ESSENTIAL POINTS FOR THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF THE AQAL …€¦ · terms of “occasion,”...

©2004 INTEGRAL INSTITUTE

Integral Theory Key Sheets

ESSENTIAL POINTS FOR THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF THE AQAL MODEL

Ken Wilber, Forest Jackson, & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens

2 Title and subtitle Season Year, Vol. #, No. #

Integral Theory Key Sheets

ESSENTIAL POINTS FOR THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF THE AQAL MODEL

Ken Wilber, Forest Jackson, & Sean Esbjörn-Hargens

NOTE TO READER: This document was compiled with the intent of serving

as a helpful tool to the AQAL Journal review team members. The informative

points below are based on comments made by Ken Wilber during the

theoretical review of previously published AQAL Journal articles, in addition to

the essential postulates of Integral Theory, as presented in Wilber’s Collected

Works.

The items in each Key Sheet are designed to help a review team member

keep in mind essential points of Integral Theory, as well as specific guidelines

concerning the proper presentation of important concepts within the AQAL

model. When an AQAL review team member reviews a submitted article for

the accuracy, organization, and presentation of theoretical issues pertaining to

Integral Theory, it can indeed be a difficult task to keep the many finer points

in mind. This document has been created to support AQAL reviewers in

inhabiting the massively aperspectival stance that is required when reviewing

a submitted article.


Key Sheet for General Important AQAL Points The following points are general writing guidelines for things to watch for when reviewing author’s arguments:

• Don’t overburden sentences with several claims. In other words, avoid making more than one main claim per sentence. The hidden claims are claims that readers may object to, which can cause them to be less open to accepting the main point that an author is trying to postulate. Likewise, authors shouldn’t argue more than is necessary to make their point.

• In general only use Ken Wilber’s name once in the beginning of an article (when

referring to him as the creator of Integral Theory). Integral Theory is the product of a community, not just KW. An author is free to use Wilber’s name for direct quotes throughout the rest of the article in the traditional academic citation styles.

• Always capitalize Integral if it is synonymous with AQAL.

• Avoid using “Integrally informed” since it is an official category within the AQAL

Journal classification system that suggests an article is not quite AQAL Kosher, but is clearly informed by it to some degree. Instead of “Integrally informed” use “Integrally aware.” See the Writing Guidelines for the established criteria of Integrally informed articles.

• Only provide the pronunciation of AQAL (ah-kwul) for Intro statements. Do not spell

this phonetic pronunciation as (ah-quil) or (ah-qwal). The agreed upon phonetic spelling is (ah-kwul).

• Avoid using the word “holistic” as a synonym for Integral. Use “inclusive” or

“comprehensive.”

• For consistency with Wilber-5 terminology, use “interior” and “exterior” instead of “internal” and “external.”

• Avoid colloquial language like “Flatland” or “Mean Green Meme,” unless those terms

are clearly defined and contextualized in the presentation.

• In general place the five elements of Integral Theory in the following order: Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States, and Types.

• Don’t use the abbreviations UL, UR, LL, LR unless they have been explained once

the first time they are used in an article: e.g., Upper Left (UL).

• Minimize use of “Body, Mind, Spirit” because it is often confuses interiors (UL) and exteriors (UR). For example, each person has a number of exterior “bodies” (gross, subtle, causal) and “body” also has an interior meaning (i.e., the inner felt sense of sensations and emotions.)


• Avoid using “holon” to refer to “individuals.”

• Within an article, do not refer to the Center, IU, or other assets, articles, papers, etc., in such a way that assumes the reader is on the web reading the article. For example, don’t say “…which can be found in the intermediate AQAL Journal articles in the Knowledge Base of this Center’s web page.” Instead, at least in this example, use proper citation to refer to the appropriate AQAL Journal volume and issue number where the articles being referred to can be located.

• Limit the use of “integral” and use “Integral.” This is to avoid confusing readers

between a more general use of “integral” and our specific use of “Integral” to refer to AQAL.

• Avoid using “him or her,” “his,” and “hers” and instead use “they” or “theirs” so as to remove any awkwardness with pronoun gender issues.


