CONTEXT AND LINEAGE OF THE SYNCON AND THE WHEEL OF COCREATION
Barbara Marx Hubbard
CONTEXT
Over the past 40 years I have been developing certain social “templates” or
patterns to facilitate the next stage of our evolution. All of them spring from
an evolutionary perspective and a metaphor to describe our current situation.
The metaphor is: “Our crisis is the birth of a universal humanity, capable of
co-evolving with nature and cocreating with spirit.”
This “birth” is dangerous, yet natural. The tendency in evolution at times of
such crises is to develop evolutionary drivers that pressure us toward more
consciousness, more freedom, and more life through more synergistic order.
This is what we see happening now.
In this paper I will place two of these key evolutionary social patterns in the
context of evolutionary potential and describe them briefly so that those who
are choosing to apply them in a variety of ways will know where they come
from, and will help develop whatever their greater potential may be.
These new patterns for social evolution come forth out of the recent
revelation of the Process of Creation – cosmogenesis – understood as our
own story, our own “birth narrative, from the origin of creation to us at the
point of self-destruction or more conscious evolution.
This Process is seen as an evolutionary spiral, proceeding quantum jump by
quantum jump from pre-life to life, from single cell to animal, from animal to
human, and now, possibly, from human to a more universal, cocreative,
compassionate humanity.
The spiral is experienced as directional, animated from within by an
“implicate order,” a tendency, a universal intelligence or Consciousness Force
leading to ever higher consciousness and greater freedom through more
complex, synergistic order, as mentioned above.
The “Core” of the spiral can be visualized as the designing universal
intelligence animating every atom, molecule and cell, now becoming
conscious within us as our own motivation to grow, to love more, to
participate more fully in the process of creating a world equal to our
aspiration and potential.
From this perspective it appears that the universe is not neutral. It seems to
be ‘coded’ with a prime directive: Create More Conscious Life. Transform
Matter into Life. In this context the evolution of Earth Life including ourselves
is understood as a vital stage in a universal developmental path toward a
conscious universe. As James Gardner puts it: “The universe is coming to
life,” We are a natural part of that life.
When we place our current condition within the evolutionary spiral as the
next turn, we realize that quantum changes are nature’s tradition; that crises
precede transformation; and that nature takes jumps through greater
synergy – separate parts coming together to form a whole system greater
than and different from the sum of its parts. Intuitively we can imagine this
greater whole pulling us forward to realize it.
Revelation of higher states of being and creating are experienced as the next
stage of evolution being born through us, in our midst.
In the planetary developmental path we are at the stage of beginning to
coordinate ourselves as a whole planetary body in order to survive. None of
our current institutions or structures is designed for social synergy.
We see that a vital key to our conscious evolution now is to create new forms
of SOCIAL SYNERGY capable of increasing connectivity, communication and
cooperation among diverse functions, groups, people, races, faiths forming a
new whole system greater than and different from the sum of our parts.
The theological definition of synergism is when human will and divine will join
for the regeneration of the human race. In this sense social synergy is a way
for us to tap into the deeper patterns of creation and align our individual
motivation with that tendency in evolution toward higher, more harmonious
order. We find that the “Big Bang”and the fourteen billion years of
evolutionary transformation are alive and well within us as our own unique
expression of the continuing creation. We are the face of evolution.
From this perspective we see ourselves struggling to coordinate ourselves as
a whole system, running out of non-renewable resources, over-populating,
polluting, over-shooting our environmental base, in danger of collapse.
This is the precise set of crises of birth of the next stage of our evolution that
we are given which are in fact activating our new capacities and pressuring
us toward social synergy in order to survive and thrive at the next stage of
our unfolding.
We also see that we are in need of longer-range evolutionary goals, an
evolutionary agenda that can solve our problems in the light of the
emergence of our extraordinary new capacities – spiritual, social and
scientific/technological.
In order to precede we now place our selves in the broadest context . We
take the “overview perspective,” as the astronauts did, experiencing our t as
the people of the Earth now entering the process of natural synergistic
cocreation . If nature could take jumps through greater synergy and
cooperation for billions of years with no guide book, then certainly, we can
too! It’s innate. It the nature of nature. It’s the intention of creation. It’s not
inevitable, but it is potential.
The SYNCON process and the Wheel of Cocreation were both
designed as processes to foster greater social synergy.
The SYNCON PROCESS stands for synergistic convergence. It brings together
diverse groups and interests to seek common goals and match needs with
resources in the light of the growing potential of the whole system. It was
tested 25 times in the 1970’s in venues as diverse as the gangs of Los
Angeles, a rural group in the nation of Jamaica, Washington DC, the
Generation Federation of Women’s Clubs and Huntsville Alabama. (More
comprehensive description of the SYNCON Process is available).
SYNCON was born out of this need to foster social synergy and to examine
long-range evolutionary goals that have the potential of radically
transforming the human condition for the good. It is a social acting out of the
vision so many of us hold of a world wherein each person is free to do and be
their best within the emergent whole system.
