The adage that “how we shout into the woods is how the echo will sound” is undoubtedly accurate—and the woods are the world. Everything that happens to us, then, is only the answer and echo of what and how we ourselves are. And the answer will be an integral answer only if we have approached the integral in ourselves.
— Jean Gebser
Join an online cohort exploring the structures of consciousness, a laboratory in living the “poetics of the future."
When we move from abstraction to embodiment, from idea to realization, a creative process is taking place in us, but it is also taking place with the world; a refashioning of self-and-world. To move from the possible to the actual, to embody a new mode of being and thinking in daily life — isn’t this intention behind an integral philosophy? To transform humanity’s relationship with the whole? How might we, as individuals, achieve this? How does one live integrally in daily life?
More poignantly for this moment: how do we live this question of integrality during the heavy now of planetary crisis?
This year, many integral practitioners and scholars have felt this inquiry acutely. They recognize something important about this historical moment: that even if we don’t consciously live this question, the question is already living us in manifold ways.
The very conditions of the planet seem to be asking, from all sides: how do you, human beings, how do you wish to participate in the reality of the planetary? How do you relate to the Other, to which you find your fates entangled? Because you are becoming planetary whether or not you wish it or are ready for it. New senses emerge, new modes of thinking and time must be brought forth in you. So how will you participate?
Each step, each breath, in our lives is an invitation to become, to follow new lines of flight and pathways of creative participation, to re-structure our sense-making with such “big questions,” which even in the midst of a “meta-crisis" must also be lived and not merely thought in the subtlest, most intimate of ways; our being-in-the-world and our breathing, dreaming, waking rhythms, our inhabiting time.
In other words, in order to participate in this planetary reality — and not merely think about it — we must learn to inhabit the radical present, the present as the poetics of the future.
More poignantly for this moment: how do we live this question of integrality during the heavy now of planetary crisis?
This year, many integral practitioners and scholars have felt this inquiry acutely. They recognize something important about this historical moment: that even if we don’t consciously live this question, the question is already living us in manifold ways.
The very conditions of the planet seem to be asking, from all sides: how do you, human beings, how do you wish to participate in the reality of the planetary? How do you relate to the Other, to which you find your fates entangled? Because you are becoming planetary whether or not you wish it or are ready for it. New senses emerge, new modes of thinking and time must be brought forth in you. So how will you participate?
Each step, each breath, in our lives is an invitation to become, to follow new lines of flight and pathways of creative participation, to re-structure our sense-making with such “big questions,” which even in the midst of a “meta-crisis" must also be lived and not merely thought in the subtlest, most intimate of ways; our being-in-the-world and our breathing, dreaming, waking rhythms, our inhabiting time.
In other words, in order to participate in this planetary reality — and not merely think about it — we must learn to inhabit the radical present, the present as the poetics of the future.
Inhabiting Time with an Integral Phenomenology
This course is designed to be an exploratory praxis and sense-making cohort oriented around the integral phenomenology expressed by German-Swiss philosopher and intellectual mystic Jean Gebser (1905-1973), and influenced by the extended “tradition" of the integral milieu (Sri Aurobindo, Mirra Alfassa, Peter Kropotkin, Teilhard de Chardin, William Irwin Thompson and Ken Wilber).
Drawing primarily on an experiential investigation of the “structures of consciousness” (the archaic, magic, mythic, mental, integral), participants will work with a sense-making praxis intended to cohere and integrate — to "render transparent” — the history of consciousness as it lives in them.
Phenomenological exercises, offered in the accompanying course guidebook and pre-recorded lessons, will invite participants to investigate their own lived phenomenology (how the world is experienced through their own senses).
According to Gebser, our consciousness holds a multiplicity of sense-making expressions. We can inhabit time and world magically, mythically, mentally, and, as participants will hopefully cohere: integrally in the spiritual present.
Through developing an experiential, self-directed praxis of dynamic oscillation and fluidity between the complementary structures of consciousness, the intention behind this course is to invite a certain openness — a radiant clarity and equanimity — as a precondition to an integral consciousness in daily life. To become radically present to the poetics of planetary becoming.
Join your instructor, Jeremy D Johnson, author of Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness and the forthcoming Fragments of an Integral Future: Essays on Reclaiming Time, Climate Poetics and Planetary Thinking for this online intensive and cohort.
