Top
Top
International
Integral
Salons Network
A recent US-led ‘grassroots’ initiative to support
integral salons worldwide. Has sought to liaise with the ‘official’
Integral Institute salons initiative, iNOW –
url? – (which replaced the previous attempt,
iNEXT). NB a nice dynamic website, but featured rather few
groups/salons, and generally needed an activity boost. A spam
attack led the site to radically cut back its functionality
in order to increase security. See also Isalons co-founder
Alex Rollin’s interviews
with salon/group leaders.
These
two recently-launched networks are more aimed at the leaders
of salons (though two such networks seems like it could be
overkill to me):
Integral
Worldspace
"Integral Worldspace is a place for Integral Salon &
Affinity Group leaders, KW Meetup organizers, and representatives
from Integral Institute to dialogue with each other and to
collectively explore how to best support the integral consciousness
that is yearning to emerge in all corners of the world."
The
Salon Leadership Council
"The Mission of the Salon Leadership Council is to develop
a sacred second tier learning and mentoring container for
Integral Leaders, wherever they may be, who are leading, creating,
or wish to create, Integrally-informed groups and communities.
Also evolving, learning, and changing itself, the Salon Leadership
Council creates and shares Best Practices, serves as a support
system for the discussion of the challenges these groups and
communities are facing, and strives to self organize as a
Holacratic entity, eventually up linking up to Integral Institute,
and down-linking to existing and emergent salons and other
Integrally-informed groups.
We
are the volunteer and temporary leadership arm of Integral
Worldspace..."
Top
United Kingdom
• London
Integral Circle
Offers four different monthly meetings: Salon, Practice (Integral
Life Practice) group, Social, and Integral Women’s group.
News of meeting topics/location, plus integral discussions
etc, via our London
Integral Circle Yahoo e-list. Founded by Matthew
Kalman in 2000.
• Brighton Integral Salon
A monthly salon, with guest speakers, workshops & social gatherings. Find out more via the Brighton Integral Website. Recent guests have included Robert Agustus Masters and BigMind facilitor Jon Bonello. This year they will host their first Day Course with I-I's Terry Patten There is also a calendar of Brighton Integral events for courses and events in the South East.
• Bristol
Tim Hurford
is setting up a transpersonal/integral group – with
a particular interest in music, writing, art and film-making.
• Cambridgeshire Integral Salon
Contact Martin Black via camtegral.wordpress.com
("I’m certain there are other integral-minded folk
in the Cambs region, so if you’d like to get involved
in Camtegral (working title!) leave a comment here and let’s
see what happens.")
• Edinburgh Integral Salon/Circle
A group is emerging – contact Mark
Finlay. And Geert
Drieghe also wants to get one going (tel 07975 648137).
• Manchester
Jon Pearson organises the Ken
Wilber Network North West (Manchester).
There is also an invitation-only ‘pod’ on the
Zaadz site here,
I think.
• Oxford Integral Circle
A relatively new group. Contact Rita
de Podesta.
• Integral Yorkshire
A new group emerging out of a local Ken Wilber group. Also
very interested in Richard
Barrett's values work and Spiral
Dynamics. Contact Mike
Pupius.
Top
Australia
• WilberMeetupMelbourne
...is a cyber-space for the local Ken Wilber MeetUp.
• Sydney
Integral
Meet twice a month, once for a Ken Wilber reading group and
once for an Integral Transformative Practice workshop.
Top
Austria
• Graz
Contact Hannes. (Piber(at)trigon.at).
• Linz
Contact Klaus König (office(at)klaus-koenig.com).
• Vienna
Begun in 2001. Groups include reading circle, ITP/ILP, medicine,
business. Contact Monika Frühwirth.
• Vorarlberg
Contact Harald Nagelseder (harald.nagelseder(at)aon.at)
Top
Belgium
• Belgian Centre for Human Emergence
Geert Drieghe, Helen Titchen Beeth and others. Contact
via Polilogues.
• Brussels Integral
Salon
Will launch once there is enough interest. Show Helen she’s
not living in an ‘integral desert’! ;- ). Contact
Helen Titchen
Beeth.
• Integral Salon Leuven
A small, closed Dutch-speaking Integral Transformative
Practice group. Contact Helen
Titchen Beeth.