It is a harbinger of a more “synergistic democracy,” a form of selfgovernance that is designed to foster cocreativity rather than. Synergy is the
way nature evolves. When we create synergistic social structures, the
evolutionary tendency in nature is supported by us and the genius of selforganization is facilitated naturally, because in fact it is natural.
Here is a brief description of how the SYNCON worked. It can form an
inclusive, coherent, evolutionary context upon which many advanced
processes can be added.
THE SYNCON takes place in a wheel -shaped environment representing vital
functions of the social body, such as health, education, environment,
governance, media, science and technology, etc. The Wheel symbolizes the
whole, at the local, regional, organizational, or global levels depending on
where and how it is used.
DIAGRAM
In a more complex SYNCON it is desirable to have task forces at the growing
edge of the Wheel representing evolutionary potentials not usually included
in the social body, such as the biological evolution, space development, the
psychologies of growth, the information evolution, etc.)
The arts are also invited to symbolize, celebrate, and help the social body
imagine and feel itself as a whole.
A Coordinating Hub is composed of people from various sectors of the Wheel
who are drawn by the common purpose of directing the process. There are
facilitators in every sector of the Wheel, ideally people knowledgeable in the
current realities and possibilities of that field. They are responsible for
developing “Synergistic Rules of Order,” seeking an all-win relationships.
Eventually these transcend “Robert’s Rules or Order.” Through SYNCON we
are experimenting with a next phase of self-governance, beyond the win/lose
oppositional and polarizing form that we are now using.
People are invited it to enter the Wheel based on their desire to create within
some function. SYNCON does not demand idealism or altruism. It is designed
as a better way to achieve one’s goals through synergy than through
opposition.
The participants first meet in an Assembly of the Whole with all sectors filled
with participants. At the opening of a SYNCON an experience of hope and
possibilities is generated. However it is done, the feeling is that humanity’s
potential to evolve is evoked in artistic, poetic, and imaginative ways. The
Arts are vital here.
The SYNCON Wheel is a “theater for cocreation and conscious evolution.” The
sectors can be artistically decorated to represented vital functions. The Hub
of the Wheel can be seen as the place of coordination, of evolutionary design,
of global intelligence.
If possible, the Hub coordinators have access to a video team. The
participants who want to have their new agreements and connections
recorded as the NEW NEWS call upon this team. Every day of the SYNCON
there is an effort to produce the New News as it comes from the process
itself.
If required, a Council on High Priority Needs is formed to assist people who
do not communicate effectively or who may feel angry, left out, or incapable.
Social healing is a vital part of social synergy. This is a place for coaches,
counselors, and family therapists of all kinds. The goal is that no one is left
out. Even better everyone finds where their gift is most needed within the
whole.
There are several main stages of a SYNCON:
1. Each sector meets, either in one group, or several smaller groups, to
identify major goals, needs and resources both individually or as a
sector. (Small group dialogue processes are valuable here.)
2. Each sector reports its goals, needs and resources to the Assembly of the
Whole. If a growing edge group of task forces is used, they are asked
to synthesize the emerging potentials in their fields and report into the
whole. As so often the deprived citizens are left out of social change,
so are the geniuses working to develop new capacities that are vital to
solving problems and realizing new possibilities. As thes reports goes
on, people in other sectors listen, and raise their hands whenever they
have a need that some other person or group has a resource for.
There begins to be excitement, as possible synergies are discovered.
People make appointments to meet each other. “Vocational dating” is
fun. People’s creativity is aroused.
3. People mingle with each other based on matching needs with resources.
Often-larger clusters form. The discussions are animated. They call for
the video camera, realizing that the media is part of their own nervous
system. The concept of news evolves from what is breaking down to
what is breaking through. People see themselves as newsmakers.
especially when they have made a new connection or discovered a new
mode of cooperation among former opposites. The Coordinating Hub’s
media team, will make of the SYNCON a new news cast.
4. People reassemble in their sectors of the Wheel and share with one
another the synergies and connections they have made. Each sector
prepares a next report to the Assembly of the Whole, which includes
the new possibilities that they have discovered and committed to.
Through these reports, further connections are generated.
5. There is an All Walls Down Ceremony where the symbolic dividers are
removed with music and whatever else is desired to celebrate the
coming together of the parts within the new whole.
6. In this sacred space, each sector reports to the Whole its experience, and
asks help of others as needed. Often social synergy is felt as a form of
social love., a natural spirituality – the binding back and making
whole. Stereotypes fade; oppositional leadership is often changed into
cooperative leadership. Those who cooperate best gain the most
rewards. They gain the most attention, since the media features
cooperation over opposition. (Mayor Yorty of Los Angeles said there
should be a SYNCON outside of every City Hall so that special interests
and groups would have to learn to cooperate with each other before
they got to the mayorl)
7. A New News Cast is played for everyone to see themselves as
newsmakers, communicated widely via Internet and local broadcast.
