JOSEPH GELFER

You may remember a while ago I had a lively exchange with various members of Integral Life and Robb Smith of Integral Institute about capitalism and money: I claimed integral thought unconsciously perpetuates the capitalist status quo; they claimed I overstate my case and that they promote conscious capitalism (which I am too developmentally challenged to appreciate). I offer an analysis of this in my recent article, LOHAS and the Indigo Dollar: Growing the Spiritual Economy.

This morning’s sales propaganda from Integral Life starts with the question “are you making as much money as you want”? It goes on to flog a new wealth-generating attitude scheme from internet marketer Eben Pagan:

Notice everything going on in your mind and emotions right now, everything set in motion by the question of money. If you’re feeling a bit of a charge, take a moment. Settle into it. Make new use of an old yoga practice, and… Breathe into your checking account. Notice any sensations that may arise.

You probably outgrew your exclusive identification with the achievement mentality a long time ago. You no longer experience your drive for success as who you are. Instead, it is a part of you. But how comfortably does that part sit with you? Does it flow effortlessly into your life or does it keep you up at night?

We’re writing you to recommend a program that will dramatically improve your relationship with wealth and help your achiever do what it does best… to achieve! It was created by our friend and colleague Eben Pagan. Eben is a longtime student of the human potential and personal growth movements with a solid understanding of integral theory and the values of the integral movement. Plus, he is, shall we say… well-qualified to talk about success.

His program, “Self Made Wealth,” speaks to a conventional audience but delivers an exceptional level of insight. If you stick with him, you will soon find that he is a master at re-framing, capable of lifting his audience up from a constricted and confused identification with money into a space of genuine confidence and inspiration.

Do you really need any more evidence to demonstrate how the indigo dollar is privileged in contemporary Wilberian integral thought?

And note how Pagan is described as embodying “a solid understanding of integral theory and the values of the integral movement”: this is yet another example of the ever-expanding posse of “thought leaders” who are assigned the brand of “integral” simply by selling their products and services to the integral community.

Every time a flaky new thought leader is branded, another nail is hammered in to the coffin of integral thought. I know there are plenty of smart folks who hold on to the concept of integral as having value; however, my suggestion is to salvage what you can, call it something else and move on.

Integral is exhausted: abandon it to Oprah Winfrey Network.

Recently, the Integral Options blog turned my attention to a paper planned for the Integral Theory Conference by Marc Gafni called Spiritually Incorrect; Sex, Ethics and Injury. As some people know, Integral Friend Gafni has been accused of sexual misconduct with his students in the past. Gafni denies these allegations and uses the paper in question to discuss and defend his position on the subject.

This isn’t a post about Gafni’s paper, although I hope someone with the right inclination will do a thorough job of critiquing it, as both the content and the style are shockingly bad and does no favors to the integral community leaders who continue to rally around him while expecting to be taken seriously. This is a post about an excellent book that Gafni attempts to critique in his paper which I had not come across before called Sex in the Forbidden Zone: When Men in Power—Therapists, Doctors, Clergy, Teachers, and Others—Betray Women’s Trust by Peter Rutter.

As the title suggests, Rutter’s book is all about why men in power should not overstep sexual boundaries with women over whom they hold power. It stems from the author’s experience where he was close to overstepping the boundary himself (Rutter is a therapist), which he describes below:

I was overcome by an intoxicating mixture of the timeless freedom, and the timeless danger, that men feel when a forbidden woman’s sexuality becomes available to them. The freedom stems from the illusion of such moments in which a man can convince himself that nothing but sexual merger with the female body and spirit seems real. He shuts himself off from past and future, contemplating neither the motivation nor the consequences of his acts. The feeling of danger balances the one of freedom, for within this danger is the intuition that the act he is so strongly fantasizing may be wrong, that it may bring catastrophe on both himself and the woman. In the moment of deciding whether to cross the line, I felt all at once extremely powerful—and very, very vulnerable.

