Teleseminar series on women’s evolution; and Hal & Sidra Stone on voice dialogue

I just heard that Claire Zammit (one of the principals of Awakening the New Feminine Power program, and wife to Craig Hamilton from Integral Enlightenment) will be co-hosting a free online teleseminar series called Women on the Edge of Evolution.  The format seems to exactly mirror Craig’s Great Integral Awakening Series – i.e. interviews with leading teachers and luminaries such as Sally Kempton, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Jean Houston (she’s still around? WOW), Diane Musho Hamilton and Sofia Diaz (from iEvolve) and more – all my favorite women evolutionaries.  The calls are free, along with downloads; and (I’m guessing) a paid course will follow.  But hey, who’se to complain?  I am just about through the Great Integral Awakening audios, and looking for more material ;).

On another note – I had already mentioned a free audio of Hal & Sidra Stone on Integral Life, talking about themselves and about the creation of Voice Dialogue (which was the precursor and prime inspiration of Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind). Well I just listened to it and it knocked my socks off.  As much as anything it was the sweetness of their rapport with each other (the amount of respect and affirmation that they demonstrated) that made me want to take up the practice with my wife Rebekah.  My immediate thought was “this is how I want to grow old together”.  I will post a follow-up to this once we’ve had some time to practice together. 

Enjoy…

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Review of William Yenner’s “American Guru – A story of Love, Betrayal and Healing - former students of Andrew Cohen speak out”

William Yenner was involved in EnlightenNext between 1988 and 2000 (13 years).  He was a senior member of the community, board member of Moksha (predates EnlightenNext), and a key player in the search, acquisition and renovation of Foxhollow in 1994-1995.  He is also the subject of Cohen’s famous “gag order”, legal document which was entered into in exchange for the return of Yenner’s $80,000 inheritance that he had previously donated to Cohen – a very unusual event, incidentally, for Cohen to return money.  Cohen had denied the existence of the gag order, but it was made public in 2008.

Given the amount of information collected on EnlightenNixt about Cohen’s temper, shaming of students, abuses of power, ethically very dubious financial dealings, failure to respond credibly, and other behavior generally not befitting to a “totally enlightened being” (which is I summarized in my own research article, based on original sources that include Cohen’s writing, EnlightenNixt website, Luna Tarlo’s “Mother of God”, and Andre Van der Brack’s “Enlightenment Blues”), I wasn’t sure that Yenner’s  account would bring anything new.  And while it is true that his story seems quite typical, it contains many fascinating reflections on the narcissistic cult leader phenomenon, insights on Cohen’s attitude towards women, personal conclusions, and questions on EnlightenNext as a social phenonemon and on public endorsements of Cohen’s work.  In this light, it is an original and important contribution to the dialogue around Cohen.

The key question of course – and why this is such a fascinating research topic – is how it’s possible for an individual whose dysfunctional relations with his students have been so fully exposed, to continue to attract not just students, but the support of many leading spiritual and developmental luminaries, including Ken Wilber, Genpo Roshi, Don Beck, and many others.  Cohen’s last 21 day intensive in Florence, Italy (summer 2009) had over 250 students.  The rest of this article covers this question, for the simple reason that our support of, and belief in, charismatic but abusive spiritual leaders reveals key aspects of our humanity, both our dysfunctions and our deep longing for meaning, connection and purpose – while illuminating our infinite capacity for self-deception in the pursuit of these ideals.  My interest is in reviewing the book, but also in reflecting and sharing on this for myself.

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Amazing free audios and resources available at “The Great Integral Awakening” (Craig Hamilton, Marc Gafni, Claire Zammit)

The entire series of audios from the Great Integral Awakening project is available for download at this link:

http://www.integralenlightenment.com/pages/giaaudios/index.php

– including interviews with Andrew Cohen, Marc Gafni, Claire Zammit, Terry Patten, Don Beck, Steve Macintosh, Diane Hamilton, Genpo Roshi, Sally Kempton, Ken Wilber, Michael Murphy – in other words, all the leading luminaries – FOR FREE.

I have been devouring the series, having listened so far to Marc Gafni on “the unique self”, Claire Zammit on women’s unique developmental needs, and Craig Hamilton on the future of the movement, including the differences of opinion among the presenters ;).  This series has so inspired me, in fact, that it brought me back from a three-month long funk about my own development, and prompted me to create another website (this site).

Here are some additional resources culled from the Marc Gafni interview (that was precious):

  • Integral Life has a special running, that if you sign-up for a premium membership ($15/mth), they will send you all the talks on CD/DVD – and you can still cancel within a month.  This a great site by the way, and there is a great deal of free content on there as well.  Click here for example, and look for “The history of voice dialog” to listen to an interview with Hal and Sidra Stone, who inspired Genpo Roshi to create Big Mind.
  • Marc Gafni is a rabbi and Kabbalist.  Asked a good book to learn about Kabbalah, he recommends the 4th chapter and footnotes of Moshe Idel’s Absorbing Perfections, and Daniel Matt’s The Zohar.  Neither of them light reading, I am led to believe…
  • And check out Claire Zammit on the unique developmental needs of women – I totally related to it as a man and I’m sure that this would be even more so if you are a woman.

As an aside, I briefly met Marc Gafni over dinner at Shalom Mountain in early September, where he will be leading a program this fall. He is very sweet, but seemed a bit out of place and very shy.  He completely changed during his presentation, which left me cold (I actually had to leave) – he has this kind of manic energy and “doing a performance” thing that rubs me the wrong way – but there was no doubt about his scholarship and the power of his ideas.  I only mention this because I am as interested in the human side of the movement as much as the ideas, and I don’t intend to censor myself on this blog, or anywhere else for that matter.

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What is Evolutionary Spirituality?

Excellent resource: the Wikipedia article.

The term “Evolutionary Spirituality” was coined (as far as I know) by Andrew Cohen in this article, but the concepts go back to the early 1900s from Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin. Cohen has developed his own version and he calls it Evolutionary Enlightenment. Evolutionary Enlightenment is, to my mind, the most powerful and practical philosophy for human development and cultural change to hit the Western streets since the 60s “counter-culture” and since Victor Baranco started teaching. While Victor Baranco is still relatively unknown, Andrew Cohen has become quite well-known (although not quite yet a “superstar” – his committed students worldwide only number about 300 currently). Note that although Cohen himself is reputed a spiritual genius and gifted teacher, there is controversy around him. See EnlightenNixt.

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Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment and EnlightenNext - is it a cult?

[Note: a more recent -- although higher-level -- report is in my Review of William Yenner's "American Guru" book].

This is an interesting question, even from a purely intellectual interest, because both sides present very strong opinions. Andrew Cohen attracts deep loyalty, affection and respect from his students – many of whom are admirable and well-developed people in their own right (see my exchange with Michael Wombacher on this). There are also a large number of people who have left his movement, and some very serious allegations of unethical conduct and abuses of power. The most objective resource, in my view, is the Wikipedia article on Cohen. The EnlightenNixt website delves deeply into all these issues and I especially like A Legacy of Scorched Earth for its objectivity. This should cause any serious student of Cohen to pause.

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