Local media is invited to be an intrinsic part of the SYNCON and is
encouraged to develop the broadest possible outreach for the process
and its commitments to positive action.
9. Ideally the SYNCON is a continuous process occasionally interrupted by a
meeting. There can be task force or the Coordinating Hub that
continue to meet and report into the whole. It is now possible to
develop the information technology to foster the continuation of the
process of cooperation and cocreation. (See Fernand Sarrat’s design
for Self Empowered Communities).
10.
As the process replicates, each SYNCON places its goals, needs and
resources into a common META-SYNCON information system. The
matching of needs and resources does not have to be restricted to a
single SYNCON. Eventually SYNCONS connect into larger organs of
cooperation within sectors and between sectors. The seeking of
common goals and matching needs with resources can be spread
throughout the social body at whatever scale is possible. Through this
process people discover that everything we need to solve our problems
and realize our potentials is already in the system. The connectivity
and new energy fostered by synergistic convergence is a vital key to
realizing our social potential during the “crisis of our birth.”
THE WHEEL OF COCREATION is the second vital social process offered here.
See diagram of the Wheel on www.evolve.org and the story of the Wheel in
Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential.
The Wheel of Co-creation was born out of the 25 SYNCONS produced by the
Committee for the Future in the 1970’s and from the experience of my Vice
Presidential Campaign in 1984, as well as more recently through
collaboration with many colleagues.
During that ‘Campaign for a Positive Future’ I proposed a new social function
in the office of the vice president, a “Peace Room” to be as sophisticated as a
War Room, to scan for, map, connect, and communicate what is working in
American and the world. The Wheel was to be filled in with projects and
people and made available the public for greater participation. (When Dennis
Kucinich, running for president, heard of this he envisioned a large Wheelshaped room next to the oval office filled with data bases of what is working
in every field and function, where leaders of the emerging world are invited
to tell their stories and make the connections they need to fulfill their
missions.) I am at this moment approaching Barack Obama with this idea for
his campaign. It actually can be used by political candidates at any level in
any party who wish to encourage grass roots cooperation and to overcome
the current polarization through greater awareness of what is working. This
design is neither Left nor Right: it is forward, upward and whole.
This version of the Wheel was further developed with the assistance of Avon
Mattison’s Wheel for Pathways to Peace. Avon is a sister-in-evolution who is
applying the Wheel to building a Culture of Peace through the United Nations
International Day of Peace and throughout the world. Her input has been
gratefully recorded in my book Conscious Evolution. Rama Vernon and I used
the design of the SYNCON and the Wheel for Soviet American Citizen
Summits during the Cold War, bringing together Americans and Soviets to
seek common projects and goals. The Association for Global New Thought
was founded on the symbol of the Wheel. It has served to support its
purpose of bringing spirit into action through cocreation .
The Wheel was laid out as a schema to match people and projects through
www.evolve.org with Marshall Lefferts,Teresa Collins and myself supported
by the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. It was subsequently developed by
several key groups including the Santa Barbara Conscious Evolution
Community “Peace Room Project “which developed the 12 around 1 Wheel;
the Shift Project, guided by Marshall Lefferts, Teresa Collins, myself and
others, including Foster Gamble, Howard Rosenfeld of the Shir’ah
Foundation, Jim Fournier of Planet Works and others, funded by Ermanno
Magnini as an effort to overcome poverty through social synergy. The Wheel
is currently being used by Susan Davis of the Tipping Point Network, Foster
Gamble’s important film Thrival, Eleanor LeCain’s NewWaysUSA, the
PartnerShift Alliance. Stephen Dinan working with Avon, is interested in the
Wheel now in the Summer of Peace project in San Francisco. Rinaldo
Brutoco, president of The World Business Academy wants to use it to set up
a Peace Room for the Peace Alliance, which is supporting The Department of
Peace legislation. Fernand Sarrat is using some form of the Wheel design for
the Self Empowerment Community Project being modeled in Santa Barbara
as a project of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution of which he is the
executive director. I am applying the Wheel design for the Conscious
Evolution Chair for Wisdom University under the aegis of Jim Garrison, as a
way for masters and doctoral students to help develop the Wheel. It is
actually a PhD in social evolution. The Wheel will provide the structure for the
Barbara Marx Hubbard Library for Conscious Evolution and The Center for a
Positive Future in Santa Barbara under the guidance of John Zwerver. I will
use it for my forthcoming DVD: ‘Synergistic Democracy” as a call for the next
stage of self-governance.
We are indeed “Reinventing the Wheel!” The time has come to coordinate
these efforts and to deepen our collective understanding of its usefulness.
The Wheel represents the sectors of the SYNCON Wheel. While SYNCONS are
face-to-face meetings, the Wheel is in virtual reality as well as serving as a
model for group meetings. It has morphed from 8 sectors to 12 sectors. The
process is still in its formative stage.