This course will offer a guidebook/syllabus, five pre-recorded lesson modules, and seven live Zoom calls with featured guests, exploring our innate integrality and cohering the emergent integral ontology—the poetics of the future in the spiritual present.
Drawing primarily on an experiential investigation of the “structures of consciousness” (the archaic, magic, mythic, mental, integral), participants will work with a sense-making praxis intended to cohere and integrate — to "render transparent” — the history of consciousness as it lives in them.
Phenomenological exercises, offered in the accompanying course guidebook and pre-recorded lessons, will invite participants to investigate their own lived phenomenology (how the world is experienced through their own senses).
According to Gebser, our consciousness holds a multiplicity of sense-making expressions. We can inhabit time and world magically, mythically, mentally, and, as participants will hopefully cohere: integrally in the spiritual present.
Through developing an experiential, self-directed praxis of dynamic oscillation and fluidity between the complementary structures of consciousness, the intention behind this course is to invite a certain openness — a radiant clarity and equanimity — as a precondition to an integral consciousness in daily life. To become radically present to the poetics of planetary becoming.
Join your instructor, Jeremy D Johnson, author of Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness and the forthcoming Fragments of an Integral Future: Essays on Reclaiming Time, Climate Poetics and Planetary Thinking for this online intensive and cohort.
This course will offer a guidebook/syllabus, five pre-recorded lesson modules, and seven live Zoom calls with featured guests, exploring our innate integrality and cohering the emergent integral ontology—the poetics of the future in the spiritual present.
All work, the genuine work which we must achieve, is that which is most difficult and painful: the work on ourselves.
— Jean Gebser
Course Outline
Each lesson is a pre-recorded module uploaded to the Class Portal.
- Lesson I - Theory Module: Foundations of an Integral Phenomenology - Understanding the Structures of Consciousness
- Lesson II - Praxis Module: Enfolding the Structures of Consciousness - Maps and Sense-making Toolkits
- Lesson III - Praxis Module: The Poetics of Presence - Time, Being and Meditation
- Lesson IV - Praxis Module: Soulmaking and the Planetary Imaginary
- Lesson V - Theory & Praxis: - Time Freedom and Integral Poetics in Daily Life
Schedule
Seven live sessions. They convene on Zoom Meetings on Sundays at 11 am PT, 2 pm ET unless otherwise noted.
All live classes are recorded and made available afterward on the Class Portal.
***
Dates
October 4, October 11, October 18, November 1, November 15, November 29, December 6
Seven live sessions. They convene on Zoom Meetings on Sundays at 11 am PT, 2 pm ET unless otherwise noted.
All live classes are recorded and made available afterward on the Class Portal.
***
Dates
October 4, October 11, October 18, November 1, November 15, November 29, December 6
Confirmed Guest Speakers
Dr. Barbara Karlsen is a Somatic Psychotherapist, Continuum Movement teacher and a Somatic Re-Birther. She is presently working on a book for Inner Traditions based on the new biology and movement as source of evolutionary novelty to drive the complex interactions between cells, genes, tissues and microbes. These are fundamental aspects of the divergence and evolution of our species that we have lost due to mechanistic science, modernity, and technological individuation. Her work is inspired by the teachings of Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and Teilhard. She has a private therapy practice in Marin County, CA. and teaches movement throughout the Bay area. For more information go to barbarakarlsen.com.
Brandt Stickley is an Assistant Professor in the College of Classical Chinese Medicine, National University of Natural Medicine, and a Visiting Professor at Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine, Pacific Rim College, Five Branches University, Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, Yo San University and Maryland University of Integrative Health. As a Senior Instructor and Board member of Dragon Rises Seminars he teaches Shen-Hammer Pulse Diagnosis. Brandt is a graduate of Cornell University and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He has worked closely with Dr. Leon Hammer for 20 years, and is considered an authority on the model of Chinese medical Psychology developed by Dr. Hammer. In his own development of this school of thought, he has relentlessly pursued a synthesis of Classical Han and Tang Dynasty herbal medicine and acupuncture, Chinese magical medicine, philosophy and religion, with concepts of psychosomatic medicine, body-oriented psychology, neuro-phenomenology, process-oriented philosophy, imaginal, integral, and consciousness studies. He brings all of these disciplines to play in striving to intend the impossible as a clinician, teacher, writer and speaker. In theory and in practice, Brandt's work seeks to establish Classical Chinese medicine as a vital psychosomatic and physiosemiotic current in the evolution of consciousness and the alleviation of suffering. Connect with Brandt on his homepage.
Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Prior to CIIS, he served as Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He has taught as adjunct faculty at the Pasadena City College, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Irvine. His interests lie in postmodern, postcolonial and cross-cultural approaches to Indian philosophy, psychology and culture. Banerji has curated close to fifteen exhibitions of Indian and Japanese art. He has authored and edited around ten books and art catalogs on major figures of "the Bengal Renaissance" such as the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the artist Abanindranath Tagore and the spiritual thinker Sri Aurobindo; on Critical Posthumanism, Yoga Psychology and on a variety of creative and art-related projects. His most recent books are Integral Yoga Psychology: Metaphysics and Transformation as Taught by Sri Aurobindo (Lotus Press, 2020) and Meditations on the Isha Upanishad: Tracing the Philosophical Vision of Sri Aurobindo (Sri Aurobindo Samity and Maha Bodhi Publishers, 2019). Visit his homepage to learn more.
Learning Outcomes
Our concern is to render transparent everything latent “behind” and “before” the world—to render transparent our own origin, our entire human past, as well as the present, which already contains the future. We are shaped and determined not only by today and yesterday, but by tomorrow as well.
— Jean Gebser
"..we are haunting ourselves in the present from the past and the future...”
— Jeffrey Kripal
- Students will become familiar with a robust, qualitatively descriptive phenomenology of consciousness — from the archaic to the integral — as it constitutes their own lived reality.
- Students will be given a set of helpful orienting “integral” maps, and daily sense-making exercises, designed to promote embodiment of the the archaic, magic, mythic, mental and integral structures of consciousness. These are maps and practices they can take with them and creatively apply to their work, art, theory, vocations, or individualized practices.
- Students will learn contemplative exercises to cultivate attention to the presence of time in daily life.
Recommended Reading
No books are required for this course, however, we will be drawing primarily from the following sources:
The Ever-Present Origin, Jean Gebser
Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness, Jeremy D Johnson
Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time, Dainin Katagiri
More materials are available in the Class Portal.
The Ever-Present Origin, Jean Gebser
Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness, Jeremy D Johnson
Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time, Dainin Katagiri
More materials are available in the Class Portal.
The unfinished Chthulucene must collect up the trash of the Anthropocene, the exterminism of the Capitalocene, and chipping and shredding and layering like a mad gardener, make a much hotter compost pile for still possible pasts, presents, and futures.
— Donna Haraway
What You Receive
- Five pre-recorded modules, yours to download, on the Class Portal and seven live, interactive Zoom classes with your instructor.
- Access to a newly designed Class Portal, featuring all course media, a community forum, Zoom access links, module downloads and live session recordings.
- A class syllabus and guidebook.
- Connection with a vibrant community of integral artists, scholar-practitioners, and consciousness explorers! Explore the nature of consciousness and culture together.
Join this contemplative cohort as we explore how to reclaim time in the spiritual present and cultivate integral embodiment in daily life.
Registration: $175.00
Please note: student and hardship rates (pay what you can) available via Jeremy's Patreon page.
This course is sponsored by the International Jean Gebser Society. Visit their website to learn more about Jean Gebser scholarship, integral pedagogy, and the society's next annual conference.
"What does all of this have to do with daily life? Something decisive, since what is emerging in the greater context must be concurrently co-prepared in the lesser. This does not mean that it is the number of those who realize and live the new that is decisive; decisive is the intensity with which the individuals live the new.”
— Jean Gebser
About Your Instructor
Jeremy is an author (Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness), publisher (Revelore Press), editor (Integral Leadership Review) and integral philosopher. He is a co-founder of Liminal News and Metapsy: Journal of Consciousness, Literature and Art. Jeremy has written as a contributing editor for Reality Sandwich magazine, OMNI, Disinformation, Evolve Magazine, and Kosmos Journal. His academic research, writing, and publishing advocates new forays into integrative thinking and praxis—aligning the scholastic, poetic, and spiritual—as existentially crucial work for pathfinding in a time of planetary crisis. Jeremy currently serves as president for the International Jean Gebser Society and is working on his second book, Fragments of an Integral Future (2021).
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
"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 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
- 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
"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 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
