joe perez Says: December 17th, 2006 at 3:05 pm I asked if you have evidence related to the uptake or level of adherence to various schools of integral thought in the real world. You responded instead with a list of thinkers who were influenced more by Aurobindo than Wilber. Let me be more precise with my qeustions: How many Aurobindian practioners are there? How many Wilberian practioners? How many integralist practioners are there that fit in neither camp?
joe perez Says: December 17th, 2006 at 7:25 pm Alan: Thanks for that background info. I am beginning see the practical issue of how to organize an encyclopedia article get resolved, at least in my own mind. The first step is to break out major groups of organizations in categories similar to what you showed in your first piece — Aurobindian, Wilberian/mainstream, etc.–and a second step would be to break those down by organizations, ranked by side. Obviously Integral Institute and Integral Spiritual Center would rank highly under mainstream; salons would rank more highly than blogs because they include a physical presence; groups of blogs or blog communities could be next; individual bloggers, if listed at all, near the bottom.
The idea is that by definition a movement is necessarily communal and social, similar but heterogeneous folks working for a common end. If someone looks for this in the mainstream integral world, it is easy to find. The fact that there are small numbers of disorganized critics at the margins has no impact on whether the mainstream integral side of things has a movement or not. But to the extent that the critics get themselves organized, then they should be included. ARINA in academia perhaps; Polysemy in art perhaps. These groups have different visions about what integral is all about and those visions should be spelled out; but ARINA and Polysemy need not agree with each other. It seems to be the best way to work out “what the Integral movement represents” is to begin by grouping and listing major organizations and giving the most attention to those that seem to be succeeding in spreading their message (while paying no or little attention to one-person man-with-a-blowhorn type of folks who may be listed under “individual thinkers” but are irrelevant to the topic of movement). Numbers are important in that they are an indication of, uh, (one of your favorite words, I’m sure) notability.
ebuddha Says: December 20th, 2006 at 11:47 am Thanks for the thread Alan. Been busy, but important to comment. Practically, there are normally organizing principles - like you, I tend to think that most “integrals” come from a lineage that is Aurobindian. There are exceptions, but that is the general rule. Once integral gets beyond theory, there are normally some organizing principles/grounds/credos. I-I has this, beginning with the education pieces of AQAL, and the altitude distinction of different human drives. As well, organizing around the ILP, for practical self-help.
Interestingly though, the ILP exercises, aren’t too different than some of the Aurobindian exercises, in that the whole is included - mind/body/thought. The problem with Aurobindian, as movement, is there was no progress after Aurobindo, in terms of theory or practice. (That and the “actual” immortality envisioned by Aurobindo). This means that people are doing the exercises they did 50 years ago, that Aurobindo described, even though there have been radical advances in mind-body understanding. (correct me if I’m wrong now, but that was one of my issues when I stayed at Auroville 10 years ago.) Anyway, more later, when I have time.
Tusar N. Mohapatra Says: December 20th, 2006 at 9:51 pm It is nice to know that ebuddha 'stayed at Auroville 10 years ago.’ It would be interesting to listen to his experiences and impressions there a little bit in detail. And the next quiz is, has he read The Life Divine?
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