DIAGRAM OF THE WHEEL
Here is my understanding of the Wheel. Others will bring their own
understanding to it.
The Wheel evolves naturally out of the evolutionary spiral. We can visualize it
as Our Turn on the Spiral. It is a matrix of whole system designed to map
and connect what is working in the world. It has been called the
WhatWorksWheel. (WWW), the Synergy Wheel, the Transformation Wheel,
the Peace Room Wheel, the Wheel of Cocreation.
It has at least the four functions which I suggested for the Vice Presidency. It
scans for, maps, connects, and communicates (as the New News) what is
working in the world. It attracts unto itself the people, projects, initiatives
that are now actually healing and transforming our world. The projects selforganize and cluster according to vital function, revealing the emergence of
the New Civilization through the actual projects that are now building it. The
Wheel is “alive.” It is constantly turning. Every input not only adds to its
momentum, but also increases the synergy among the evolving parts of the
social body.
I see the Wheel in action as a way to cross the gap from what Jonas Salk
described as Epoch A to Epoch B. Epoch A is the current situation as the
population curve rises exponentially, and pollution, environmental
degradation, climate change, etc., now nearing a critical collapse scenario.
Epoch B is the next turn on the sigmoid curve when we have reached
sustainability and evolvability. This “gap” between Epoch A and B cannot be
crossed by linear means. There isn’t enough time. Time is critical, like during
a biological birth. This is a “planetary birth,” or developmental process, that
has reached a critical phase transition. This crisis is pressing us rapidly
toward greater cooperation, or devolution and self-destruction. In this sense
we can see the crisis as a vital evolutionary driver toward our next stage of
maturation as a species. The Wheel is designed to foster non-linear,
exponential connectivity and interaction among innovations now working. It
fosters continuing social synergy in action. It assists the system in
cooperating in its own self transcendence. I believe that when it is
functioning, it will serve as a social magnet or attractor that can pull us
across the gap in time toward the next stage of human evolution.
The Wheel is a context for new “memes” or ideas that self organize in
functional clusters based on What is Working. Together these “memelets”
begin to form a memetic code. We have just mapped the genome project.
This can be the “memome project.” As genes create bodies, memes create
cultures. Most of our modern memes are either really destructive, or fading
rapidly. There is nothing more important than identifying and connecting the
memes that can and indeed already are optimizing our future during the
transition of our birth as a universal humanity.
(See my Evolutionary Synthesis paper, which is a framework to identify the
meme-builders in the Evolution of the Universe, the Evolution of Evolution,
the Evolution of Society and the Evolution of the Person, seen as one
integrated process of emergence now actually happening but as yet invisible
to most of us. )
At the center of the Wheel we can symbolize the Core of the Spiral breaking
through, informing our own process of creation with there same power of
coordination with which the Process brought atom with atom and cell with
cell. It is the Still Point of the Turning Spiral.
The Center of the Wheel can be felt subjectively in our heart and soul as an
emanation of the process of creation. It is the “soul of evolution” become
conscious within us as our own motivation to evolve. It is experienced
personally as our own yearning to evolve and participate. It can be cultivated
collectively as our shared experience of the process of creation, or the
Consciousness Force, universal co-intelligence , God. This is the way the Holy
Spirit, or the designing intelligence, or whatever name we call it, is now
breaking through into human consciousness, not as a religion or a dogma ,
but as our indwelling, divine creativity and calling to participate in the
repatterning of our world.
We can visualize around the glowing flame a sacred circle representing the
whole system design, the evolutionary design space, our collective
awareness of the implicate order becoming explicate through us.
In a “mature” Wheel of Cocreation every sector of the Wheel already includes
major innovations in health, education, economics, energy, governance,
media, etc that are already manifesting “golden innovations,” projects
successfully working toward greater sustainability, self-sufficiency,
wholeness, creativity,re generativity , compassion, evolvability. etc.
There is the opportunity here to bring together at various scales key
innovators to share with one another what they know that works, so that
they can discover the greater synergies among the innovations now
transforming the world.
We can envision an initiative to bring together at least 12 people who are
master innovators in every sector of the Wheel, like Hazel Henderson in
Economics, Jean Houston in Human Creativity, Deepak Chopra and Andrew
Weil in Health, Amory Lovins and Bill Mcdonough in Environment, Rinaldo
Brutoco in Business, Barbara Fields in spirituality and spirit-motivated social
action, etc. They would spend enough time with each other to share with
each other what they already know that works, and to discover the synergy
among what they know, and to connect the vast networks with which each of
them are already connected .
Through this process we would discover that the new team is here, in many
places, the new leadership is at work, and the new world is being born in our
midst right now. Such coming together of leading innovators could form the
basis of cocreative politics, and could be offered to the people at any scale in
various campaigns. Local SYNCONS could be held to bring diverse groups
together and to discover what is working in localities.
