JOSEPH GELFER

It wasn’t that many years ago that I was quite happy with the word “spirituality”: I even put it in the title of the journal I founded, Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. But every month that goes past makes me less and less comfortable with it; with every month that goes past its meaning shifts, its value haemorrhaging.

When spirituality is taught in the university, its current manifestation is described as the “subjective turn” where folks turn away from external sources of authority and values towards themselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing if those subjective and individual values are more useful than the external and cultural values left behind. However, more often than not, what defines contemporary spirituality is not the “subjective turn” but the “corporate turn,” where spirituality is reduced to a range of products and services sold to an unwitting audience who believe their purchases enable their spiritual development. I have written about this in the article Lohas and the Indigo Dollar: Growing the Spiritual Economy, and would also recommend reading Jeremy Carrette and Richard King’s book Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion for further discussion on this topic.

One excellent example of this trend comes in the recent edition of the Watkins Review and their 100 Spiritual Power List, the top ten of which comprises:

1. Eckhart Tolle
2. Dalai Lama
3. Wayne W. Dyer
4. Thich Nhat Hanh
5. Deepak Chopra
6. Louise L. Hay
7. Paulo Coelho
8. Oprah Winfrey
9. Ken Wilber
10. Rhonda Byrne

The striking commonality across the 100 on the list is their ability to shift product. If these people really are significant in the spiritual development of sentient life on Earth we are in woeful trouble. There are a number of people on the list I have written about in the past who are problematic, to say the least. There are also those I have witnessed at work in the flesh, and even one or two I know in person: it is not an encouraging list.

Of course, people will say “ah, but this about those people recognised in the public domain, not necessarily those who are most representative of ‘genuine’ spirituality.” But this only consolidates the bankrupt nature of the common understanding of the word: equating air time and sales with spiritual significance, influence and “power” (which itself is a troubling word in the context of the spiritual).

As is often the case, I end up sounding a bit Richard Dawkins, as if there is something inherently corrupt and deceitful about the spiritual, which is not (should not) be the case. I am firmly supportive of spiritual worldviews, but no longer of the word “spirituality.”

The time has come for anyone interested in meaningful conversations about what is loosely described as “spirituality” to abandon the term and seek a new vocabulary that is not tainted by the seemingly inescapable co-opting power of sales and marketing. This may sound like an impossible task, but remember it wasn’t that long ago (20 years?) that people referred more to the word “mysticism,” and this was largely supplanted by “spirituality.”

If we want to rescue “spirituality” we need to evolve our language and meaning faster than the co-opting habits of financially-minded and “power” individuals: these grubby people tend to be surprisingly limited in imagination, so I suspect it may not be as difficult as it sounds.

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.

I have a new article out called LOHAS and the Indigo Dollar: Growing the Spiritual Economy in the new issue of New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry.

The article abstract is as follows:

It is well documented that alternative spiritualities can be commercialised and commodified. My aim in this paper is to extend this further by identifying how LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability), which describes a multi-billion dollar marketplace in the United States, seeks to consciously grow the spiritual economy to unprecedented levels. I then provide an example of how this consumer-focused logic is expressed by integral theorist Ken Wilber, resulting in what might be called the “indigo dollar.”

The journal is open access, so you can read the final published version right here.

Chapter 3 (Sexuality) of The Masculinity Conspiracy is now online.

This chapter examines how the theme of sexuality is mobilized in the conspiracy via two books: Earth Honoring: The New Male Sexuality by Robert Lawlor and The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work and Sexual Desire by David Deida.

It shows how these books promote a masculine sexuality of fixed characteristics.

It then offers some different ways of thinking about masculine sexuality in order to counter the conspiracy.

There’s an interesting headline on this week’s Integral Life newsletter that points to the story Taking Down the Cross. In it, we are told about Ian Lawton who has “been inspired by the work of Ken Wilber since 2005, as well as a student of Genpo Roshi.” Lawton and his ostensibly Christian C3 Exchange community have made the “controversial decision to remove the cross from their church, [with] the intent to create a more inclusive and inspirational Christianity.”

Sounds positive doesn’t it? The story offers a Fox News excerpt in which Lawton speaks about people of differing religions and values who find the cross alienating on their spiritual journey. The news excerpt also offers a critical alternative opinion from International Aid CEO David Wisen who agrees that taking down the cross is a good idea, as one cannot honestly claim to be Christian while suggesting there are others ways than Christ to God.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for progressive Christianity, and I have no desire to align myself with Wisen’s position about salvation only being found through Christ. However, there are often other things chugging away in the background with integrally-aligned strategies. As I point out in Numen, Old Men, “Leon Schlamm (2001) and George Adams (2002) argue that Wilber’s focus on a particular type of highest-consciousness non-dualism requires the distortion of what other people (the transcended and included) mean when talking about their own traditions; in a sense, their meaning is denied.”

In short, taking down the cross may be done in the spirit of inclusivity, but can have the effect of erasing the Christianity that it seeks to transcend and include. Just imagine the stink that would be caused if we started stripping away the symbols of Islam in order to make it “more inclusive” to non-Muslims.

References:

Adams, George. “A Theistic Perspective on Ken Wilber’s Transpersonal Psychology.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 17, no. 2 (2002): 165-79.

Schlamm, Leon. “Ken Wilber’s Spectrum Model: Identifying Alternative Soteriological Perspectives.” Religion 31, no. 1 (2001): 19-39.

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.

Chapter 2 (History) of The Masculinity Conspiracy is now online.

**PLEASE VIEW THIS SITE WITH FIREFOX: THERE ARE SOME ISSUES WITH IE AT THE MOMENT**

This chapter examines how the theme of history is mobilized in the conspiracy via two books: Manliness by Harvey Mansfield, and Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution by Ken Wilber.

I show how these books promote a masculinity of fixed characteristics that is biologically determined and bound by history.

I then offer some different ways of thinking about masculinity and history in order to counter the conspiracy.

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”?)