Normally I am quite sceptical concerning hybrid and new technologies for communication and prefer the classical set-up with people in front of me I can interact with. But this was surely a very good example to the contrary. I would have never thought that it is in fact possible, even fun to have a good colloquium via internet. (It’s possible to have one, but whether it is good is another question. This one I found was good.) I have done that once previously and found it very tedious, because there was always the odd glitch. Now it worked perfectly well. The Zoom platform is very professional. So, from the technical side, it was really perfect.

I felt well as a presenter, although it does make a difference, whether you can see and sense your audience directly or not. However, true to the topic, I felt that there was sufficient connectedness between the remotely placed but online connected participants such that I felt listened to and addressing real people and not just the ether in general. So it felt like a decent seminar. I think, my input was useful and well received, and I learned that useful communication can happen even over the internet. The break-out groups via internet were a first-time experience for me, but funnily it worked well.

Whether, what I had to say was useful for the participants they have to decide. It seemed to me I was able to convey what was important. What emerged as a topic to follow up is clearly the question of phenomenology and analytical scrutiny. The danger of starting to think from a new paradigm is surely inflation: everything is suddenly somehow weird and quantum-something, and we tend to then forget straight and clean thinking. That is the big danger I see, and that is also, why I use any terminology of that type in normal discourse very sparingly, although I am quite convinced that we need a new type of thinking. But this will not come as an alternative or something that replaces what we have, but rather as a complement. So the question will not be that of an “either – or” disjunction, but a conjunction of “as well as”: using classical analytical thinking and a more integral, holistic approach. The question is not either – or, but when to apply which at what level. And this question is tricky. The best way to approach it, I find, is to start with very good phenomenology, documenting the effects, observing them closely and then see how much of it can be understood using classical approaches and what aspects of a phenomenon defy classical interpretations. That is, when a holistic approach like the one I have sketched, comes into play. And to be quite clear here: I have just shown one possible path. There may be many more, and the one I have shown might not even be the best option. But one has to start somewhere, and here is a possible starting point.
So to carry on, I would urge people to collect phenomenological instances of experiences that seem to cry out for a non-local explanation, and then carefully think how they might be explicable in classical terminology and via analysis, and which aspects defy such an approach. There we will have the raw material that is needs another type of analysis. Perhaps a website like the IFIS website might be a possible starting point for collecting such experiences, and then allow for a discussion?

For more info about Harald Walach's presentation see here: http://www.ifis-freiburg.de/sites/www.ifis-freiburg.de/files/img_ifis/IF....

Meta-studies are integrative endeavours. But when does the search for integration and integral become a colonising endeavour? Where are the boundaries that distinguish a holistic integration from and a totalising meta-narrative?

Science, philosophy and religion are all very different realms of human endeavour. They have some things in common but they are not the same thing. They are constructed, evaluated and experienced in fundamentally different ways. They have very different institutional bases and their constituent communities behave in different ways and follow different cultural norms. There are shared characteristics but these commonalities are best seen within the context of core differences that each contribute uniquely to the human story. Given this when we derive scientific metatheories what is their relationship to the domains of religion and philosophy? In particular, what role might scientific meta-frameworks play in the world of religion and spirituality? I think it a great mistake to take the metatheories and meta-philosophies developed within the discipline of science and rational learning and apply them to spirituality. Many dangers lie in this indiscriminate application of metatheory to the way we experience religion.

What is of particular relevance here is the application of integral approaches like AQAL that purport to be "all embracing" to other domains of human experience. Can an integral theory be used to structure and develop spiritual practices and techniques be used to guide spiritual development and growth, be used to promote one form of spirituality over another. It seems to me that that the exportation of scientific models into other territories of human experience needs to be very consciously and cautiously done, and the due regard for the dangers and fragilities of that process be clearly kept in mind. If not then the no boundary assumptions that I see as plaguing the development and use of AQAL in the scientific domains will be reproduced within the spiritual domain with disastrous impact. I see the ongoing parade of scandals (including the very recent dramas) involving several spiritual teachers associated with forms of integral spirituality as being closely linked with the “all-embracing” myth that surrounds AQAL and with the lack of domain boundaries that accompany this form of metatheory.

When the scientific map of and “all embracing” “theory of everything” form of AQAL (which makes strong claims that it possesses scientific validity and that it has been developed on the basis of scientific theories and empirical evidence) is exported into the spiritual domain all kinds of relational boundaries can get lost – interpersonal, philosophical, and cultural. That some spiritual teachers who take on the boundaryless AQAL map may also lose a clear sense of boundaries does not surprise me. The wholesale and uncritical transportation of scientific meta-studies into other, very different, domains of human experience is not a good thing. When those meta-theories claim and all-embracing relevance and application, their transposition onto other areas of cultural life is doubly problematic.

There need to be many conversations around these issues if the relationship between scientific big pictures and their use in such areas as spiritual practice are even begun to be understood. Without those conversations and critical investigations the relationship between metatheories and how they inform spiritual models and practices will continue to be an area of ethical concern.

There have been a number of papers presented recently dealing with the topic of climate change and metatheorising. Papers by Sean Esbjorn-hargens and Michael Zimmerman and the recent 2009 special issue of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice come from the AQAL informed streams and there are others from more general metatheoreitcal perspectives (see for example literature quoted in the call for papers by Wittneben, B, Okereke, C, Banerjee, B & Levy, D (2009)). This is a natural topic for meta-level studies to deal with.

First, it's a global issue and the relevance of metatheorising is directly connected with the emergence of global cires and the problems that are confronting us as a planet.

Second, it is an area of great contention and of varying theorietical, emotional, political and economic interests. Contentious topics are great areas for working with meta-level theories and methods because there is so much potential for connection and differentiation - the key activities of metatheorising.