Top
Canada
• Toronto
Integral Life Practice Cross-Training Team
Top
France
• Paris Ken Wilber Meet-Up/salon.
Contact Brian
Van der Horst.
Top
Germany
• Integrales
Forum
The focus of much integral work in the German-speaking
world (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) - including regional
newsletters and conventions.
It was previously known as the Ken Wilber Work Circle (Arbeit
Kreis Ken Wilber): e-mail
here or frank@spade.de.
• Basel/Freiburg
Contact Ulrike Vogel (ulrikevogel(at)t-online.de).
• Berlin
Contact www.isberlin.de.
And Hilde Weckmann (hilde.weckmann(at)ak-kenwilber.org). For
Kreuzberg integral salon, contact frank@spade.de.
• Bochum
Contact Carsten Kröger (info(at)integrale-lebensart.de).
• Bremen/Hamburg/Oldenburg
Contact Max Peschek (peschek.max(at)t-online.de)
and Integrales Forum an der Uni Bremen: Dennis Wittrock (dennis_wittrock(at)yahoo.de).
• Dresden
Contact Joe Schraube (j.schraube(at)gmx.de).
• Frankfurt
Contact Petra Frassa (p.frassa(at)t-online.de), Heinz Raab
(heinz.raab(at)arcor.de) and Sonja Student (student(at)kiko.de).
• Hamburg
Burghard Lippke (BLippke(at)SuccessUtilities.com).
• Jena
Contact André Jannasch (Andre(at)yoga-jena.de) or see
www.yoga-jena.de/Integraler_Salon.129.0.html
• Karlsruhe
Contact Eberhard Blauth (eberhard.blauth(at)web.de) or
Alfred Mies (excellence_ka(at)web.de).
• Leipzig
Contact Wulf Mirko Weinreich (dancingworld(at)gmx.net).
• Munich (Bayern)
Contact Susanne Manz (susanne.manz(at)kunst-heilen.de), Gerd
Klostermann (Gerd.Klostermann(at)t-online.de) or Peter Erlenwein
(erlenwein(at)yahoo.de).
• Nürnberg
Contact Ulrike Sievers (Ulrike.Sievers(at)t-online.de).
• Oberpfalz/RegensburgStuttgart/Böblingen
Contact Michael Beilmann (beilmann(at)inchange.net).
• Stuttgart/Böblingen
Contact Ulrike Vogel (ulrikevogel(at)t-online.de) or Stephanie
Orth-Kern (s.orth-kern(at)z.zgs.de).
Top
Holland
• Amsterdam
Contact Frank Visser
(founder of the World of Ken Wilber website, renamed Integral
World).
• Holland's Centre for Human
Emergence have regular salons – influenced
by the work of Don Beck and Ken Wilber. Contact Leida
Schuringa or see their CHE
salons webpage.
Top
Ireland
• Integral Ireland
(expired domain)
For "integral happenings, in particular groups doing
ITP (Integral Transformative Practice) and also social gatherings
where we meet and talk integral stuff." There is also
an Integral
Ireland Yahoo e-mail list. Contact Daniel
Dunne.
• Kildare
Newbridge Integral Philosophy Group is the
most active group in Ireland. Committed to Integral Transformative
Practice, including a social action program every year. Contact
Eamon Parker.
• Integral
Dublin
Contact Daniel
Dunne.
• Wexford
There are Wilberites here too, please send in your contact
info!
Top
Israel
• Integral
Israel
A group that is working
actively with Dr Don Beck (who has visited the region) to
heal the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Get involved! Also
see: www.integralisrael.org
and The
Israeli Integral group - English page and macromemeticsisraelpalestine.com
Top
Japan
• Tokyo - contact Integral
Japan (Norio Suzuki).
Top
New Zealand
• Auckland
Contact Tamara Androsoff via Ken
Wilber Meet-Ups.
Top
Russia
• Moscow Integral Salon
Monthly meetings, organised by Alexander Girshon and Alexei
Kapterev. Contact www.girshon.ru/project/is.htm
and www.newcode.ru
Top
South Africa
• Johannesburg
Contact John
Ziniades. Plans for social action project around AIDS.
• Cape Town
Not sure who the contact is, but try Anna
Cowen or Belinda Train.