This process can be done at any scale.
As a Coordinating Hub guides the
SYNCON, so its “Wholly Hosts” focuses the Wheel. These are people who are
skilled at whole systems design and social networking. Although the system
must be self-organizing, the hosts have the responsibility of continually
helping to connect people who need each other. Ideally these hosts would
include brilliant entrepreneurs and philanthropists who can help people see
how things can work better. The hosts are responsible for the New News,
which is to flow from the Wheel. This new news is not just a series of stories
about good works. It is actually the drama of a species grappling with
extinction of evolution. It is far more compressive than a Tolstoy novel of
War and Peace. The drama and art of conscious evolution needs to be
developed. It is the story of the age. There is nothing more exciting or
demanding.
Now Paul Hawkens has a fab antifear message.
Inspiration...
“Wall upon wall surrounds your prison cell so that it seems almost impossible
that you will ever break out and make contact with the richness of life and
love and freedom that lies beyond your prison fortress. And yet the task far
from being impossible, is actually easy and delightful. What can you do to
break out?
Four things: First, realize that you are surrounded by prison walls, that your
mind has gone to sleep. It does not even occur to most people to see this, so
they live and die as prison inmates. Most people end up being conformists;
they adapt to prison life. A few become reformers; they fight for better living
conditions in the prison, better lighting, better ventilation. Hardly anyone
becomes a rebel a revolutionary who breaks down the prison walls. You can
only be a revolutionary when you see the prison walls in the first place.” Way
to Love, Anthony De Mello
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U
Paul Hawkens, Blessed Unrest— Bioneers 2006
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiJNeln-1zs
Paul Hawkens. “We are moving from a world created by the privileged for the
privileged, to a world created by community.”
http://www.livevideo.com/video/CTCC/265D3117537743609B680E12EE4F1D
7D/did-you-know-2-0-shift-happe.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PWXrnsSrf0
Ray Kurzwel. Knowledge and technology accelerating exponentially. With
acceleration doubling every decade. Evolution creates a capability and then
uses that capability to advance the next state, that is why the pace of change
accelerates…from one paradigm shift to another. Nano manufactured solar
panels collecting 1% of solar energy could take cure of 100% of our energy
needs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEf7kQQZQSk
Barbara Marx Hubbard
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbCqfG1n-0c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_HDSQXMI0
Starlab
http://meaningoflife.tv/
David White
…the venerable mother lode of so much of this are the whole earth catalogs
and [the] offshoot magazine co-evolution quarterly/ whole earth review. Its
contributors read like the fillmore west of conciousness, land use, ecology,
appropriate technology,personal computing etc. etc., paul hawken among
them…another offshoot was the WELL, a 1985 pioneering community internet
forum. (Henry)
On reading the above I suddenly had a flashback to Vandy, early Spring,
1971 when Vandy had its annual week where the student governing body
brought in speakers and performances etc. related to the cutting sociopolitical edge. There was a name for it which I have forgotten. Scene: the big
auditorium. Speaker: the recently late Robert Theobald, Futurist. He
predicted that night, unlike any other futurist at the time, that one of the
major changes in this culture would come out of a growing number of people
putting together telephone linked networks of miniature computers that they
would have sitting on their desks in their homes and offices. This was before
the PC was much more than a gleam in the IBM eye. I had recently edited a
magazine symposium on the future of progressive politics (featuring articles
by Todd Gitlin (http://www.toddgitlin.net/) and Arthur Waskow
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waskow) and myself) which Theobald
included in a anthology for use as college level futurist text book, so I was in
touch with him for a period following that event. He was putting together
such a network at that time with himself and a handful of bright youngsters
who were building computers out of Tandy/Radio Shack components. I
stayed abreast of him and this work for several years but gradually fell away,
never having been much of a techie, so I don't know if much of what he was
doing then made it into the internet as we know it now. Who knows maybe
he had an influence on Gates and Job. (A friend and partner in various
journalistic crimes, Frye Gaillard, had been, the previous year, organizer of
the above event and had brought in Eldridge Cleaver as the main
speaker...evidently quite a stir about that one. Gaillard was later prominant
in the expose of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker.) (Steven)
of the whole earth crowd, stewart brand, howard rheingold and kevin kelly
among several others merit a google. From counterculture to cyberspace. I
wish i had paid closer attention, but my eyes were glazed over from the
magazine's previous space colony hysteria... a couple of people from "the
farm" were instrumental in starting up "the well". remember stephen gaskin's
buses(caravan) rolling through nashville in '70 or '71 steven?.. an original
lifetime "maniacal subscriber" to co-evolution quarterly was marlon brando of
los angeles california 8 (Henry)
Paul Hawken (no ‘s’ on the end) certainly has an impressive resume, one
that, on moderately close examination, suggests that he is a man born of
privilege. There is nothing wrong with that, however it shows that he has
never had reason to doubt whatever it was that led him to say that the world
to date was created by the privileged, for the privileged. If he had said that
to a convention of non-hack historians instead of a group of probably slightly
less than privileged environmentalists (in U.S. terms at least) he would have
been ridden off the stage on a rail because it is just not true. But it is the
conventional wisdom and thus it is effective propaganda. It sets up a straw
man (or straw class in this instance) in a very interesting, nonviolent sort of
way. But it does not do anything to counter the way the myth has promoted
and continues to reinforce a victim mentality. It continues to further
American's AADD credulity toward hack journalism and hack history and so it
is perfectly geared to fit into U-Tube's brainlessly superficial formats. (French
anarchist and theologian, Jacques Ellul, called this “agitation propaganda,”
that which seeks to get people worked up enough to do something. He also
had a category “integrating propaganda,” that which seeks to get people
feeling warm and fuzzy and nestled into their culture, their status, or
whatever. Ellul wrote his pessimistic critique of techno-media propaganda the
same year McLuhan wrote Understanding Media and I wonder if Baudrillard
didn't rely on Ellu's assessment of media and propaganda 30 years later in
describing his version of "Integral Man.")
