Dr. Keith Witt on the psychological mechanisms that animate evolution
 
All living processes exist in a rhythm of opposing forces which create conflict, resolving into either cooperation or domination. This dynamic of tension is the subtext of most human activity. 

The good news is that in the long run friending wins. In this episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, integral psychotherapist Dr Keith Witt explains how sociability is latent in most interactions, even those that are marked by hostility. And how human beings at every scale, from individual children to collective nation-states, invite constraints to provide a delineated space for new growth. Dr. Keith’s insights help us normalize - and realize the potential - in the inevitable conflicts of life.

Fighting and Friending our Way Forward

In this episode, I take a look at the “ultimate questions” of religion and philosophy: Who are we? Where are we going? How does one live a meaningful life in a world that is marked by loss and death, but also goodness and beauty? 

Throughout history, humanity has come up with many different and often conflicting answers to these questions. Early humans perceived a spirit world where the ancestors were present and available. Traditional cultures posited a transcendent reality - Godhead or Nirvana - with death as an opportunity for liberation from evil and suffering. Modernity deconstructed religion and spirit but produced the insights of psychology, as well as countless therapies for personal growth.  

The integral approach is to embrace them all and to be illuminated by multiple truths. In that spirit I created this episode by talking to four of my smartest integral colleagues about their views of the ultimate questions:  

Dr. Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist for over 50 years, talks about the psychotherapeutic approach to trauma and grief.

Integral teacher and coach Nomali Perera shares the story of the death of her father and the metamorphosis of meaning it sparked in her.

Buddhist priest and integral teacher Diane Musho Hamilton offers guidance on the meditative approach of compassion and soothing presence.

And integral philosopher Steve McIntosh brings a theistic perspective, seeing death as a passage in one’s infinite cosmic journey of divine perfection. 

I feel better - and a little bigger - having had these conversations. I hope they help you expand a bit as well!  - Jeff Salzman

The Meaning of It All: An integral look at grief and loss

Dr. Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist extraordinaire, joins me for another episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, where we explore the contours of emerging integral consciousness.

Today’s topic is what Dr. Keith calls the “post-issue relationship”, and here’s how he describes it: In a post-issue relationship, each problem is an opportunity to grow and love. A post-issue relationship may still have problems, resentments, doubts, and selfish or thoughtless injuries, but there is always an adjustment to love in response to pain or distortion.

Second-tier living really is more good, true and beautiful! Our conversation starts at 3:16; I hope you enjoy it!.

Post-Issue Relationships: Interpersonal development at teal and turquoise

Diane Musho Hamilton and I remember our beloved brother, and 20 years of Integral history

Today I am joined by my dear friend and colleague, Diane Musho Hamilton, to honor our brother-in-arms, Terry Patten, who recently passed away at the age of 70. Terry was beloved by many in the Integral community, and Diane and I had the privilege to teach and work with him for nearly 20 years.  

As Diane recounts, Terry was “the consummate integralist”, awake to his own mind, body and spirit, and dedicated to the wellbeing of all: family, friends and the world at large. I think of him as Integral’s “Zorba the Greek”, whose warmth, laugh and sheer ecstatic transmission could turn any gathering into a celebration. Above all Terry was an activist, championing what he called the “revolution of the heart”, an integration of: 
The “inner work” of self-awareness and personal transformation
The “interpersonal work” of authentic, compassionate relating
The “outer work” of practical, beneficial action in the world

In our conversation, Diane and I reflect not just on our extraordinary friend, but also on the history of the Integral movement, the evolution of its ideas and practices, and the countless people who have been uplifted by the evolutionary vision. I hope you enjoy the episode!  - Jeff Salzman. 

Terry Patten’s life’s work is articulated in his final book “The New Republic of the Heart, An Ethos for Revolutionaries”. You can find out more about Diane Musho Hamilton, and contact her about her offerings, here.

Terry Patten, An Integral Life

In this episode of the Shrink and the Pundit, Dr. Keith Witt and I discuss a powerful realization emerging at the leading edge of culture regarding the role of trauma in our lives. Dr. Keith is writing a book on the subject and has mined various psychotherapeutic modalities to create an integral approach to using trauma as a portal to health and higher consciousness. 