What I like about this book is that Rutter does a good job of showing how overstepping sexual boundaries is profoundly wrong, but nevertheless a temptation experienced by (and frequently acted upon) even very decent and ethically-centered men. He also does a good job of explaining how the massive cover-up of such wide-spread activities by other very decent and ethically-centered men is due to the secret envy of those men who have transgressed such boundaries, and that by allowing such transgressions to go unchecked the potential for future fantasy transgressions remains open to all. In doing so, Rutter navigates a very difficult middle way between critiquing his subject of enquiry without demonizing it.

While there may be some issues about broadly referring to “men” or “masculinity” in such a singular way, Rutter nevertheless provides one of the better accounts I’ve read about how “men” think. I don’t say this often, but I recommend this book.

In the end, cross-posting my previous blog entry over at Integral Life caused some debate. Today, it even sits as the “Editor’s pick.”

Smith makes an effort to field my criticism of integral business and practice being the same-old, but is genuinely convinced that I’m stuck in some developmentally inferior quagmire and therefore unable to see the partial nature of my own critique. The latest response is:

I have to admit I am genuinely sad because it is obvious how difficult skillful action can be in these situations.  We humans still have so much to learn about how to manifest our deepest desires, the case at hand being a desire to truly understand another human being even when the chasm is scary and wide.  I don’t insist on a unitive monism in our interactions, integral’s promise is rightfully an integrative pluralism (thank you Mark Edwards).  Which means that I take very seriously our freedom to disagree even while integral promises an ability to situate the disagreement.  I believe that the normative calling of integral is to be able to listen deeply from presence as much as it is to situate what we’re hearing. More so, in the final analysis.

I participate in or lead a dozen significant integral projects across the world at a work load of 80 hours a week.  Why, I ask myself, do I invest the time in this interaction with you?  We must have significantly different epistemological and experiential frames from which we view the world.  This interaction, thus far, I have found to be emotionally-laden and the signs I get from your language do not seem to adhere to the integral discursive aim: “to inform, not to insult; to be informed, not to be insulted.”  I am not insulted by your criticism (or is it an attack? interesting that there are two 1p views on that question, neither of which are exclusively “true.”).  Nevertheless I am trying to become informed. And to answer my own question, this is practice I need.

The story so far as I read it:  your ego is highly irritated by what you perceive to be the overall economic bearing of the integral movement, particularly as you interpret it to exist under a hegemonic auspice of Ken Wilber vis-a-vis Integral Institute (and perhaps Integral Life?).  It would be unfair and unwise for either of us to account for the psychological characteristics of the other that are determinative in why we hold the views that we do.  Nor will I take the easy but crude route and opine on your developmental level or level of economic action-logic.  I work regularly with the best developmentalists in the world, a neat privilege, so I’m very comfortable with my meaning-making system and the wide diversity of others.  So I will only offer information that attempts to better illuminate my view:

• This is a situation, and millions others like it every day, where the false self is a real problem because it convinces the ego that there is something for which to fight.  There is nothing to fight over. Who is doing the arguing?
• Your views on the economic structure and function of Integral Institute were merely uninformed. I hope that the information I gave you in my former reply clears that up.  You can cite a pre-trans fallacy if you want, mistakenly in my view in any case, but in the final analysis we have a very simple and uncontroversial economic structure.
• Integral Institute and Integral Life are not the integral movement. (It’s an interesting question whether and how there is a movement.)
• We have no hegemony over anything, usually (or especially) even ourselves.
• Integral Life does sell products, services and events in many different topic areas, one of which is spirituality. But spirituality is not for sale.  We cannot sell it because we do not own it.  For someone to claim otherwise implies they could use some instruction in spiritual practice.  In any case, should Harvard not charge for its divinity degree or book publishers to charge for books? (Incidentally, is your book free? When I looked it was not.)
• The money we collect goes not to pay Gods and Goddesses for their spiritual wisdom. Alas, it goes to more mundane things like office rent, healthcare for team members, mortgage payments, and books for their children.  Let’s think of the children!
• Integral Life still loses money for the privilege of serving this community.  Who pays for that and stands behind the success of this effort? Because it’s not you, it’s very easy to ignore the herculean stress and commitment that it takes to do so.
• Finally, and I mean this sincerely, stop worrying about salvaging Integral Life and our community from the integral ideal.  Integral mecca is a useful fiction, there’s no wizard behind the screen.  It’s a messy evolutionary affair that is whole, perfectly whole, right now.  If you think we’re great or you think we suck, you’re right.  That’s all the jumping off point you need to go do well for others, be of service, go risk it all to help your fellow man.  Go build something fantastic yourself.  Live for a happy death.

