Notes from: Ken Wilber: Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Boston & London: Shambhala; 2000.
pp. 132-133 "One of the major difficulties in coming to terms with a stage conception is that most people, even if they are in fact progressing through stages of competence, rarely experience anything that feels or looks like a stage. In their own direct experience, "stages" make no sense at all….We spot them only by standing back from unreflective experience, comparing our experiences with others, and seeing if there are any common patterns. If these common patterns check out in numerous different settings, then we are justified in assuming that various stages are involved. But in all cases, these stages are the product of direct investigation and research, not abstract philosophizing.
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1. sensorimotor – a capacity to perceive physical objects; autistic, undifferentiated
2. rep-mind – a capacity to represent objects with names, symbols, and/or concepts;
instinctive, impulsive
3. rule/role mind – a capacity to understand both the rules of society and the roles
(i.e., ones place within society); conformist, mental rules
4. formop – a capacity to take perspective, and opens the mind's eye to
introspection; postconventional, global perspectivism
5. pluralism – a capacity to understand the contextual nature of knowledge;
relativistic individualism
6. integralism – a capacity to witness and operate within the dialectical dynamics of
the holonic mindscape; global holism
7. illumined mind (Aurobindo)
8. intuitive mind (Aurobindo)
9. overmind (Aurobindo)
10. supermind (Aurobindo) – leads to satchitananda
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pp. 48-53 Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics
1. Beige; Archaic-Instinctual
Basic survival: food, water, warmth, sex, and safety. Habits and instincts.
2. Purple; Magical-Animistic
Magical spirits, good & bad affect, human interactions; blood ties & blood lineages.
3. Red; Power Gods
Impulsive, egocentric self. Power and glory (the hero).
4. Blue; Conformist Rule
The rules of the all powerful Other. Righteous Order; code of conduct; law & order; obediance & guilt.
5. Orange; Scientific Achievement
Individualism; hypothetico-deductive and experiential, objective. Achievement oriented.
6. Green; The Sensitive Self
Communitarian, ecological extension of self. Feelings and caring freed from objectivity of orange. Permeable Self, emphasis on dialogue. Egalitarian and anti-hierarchy; pluralistic relativism.
7. Yellow; Integrative
Natural hierarchies in a universe where flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality take priority. Interdependence of pluralistic systems. Competency supercedes power, rank, status, or group.
8. Turquoise; Holistic
Universal holism; holons of differing levels united into a conscious system whereby harmonics (sometimes mystical) and disharmonics are detected and tended to.
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p. 93 "The self…cannot easily tell where its body stops and the physical environment begins (this is the start of Fulcrum-1)."
"…identity switches from fusion with the material world to an identity with the emotional-feeling body (which begins Fulcrum-2)."
"As the conceptual mind begins to emerge and develop…the chld eventually differentiates the conceptual mind and the emotional body (this is Fulcrum-3)."
p. 96 "In Fulcrum-4…the rule/role mind begins to emerge and the self's center of gravity starts to identify with that wave."
"In Fulcrum-5, as the self-reflexive ego emerges, and the center of gravity begins to shift from conventional/conformist to postconventional/individualistic, the self is faced with "identity versus role confusion": how is the self to discover who or what it is, once it no longer depends on society…to make decisions for it?"
"In Fulcrum-6, the panoramic view of cision-logic brings existential issues and problems to the forefront, along with the possibility of a more fully integrated bodymind (or centauric self)."
pp. 96-97 "In Fulcrum-7, the transpersonal domains begin to come into focus, not simply as passing peak experiences, but as new and higher structures – with new and higher pathologies."
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Fulcrum specific
Pathologies:
pp. 102-103 [F-1] "…problems at this stage can…contribute to a disturbing lack of self-boundaries, infantile autism, and some forms of psychosis. The worldview of this stage is archaic, and this archaic consciousness,if not differentiated (transcended) and integrated (resolved), can lead to primitive pathologies."
p. 103 [F-2] "…the emotional bodyself differentiates itself from the emotions and feelings of others. Problems at this stage can contribute to borderline and narcissistic conditions, where the self treats the world and others as mere extensions of itself (narcissism), or the world invades and painfully disrupts the self (borderline); both due to the fact that the world and the self are not stably differentiated."
pp.103-104 "…with F-3, the early mental self (the early ego or persona) first begins to emerge and differentiate from the body and its impulses, feelings, and emotions, and attempts to integrate these feelings in its newly conceptual self. Failure at this crucial fulcrum (often summarized as Oedipal/Electra) can contribute to a classical neurosis: anxiety, depression, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and excessive guilt at the hands of the newly internalized superego. The conceptual self is frightened of, and overwhelmed by, the feelings of the body (especially sex and aggression), and in its misguided attempt to defend itself against these feelings, merely ends up sending them underground (as impulsive subpersonalities), where they cause even more pain and terror than when faced with awareness."
pp.104 [F-4] "This early mental self…soon expands into a full-fledged role-self (or persona) with the emergence of the rule/role mind and the increasing capacity to take the role of other (F-4)….[The] preformal, archetypal roles are bolstered by the specific cultural roles that the child begins to learn at this stage – the specific interactions with family, peers, and social others. As these cultural scripts are learned, various problems and distortions can arise, and these contribute to…script pathology."
p. 105 [F-5] "With the emergence of formal-reflexive capacities, the self can plunge yet deeper, moving from conventional/conformist roles and a mythic-membership self (the persona), to a postconventional, global, worldcentric self – namely, the mature ego….Problems at this stage (F-5) often center around the incredibly difficult transition from conformist roles and prescriptive morality, to universal principles of conscience and postconventional identities: who am I, not according to mom or dad or society or the Bible, but according to my own deepest conscience?"
pp. 105-106 [F-6] "As vision-logic begins to emerge, postconventional awareness deepens into fully universal, existential concerns: life and death, authenticity, full bodymind integration, self-actualization, global awareness, holistic embrace – all summarized as the emergence of the centaur…."
p. 107 [F-7; F-8; F-9] "In some cases ["peek" experiences] are so disruptive that, especially in a person with F-1 or F-2 deficiencies, they can trigger a psychotic break. In others, the result is a spiritual emergency. In yet others, the peak experience is a beneficial, life-altering occasion."
"…as adaptation to the soul realms begins, any number of pathologies can develop. the self can be overwhelmed by the light, painfully lost in the love, inundated with a largess that its boundaries cannot contain. Alternatively, it can simply swell its ego to infinite proportions (especially if there are F-2 or narcissistic-borderline residues). It can develop a split between its upper and lower realms (especially between the soul and the body). It can repress and dissociate aspects fo the sould itself (producing F-7 and F-8 subpersonalities; not lower impulses trying to come up, but higher impulses trying to come down). It can remain fused with the sould when it should begin to let go of it. And the earliest, simplest pathology of all: denying the existence of one's very soul."
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p. 122 "…the magical structure…lacks the capacity for spatial perspective."