different levels of consciousness, which is why they will likely never be able to agree with each other. The magic-mythic model is predominantly red/blue; the postmodernist model is predominantly green; and the altered states model is plugged into higher, transmental, subtle and causal states (but without including structures). This is why, in my opinion, few of them are open to outside research and evidence--they simply ignore that which does not fit their school's prevailing paradigm, which is anchored primarily in their own personal level of development. Instead of trying to integrate the various approaches and the different paradigms--which would require a larger awakening to their own full potentials represented by all the paradigms taken as a whole--they tend to dismiss the others as being "old paradigm" or "patriarchal" or "worthless" or whatnot. So very little integrative systems have come out of this ideological warfare. This is one of the many reasons that anything labeled "transpersonal" cannot get any funding at all, which is why most gifted researchers and professors have long ago bailed out of the field, due to sheer economic necessity.

Shambhala: So what's the solution?

KW: Well, for starters, I think that each of the four groups ought to simply go their own way. The reason I believe this is that, by their own accounts, each of them is professionally hurt by its association with the others . If you are trying to reach the mainstream, for example, you cannot go into Harvard with a psychology that includes New-Age crystals--you will definitely be dead meat. If, on the other hand, your aim is to reach the New-Age individuals, then having Harvard professors along who demand empirical evidence will ruin the whole experience, because their "skepticism" and "non-faith" will prevent a certain group enthusiasm. You cannot believably take the results of psychedelic drug experiences to the mainstream, because the mainstream will dismiss all such spirituality as drug-induced hallucinations, which then cripples the whole field, and so on. This is all very unfortunate, in my opinion, but it is a reality, and a reality that the field has persistently ignored, which has finally brought it to the graveyard.

Each of these schools is hurt by the others, so I say, let the hurting stop. It is time for a healthy differentiation (on the way to a higher integration, or a more truly integral approach). Instead of trying to put all four of these camps into the same tent--where all they do is snipe at each other--let them get four different tents, so that each can begin to focus and concentrate on what they do best, without heckling from the others. This would be a much healthier approach, it seems to me. I truly wish the field well, but I have no desire to participate in this self-demolition. As I said, I think that all four approaches have something very important to offer, and they all need a little breathing room to gather their resources, so that is what they should do.

And then, at some point, as a more genuinely integral approach emerges, systematic ways to include all of them might suggest themselves (that is, systematic ways to differentiate-and-integrate all of them, including--and this is most important--including all of the conventional schools as well). I have offered one such inclusive approach in Integral Psychology , but there could be many others. We shall see. But as the field is now, it is in self-cannibalization, which in any event is completely ignored by the larger world, and the integral approach is differentiating from that unfortunate atmosphere. I just don't see any other way to proceed here.

SMILE WHEN YOU SAY THAT, MISTER

Shambhala: Now this differentiation from transpersonal seems to be part of a larger movement in your overall theoretical work. As you "transcend and include" more and more fields in an integral approach, you increasingly feel the need to differentiate from narrower or less-inclusive approaches. In a few instances in your later writings, this differentiation was stated polemically, which is uncharacteristic of your writings on the whole. Do you mind revisiting that issue?

KW: The polemical endnotes in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality ?

Shambhala: Yes. Why you included them. Rumor has it that the polemical endnotes were not present in the original draft.

KW: That's true, they weren't. I went through a very difficult period of decision about whether to include them or not. I consulted over two dozen friends, colleagues, and associates. Almost unanimously, the recommendation was to include the endnotes. The idea was that it was time to shake the field up and begin this process of differentiation (on the way to a higher integration). Roger Walsh was teaching a seminar at the University of California, Irvine, and he was using the second draft of SES as a text for the class--the one with the polemical endnotes added--and so I used those students as a focus group. By the end of the first chapter, the group voted almost unanimously to take the notes out--they were too upsetting. But by the end of the book, they voted almost unanimously to leave all the notes in--they saw exactly what I was trying to do. So that was pretty interesting. Anyway, I finally decided to leave them in.

Shambhala: Okay, what were you trying to do? Spell it out for us.