This does not discredit Hawken’s main point about all those people doing all
those things, but the context of the point starts to look manipulative. He’s
putting his audience into the Big Time League of New Movers and Shakers
(sort of like KW painting all his people that attractive turquoise they so like to
see when looking in the meditational mirror). It is a good technique and can
probably get the male vertebrate in question some, at least, of what he
wants.
S.
P.S. henry, yes, I was there, I was there. I was there the night Gaskin told
the overflow crowd in an auditorium at Peabody that it was "macrobiotic" for
a mountain lion to eat meat, so we should all cut them some slack. I thought
that was really big of the man. (Steven)
Heck i was going out of my way to find some "good" news and you poop on
my parade, looks like I will have to try harder. Yea saying that the world was
created by the priviledged is like saying that females were the victims of the
patriarchy instead of 50% of the cause.
Ok, I did some homework and AC [Andrew Cohen] is not so lost. In fact he is
damn clear.
The urgency thing is "creative urgency" like sexual urgency...hence this
evolutionary enlightenment shtick is not for slackers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0HwqGUkxbA&mode=related&search= —
Being and Becoming, Andrew Cohen…now the postmodern enlightenment is
the conscious creation of the future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abbWHLagQao Andrew Cohen, Israel
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY_zwVQQjXo&mode=related&search= —The
evolutionary impulse is unreasonable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3aatdEjFBw&NR=1 —Moral
Development
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnETVXKkvNU&mode=related&search= —
Creative Friction
I watched the longest of the Cohen vids. It is the most coherent presentation
by him I have seen yet. I think he is moving in the direction of saying that
god is indistinguishable from the Universe, or the Universe is
indistinguishable from god; and this is a universe that includes the nonmanifest ground of being. This sounds as if Cohen is embracing the
Unitarian's doctrine—that is if Unitarian Doctrine isn't a oxymoron. The vid
reminded me of an article I read recently (sorry, lost the address) where
someone was commenting a little on a KW passage where he wrote that
Spirit was to the Universe what wetness is to water.(I immediately thought
the question: if water was sensate would it know that it was wet?)
Next I wondered if the Wilber-Cohen Junta wasn't putting together a Nature
Religion for the 21st Century?
In the last analysis it gets down to the basics of what you think, how you
feel, about god or spirit is what you think and feel about the Universe and
vice-versa. If one believes in a beneficent god, then one must believe in a
beneficent universe. But if one does not believe in god then does it stand to
reason that one does not believe in the Universe? Or would they say,
“unevolved you, you just can’t see the god for the universe.” (Or they could
say to one who was for transcendence uber alles, “Too evolved you, you just
can’t see the universe for the god.)
Have I got any of this right or does it sound as if W-C just converted to
liberal protestantism?
I am just glad that a "teacher" has broken from that stuffy vedantan trap of
navel gazing at Nothing. The "Being and Becoming", is I thought a
masterpiece of video history. I had been beating up on AC thinking he was
doing the petty tyrant male guru thing, while vestiges of this might remain in
the context of his own community, it is apparent that his philosophy has
risen beyond the self-referential limitation of patriarchial hierarchy.
From the clips I got that the Wilber-Cohen "God" has moved beyond a
theosophical concept, to a more "lived experience of the living spirit itself."
