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Karma & Creativity

Karma and Creativity represent a dynamic interplay that exists at every level of existence, from the physiosphere to the biosphere to the noosphere and beyond. Karma signifies the principle of cause and effect, where every action has consequences that shape experiences. Creativity embodies the capacity to generate novel ideas and bring them into reality. Together, they reflect a universal process where past actions inform and enhance future innovations.

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Toward an Integral Cinema: The Application of Integral Theory to Cinematic Media Theory and Practice

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Defining characteristics of what may constitute an integral cinematic work are mapped out and developed into a set of evaluation criteria using the works of Dulac, Gebser, and Wilber. A test of these evaluation criteria with the viewing of several motion pictures is summarized; the results suggest that several past and recent films demonstrate qualities that could be said to constitute an integral cinematic work.

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From Race to Culture to Kosmos

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Join cultural analyst and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, Greg Thomas, as he explores the transformative power of culture, using his knowledge of jazz and blues as a conduit to greater understanding and connection. Greg tackles layered issues of race through a systemic lens, suggesting a shift from racial to cultural worldview, offering an enlightening dialogue filled with anecdotes from music history and a rich exploration of how shared cultural experiences can dissolve boundaries and unite us all.

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Illuminating the Integral Vision: A Metatheory for Understanding Self, Life, and the World

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Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history — the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us, and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

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No Beginnings, No Endings: A Dialogue with Living Jazz Great Wayne Shorter

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Wayne Shorter, likely the greatest jazz composer since Thelonious Monk, was also one of the most influential tenor and soprano saxophonists in the post-John Coltrane period from the mid-1960s onward. His death on March 2, 2023, at the age of 89, marks the end of a musical life that spanned a panoply of styles and configurations, from hard bop to electronic fusion and funk to Brazilian and Caribbean to orchestral and the avant-garde, all suffused his own idiosyncratic melding of sounds and sensibilities which seemed to reach from the heat-center of the earth to the infinite expanses of the cosmos.

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Nature as Teacher: Finding Beauty, Wisdom, and Self in Everything

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Adult psychology pioneer and ego development expert Susanne Cook-Greuter introduces us to her favorite wisdom teacher: Nature. Susanne explains how Integral Theory’s 3-2-1 Process can be practiced with elements in nature to gain greater insight into the teachings of nature—evolution, cycles of life and death, the transience of life, the beauty that is everywhere—and to experience oneness with all.

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Putting the “Art” in Artificial Intelligence

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What is art, at its most fundamental level? This is one of those perennial questions that we have been asking and re-asking at every stage of the human journey, from the first cave drawings all the way to the emergence of sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms like MidJourney that are once again blurring the lines between art, beauty, and perspective and forcing us to find new ways to answer this timeless question. Watch as Ken and Corey take a fun and fascinating look at the intersection between art, semiotics, and technology.

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Blue Pearl: A One World Oratorio

The world premiere of Blue Pearl: A One World Oratorio, composed by Steve Banks and performed on 14th May 2022, at St Giles’ Cripplegate, London.

Blue Pearl is an ground-breaking new oratorio for choir, four solo singers and orchestra. It is inspired by the writing of American mystical philosopher, Ken Wilber, and his Integral vision.

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The Integral Storycreator: Using Integral Methodological Pluralism to Create Fictional, Narrative Prose

The intention of this paper is to explore using Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) to construct a fictional, narrative story as part of a greater consideration into using the distinctions of Integral Theory in creating any kind of story or character driven work of art. The key component is using the mixed method information, especially the developmental knowledge, in combination with one’s own experience to make up the personality content of the characters and the moments of decision, discovery, and tension of the story; making sure to touch all the dimensions of the character’s life and the story’s world. The paper begins by discussing how and why IMP works for story creation, moving into a story I wrote using it. The second half of the paper is an in depth look at the process of locating and utilizing information and knowledge to craft the story, the characters and the relationships.

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Music and Personal Experience: Flows and Peaks

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This article investigates music’s ability to facilitate flow states of consciousness as peak experiences. The research first uses two first-person methods, phenomenology and structuralism. The results of two second-person methods, hermeneutics and ethnomethodology, are then detailed. The final research section uses two third-person methods, empiricism and systems analysis. The empirical section utilizes a survey, while the systems analysis section investigates factors that contributed to the phenomenological research method. Results focus on tracking a conceptual understanding of the terms flow state and peak experience.

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Sex, Death, and the Creative Mystery

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Stuart Davis talks to host Steve Banks about his own creative process, the central themes that inform his art, and how he unpacks the radical unknowable mystery at the center of the creative furnace. Stuart and Steve focus on two themes in particular: sex and death (aka eros and thanatos, creativity and destruction, the self-transcending and self-dissolving drives shared by all holons in the Kosmos). They also explore how these themes are all expressions of a single primordial creative lineage running through all of our human activities, and indeed through all manifestations in this universe.

