Synchronicity and the Secret of the Co-Creator

by Robert Torres -

If you believe synchronicity is simply coincidence, then you haven’t read any of the top experts in the field. The famous psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung coined the term synchronicity in the 1920s to reference the alignment of universal forces with a person’s experiences.

Synchronicity: is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner [to the observer]. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.

These forces have been sought out for centuries in many spiritual traditions as a means of aligning with the “flow”. This usually takes years of disciplined meditation, study, ritual or by other means to navigate this journey toward a harmonic individuation.

To some the search is inward for the self, yet for others it’s an outward search for spirituality.

My first experience with synchronicity was on March 21st at 3:03am which is the 3rd month, 3rd week, 3rd hour, 3rd minute or 3333, on the equinox and the moment of my birth. It was my alignment with the universal forces, the planet, space and time.

My awakening was also through no effort of my own and came by way of a supernatural encounter with an entity of light. It began my involvement with and research into the metaphysical nature of reality – I became “enlightened.”

Because of this I have an inherent understanding of many esoteric concepts like the flow, the spirit, one-ness and even divinity.

My experiences are not entirely unique, but the way in which this window of understanding opened for me is. There was no journey, no explanation as to why – the knowledge was just revealed.

Things that to many are never more than concepts and metaphors, I actually see as having real form. I’ve witnessed many paranormal phenomena unfold with me seemingly being the only connection. However, because of my earlier encounters I’ve never attributed much of it directly to myself.

I’ve always sensed a presence around me. So unlike many others who seek the path, I feel that for some reason the source found me.

Being human however leaves me questioning: “Who or what is this presence?” Abilities like ESP, clairvoyance, telekinesis are all real along with the concepts of a sub-stratum or pre-space. But what is our connection?

In Jung’s book “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle” it is subjective meaning that connects us. Without an observer (you) there is no mind, no synchronicity, no meaning.

Thoughts connected to events, mind connected to movements of matter, absent of a cause (acausal). Thinking something before it happens, remote viewing, telekinesis, where do these abilities come from? Since scientists don’t accept the mind as a cause. How then do we prove any of this?

I say that we are using a flawed science because it is incomplete. Physicist, Dr. William Tiller proposes that consciousness is what’s missing from the equation.

It’s the unifying integrator of all the individual constituents. Bohm says there is a hidden variable implying that neither relativity nor quantum mechanics should be accepted as a conclusive nor exclusive solution.

My research began with Carl Jung but for millennia prior to Jung man has experienced synchronicity. Theoretically it begins outside of our space-time in the flow where all knowledge exits and our material reality takes shape.

It then unfolds into our dimension only to return back to the flow. 

This is described by David Bohms theory of “the implicate order.” However prior to synchronicity, ancient humanity used words like sympathy, harmony and unity.

In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Heraclitus viewed all things as being inter-related, nothing is isolated and that all things are linked.

Similarly Hippocrates said:

“There is ONE common flow, a common breathing. Everything is in sympathy.” 

A bond – and even between inanimate objects. A form of animism or the belief that all matter has consciousness. This is a classic idea whereby separateness is an illusion.

Now what you should know is that Jung had a lifelong interest in and many experiences with the paranormal. Working with him was the Nobel Prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli who also had experiences with telekinesis.

Catastrophic breakdowns of experimental equipment would inexplicably occur when he was around. It was often joked about, but other scientists feared his presence during experiments because it was commonly believed he was the cause. This is well known in physics as “The Pauli Effect.”

Together they helped pioneer the study of parapsychology. Others studying non-material or fringe science also advanced the field (sometimes unknowingly) by the very nature of their work. Pauli’s early work in quantum physics had a strong influence by changing how we think about matter itself.

A great example of good solid theory is Rupert Sheldrake’s “morphic fields.” He shows us how fields create relationships. Physicist David Bohm’s “Implicate and Explicate Order” as previously mentioned.

Michael Talbot’s famous “Holographic Universe” or Physicist David Peat’s “Meaning and Form.” All of these hypothesize a substratum beneath our material and temporal reality. Much of quantum physics is competing theory and it’s the same with non-material science.

Consciousness itself cannot be scientifically quantified – there is no explaining it. Many believe it exists outside the brain, perhaps the Akashic field. Psi-fields, source fields, the flow, these are all conceptual dimensions bound together by abstract relationships.

Where consciousness and matter are two aspects of the same thing. These are the domains of the trickster gods where Hermes and Loki conspire to fool us using mind, matter and meaning.

Although, I am in agreement with many of these theorists about some hypothetical matrix.

What is the Intelligence Behind the Curtain?

Since before recorded history humankind has recognized the existence of a greater intelligence. Ask any believer of any esoteric system and you’ll get many different answers. The spirit, God, the Goddess, Sophie, Allah, the Demiurge, The One. History’s greatest scientists came to this same conclusion.

Einstein said:

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man.”