In our wide-ranging conversation we address: Trauma and resilience as forms of memory * The differences - and similarities - between ongoing trauma and “major event” traumas such as accidents, violence and illness * Trauma through human history * Sensitive vs sensitized: the healthy and unhealthy poles of postmodern consciousness * What child-centered parenting misses * The biological drive to have a spiritually-awakened brain * Updating your autobiographical narratives * Trauma and the self-transforming mind.  

I really loved this conversation and I hope you do, too!   - Jeff Salzman

Trauma to transcendence: Using life’s wounds to grow

Sometimes in our psychological development the way forward requires us to go back, to re-explore earlier stages of life to see what is distorted or left unintegrated.

This is the theme of the work of my guest today, developmental psychotherapist Kim Barta. He discusses his approach to personal growth, which is based on the STAGES Model of Development created by well-known developmental theorist Terri O’Fallon (who is also Kim’s sister.). Using psychotherapeutic practices, shadow work and meditation, Kim has devised a comprehensive system of self-exploration with stopovers at every stage of development, designed to bring the gifts and powers of that stage online.

Shoring up our developmental scaffolding in this way makes us able - and worthy - to grow into the higher stages of integral consciousness, which Kim and the STAGES model also beautifully illuminate. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kim Barta!

- Jeff Salzman

Kim is launching an intensive year-long program, “Shadow and Light” for a cohort of 16 people. (As always when I discuss a product with a guest, I get no compensation.) You can find out more about Kim and all his offerings at Kimbarta.org.

Illuminating Our Stage Structures, with Developmental Psychotherapist Kim Barta

Hey folks,

This week I look at a rising star in the mainstream commentariat: Peter Zeihan.

To me he is a good example of a proto-integral thinker in that he is a master synthesizer, weaving compelling narratives about our world that include economics, demography, geography, politics and history. He gives me a far more integrated understanding of a variety of issues from the Russia / Ukraine war to the workings of the drug cartels, to “Is it Oklahoma’s time to shine?”

Yet, as with so many contemporary thinkers, his analysis misses the core value of integral thinking: that human consciousness and cultures have evolved and that they continue to. In this episode, I look at this missing piece that integral thinking offers, and which adds an invaluable element to any analysis of human events.

I hope you enjoy the episode! - Jeff Salzman

Peter Zeihan And The Missing Piece In Public Discourse

In this episode, Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight look at the culture war and explore exciting new insights Ankur has gained from training with mediation master Ken Cloke.

Seeing and Being Seen: The Practice of Conflict and Mediation

Hey folks!

In this episode, I look at the evolutionary significance of our emerging mediaverse, with its gusher of entertainment coming to us from all over the world. How do we navigate it? We ask our friends! In that spirit I offer:

My favorite TV series of all time
My least favorite movie of the year, and why it’s my fault
The Flintstone Effect: projecting modern consciousness onto premodern times
The battle (in my head) between Robert Eggers (yay!) and Taylor Sheridan (boo!)

This episode is edited from the regular Fireside Chat I host with the Integral Life Practice community. Check out all their offerings on integral living at www.integrallife.com/calendar

Join me for the next live Fireside Chat
I do two a Fireside Chats a month, on the first and third Wednesday. The next one is this coming Wednesday, July 19th at 2pm MT, 4pm ET. Join us - it’s freewheeling integral fun! Zoom link here.

Enjoy the episode! 
Jeff Salzman

What Are You Watching? Some hot takes on movies and TV

Evolving your consciousness means enlarging your circle of moral consideration. Who is inside your circle and who is “the other”? In this episode, Ankur Delight and I look at the moral development of humanity, and the integral challenge of including people of different worldviews.

The Next Stage of Moral Development

Hey folks!

The New York Times has published two major columns by columnist David Brooks criticizing the modern meritocracy and the postmodern therapeutic culture.

What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?

Hey America, Grow Up!


It’s always interesting when somebody stops and tries to see the world of their opponents and I deeply appreciate Brooks and the New York Times for doing it.

New stages of culture seek to dissolve the value structures of the stages they are emerging out of. Brooks helped me understand how he, I and our cool friends have participated in deconstructing the values of traditionalism with little regard to the price paid by the people who hold them.

Based on the readers’ comments, I appreciated Brooks’ columns a lot more than the NYT’s subscribers did. But oh how Brooks and his argument would benefit from an evolutionary view, one that sees culture and consciousness becoming more mature in all its beautiful but not pretty ways. I make my case in the podcast. Enjoy!