Top
Spain
• Barcelona
Contacts include Paul Marshall, a university English teacher
(e-mail?). There are online salons too - but I’m unclear
if they have real-world meetings too. Try es.groups.yahoo.com/group/kenwilberevolucion
; groups.yahoo.com/group/proyectointegral_es
;
www.asociacionintegral.es (Raquel Torrent) and www.concienciaintegral.com.ar/campus
•
Granada integral circle
Might get going - once you get in touch with Priscila.(“This
place is so tiny, I very much doubt there’ll be any
response!” Prove her wrong, lurking Spanish integralists...!)
Stop press: too late, Priscila is no longer in Spain.
But why not set up a salon anyway, someone?
Top
Switzerland
Contact Integrales
Forum
Please send details of groups.
Top
United
Kingdom
• London
Integral Circle
Four different monthly meetings: Salon, Practice (Integral
Life Practice) group, Social, and Integral Women’s group.
News of meeting topics/location, plus integral discussions
etc, via our London
Integral Circle Yahoo e-list. Founded by Matthew
Kalman in 2000.
• Brighton Integral Salon
A recent group that is slowly building momentum. Contact Michael.
• Bristol
Tim Hurford
is setting up a transpersonal/integral group – with
a particular interest in music, writing, art and film-making.
• Cambridgeshire Integral Salon
Contact Martin Black via camtegral.wordpress.com
("I’m certain there are other integral-minded folk
in the Cambs region, so if you’d like to get involved
in Camtegral (working title!) leave a comment here and let’s
see what happens.")
• Edinburgh Integral Salon
A group is emerging – contact Mark
Finlay. And Geert
Drieghe also wants to get one going (tel 07975 648137).
• Manchester
Jon Pearson organises the Ken
Wilber Network North West (Manchester).
There is also an invitation-only ‘pod’ on the
Zaadz site here,
I think.
• Oxford Integral Circle
A relatively new group. Contact Rita
de Podesta.
• Integral Yorkshire
A new group emerging out of a local Ken Wilber group. Also
very interested in Richard
Barrett's values work and Spiral
Dynamics. Contact Mike
Pupius.
Top
United
States
• Austin Integral Salon
Contact David Swedlow at: david -at- metastorming -dot- com
(or dls78731@gmail.com ?).
• Boulder
There was a 'flagship' salon here (www.in-town.org
- now defunct) – promising some cutting edge work, and
materials to support other salons – but it puttered
out, as the Integral Institute does so much locally (Ken Wilber
lives nearby) that there was little reason for a salon to
exist, apparently.
(Amongst its many projects, it had even planned an ‘Immigration
Program’, to help people move close to Wilber!)
• Cincinnati
Contact Kate Johnson.
• Denver Ken Wilber/Integral
Meetup
Contact Rainier Sielaff,
or go via Meet-Up Ken
Wilber.
•
Integral
Dallas
Monthly meetings in a local Borders.
• Integral
Houston
This e-group combines the activities of a range of local MeetUps:
Integral (Ken Wilber), Spiral Dynamics, Cultural Creatives,
Futures, Skeptics and Space Exploration... and Origami? ;-)
• Napa Integral Salon (anyone got a
working URL?)
E-group for the Napa Integral Salon discussion and practice
group. Focus on the work of Wilber, Murphy, Leonard, Edwards,
Harris, Ross and Bauwens.
• New York
The Integral
New York City Salon consists of a series of regular
and special events – primarily the monthly 'Salon -
Experience the Quadrants' and 'Integral Practice Quarterly'.
There is also a quarterly social, and monthly Ken Wilber Meetup.
Also special events and group outings are popping up all the
time. Great website too (they are considering offering this
web expertise to other salons).
Integral
Community Center of New York – an off-shoot
of the Integral Institute – was also formed, to overcome
some interpersonal/organisational issues. Though these differences
have more recently been overcome, I think.
There is a support group for those who took part in the first
New
York Integral-WET (Weekend Experiential Training)
event, in August 2005.
An Integral
Transformative Practice NYC e-group looks like
it's gone to seed...
• Palo Alto
ITP Palo Alto is a closed site for members
of the Integral Transformative Practice community in the South
Bay practicing in Palo Alto. Contact Bart.
• Integral
Philadelphia.