Max Planck the father of quantum physics said: 

“All matter originates and exists, only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force is the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” 

Isaac Newton believed the universe was mechanical, set into motion by God and then left to run. There are others who believe that all existence is an emanation of God. Some don’t believe there is an external intelligence at all. This is not my belief!

Your Thoughts Can Alter the World

What many of these theories and beliefs have in common, is that your own thoughts can alter the outside world in relation to you.  Though, you alone are not the creator within the flow of the source field. You are simply part of the process. 

The biggest secret is not that there is a co-creator but that it’s YOU! 

Ultimately there is a separate coordinating intelligence in control. This is what causes events to coincide without your thoughts, like for instance, the moment of my birth: 3333. That’s why we pray or chant, recite mantras, sing praises and invoke – expecting a particular outcome. 

Deep down inside we’ve always known we were being watched, even in an empty room, we are never really alone. How many times do events align that seem so strange and statistically unlikely to have occurred by chance? They must originate externally. This means, that The Source or The-One controlling it all is out there and… (everywhere).

“Synchronicity is Gods way of remaining anonymous.”  

—Albert Einstein

Note: This article was written using excerpts and concepts from the non-fiction book “Sin Thesis”

About Author: Robert Torres (aka “Bobby T”) is the author of “Sin Thesis” and a self-described paranormal magnet. He is also a published singer and songwriter of “Then There Was Rock.” Torres has worked for many well-known national US companies as a freelance. He has also worked as a magazine editor, technical writer, music writer, content writer, web designer, consultant, promotions, manager, agent, booker, producer, photographer, multimedia computer and audio tech… and the list goes on. Torres’ first book “Sin Thesis”  is a non-fiction book based on the many paranormal events that he has experienced. The book is available on Amazon. You can also connect with Bobby T at about.me/Towers3ere.

wakeup-world.com

Combining Co-Creation and Collective Intelligence

Why combining co-creation and collective intelligence?

It is a common trend to be in favour of open innovation and co-creation. We have all heard about the wisdom of crowds, bringing the outside in, and we all believe in "none of us is as smart as all of us”.

Collective wisdom considers “multiple opinions and forms of intelligence. Wisdom in groups is demonstrated by insight, good sense, clarity, objectivity and discernment rooted in deep caring and compassion”. We connect on political, social and economic strategies and understand psychological, spiritual and cultural roots.

Co-creating and collective intelligence/wisdom are forming hybrid forces, a calling to reclaim the participation of people in groups as positive, useful, healing and life affirming. We alter the way that we see the world in order to solve problems together.

It is a fact that humans today love to participate in problem-solving online, to have a voice and to express themselves, to be a part of the story-telling of new media and to be a part of the collective intelligence process.

The cultural, economic and political changes brought on by online intelligence sharing, via different media, have been truly amazing and reflect extraordinary cultural shifts in the 21st century. There is a huge opportunity out of there, people feel right to collaborate to solve higher issues, higher order of problems or matters.

Enabling is one thing, participating quite another. Mass dialogue just does not simply happen. There are many reasons why people feel restrained to freely engage and exchange ideas. Tech by itself will not overcome these obstacles.

Captivating your audience requires purpose, encouragement and reciprocity.

We need to create a context for mass dialogue and co-creation, unleashing the tacit knowledge and passion of people around brands, products and organizations.

What is co-creation, really, and how do you do it right? 

Co-creation is a system where ideas are shared and repeatedly fed back through groups of specially chosen individuals. They filter, refine and evolve those ideas.

Co-creation involves working on new product and service ideas together with the customers who are going to buy them. We are all customers and we all use products/services that are good but that can be improved with our precious advices of whom spend more time on using them than their inventors or creators.

Lots of people, even experts and technicians, know how to improve products, they know the answers to simple questions or questions that have been asked before but when the questions are new and more complicated individuals tend to have hunches rather than answers.

They know part of the answer but not all of it. Bring enough people with hunches together and collectively they will be able to work out the answer. Co-creation is the way, a win win solution for companies and customers or simplier, for people.

That's it. Simple. But not easy.

Collective intelligence and the modern technologies are not enough to establish a new way of working and make things happen.

The collective intelligence concepts are out there since a century and internet since 30 years and only few good examples of right implementation of this powerful force, such as Wikipedia to mention one.

Co-creation is the way, the path to bring the collective intelligence and the collective wisdom to real and practical applications of the society, using the real engine of progress, the people and company entrepreneurship.

--Roberto

co-creation.blogspot.com

From Collaboration to Co-Creation

by Justine Huxley -

What’s the most exciting experience you’ve had collaborating across differences in faith, culture, and ideology? Have you ever entered into collaborative relationships and been truly surprised by the result? What enabled those experiences to happen?

In a group I facilitate at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, in London, someone recently asked, 

“What’s the difference between collaboration and co-creation?”

Here is the answer I liked the most:

In collaboration, you and your associates work together. You start off with an idea of what you want to achieve and the result is not too dissimilar from your original idea.

In co-creation, you and your collaborators are inviting in an extra element – the ‘field,’ the interrelated system around and within us, the web of life or perhaps God (insert whatever language you use for That which is beyond yourself) – and the result is something new, something none of you could have predicted.