Key Sheet for Quadrants

Basic Definition of Quadrants: The four basic perspectives available to any individual holon. The AQAL Glossary Definition Quadrants: As in the four quadrants, which represent four basic perspectives you can take on any given event or aspect of reality; first-person, second-person, and third-person perspectives in singular and plural. The interior and exterior of the individual and collective: Upper Left (intentional), Upper Right (behavioral), Lower Left (cultural), and Lower Right (social); “I,” “We, “ It,” and “Its,” often summarized as the Big Three: “I,” “We,” and “It/s.” Or the value spheres of Art, Morals, and Science; Plato’s the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

• The quadrants can be used in three distinct though related ways (in order of prevalence):

1) Ontologically: To describe the four aspects of any holon or occasion. For

example, an Integral psychotherapist can use the quadrants to analyze a client’s situation mapping out her psychological dynamics (UL), behavioral patterns (UR), cultural and family support (LL), environmental context and job situation (LR).

2) Epistemologically: To describe the perspectives that any sentient holon can

take on any event or occasion. For example, an Integral psychotherapist could describe the interaction with a client using the four quadrants as aspects of their own awareness: how they felt during the session, what they observed the client doing, what kind of interpersonal connection did they experience, and what systemic analysis emerged through the clients self-disclosure.

3) Methodologically: To describe the aspects of reality revealed through specific

methodological practices and injunctions. For example, an Integral psychotherapist can use the four quadrants to identify which techniques and practices are ideal for attending to aspects of a client’s situation: using introspection and dream journaling to explore emotional dynamics (UL), using behavioral modification and direct observation to shift habit patterns (UR), using Socratic dialogue to explore issues of intimacy (LL), and using financial planning to address a job transition (LR).

• When introducing the quadrants, describe them as four basic perspectives that can

be taken on any occasion. • What is internal to a social holon are not its members, but the communications

between the members (LL and LR), and the shared history of moments of a “we” (LL).

• Individual holons have a dominant monad; Social holons have a dominant mode of

discourse/communication.


• When identifying the target of a general four-quadrant analysis, use the inclusive

terms of “occasion,” “event,” or “holon.” If possible be more specific and use terms and phrases like “individual holon” and “an interaction between therapist and client.”

• “Body,” in the UR, refers to exterior, observable body (or bodies-gross, subtle,

causal). Whereas “body,” in the UL, refers to the lower levels of one’s interior (i.e., subjective feelings, emotions, sensations of one’s felt body).

• Avoid referring to things or processes as being “in” the quadrants unless you are

talking about words in a chart or figure. In other words, we do not want to reify the quadrants as being exclusive categories or ontological containers out in the world. Furthermore, it’s important to keep in mind that if something is in one quadrant, it’s in all of them in the form of correlates in the other quadrants. The reason we associate certain phenomena with one quadrant and not others is largely due to disciplinary divisions which tend to only look at the phenomena through one methodological family. For example, human bones are typically only investigated through empirical methods. Thus we think of bones as only being an aspect of an individual’s exterior. When in fact, bones have a subjective, intersubjective, and interobjective dimension that is just as real as their objective aspect. But since common parlance has assigned the word “bone” to represent an objective aspect of individuals, we inadvertently assume that bones are only white hard calcium deposits that give our body structure. In other words, while using “bone” to refer only to an objective aspect of an individual is a narrow but understandable use, an Integral use of “bone” recognizes that the phenomena revealed through empiricism as being a bone is only one of at least four ways of understanding the complexity of the phenomena labeled “bone.”

• Avoid placing artifacts in the UR quadrant. For example a pencil or car should not be

listed there even though they are individual things that have exteriors.

• Social holons don’t have four quadrants (they only have two: LL and LR), but they can be looked at from all 4 quadrants. Moreover, social holons are made of members who each have 4 quadrants themselves, as sentient individual holons.

• All four quadrants have Depth (consciousness [Left Hand] or complexity [Right

Hand]: which are often reduced to states/phenomenology or atoms respectively) and Span. [Ken, can you give us a few good examples of this, particularly in the upper quadrants?]

• When using the quadrants to do an AQAL analysis in a chart form, be sure that the

event, occasion, or holon that is being viewed is clearly stated. Often times authors will start out an all-quadrant analysis by looking at one particular occasion, event, or holon, and then unconsciously switch the view to another occasion as they move around the quadrants.