Led by Rob Scott.
• Integral
Portland
Monthly salon-style meetings: Theory & discussion Group,
Integral Politics Group, Integral Women’s Group and
Integral Practices Group.
• Integral
San Diego
Mark Steele organises 2 Meetups here, a North
San Diego Ken Wilber group that has been meeting since
Oct 2004 and an Integral
Meditation group which started in Sept 2007.
• San Francisco Bay Area
Various groups, including SFBAIntegralSalon
and the umbrella e-list IntegralCommunity
(which is perhaps set to be replaced by: www.IntegralCommunity.com)
and integral-people
– an e-list for the weekly integral studies discussion
group that meets at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
• Seattle
Integral
Online e-group formed to complement the Seattle
Ken Wilber Meetup, with the aim of "turning Integral
theory into Integral Action."
Local events on: Integral Transformative Practice, integral
politics, Integral Operating System, Integral Psychotherapy
Group, and 'Integral Cable Access Network'. Plus Gary Stamper’s
‘Big Love Integral’ work.
There’s also Olympia Integral south
of Seattle, but I don’t have a contact for them. *Please
send one!*
• Tucson Integral
Has a core group, a semi-weekly salon, plus some ILP activity.
Contact Michael
Craig. See their temporary
webstite.
• Washington D.C.
Integral
Salon DC is run by Michael
Ostrolenk. Topics have included spirituality at work,
conflict resolution, organic learning, integral theatre and
the Enneagram. There is also Washington
Ken Wilber Meetup Group.
If
you are interested in 'Second Tier' approaches to organisations
and leadership, you may want to contact the Elliot Jaques
(Requisite Organisation) User Groups in Toronto, Melbourne,
Buenos Aires and Austin (contact www.globalro.org
for info).
See: Elliot
Jaques’ Levels of Complexity/Time Horizons (Stratified
Systems Theory)
Top
NB
Integral Institute's global salons database is no
longer publicly available.
The Integral Institute’s Integralnext.org (url lapsed)
website used to include a database of salons (though it was
very far from comprehensive).
However,
IntegralNEXT (“one of the most exciting elements of
the integral movement”) – which was formed in
March 2003 to support salons/groups worldwide etc quietly
folded. It has apparently been replaced by something called
iNOW (url?), which appears to be inactive…
Latest
news is that Integral Institute CEO Robb Smith is working
to develop a new approach.
The
Integral Institute also has a ‘Local
ILP Groups’ page, and requests information about
groups. Not sure if this is really a functioning service (partly
as the ‘Local ILP Groups Forum’ which is also
highlighted on the page does not (yet?) exist: "check
back soon", it says.).
Ken
Wilber and Spiral Dynamics Meet-Ups
•
Ken
Wilber Meetup groups home
• Spiral
Dynamics Meetup groups home
Meet-Ups
are local meetings that take place worldwide on anything from
Britney Spears to Ken Wilber to Open Source/Slashdot to Vote
Dean for President (now Obama et al, I guess). They are organised
automatically online when enough people show an interest in
attending a Meet-Up on a particular topic in a particular
town or city. You can become the host – choosing topics
and venue. Various interactive online community services are
offered, though it is no longer possible to use the basic
service for free (though it is cheap if costs are shared).
This
online automation can be a mixed blessing: I was notified
about a new London Ken Wilber Meet-Up, which was going to
be at exactly the same time every month as the London
Integral Circle meetings, which had already been going
for a few years. The venue chosen (by some automated software?)
for the Meet-Up was a bookshop far out on the northern outskirts
of London that was actually closed at the time the Meet-Up
was arranged to meet at it. Hard to imagine a less suitable
location! In the end the London Integral Circle largely absorbed
the London KW Meet-Up, though this link up is now over (due
to the Meet-Up's sudden introduction of charges for the basic
service – which didn’t really seem worth paying,
when I only remember one person ever finding the London group
via Meet-Up).
Top
How
to start your own salon/group
Ther are many people who would like to join a real-world
integral group of some sort – though I sometimes hear:
"But I live in an ‘integral desert’..."
or similar laments.
Actually
there are usually far more integral shoots quietly emerging
nearby than you would ever guess :- )
If
you can’t find an already-existing salon, group or Meet-Up
nearby, and don’t want to limit yourself to online interaction,
the answer is simple: start your own. You’ll
love it. (Probably).