That description echoes my experience of working with what is called Emergent Design.

Emergent Design

There is a quality of aliveness, of being in new territory, of holding a space for something beyond ourselves to bring itself into existence, of reorganizing us and our relationships, bestowing results according to a deeper wisdom that we cannot access on our own.

It is a much more exciting way to work. As my fellow co-creator at St Ethelburga, Debbie Warrener says,

“It invites more humility and less attachment to particular outcomes. It's a way of listening to a wider deeper dimension in the creative process.  

Consciously bringing this in can be a powerful way to bridge differences and gently sidestep egos, competition, and more personal triggers that can come up when working closely together with others.”

The sanctuary in London, built in the 15th century, hosts a workshop.

Here is a simple story of co-creation. Last year in London, we brought together a vibrant group of around 40 sincere and committed young adults from eight different faith communities in a project called Friends for Change. 

A Japanese Buddhist organization initiated the project, wanting to build interreligious relationships and understanding within their younger generation.

We had only the simple idea of creating a container of relationships and trust, then invited the next step to reveal itself. So we held the space in a very flexible, responsive way.

We took care to include everyone deeply as equals, inviting authenticity, mixing in prayer and silence, making it clear that the facilitators were not ‘leading’ the results, just helping to create the space within which the young people could discover what was possible.

Typically with emergent design, once the container is formed, there is a period of chaos while diverse ideas abound but no decisions are made. The group reacts to the apparent lack of hierarchy and decisive leadership, and gradually gains a sense of its own self-responsibility.

As facilitators, it takes trust and patience at this point to let things disintegrate slightly without stepping in and imposing or forcing a decision.

We had one meeting early on which required absorbing a fair amount of frustration and confusion from within the group. 

Eventually, two beautiful ideas for interfaith action projects emerged and were taken forward with a sense of shared ownership and deepened relationship. The ideas were definitely different from anything I would have steered the group towards, but we were better for it, more vital and alive.

Contrast that with a story of another interfaith project we were involved with last year. This program was funded by a government department with an interest in improving the governance of minority faith groups and supporting them to better integrate into their local community fabric. 

The desired outputs were decided by the government department, who then engaged a key partner, a Muslim-led charity, who designed the program in some depth.

They were then encouraged to locate and engage interfaith collaborators and facilitators. At that point, St Ethelburga was invited into a diverse planning group of truly lovely people with great experience. The Muslim charity guided the process very well, under the guidance of the government department. 

Each partner organization contributed its skills and expertise to what seemed like a very valuable 6-month training program. Then we began recruiting participants.

St Ethelburga's also supports new models of peace and encourages peaceful economic and social change. Recruitment was difficult. Despite its apparent value, not many communities came forward to participate. It was uphill work. Eventually the project folded, generating no results at all.

Reflecting on the end game, we clearly saw that a lack of life-force or enthusiasm for the project had made recruitment tough. Just as clearly, this lack on contagiousness was a result of a top-down process which aimed for a fixed output, thus missing a creative opportunity.

I’m convinced that if the same partners had come together in a way that built equal and inclusive relationships, and encouraged authenticity, developed trust, and asked “What is wanting to emerge from within the field at this time?” – the results could have been very different.

How can we engage creative emergence and how can we co-create rather than simply collaborate as we do our interfaith work?

Here are some principles our community arrived at:

• Come together as equals and take plenty of time to build a solid container of trust, using storytelling to invite in everyone’s highest aspirations and authentic selves.
• Consciously invite in a dimension beyond yourselves through a shared intention to do so.
• Welcome diverse voices, include the marginalized; engage the body and heart, not just the mind; welcome disruption and listen for its message.
• Be generous with time. Weave empty space, silence, reflective periods, time in nature, music, imagery, and prayer into the process.
• Don’t be an expert. Adopt an attitude of ‘not knowing,’ don’t over-structure, don’t predefine, stay open and humble, listen deeply.
• Dissolve hierarchies, don’t ‘over-lead’ tolerate chaos when it comes and wait patiently for the process to disintegrate and reorganize relationships and results around the unexpected.
• Nurture the new patterns that emerge gently. Let them breathe, try out new ideas freely but keep an open mind, and don’t be too fast to pin anything down – it may disintegrate and reorganize a second or third time before becoming coherent.
• Share information and results freely. Honour the human dimension and community. Prioritise relationships and meaning over concrete outcomes.

Let go of expectations, follow what is alive, have fun and celebrate.

So … what is the real importance of co-creation and emergence? Surely it must be that it enables us to create from the new now.

We are at a time in human history where we cannot afford to keep endlessly damaging life. We need a new perspective, a new paradigm, rather than recreating the same problems by thinking and acting in the same way.

Emergence takes us into new, co-creative space.

When we connect to the non-hiearchical patterns we find in nature, when we step outside our habitual human hubris and acknowledge what we don’t know, and when we listen deeply to the interrelated ‘field’ we live in, subtle, important change can happen.