KW: Well, there are several ways you can explain it (or my critics would say, rationalize it), but the easiest is to use Spiral Dynamics [for a brief explanation of Spiral Dynamics, see the section below, "Spiral Dynamics and the Waves of Existence"]. Put simply, the endnotes were meant to differentiate the green meme from second tier. That is, the endnotes were a second-tier criticism of the first-tier green meme, and they were meant to help differentiate readers along those lines--they were meant to allow readers to see very clearly which meme they were identified with: green or turquoise. And the responses I got made it clear where people were coming from: either a very angry green reaction, or a very sympathetic turquoise agreement. Green attacked me back, just as viciously as I had dished it out, which was pretty cool, actually; and turquoise wrote me with tons of praise and agreement. The book became very controversial for this reason, with massive green anger and equally large turquoise praise. But this was something of a turning point for the field, because nobody would ever again assume that green and turquoise were all in the same camp--these are two quite different approaches to consciousness, history, reality, and spirituality. Of course, for Spiral Dynamics, turquoise transcends and includes green, which is the stance that I have always taken and the stance that was advanced in the endnotes, but this is exactly what green reacted angrily against. But all of this was brought to the surface with those notes, and I don't think it would or could have happened any other way.

Shambhala: Okay, but your critics say that these polemical endnotes--well, actually, there really aren't that many of them, maybe one or two dozen out of over a thousand--but they say that these notes show that you are by nature a polemical, angry, arrogant... well, dickhead.

KW: [ Laughing] Look, I am not claiming that I'm free of all that. I'd like to think that I'm just as screwed up as the next guy. But what the critics say would be true if all that polemic were present in the first draft, that it just poured out of me and I couldn't help it. But the notes were not in the first draft; they were put into the second draft after long and careful deliberation with numerous other scholars. This was no hot-headed outburst. If this were characteristic of me altogether, then you would find tons of polemic in all my previous books, whereas in fact, as many people have pointed out, there is not a single polemical sentence in any of my previous dozen or so books.

Shambhala: So are you saying that you weren't angry at all when you were writing those notes?

KW: No, I'm not saying that either. I'm saying that under any other circumstances I would have edited the anger out of those notes, because it's not appropriate to include that in a scholarly work, but in this case I decided to leave it in. There is an atmosphere of anger and anguish permeating SES, as well as Brief History and Eye of Spirit --my students call this "the angry period" [see the Introduction to CW6, posted on this site]--anger at what extreme, deconstructive postmodernism and the mean green meme had done to cultural studies, spirituality, and education in general, conventional as well as alternative. [See the Introduction to CW8, posted on this site.] All of this was chronicled in another book I wrote at the time, Boomeritis.

Shambhala: Okay, but your critics also say that your message would have been heard and would have been much more readily accepted if you had been gentler with the delivery.

KW: I understand that, but that is exactly the point I dispute. This type of integral message has been put out, not only in my previous books, but by great integral writers from James Mark Baldwin to Jean Gebser to Michael Murphy. And that integral message was basically ignored for several decades, while the bulk of the accepted paradigms were magic-mythic (purple/red), nonordinary states, or postmodernist (green), the three subgroups described above, without any understanding of how to integrate all of them into a wider synthesis--which would also be a sharp criticism of the narrowness of each approach taken in and by itself, which is indeed what the endnotes criticized. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and so the endnotes squeaked a lot and got a lot of grease. This brought these issues to the fore, and eventually the good repercussions considerably outweighed the bad.

Shambhala: Brief History and The Eye of Spirit have a few polemical sentences, but then all of your academic books since then, such as The Marriage of Sense and Soul and Integral Psychology and A Theory of Everything have been without any polemic at all. You seem to have reverted to your typical style.

KW: With one exception. As I briefly mentioned, I wrote one other somewhat polemical book during that period, a book called Boomeritis. And I'd like to hope that my style can still be sharp and acerbic were appropriate, maybe even witty on a good day, although I hope not mean-spirited, which is certainly not my intent.

Shambhala: When is Boomeritis coming out?