Finally, you say you’re not integral.  I say you can be!  Integral is not a level of development (or only is in a rough construction of what’s deeply distinctive about it.)   Integral is in how we behave, what we value and the ethics we die for.  Hold yourself to a standard of love at all costs, to listening deeply even when it hurts, to take time to make love to the majesty of every moment, to actually hear the symphony of perspectives all around, to seek the greater wholeness in the next breath even while surrendering to the perfect wholeness of this breath, to hold where you see fracture, to embrace where you see divide…

That’s the integral practice for all of us, and thank you for helping me to work on mine alongside you.

To which I reply:

Robb, I appreciate the effort, but you continue to analyze this position from what you perceive to be a developmentally privileged position without realizing you inhabit a more pedestrian space. Call it “emotionally-laden” or an “attack” if you like, but it’s simply the way I see a lot of Integral Business. In this context, the tit-for-tat becomes an exercise in cross-purposes, as we’re both demonstrating to one another.

I say I’m not integral not because I feel I have yet to achieve such giddy heights, but because I reject the idea that integral is a developmentally privileged place (at least when such a place is demonstrated by business as usual). Your working with some of the “best developmentalists in the world” doesn’t mean much to me: I know enough about knowledge production to know how these things work; I know how alliances are made, both among the Integral Few, and in the orthodox academy. Given that I reject the integral position (as it is presented in this context, at least), I reject the patronizing analysis you offer me, both for its content and claiming to come from a place beyond my developmental level (which you say you don’t want to say, but nevertheless do say, which is a bit of a yawn).

Why do you invest the time in this interaction with me? Yes, that’s a good question: I can speculate, but I doubt you’d agree with my psychoanalytic take, so we’ll leave it at an opportunity for you to put your integral worldview into practice. Why do I invest my time with you? I have real jobs too Robb: we’re both big boys! A couple of times in this thread you’ve basically told me to go away to another community. Certainly, I won’t stay forever. It is not my life mission to undermine the integral position in the spiritual marketplace, however unsavory it may be; I don’t find it that interesting or important (as you know, my focus is masculinities and spirituality/religion). However, for the time being, when I see the emperor is wearing no clothes, I am compelled to say he is (integral) naked.

I have a few theories about why Smith takes the time to try and answer my critique (albeit failing to do so). But they all sound mean, and I already seem to be turning into the Accidental Dawkins in this debate, which I certainly have no desire to further facilitate.

As I write, Melbourne is witnessing its first “consultation process” in the proposed establishment of Integral Institute Australia.

Honestly, I tried to attend. I even got half way to the venue, but as a Western Suburbs Man, I grossly underestimated the east-bound traffic at 6:30 pm on a Wednesday, and eventually abandoned the journey. I had so many things I wanted to say, too: Maybe it’s best I didn’t make it…

Proudly reprinting a letter from Integral Institute CEO Robb Smith (who dropped by this blog once asking about my “desire to connect,” but when I did clearly had no desire to connect with me), this new initiative is intended to offer “I-I-sanctioned in-country research.”

But for all the scholarly aspirations of the various uses of the word “research,” one thing jumps out at me: Smith frames this process twice in terms of the “market”: “the market consultation process” and “a market exploration process.”

I have an academic paper coming out soon called Lohas and the Indigo Dollar: Growing the Spiritual Economy, which looks at precisely this type of thing: how I-I has positioned itself in the spiritual marketplace as a seller of integral products and services, co-opting Lohas (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and spiritual values along the way.

It’s quite easy to imagine the integrally-sanctioned products and services that will come from I-I Australia. Of the current board, we are told: Don Adlam attended the inaugural Integral Psychotherapy Seminar in Boulder; Adam Fletcher has completed the Integral Leader course in Boulder (and “financially contributed to the Integral Institute for 18 months”!); Jennifer Gidley spent three months in Boulder in 2005 as a member of the Integral Institute education committee. These guys will no doubt be happy to on-sell their integral experiences to you in Melbourne. Also of the current board, John Wood has been employed in corporate roles and managed his own business; Bob Millar has qualifications in economics and accounting, and a background in public finance. All the better for keeping good books (I talk a bit in Lohas and the Indigo Dollar about Wilber’s essay Right Bucks in which he waxes lyrical about accounting procedures for sharing the Dharma).