Here’s
my off-the-cuff advice to build up some initial momentum (e-mail
in your suggestions and tips and I'll add them):
• Just pick a date and a cosy, accessible venue. Perhaps
your front room, or if you value your privacy, a café,
community centre, room above a pub etc. (The London
Integral Circle has met everywhere from a church crypt
to a room under an esoteric bookshop to the Greater London
Authority. Currently in a member's living room).
• Perhaps choose an appealing first topic, or just opt
for 'getting to know you' session. Whatever feels right for
you...
• Now you can begin to advertise your new group far
and wide.
Top
Where
to promote your group
Places
where you could promote your group – to connect with
integral folks – include:
•
On this webpage you're currently reading!
(E-mail me
details of your group, or group-to-be).
• On the various Spiral Dynamics and Spiral Dynamics
Integral and Ken Wilber e-mail lists, including the Integral
Institute/Integral Naked/Integral Multiplex forums in
particular the Regional/Local
Community Spaces section (all public, though only paid
subscribers can actually post to the forum.)
• Zaadz
- you might want to promote yourself, your group, your dreams
et al through this recently-emerged buzzing social media site
("Our Mission. We're gonna change the world"), on
which very many integral-orientated folks are now active (especially
on the ‘Integral Institute pod’).
• Let relevant e-lists/groups/sites on this site's Talk
or Links pages know about your group.
• The global Integral
Transformative Practice (ITP) website. This was a highly
effective way to initiate, or locate, nearby ITP, and integral,
groups. Unfortunately they froze that page, but the –
now somewhat out-of-date – ITP
Group Network archive still exists, and may still be useful.
“We’re building a searchable Group Directory”
promises the site, and recommends people contact the webmaster.
• On the Integral
Salons Network website (a US-led ‘grassroots’
initiative to support integral salons worldwide).
• Make it into a Wilber
Meet-Up too on their site.
• I launched the London Integral
Circle with a short announcement before a large public
lecture given by the well-known spiritual/New Paradigm speaker,
Peter Russell, who I thought might attract some people who
were also Ken Wilber fans. Russell may not be 100 per cent
integral, but he’s certainly more than Wilber-friendly
enough (people streamed up to me afterwards, saying that they
wanted to come along to our first meeting).
• Make a simple flyer for your group and put it in health
shops, cafes, arts/adult education centres, universities,
bookshops too. Especially those which sell Wilber or similar
books. Or maybe ask to stick up a flyer right near the Wilber
books section (The London
Integral Circle has done this with one shop). Or even
put them in the books themselves!
• Write a short interesting e-mail about your new –
or planned – group and e-mail it to everyone you know
who might be interested, asking them to forward it to any
friends in their address-book who might want to come along.
• Frank Visser’s Integral
World site (was originally called ‘World of Ken
Wilber’) includes a section of Integral
Initiatives around the world. Frank may be happy to add
a note there, under your name in the appropriate country section.
And do forward your announcement about the group to everyone
who is listed in your country’s section on his site.
They will have diverse contacts.
• Contact any organisation which offers Spiral Dynamics
training nearest to where you are.
• Lots of NLP practitioners are now interested in Wilber,
Spiral Dynamics, Clare Graves etc. Contact them, their websites,
organisations, e-lists and magazines.
• Other groups that often include integral-friendly
people and are well worth contacting include: Buddhists, coaches
and mentors, New Agers, New Paradigmers, management consultants,
educators, Unitarians and open-minded Christians generally
(eg also try Matthew Fox’s Creation Spirituality/Greenspirit
movement), conflict resolution practitioners, counsellors/therapists
(especially transpersonal ones, eg Psychosynthesis, Jungians
– a fair number of people come to London’s group
from one of the capital’s accredited transpersonal psychology
training courses; Wilber is a focus in their final year),
organisational development practitioners, systems thinkers,
change agents, futurists, Yoga practitioners, meditators,
leadership trainers, creativity consultants, artists, Tikkun
readers/Rabbi Lerner’s progressive spirituality movement,
student advisors, think-tank researchers, policy strategists,
careers consultants and followers of the US spiritual teacher
Andrew Cohen.