KW: Shambhala will bring it out in the fall of 2001. Among the green-meme population, it will definitely cement my reputation as a totally arrogant, nasty, dominating... well, as you put it, dickhead.

Shambhala: That's certainly our experience of you.

KW: [Laughing] Yes, thank you very much.

Shambhala: We should mention that you have done a revised, second edition of SES--50 new pages of text and 6 new diagrams--which is available as CW6 and is now just out in paperback.

KW: Yes, for the CW I did revised second editions of SES, Brief History , and The Eye of Spirit . They will also be out in paperback.

Shambhala: Okay, let's get back to this tension between green and turquoise, or between green and second tier. How do you see that? And why is it important?

KW: In Integral Psychology I present charts that summarize over 100 developmental psychologists, East and West, ancient and modern and postmodern. Spiral Dynamics is only one of the 100, but I have recently been using it quite a bit because it is simple and fairly easy to learn, even for beginners. Based on extensive research begun by Clare Graves, Spiral Dynamics (developed by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan) sees human beings evolving or developing through eight major waves of consciousness. For convenience, I will reprint my brief summary of these from A Theory of Everything [those familiar with Spiral Dynamics can go directly to the beginning of Part II--"Interviews Continues: The Green Meme"]:

SPIRAL DYNAMICS AND THE WAVES OF EXISTENCE

The first six levels are "subsistence levels" marked by "first-tier thinking." Then there occurs a revolutionary shift in consciousness: the emergence of "being levels" and "second-tier thinking," of which there are two major waves. Here is a brief description of all eight waves, the percentage of the world population at each wave, and the percentage of social power held by each.

1. Beige: Archaic-Instinctual . The level of basic survival; food, water, warmth, sex, and safety have priority. Uses habits and instincts just to survive. Distinct self is barely awakened or sustained. Forms into survival bands to perpetuate life.

Where seen: First human societies, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer's victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, shell shock. Approximately 0.1% of the adult population, 0% power.

2. Purple: Magical-Animistic . Thinking is animistic; magical spirits, good and bad, swarm the earth leaving blessings, curses, and spells which determine events. Forms into ethnic tribes . The spirits exist in ancestors and bond the tribe. Kinship and lineage establish political links. Sounds "holistic" but is actually atomistic: "there is a name for each bend in the river but no name for the river."

Where seen: Belief in voodoo-like curses, blood oaths, ancient grudges, good luck charms, family rituals, magical ethnic beliefs and superstitions; strong in Third-World settings, gangs, athletic teams, and corporate "tribes." 10% of the population, 1% of the power.

3. Red: Power Gods . First emergence of a self distinct from the tribe; powerful, impulsive, egocentric, heroic. Magical-mythic spirits, dragons, beasts, and powerful people. Archetypal gods and goddesses, powerful beings, forces to be reckoned with, both good and bad. Feudal lords protect underlings in exchange for obedience and labor. The basis of feudal empires --power and glory. The world is a jungle full of threats and predators. Conquers, out-foxes, and dominates; enjoys self to the fullest without regret or remorse; be here now.

Where seen: The "terrible twos," rebellious youth, frontier mentalities, feudal kingdoms, epic heroes, James Bond villains, gang leaders, soldiers of fortune, New-Age narcissism, wild rock stars, Atilla the Hun, Lord of the Flies . 20% of the population, 5% of the power.

4. Blue: Mythic Order . Life has meaning, direction, and purpose, with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or Order. This righteous Order enforces a code of conduct based on absolutist and unvarying principles of "right" and "wrong." Violating the code or rules has severe, perhaps everlasting repercussions. Following the code yields rewards for the faithful. Basis of ancient nations . Rigid social hierarchies; paternalistic; one right way and only one right way to think about everything. Law and order; impulsivity controlled through guilt; concrete-literal and fundamentalist belief; obedience to the rule of Order; strongly conventional and conformist. Often "religious" or "mythic" [in the mythic-membership sense; Graves and Beck refer to it as the "saintly/absolutistic" level], but can be secular or atheistic Order or Mission.