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An Integral Writing Tour: Through the Four Studios of Your Own Awareness

Using Integral Theory as my framework, I explore the four quadrants or fundamental perspectives of reality with respect to writing. This consists of inquiry into the use of subjective, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective perspectives to better understand and express writing. My thesis is that together these interrelated perspectives comprise the whole writing space: an Integral writing space. I also identify three developmental levels within each quadrant (e.g., three increasingly complex subjective perspectives, objective perspectives, etc.). This results in a total of twelve unique perspectives that map the horizontal breadth and vertical depth of the territory of writing. I offer experiential exercises for each of these writing perspectives in order to help the reader recognize them. My conclusion is that each of these perspectives is already present within our experience and is vital for a comprehensive understanding and expression of writing.

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Into the Dreaming

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Our dreams are often drenched in meaning, significance, and symbolism. But it is often very difficult for us to make sense of our experiences in the dream world, and to hoist these treasures out of the surreal and into the real. Our dreams typically communicate to us in the language of the bizarre, and more often than not we need some guidance in order to better understand them and extract whatever wisdoms they may offer us. Watch as Dr. Keith and Corey explore the murky depths of our own unconsciousness, and try to shine some light upon some of the common features we experience in the dream world.

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An Integral Take on the Blues Idiom

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From an integral perspective, the blues has many dimensions, from the personal to the bio-behavioral aspects of the individual, to the cultural and social dynamics of collectives. The blues can be experienced from an egocentric, ethnocentric, and world-centric value level or stage of development. We can view the blues as a musical or cognitive or aesthetic line of intelligence or development also, and even as a philosophical proposition—an existential response to life in the late-19th through the 20th century.

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The Feeling of Eros

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Ken Wilber offers a 30 minute guided process that will put you in direct touch with Eros — and in so doing, you’ll likely encounter the simple mistake of ascribing it source to some object outside yourself. By relaxing the contraction around your heart, you’ll experience an unbounded expansion of care, in a simple moment of non-seeking presence.

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Jimmy Eat World: Hells Bells and the Dangers of Rock and Roll

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Zach Lind from Jimmy Eat World offers a fascinating glimpse into some of the inspiration behind the band’s distinctive sound, as well as a personal tour through his own upbringing in a conservative Baptist household. He and Ken then discuss an Integral approach to understanding spirituality, religion, and fundamentalism, paving the way forward for Christianity in the 21st Century. Zach and Ken also talk about his experiences touring with bands like Green Day and Blink 182, expanding Jimmy Eat World’s already distinctive sound in the studio, and balancing his stardom with his life at home as a husband and a father.

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My Morning Jacket and the Search for Meaning

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Jim James and Ken Wilber discuss the spectacular rise of My Morning Jacket, examining the circumstances and intentions behind each of their albums, tracking the band’s career from their humble beginnings to their latest forays into rock stardom. They take a look at the personal side of Jim’s career, exploring some of the more difficult aspects of maintaining one’s relationships, sanity, and integrity amidst the mania of the rock and roll lifestyle, and reflect on the role that rock music often plays as the primary source of spiritual experience and connection for a great many people in the world.

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Technology, Evolution, and God: Exploring the Technium

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Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago.

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Pearl Jam: Restoring Idealism to Rock and Roll

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Few bands in recent history have done more to express idealism and authenticity in music than Pearl Jam. In this far-reaching interview with guitarist Stone Gossard, we are offered an insider’s view of the gritty origins of grunge music, the iconic rise of the “most popular band of the 90’s,” and the struggles of maintaining one’s artistic ideals in the vertigo of sudden fame.

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It’s Not Easy Being Turquoise: Jim Henson, The Muppets, and the Art of Integral Puppetry

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For two decades, Steve Whitmire has served as the performer behind the world’s beloved Kermit the Frog as well as other famous Muppets and Sesame Street characters. In this two-part dialogue, he discusses the impact the Integral vision has had upon his own life, career, and creativity, and opens the door to a possible future of explicitly Integral puppetry….

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The Meaning of the Avant Garde

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Ken Wilber, Ed Kowalczyk, and Stuart Davis met at the Ken Wilber’s house in Boulder for a special meeting focusing on Integral Art and Transformative Practice. What followed was an afternoon of vibrant discussion and electrifying performances, centered on the themes: What is the relation of art and transformation? How can art be part of an integral transformative practice?

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Beyond Genre: Adventures in Rap, Rock, and Romance

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Rick Rubin, MTV’s “most important white boy in hip-hop,” has produced some of the most influential and creative albums of the past two decades with artists like The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, Audioslave, Jay-Z, Saul Williams — and the list just keeps on going. Here Rick and Ken discuss why truly great music almost always transcends our concepts of genre, before waxing philosophic about rock, romance, and the potential perils of paternity….

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The Many Meanings of The Matrix

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The Matrix trilogy is the most successful cinematic venture of the past several decades — together, all three films have grossed over three billion dollars worldwide, an impressive accomplishment within any genre (let alone science fiction.) The attention of audiences worldwide has certainly been captured by the mind-bending storyline and phenomenal special effects, but the perennial question remains: What does it all mean?