• Use “social” for LR and “cultural” for LL.

• Don’t present “We” as 2nd-person perspective unless it is first clarified that it is

technically 1st-person plural, and then explaining the rationale for calling a “we” a 2nd-


person perspective.

• Don’t equate art with a first-person perspective, morals with a second-person perspective, and science with a third-person perspective because you can take a 1st, 2nd , or 3rd-person perspective of any of the quadrants, which means that you can take a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd-person perspective of art, of morals, and of science. For example, the act of an artist creating a painting can be viewed from the perspectives represented by each of the quadrants (i.e., 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-person perspectives of the occasion of an artist creating art.) This means that to equate art with only the 1st-person perspective is to give a narrow and partial definition of art.

• Quadrants co-arise and tetra-mesh

• While each quadrant is available as a mode of perceiving for any individual holon

,from atoms to humans, they can also represent a developmental progression moving from egocentric narcissism (I) to ethnocentric dogmatism (we) to worldcentric rationality (it) to planetcentric systems analysis (its) to Kosmoscentric integralism (I, we, it, and its). So while a small child can know the world objectively (it) it is not until formal operations stabilizes that they have access to the “it” domain in a way that allows them to make use of the formal methodologies associated with that domain. Likewise, all eight of the methodological families require a high level of development (rational or vision-logic) to be used. You cannot perform hermeneutics effectively if you cannot take the role of another, nor can you use systems theory accurately if you cannot grasp nonlinear causality. In sum, while all individuals have access to all four quadrants (as aspects of their own being) from conception, their capacity to embody and make use of the kind of perception associated with each quadrant continues to develop.

• Quadrants are the foundational element and each one contains examples of the

other elements: levels, lines, states, and types.

• Quadrants that are adjacent have a different kind of relationship than those that sit diagonally across from each other. For example, experience (UL) connects to behavior (UR) and culture (LL) in a different way than it does with systems (LR). This is because behavior (UR) is the exterior expression of experience (UL), while culture (LL) is the collective expression of experience (UL), and systems is the collective-exterior expression (LR). Thus, there are less points of contact and it can be more difficult to understand the relationship between diagonal quadrants.


Examples of terms used to describe each quadrant

• Sets of terms that can be used to label the quadrants (the terms in each set should travel together. In other words, each set is to be used as a whole set, rather than mixing and matching terms from different sets):

UL UR LL LR 1) Experience Behavior Culture Systems 2) Self Organism Culture Nature 3) Intentional Behavioral Cultural Social 4) Interior- Exterior- Interior- Exterior-

Individual Individual Collective Collective 5) Self and Brain and Culture and Social System and

Consciousness Organism Worldview Environment 6) Subjective Objective Intersubjecive Interobjective 7) Truthfulness Truth Justness Functional Fit

• The following four quadrant chart provides some of the most commonly associated

aspects of each quadrant.

Figure 1. • The

following four quadrant chart details three levels of complexity within each quadrant