Where seen: Puritan America, Confucian China, Dickensian England, Singapore discipline, totalitarianism, codes of chivalry and honor, charitable good deeds, religious fundamentalism (e.g., Christian and Islamic), Boy and Girl Scouts, "moral majority," patriotism. 40% of the population, 30% of the power.

5. Orange: Scientific Achievement . At this wave, the self "escapes" from the "herd mentality" of blue, and seeks truth and meaning in individualistic terms--hypothetico-deductive, experimental, objective, mechanistic, operational--"scientific" in the typical sense. The world is a rational and well-oiled machine with natural laws that can be learned, mastered, and manipulated for one's own purposes. Highly achievement oriented, especially (in America) toward materialistic gains. The laws of science rule politics, the economy, and human events. The world is a chess-board on which games are played as winners gain pre-eminence and perks over losers. Marketplace alliances; manipulate earth's resources for one's strategic gains. Basis of corporate states .

Where seen: The Enlightenment, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged , Wall Street, emerging middle classes around the world, cosmetics industry, trophy hunting, colonialism, the Cold War, fashion industry, materialism, secular humanism, liberal self-interest. 30% of the population, 50% of the power.

6. Green: The Sensitive Self . Communitarian, human bonding, ecological sensitivity, networking. The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness; feelings and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the earth, Gaia, life. Against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking. Permeable self, relational self, group intermeshing. Emphasis on dialogue, relationships. Basis of value communities (i.e., freely chosen affiliations based on shared sentiments). Reaches decisions through reconciliation and consensus (downside: interminable "processing" and incapacity to reach decisions). Refresh spirituality, bring harmony, enrich human potential. Strongly egalitarian, anti-hierarchy, pluralistic values, social construction of reality, diversity, multiculturalism, relativistic value systems; this worldview is often called pluralistic relativism . Subjective, nonlinear thinking; shows a greater degree of affective warmth, sensitivity, and caring, for earth and all its inhabitants.

Where seen: Deep ecology, postmodernism, Netherlands idealism, Rogerian counseling, Canadian health care, humanistic psychology, liberation theology, cooperative inquiry, World Council of Churches, Greenpeace, animal rights, ecofeminism, post-colonialism, Foucault/Derrida, politically correct, diversity movements, human rights issues, ecopsychology. 10% of the population, 15% of the power. [Note: this is 10% of the world population. Don Beck estimates that around 20-25% of the American population is green.]

With the completion of the green meme, human consciousness is poised for a quantum jump into "second-tier thinking." Clare Graves referred to this as a "momentous leap," where "a chasm of unbelievable depth of meaning is crossed." In essence, with second-tier consciousness, one can think both vertically and horizontally, using both hierarchies and heterarchies (both ranking and linking). One can therefore, for the first time, vividly grasp the entire spectrum of interior development , and thus see that each level, each meme, each wave is crucially important for the health of the overall Spiral.

As I would word it, each wave is "transcend and include." That is, each wave goes beyond (or transcends) its predecessor, and yet it includes or embraces it in its own makeup. For example, a cell transcends but includes molecules, which transcend but include atoms. To say that a molecule goes beyond an atom is not to say that molecules hate atoms, but that they love them: they embrace them in their own makeup; they include them, they don't marginalize them. Just so, each wave of existence is a fundamental ingredient of all subsequent waves, and thus each is to be cherished and embraced.

Moreover, each wave can itself be activated or reactivated as life circumstances warrant. In emergency situations, we can activate red power drives; in response to chaos, we might need to activate blue order; in looking for a new job, we might need orange achievement drives; in marriage and with friends, close green bonding. All of these memes have something important to contribute.

But what none of the first-tier memes can do, on their own, is fully appreciate the existence of the other memes. Each of the first-tier memes thinks that its worldview is the correct or best perspective. It reacts negatively if challenged; it lashes out, using its own tools, whenever it is threatened. Blue order is very uncomfortable with both red impulsiveness and orange individualism. Orange individualism thinks blue order is for suckers and green egalitarianism is weak and woo-woo. Green egalitarianism cannot easily abide excellence and value rankings, big pictures, hierarchies, or anything that appears authoritarian, and thus green reacts strongly to blue, orange, and anything post-green.

