Searching for Centaur - Chris Dierkes - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-28T10:39:37Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/searching-for-centaur-chris-dierkes?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A61741&xg_source=activity&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThank you Neelesh!tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-08-02:5301756:Comment:618842015-08-02T04:16:32.631ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Thank you Neelesh!</p>
<p>Thank you Neelesh!</p> To your point about 'spontane…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-08-02:5301756:Comment:619262015-08-02T04:11:13.487ZNeelesh Marikhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/NeeleshMarik
<p>To your point about 'spontaneous will', David, I find Almaas' words coming close to describing it the way I intuit its meaning:</p>
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<p><span>'The inquiry and the revelation can become so connected that, at some point, they are one movement. Inquiry becomes a dynamic revelation, a nondoing with a dynamic engagement.'…</span></p>
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<p>To your point about 'spontaneous will', David, I find Almaas' words coming close to describing it the way I intuit its meaning:</p>
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<p><span>'The inquiry and the revelation can become so connected that, at some point, they are one movement. Inquiry becomes a dynamic revelation, a nondoing with a dynamic engagement.'</span></p>
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<p><span><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/nondoing/2496" target="_blank">http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/nondoing/2496</a></span></p> Thanks David for pointing to…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-08-02:5301756:Comment:617562015-08-02T03:15:10.172ZNeelesh Marikhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/NeeleshMarik
<p>Thanks David for pointing to Theresa Silow's paper in this thread, which I just read. Am posting a few reflections here as they seem applicable to the Centaur theme.</p>
<p>Silow first conducts a neat UL-UR correlation of Gebser's structures with the functioning of the nervous system as understood through <strong>Polyvagal Theory</strong> (PVT), as also a phylogeny-ontogeny correlation:</p>
<p>1. The Archaic structure of 'deep sleep' mode with the <strong>Dorsal Vagal Complex…</strong></p>
<p>Thanks David for pointing to Theresa Silow's paper in this thread, which I just read. Am posting a few reflections here as they seem applicable to the Centaur theme.</p>
<p>Silow first conducts a neat UL-UR correlation of Gebser's structures with the functioning of the nervous system as understood through <strong>Polyvagal Theory</strong> (PVT), as also a phylogeny-ontogeny correlation:</p>
<p>1. The Archaic structure of 'deep sleep' mode with the <strong>Dorsal Vagal Complex</strong> effectuating a 'shutdown'</p>
<p>2. The Magic structure of 'minimal distancing from nature to control it' with the arousal of the <strong>Sympathetic</strong> 'fight and flight' nervous system</p>
<p>3. The Mythic structure of the 'imaginal soul' with the <strong>Ventral Vagal Complex</strong> that sets the 'social engagement system' into play. She adds 'For the social engagement system to come into action and regulate the organism, the experience of safety is essential. If safety is not sufficiently present, then the fight-flight mechanism comes into action, or if a lack of safety is extremely pronounced or enduring, then the immobility response comes into action.' (p 17)</p>
<p>4. The Mental- Rational structure with Neo-Cortex driven functioning, where voluntary operations begin to supersede the autonomous system. This 4th correlation is proposed by Silow extrapolating from PVT.</p>
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<p>Silow then weaves in the principles of Living Systems Theory - <strong>Fractals</strong> (self-similar replication), <strong>Patterns of Organization</strong> (autopoiesis), <strong>Dissipative Structure</strong>s and the <strong>Embodiment Process </strong>into describing the Evolutionary/ Developmental Spiral - a 'continuing spiral moving from embeddedness to differentiation and integration, the sequence of which gets repeated again and again through the developmental process'. Wilber deals with this in great detail in his work.</p>
<p>Relevant points which relate to Chris' paper theme, and the IPS discourse currently are:</p>
<p>a) 'With the increased ability to name things, direct experience of the numinous is diminished' (p 9) because 'reason was put above revelation' (p 11), making rational consciousness 'the least participatory type of consciousness'. (p 12), and 'The rational structure has gone awry, largely due to the introduction and solidification of perspectivity' (p 27) pointing to the subtly suppressive ascendency of the vision-logic over the vision-image.</p>
<p>b) From the Gebserian integral perspective, 'there is no such thing as lower and higher' which Silow posits is a construct 'deeply wedded to a mental/ rational consciousness in its tendency for directionality, which always creates a hierarchical relationship'</p>
<p>c) 'Integration of all structures of consciousness is not to be confused with an “expansion of consciousness,” which would indicate a quantification of consciousness. To the contrary, Gebser (1985) describes it as “intensification of consciousness” that is outside any quantitative or qualitative evaluation', such intensification requiring 'a complete letting go of a dualistic notion of body and soul towards an awareness of both as unified phenomena' wherein 'time is experienced as “intensity” that is not divisive' (p 28). As a result 'such freedom is not simply freedom <i>from</i> previous time forms, but rather freedom <i>for</i> all time forms, so that all earlier forms of time are co-existent' (p 29)</p>
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<p></p> As previously noted, I apprec…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-08-01:5301756:Comment:617512015-08-01T02:51:22.550ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>As previously noted, I appreciate how Dierkes lays out Wilber's writing on the Centaur, along the lines of his 5 stages. Having now finally finished reading the paper, I can also say a bit more...</p>