Individual-Interiors

Somatic Emotional

Experiential Psychological

Phenomenological Therapeutic Aesthetics Spiritual

Transpersonal

Individual-Exteriors

Biological Scientific Medical

Behavioral Physiological

Empirical Neurological

Representational

Collective-Interiors

Cultural

Intercorporeal Interpersonal Philosophical

Linguistic Ethical

Religious Esoteric

Archetypal

Individual-Interiors

Evolutionary

Historical Ecological

Geographical Social

Political Economic

Legal Technological

Complexity Educational


Interiors Exteriors

Experiences Cultures Behaviors Systems

3rd Level of

Complexity

Pneuma

Spiritual

Realization

Commonwealth

Compassionate

Perspectives

Skillful-means

Effective Actions

Matrices

Subtle

Systems

2nd Level

of complexity

Psyche

Psychological

Dynamics

Community

Shared

Horizons

Action

Intentional Conduct

Institutions

Social

Systems

1st Level

of complexity

Soma

Somatic Realities

Communion

Intercorporeal Dimensions

Movement

Physical

Movements

Intersections

Natural

Systems

Figure 2. The Twelve Domains


Key Sheet for Levels Basic Definition of Levels: qualitatively distinct degrees of organization within a nested holarchy that have enduring holistic patterns of whole/partness (structure), which are fluid and not rigidly separated (wave) and occur in a sequence (stage). The AQAL Glossary Definition Levels: Developmental milestones of being and knowing, consciousness and complexity. Levels are abstract measures that represent fluid yet qualitatively distinct classes of recurrent patterns within developmental lines. Some examples include body, mind, and spirit; prepersonal, personal, and transpersonal; prerational, rational, and transrational; egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, and Kosmocentric. “Level” is generally synonymous with “wave,” “stage,” or “structure.”

• Levels can be used in two distinct ways: as a general marker of altitude in development and as a specific level within a line. Typically levels are always levels of lines – unless otherwise noted.

• Two important types of levels are basic levels (which transcend and include the

essential aspects of the previous level – once you have stabilized, for example, formal-operations, you can use abstract concepts that draw on symbols and rules) and transitional levels (which replace the exclusive identity associated with the previous levels, such as morality – once you are worldcentric you can’t also be ethnocentric). The self navigates between basic and transitional levels.

• Don’t use Psychic, Subtle, or Causal to describe levels of development. The higher

transpersonal realms have not been enacted enough to be described as levels. • Use Gross, Subtle, and Causal only to describe bodies in the UR, and states of

consciousness in the UL.

• Don’t use terms from one line to describe levels in other lines. For example, avoid using preconventional, conventional, and postconventional to describe cognition.

• Use “nested” with “hierarchy” when appropriate.

• Do not present Spiral Dynamics or Spiral Dynamics Integral as a general model of

levels – it only deals with certain aspects of development.

• Avoid use of “second-tier” unless it has been defined in the text.

• As a rule always place “values” or “vMeme” after SDi colors, such as “Green values” or “the Orange vMeme.” For example, instead of saying “This organization is clearly Orange,” say something like “This event clearly shows how the organization is approaching the situation from an Orange vMeme perspective.”

• The four most essential levels to include from SDi can be described using the terms

of Traditional (Blue vMeme), Modern (Orange vMeme), Postmodern (Green vMeme), and Integral (Yellow/Turquoise vMeme).


• Be careful to not use “spirit” or “spirituality” as a top level, since this term is used for many “Blue vMeme” approaches. Instead, use “transpersonal.”

• Use fulcrums only to refer to the self-identity stream. • Including levels in any Integral approach can benefit the application by supporting

both vertical transformation (through attention to where people are headed) and horizontal health (through attention to where people are at).

• “Average level of development” refers to society, “center of gravity” refers to

individuals.

• Early vision-logic = Green, Middle vision-logic = yellow, Late vision-logic=Turquoise.

• Levels are decreasingly fixed. In other words, the earlier the level is in development, the more of a Kosmic habit it is.

• Levels are simultaneously of greater value, lesser value, and equal value with those

levels below and above them in the nested holarchy.

• You only need a basic degree of competence in a level to be able to stabilize it.

• Even though levels are linear and sequential, development is anything but linear, given the multiple lines, states, and types that the self is navigating.

• Holons at a similar level of complexity have the ability to communicate and resonate

with each other at their shared level of depth. For example, to the extent that a human and a deer share levels of interior development, they can reach an intersubjective connection with one another up to the level of depth that they share.

• Be aware that authors can use scales in each of the quadrants that sometimes use

slightly different levels of development, and that the “altitude” hash marks do not always line up when attempting to show direct correlations between the quadrants. For example, the scales that are sometimes used in the UR and UL (as in the SES traditional quadrant diagram) often throw people off because we usually begin talking about human development in the UL at the sensorimotor level (to use Piaget’s term for that altitude), which is about 5 levels up on the scale when compared with the UR scale of atoms, molecules, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, neuronal organisms, and so on. In other words, if an author is discussing human development and they make the “sensorimotor” altitude their Level 1 in the UL, they can sometimes mistakenly use an UR scale with “atoms” as Level 1, but the UR level of “atoms” does not directly correlate with the UL level of “sensorimotor.” Thus, when creating 4 quadrant charts, make sure that the items in each quadrant are correlated among the various levels in each quadrant. If the author is discussing “atoms” in the UR, the correlative item on that level in the UL may be “prehension.” In other words, ensure that it is visually clear to the reader that atoms and prehension, in this example, are correlatively on the same level.


