California Institute of Integral Studies
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Ecological Possibilities in Queer Lifeways
No full textThis panel explores intersections of queer identity and ecological concerns, discussing transformative approaches, challenges to medical perspectives, ancestral connections, and support for LGBTQIA+ students in understanding climate change
Consciousness and the Reality of Monsters in Horror Movies: Dehumanization and What Monsters in Horror Films Say About Us
Full text linkThis essay responds to Carroll’s The Nature of Horror from the perspective of transdisciplinary phenomenological film theory, largely developed by Edgar Morin in the 1950s. It argues that Carrolls’s reduction of the phenomenological value of horror films to an unreal category minimizes and even dismisses the inherent value of horror films. Morin, Allan Combs, and others offer more integral and transdisciplinary methods for art interpretation and functionality. They help us understand how monsters in horror films can stand as mirrors and reflections of the monstrous in ourselves and society. Thus, the transformational function and value of film is revealed and understood, even when the film is about scary monsters
An Integral Approach to Philosophy of Nature
Full text linkAbstract
Quantum physicists and quantum biologists enjoy a mathematically-inspired romance with the wonders of nature at the quantum level. Recognizing the romance of mathematics and the quantum-to-cosmic level relational energetics of Nature can lead to a more integral, romantic, and even embodied phenomenology of the intelligence inherent within Nature’s relational and embodied energies. Approaching this quantum nature of Nature from the more romantic, wholistic views of the right hemisphere of the brain, rather than from the fragmenting views of the left hemisphere of the brain, one can begin to discover the self-organizing abilities of the energies of Nature at all levels of scale. In far from equilibrium states, energy is available for systems to self-organize at all scales, from a single particle on up to galaxies. This integral and romantic view of Nature from quantum scales to cosmic scales reveals a fractal intelligence inherent within all levels of the self-organizing systems of Nature. Indeed, Nature is self-organizing, or Self-organizing at all levels of scale. Everything in Nature occurs as a system, from quantum wave functions to the Universe as a whole. This integral systems philosophy recognizes Nature not as some “thing” that has been intelligently designed, but as a living cosmos embodying intelligence in all levels of being, such that Nature is intelligent. Ecosystems are the perfect example of the expression of Nature’s self-organizing intelligence, for if ecosystems were not wise, collapse of ecosystems would have been the norm, rather than the exception for hundreds of millions of years on Earth. Moreover, the inherent vibratory “felt states” of Nature can lead to an embodied phenomenology of the self-organizing wisdom of Nature
The Healing Power of Active Imagination on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Wellbeing: A Mixed-method Exploratory Study
Full text linkDespite many treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), recovery is often moderate at best. and symptoms often persist after treatment. This mixed-method study explored whether an active imagination protocol could serve as an effective low-cost, drug-free intervention for complex PTSD or persisting symptoms after a traumatic event. Seventeen participants were assessed using the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS), Multiscale Dissociation Inventory (MDI), and the Ryff Scales of Psychological Wellbeing (PWB) before and after a four-session, one-to-one active imagination intervention. On average, all quantitative scores significantly improved from baseline, and every subscale improved. For the sample average, PTSD symptoms decreased by 32%, dissociation decreased by 29%, and wellbeing increased by 15%. A thematic analysis of follow-up interviews produced five themes: general reflections on the active imagination process, general benefits, effect on PTSD symptoms, attitudes about different parts of active imagination, and states of mind during active imagination. The major qualitative findings are of positive change with occasional radical improvement and personal transformation
Millennium School: An Experiment in Transpersonal Education for Early Adolescents
Full text linkThis article describes the design, curriculum, culture, and values of an experiment in transpersonal education for young adolescents, the Millennium middle school in San Francisco, CA. The overarching design of the school was to help children exiting the latency period of child development, who exhibit the rudiments of Wade’s Authentic consciousness or Maslow’s Self-actualization motive stage, consolidate that level rather than losing it, as the vast majority do, because of social pressures that make earlier stages of development more adaptable in most contemporary societies. Early adolescence is a time when peer pressure, individuation from the family, and puberty are strong influences driving ego development, but it is also a time when existential questions about self, reality, meaning, and purpose open up possibilities for transpersonal development. Millennium is an attempt to further that development
The Nondual Realization of Advaita Vedanta Does Not Support a Psychological Theory of Consciousness
Full text linkAdvaita Vedanta is seen as something of an authoritative source for nondual philosophies and theories of consciousness that postulate a pure featureless awareness at the base of mental experience. These approaches deviate from both the lineage-based teachings of Advaita Vedanta and the necessary standards of science, constructing compromises that fall short of traditional fidelity and psychological rigor. Dialogues between psychology and Advaita Vedanta need to delineate clearly between a sensate phenomenology of experience and spiritual interpretations that may be implicit within experiential descriptions
The Role of Personality In Moving Encounters with Sacred Art
Full text linkIn Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the material world is understood to contain access points to the transcendent. An icon may move the awestruck believer to emotional engagement and reflection on moral and religious themes. Personality dispositions potentiating the experience of being moved in religious aesthetic contexts have not been thoroughly studied. The present article describes the development and testing of a cross-sectional study into potential belief and personality-related predictors of being moved by sacred art in a lab environment evocative of a holy site. Ninety (90) Christians in Canada and Greece completed personality measures and viewed and rated thematically matched Latin and Byzantine icons. Findings suggest impacts of attachment, imaginativeness, and traditional vs. mystical dispositions in resonance with sacred art, and point to a secure, mystically oriented perceiver. Those who tended towards structured religious lives also presented with a personality profile favouring logical problemsolving. The paradigm applied the social psychological tradition of an evocative lab situation and use of psychometric tests to pressing questions in aesthetics and transpersonal psychology. This study offers a replicable methodology, inviting further empirical inquiry into the experiential texture of being moved and predictive relationships among individual differences at play in moving encounters
Judaism and the Transpersonal
Full text linkThe interplay between Judaism, especially its mystical tradition, and transpersonal psychology is examined, focusing on two major aspects. The first concerns stages in the spiritual journey, which are analyzed for their psychological import. The stages are symbolically depicted in the biblical narrative of the Exodus from Egypt, a journey from slavery to freedom. Here the Hebrew term translated as wilderness is seen to act as a code word, applying to five successive stages each of which I analyze in psychospiritual terms. The role of the divine feminine, the Shekhinah, is emphasized on account of Her specific role in exile and return. The second area explored is more historical, detailing ways in which Jewish and Kabbalistic ideas have impacted western culture in directions that underpinned the later rise of transpersonal psychology
Outlandish! How LGBTQIA+ Teens are Claiming Their Space in the Outdoors
No full textSafe spaces for Queer teens are more crucial than ever. Why does it matter and how can we make it a reality? How can the outdoor world become a safe haven for young people as they navigate being their authentic selves in a frequently hostile culture? Join Max for an exploration and discussion of the healing power of time spent outside as they share about their program, Outlandish!, founded in May 2023
A Decade of Earth-Centered Scholarship and Activism
Full text linkOrigin stories reveal the myriad causes that converge to birth a new initiative. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, this essay looks back to document the context and intellectual lineage out of which the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion graduate program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) emerged in 2013, and suggests some possibilities for the future of transdisciplinary education and the fields of religion and ecology (e.g. Tucker and Grim 2001), religion and nature (e.g. B. Taylor 2010), and spiritual ecology (e.g. Sponsel 2012) more broadly.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/facultypublications/1078/thumbnail.jp