As such you cannot really call it Nature worship, so much as getting back to
the essence of Gnostic Workship...which is the deep sense of unity with the
Universe that is shot through all the ancient traditions from Sumer (Iraq) and
Egypt onwards...always falling down into a material bureaucracy. Due to the
ego's preditorial power lust to gain dominance over Spirit itself. If this time
we can really get "who is boss" and who is the servant, perhaps the WilberCohen God will have a more significant impact on human evolution.
well since the thread has drifted in the AC/KW direction i thought it would be
interesting to check out this latest posting from RAM for those who havn't
seen it. talking about intentional communities and the cultish shadow side.
http://www.robertmasters.com/newsletter/October2007.pdf
(http://www.robertmasters.com/newsletter/October2007.pdf)
Thanks Henry, I missed that one. RAM is more optimistic than me that
community is possible...I tend to see all human activity as tribal and
cultic...however we don't get anywhere by throwing in the towel and
succombing to the notion that we are eternal f*ups. If anyone can crack
open cultism its RAM :o
AC's speel is so good, I don't particularly care if he has a dysfunctional
community—since we live in a dysfunctional world I wonder if functional
relationship is even possible. The one red flag for me was when AC said that
the new "chosen people" is those that are hip and active in evolutionary
spirituality. The tendency in times of stress is to create special preferential
bonds, however Spirit in order to survive, needs to be wild, it needs to roam
the entire globe, not hang out with like-minded chosen people that will have
everlasting life because of their joint belief system. It is this kind of thing
that needs to be consciously routed out of all these Fab teachers programs
who at this point in the game should know better. It is up to us audience to
call a fish when we see it. I request that AC stop creating exclusionpreferential bonds with his flock...any such egostroking defense and security
measures will be the downfall of the very thing he is so eloquently striving
for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxROglke1xE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yir45VqDzg&NR=1
There is the no-self, and there is the Self.
Self-dissolution is only “half” of the equation.
AC is on the right track both with group evolving and the urgent need to put
spirit into action. Spirituality has been used as a tranquilizer and
antidepressant for too long...medicating ourselves into stupification however
is not a truly human life—and will only speed the apocaplyse.
I don't even acknowledge the nondual in Zeropoint Unified Field, because
polar particles spin out of it in their opposite charges, and my sense is that
spin exists within ZPE itself...the entire universe is asymmetric.
Even if one holds nondual concepts in the mind, the mind IS a digital
dualistic computer, it identifies opposites, that is its job.
Nondual realization only occurs during samadhi when the mind, all motor
control, the world, everything has dissapeared...as soon as the Being returns
to this world you are back in dualism again, with the very first thought.
So the whole concept of nondual spirituality is a prescienfific, sloppy
interpretation of the samadhi state.
In fact they should really call it nondualling, because nondualists always go
on about Nothing and fight as though they have a "position", well if they
have a position, they are not nondual...to be nondual you have to be a
perfectly symmetrical amorphous jellyfish in a perfectly symmetrical universe
prior to spin, prior to consciousness, prior to matter!
The over-riding sense from satsang with Ady or Gangaji is the pleasure of hte
blasting of the tower of Babel, but they offer no skill, sense of direction or
any ideas on how to live a life beyond the tower of Babel. In this sense AC
and KW represent some of the few Sp.teachers that are pointing a way into
the future. That is if you need Sp.teachers.
Evolution is already what is. Nondualism without evolutionary-action, is
simply hearing the message Herald forth from the Abyss and then sitting
around endlessly grooving on the sound of the message itself...rather than
enacting its instructions.
I think it is kinda funny now the drama that unfolded back in India around AC
and Gangaji...when Sri HWL Poonjaji blessed Gangaji with the job of taking
Vedanta to the West, while he chastized AC for deviating from the original
teaching. AC was not granted teacher statis within that tradition, but he has
gone on to be far more effective in THIS world than Gangaji who can only
recite the original self-dissolving message.
Simply self-dissolving in a time of crisis will lead to complete collapse of
civilization, because self-dissolving is addictive and you can do it for
lifetimes. However in order to be fully human, and resoponding to the true
call of evolution, you need to do the building and action...that is the
CREATIVE side of the equation as well. The dissolving is only there to provide
space for the NEW to manifest.
The damnedable thing is, the seemingly inevitable way that the "Voice of
Spirit" morphs, develops, devolves into ideology to kill and die for, and/or
into media products for consumption.
To me at this point, it comes down to: which will be more important?
Ideology with all its deadly baggage or the recognition and reduction of
suffering? Do we really need Spirituality to deal with our problems? I
wonder...
I wonder if anyone actually heard this girl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsDliXzyAY
Yes, in light of the current world crisis we have to question the very nature of
our spirituality altogether...because we won't get a second chance...our time
is running out. We have to ask ourselves "For whom does the Grail serve?"
For whom does our Spirit serve?
Is our enlightenment merely for our own betterment, or are we really awake
and making a difference. We have to change the way we think, feel, relate,
do business...we have to change our reason for "existing." If our spiritual
path distracts us from our eco-logical dharma, then we better get onto
another spiritual path quick smart.
The cure for cancer is prevention. The cure for global suicide is prevention.
We must give up our “disease producing”-”fix it” ways and learn to live in
harmony with Nature from the ground up—or we will be undone BY Nature.
