Soul to Spirit: The New Spiritual Psychology

As mentioned in previous chapters, though the comparisons with the Integral model are useful, more and more as we look at Bailey vs Integral we discover how the two models do not fit as well at higher levels. This is especially true as we shift to Integral Orange in comparison to Group Six. For example, in the chapter on Group Three that I paired with Integral Red, I spoke about how Integral has mushed people like President Donald Trump and people like Bonnie and Clyde together into one group. The Integral model does this primarily because it believes those (like Trump) who seem to have a reactive emotional nature, and selfish predisposition at a very low stage of evolution. But, as I have tried to illustrate using the Bailey model, there is a big difference between the wild emotional reactivity and impulsivity of a Group Three individual who has great difficulty getting their “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs met” in the world, and someone like Donald Trump who despite using his emotional reactions to bully and manipulate others, still manages at the same time  to get all his needs met, even though he is doing so in a highly narcissistic way. By not distinguishing as the Baily model does between how a selfish and unintegrated person acts (Group Three), and a selfish and integrated person acts (Group Six), I feel the Integral model runs into problems. Keeping this in mind let’s look at the level that has some connections with Group Six, Integral Orange.

And again here are some keywords described in the two excerpts from Integral related charts above and then also read the following quotes taken directly from An Overview of Developmental Stages of Consciousness compiled by Barrett C. Brown, Integral Institute April 3, 2006.

Orange Values: Bottom line: Success and autonomy. Basic theme: Act in your own self interest by playing the game to win What’s important: Progress, prosperity, optimism, and self-reliance; strategy, risk-taking, and competitiveness; goals, leverage, professional development, and mastery; rationality, objectivism, demonstrated results, technology, and the power of science; use of the earth’s resources to spread the abundant “good life”; advance by learning nature’s secrets and seeking the best solutions Where seen: The Enlightenment; Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged; Wall Street; emerging middle classes around the world; colonialism, political gamesmanship; sales and marketing field; fashion and cosmetics industries; Chambers of Commerce; the Cold War; materialism; The Riviera, Rodeo Drive.

Orange Self-Identity: Main focus: Delivery of results, effectiveness, goals; success within the system Qualities: Primary elements of adult “conscience” are present, including long-term goals, ability for self-criticism, and a deeper sense of responsibility. Interested in causes, reasons, consequences, and the effective use of time; future-oriented and proactive; initiator rather than pawn of system; blind to subjectivity behind objectivity; feel guilt when not meeting own standards or goals; behavioral feedback accepted. How influences others: Provides logical argument, data, experience; makes task/goal-oriented contractual agreements.

Looking at these keywords you discover many qualities found in Bailey’s Group Six. However, the association of Integral Orange with the words like logic, science, rationality, and objectivism I feel is problematic. Again, these keywords make it appear that those at the Integral Orange and Group Six levels are in fact being logical and objective. As illustrated with my Ayn Rand example in this chapter, there are many ways that this is not the case. In regards to other keywords like colonialism, political gamesmanship and competitiveness the mental and seemingly “logical” processes of Integral and Group Six are often manipulated so they seem reasonable, but from a larger “soul perspective” they are not. Rather, they are mental manipulations to help cover up what the person is really doing or designed to help achieve his or her own selfish ends.

Also, especially at the first stages of the Integrated Personality, you will see that plenty of highly successful, risk taking, goal orientated, self-reliant, prosperous, and autonomous people don’t necessarily stick to logical arguments or stay open on a personal level to accepting behavioral feedback, especially if they feel their status and view of themselves is threatened. Plenty of Integrated Personality types, like President Donald Trump, are even willing to disregard logic because they are attempting to manipulate other people or circumstances to achieve their own selfish ends. As we saw with Ayn Rand, selfish Integrated Personalities often  refuse to take any personal feedback because their egos always needs to feel right, which again displays an inability to be truly objective and rational. And, Integrated Personalities often oppose science or logical/rational processes, if that science, logic, and rationality don’t support the agendas they are trying to put forward socially, economically and politically.