It can take us beyond our fixed and limited ideas and allow a life-force into the space that can reorganize our reality in new, sustainable ways.

Fundamentalism and barren secularism sometimes seem to trap us a world where meaning is being eroded and we are fast becoming spiritually bankrupt. The world of faith and practice needs to find ways out of the trap.

As spiritual people, these new tools ask us to surrender into the deeper trust of ‘interbeing,’ that is, supporting people to collaborate across our differences for the good of the whole. My hope for the interfaith world is that we allow ourselves to open up more deeply, be reorganised according to a greater will, and be shepherds of the new.

stethelburgas.org

Cultural Creatives Developing a New Worldview

This is mankind’s finest hour. 

In her book Conscious Evolution, author Barbara Marx Hubbard highlights the tremendous potential of newfound scientific knowledge, technological advances and compassionate spirituality and illustrates the opportunities that each of us has to fully participate in this exciting stage of human history.

This excerpt discusses the new worldview that is currently developing and bringing about social change.

The Awakening of Humanity

by Barbara Marx Hubbard 

Occasionally in the course of human events, a new worldview emerges that transforms society. It happened when Jesus’ disciples were inspired by his life to believe in radical transformation of the person and the world through love.

It occurred in the Renaissance when the idea of progress through knowledge was born.

It took place in the United States when the ideas of freedom and democracy became institutions through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

It happened with the advent of the British Royal Society and the dawn of science through Copernicus, Galileo and Newton and again among the transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who believed that each individual is an expression of the divine, a free and sovereign person.

Now, once again a new worldview is arising. 

This idea is the culmination of all human history. It holds the promise of fulfilling the great aspirations of the past and heralds the advent of the next phase of our evolution.

It is the idea of conscious evolution.

Conscious evolution is occurring now because we are gaining an understanding of the processes of nature: the gene, the atom, the brain, the origin of the universe and the whole story of creation from the big bang to us.

We are now changing our understanding of how nature evolves; we are moving from unconscious evolution through natural selection to conscious evolution by choice. 

With this increased knowledge and the power that it gives us, we can destroy the world or we can participate in a future of immeasurable dimensions. Into our hands has been given the power of codestruction or cocreation.

As Jonas Salk stated in Anatomy of Reality:

"The most meaningful activity in which a human being can be engaged is one that is directly related to human evolution. This is true because human beings now play an active and critical role not only in the process of their own evolution but in the survival and evolution of all living beings. 

Awareness of this places upon human beings a responsibility for their participation in and contribution to the process of evolution. If humankind would accept and acknowledge this responsibility and become creatively engaged in the process of metabiological evolution consciously, as well as unconsciously, a new reality would emerge, and a new age would be born."

Consciousness has evolved for billions of years, from single cells to animals to humans, but conscious evolution is radically new.

In The Life Era, Professor Eric Chaisson of the Wright Center for Scientific Education suggested that the second great event in the history of the universe is happening now.

• The first event was when matter gained charge of radiative energy, which organized the explosive energy of supernovas into metals and materials that formed the material world more than 10 billion years ago.

• The second is when technologically competent human life gains an understanding of matter. As we learn how nature’s invisible processes work, we can restore the environment of our Earth and free ourselves from poverty and disease; we can design new life-forms, bring life to other planets, and eventually explore and bring Earth life into the universe. 

Chaisson wrote in ZYGON:

“The change from matter-dominance to life-dominance is the second of two preeminent events in the history of the universe....If our species is to survive and enjoy a future, then we must make synonymous the words future and ethical, thus terming our next grand evolutionary epoch, ethical evolution.”

Evolution or Extinction

An irreversible shift toward conscious evolution began in 1945 when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With this dreadful release of power we penetrated one of the invisible technologies of nature — the atom — and gained the power that we once attributed to the gods.

This capability, combined with other rapidly developing technologies such as bio-technology, nanotechnology (the ability to build atom by atom), and artificial intelligence, if used in our current state of self-centered consciousness could lead to the destruction of the human race.

Ethical Evolution

We must learn “ethical evolution,” as Chaisson said. And we do not have hundreds of years in which to learn.

The response to this crisis has been an uprising of a new consciousness — almost a new kind of humanity. Since the 1960s, the metamorphosis has accelerated as millions of people have become aware of environmental degradation, social injustice and the need for radical change.

In Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, Paul Hawken, a leading environmentalist and social change activist, examined the worldwide movement for social and environmental change.

He discovered that groups working in these causes comprise the largest movement on Earth, a movement that has no name, leaders, or location and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up. Fundamentally, it is an expression of humanity’s collective genius.

As Hawken suggests, in the 1960s through the 1980s networks of people in every field and sector of society formed to respond to crises as well as to realize new opportunities. But we had no social map of our collective potential. Although there were many positive social innovations, we didn’t have a way to connect the dots.

We entered a period of confusion — a loss of vision and direction. We continued to destroy our rain forests, pollute our soil and water, and increase our rate of population growth. Our global population is still rising.