Anyway, I’m sure any day soon we’ll receive a report on Integral Life about how the consultation process has shown that the Australian market is ripe for integral exploitation research, and probably a request for volunteers interested in being on the cutting edge of shifting product consciousness.

Since the publication of Numen, Old Men—during which time I have been picking the scab of integral gender politics (see the “integral” tag)—I cannot help but notice there has been an increase in communications from the Integral Machine about this subject, and it has a very familiar flavor.

For example, on February 25 I wrote two posts (here and here) about the Integral Life newsletter entitled “The Need for Men’s Liberation”. This week’s newsletter contains very similar content.

There is great power in repetition. The more people hear something, the more they are inclined to believe it is true.

But let’s be clear, there has been no engagement from the Integral Machine with my critique, despite comments left on this blog from Robb Smith who said “Perhaps you’d like to air your grievances with the integral community, though it is a bit theoretical and there’s a large portion of the audience who may not understand what you’re talking about, it still might be worth a dialogue with Ken or others … Let me know about the desire to connect”.

They just keep saying the same thing. Funny/sad really: Wilber is fond of using the “sheep” analogy in regard to gender (claiming the reality of “patriarchy” suggests the “sheepification of women”), but the sheep are really the rank and file of the integral community.

But make no mistake: there are also plenty of smart people in the integral community who see this for what it is. My off-the-record communications reveal a significantly more critical stance than that aired publicly in articles and blog posts. What’s that about, do you think?

I’m certainly getting bored making these comments about integral gender: you’re probably getting bored reading them. I’m not done yet, but life’s too short to play a never-ending game of repetition with the Integral Machine. It’s simply one of a spectrum of problematic positions to me, but they are fully invested in it.

But don’t say you weren’t warned.

At the end of last year I wrote an article about “evolutionary thinker” Andrew Cohen, referring to some claims made against him by former students. One of them, William Yenner, has been particularly active promoting his book American Guru: A Story of Love, Betrayal and Healing – former students of Andrew Cohen speak out. Today, Yenner sent me an email about an article referring to his book on the Tikkun Blog which was swiftly removed. Yenner says in his email:

This important article was posted on the Tikkun Magazine Blog for a few hours – I don’t know why it was pulled down, and attempts to reach the author for an explanation were not successful. I can only wonder if it was too truthful and too politically hot. Or maybe it was taken down for further editing; however if that was the case it would make sense for Tikkun to have posted an explanation.

The article also has a good poke at Ken Wilber and the whole Integral scene that offers a legitimizing framework to Cohen (and he in turn to them).

Anyhow, cult-fighter Geoffrey Falk has done us the service of hosting the Google cache of the article which will no doubt soon disappear as well.

It’s no surprise the article was pulled, as it fails to (chooses not to) play by the rules of “balance” that we all have to adhere to these days, but it certainly gets to the heart of these alleged abuses. (See how my inner lawyer emphasizes the word “alleged”?)

A little while ago, I was contacted by Sarah Nicholson who is editing a book with Vanessa Fisher called Integral Explorations of Sex, Gender and Spirituality: Emerging Visions of Women and Men, under preparation for the new SUNY Press’ Integral Theory series. The blurb states:

This anthology highlights the cutting edge discourses on sex, gender and spirituality that are emerging from within the Integral paradigm of theory and practice. This collection of essays from academic theorists and advanced practitioners brings the Integral perspective to bear on issues of gender, sexuality, feminism, the men’s movement and women and men’s spirituality, as they appear within disciplines as diverse as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies and art theory. This anthology will feature a broad range of scholars and practitioners working across a diverse field of disciplines including: Ken Wilber, Elizabeth Debold, Robert Masters, Warren Farrell, Sarah Nicholson, Giles Herrada, R. Michael Fisher, Claire Zammit, Luke Fullagar, Vanessa Fisher, Diane Musho Hamilton and Marc Gafni.

