Cybernetics and the Intelligence of Love

Cybernetics and the Intelligence of Love

Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos explore how cybernetics — the science of self-correcting systems — reveals the hidden logic of love, power, trauma, and societal evolution. Through the lens of integral theory, they trace feedback loops across all dimensions of life, showing how everything from personal healing to political dysfunction is shaped by the quality of communication and coherence in our systems.
The New War on the First Amendment: Words as Violence, Jokes as Crimes

The New War on the First Amendment: Words as Violence, Jokes as Crimes

Keith Martin-Smith tackles America's free speech crisis in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination—examining how both left and right have abandoned principled commitments to the First Amendment in favor of tribal speech enforcement.
Nocturnal Meditations: How to See in the Dark

Nocturnal Meditations: How to See in the Dark

Andrew Holecek presents dark retreat—extended periods in complete sensory deprivation—as a transformative meditation practice that accesses deeper levels of consciousness typically obscured by our light-obsessed, distraction-heavy culture. He argues that conventional "waking" awareness is actually humanity's most contracted state, while nocturnal practices like lucid dreaming and sleep yoga offer profound opportunities for shadow work, creativity, and spiritual development.
Don’t Just Transcend Your Pain — Include It

Don’t Just Transcend Your Pain — Include It

After the tragic murder of his father at age 20, Alexander Love began a decades-long journey through grief, spiritual practice, and shadow work — seeking not just to rise above his pain, but to finally and fully include it. In this deeply personal conversation, he shares how real healing began not with transcendence, but with embracing the very wounds he had tried to escape.
The Dopamine Revolution: From Human Evolution to Modern Crisis

The Dopamine Revolution: From Human Evolution to Modern Crisis

Dr. Keith Witt traces how dopamine-driven evolution shaped human consciousness from ancient seafood consumption that triggered civilization's "Big Bang" 80,000 years ago to today's hyper-stimulating culture that exploits the same neurochemical reward systems for profit. While our dopamine-flooded modern world creates unprecedented pathologies like addiction and isolation, it also sets the stage for the next evolutionary leap: conscious integration of our reward systems with relational wisdom and ecological awareness.
STAGES: Cracking the Code of Human Development

STAGES: Cracking the Code of Human Development

Keith Martin Smith and Alexander Love explore Terry O’Fallon’s Stages model as a powerful lens for understanding how humans grow, make meaning, and relate across vastly different realities. Together, they reveal how developmental precision — not content or ideology — holds the key to deeper empathy, cultural healing, and truly integrative practice.
When Democracy Eats Itself: Navigating the Politics of Confusion

When Democracy Eats Itself: Navigating the Politics of Confusion

Mark Edwards and Bruce Alderman explore Jean-Pierre Faye's "Horseshoe Theory," which reveals that political extremes curve toward each other when they abandon democratic norms, explaining why some voters support both Trump and AOC as anti-establishment alternatives. The discussion introduces meta-theoretical tools including Roy Bhaskar's concept of "demi-reality," Bruno Latour's analysis of "modal confusion," and the possibility of "post-conventional coalitions" that transcend left-right polarization while maintaining democratic integrity.
Ride the Tiger: The Psychedelic Renaissance Is Here

Ride the Tiger: The Psychedelic Renaissance Is Here

Carter Phipps explores how psychedelics, postmodern values, and the reawakening of consciousness are reshaping the cultural landscape and laying the groundwork for an integral future. Arguing that we must embrace — and responsibly guide — the weirdness of this transitional moment, he calls for a worldview that integrates science, spirituality, and the deep interior dimensions of human experience.
Tantra Is Not What You Think (And Way Better Than You Imagined)

Tantra Is Not What You Think (And Way Better Than You Imagined)

Two accomplished tantric practitioners — one from Kashmir Shaivism, the other from Tibetan Vajrayana — share their profound awakening stories and reveal how ancient consciousness technologies can accelerate the challenging transition from teal to turquoise awareness and beyond.
The Magic Mirror: How AI Is Reshaping Your Mind

The Magic Mirror: How AI Is Reshaping Your Mind

Keith and Corey examine AI’s cognitive, relational, cultural, and developmental impacts — highlighting both the dangers of projection, offloading, and disembodiment, and the opportunities to use AI as a practice partner for discernment, shadow integration, and growth. Corey then showcases some of the new AI tools now available to all Core Members of Integral Life.
The Future Human: Why Spiritual Intelligence Matters

The Future Human: Why Spiritual Intelligence Matters

Cindy Wigglesworth presents spiritual intelligence (SQ) as a vital developmental line alongside physical, cognitive, and emotional intelligence, defining it as the ability to act with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace. Drawing on research, practical frameworks, and her SQ21 model of 21 skills, she shows how cultivating SQ transforms spirituality from abstract potential into concrete behaviors that foster wise leadership, compassionate presence, and greater collective resilience in the face of global crises.
Trauma, Transcendence, and the Beauty that Breaks Us Open

