The Integral Approach

Various Integral Diagrams (Click to Launch)

Going forward, I will tend to discuss things called holons, quadrants, levels, lines, stages, states, etc. For those that aren’t familiar with these concepts, in 1978 author/philosopher/scholar Arthur Koestler stated that “no man is an island, he is a ‘holon’,” that all things (humans, atoms, words, ideas) are whole/parts, simultaneously consisting of both assertive (typically male) and communal (typically female) tendencies. Then, in 1995, author/philosopher/guru Ken Wilber added that all holons consist of four quadrants: individual (interior and exterior) and collective (interior and exterior). This shed a whole new light on the worlds of philosophy, spirituality, biology, medicine, politics, you name it. It meant that when discussing any subject, all four quadrants had to be taken into account. You couldn’t just talk about the religious (individual interior) experience without also considering the context of the person’s psychological (individual exterior) development as well as their cultural (interior collective) upbringing. This, combined with much psychographic evidence from Lovejoy (The Great Chain of Being) to Don Beck (Spiral Dynamics) provides us with a pretty complete (integral) view of the human experience and their place in the universe. Really exciting stuff, I know.

But at least now we’re all on the same page.