Examples of developmental levels in each quadrant • The following chart is a typical way of representing levels within each quadrant

[Insert the common AQAL diagram]

• Use these general levels for cognition:

Prepersonal: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete-operational

Personal: formal operational, early vision-logic, late vision-logic

Transpersonal: overmind, supermind, nondual.

People at each of those respective levels can see a different world (i.e., worldview), which can be presented as follows:

Prepersonal [Body]:

Archaic, Magic, Mythic;

Personal [Mind]: Rational, Pluralistic, Holistic;

Transpersonal [Spirit]: transpersonal, panentheistic, Nondual

• Use this progression for a general description of identity, moral span, and worldview:

egocentric, ethnocentric, sociocentric, worldcentric, planetcentric, Kosmoscentric

• Try to use Kegan or Cook-Greuter’s levels instead of Sprial Dynamics or Spiral

Dynamics Integral. The levels from Kegan’s and Cook-Greuter’s models correspond nicely with the SDi levels:


Kegan

1st Order: Purple 2nd Order: Red 3rd Order: Blue 4th Order: Orange

[4.5 Order: Green]

5th Order: Yellow

Cook-Greuter: Impulsive: Purple Self-Defensive: Red Conformist: Blue Self-conscious: early Orange Conscientous: late Orange Individualist: Green Autonomous: Yellow Construct-aware: Turquoise

Unitive: Coral

Figure 4: Kegan and Cook-Greuter correlates with Spiral Dynamics


Key Sheet for Lines

Basic Definition for Lines: distinct aspects of any quadrant that demonstrate development. The AQAL Glossary Definition Lines: Relatively independent streams or capacities that proceed through levels of development. Similar to Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. There is evidence for over two dozen developmental lines, including cognitive, moral, self-identity, psychosexual, aesthetic, kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, mathematical, etc.

• Always double check line length in psychographs for accuracy, vis-à-vis the necessary but not sufficient relationships listed below (in other words, check to make sure that, for example, the moral line on a psychograph is not higher than the interpersonal line. See Figure 5 below for proper visual representation of these relationships): Physiological development is necessary but not sufficient for cognitive development, which is necessary but not sufficient for interpersonal (and self) development, which is necessary but not sufficient for moral development, which is necessary but not sufficient for ideas of the good.

Physiological Cognitive Interpersonal Moral Ideas of Good

Figure 5: Necessary but not Sufficient Relationships among Lines

• Self-sense/Self Identity development is the best indicator of the overall center of

gravity of self-related lines because it is the self that is the “juggler” of all the other lines. Good tests for this are Loevinger’s and Cook-Greuter’s sentence completion tests.

• Overall development is the sum total of all lines. This is why development is never

linear: various lines can be at various levels of development.

• The term “developmental line” was suggested by Anna Freud. The term “stream” was


first used by Howard Gardner (Harvard).

• The various researchers for major lines include:

Clare Graves (Don Beck) measured the value line. Abe Maslow measured the self-needs line. Lawerence Kolberg (Carol Gillian) measured the morals line. Jane Loevinger measured the ego-development (or self-sense) line. Jean Piaget (Kurt Fisher) measured the cognitive line. Robert Kegan measured the cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal lines.

• When referring to how many lines there are that have been identified, an author

should say that there are at least a dozen, or, that there are about two dozen (either one is fine.)

• The most important lines to consider in the UL are cognition, interpersonal,

emotional, moral, and self-identity.

• Each of the lines develop relatively independently of one another, though the self-related lines tend to develop together and also tend to be at a similar developmental altitude in relationship to each other. The self-related lines include: self-identity/self-sense, morals, needs, and worldview.

• While each quadrant has various lines, those lines can at the same time be

associated with other quadrants. For example the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal lines are all located in an individual’s interior, but each of them also has a strong relationship to a different quadrant: emotional (UL), cognitive (UR), and interpersonal (LL).

