Blurring Fact and Fiction: Telling Stories about I-I
Thanks to Integral Options for directing me to this link: ÂÂ
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I sympathize with Balder, as at one time I considered the IU “degree” route, even taking an initial graduate course sponsered by I-I and IUP. But the same concerns Balder expresses in his post were gnawing at me for some time, and the Wyatt Earp fiasco sealed it for me.
I shall continue to watch the unravelling of I-I with growing disinterest.
[ Home > Journals & Media > Journals > Auroville Today > November 2006 Informal meeting with International Advisory Council - Report by Carel : Have you gone beyond democracy? ]
http://www.auroville.org/journals&media/avtoday/Nov_2006/IAC_meeting.htm
Steve Frazee made some final comments 12/12/06 at his blog on his I-I experience called The Wizard and the Shadow: frazee.zaadz.com/blog. He uses the metaphor of The Wizard of Oz and how different people project different things on to others. Hence Steve fesses up to his own projections on Ken and vows to let it go so as to invest his time and energy into applying integral in the world.
But the other half of that metaphor is that the Wizard was guilty of some mass projections himself, inflating his image to control others albeit for “their own good.” And it is here that Balder’s question arise, the difference between the projection and the reality of I-I. Balder has heard promises of what is to come, but is it merely sales hype? And is sales hype 1) of a “turquoise altitude,” 2) ethical and 3) honest transparancy?
So even though Steve’s motives were both/and, as are all motives, he was guilted into silence by a psychological technique. And the lack of transparancy will continue, as will the pipe dreams sold as reality in Ken’s latest “novel.” Doesn’t it occur to any of you adherents that just maybe Ken himself has lost touch with the reality of things and is spinning fire and brimstone (or peace and light, or self-righteous altitude etc.) behind the curtain due to 1) his own shadows and 2) the mass projections from all the adherents? I guess it takes an innocent and dumb animal like Toto to pull back the curtain for us to see it.
The discussion you linked to frosts over when Rollie, Chief Facilitator
Integral Spiritual Center, adds his thoughts on Dec 20.
Central, I think, is this: “And every one of us has a choice to make, whether to be constructive or destructive toward its end. These choices are being made, with every post. As we say on our forums, according to Quaker wisdom, ‘let the next thing you say be from your Highest Self as you understand it…’”
Whether it is meant quite that way or not, it comes off, for me, the same way something similar would in an autocratic cult or Communist country. The “Highest Self” here is equivalent to meaning in accord with Wilberism, the party line.
Basically, I disagree with that ‘Quaker wisdom.’ For me, people should pretty much say whatever they are inclined to say in whatever way they are inclined to say it. It is when people are inclined to act in a 2nd Tier manner [whatever that is, exactly] when people truly are 2nd Tier, not when they are prodded and manuevered to mouth what The Boulder Bigs want to hear.
Hell of a thing when Ken Wilber and Stuart Davis are far spookier than George Bush and Dick Cheney.
BTW, I am reading a book by Anthony Storr about cult leaders, called Feet of Clay, from a few years back. Various cult leaders are profiled, and each is unique, but often Storr addresses a personality quirk of a leader and generalizes it as a common thread for those profiled. A chapter re Wilber would fit right in for an updated edition.
Tom,
Let’s face it, while I’d agree that Ken, Stuart and I-I are a bit scary in terms of being a cult there is absolutely no comparison with Bush and Cheney. The former are a miniscule cult that have virtually no influence in world affairs. (Or in much of any affairs, for that matter.) The latter have real power and are killing human beings for oil profits. That you can make such a comparison probably has more to do with you than with them. It doesn’t even work as hyperbole, and I tend to hyperbolize a lot.
I agree, that comparison is just kind of strange.
As to Bush and Cheney “killing for oil profits…” I can’t agree. The US has a long BIPARTISON history of defending/ promoting its oil interests abroad for what I understand are national security reasons. Sure the entire economy would tank without imported oil, but we do have significant coal reserves in North America, we would survive that. The question is more of whether or not we could maintain our army, airforce, and navy without oil. Can you replace jet fuel with a non-petrolium base? How about run a battleship? As I recall it was a major issue in WWII…
My point being: the issue is not just money, althought it would be nice if it were that simple. And no, I’m not a Neocon, I just attempt to maintain some sort of an integral view of politics.
“My point being: the issue is not just money”
No, it is also (misuse of) power, trying to create a common enemy to rally the country behind you and accuse anybody who disagrees of lack of patriotism, lack of respect for laws (international and domestical), curruption (ever heard of Haliburton?) and claiming to be doing the will of God! Legally, PR wise and strategically the war in Iraq has been such a big mistake that at least a generation to come will suffer from it because it has been a huge base for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Not just in Iraq, but the whole of the Middle East, parts of Asia and Western Europe.
Your attempt to defend Bush and Cheney by claiming to maintain some sort of an integral (others would say balanced) view of politics is dangerous and probably the reason why the intellectuals in the US have not been able to really show why this all is madness and stupidity.
But you see Marko that the issues you raise will bring charges that you’re consorting with the enemy from neocons or that you’re green from so-called integralites. In either case there is a strange bedfellow relationship between neocons and the integral movement that has been well noted by various authors.
Yes, I see that this dynamic is going on. But I don’t understand that with the facts so obvious US intellectuals don’t have the guts (and I don’t mean some because there are who do that, but the majority of them) to break through this dynamic and let themselves be heard. Why don’t they break through the fear?
PS Compared to the problem of Bush and Cheney’s politics not being uncovered the problem of being called green is a non issue so ridiculous that I don’t really take it serious. Who cares if you are called green by Ken Wilber?
Edward: If Ken Wilber and George Bush were wearing similar red shirts, you could make a comparison between them. My comparing Wilber/Davis with Bush/Cheney was on the spookiness factor. I would maintain that I CAN compare them on that basis and that Wilber/Davis are higher rated. Bush and Cheney are pretty creepy; they are also horrible leaders whose priorities have wasted lives and treasure and have put America in a ditch. Bush and Cheney are pretty spooky, but not as bad as Wilber and Davis.
I do not deny the disturbing aspects of the Ken/Stuart cult, or the “red shirt,” as you put it. But for me the “spookiness factor” has to do with the amount of real-world power to affect others’ lives. Ken’s sphere of influence is small in this regard and limited to his followers who have as yet been ordered to invade another country and or kill anyone. Now if they want to drink some arsenic Kool-Aid in preparation for the great integral singularity then…wait a minute, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of harm to society in that either!