What Is Enlightenment? Content Directory

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Media Files

Dr. Ervin Laszlo
The Conscious Universe
An intimate conversation with Ervin Laszlo
Ervin Laszlo's brilliant and original work in the fields of systems philosophy and general evolution theory have become the cornerstones of a new integral science of evolution, consciousness, and human development.
Howard Bloom
Osama, Michael Jackson, and Group IQ
a Voices from the Edge presentation in New York City

Join 3rd millenium renaissance man, genius raconteur, author, and former rock and roll starmaker Howard Bloom to find out what the American king of pop and the Saudi prince of jihad have to do with collective intelligence, Darwinian reproduction strategies, and the future of human culture.

Donna Zajonc
Igniting a Spark of Power
Donna Zajonc traveled to North Africa to teach sixty Muslim women how to develop political skills, cultivate constituencies, and organize coalitions. Her part hopeful, part cautionary tale of modern Muslim women emerging from oppression provides a fascinating glimpse into the complex politics of women’s liberation.
Robert Wright
Fundamentalism vs. Modernity: A Worldcentric Perspective

Robert Wright, evolutionary thinker and author of Nonzero, speaks with WIE's Carter Phipps about creating higher integration in a polarized world.

Robert Godwin
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful, Parts I & II

Robert Godwin, author of the metaphysical thriller One Cosmos Under God speaks with Elizabeth Debold and Andrew Cohen about the evolution of consciousness, culture, and the cosmos.

Carol Lee Flinders
The Spirit of a Revolution

Carol Flinders, medieval scholar and pioneer at the intersection of feminism and spirituality, speaks with WIE about the women's liberation movement, its individual, cultural, spiritual, and political evolution—yesterday, today, and in the future.

Mary Evelyn Tucker
Envisioning a New Humanity

Mary Evelyn Tucker, author, educator, and leading voice in the religion and ecology movement, speaks with WIE editors Carol Raphael and Ross Robertson about re-envisioning our humanity in a cosmic context, embracing not just our care for planet earth but the great responsibility inherent at the leading edge of consciousness itself.

Fritzie P. Manuel
Does Humankind Dream of a Utopian Future?

WIE editors Jessica Roemischer and Ross Robertson speak with Fritizie P. Manuel: art historian, scholar, and co-author of Utopian Thought in the Western World, a definitive history of the human propensity to visualize and create the future.

Steve McIntosh
How Does Consciousness Evolve?

Integral philosopher Steve McIntosh and WIE editor Carter Phipps explore the patterns and mechanisms through which human consciousness and culture develop. 

Carter Phipps
The Cosmos, the Psyche and You
WIE Editors Live

In this new series of interviews with WIE’s own editors, Carter Phipps speaks about his motivations and discoveries in writing The Cosmos, the Psyche, and You (Issue 39), an exploration of the many impacts of Carl Jung and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on postmodern life and culture.

Steve McIntosh
Bringing an Integral Perspective to the White House

Integral philosopher Steve McIntosh gives some unorthodox advice to the next U.S. President on how to approach the most pressing challenges of the next four years.

Christopher Cooke
A Fully Open Mind

Christopher Cooke, core member of the Global Spiral Dynamics Group and leading international consultant in the application of whole-systems thinking, offers anecdotes and examples to illustrate his use of Clare Graves' theory of value memes and levels of development to catalyze positive change in individuals, groups, and corporations.

Howard Bloom
In Praise of Consumerism: The Spiritual Fruits of Materialism
A Voices from the Edge presentation in NYC

Join author, cultural scientist, and raconteur extraordinaire Howard Bloom as he radically redefines the significance of consumer culture.

Craig Hamilton
The Mind, Matter, and Time conference
Recorded live at the WIE & Omega Institute conference on consciousness

WIE Unbound presents Mind, Matter, and Time, a three-day conference on consciousness sponsored by WIE and the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. The conference presented the work and ideas of WIE's managing editor Craig Hamilton, Masaru Emoto, Joseph Chilton Pearce, and Fred Alan Wolf.

Don Beck
Spiral Dynamics: From Theory into Practice
a Voices from the Edge presentation
Spiral Dynamics has been called “the theory that explains everything.” In this evening presentation at The Window in London, Dr. Don Beck applies the powerful Spiral system to discover and develop integral solutions to the critical problems facing our global community today.
Don Beck, Brian Swimme, and Peter Senge
What Future May Come?
Three great minds link up with WIE editor in chief Andrew Cohen to discuss the fate of human culture, the great religions, and the road ahead.
Don Beck
An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics
“Spiral wizard” Don Beck describes the six stages of his dynamic theory of human social and cultural development
Dr. Munawar Anees
Islam and the Evolution of Global Peace
a Voices from the Edge presentation in London

Islamic scholar Dr. Munawar Anees traces the history of Islam from the Middle Ages to the present day, touching on its defining and defaming moments as he outlines a progressive path forward for the fastest growing religion in the world.