• When attempting to discern where a particular line should be correctly placed within

a quadrant schema, ask “What is the research method that elucidates the given line? Where would that kind of research be located in the quadrants?”

• In human development, for an individual to unfold into higher levels within a given

line, it is only necessary for a basic competence in that line to be accomplished. That is, expertise or mastery with the capacities in any given line is not necessary for an individual to develop to the next higher stage.

• There are no stages to the self, only stages for aspects (lines) of the self.


Examples of developmental lines and levels in each quadrant Examples of lines and levels in Upper Left: Cognitive Lines:

• cognition (gross, subtle, and causal cognition). o Gross cognition takes as its object the sensorimotor world; o subtle cognition takes as its object the world of thought; o causal cognition is the root of attention and the capacity for Witnessing.

[example of levels in the gross cognition line (Piaget): sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational, polyvalent logic (vision-logic); subtle cognition (Aurobindo): illumined mind, intuitive mind; causal cognition (Aurobindo): overmind]

Emotional Line

narcissistic rage, feelings of belongingness, global concern/universal love, ananda/transcendental love-bliss.

Self-Related:

• self-identity/self sense/ego development (proximate-self) [example of levels in this line (Cook-Grueter): impulsive, self-defensive, conformist, self-conscious, conscientious, individualist, autonomous, construct-aware, unitive]

Different Lines of the Self:

Frontal (Ego) Bodyself to ego to centaur (Gross Realm) Deeper Psychic (Soul) psychic and subtle (Subtle Realm) Witness (Self) causal and nondual (Causal Realm)

• morals [Example of levels in this line (Kohlberg): (broad stages) preconventional, conventional, postconventional, post-postconventional; (specifcic stages) magic wish, punishment/obedience, naïve hedonism, approval of others, law and order, prior rights/social contract, universal ethical, universal spiritual]

• self-needs [example of levels in this line (Maslow): physiological, safety, belongingness, self-esteem, self-actualization, self-transcendence]

• values/worldviews [example of levels in this line (Beck & Cowan): beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, yellow, turquoise, coral]

Other Lines:

• interpersonal capacity • intrapersonal capacity • affective (emotional) • psychosexual • spiritual development (meditative stages)


• linguistic-narrative thought • musical • visual-spatial thinking (spatiotemporal architecture) • logico-mathematical thought • linguistic-narrative knowledge • conative and motivational drives • role-taking • level of defense mechanisms • kinesthetic • joy • intimacy • dance • epistemic mode • mode of spacetime (spatiotemporal architecture) • death-seizure • altruism • object relations • ideas of the good • religious faith • creativity • openness • care • concern • communicative competence

Examples of lines and levels in Upper Right:

• Physiological development (or just physical development, depending on how far up we take this line).

[Examples of levels in this line: atoms to molecules to cells to organisms]

• Each organ in an organism (e.g., stomach, heart, brain) can be considered a line. • Behavioral development (e.g., Ken, can you help us with some examples here?

NOTE: The examples of the following lines in the UR represent stages of development of various systems in one individual organism during the early stages of growth and maturation (prenatal and postnatal). In humans some of these systems continue to develop postnatally into late adolescence (and beyond, as in the case of musculoskeletal development in some individuals).

• Nervous system [Levels in this line: ectoderm, neural plate, neural tube, neural crests, neurons, ventricles of the encephalon/central canal of spinal cord, three visicle stage, five visicle stage, anterior/posterior, forebrain, cerebral hemispheres, diencephalons/central structures of brain, segmentation, cerebral cortex, etc.]

• Skeletal system (endochondrial ossification) [Levels in this line: cartilage/connective tissues, osteoblast initiates bone


ossification, calcified bone matrix, development of length and thickness of bones.]

• Musculoskeletal system [Levels in this line: mesoderm; somite stages; differentiation of somites into dermomyotome (dermal and muscle component), sclerotome (vertebral component), and limb development.]

• Digestive system [Levels in this line: various stages of development of mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, saliva glands, gallbladder.]

• Endocrine (hormone excretion) system [Levels in this line: various stages of development of pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, adrenals, testes, as well as the hormones that are exchanged]

• Other UR lines include organic structures, neuronal systems, neurotransmitters,

brainwave patterns, and nutritional intake. Examples of lines and levels in Lower Left:

• Cultural worldiview [Example of levels in this line (Gebser): Archaic, Magic, Mythic, Rational, Integral.)