We cannot continue to increase our population at the current rate and survive. If we continue with our current practices, we may destroy ourselves. Many of us have seen looming catastrophe, but few of us have realized that this crisis is driving us toward positive change, toward a quantum transformation.

Imaginal Cells

Let’s compare our situation with the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. 

When the caterpillar weaves its cocoon, imaginal discs begin to appear. These discs embody the blueprint of the butterfly yet to come.

Although the discs are a natural part of the caterpillar’s evolution, its immune system recognizes them as foreign and tries to destroy them. As the discs arrive faster and begin to link up, the caterpillar’s immune system breaks down and its body begins to disintegrate.

When the discs mature and become imaginal cells, they form themselves into a new pattern, thus transforming the disintegrating body of the caterpillar into the butterfly.

The breakdown of the caterpillar’s old system is essential for the breakthrough of the new butterfly. Yet, in reality the caterpillar neither dies nor disintegrates, for from the beginning its hidden purpose was to transform and be reborn as the butterfly.

As Ferris Jabr wrote in Scientific American:

"Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth — discs for its eyes, for its wings, its legs and so on. In some species, these imaginal discs remain dormant throughout the caterpillar’s life.... 

Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth."

By applying this analogy, we can see that during the 1960s our social systems started to become dysfunctional or began to “disintegrate,” as we experienced the Cold War and the threat to the environment, the growing population crisis, pollution and social inequities.

Social Transformation

As people started waking up, they became imaginal discs in the body of society.

The environmental movement, the antiwar movement, the Apollo space program, the women’s movement, the civil rights and human rights movements, new music, Transcendental Meditation, yoga and mind-expanding substances all encouraged a young generation to act as instruments of social transformation — striving to birth the still-invisible emerging world.

If we had been offered the opportunity to prematurely form a new kind of society, we would not have been ready. We were too young, too few, and too inexperienced to bring forth a more just, humane, and life-enhancing society at that time.

Often when new leaders did step forward, they were attacked by society’s immune system fighting to maintain the old social order of the caterpillar: witness the assassinations of Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Lennon, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Metamorphosis of Humanity

The new social processes, structures and systems to create environmental restoration, better education, universal health care, economic justice, alternative currencies, restorative justice, tolerance for social, sexual and racial differences and many other requirements of the coming age are just beginning to emerge. 

It may well be that our deep sense of life purpose, our callings and our various passions to express ourselves are actually the still-dormant components of the emerging societal “butterfly,” now in the process of metamorphosis. 

CoCreate

Our attraction to join with one another in specific groups and configurations may be the prepatterned requirement to find our appropriate partners with whom to cocreate our unique components of the whole-system shift now occurring.

Not only are millions of us developing ourselves as individuals in the spiritual and human potential movements but we are just starting to organize new social functions in every major field, including health, education, environment and governance. 

Yet we still are lacking a coherent social potential movement to connect what is already working and to guide us in the evolution of our communities and of society as a whole.

In the midst of this nascent uprising of wellness, innovation and compassion our basic social and economic systems have attempted to maintain the status quo despite the many warnings that the old ways, particularly in the developed world, were no longer sustainable. 

In many instances our existing systems are not humane; homelessness, hunger, disease and poverty consume the lives of hundreds of millions of people and the environment continues to degrade. 

We can view the reactive and conservative ways of the past few decades as a survival mechanism — as the caterpillar’s immune system rigidly holding on to old structures until new social systems are mature enough to function.

Linking Up

The fact is that millions of people are now awakening in every field, culture and ethnic group. 

The imaginal discs are linking up, are becoming imaginal cells and are beginning to proliferate throughout the social body. 

Each person who says “I know I can be more,” “I can do more” or “The world does not have to be this way” is an imaginal cell in the emerging culture of humanity. 

The social immune system is beginning to surrender as the new consciousness arises everywhere.

New Global Culture

In Global Consciousness Change: Indicators of an Emerging Paradigm, (A report that brings together, for the first time, major global and U.S. surveys that reveal a discernible shift in consciousness toward a more reflective, living-systems perspective. Countervailing trends were also noted in each major section. Includes a guide for group dialogue and study.)  Duane Elgin and Coleen LeDrew wrote:

"From this inquiry, we have concluded that a new global culture and consciousness have taken root and are beginning to grow in the world. This represents a shift in consciousness as distinct and momentous as that which occurred in the transition from the agricultural era to the industrial era roughly three hundred years ago.... 

This change in consciousness has two primary features. 

First, there is a further awakening of our unique capacity to be self-reflective — to stand back from the rush of life and with greater detachment, observe the world and its workings non-judgmentally. 

Second, from this more spacious perspective, the Earth (and even the cosmos) are seen as interconnected, living systems."

Cultural Creatives

It almost seems as though imaginal cells are beginning to gain ascendancy. This phenomenon is vividly presented in The Integral Culture Survey: A Study of Transformational Values in America. Noted social analyst Paul H. Ray revealed through extensive research that there were 44 million “cultural creatives” in the United States alone in 1995 — almost one-fourth the American population.