- Jeff Salzman

David Brooks to Elites: “Are We the Baddies?”

We saw a powerful eruption of red warrior consciousness in the recently concluded saga involving Vladimir Putin and his renegade enforcer, the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ankur Delight and I discuss the integral threads. Hope you enjoy this new episode.
– Jeff Salzman

Prigoshin and Guiliani: The Wages of Red

Transcending the dueling perspectives of history, politics, religion and race, the insights of cultural development offer a more integrated, evolutionary understanding of wicked geopolitical problems like the conflict in the Middle East.  

PART 1 of this podcast is my talk to the Developmental Alliance, a monthly Zoom group sponsored by the Institute for Cultural Evolution. PART 2 is a more personal chat with my weekly conversation partner Ankur Delight, host of the 10,000 Heroes podcast. 

Thanks for tuning in!  - Jeff Salzman  

Join the ongoing conversations …
The Developmental Alliance, every 2nd Wednesday of each month at 7pm ET. 
My chat with Ankur Delight is live every Thursday at 1pm ET on the Daily Evolver YouTube Channel. 
Live Fireside Chat with the Integral Life Practice Community, every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month, 4pm ET. 
And follow me on Twitter/X!

Israel and Palestine: A Developmental View

Hey folks, 

In this episode, Ankur kicks off our discussion by asking: “What can we do for Israel and Palestine? What really helps?” 

We discussed a Kosmo-centric view and how it transcends (and includes) the world-centric view of green postmodernity. Also the evolution of empathy, the role of meditation, Sam Harris’s “presentism” error and more. Enjoy the episode!

Jeff Salzman

Jeff Salzman - The Daily Evolver

Ankur Delight - 10,000 Heroes

TWO WAYS TO JOIN ME LIVE:

Fireside Chats with the Integral Life Practice Community

First and Third Wednesdays of every month @ 1 PM Pacific / 8 PM GMT
It’s a relaxed and free-flowing discussion of current events and cultural evolution. 
Zoom link to join

Join other live events at Integral Life.

The Daily Evolver Live, with Ankur Delight

Thursdays @ 10 AM Pacific / 5 PM GMT
Join here on YouTube Live

For the last few Thursdays, my buddy Ankur Delight and I have been quietly showing up on YouTube Live to “talk integral” about what’s happening in the world. It’s been fun and fruitful, and we love for you to join us!

What Really Helps? The Kosmo-centric View

Ankur Delight and I talk about the major new deal the UAW struck with the Big Three automakers in the US. The three pillars of the deal are 1) a 25% wage increase, 2) equalized pay for the same job, and 3) the ability to strike in response to plant closings. All represent a further move into green postmodern culture. 

But, Ankur objects, did we need to be enemies to get here?  That's when the discussion gets really interesting.

The United Auto Workers Deal - The Daily Evolver Live With Ankur And Jeff

If a debate isn’t about facts and arguments, what is it about? In this episode I look to a high school debate Tournament of Champions for the answer. As you will hear this next generation is Green, they’re mean, and they are discovering new territories of being human that are essential for the coming Integral stage.

To connect with Jeff Salzman, follow https://twitter.com/DailyEvolver

New Rules of Postmodern Debate

On today's Daily Evolver Live (every Thursday @ 10am PT on YouTube) Ankur and I discussed the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. He's a fundamentalist Christian who supports Trump and the election deniers. He's also for Covenant Marriage and against porn, two views that may be evolutionarily potent. Ankur and I tease apart what is good and what is retrograde in his views.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Covenant Marriage and Porn

In this episode, I take another look at the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once in light of its popularity and controversy - including in the integral community. I also consider how taking one new perspective on the play, The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno, turned it from infuriating to infatuating. And more on the ongoing saga of pronouns. Enjoy the episode! 
This recording is from a Live Fireside Chat that I hosted recently on Integral Life.

Hot Takes on a Movie, a Play and Pronouns

Is America really getting stupider? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the case in his influential essay in The Atlantic Magazine titled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”.

I challenge his thesis from an integral perspective. Growing from a cultural conversation dominated by a modern worldview to one where many perspectives are online may feel like going backward (kind of like a sweet 12-year-old becoming a sour 13-year-old). But every new stage of development looks like a regression to the stage it is emerging out of. In this episode I make my case. Enjoy!

