“The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?”  - Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
​We seem to be at the precipice—the end, really—of one culture, and the birth of another. The author Charles Eisenstein calls this the “time between stories,” and feminist scholar Gloria Anzaldua describes it as nepantla (“in-between-ness”), but it can also, and equally, be considered a time between times. The new hasn’t made itself clear, but everywhere around us we sense that the old world is stagnant, ossified, and resisting its own rebirth. In the growing threat of ecological collapse, we also face civilizational collapse: we aren’t even sure there will be the dazzling, wondrous new.

How do we find our way through these liminal times? What are the emergent mentalities, embodied sensemaking, and spiritual attitudes that belong to the future? How might we enact them, individually, collectively?
Integrality in Science Fiction
The phenomenologist and integral philosopher Jean Gebser (1905-1973) considered art to be, in a sense, anticipatory. It prefigured the future. It told the new myths, the new stories, and helped us to imagine other possibilities by employing those same possibilities in their creative expression. This practice of imagining alternative modes of living and being makes science fiction a potentially radical activity.

Drawing from both works of ecological and integral scholarship, this course will explore the possibility of integral consciousness and how it might be showing up through our creative acts in literature. Arguably, a new, integral ontology is already here. Particularly in the genre of science fiction. New forms of self-making and world-relating are already being lived.

​Together we will read three novels. After creating a foundation—examining the characteristics of integral consciousness articulated by Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, and Ken Wilber—we will explore the integral ecologies of Annihilation and Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, then move from ecology to polis in Ursula K Le Guin’s The Dispossessed​: An Ambiguous Utopia. Other implicit integral works will be drawn from, such as Timothy Morton’s Being Ecological, and Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.

Participants in this course are invited to join their instructor, Jeremy D Johnson, on this literary journey of collective pathfinding and self-inquiry. We will host six live Zoom calls, featuring lesson and dialogue portions, as well as a private class forum. As Gebser suggests, integral reality is imminent to the world and to ourselves and the world, together and transparently. What does self-making and world-making mean in this strange, weird ecology of the future? This integral ontology? Let’s find out together. ​
“...if it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with empty hands. You must come to it alone, and naked, as the child comes into the world, into his future, without any past, without any property, wholly dependent on other people for his life. You cannot take what you have not given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” 
— Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Class Outline
All dates are hosted on Sundays at 1 p.m. EST / 10 a.m. PST on Zoom Meetings. Each class will contain a 30 minute lecture portion, followed by a short group meditation and class discussion.
October 20th • Class Introductions. Lecture: The Anthropocene and Cultural Evolution

November 3 • Annihilation, Zones, and Weird Integral

​November 17th • Borne and our Tentacular Reality (The City as Ecology)

December 1st • The Dispossessed and Prefigurative Futures

December 15th • Being Ecological and the Integral Chthulucene

December 29 • Sensemaking Integral Consciousness in the “Time Between Times." Lecture, Collective Presencing, and Dialogue.
Assigned Reading
VanderMeer, Jeff. Annihilation.
VanderMeer, Jeff. Borne.
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia​.
Secondary Sources
These texts are not required reading for the class, but will be drawn from in the lecture notes. Selected chapters and sections will be recommended along with additional multimedia in the Class Portal.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Keating, AnaLouise. Light in the Dark⁄Luz en lo Oscuro (2015)
​Gebser, Jean. The Ever-Present Origin.
Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.
Johnson, Jeremy. Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness.
Kelly, Sean. Living in End Times: Beyond Hope and Despair.
Mickey, Sam. On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral Ecology.
Morton, Timothy. Being Ecological.
Student Outcomes
  • Students will have 10 weeks to read the assigned literature of the course: 3 novels and assigned readings from secondary sources, with one lecture per live Zoom session

  • Students will become familiar with the foundations of integral philosophy through a phenomenological, sensemaking approach

  • Students will explore profound ontological questions concerning nature, culture, self, and world that the ecological crisis has opened up for us
​
  • Students will engage in contemplative reading practices (assigned in syllabus) that can help to develop an embodied “sense” of integral consciousness in their lived lives
 
  • Students will have the opportunity to develop a new spiritual and philosophical attitude in response the ecological crisis that an "integral sensemaking” can afford
What Students Receive
  • Access to six live, interactive Zoom classes hosted by Jeremy.
  • Audio and video recordings of each class. Yours to keep.
  • A Class Syllabus PDF.
  • Access to a Class Portal, where class recordings, slides, and other course materials are hosted.
  • Extend the discussion! Available “Office Hours” for scheduling. 
  • Access to a private Class Forum for deep-dive conversations and explorations of the reading.
  • Connection with a vibrant integral community of avid readers, researchers, and practitioners. Find the others!
Registration: $150
FAQ:
​Hardship/Student discount? Alternative payment structure available via Patreon. Email questions to jeremy@nuralearning.com.
​“When you are too close to the center of a mystery there is no way to pull back and see the shape of it entire.” 
— Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
“The simple is in us. It is participation—participation in that which is unknown yet evident to us: a tiny seed in us, which contains all transparency—the diaphanous world, the most irradiated and most sober beatitude.”
— Jean Gebser
Featured artwork: EricNyquist (header), Kalya Harren (images)
What Students Are Saying...
"One of our most impressive young integral thinkers." 
- Jeff Salzman, The Daily Evolver

"Although I have explored integral emergence in many ways for decades now, Ever-Present Origin, as well as Jeremy's presentation, comments, videos, and Q&As have opened up a new dimension of the whole topic for me. I can also highly recommend it for members of the Integral Theory community, or quite generally: for those who want to understand and handle our complex, globalized world—and themselves, quite basically—increasingly better."
- Liselotte Jetzinger​, Psychotherapist

"Jeremy Johnson is my new favorite human being. He is very present and speaks with clarity. Jeremy is genuine, available and outstandingly supportive."
- Student

"Highly intelligent, excellent speaker, deep understanding of integral, Jean Gebser, and related subjects."
- Lynn Fuentes, Transformational Teaching

​"Jeremy's class blew holes in my understanding of integral, holes that became windows onto a bigger universe. I was struck by his brilliance, humility, realness, sincerity, and lyrical way of teaching."
​- Student

"Deepest thanks for your loving, intelligent, and generous presence in the world. So gifted, such a gift. Your Gebser course opened my eyes to intuitions that were winking at me from the sidelines."
​- Edith Frisen, writing coach, educator, and author of the forthcoming book, Writing with Your Inner Muse

Jeremy D Johnson, MA is an editor, writer, and integral scholar. He is the author of Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness (2019) and president of the International Jean Gebser Society. He is currently working on an anthology series, MUTATIONS: Art, Consciousness and the Anthropocene, for Revelore Press, as well as his next book, Fragments of an Integral Futurism​. Jeremy resides in St. Petersburg, Florida—somewhere on the frothy edge of climate change—with his wife, Natalie, and two cats. ​​