This page is under construction. I will also publish the status on the way.
According to the reader's note, Gustav Fechner, a pioneer of experimental psychology, did not only attempt to measure the mind in terms of physical quantities but also took an integrative approach. The forebearers of modern psychology strived to be as scientific as possible while also being as spiritual as possible. This book encapsulates and unifies the assertions of about 200 such theorists while maintaining their individual claims.
Fechner's world concept was highly animistic. He felt the thrill of life everywhere, in plants, earth, stars, the total universe. Fechner was a panpsychist; he viewed the entire universe as being inwardly alive and consciously animated, instead of being dead “stuff” as accepted by most of his contemporary colleagues, who had become devotees to what was becoming known as material science. Yet he based his panpsychism on a well thought out description of consciousness as waves. He believed that human beings stand midway between the souls of plants and the souls of stars, who are angels. God, the soul of the universe, must be conceived as having an existence analogous to human beings.
Reference:【Gustav Fechner - Wikipedia】 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Fechner
Part 1
Chapter 1: What are stages?: The Basic Levels or Waves
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| great chain of being http://spiritmindbody.weebly.com/integral---the-pattern-that-connects.html |
According to this book, research on consciousness to date has focused on one of several aspects: structure, state, function, style, development, and behavioral side. As ancient wisdom holds, existence and awareness have various stages, expressed in terms such as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. These stages can also be described as stages of the world itself and stages regarding our perception of it. The stages are holons that include the preceding stages and are referred to as "the great nesting of being." The transpersonal domain is also included in this spectrum, indicating that we are already equipped with the capacity to experience higher stages. Furthermore, it's only because these higher stages have not yet manifested at a collective level that they remain unactualized. Additionally, similar to the seven chakras, it is said that it takes seven years for each stage to become properly aligned.
The evolution of my consciousness feels exactly in line with these ages and patterns.
Related Articles:【Tracing My Journey: Reflections Through the Lens of Ego Development Theory (EDT)】
Chapter 2: What is a line?: The Developmental Lines or Streams
According to this book, each line of development—such as cognition, morality, interpersonal relations, spirituality, and emotions—evolves at different speeds and at different times. However, each line unfolds hierarchically as a holarchy. Development is constituted by both a hierarchical structure and a lateral one, with higher levels encompassing the previous ones and overall integrality gradually increasing.
To me, it's evident that knowledge and skills are divided into fields, experienced daily as individual differences in special talents and personalities. It is known that a gap between skill level and task difficulty can affect motivation. There is a social consensus that higher knowledge and skills are superior and rewarded accordingly. When the product of efforts is tangible, it's easier to gain acceptance from others.
Conversely, the inner world is often judged subjectively, based on "how I feel," and it's common for those at lower stages to aggressively criticize those at higher stages. This might underlie phenomena such as mobbing or passive-aggressive behavior where the proverbial nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Differences in preferences, personality types, levels of well-being, and developmental maturity can provide a fertile ground for creativity as natural conflicts but can also lead to pathological states like organizational splits. I feel the most crucial aspect is "wellness" (like stress or self-fragmentation at different life stages), and dialogues akin to counseling or emotional processing through meditation seem effective for facilitating the space needed for other-acceptance.
Chapter 3: What is self?
under construction.
Chapter 4: Development: The SelfRelated Streams
This chapter explains developmental stages (vertical) and types (horizontal). The stages are elaborated around Graves's Spiral Dynamics, a model that details various stages of human existence, while types are introduced through the Enneagram and Carl Jung’s models. A key focus in developmental stages is the recognition of distinct worldviews: At each developmental stage, we perceive a different world, complete with unique desires, challenges, dilemmas, neurological activities, expectations in business and politics, and pathologies. There are approximately seven personal stages in life, followed by a transpersonal stage, often dismissed by scientific materialism. Progression involves encompassing and transcending previous stages.
Reference:【Spiral Dynamics - Wikipedia】 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics
In my exploration of these stages, I practiced the hypothesis of 'learning unconsciously' by being enveloped by others. This approach mirrors dual developmental processes (like parent-child, friends, mentor-mentee). This was inspired by the notion of the Wind God, utilizing the ambiguity of boundaries for empathy and revealing the repressed self through the mirror of others.