Trauma, Transcendence, and the Beauty that Breaks Us Open

Geoff Fitch, Abigail Lynam, and Kimberley Lafferty explore how deep suffering, spiritual awakening, and developmental transformation often intertwine in the transition into meta-aware consciousness. Through personal stories, group process insights, and reflections on collective shadow work, they illuminate how real relationship and sacred community can hold and catalyze the most disorienting — and most liberating — phases of human evolution.
Redefining the Masculine (Without Losing the Man)

Redefining the Masculine (Without Losing the Man)

In this episode of Integral Edge, Keith Martin-Smith explores the modern crisis of masculinity and offers a powerful framework for reclaiming the healthy strengths of traditional, modern, and postmodern masculine expressions. Rather than choosing between power and empathy, discipline and vulnerability, Keith shows how wholeness means learning to embody all of them—at the right time, in the right way.
Mapping an Ecology of Integrative Approaches to Addressing the Metacrisis

Mapping an Ecology of Integrative Approaches to Addressing the Metacrisis

IAM scholars Brandon Norgaard, Nicholas Hedlund, PhD, and Claudia Meglin provide a sweeping (albeit provisional) cartography of emergent frameworks rooted in an “Integrative Worldview“—ranging from metamodernism and integral theory to systems science, process philosophy, and critical realism—that are converging around a shared impulse to address the root causes of our civilizational predicament.
Everything Is Relationships: The Hidden Force That Shapes Reality

Everything Is Relationships: The Hidden Force That Shapes Reality

Human beings are always in relationship — with ourselves, with others, and with the larger cultures we create together. In this episode, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos explore how the quality of these relationships shapes not only our personal growth, but our experience and perception of reality itself.
Making Sense of the New Right

Making Sense of the New Right

What happens when an entire political movement loses its center of gravity and fragments into conspiracy theories, tech libertarianism, and religious separatism? Philosopher David Storey uses Integral Theory to map the post-Trump American Right and explore whether a truly developmental conservatism might emerge from the chaos.
Beyond Motivation: How to Be a Modern Bodhisattva

Beyond Motivation: How to Be a Modern Bodhisattva

Renowned psychiatrist Roger Walsh expands Maslow's hierarchy to reveal five "meta-motives" culminating in a profound paradox: the deepest fulfillment requires transcending all motivation and allowing the universe to act through us. He then proposes "Bodhisattva 2.0"—seven upgrades to ancient spiritual ideals—arguing that our global crises reflect collective psychological immaturity requiring integration of contemplative wisdom with modern life.
The End of America? How the Founders’ Genius Is Breaking Down (And What We Can Do About It)

The End of America? How the Founders’ Genius Is Breaking Down (And What We Can Do About It)

Can America still save itself — or is collapse inevitable? Drawing lessons from history, developmental psychology, and the meta-crisis, Keith explores why systems built on “enlightened self-interest” are faltering… and what kind of leadership could restore the balance.
Integral Democratic Inclusivity: A New Vision of Human Rights

Integral Democratic Inclusivity: A New Vision of Human Rights

Law professor and integral scholar Mark Fischler argues that American courts remain trapped in a binary approach to rights — a structure that cannot meet the complexity of today’s pluralistic society. Drawing on the example of Roe v. Wade, comparative legal models, and integral theory, he proposes a new legal paradigm — Integral Democratic Inclusivity — capable of honoring multiple rights and fostering a more inclusive, evolving vision of justice.
How We Lost the Art of Connection

How We Lost the Art of Connection

This conversation between Keith Martin-Smith and Michael Porcelli explores the hidden dynamics that shape how we communicate, from cultural conditioning to emotional awareness to the unseen “third entity” of relationship. Together they unpack why so many conversations go off the rails—and how we can learn to repair, realign, and relate with greater depth, clarity, and skill.
IAM Spotlight: Faith Development Pathway

IAM Spotlight: Faith Development Pathway

Brendan Dempsey offers a powerful re-engagement with James Fowler’s Faith Development Theory, applying cutting-edge tools from developmental psychology to illuminate how our structures of meaning evolve. This presentation reveals not just how faith matures, but why this maturation is critical for meeting the challenges of a world in search of deeper coherence.
How the Metacrisis is Birthing the New Human

How the Metacrisis is Birthing the New Human

Nick Hedlund introduces Visionary Realism, a synthesis of Integral Theory and Critical Realism that addresses the root causes of our global Metacrisis. Rather than offering surface-level solutions, he invites us to align with the deeper structure of reality through aletheic resonance — a participatory, reverent way of knowing that may be key to the emergence of a new kind of human.
Becoming Whole in a Divided World

Becoming Whole in a Divided World

In this thought-provoking episode of Integral Edge, Keith Martin-Smith sits down with executive coach and consciousness explorer David Arrell to explore what it truly means to become whole, both personally and collectively, amid ongoing division and conflict.
Return to the Roots: Tantra, Mormonism, and the Mystic Heart Behind All Things

Return to the Roots: Tantra, Mormonism, and the Mystic Heart Behind All Things

Kimberley Lafferty and Thomas McConkie explore how we can return to the spiritual traditions of our childhood with new eyes — not through regression, but through transformation. Drawing from Tantra, Mormonism, and Integral spirituality, they illuminate a shared mystical core that invites us to embody divinity through both transcendence and humble, concrete service.
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