Jonathan Haidt’s “Stupid America”

A year away from the US Presidential election, Ankur Delight and I ponder the spectre of Donald Trump being the odds-on favorite to win. Our muse this week is Rick Wilson, the founder of the Lincoln Project, who sounds the “Never-Again Trump” alarm in his recent Substack article, Red Caesar and the Next Regime. As Wilson points out, “Red Caesar” is a term used by “the New Right, to mean a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people.” Ankur and I discuss an integral perspective, which would categorize Trump’s ruling philosophy as pre-Constitutional but no less “Red”. It looks like we are fated to live a very interesting next year. Enjoy the episode!
-- Jeff Salzman

Ankur Delight: 10,000 Heroes Podcast

The Return of Red Trump

This week I’m sharing a terrific conversation I had with Nomali Perera and Lee Mason reviewing 2023 from an integral perspective. Through a series of lightning-round questions -- greatest surprise, greatest disappointment, etc -- we tour the evolving culture, politics, art and the integral movement itself. I hope you enjoy it and best wishes for the New Year!

- Jeff Salzman

2023: How Culture Evolved

Hey Folks,

This week we’re looking at Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s new movie about Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein has been a favorite of mine since I happened upon a lecture he gave in the 70s charting the development of music from a single note to the full musical polyphony we have today, as well as the two polarities in nature that transform sound into art (The Greatest Five Minutes in Musical Education).

Maestro tells the story of Bernstein in three distinct periods, each rendered with the perspective and language of the time, quite literally in the first segment which is filmed in 35mm black and white and spoken in the Mid-Atlantic accent. It’s one of the best attempts I’ve seen at resisting interpreting the past through contemporary sensibilities. As such we get a palpable transmission of the evolution of not only the artist himself but also the culture at large.

This episode is edited from my live Fireside Chat, hosted by the Integral Life practice community. Nomali Perera, the founder of the community (and lover of Maestro), and several listeners weigh in too. I hope you can join us for the next Fireside Chat on Wednesday, February 21, at 1pm PT, 9pm GMT, where we look at culture and politics through an integral lens.

I hope you enjoy the episode and check out Maestro on Netflix and in theaters.

Jeff Salzman

Maestro: An Integral Take On an Integral Artist

Islamic culture in the Middle East is entrenched in a dialectical antithesis with modernity. Building on the work of moderate Muslim intellectuals, McIntosh argues that the Islamic cultural reform needed to overcome radical Islamism depends on the underlying reform of the religion of Islam itself.

Excerpt: The Problem Of Reverse Orientalism In Islamic Scholarship

How An Integral Spirituality Can Help Evolve Islam; Jeff Salzman Interviews Steve McIntosh

Is fundamentalism fundamental? How do we encourage development? And what’s up with this whole Illuminati, reptilian alien, shape shifting conspiracy anyway? Jeff responds to these and other questions on the minds of listeners this week.

Whats the Deal with Reptilian Alien Shape Shifters and Other Questions from Listeners

This week, a gem from the archives: an early talk between Jeff and Dr. Keith Witt--part of a series that eventually became "The Shrink and The Pundit". 

Brother Keith has been practicing psychotherapy in Santa Barbara for over 40 years, and is also a master martial artist and devoted spiritual practitioner with experience in many traditions. Who better to talk to about integrating these two approaches to human development, a topic that causes so much confusion and consternation among seekers of higher consciousness?

Spiritual teachers and psychotherapists are often as odds and people who participate in both modalities often reflect that conflict in their own minds. Which is the best way to go? Is it more fruitful to work with our personal history and iron out the stuck points in our lives (psychotherapy) or to work to transcend them by seeking enlightenment (spirituality)? Do we work with our story or drop our story?

Most spiritual traditions are rooted in pre-modern schemas that see dysfunction as a spiritual problem, whether possession by evil spirits or a separation from God. Even a non-theistic religion like Buddhism perceives the manifest world as a fallen and corrupt place that is to be transcended (and in more advanced Buddhist thought, re-embraced) through meditation.

Psychotherapy, on the other hand, works with the circumstances of our lives, and we are encouraged to look deeply into our own dramas and traumas, and even to re-experience them in the controlled psychotherapeutic container created with the therapist.