By 2008, that number had increased to 80 million adults, or roughly 35 percent of the American population.

Cultural creatives are defined by a set of values, a new lifestyle and worldview. Feeling that we are all members of one planet, they are concerned about the environment and social-economic justice.

They have a different notion of relationship — one that is less hierarchical and more cocreative and participatory. They are interested in holistic health and are extending women’s concerns into the public domain. Their emphasis is on transforming consciousness and behavior in all aspects of our lives — personal, social, and planetary.

The Emerging Social Potential Movement

Cultural creatives are social idealists, concerned not so much with political and economic power as those in the old movement were, but rather with seeking to change our image of the world, our sense of identity.

Cultural creatives originated in the great social movements of the 1960s and are now maturing, taking their stand for a more spiritualized, personalized, and integrated culture worldwide.

According to Ray, cultural creatives are the fastest growing subculture in the United States, yet most of these creative individuals feel they are alone. They have not yet sensed their connection with one another or with the pattern and momentum of the collective change they represent.

Nonetheless, as Marilyn Ferguson wrote in her seminal work The Aquarian Conspiracy,

“A leaderless but powerful network is working to bring about radical change in the United States. Its members have broken with certain key elements of Western thought, and they may even have broken continuity with history.” 

Not Revolutionary but Evolutionary

These are the imaginal cells of the social body. This emerging social potential movement is not revolutionary, but evolutionary. Its aim is not to destroy but to fulfill. When the butterfly emerges, it doesn’t deny the caterpillar — it has actually consumed it! It is the caterpillar evolved.

In this analogy, this movement is not an attack on another group or an assertion that “our way is better.”

Instead, we recognize that we have inherited enormous resources and intelligence from previous generations and that many of those resources can be repurposed now for the social good.

The movement is not here to attack but rather to transcend and include the best of what has come before and to attract that which needs to come forth for the flourishing of our human and planetary potential.

Its purpose is to evolve all of us, our communities and our world so that all people are free to fulfill their highest potential.

Resonance

Today, cultural creatives are communicating ever more rapidly with one another, affirming and reinforcing the new emerging pattern of more conscious living. Thousands of transformational workshops, trainings and teachings are appearing in mainstream businesses, churches and organizations.

Books by new paradigm teachers and leaders consistently reach the bestseller lists. Through resonance or echoing and reinforcing one another, values of inclusivity, spirituality, attunement with other species, ecological sensitivity and social innovations are spreading.

These values are not new; many are ancient, yet they are emerging now in a new way that is vital to the survival of the whole system.

This is a call to those who are experiencing a deep motivation to be more, to find their life purpose and to contribute their gifts to the evolution of the world. 

Since the 1960s, countless such individuals have been maturing, yet mainstream media and our political system fail to adequately acknowledge them. These cultural creatives are rarely, if ever, at the heads of corporations, governments or traditional religions because their current function is to evolve and expand systems, not to maintain or strengthen the current power structure as it is.

Although the desire for something more is widespread, often that something is not known. We lack a vision of what we want to create. Inquiries, conferences and symposia throughout the world seek answers to major problems, yet something is still missing — we don’t see where we are going; we have few positive visions of our next stage of evolution.

Our media, which are like a planetary nervous system, are far more sensitive to breakdowns than to breakthroughs. They filter out our creativity and successes, considering them less newsworthy than violence, war, and dissent.

When we read newspapers and watch television news, we feel closer to a death in the social body than to an awakening. Yes, something is dying; however, the media do not recognize that something is also being born.

The Mind Sphere

A radically new phenomenon has emerged worldwide, and it is just now being more widely recognized. It is called the “noosphere” by Teilhard de Chardin in his famous work The Phenomenon of Man. The root of the word is “noos,” meaning “mind.”

The noosphere is the mind sphere, the thinking layer of Earth, the “global brain,” the larger social body created by human intelligence. It is composed of all the spiritual, cultural, social, and technological capacities of humanity, seen as one interrelated superorganism.

It is formed from our languages, our art and music, our religious and social structures, our constitutions, our communication systems, our microscopes, our telescopes, our cars, planes, rockets, laboratories, and more.

For Teilhard, the noosphere was actually the consciousness field of Earth. He believed that when infused with enough love and creativity, it would “get its collective eyes,” and like the nervous system developing in a newborn baby, it would open its eyes.

Then we, as a newly born planetary culture, would see that we were one whole global body. As a Catholic, he called it the Christification of the Earth.

We as individuals have not changed much physiologically or intellectually in the past two thousand years, but our larger social body — the noosphere — has become radically empowered.

We are now being born into an extended social and scientific capacity that has never before existed on Earth.

It is through this collective social body of shared intelligence, capacities and systems that we go to the moon, map our genes, clone a sheep and transmit our words and images around the world at the speed of light.

It is with this body that we codestroy or cocreate. 

Societal Butterfly

It is into this body that our imaginal cells are born — the still-invisible, emergent societal butterfly. Conscious evolution has arisen at this precise moment of history because the noosphere has matured and has given humanity powers to affect evolution by choice.