Riso's Enneagram was particularly effective, offering a concrete and comprehensive view that encompasses both stages and types. I do not use the Enneagram merely as a personality test but rather for practical analysis of developmental status, capturing more tangible phenomena than the abstract structures suggested by Maslow or Graves. It helped me understand real-time occurrences, akin to categorizing personality disorders, and link psychological defense mechanisms (Freud, Jung, Klein) with developmental psychology by classifying the origins of these defenses into nine types of 'fears and guilts'.
Furthermore, I hold an experiential hypothesis that as an individual, one traverses all nine paths in a lifetime.
Related Articles:【[Bill Torbert 's Action inquiry]: Experiences and Insights in Light of My Own Journey】
Part 2
Chapter 5: What is modernity?
According to this book:
In pre-modernity, there existed a sense of wholeness—an intricate nesting of being. However, the linguistic domains of first(I), second(We), and third(It, Its) persons were not sufficiently differentiated.
Modernity brought about differentiation. Confusion was distinguished, and each realm pursued freely without the unjust infringement of one upon the other. The fields of art, ethics, and science were liberated from encroaching on each other. It wasn’t merely the negative aspects of the world's disenchantment that took place. Yet, differentiation led to separation, and scientific materialism began to dominate other areas.
The integration of wholeness and differentiation along the axes of the individual and the collective, the internal and the external, is what Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants represent. It suggests that humanity and the universe are about encompassing, transcending, evolving, and creating amidst these contrasts.
The example of Galileo Galilei and my experience:
He couldn’t freely report what he saw through his telescope to the church. What science could assert was determined by the church’s moral compass. Since the Bible recorded that the sun orbited the earth, the debate was considered closed.
In modern times, I face a contrasting situation where it is questioned if one can freely report subjective internal experiences to others based solely on the availability of objective evidence. There's a distinct sensation, akin to an 'oxytocin contagion' at wedding ceremonies, or phenomena that spread through sensitivities similar to mirror neurons.
Wilber's Four Quadrants: My Interpretation:
Wilber's Four Quadrants are both a perspective and a result for me. Being structural is excellent, but I believe that when it comes to practicing in the present moment, as with the SECI model, it is beneficial to have many reference examples. That's why I record my experiences in this blog.
Especially, I perceive either a lack of differentiation in the concepts of empathy and communication or an excessive separation between emotions and tangible information. Reflecting back, I believe that experiencing emotional contagion and receptivity was key to attaining the turquoise stage of sensation.
Related Articles:【The Four Quadrants of Integral Theory: Experiences and Insights】
Chapter 6,7: The path to an integrated approach: To Integrate Premodern and Modern,Some Important Modern Pioneers
According to this book, All domains and all levels (figure in chapter 5)have been partially explored in the past. The modern age has seen an overextended scientific materialism dominating other domains, materializing even the inner worlds.
I agree with this opinion. In the practice of my project, I have encountered two difficult issues.
- The first is the personal emotions, their contagion, and the resultant changes in individual and collective values and actions.
- The second is the difficulty of consensus building due to differences in developmental stages and levels handled.
I’ve organized these as communication issues and compiled concepts and perspectives that I wish to check on-site into a flowchart. It is the foremost item I want to monitor during the uncertain process of project execution.
Related Articles:【Project Design Flowchart: Key Points of My Methodology】
Part 3
Chapter 8: development of self: The Archeology of Spirit
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| https://integraljapan.net/words/aqal.htm |
For more details, please see this chapter.
Related Articles:【Characteristic Psychological Defenses, Pathologies, and Therapies in Each Stage of Adult Ego Development: Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology: Chapter 8】
Related Articles:【Intuitive Stages: A Glimpse into John Rowan's Theory and Personal Reflections】
line development
under construction.
development of spirituality: Spirituality Stages or Not?
under construction.
childhood spirituality: Is There a Childhood Spirituality?
under construction.
social and cultural development: Sociocultural Evolution
under construction.What is post-modern?
under construction.
mind and body problems
Ever since I was young, I have been drawn to Zen and Taoism. While I still do not fully grasp the concepts of "mu" (nothingness) or "kū" (emptiness), the idea of the mind and body as one, or even as two within an encompassing 'emptiness,' does not feel alien to me. Lately, my musings have involved analogies between photons and neutrinos, considering the presence or absence of mass.