Because Integral ignores how “logic and reason” is often used by those in power to further their own agendas, they tend to kick these people down to their Red level (Group Three in this book). Then selfish, but integrated personalities, are only viewed as petulant and rebellious two year-olds, which makes them seem incompetent when in fact they may not be. Perhaps that is why so many people under-estimated the emergence of someone like Donald Trump into such a high position of power. Using the Integral model you go from selfish Red, to conformist Amber, to conformist Amber-Expert, to rational and reasonable Orange, to their next stage Green, which is becoming spiritual already. In their model there simply is no room for someone who is powerful and integrated into the world and extremely selfish, materialistic, powerful, ambitious, and possibly even very dangerous.

Yes, Trump is a bully the way Group Three people tend to be. But, unlike Group Three people, Trump has managed to integrate himself into the world putting himself into a position of power enabling him to influence the masses using very effective (although selfish) means. Remember Group Six Integrated Personality people are no longer pawns in the system the way Group Three people are. Group Six members don’t have to rebel against the rules. Group Six members create rules, and they can follow, break, or even reinvent these rules whenever they want to and even force everyone else to follow them. Group Three members take risks, true. But, Group Six members are much more likely to take calculated risks allowing them to prosper way more than Group Three members ever would. Yes, Group Six people can seem petulant and impulsive. But, they are very unlikely to die in a hail storm of bullets being fired at them, or end up hacked to death on a battle field. Instead when Group Six people act out because they may feel their ideas and power are threatened, they protect themselves by making sure it is not them, but others whose reputations get decimated, go to jail, or even get killed. And, while Group Three people are busy doing the bombing, killing, or maiming, Group Six members tend to keep themselves in safe zones, turning themselves into public heroes, while sending out the orders that get others (like Group Three people) killed. And, Group Six individuals like Trump may appear to be emotionally unstable and out of control, but at the same time Group Six people can also use their emotions to manipulate others in order to align the masses to help them achieve their goals.

In conclusion, because the Integral model ignores making these kinds of distinctions (whereas the Bailey model does not), I feel Integral fails to see what is really going on here. In my opinion the Bailey model makes more sense. As we shift into Integral Orange it seems like humanity is evolving into becoming logical, reasonable, and scientifically minded individuals, who for the most part have left emotional reactivity behind them. When someone like Trump emerges, it seems like a fluke and an Integral Red throwback. From the Bailey perspective, more and more people are just moving into Group Six and learning to integrate their personalities. That means people will appear to be logical, objective and more reasonable on one hand. While, on the other hand they may be using the appearance of logic as a means to manipulate the minds and emotions of others to serve their selfish and greedy ends. In short, if Bailey’s theories are right we are not leaving Integral Red/Bailey Group Three far behind us and people like Trump are just a fluke. Rather, encountering more and more people like Trump may be our future, as we move into a world where this kind of mental manipulation (which is actually still highly informed by emotions when threatened), will become dominant for centuries to come. Only by truly seeing what stage is really ahead of us will we know how to manage it, because if we don’t, then future generations will regretfully be forced to live in an extremely selfish, competitive and ever more violent world.

MORE INTEGRAL MODEL COMPARISONS

As we move into the comparisons that this stage has with certain ideas in Integral, I will mainly see Aspirants as connected to Integral Green, especially in regards to what Ken Wilber has called Boomeritis, and with what another person associated at times with the Integral world, Robert Augustus Masters, has to say about “Eros Undressed.”

Boomeritis

Boomeritis is word coined by Ken Wilber who spearheaded the Integral movement. The phrase essentially talks about the problems that emerged when the “Boomer” generation of mainly the 1960’s, took control and their kind of consciousness started to impact the world. “Boomers” (according to Wilber) tend to be more spiritual than religious, meaning they do not tend to follow the rules and regulations handed down to them by the religious establishments that especially their parents grew up with. Boomers rather, tend to go on a spiritual quest designed to help them get in touch with their Higher Selves (or whatever you want to call it). Also, most Boomers approach the spiritual path with a sense of dualism (seeing themselves here and the Soul, Spirit, God as “out there”). This is similar to what we just spoke about in regards to the Love/Knowledge petal of the Egoic Lotus.

Boomers also may speak of “Oneness” and may accept all paths as equal, but Wilber says they often making a mess of everything because they put everyone on an equal level (Mother Teresa and Hitler being the same for example). This tendency to make everyone equal is very similar to what we see with Group Seven types where the mind tends to become rejected, leading to an emotional idealism (let’s just love everybody), that is wonderful in its idealism, but not in its realism because of having thrown out the capacity for mental discernment. The fear of using the mind, or the rejection of it altogether, can also lead Boomers to run around telling people not to judge others or be judgmental, when in fact, they are constantly judging others themselves for being too judgmental.