All of that begins to change with second-tier thinking. Because second-tier consciousness is fully aware of the interior stages of development--even if it cannot articulate them in a technical fashion--it steps back and grasps the big picture, and thus second-tier thinking appreciates the necessary role that all of the various memes play . Second-tier awareness thinks in terms of the overall spiral of existence, and not merely in the terms of any one level.

Where the green meme begins to grasp the numerous different systems and pluralistic contexts that exist in different cultures (which is why it is indeed the sensitive self, i.e., sensitive to the marginalization of others), second-tier thinking goes one step further. It looks for the rich contexts that link and join these pluralistic systems, and thus it takes these separate systems and begins to embrace, include, and integrate them into holistic spirals and integral meshworks. Second-tier thinking, in other words, is instrumental in moving from relativism to holism, or from pluralism to integralism .

The extensive research of Graves, Beck, and Cowan indicates that there are at least two major waves to this second-tier integral consciousness:

7. Yellow: Integrative . Life is a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies [holarchies], systems, and forms. Flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality have the highest priority. Differences and pluralities can be integrated into interdependent, natural flows. Egalitarianism is complemented with natural degrees of ranking and excellence. Knowledge and competency should supersede power, status, or group sensitivity. The prevailing world order is the result of the existence of different levels of reality (memes) and the inevitable patterns of movement up and down the dynamic spiral. Good governance facilitates the emergence of entities through the levels of increasing complexity (nested hierarchy). 1% of the population, 5% of the power.

8. Turquoise: Holistic . Universal holistic system, holons/waves of integrative energies; unites feeling with knowledge; multiple levels interwoven into one conscious system. Universal order, but in a living, conscious fashion, not based on external rules (blue) or group bonds (green). A "grand unification" [a "theory of everything" or T.O.E.] is possible, in theory and in actuality. Sometimes involves the emergence of a new spirituality as a meshwork of all existence. Turquoise thinking uses the entire Spiral; sees multiple levels of interaction; detects harmonics, the mystical forces, and the pervasive flow-states that permeate any organization. 0.1% of the population, 1% of the power.

With less than 2 percent of the population at second-tier thinking (and only 0.1 percent at turquoise), second-tier consciousness is relatively rare because it is now the "leading-edge" of collective human evolution. As examples, Beck and Cowan mention items that include Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere, chaos and complexity theories, universal systems thinking, integral-holistic theories, Gandhi's and Mandela's pluralistic integration, with increases in frequency definitely on the way, and even higher memes still in the offing....

The Jump to Second-Tier Consciousness

As Beck and Cowan point out, second-tier thinking has to emerge in the face of much resistance from first-tier thinking. In fact, a version of the postmodern green meme, with its pluralism and relativism, has actively fought the emergence of more integrative and holistic thinking. And yet without second-tier thinking, as Graves, Beck, and Cowan point out, humanity is destined to remain victims of a global "auto-immune disease," where various memes turn on each other in an attempt to establish supremacy.

This is why many arguments are not really a matter of the better objective evidence, but of the subjective level of those arguing. No amount of orange scientific evidence will convince blue mythic believers; no amount of green bonding will impress orange aggressiveness; no amount of turquoise holism will dislodge green pluralism--unless the individual is ready to develop forward through the dynamic spiral of consciousness unfolding. This is why "cross-level" debates are rarely resolved, and all parties usually feel unheard and unappreciated.

Likewise, nothing that can be said in this book will convince you that a T.O.E. is possible, unless you already have a touch of turquoise coloring your cognitive palette (and then you will think, on almost every page, "I already knew that! I just didn't know how to articulate it").

As we were saying, first-tier memes generally resist the emergence of second-tier memes. Scientific materialism (orange) is aggressively reductionistic toward second-tier constructs, attempting to reduce all interior stages to objective neuronal fireworks. Mythic fundamentalism (blue) is often outraged at what it sees as attempts to unseat its given Order. Egocentrism (red) ignores second tier altogether. Magic (purple) puts a hex on it. Green accuses second-tier consciousness of being authoritarian, rigidly hierarchical, patriarchal, marginalizing, oppressive, racist, and sexist.

