December 8th, 2008
History of Mysticism is a course in spirituality like no other. It presents, in an historical context, the lives and teachings of over 40 famous mystics or seers from both Eastern and Western religious traditions. It reveals the antiquity and endurance of the Great Mystical Tradition and the unity underlying the diversity of its manifold expressions. [...]

December 8th, 2008
Over the millennia, many mathematicians have hoped that mathematics would one day produce a Theory of Everything (TOE); a finite set of axioms and rules from which every mathematical truth could be derived. But in 1931 this hope received a serious blow: Kurt Gödel published his famous Incompleteness Theorem, which states that in every mathematical theory, no matter how extensive, there will always be statements which can't be proven to be true or false. [...]

December 8th, 2008
In any event, a quantum field theory that is invariant under all diffeomorphisms of spacetime is called by physicists a "topological quantum field theory," or TQFT. It has only been a few years since people have been seriously studying worked-out examples of TQFTs. The understandable examples so far have been in 2- and 3-dimensional spacetimes, not our own lovely 4-dimensional spacetime. But these examples are still amusing and perhaps enlightening. They also have a lot to do with knots - but that's another story. [...]

December 8th, 2008
Philosophy, as it turns out, is not just a clever way to test the patience of first-year college students with early morning lectures and parsings of logic that would challenge the endurance of Sisyphus. At its best, it is an exercise in laying the structural foundations of culture, and philosophers can be likened to a sort of advance team on the edges of the development of our society, setting up outposts on the borders of our collective consciousness. Do you want to know where human society is headed in the next one hundred years? Check out the leading edge of philosophical thought today. [...]

December 6th, 2008
Over the past decade Ken Wilber has focused upon his integral theory in the context of his four quadrants and more recently eight zones [1], developing practical applications in the real world thru the establishment and development of Integral Institute [2]. However, what I have always felt most inspired and appreciative of in Wilber's work actually stems back from his very first book which he wrote in 1973, "The Spectrum Of Consciousness," and which is expanded upon and developed in much more detail in his relatively recent book "Integral Psychology" in 2000 [3]. [...]

December 6th, 2008
More interestingly, one might argue that what keeps real cognition processes in the head is the requirement that cognitive processes be portable. Here, we are moved by a vision of what might be called the Naked Mind: a package of resources and operations we can always bring to bear on a cognitive task, regardless of the local environment. On this view, the trouble with coupled systems is that they are too easily decoupled. The true cognitive processes are those that lie at the constant core of the system; anything else is an add-on extra. [...]

November 25th, 2008
So what I am trying to do in this paper is quite ambitious. Firstly there is the attempt to expand the upper left quadrant beyond what Ken Wilber has laid down in his diagram. He goes up to level 13, and I want to talk also about levels 14 and 15. Secondly there is the attempt to restrict myself to talking about psychotherapy, and in this respect there is no need to discuss the very early levels which mainly refer to the prepersonal, the developmentally immature levels of psychospiritual development. So I shall start at level 11, which is the magic/mythic level sometimes found, especially when working crossculturally. [...]

November 24th, 2008
When we're at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the living present because our "monkey minds," as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree. [...]

November 24th, 2008
Recently, noting students' attraction to the medicine wheel, I have begun presenting the Integral map as a post-modern version of this ancient contemplative tool. Many students, when they first learn about AQAL and the Integral Map, find it to be flat, complicated, and "heady" -- they have a hard time connecting to it on a level that feels very meaningful for them, at least initially. So, to help bring it to life, I've been experimenting with this alternative approach. It is not something I would do with all students, or as a primary means of communicating Integral ideas; but I feel comfortable offering it as one way of conceptualizing (and embodying) the map. Tell me what you think! [...]

November 24th, 2008
This has lead to periods of inaction, or for settling for life circumstances that are less then favourable because I didn't feel that I had the resources or advantages that others may have earned or been given by fate. I am now the first to admit that when we compare our life circumstances with other people, and then use the differences as excuses, we are entirely missing the point. [...]

November 24th, 2008
In the past few months there has been an unveiling of what actually transpired among Dr. Gafni and his former partners. So as not to influence the discernment necessary in ethical matters of this kind, I won't detail the findings here, but instead point interested readers to look at what has more recently surfaced at www.marcgafni.com. The conclusions drawn on the website by the evaluators, rabbis, spiritual teachers and others are based on ample documentary material. Collectively, at various stages over a period of more than two years, all parties have been heard from directly and through their representatives and now through extensive first person documentation. [...]

November 24th, 2008
In one recent study, experimental philosophers Jesse Prinz of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and I looked at intuitions about the application of psychological concepts to organizations composed of whole groups of people. To take one example, consider Microsoft Corporation. One might say that Microsoft "intends to adopt a new sales strategy" or that it "believes Google is one of its main competitors." In sentences such as these, people seem to be taking certain psychological concepts and applying them to a whole corporation. [...]

November 4th, 2008
There are various sound waves that induce or help promote a particular brain state. Ever hear of the brainwave generator? It's been around for a few years now (at least). You can download the program, free and try it out. It has a very extensive list of different sounds which allegedly help for a number of tasks, from meditating to headaches. What are your thoughts on it? From giving it a shot, I admit it did induce something. [...]

October 22nd, 2008
When people's moral self image is threatened, as when they think about their own unethical past behaviors, people literally experience the need to engage in physical cleansing, as if the moral stain is literally physical dirt. We tested this idea in multiple studies and showed that when reminded of their past moral transgressions, people were more likely to think about cleansing-related words such as "wash" and "soap", expressed stronger preference for cleansing products (for instance, a soap bar), and were also more likely to accept an antiseptic wipe as a free gift (rather than a pencil with equal value). [...]

October 21st, 2008
The descriptions were great, as were the connections he made between the maps. Finally we discussed the Dark Night(s), which I think is one of the most important, and under-discussed, elements of the spiritual path. He shared two meanings of the Dark Night, one having to do with being plunged into new territory that is amazing and new, and then having that territory disappear. [...]

October 21st, 2008
Based on that background, Colgate stated his argument against Hyder's position: Every since it came into existence the Earth, everything on it, and its every process from the core to the outer edge of the atmosphere has been undergoing a metabolic dissolution in the re-cycling flow of energy from the sun's heat to the chill of deep space, a dissolution absolutely enhanced with the inception and advance of ever increasingly complex forms of life. He said that from the replication of the first living cell to the highest levels of humanity's technology and culture one thing about evolution has remained constant: with each higher level of evolved complexity there has been a concomitant increase in the earth's overall efficiency in generating entropy.[...]

October 6th, 2008
We have the technology and the resources: so what is missing? Too few see how limited our current responses are for the enormity and complexity of global problems which ultimately affect human well-being. In explaining the causes of our global crises, we generally focus on economic, social and political forces. Governments, corporations, the United Nations (UN), civil society, and other institutions focus on financial and monetary parameters, technological (e.g., medical, educational, informational), political, administrative, military, diplomatic, legal, and economic resources, measures and approaches. These approaches are necessary, but partial. Not until we see the global problematique as symptoms of a more fundamental, deeper-rooted crisis can we begin to mount a more integral and profound response that is likely to move us forward in a more sustainable way. That crisis is in our individual and shared mind-sets, where psychological and cultural factors and forces reign. That crisis challenges all of us, in the Northern countries and in the Southern countries alike! [...]