Anyone who has practiced both systems can see the value of each, yet their trusted guides, the spiritual teachers and psychotherapists, often deny the veracity of the other approach.

The integral solution, as you might expect, is to find the “piece of the truth” revealed by both spiritual practice and psychotherapy, to map the territories that each inhabit (and the territories they don’t), and to work with both in an integrated and harmonized way. That way the benefits are multiplied.

I know of no more qualified (and stimulating!) guide to this endeavor than Keith Witt. Check out our conversation below, as well as an essay Keith wrote on the topic.

For more from Keith, see his website drkeithwitt.com.


Spirituality And Psychotherapy; Integrating The Two Great Paths Of Development

By Jeff Salzman

I’ve long enjoyed music critic Greg Thomas’s insightful posts on Integral Life, where he write about jazz.  

Not that I like jazz music. Truth is, I’ve always found jazz to be annoying. I can’t tap my foot to it. I can’t sing it in the shower. Like a lot of artforms, when we don’t understand them, jazz has shown up to me as noise.  

Of course like all good integral practitioners, I want to turn toward the object of my annoyance. I know it’s not the fault of jazz that I don’t get it.  Millions of people are ecstatic over it, and I want to have what they’re having.  

So I was thrilled when Greg came to one of my programs at the Integral Center last summer, and I invited him to stay with me. During downtimes we had some great one-on-ones where Greg did his best to initiate me into the jazz idiom. He explained how jazz expresses American culture. He told stories of various artists and songs. He played some of his favorite pieces and schooled me in what was going on. He turned out to be just the teacher I was looking for, and I began to get the beat.  

Greg’s mastery is obvious, and he is indeed one of the nation’s leading experts on jazz. For several years Greg was a jazz columnist for the New York Daily News. He’s a consultant with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and with Jazz at Lincoln Center, the largest organization in the world dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of jazz. 

As we see with integral theory, art is often the leading edge of cultural and consciousness evolution, and jazz today continues to lead the way.
In this two-part series, The Soul of Jazz, Greg takes us through the history of jazz from its roots in the magic, mythic and traditional interiors of African Americans at the turn of the last century, through the modern and postmodern strains of the mid and late 20th Century, to the more wild wooly contemporary scene. He points out the evolutionarily potent and ultimately integral qualities jazz conveys as it confronts enduring human polarities such as the individual vs the group, tragedy vs comedy, competition vs cooperation, and structure vs freedom.

This is part one of our conversation ...


The soul of jazz part 1 with Greg Thomas

In this podcast I ask Integral philosopher Steve McIntosh a question on the mind of many integral practitioners: how do we relate to the nationalist passions that are arising in many developed countries around the globe?

Nationalism is often expressed as “love it or leave it” nativism, or in the case of the election of Donald Trump with a promise to take America back to an era of perceived past greatness.

On the other hand many Green-stage postmodernists reject patriotism entirely. As Steve says, “it is like nails on a chalkboard for people of postmodern consciousness to contemplate the good that America has done in its history.”

Neither of these positions have much to offer the evolutionary thinker. To cultivate a more Integral worldview we must seek to find the truth in each perspective, and thereby reactivate the positive values of Amber-stage traditionalism within a larger system that appreciates the heritage of all humanity.

Steve makes the case that “Until we, as progressive globalists, learn how to better integrate the values of nationalism into our discourse then we're going to be empowering those regressive forces who keep pulling us back." In this podcast Steve helps us rise to the challenge of creating more truly inclusive leading edge sensibilities - and societies.

Steve McIntosh is the author of three important books on Integral theory, including his latest, “The Presence of the Infinite: The Spiritual Experience of Goodness, Truth and Beauty.” Steve is also founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, where you can find more of his thinking on integral politics in his new essay “Appreciating the Upside of Nationalism.”

The Daily Evolver

Can Globalists Be Nationalists? | An interview with Steve McIntosh ...

Life is wounding. For some of us our wounds are inflicted in the form of a major trauma such as a serious injury, painful divorce, career failure or act of abuse or violence. More often, however, we are merely called on to suffer the slings and arrows of everyday life, which can also leave their mark.     

Contemporary psychology has revealed two major insights into trauma. One is that trauma is pervasive: two-thirds of Americans report experiencing a major trauma in their lives. The other is that trauma is toxic, often kicking off lifetime patterns of depression, anxiety and addiction. One study showed that people who suffer six or more of ten different categories of adverse events lived on average twenty years less that people who had had experienced none of those categories of adverse events.