Sarah wanted to know if I was interested in contributing to the book, to which I said something along the lines of “have you actually read any of my stuff?” Anyway, after a period of time which equates quite closely with how long it takes to find a copy of my modestly-distributed book in Australia, Sarah got back to me and repeated her question. So now we have settled upon the inclusion of an edit (minus some of the naughtier bits) of my integral chapter from Numen, Old Men in Sarah and Vanessa’s book.

Now, given that I’ve had a bit of a poke at a few of the other contributors in this book, lining up with them on the same Table of Contents seems a bit unlikely. But credit is due to Sarah and Vanessa: this is exactly the type of editorial decision that moves the debate along. It seems there are now a number of folks who want to pursue this debate (see my previous post on Rebecca Bailin’s paper): at some point this should affect the Integral Party line which hasn’t budged since the limited perspectives outlined in Sex, Ecology and Spirituality.

Further to my earlier post about the Integral Life Newsletter concerning “The Need for Men’s Liberation”, we are also directed to the article, “Feminine, Masculine, Female, and Male in the Integral Space” (Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 4(2), pp. 89–103) by Rebecca Bailin.

Bailin does a pretty good job of echoing my concerns about the integral treatment of gender, referring to the conflation of sex and gender, biological determinism in development, and even how integral gender flirts with the pre-trans fallacy. It’s a shame she didn’t get the chance to read my book, as I unpack these issues further still, but looking at the publication dates we were probably writing at the same time (I would also have cited her).

Bailin argues that Wilber et al stumble in this area because while they have a sufficiently nuanced position, they complement this with problematic casual statements, correctly stating:

It is not enough that these individuals use footnotes and more nuanced qualifications from time to time. The fact that they engage in public conversation with “sound bites” that lack sophistication around these matters has an impact on our academic and embodied efforts to avoid naïve essentialism (n. 6, p. 101)

But this is also where Bailin’s paper shows its limitations. Bailin focuses on these casual (“less academic”) sources, “to draw attention to the more vernacular and simplified ways of talking about these issues that pervade the integral community both in its academic and popular expressions” (ibid). This gives the impression that if those “more academic” sources were addressed, the story would look less grim, but the reality is quite the reverse. Where my own writing on this subject differs from Bailin’s is that I unpack those footnotes and expose how their contents offer deeper problems. In short, I would argue there is no nuance to integral gender.

My feeling, too, is that Bailin’s research in to this area is colored by her investment in integral theory; as such, she seeks to look upon it in the best possible light, salvaging what integral gender insight she can rather than the more reasonable conclusion of rejecting it as faulty.

In the end, integral theory brings nothing new to the table in regard to gender and the spirit which hasn’t been outlined in various forms for decades with feminist, gay and queer spiritualties; indeed, it unwinds some of the valuable progress made by these arguments.

Rarely a month goes by without the Wilberian Integral Machine pumping forth new evidence of its alignment with the men’s movement, as outlined in various blog posts here.

This week’s Integral Life Newsletter is entitled “The Need for Men’s Liberation” and directs readers to a conversation between Ken Wilber and Warren Farrell where they will be offered “Instant Insights” such as:

• “Power” is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life
• In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950′s, at the dawn of the feminist movement

Here’s the problem: Wilber and Farrell sound quite reasonable when they speak to issues such as “the urgent need for men to begin redefining their roles for today’s world”. However, when you scratch the surface, they begin to assert some rather more problematic positions. If you read my book you will find evidence for the following “Instant Insights”:

• Wilber distorts the work of feminist scholars such as Carol Gilligan, and claims they support his view, when they do not.
• Wilber and Farrell deny the historical reality of patriarchy, suggesting instead it was there to suit everyone.
• Wilber and Farrell’s consistent reframing of “feminism” and what it “really” means is an overt act of depoliticization and masculine power.
• Far from “redefining their roles for today’s world”, Wilber imprisons men and women into “types” on the AQAL matrix, falling foul of his own elegantly-formulated pre-trans fallacy.
• Wilber relegates “feminine” spiritual values to the pre-rational, stating “more men make it into the universal, postconventional moral stages than do women”.
• Wilber states that even in noospheric realms there can be no ultimate gender parity “given the unavoidable aspects of childbearing”.