Green has been in charge of cultural studies for the past three decades. You will probably already have recognized many of the standard catch words of the green meme: pluralism, relativism, diversity, multiculturalism, deconstruction, anti-hierarchy, and so on.

On the one hand, the pluralistic relativism of green has nobly enlarged the canon of cultural studies to include many previously marginalized peoples, ideas, and narratives. It has acted with sensitivity and care in attempting to redress social imbalances and avoid exclusionary practices. It has been responsible for basic initiatives in civil rights and environmental protection. It has developed strong and often convincing critiques of the philosophies, metaphysics, and social practices of the conventional religious (blue) and scientific (orange) memes, with their often exclusionary, patriarchal, sexist, and colonialistic agendas.

On the other hand, as effective as these critiques of pre-green stages have been, green has attempted to turn its guns on all post-green stages as well , with the most unfortunate results. This has made it very difficult, and often impossible, for green to move forward into more holistic, integral constructions.

Because pluralistic relativism (green) moves beyond mythic absolutisms (blue) and formal rationality (orange) into richly textured and individualistic contexts, one of its defining characteristics is its strong subjectivism. This means that its sanctions for truth and goodness are established largely by individual preferences (as long as the individual is not harming others). What is true for you is not necessarily true for me; what is right is simply what individuals or cultures happen to agree on at any given moment; there are no universal claims for knowledge or truth; each person is free to find his or her own values, which are not binding on anybody else. "You do your thing, I do mine" is a popular summary of this stance.

This is why the self at this stage is indeed the "sensitive self." Precisely because it is aware of the many different contexts and numerous different types of truth (pluralism), it bends over backwards in an attempt to let each truth have its own say, without marginalizing or belittling any. As with the catch words "anti-hierarchy," "pluralism," "relativism," and "egalitarianism," whenever you hear the word "marginalization" and a criticism of it, you are almost always in the presence of a green meme.

This noble intent, of course, has its downside. Meetings that are run on green principles tend to follow a similar course: everybody is allowed to express his or her feelings, which often takes hours; there is an almost interminable processing of opinions, often reaching no decision or course of action, since a specific course of action would likely exclude somebody. Thus there are often calls for an inclusionary, nonmarginalizing, compassionate embrace of all views, but exactly how to do this is rarely spelled out, since in reality not all views are of equal merit. The meeting is considered a success, not if a conclusion is reached, but if everybody has a chance to share their feelings. Since no view is supposed to be inherently better than another, no real course of action can be recommended, other than sharing all views. If any statements are made with certainty, it is how oppressive and nasty all the alternative conceptions are. There was a saying common in the sixties: "Freedom is an endless meeting." Well, the endless part was certainly right.

In academia, this pluralistic relativism is the dominant stance. As Colin McGuinn summarizes it: "According to this conception, human reason is inherently local, culture-relative, rooted in the variable facts of human nature and history, a matter of divergent 'practices' and 'forms of life' and 'frames of reference' and 'conceptual schemes.' There are no norms of reasoning that transcend what is accepted by a society or an epoch, no objective justifications for belief that everyone must respect on pain of cognitive malfunction. To be valid is to be taken to be valid, and different people can have legitimately different patterns of taking. In the end, the only justifications for belief have the form 'justified for me.'" As Clare Graves put it, "This system sees the world relativistically. Thinking shows an almost radical, almost compulsive emphasis on seeing everything from a relativistic, subjective frame of reference."

The point is perhaps obvious: because pluralistic relativism has such an intensely subjectivistic stance, it is especially prey to narcissism. And exactly that is the crux of the problem: pluralism becomes a supermagnet for narcissism . Pluralism becomes an unwitting home for the Culture of Narcissism, and narcissism is a great denier of any integral culture in general and any T.O.E. in particular (because narcissism refuses to step outside of its own subjective orbit and hence it cannot allow truths other than its own). Thus, on our list of obstacles to a genuine Theory of Everything, we might list the Culture of Narcissism and the exclusive dominance of the green meme....

PART I | PART II | PART III