<p>I really appreciated the section on "Examples of the Centaur in Real Time." When reading self-help type books, the examples and case studies provided often feel to me like filler material that doesn't add much to my understanding. I did not have that experience with this paper - each…</p>
<p>As previously noted, I appreciate how Dierkes lays out Wilber's writing on the Centaur, along the lines of his 5 stages. Having now finally finished reading the paper, I can also say a bit more...</p>
<p>I really appreciated the section on "Examples of the Centaur in Real Time." When reading self-help type books, the examples and case studies provided often feel to me like filler material that doesn't add much to my understanding. I did not have that experience with this paper - each example was engaging and really brought into the concrete the different approaches Chris takes in using these constructs with clients - the noetic existentialist approach, the somatic existentialist, and the "organismic experiencing" of mature fantasy (or is it 'phantasy'? - I had to <a href="http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/concepts/phantasy_fantasy.htm" target="_blank">look it up</a> to determine the difference).</p>
<p>The deeper and wider implications of all this are explored in part III, in practical terms and for the integral community in general. I resonate with pretty much everything that is said here, and there are a few cross-over parallels with my own paper - we both reference Chris's Gebserian piece at Beams & Struts on <a href="http://www.beamsandstruts.com/bits-a-pieces/item/988-do-cultures-develop?-an-integral-question" target="_blank">Do Culture's Develop?</a> and are in agreement about the integral community's general (mis)understanding of Jean Gebser (a number of presenters this year prominently featured Gebser's ideas, which I found quite encouraging). Dierkes here offers a very clear articulation of some the differences between Wilberian and Gebserian thought.</p>
<p>The concluding section on political, economic consequences is equally insightful, where he ties in the over emphasis on vision logic with the integral community's "propensity towards a non-critical relationship to neoliberal economics and the culture of high-end personal growth and spiritual products. The more radical nature of integral is thereby softened, leaving at its best more reformist offerings, and at its worst, total selling out and massive naivete of the injustices of the world in which we live." </p>
<p>He writes, "Where integral is not grounded in centauric consciousness, then the ethical and political core of integral, as articulated in <u>Sex, Ecology, and Consciousness</u> becomes muffled, if not outright muted. Too easily vision-logic cognition becomes unmoored from centauric existential political, social, ecological, and economic concerns."</p>
<p>In light of some of the arguments made in the 3D debate on capitalism, such as the defense of capitalism by way of an example given where a corporation on its own developed a progressive policy on gay rights in the workplace, I especially appreciate this critique from Dierkes, p. 52: </p>
<p>"When simplistic progressive, unilinear depictions of integral enter the public sphere, there’s a strong tendency to interpret the enduring truth of modernism as capitalism and then to treat the enduring value of postmodernism as cultural values like support for gay and lesbian marriage equality, ecological sensitivity, women’s rights, and so on. Integral (or post-postmodernism) then becomes the dialectical synthesis of capitalism with such postmodern values (Dierkes, 2012). Meanwhile whether capitalism itself, particularly in its current neoliberal formation, is itself a healthy expression is never particularly questioned. As a result, huge swaths of time and energy are spent on the failures of the so-called mean green meme (unhealthy postmodernism) and yet very little, if any, time and energy is spent on the mean orange meme (unhealthy modernism), a far more destructive reality. The lower-right aspect of neoliberal capitalism itself and its correlate Lower Left cultural worldview (e.g. libertarian free market philosophy) is not sufficiently critiqued."</p>
<p>One question: I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between what is being referred to as "spontaneous will" as distinct from other types of "will."</p> I think some traditions consi…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:617482015-07-31T17:03:40.005ZNeelesh Marikhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/NeeleshMarik
<p>I think some traditions consider the Hara (also known as the Kath Centre or Tan-t'ien) as the kinesthetic and energetic epicentre of will, or more accurately the 'threshold of non-doing' beyond which things tend to happen on their own accord without much 'effort'. Meditations such as Zazen seemingly use the Hara as one of the focal points for concentration.</p>
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<p>I think some traditions consider the Hara (also known as the Kath Centre or Tan-t'ien) as the kinesthetic and energetic epicentre of will, or more accurately the 'threshold of non-doing' beyond which things tend to happen on their own accord without much 'effort'. Meditations such as Zazen seemingly use the Hara as one of the focal points for concentration.</p>
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<p></p> Hello Ambo,
Here is a write-u…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:619202015-07-31T16:46:02.368ZNeelesh Marikhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/NeeleshMarik
<p>Hello Ambo,</p>
<p>Here is a write-up on WVS:</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey</a></p>
<p><br></br> <br></br> <cite>Ambo Suno said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/searching-for-centaur-chris-dierkes?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A62017&xg_source=msg_com_forum#5301756Comment61861"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Hi Neelesh - I am enjoying…</p>
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<p>Hello Ambo,</p>
<p>Here is a write-up on WVS:</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey</a></p>