We cannot see the noosphere. Neither our past philosophies or religions nor our social, economic, technological, or scientific systems have yet been able to encompass or guide the power of this collective body — a body that has been built by human endeavor and intelligence.

With the advent of the idea of ethical and conscious evolution, however, we are beginning to discover a path of collaborative action that will lead us toward an immeasurable and positive future.

Without such a new and guiding worldview, further development of the planetary system will be increasingly distorted and destructive.

If, however, we can see the glory of the noosphere maturing toward an immeasurable future for the human race — a future that attracts us and calls forth our gifts — and if we can learn to collaborate even more effectively in bringing forward that future, we will then serve the purpose of awakening the whole body to its capacity.

Excerpt from the book Conscious Evolution. Copyright © 2015 by Barbara Marx Hubbard. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. To find more books that pique your interest, visit the Utne Reader Bookshelf.

About Author: Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard is a prolific educator and author of seven books, including a revised and updated edition of her seminal work Conscious Evolution. She is an evolutionary thinker who believes that global change happens when we work collectively and selflessly for the greater good. Visit her online at her website.

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The New WE Culture

by George Pór -

What is the “new“ in a new we-culture?

This is my reply to the request from Evolve magazine to address the question of “What is the ‘new’ in a new we-culture?” in 200 words, which will be published in their next issue.

It is Springtime and seeds are breaking through solid soil; sprouts stretching towards the Sun. With the same elemental force (and fragility), individual and collective human consciousness is stretching towards ever-new heights. 

Shared Passion

In the tip of the current wave are self-organizing associations of autonomous agents, connected by a shared passion to evolve consciousness and culture as themselves.

When the spiral of the We line of development is turning from the ego-centric to the world-centric stage as is the case for many “We-space” groups, then dots are connecting, systemic interdependences are becoming visible and lives more meaningful. 

Evolution is shifting from happening to us to happening through us.

In this new culture we exercise our response-ability to the community that is not an antithesis of our individual autonomy but a garden in which it can truly blossom. 

Collective Sentience

Thanks to the Internet, the new we-culture can develop collective sensing and meaning making organs.

Realizing that possibility is our next step in the long march towards the awakening of humankind’s collective sentience: the capacity of the We (at any scale) to care for the well-being and evolution of the whole and all of its parts, as well as its habitat, the larger encompassing whole.

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The Inner Revolution: 5 Radical Ideas that Will Change You and the World Forever

by Nick Jankel - 

"To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing."

— Raymond Williams

There is a war going on right now, as you are reading this. It is a war that all of us are participating in, whether we know it or not and it is a war whose stakes are so high that the very future of our economy, our environment and our children’s lives depend on the outcome.

This battle is a battle for ideas — the beliefs and values that govern how the entire world works. 

The only way to join the battle is to question your own assumptions and make sure that what you believe — about yourself, the world and the connections between the two — fits what you feel in your deepest core. 

You, me and everyone else who cares about our shared future as a species must do this if we are to thrive ourselves; and ensure our world thrives too. 

As William Blake said: 

“We must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.”

Below, I share with you five of most radical ideas any of us can think. They are radical because they challenge the current system and the individuals and organisations that benefit most from it. These ideas fly in the face of five ‘Noble Lies’ (as Plato called them), basic assumptions about who we are and what our role in life is that are the foundation of all modern economics, politics, business, medicine and individual lifestyle aspirations. 

To embrace the radical, we must first be prepared to give up the comfortable. This can be challenging; a red or the blue pill moment.

What makes it more tricky is that many of the rich and powerful ridicule these five radical ideas, trying instead to sell us all on a ‘rational’ worldview that puts profit and productivity ahead of just about everything else. 

They have achieved this feat by claiming that the way things are fits the ‘natural’ order of things; that survival of the fittest is a genetic imperative; that the profit motive is elemental and benefits everyone eventually; and that we are all self-interested, rational, utility-optimisers.

We — as a race and planet — are now paying for the consequences.

In the words of the great critical thinker Michel Foucault, it is time to ‘excavate’ the foundations of our political, social and economic systems and identify the out-dated assumptions that lie at the heart of them. 

Then we can, one assumption at a time, discern if they seem to be timeless and true or false and failing.

Are the ideas we run our lives on creating a world of enlightenment, empowerment and enjoyment or a world of depression, disease and devastation?

I believe that the 5 BIG MYTHS whose time has come are:

1. The myth of the machine: 

The universe is like a clock. We are cogs within it. We must work and to produce to be of value. If value can’t be measured, it doesn’t really exist. 

2. The myth of the self: 

We are atomic units, discrete individuals, destined to be alone (and lonely). 

3. The myth of competition: 

We are all inherently selfish and naturally competitive, driven by survival to fight tooth and claw for what we feel we need. 

4. The myth of personal ownership: 

Whatever we find or make we should own — no matter how much others may need it. 

5. The myth of growth: 

We have to constantly accumulate more wealth and create more value in a world of unlimited natural resources.