Whether large or little, some trauma is inevitable and necessary for healthy development. Shocks and setbacks shape who we are and can provide the opportunity to develop resilience and a larger perspective. 

Yet we tend to feel ashamed of our wounds and naturally shrink away from them. We clench around our pain physically and/or mentally, and deny it so it can’t hurt us anymore. In some cases we may do the opposite, by indulging our pain, using it to control other people, or by playing the victim of our own life.   

In this two-part podcast Transforming Trauma Into Power, integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt explores what we now know about trauma and how it affects us. He also charts an empowering course forward, so that we can metabolize the traumas of our life in a way that liberates us from their grip and reveals exciting new territories of our ongoing development.

Part 1: Transforming small ‘t’ trauma

Diane Musho Hamilton is at the forefront of one of the most significant spiritual emergents in contemporary culture: the realization of the power of our everyday relationships, even troubled ones, as a means of awakening. 

For many progressive spiritual practitioners it no longer feels like enough to merely follow an individual meditation practice, as valuable as that is. We want to apply our enlarged selves, skillfully and in real time, to the circumstances of our complex lives, and particularly to our relationships with others.    

The spiritual potency of relationship is a subject Diane Musho Hamilton explores in her new book, The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just About Anyone. Diane grounds her teaching in the enduring cosmic polarity between difference and sameness. It is the sameness we share with others that provides comfort and safety, and the differences we have with them that bring liveliness and creativity. As integralists we are called to integrate these polarities into a deeper mutuality.

 Diane’s approach is particularly relevant to the contemporary social challenge of relating to our American family as it continues to polarize both culturally and politically.

I always feel a little bit wiser after a conversation with my dear friend Diane. I hope you do too! 

Diane Musho Hamilton is a Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage as well as a renowned professional mediator. She is the author of Everything is Workable: A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution. She, along with Terry Patten and Jeff Salzman, host The Integral Living Room, an annual weekend gathering in Boulder, Colorado.

Irritation as a Spiritual Practice - A conversation with Diane Musho Hamilton

Beena Sharma is one of the leading practitioners in the field of adult integral human development, specifically in mapping and assessing the levels of adult maturity.
 
Beena has founded The Center for Leadership Maturity, in collaboration with Susanne Cook-Greuter, internationally known authority on adult development. Beena and Susanne have been working together since 2004. They work with individuals, teams, and organizations to facilitate vertical adult development. She is also a dear friend, who I have known and worked with for over 10 years.  Beena brings to her work the rigor of a practitioner-scientist focused on good theory, concrete evidence, robust research and lived experience. She combines that with the reverence of a true spiritual practitioner who is herself in awe of the dynamics and the miracle of human growth.
 
In this podcast, Beena and I discuss what she and her team are learning about how adults grow through the predictable stages of adult development while still remaining true to their own journey. We examine how we can consciously participate in our own evolution and growth in a way that creates a more fulfilling, healthy, conscious and fruitful life. I particularly appreciate Beena's focus on mapping the later, Integral stages of development and how they show up in herself and people she works with.  She offers some insights on how we can actually grow to those later reaches of maturity while also appreciating the triumph of where we have already arrived.  Beena and I also touch on one of the essential tools of the developmental journey, that of working with polarities – the interdependent and seemingly opposite qualities we continually encounter on our path – and how we can begin to meaningfully navigate those qualities and paradoxes in an increasing profound way. 
 
Beena, as you will hear, is actively engaged with advancing both the theory and practice of vertical development in practical, profound and creative ways.   For those of us who fancy ourselves as Integral practitioners, Beena provides illuminating insight into the territory that we aspire to explore and ultimately inhabit.
 
I am very much inspired by my conversation with Beena Sharma. I bet you will be too!

Facilitating Vertical Development – A Conversation with Beena Sharma

Ann Coulter’s provocative personality often obscures two aspects of her that are far more important: she is a devoted Christian and committed nationalist. She thinks multiculturalism is dangerous and that Western culture rooted in a Judeo-Christian tradition creates superior societies. She advocated for Trump enthusiastically, and wrote a popular book In Trump We Trust, E Pluribus Awesome! to support his election.  
So how is she feeling a year in to Trump’s presidency?  Not altogether happy, considering her recent column, Headlines From an Administration That is Not Putting American First. In this episode Jeff contemplates the views of Coulter and her nationalist comrades on the right.

