The Daily Evolver

How does an integrally informed Navy SEAL sniper relate to the job he has to do, and the people he must engage in war? What is it like to re-enter civilian society? Jeff got to ask these questions and more in this conversation with Jake Bullock.

In advance of the Return to the Heart of Christ conference, Jeff and David Riordan of Integral Life talk about the questions that arise with an integral inquiry into Jesus’s life and teachings. Also, the postmodern view of miracles, and bringing back something we thought we lost.

Fifty Shades of Grey may be a terrible movie, but its popularity is indicative of a new friendliness in our culture towards the kink community, (formerly known as perverts). Jeff talks to New York author and theater producer Robin Reinach, who is an integrally informed explorer herself in the world of BDSM, and together they unpack the evolutionary potency of kink.

    This week Jeff covers a range of topics, focusing on the controversy over Obama’s remarks about the historical sins of Christianity such as the Crusades, the Inquisition and slavery. Jeff also explores the mindset of the perpetrators of such brutalities, which we saw erupt anew this week with the immolation of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS. In other matters, Jeff notes the explosive growth in Chinese cinema, and it’s evolutionary power. Plus we revisit vaccines…and get to meet the Integral community’s own Navy Seal sniper. Did Obama blow it in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast? He certainly got blow-back, especially for the following comments: Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Murderous extremism is not unique to one group or one religion. There is

This week Jeff takes a look at the movie American Sniper and Fox News’ rising star Megyn Kelly, to make the case that conservative culture is evolving by taking on the best of green altitude values. And it’s not just a one way street. The left also evolves by taking on the best values of amber altitude traditionalism, such as the gay rights movement’s argument for marriage and military service. This year’s Super Bowl commercials also moved the ball…

This weeks Jeff looks at President Obama’s annual “State of the Union” address to Congress. He makes the case that Obama is pushing for the developmental move from an Orange modern economy to a Green postmodern economy. Obama’s policies won’t prevail, at least in the short term, but they will spark the conversation (okay, fight) between the advocates of freedom vs security, right vs left and Republicans vs Democrats that will lead to more integrated solutions.

In this week’s podcast Jeff explores the Muslim/Western fault lines exposed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, where twelve people were killed in an attack on the satirical magazine by Muslim extremists who were offended by their depictions of Muhammad. In the 2nd half of the show, Jeff is joined by special guest Amir Ahmad Nasr, author of The Future of Islam In the Age of New Media, and My Isl@m: How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind--And Doubt Freed My Soul.

2014 has been described as a turbulent year in the media, but there isn't really a turbulent-free option, is there? Is there anything about turbulence that is good? Also, Jeff answers a listener's question about the moral nature of red. When is violence healthy and when is it pathological?

Frank Visser is arguably the chief critic of Ken Wilber, integral theory and the integral community as a whole. Based in Amsterdam, Frank is publisher of the website INTEGRAL WORLD: An Independent Forum for a Critical Discussion of the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber which hosts over a thousand essays by mostly dissenting voices in the integral scene. Contrast this to Jeff Salzman and his work with the Daily Evolver. Jeff is an unabashed Wilberian and self-described integral evangelist who “sees the animating power of evolution, inside and out.”  Frank and Jeff spoke by phone before the holidays while Frank was getting ready to head out to an island on the coast of the Netherlands. Visser was once an enthusiastic proponent of Ken Wilber’s AQAL model. In 2003 he wrote the book Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY Press), a chronological overview of Ken’s life and work through 2003, and has recently released a new online chapter, “Reaching Out to the World”, covering the intervening years. T

In this thirteen minute excerpt of a conversation from September, Jeff  speaks with Ken Wilber about the pain and suffering inherent in a human life, which begins with the nature of emergence itself. The more we develop, the more aware we are, and the more capacity we have to feel pain. If you go back thousands of years, Ken says, a person just had to get from  infrared (Archaic) altitude to magenta (Indigenous) altitude. There are a limited number of things that can go wrong there. But as time goes on: Our own history gets thicker and thicker. There are more and more levels to us, there are also therefore more and more things that can break down, more and more things that can go wrong.That’s why if you look at the whole 14 billion years as a one year calendar, humans appear in the last few minutes of the last hour of the last day, because we had to transcend and include everything that came before. And all of those things that can go wrong involve pain — but not necessarily suffering. Wherever there is

In this episode of The Shrink & The Pundit, Dr. Keith reveals what he’s learned in over forty years as a psychotherapist about cultivating integral love relationships, what the shift to a 2nd tier “love operating system” looks and feels like, and how you go about teaching couples to love completely.    Everything is relationship. Only a small sliver of our brains has to do with our sense of individual self—we’re designed to be social, to interact. We’re designed to love. Our development depends upon it. And yet, it isn’t always easy. Lofty concepts aside, what is the most practical way to teach people how to love and be loved? In this conversation with Jeff Salzman, Dr. Keith Witt–our Doctor of Love himself–shares some of what he’s learned in over forty years as a psychologist and therapist, where, he says, “it’s always about teaching people how to love more completely.” So what does an integral view show us about love? In first tier structures of consciousness we tend t

This week Jeff looks at Interstellar, the new movie from Christopher Nolan that explores love as a force in the kosmos akin to the force of gravity. Bringing love to Earth, Jeff comments on the spirit of the holiday season, and how we may be able to create a more generous and meaningful experience.

This week Jeff looks at the process by which historically oppressed people, such as women, racial minorities and gays gain full acceptance in the culture. It’s not just a matter of changing laws, but hearts and minds. This process starts in modernity and becomes one of the main projects of post-modernity. What is the integral view?

In this week’s podcast, recorded on election night in the U.S., we explore some thoughts on the big Republican gains in Congress and what might be next. Also, Jeff responds to Joe Corbett, a critic who published an essay making the case that Jeff, Ken WIlber and the integral community in general lack an appreciation for social justice.

With all the attention on the war and pestilence within trailing-edge cultures around the world, it’s easy to miss what is happening on the leading edge, as developed cultures move deeper into post-modernity (green altitude). This week’s Daily Evolver Live tours a few stories that show how we are creating a more safe, peaceful, reliable, fair and sensitive world.

This week Jeff takes a look at the Ebola crisis and how an integral view can help us relate and respond. He explores the function of fear and a time honored way that it can be transmuted into real helpfulness. The second half of the podcast is a conversation with Steve McIntosh, who is bringing an integral sensibility to the problem of political polarization in America, through his foundation the Institute for Cultural Evolution.

This week Jeff shares some evolutionary insights and encounters he had on his few weeks of hiatus. He starts with a personal story of his own development regarding communion with animals. He also examines a common sticking point for liberals, exemplified by a widely noted public argument between Bill Maher, Sam Harris and Ben Affleck regarding Islamic violence and Islamophobia.

Human beings are memory machines, for better or for worse. There is an autobiographical narrative that is alive inside all of us, and just as individual memories seem to create me, memories in the morphogenetic field create the collective culture of my family, my society. Most people are familiar with the effects that major trauma like car accidents, sexual abuse and so on, can have on a person. But our sense of self is also formed by the “little 't' traumas”, the small humiliations.

Ken Wilber is my hero. I mean that quite literally because Ken rescued me from a life of confusion, fear and frustration as I tried to make sense of our crazy, mixed up world. Ken’s insights organized life on Planet Earth from a disjointed mess into an elegant whole.

In a week that has featured an appalling display of the trailing edge of consciousness development -- the ISIS beheadings -- Jeff starts by highlighting a new, more encouraging emergent that is arising on humanity’s leading edge. It’s called being nice. Also, a good week for the Obama Doctrine?