Phew!  Just finished my essay, which will be appearing on Frank Visser's site.  Now I can focus on my book!

Anyway, I was chugging along, writing about integral evolution and the s\ingularity and all manner of wondrous things, when after some random web-browsing I stumbled upon this page.

So, all I can say is, If there isn't a really really radical shift in the global consciousness pretty quickly, this is what we have to look forward.

The clash of possibilities.  On one side, timewave zero, technological singularity, supramentalisation, God-Omega.  On the other,  the long bleak slide into an impoverished and indefinitely long stone age, from which there is no hope of future progress

It's a bit surreal, the contrast.

But whatever happens, the world will never be the same.  Our brief rapacious plunder of the Earth will be coming to an end, one way or another.  But will the future be posthuman, or subhuman?

I know which one I'm fighting for.

This blog past is subtitled "Can an abusive guru contribute to global transformation?"

Yesterday I watched an interesting YouTube video.    Here is an interesting case.  Andrew Cohen, a well-known abusive guru talks about evolutionary enlightenment and transformaing yourself to change the world.   Apart from the rather materialistic identification with the Big Bang cosmology (as opposed to involution), which seems inspired by the "Great Story" pantheism of Berry and Swimme (I'm not saying it's wrong btw, only, to borrow a phrase from Wilber, that it's partial), I really found the first half of the video quite inspiring, an in tune with my own understanding and experience.  I wa sthinking wow, this is incredible.  But then the second half launches into a sort of worshipful phase with various global evolutionists (Dan Beck (Spiral Dynamics), Jim Garrison (president of World Forum), etc) saying how wonderful and enlightened Cohen is.  It is pretty sad, that these intelligent guys should feel the need to bow down to this guy like that.  I mean, it's not like he has any sort of Wilberesque charisma, just view a video of Cohen and a video of Wilber if you doubt me.

Then right at the end, bizarrely, there is footage (but with special effects, like through an old fashioned TV set with bad reception) where a woman, i guess one of Cohen's devotees, starts talking about what all this cosmic evolution means to her, and rather than let her speak, Andrew Cohen cuts her off, as if he can't stand to hear the sound of anyone else's voice, talking over her in a really arrogant way, and she just shrinks into this passive and disempowered devotee saying "right...right...right..." each time he pauses.  I never saw anything like it.  And if I ever had any doubts about the claims by ex-devotees, these were instantly removed at that moment.

But what is really wierd is that Cohen actually included this on his video.  You'd think he;'d be embrassed, and want to keep all this stuff hidden.  But no, he is so unconscious of his own narcissism, and his devotees so sycophantic and passive, that they cannot even see what is happening.

I believe the same thing happens with abusive gurus, and even with folks like Wilber, taht happen with these celebrities who are out of control.  Surrounded by minders (with their own agendas) and sycophants and wannabes, they lose touch with the outside world, and retreat into a narcissistic bubble in whicjh they have no responsibility for their actions.  The difference is that with celebrities the law does catch up with them, and they spend a brief stint in jail or (as with Brittney) have their kids taken away.  But this doesn't happen with abusive gurus like Cohen because they are completely unknown outside a very small circle or subculture such as (in this case) the integral movement, so no paparazzi are going to pursue them and no one finds out about them - except through the courageous actions of ex-devotees who spill the beans.   The real difference of course is that celebrities only harm themselves, whereas abusive gurus harm others.  That's the difference.

Cohen is also editor-in-chief of What is Enlightenment magazine, which mixes narcissistic worship of himself and sometimes sloppy scholarship with some very good articles.  Ina  sense it is the journal of the integral movement (although many would see it as "New Age, there is a lot of overlap).

So this is how the guy who is the main inspiration behind the Integral Movement's most popular magazine behaves! 

What does that say for the Integral Movement?  What does it say for leadership of that movement?

I've been involved with the "Integral Movement" for several years, because I see a lot of promise there, and a lot that corresponds to my own thinking, and also to integrate Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings (the mainstream integral movement has no idea about SA & M, they respect SA but are absolutely ignorant, and except for brief mentions on Cohen's WIE magazine and website, ignore the Mother altogether).  Here is my latest essay on Integral World  

The high profile of people like Cohen in the Integral Movment is due to the fact that there is a poverty of moral leadership in the movement in America (the Europeans in contrast have it together a lot better - look at Laszlo and his Club of Budapest).   This will only change as the integral movement outgrows its infantile roots, and new integralists like Steve McIntosh and Mike Psyka & co (Integral Praxis) are able to provide a healthy alternative to the Wilber-Beck-Cohen "old guard".  In addition, there are highly admirable people like Robb Smith within the Integral Institute itself (see Robb's statement on Open Integral).  So I'm pretty optimistic about how things will work out.