Ann Coulter’s Piece of the Truth: Critiquing Trump from the Right

Ken Wilber on Practicing the Religion of Tomorrow

Is there intelligent life beyond Earth? Have alien beings contacted us? What do we make of the thousands of testimonials of human-alien contact, including from scientists, diplomats and astronauts?

Yet … where’s the proof? And if there is proof, why is alien contact not the biggest story of the millennia?

“It is arguably the most intellectually credible topic on the planet with the most cultural taboo surrounding it.”

So says my guest, Sean Esbjorn-Hargens. Many of you know Sean as a leader in the integral community, as producer of three hugely successful Integral Theory Conferences, a respected consultant (founder of MetaIntegral) and author (Metatheory for the 21st Century).  

Well, it turns out there is another side to Sean. Here’s how he describes it: “For over a decade I’ve been a closeted UFO/ET geek – reading 100s of books and watching 1000s of hours of videos (interviews, documentaries, movies) – all in an attempt to make sense of my own experiences and intuitions around this fascinating and confusing topic. If there is ever a place where multiple perspectives run amuck, bumping into each other and in general creating chaos, it is around aliens and the craft they pilot. Over the last few years, I’ve begun to talk with ‘integralists’ about these topics and I’ve been continually surprised to discover many of them have had their own powerful and evocative experiences with UFOs, ETs, and paranormal realities.”

Sean is throwing himself fully into the arena. This year he founded the Institute for Exo Studies (IES), and this fall he debuts the Exo Studies Master Course, a three-month online course “exploring the psychological, sociological, and scientific implications of living in a multidimensional multiverse.”  

I’ve never met an alien (that I know of) but I jumped at the chance to talk about them with someone whose intelligence and judgment I respect. As I expected, I found our conversation to be quite mind-expanding. I hope you do as well!

Taking Aliens Seriously - Guest: Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Institute of Exo Studies

“We have to accept the reality that to one extent or another everyone has chronically amped-up distress, and a persistent negativity that generates confusing, distorted stories and emotional pain.” This statement kicks off another fascinating conversation with my pal, integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt.

What makes our distress difficult to accept, Keith says, is that we live in a culture that preaches zero tolerance for emotional pain. We have convinced ourselves that when we feel it we should be able to fix it -- with therapy, pills, spiritual practice or one of the thousands of products that promise to make us happy. And if/when we can’t fix it we are a failure. It’s a double-bind that contributes to psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression, now at record levels.

In this episode of our ongoing series, The Shrink and the Pundit, Dr. Keith and I talk about evolving a more mature relationship with our own - and other peoples’ - emotional discomfort and pain.

Befriending Emotional Pain | Guest: Integral Psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt

In this episode of “Shrink and the Pundit,” Keith and I explore breathing practices described in a powerful new book, Breath, the New Science of a Lost Art, as well as a muscle conditioning program developed by Dr. Zach Bush in his 4-Minute Workout.

Both systems promised - and delivered - big results from easy effort, enabling both Keith, a master practitioner, and I, a serial dilettante, to tap into new vitality from rethinking some basic biological functions. I hope it inspires you too!

Breath and Body Vitality: Dr. Keith & Jeff Salzman on new book by James Nestor

By Jeff Salzman

Dr. Keith kicks off this episode with research showing that although virtually everybody lies, most people vastly prefer to tell the truth and believe other people are doing the same. But how do we as integralists make sense of competing truth claims, particularly from different sides in the culture war? How do the facts and logic of modernity stack up against the allure of premodern myth and story? And what are the effects to the body politic of the long-term diet of lies served up by our newly-certified Loser-in-Chief?

“The Shrink and the Pundit” is my ongoing conversation with integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt.

What Is Truth? Making sense in a truth-challenged time

I am an integralist, an evolutionary and a commentator who is heartened by the state and future of things - yes, even with Trump. I believe life is animated by the power of evolution and we are riding a geyser of emergence toward a sacred world.

In this podcast I look at emerging trends in politics, economics, science, spirituality, and entertainment, all with an eye toward spotting the upflow of human consciousness and culture.

The Daily Evolver

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