Articles

The Fire of Freedom
A brief (and slightly speculative) three-thousand-year history of women's spiritual uprisings and their impact on Western culture
Issue 37
Women, Enlightenment, and the Evolution of Culture
Andrew Cohen & Ken Wilber in dialogue
Issue 37
The Utopian Propensity
An interview with historian Fritzie P. Manuel
Issue 36
Gaming for a Higher Cause
An emerging genre of video games puts social evolution in the palm of your hand
Issue 35
The Only Journey There Is
An Exploration of Cosmic & Cultural Evolution
Issue 35
The REAL Evolution Debate
Everything you always wanted to know about evolution but the mass media wouldn’t tell you
Issue 35
God's Playing a New Game
Integral Spirituality, Evolutionary Enlightenment, and the Future of Religion

Andrew Cohen’s twenty years of experience as a spiritual teacher provides dynamic counterpoint to Ken Wilber’s comprehensive integral theory. The result is more than an exchange of ideas, as “guru and pandit” bring their rigorous inquiry and passion to this lively exploration of Wilber’s new manifesto.

Issue 33
Where Are the Women?

Noting the surprising absence of women at the leading edge of cultural change, Debold asks what happened to the revolution that women started in the last half of the 20th century—and calls women to once again aspire to transform the status quo.

Issue 29
The Elevenfold Liberation

The author of The Headless Way points to eleven exits from the prison of the unenlightened state.

Issue 28
A New Consciousness For a World In Crisis
Geopolitical activist Dr. Don Beck shines new light on our greatest global challenges

From AIDS in Africa to the war in Iraq, Don Beck provides surprising insight into the cultural forces driving the news of the day.

Issue 28
The Globalization of Morality
Robert Wright explores the challenges of terrorism and the evolution of human ethics
Issue 26
Presence
Human Purpose and the Field of the Future
Issue 25
Faster Forward
Impressions of Our Emerging Future

From the far out to the close at hand, four futurists zoom out for a bird's eye view on the global changes we're experiencing now and can anticipate in the future—each outlining both the unprecedented challenges and mind-spinning opportunities humanity faces in the minutes and years to come

Issue 23
The Challenge of Our Moment
A Roundtable Discussion with Don Beck, Brian Swimme, & Peter Senge

WIE calls on some of today's most pioneering evolutionary minds in geopolitics, cosmology, organizational development, and spirituality to help us understand how humanity can move forward amidst the multifaceted challenges of our moment in history.

Issue 23
The Never-Ending Upward Quest
A WIE Editor Encounters the Practical and Spiritual Wisdom of Spiral Dynamics

Change-wizard Don Beck guides us on a monumental and mind-bending journey through spiraling stages and “colors” of consciousness. Editor Jessica Roemischer explains why, when it comes to spiritual transformation, it ain't easy being “green.”

Issue 22
Transformation by Design

Founder of Visa International and self-made philosopher Dee Hock invokes the new science of complexity theory to show how human organizations can become powerful agents for evolutionary transformation.

Issue 22
Suggestions of a Larger Purpose

The insightful author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero reflects on the dynamics of evolution and speculates about an emerging global consciousness.

Issue 21
What Is Liberation for Women Today?
24 extraordinary women give their answers
Issue 37
Where Are the Women? Part III
Beyond the Divine Feminine
Issue 32
Spiritual but not Religious
Moving beyond postmodern spirituality
Issue 31
Is God a Pacifist?
Exploring the Meaning of Peace, Nonviolence, and Pacifism in a Post 9/11 World

Is peace the answer to a world in chaos? Against the backdrop of 9/11 and Iraq, WIE asks the hard questions about just wars and religious violence, and explores the relationship between our deepest spiritual principles and the politics of an evolving global society.

Issue 26
Vanguard Generation
An Ironic Army
Can two recent books about young people and spirituality—Dharma Punx and Red Moon Rising—help Gen Y overcome irony and apathy in order to save the world?

Issue 25
Postcards from the Galactic Edge
A few scientists are trying to determine how to teach extraterrestrials the ABCs of human culture
Issue 25
Conversations with My Father
Postmodernism, morality, and the evolution of a father-daughter relationship

WIE editor Jessica Roemischer traverses four decades of postmodernity and life with her philosopher father, in an autobiographical odyssey replete with the freedoms, disappointments, and newfound potential of a world beyond tradition.

Issue 24
Shifting Moral Ground
The Dilemma of Ethics in an Out-of-Control World

How do we make the right choices in a globalizing, pluralistic society? WIE looks beyond our postmodern “do-your-own-thing” ethos to explore the emerging edge of an evolutionary morality.

Issue 24
The Bahá'í Faith
A Modern Tradition

Hear what the Bahá'í Faith, one of the newest additions to the world's religious canon, has to say about the unique evolutionary potential of our time.

Issue 23
Traditions on the Edge
Can the past meet the future?

Enter a multidimensional journey through history, cyberspace (and small-town America) as a broad spectrum of religious authorities takes on the burning question: How can the world's great traditions cope with the complexities of human life in the 21st century and beyond?

Issue 23