How’s that for gender equality?

I know it’s getting rather boring with me making these comments about the integral men’s movement, but it seems that over the past year the Wilberian Integral Machine has gone on something of an offensive on this issue, which should be a worry for us all.

Further to the previous post about Perez’s article: when I originally wrote Numen, Old Men I included a few thoughts about Perez’s book Soulfully Gay, but they didn’t make the final draft. I really wanted to like Perez’s book, because of the importance of bringing gay (i.e. counterhegemonic) voices to the integral table, but I found it rather limited in perspective. Here’s the outtake, which originally followed my discussion of David Deida:

Perez contains none of the misogynistic flavour of Deida, although he does rate The Way of the Superior Man as “one of my favourites” whose writing he sees as allowing for “complex permutations of gender and sexual preference” and focuses on Deida’s presentation of masculine and feminine essences. Also, following Jungian analyst Mitch Walker, Perez suggests that underlining gayness is a mythic archetype, “that straights are drawn to connect to the divine through otherness, and gays through sameness”. Clearly, this appeal to archetypal (prototypal) reality as well as its polarity (straight/gay, otherness/sameness) is problematic within integral thought, as outlined above. It is also another example of how mythopoetic themes again bubble to the surface of integral thought in relation to masculinity, heterosexual or otherwise. It comes, then, as little surprise to find Perez discussing Robert Bly’s approach to the spiritual journey. Perez also pays special attention to the “men’s gatherings” he has attending via the ManKind Project, one of the more widely-known mythopoetic organisations responsible for running the “New Warrior Training Adventure” course. Perez also admires Toby Johnson, acclaimed gay spiritual writer and advocate of Joseph Campbell’s archetypal perspective who will be discussed in some detail in the next chapter about gay spirituality. But during his integral journey Perez has read Wilber’s critique of Campbell and decided that contemplating archetypes is insufficient for spiritual development.

Why archetypes remain in the background of integral discussions remains unanswered: one would think such Jungian hangovers would have been transcended and included. Perez provides a clear example of how integral thought cannot shake free of polar/mythic reasoning, seeking to honour “the value both of dualistic thinking (yin and yang, male and female) and the principle of unity”. But this equation is itself a manifestation of dualistic thinking (duality versus unity). A more valuable equation (assuming one desires to continue the realities of yin and yang, male and female) is to honour “the value both of dualistic thinking and the principle of multiplicity”. The Deleuzean concept of the multiple in regard to gender is one of the key themes of chapter 7. Clearly the multiple exists in integral thought, which is perhaps even based upon it, but the fact that it is transcended and included with a directional impetus towards “orienting generalizations” gives an impression that the integral seeks less to honour the multiple, rather to erase it in “the principle of unity”. Perez seems aware of these dangers, but that he must be ready to move beyond such concerns: ‘I must be even more willing to be perceived by others as mean, intolerant, elitist, arrogant, or worse. I must be willing to be called names by hypersensitive folks … “too Western” or “too white” or “too androcentric”’. Indeed he must.

Much of Perez’s presentation of the integral consists of little more than commenting on how very clever Wilber is, and relaying his various core theories. His most original contribution, however, locates what he describes as “homophilia” at the heart of his own take on masculine and feminine principles. Perez suggests notions of self-transcendence and self-immanence can be equated with the terms “heterophilia” and “homophilia”:

In self-transcendence, all holons transform through an interplay of masculine and feminine principles. Self-transcendence is the root drive underlying heterosexuality in all species. And in self-immanence, all holons transform through an interplay of masculine and masculine or feminine and feminine (that is, the holon turns inward on itself). Self-immanence is the root drive underlying homosexuality in all species.

On one level this is a welcome addition to the integral model, locating same-sex orientation on a par with heterosexuality. However, it is stuck in the old pattern of polarity, and it is noteworthy that same-sex orientation equates with a downward momentum, while heterosexuality equates with transcendence, the ultimate direction of the integral. We have already seen how Wilber privileges transcendence, so even here homophilia suffers relegation. Perez’s model, while seeking to be integral, does not seem able to escape heteronormativity, which itself is a masculine assertion.