Track
them all down and invite them! (And try to keep your
goal as Second Tier and even Third Tier openness – rather
than the latest somewhat-less-than-integral fad or issue.
Not always as easy as it sounds!)
The
London group has at different times seemed to include a disproportionate
number of architects, and more than its fair share of 5 Rhythms
(shamanic) dancers!
As
with any group, it can occasionally be a bit of a rollercoaster
ride, and energy levels will vary (don't get me started on
the problems of group dynamics!) – but I think you’ll
find it well worth it.
If
you start a new group, I’d love to hear how it progresses.
I’ve
often wondered, myself, what the quickest as-yet-untried way
to really energise the global Integral movement going might
be.
Something
that I think might work is to develop a compelling, and sociable,
short course for members of the public who may be interested
in integral self-exploration (and effectiveness too –
keep the ‘Orange’ achievers happy…). This
course could be rolled-out in 100s of locations by interested
groups worldwide.
In
this vein, look at the success of ‘Quaker Quest’
or – to a far greater extent – the global 'Alpha
Course' phenomenon, which is even available in prisons. Each
Alpha Course evening, I believe, typically consists of a shared
meal, followed by a video on a key topic and a discussion.
There sometimes seems to be an eye-catching flyer for your
nearest Alpha Course in every local newsagent's window (in
the UK at least) – huge posters even appeared on the
Underground, at one point.
Time
for us integral folks to offer the world something a touch
more… evolutionary, surely? Integral-friendly US spiritual
guru Andrew Cohen is also already rolling out something along
these lines for his movement, I believe.
Top
Integral
salons: 'Crucibles of a consciousness struggling to be born'
Recently Wilber has written about the integral ‘salons’
worldwide - of which the London Integral Circle is one example:
"the integral salons that are now springing up around
the world, crucibles of a consciousness struggling to be born",
he writes.
For
Wilber, they are playing a role akin to the salons
of the French Enlightenment: "This shift from blue to
orange, or from traditional values to modern values, was presaged
in the salons or 'small gatherings of moderns' (the
word salon is French, but these gatherings were also
occurring in England, Scotland, and Germany, among others),
where the social practice of dialoguing
according to orange values was carefully exercised."
"A
similar process is now at play, I believe, in the nascent
integral salons spontaneously forming around the world",
argues Wilber.
Ken
Wilber continues: "But by whatever name and in whatever
context, integral salons are in fact already forming around
the world, pockets of care and consciousness where individuals
exercise second tier potentials in an ongoing effort to embrace
as gracefully as possible all dimensions of the radiant Kosmos.
The more one actually practices an integral meta-paradigm
(in personal life, in business, in education, in politics,
in medicine, in spirituality), the more Eros is set rumbling
through the system, agitating and pulling toward a second-tier
transformation that explodes the legitimacy crisis inherent
in all first-tier waves and throws them open to an enrichment
beyond their first-tier imprisonment, an enrichment that is
their own inherent potential and divine birthright set free
in the deeper and wider spaces enacted by integral practices".
Wilber
estimates that the currently tiny proportion of the population
– less than 2 per cent – that is already at the
integral stages which follow the postmodern-pluralist stage
– may rise to 10 or 15 per cent in future decades, leading
to “a major cultural revolution, comparable at least
to that of the sixties”.
Such
a major catalytic role is certainly something worth aspiring
to (if one doesn’t lapse into the all-too-common arrogance
and ungrounded espousals of higher stages) – I would
certainly suggest from my experience that being part of a
face-to-face group which is slowly learning how to think and
act in a more integrally-informed way can be a rewarding and
illuminating experience.
The
aim of an integral salon should, presumably, be not only to
foster today’s gradual emergence of Second Tier integral
modes of being, but to pave the way for the far rarer Third
Tier, where transpersonal or ‘spiritual’ experience
becomes more of an everyday way of being. (In fact it was
his Third Tier/transpersonal interests, of course, that first
made Wilber’s name; in this area Wilber is currently
recommending Genpo Roshi’s eye-opening ‘Big Mind’
exercise – which fuses Zen with neo-Jungian voicework
– as a way to experience a sneak preview of the mystical/non-dual
state, along with various personal selves/states/voices. Try
it some time.)
Copyright
© 2007 Matthew Kalman
|