• Intimate relationships (actual development of a “we,” as in a long term marriage.) [Example of levels in this line: Deida: dependence relationship, 50/50 relationship, intimate communion relationship.]

• linguistic structures [Example of levels in this line: sounds, phoneme, morpheme, word, phrase, sentence, discourse.]

• background cultural contexts [Ken: can you give us a good example to use to demonstrate this? It feels rather nebulous to me…I can feel my own background cultural context, and I can see how such contexts have developed historically in different epochs, but how can we put concrete words to this elusive background context? What does it look like on the ground?]

• General development of a “we” over time, such as two friends, or a class of 25 students. A “we” is composed of the previous shared moments of that “we”—the history of a “we’s” interactions is what develops.

• Other LL lines include intersubjective linguistic semantics and cultural values/mores.

Examples of lines and levels in Lower Right:


• techno-economic modes of production (the actual materialities of a bow and arrow, a digging stick, an animal-drawn plow, a steam engine, a computer, an internet system)

[Examples of levels in this line (Wilber): foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational.]

• architectural buildings [Examples of levels in this line: wood, straw, stone, concrete, steel.]

• modes of transportation [Examples of levels in this line: foot, horse, buggy, car, plane, rocket.]

• development of media and modes of communication [Examples of levels in this line: drums, ideographs, alphabet, typesetting, digital.]

• foodstuffs [Examples of levels in this line: nuts and berries, hunted meat, grains, refined grains, processed pablum.]

• development of weapons [Examples of levels in this line: spear, bow, crossbow, gunpowder, gun,

bomb, airplane, warship, hydrogen bomb, neutron bomb.]

• development of money systems [Examples of levels in this line: seashells, cattle, metallic coins, paper, electronic.]

• development of forms of business exchange over time • development of medical tools over time • Geopolitical structures (towns, states, countries) • Ecosystems (a backyard, a watershed, a bioregion)

• Written legal codes • Evolutionary development: Clades

[Examples of levels in this line: beetles, wasps, moths, flies.]


Key Sheet for States Basic definition of States: mutually exclusive temporary modes of reality. The AQAL Glossary Definition States: States of consciousness are fleeting and temporary, and can be accessed at virtually any stage of development. They include the three great natural states of waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep; meditative states; and peak experiences. Each of these Upper-Left states of consciousness are correlated with an Upper-Right mass-energy support or “body.” These include a gross energy/body, a subtle energy/body, and a causal energy/body. States, in a broader sense, can also occur in the remaining three quadrants. For example, there are brain states in the Upper Right, cultural states in the Lower Left, and weather states in the Lower Right.

• States are mutually exclusive, which means that you cannot be, for example, drunk and sober at the same time. As another example, water cannot exist as a gas, liquid, or solid at the same time.

• In the UL there are two general classes of states: Natural and Altered.

Natural states: waking/gross, dreaming/subtle, deep sleep/causal Altered (or “non-ordinary”) states: flow states, peak experiences, meditative, drug induced, near-death.

• Natural and non-ordinary states are available to humans at any level of development. • State experiences will be interpreted through the filter of one’s level of worldview

development.

• Typically, states can last anywhere from a few seconds to many months. Examples of States in the 4 Quadrants Upper Right:

• Brain states (e.g., alpha, beta, theta, delta) • hormonal states (e.g., estrogen surge, testosterone urge) • behavioral states (e.g., active, agitated, slow, aggressive, passive) • subtle energy/biofield states (e.g., Ken, any examples here?

Upper Left:

• Gross, subtle, causal states of consciosuness • waking, dreaming, deep dreamless sleep • flow states • peak experiences • near death


• meditative states (e.g., nirvikalpa Samadhi, sahaj Samadhi) • altered (e.g., drug induced, psychadelic)

Lower Left:

• shared emotional states between fetus and mother • shared emotional states between people at a rock concert • shared states of insight • mob mentality (i.e., “group think”) • shared somatic states

Lower Right:

• hormonal state between fetus and mother • weather states (e.g., raining, snowing, sunny) • room temperature (e.g., hot, cold, warm) • economic states (e.g., recession, inflation) • ecological states (e.g., seasonal changes within a given ecosystem) • educational states • political states • Others???