<p><br/> <br/> <cite>Ambo Suno said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/searching-for-centaur-chris-dierkes?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A62017&xg_source=msg_com_forum#5301756Comment61861"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Hi Neelesh - I am enjoying your takes on the paper and the geert-H site is an education for me.</p>
<p>I'm wondering where you found the particular 2x2 sociograph you inserted? I didn't fint it on the Geert-H.</p>
<p>ambo<br/> <br/> <cite>Neelesh Marik said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/searching-for-centaur-chris-dierkes?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A61741&xg_source=activity#5301756Comment62006"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Thanks and good to see you too, David. </p>
<p>I think the sociograph is another very powerful idea raised in the paper. There is a strong case for collaboration of Integral developmentalists with academic cultural analysts/ anthropologists.</p>
<p>The World Values Survey does that at a simple 2x2 level, though I am not sure in our current global climate how much of that is used for action beyond analysis.</p>
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<p>There are more sophisticated models which allow a wider appreciation of facets in a national culture, such as this:</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://geert-hofstede.com/national-culture.html" target="_blank">http://geert-hofstede.com/national-culture.html</a></p>
<p>We are perhaps several decades away when these things are looked at seriously for proactive work. Unlikely to happen until the neo-liberal power structures dissolve.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375202?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375202?profile=original" class="align-full" width="350"/></a></p>
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</blockquote> I would add that Irvin Yalom…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:620172015-07-31T15:39:53.124ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>I would add that Irvin Yalom offers some useful insights on working with and developing the will, as well. (And <a href="http://www.humanova.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/SevenCoreConcepts.pdf" target="_blank">this essay</a> contains a good introduction to Assagioli's "psychosynthetic" model of will and will work.)</p>
<p>Regarding historiography as a lacuna in Integral theorizing, I think you made that point very well in your ITC presentation (and I look forward to reading your paper if…</p>
<p>I would add that Irvin Yalom offers some useful insights on working with and developing the will, as well. (And <a href="http://www.humanova.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/SevenCoreConcepts.pdf" target="_blank">this essay</a> contains a good introduction to Assagioli's "psychosynthetic" model of will and will work.)</p>
<p>Regarding historiography as a lacuna in Integral theorizing, I think you made that point very well in your ITC presentation (and I look forward to reading your paper if you engage with that critique further there).</p> About sociographs - the categ…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:620132015-07-31T15:14:12.732ZMichael Schwartzhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/MichaelSchwartz
<p>About sociographs - the categories here seem to be translations from the UL to the LL and LR, which is one way. But to what about more robust LL and LR methods and categories that are not so UL centric either directly or indirectly? As with four planar social being of CR.</p>
<p>I like Chris's diagnosis of integral histories as modernist - I would add a kind of naive modernist narrative logic at that. Integral histogriography, for me, is a MAJOR lacuna in our communities.</p>
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<p>About sociographs - the categories here seem to be translations from the UL to the LL and LR, which is one way. But to what about more robust LL and LR methods and categories that are not so UL centric either directly or indirectly? As with four planar social being of CR.</p>
<p>I like Chris's diagnosis of integral histories as modernist - I would add a kind of naive modernist narrative logic at that. Integral histogriography, for me, is a MAJOR lacuna in our communities.</p>
<p></p> Thanks, Bruce - perfect. I am…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:619192015-07-31T15:11:44.189ZMichael Schwartzhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/MichaelSchwartz
<p>Thanks, Bruce - perfect. I am aware of the uncovering hole practices of DA and also of ngondro, and if I have questions about the rest, I'll contact you privately, if that is okay. Bog thanks, bro.</p>
<p>Thanks, Bruce - perfect. I am aware of the uncovering hole practices of DA and also of ngondro, and if I have questions about the rest, I'll contact you privately, if that is okay. Bog thanks, bro.</p> A couple examples come to min…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-07-31:5301756:Comment:618702015-07-31T14:55:29.204ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>A couple examples come to mind for me: Psychosynthesis has a number practices for developing (they actually prefer an alethic model of "uncovering" or "disinhibiting") the will, and you find similarly oriented practices in the Diamond Approach (for working first with superego -- which often is an expression of "false will," the disengagement of which exposes the "hole" around authentic will; entering into and working in the "hole" to recover the expression of authentic will. This can lead…</p>
<p>A couple examples come to mind for me: Psychosynthesis has a number practices for developing (they actually prefer an alethic model of "uncovering" or "disinhibiting") the will, and you find similarly oriented practices in the Diamond Approach (for working first with superego -- which often is an expression of "false will," the disengagement of which exposes the "hole" around authentic will; entering into and working in the "hole" to recover the expression of authentic will. This can lead to activation of the central channel, among other things). Bugental's inward-searching method is good for existential groundedness-and-orientedness, though I think Diamond Approach (again) might offer an even more developed version of that. And although I haven't seen them often referenced in this context, I also believe aspects of the Tibetan <em>ngondro</em> are good for these purposes.</p>