Third it's an area that is intimately concerned with our visions of the future and how we can plan for and design inteventions that are multifaceted, integrated, holisitic, and pluralistic.

The reality is that climate change will be the most crucial event of the 21st century and it may already be too late for us to avoid the mass extinctions and environmental changes that appear now to be unavoidable. In his recent speech on the topic to the Royal Society of the Arts "Is It Too Late to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?"
Clive Hamilton pointed out that: "One of the most striking features of the global warming debate has been how, with each advance in climate science, the news keeps getting worse."

It appears now that 4 degree increase in global temperatures is very likely and this will trigger bioshere changes that are irreversible and profound. So we have a situation where integral metatheorists and other big picture researchers are saying that some form of meta-level studies is crucial for the dealing with this phenomenon - either for adaptation or mitigation. But metatheorising is also about the balancing and inclusion of multiple views. My question is where can that balance be found given the dramatic actions that will need to be taken to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Should metatheorising try to include all views even when those views may be endangering human sustainability? Is the task integration endangering the responsibility to advocate particualr visions. And what does that mean for the goals and methods of doing metatheory? Are our ideals of being "integral" rendering us impotent to present a particular way forward? Is the maxim of "true but partial" reducing integral visions to "balanced and irrelevant"?

One of the starting points for an integral and integrative approach to meta-studies is the recognition that many different lenses exist for studying a topic. Those lenses can be applied at every level in the sense making holarchy - in understanding and intervening at the empirical level, in understanding and intervening at the middle-range level and at understanding and intervening on the meta-level.

When we study development for example, we can use a stage-based lens, a mediation lens or a learning lens. The stage-based lens sees development as the unfolding of structures (usually interior structures in consciousness). The mediation lens sees development as a mediated movement from the social exterior to the psychological interior. The learning lens sees development as the incremental acquisition of knowledge through the lifespan.

If we adopt these different lenses towards the development process we come up with different explanations and understandings. An integral view is one that brings each of these lenses into focus. I don't see Wilber's AQAL as an integral model of development because it does not use these three lenses but only the stage-based lens (sometimes in conjunction with other AQAL lenses).

To unwrap this a little let's take the student-teacher relationship as an example. From the stage-based view the teacher is at a higher level and the student is at a lower level. The relationship is one of expert to apprentice. There is a qualitative difference in their identities such that the student does not understand what the teacher is taking about until some dramatic mysterious transformation occurs. We see this, for example, in stage-based model of spiritual development where we have the wise guru teaching and assisting the development of the devoted student or disciple. This is an ancient model that goes back thousands of years and is the prevailing model of the he student-teacher relationship used in the AQAL-informed writings and research. There are however, other more contemporary models that have very different models for exploring and representing the he student-teacher relationship.

The mediation lens sees the student-teacher relationship in terms of peer learning and the scaffolding of individuals within social-cultural contexts. The relationship is not one of the learned and the ignorant or the higher and the lower but of situation and activity, of actor within a scene, or a role within a social context. Hence the learning focus is on what happens between teacher and student rather than what happens within the student.

The learning lens sees the student-teacher relationship as one of communication and the incremental accumulation of knowledge rather than dramatic transformation. The analogy here is more one of conversation between equals rather than conversion of the (unequal) student/devotee to the ideal of the teacher/guru.

Each of these three lenses offers a unique and powerful window onto the reality of the student-teacher relationship and, naturally, they each have their shadow sides and weaknesses. The weakness in the stage-based view is that the teacher can all too easily become the master and the student becomes the servant or slave. This relationship can obviously go very astray very easily and, by itself, this lens is an inadequate model to use for the development process in contemporary society. In my opinion, there is far too much reliance on this model for explaining the he student-teacher relationship in AQAL-informed circles. Particularly when applied to the area of spirituality the stage-based model suffers from serious shortcomings. First, the use of the stage-model needs some serious updating to contemporary views about stage-based development. Gurus and teachers who support evolutionary and stage-based view of development are very prone to overestimating the importance of the guru-devotee model and the qualitative differences that they assume exist between teacher and student. When practices within insular settings and non-traditional environments, these kinds of gurus often fall into all the traps of abusive power that many of us are aware of.

The mediational view can suffers from an overestimation of the place of socio-cultural factors in development. According the teacher becomes defined out of the social role rather than any particular expertise or actual mastery. Mediational development then becomes subject political manipulation and the power of legitimate structures can overwhelm the power of authentic structures. Here the teacher becomes the mouthpieces of the politburo or the corporation or the bureaucracy and the student becomes the subject of propaganda.

The learning lens can suffers from a lack of transformational power and can fall into a bland kind of incrementalism and ecclecticism that does not engage with peoples' vision or potential for extraordinary change. Here the teacher becomes the mechanical follower of the curriculum going through the incremental motions of low expectations. Using this lens the student take on the role of the one to be tested and anlysed to see if incremental learning has occurred. The student-teacher relationship becomes one of plain boredom and regimented regulation.

An integral view will take each of these lenses and combine to develop a more adequate and more enabling story of development and of the relationships that occur in that learning process. My view is that the archaic view of the teacher-guru and student-disciple has done its dash and can only be defended by those who are so immersed in stage-based development that they see no other meta-level possibilities for articulating growth (this is one of the many forms of altitude sickness that I wrote about in my last blog). I see development and learning relationships moving way beyond these limiting views of guru and student and engaging much more with the language of relationality, situational choice, shared play, communal learning, distributed intelligence, collective wisdom, reflexive learning, and action inquiry. The defence of the ancient models of student-teacher relationship, particularly where development is focused on the stage-based lens, seems to me to be a sign of regressive rather than evolution.

I see the pursuit of critical and integral meta-level studies as a scientific means for exposing and discerning these kinds of reductionisms and ideologies.