Permaculture Global Report site http://www.permacultureglobalreport.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdnV1umiJpo&NR=1
Open Sourcing Free Energy Systems, Sterling Allan, pureenergysystems.com
newenergynews.com
Hey,
In re: Andrew Cohen, y'all might find this at Open Integral
(http://www.openintegral.net/blog/?p=243) of interest.
S.
Amigos,
I listened closely to articulate 12 year old Severn in her speech on behalf of
the ECO that Michael posted recently in this thread.
I must answer because I live next door to ranchos, the Venezuelan
equivalent to the favelas of Brazil: impromptu housing concocted by the very
low income groups. And I live in daily contact with their inhabitants. Poverty
is there and lack of much of what we´d consider basic living needs is there.
But I want to tell you in no uncertain terms: this is NOT SIMPLY because they
don’t have income or education or do-gooders who would cover their
´needs´. Their needs are just not inspired by the same stars as little Severn
assumes. The boy who told her that if he were rich he´d give food and
clothes and medicine and affection to the needy people in his world might be
one of the occasional, rare and tangible exceptions. ´Oh, com´n Marianthi´,
you might say. But I´ve walked these fields, since the age of 8 and I had
a 10 year sojourn in Canada , so I know the contrasting minds and lands of
the ´developed´world vs. the ´third´ world.
I´ll speak by example. In a ranchos town a few hours from where I live
there was a drums festival by the locals. After driving there and enjoying
their percussions and skill for a few hours I asked for the use of a toilet. No
house had one - but all houses had television. A local lady brought out a
plastic basin for my needs and encouraged me to empty it in the bush.
When I brought up the subject of T.V. vs. toilets with her she just said that
T:V. ´nos hace falta´ (we need it) but with toilets, ´nos las arreglamos´(we
manage), obiously by means of basins and bushes.
When the read-write campaign started recently round here aimed at
recruiting adult population of the ranchos who did not know how to read or
write and could thus learn the skills, the majority did not attend (I practically
tried to force the man working on my garden to go, but he said ´I´m not
good for that stuff, it gives me a headache´. To those that money
scholarships were given to encourage them, quite a few used it to buy
washing machines or fridges or replace old ones and they never attended
classes. I know only ONE woman, of the hundreds near here, who actually
took up the challenge, at least for a while.
And to repeat a story (posted at IN long ago) of the woman who used to help
me clean my house, who came from those same strata, who at age 34 had
child no. 7 by man number 6 ,around Christmas time 2 years ago, she´d cry
out to me: ´no money for baby milk!´. I gave her a triple Christmas bonus
equivalent to 3 salaries. She spent ALL of it getting grey contact lenses
(imported and expensive in these latitudes) for herself so she´d look good
and be talked about at the barrios Christmas parties – and no money for a
drop of baby milk.
Immediate gratification mind-dimension rules.
So, who are we to judge by OUR yardsticks what makes the únderpriviled´
life and what makes the ´privileged´one? We simply assume that our level
of comfort and security marks a universal notch of ´basic human needs´ ,
giving rise to a ´decent life´. What IS a DECENT life? What umbrella
assumptions cover that one?
Enough for now.
:wave:
Marianthi
I think you're right about the masses on the "lower end" of things getting
caught up in the un-self-serving gratifying of their immediate needs in an
purely ego-centric way. that is the nature of the human animal response,
unenlightened, for sure, but even the "enlightened ones" as we've seen, are
not all that enlightened and the base reactions have their way of popping out
of the shadows. i think the girls impassioned pleas were a good thing for the
leaders to hear, to remind them to walk the talk of the basic teachings we
give to kids to function in society. all too often those lessons are forgotten
with age and the distractions of running the world.
I can’t find out if Mark DeMucha’s movie The Tesla Conspiracy is out yet. In
1931 Tesla produced an electric motor for a Pierce-Arrow car made with
vacuum tubes which must have run off zero point…hear Pt.5 of Coast to
Coast with Nooney. Also in The Excalibur Briefing by Tom Bearden he says
that Dr T. Henry Moray (UT) also produced a zeropoint electric device with
valves that cost $500 each to make around the early 1900s.
What we have in America now (and worldwide) is the oilmen selling the
country out. Politics must be for show only, there doesn’t seem to be any
foresight or planning. Michigan is collapsing as the car industry folds, I hear
even the drug companies are going under. Had the alternative technologies
been allowed to grow this recession might have been avoided…if the car
industry had adopted Tesla’s electric motor, the world would be a lot quieter,
less polluted, less people dead from war, the drug industry that feeds the CIA
that looks after the oil barons interests would be reduced, the US wouldn’t
have to bully other countries into coughing up their resources…we would be
far better off spiritually and intellectually, further along in the sciences, the
land would be less depleted of minerals as there would be less acid rain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzxvhA72vGI
1-11 Parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJBzwN_WKRg
The Tesla Conspiracy: Mark DeMucha Pt.5