Key Sheet for Types

Basic Definition for Types: Different orientations that can occur within any quadrant at any level. The AQAL Glossary Definition Types: Horizontal styles available to any level of consciousness. Examples of types include Myers-Brigg, eneagram, masculine and feminine, and so on. Types can also occur in the remaining quadrants, such as body types in the Upper Right, cultural types in the Lower Left, or types of biomes in the Lower Right.

• Personality types can occur at any given level of development. Examples of Types in all 4 Quadrants: Upper Left:

• masculine/feminine • Enneagram (9 personality types)

• Myers-Briggs (16 personality types)

• Keirsey

• Ptypes

• Big 5 (Five Factor Model)

• NEO Personality Inventory

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• Astrological sign (12 types in Western system)

• Four Humors/Temperments (choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic)

• Freudian character (oral, anal, phallic, genital)

• Ayurvedic Body-Mind Types (Vata, Pitta, Kapha)

• Mental (left or right brain)

• Learning styles

• Mental, Emotional, and Physical types in Human Dynamics (Seagal and Horne)


Upper Right:

• hormonal configuration types (masculine-testosterone/feminine-oxytocicn, estrogen) • masculine type behavior (e.g., increased sexual and aggressive behavior)

• feminine type behavior (e.g., relational, communal behavior)

• body types (Sheldon: endomorphic, mesomorphic, ectomorphic; Ayurvedic body

types: vata, kapha, pitta)

• Bioenergetic (Lowen: schizoid, oral, narcissistic, masochistic, and rigid)

• blood types (A, B, AB, O)

• sex types (XX [female], XY [male], and several sex chromosome disorders creating different combinations of X and Y chromosomes, such as XXY, XXXY, XYY, XXXX)

• Archetypes (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover).

Lower Left:

• types of relationships (e.g., between feminine type and feminine type, masculine and feminine, masculine and masculine, or any combinations of Enneagram types in relationship, such as a 4 with a 7; or Corbett: dominant, yielding, outgoing, and reserved; Horney: moving toward, moving away, moving against)

• Types of religions (e.g., exoteric, esoteric, nature-based, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam,

Judaism, Christianity.)

• Types of philosophical schools (e.g., analytical, continental, epicurianism, stoicism, skepticism, Neoplatonism, positivism, hermeneutics, postmodernism.)

• Types of gender (male, female, androgynous; female types: housewife, feminist,

femme fatal, secretary; male types: workaholic, family man, sissy, womanizer, laborer).

• Astrology (Vedic, Western, Tibetan, Chinese).

• Management styles (Blake & Mouton: country club, team, middle-of-the-road,

impoverished, authority) Lower Right:

• types of communication exchanges (signifier exchanges, gross and subtle mass-energy exchanges, body language).

• types of government (e.g., anarchy, capitalist, communist, democracy, dictatorship,

monarchy, republic, totalitarian state, transitional, revolutionary, federal,


regional/local) • types of ecosystems (e.g., coastal reefs, polar and high mountain ice, tundra, taiga,

temperate forest, temperate grassland, chaparral, desert, savanna, tropical forest) • types of languages [the actual spoken or written words](e.g., Indo-European,

Romance, Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Trans-New Guinea, computer code, English, Spanish, German, Japanese, sign language)

• types of societies (e.g., hunter-gatherer, pastoralists, horticulturalists, intensive

agriculturalists, industrialists, post-industrialists/informational)

• types of kinship systems (e.g., Eskimo, Crow, Hawaiian, Iriquois, Omaha, Sudanese; lineal, generational, bifurcate collateral, bifurcate merging)

• types of kin (e.g., consanguineal relatives [“blood” relatives], affinial relatives, fictive

kin, lineal relative [matrilineal or patralineal], collateral relative)

• types of postmarital residence patterns (e.g., matrilocal, patrilocal, uxorilocal, virilocal, ambilocal, bilocal, neolocal)

ESSENTIAL POINTS FOR THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF THE AQAL …€¦ · terms of “occasion,”...

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