The anxiety over being judgmental also causes Boomers, Wilber says, to frequently dislike any mention of levels and hierarchy because they feel that all hierarchical systems are only designed to judge, ostracize, belittle, and repress people, especially marginalized groups. Wilber says they fail to understand that the  word hierarchy itself means something whole or holy, especially since the root word hiero means sacred or holy. As for archy? Arch essentially means the rule of, and when associated with the word hiero, hierarchy means the rule of that which is holy or whole. To quote Wilber exactly, “’Hierarchy’ and ’wholeness,’ in other words, are two names for the same thing, and if you destroy one, you completely destroy the other. It is ironic, to say the least, that the social champions of the web of life deny hierarchy in any form while the sciences of the web of life insist on it.” (Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality p. 16) For those who are familiar with the Alice Bailey teachings they of course know that the word hierarchy is used in her books all the time. She even talks about a “spiritual hierarchy,” which many Group Seven people may equally react to because they immediately think Alice Bailey types are all talking about a group of people who are secretly trying to dominate the rest of the world, and are likely to be especially suspicious that as usual, this group will be comprised primarily of white males. Wilber goes on to say, however, that true hierarchies (like the Hierarchies of Archangels and Angels he is speaking about in regards to the sentence from him that follows), “were ranked because each successive order was more inclusive and more encompassing and in that sense ‘higher.’ ‘Hierarchy’ thus meant, in the final analysis, ‘sacred governance,’ or ‘governing one’s life by spiritual powers.’” (Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality p. 17). The Alice Bailey teachings are very much in accord with this.  (Note: For a deeper understanding of what Wilber has to say about this topic you might want to read the following from a follower of his, Kaisa Puhakka, summarizing his thoughts that he placed on his website. Here is the link. http://www.kenwilber.com/Writings/PDF/SES–Kaisa-p.pdf  The main points are on pages 3—6).

Finally, Wilber talks about how Boomers, in their desire to escape this realm and the trappings of the gross world and gross physical body, want to hang out more in the subtle body and subtle realms. In the subtle realms they spend more time focusing on dream state, astral travel, drug experiences, mystical states, raising the kundalini to obtain high states psychic powers, and other highs that come from intense emotional and even sexual experiences. There is nothing wrong with experiencing any of these states. But, as Wilber loves to emphasize, there is a big difference between states and stages, and just because you can get yourself into all kinds of states (or spiritual highs), from a stage (or levels) approach, it doesn’t prove very much as you still may have a long way to go. Notice again, how this same tendency is to get high is very much like what I have talked about in this chapter).

Eros Undressed

On another note before I leave this section on comparisons of Group Seven with some of the ideas of Integral, I want to mention an article on the Internet from psychologist and author, Robert Augustus Masters. The name of the article is Eros Undressed: Freeing Our Sexuality from the Obligation to Make Us Feel Better or More Secure. To entice you to read Master’s thoughts directly on this subject, I am going to put the introduction to the article he wrote here. “Sex is, in many ways, still in the dark. Yes, it’s wearing much less and showing a lot more than it was fifty years ago, but it’s still not truly out in the open, except in mostly superficial ways. Its ubiquitous exposure, graphic highlighting, and relentless pornification simply camouflage its deeper workings. However brazenly explicit or conversationally undressed sex now is, it still remains largely hidden, its depths mostly untouched, its heartland still largely unknown, obscured by the tasks to which we commonly assign it, especially those of making us feel better or more manly. Just as being openly angry doesn’t necessarily bring us any closer to truly knowing our anger, being openly sexual doesn’t necessarily bring us any closer to truly knowing our sexuality. An essential step to bringing sex fully out of the closet is realizing—and not just intellectually—that the greater our investment is in distracting ourselves from our suffering, the greater our craving for sexual arousal and release may tend to be.” To read the rest of this brilliant article and the solutions to the current problem of sex that we are all immersed in, read Robert Augustus Masters full article here. http://robertmasters.com/writings/eros-undressed-into-the-heart-of-sex/