These ideas may look innocuous but they are profoundly dangerous. They work as a nested hierarchy, one scaffolding on the surface of the other, ever upwards towards rampant capitalism, corrupt politics and painful, disconnected lives.

Instead, if we switch on, we can embrace...

 FIVE BOLD IDEAS:

1. The idea of the organism: 

The universe is alive, organic, interconnected. We are here to create and express. 

2. The idea of interdependence: 

We are profoundly interconnected in ways that we can fathom and ways we cannot. The more we feel the interconnection, the more we thrive. 

3. The idea of collaboration: 

We are all as inherently kind and compassionate as we are selfish; and can always work together towards a common purpose. 

4. The idea of sharing: 

We can share resources, even if that means we ‘lose’ personally; we can give before we get to create a win win win for all.

5. The idea of flourishing: 

We can conserve our resources and focus instead on personal growth and mutual thriving.

These 5 big ideas have not been plucked from thin air — more wishful thinking by an unrealistic optimist.

Each is grounded in the latest scientific research into physics, networks, social psychology and animal behaviour. 

Each has precedent both in the historical record and in tribes and cultures different to our own. 

Each has been taught for millennia by countless wisdom traditions and indigenous myths. Each has been leveraged for extraordinary impact by the greatest thinkers and leaders of modernity, from Leo Tolstoy to Nelson Mandela. 

Each is a systemic ‘sweetspot’ — what Buckminster Fuller, the legendary designer and innovator, called a ‘trimtab’ — where a small shift can create disproportionately large change. 

This is all about cultural, cosmological, metaphysical acupuncture.

If we are willing to surrender the old assumptions and embrace the new ideas — which fit emerging scientific evidence far better, we can change everything that we have created in the ‘real’ world . 

That includes global warming and child poverty. The Inner Revolution has the power to sweep all before it. Our worst problems can disappear remarkably quickly, as they are simply crystalisations of what we collectively belief.

However, this process is not one that can be carried out purely cognitively, as we will all immediately recognize. Many of the five myths are rooted deep within our minds and bodies, attempting to keep things safe. They are locked in by emotions; emotions designed to protect us from uncertainty and threat.

The Inner Revolution can only happen when we surrender the old beliefs before they free us to welcome in the new ones. Without a way to unlock the emotional fear that holds our old beliefs in place, we cannot make the transition (which is why so few people have). 

We certainly won’t be able to stay transformed. Threats to our livelihoods, friendships, autonomy and more are likely to flip us back into the old ways of thinking. We have to switch on and stay switched on.

Reconnecting our heart — to the universe, to spirit — is the best (and possibly only) solvent string enough to dissolve away our stubborn beliefs and the emotions that lock them in. 

After 20 years of research and practice, I have developed the Breakthrough Biodynamics process to do this (detailed in my book Switch On: Unleash Your Creativity and Thrive with the New Science and Spirit of Breakthrough). It links spiritual awakening with psychological liberation and ultimately, social emancipation.

The core of the Inner Revolution has to be spiritual not political in nature. 

As a brilliant historian, Lynn White, wrote in a prescient essay in 1967: 

“Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not.” 

We are transforming our understanding of human nature away from a worn out cultural narrative towards a fresh, vibrant one.

We get to enjoy knowing ourselves as conscious beings that are intrinsically part of and inextricably interlinked with, a creative, dynamic, conscious universe. Without this, the revolution may be televised but it will not last.

Rosa Luxemburg, one of the pioneers of socialism, said this: 

“Socialism in life demands a complete spiritual transformation in the masses.” 

Unfortunately, the Communist movements tried to take an expedient shortcut and miss out the spiritual process — uncontrollable and idiosyncratic as it is — and instead change the people through repression, regulation and re-education.

It did not work — could never work — because our indomitable human spirit must be inspired to be liberated; not forced to comply to the will of others. 

Most governments and social organisations still attempt to change the world using the same crude levers, instead of the messy and marvelous experience of transformation.

The Inner Revolution is not simply an intellectual exercise; cognitive sword-play for the educated elite. Nor is it merely a pretty New Age ideal. Far from it. 

As we embrace the truth of our existence, we begin to deliver it tangibly in all our actions and creations in the real world. 

We turn inspiration into action in the form of social enterprises, intentional communities, collaborative consumption, digital and real-world activism, conscious capitalism and scores of other practices and principles that build thrivability over negativity. 

The Inner Revolution — a politics of judicious hope not cynical despair — is our only chance if we want to stop spending our precious shared resources on things we don’t really need, accelerating injustice and planetary degradation in the process.

This kind of radical self-consciousness — bringing with it the often uncomfortable realization of the complicity of each of our everyday thoughts in the creation and maintenance of a system that, well, sucks for most — is the key to bringing into existence the concrete social justice, environmental sustainability, economic equality and inter-racial peace so many truly hope for.

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism." — Martin Luther King

We must move past indecision to action.

The choice is ours and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

About Author: Nick Seneca Jankel’s unique ‘Breakthrough Biodynamics’ approach to leading organisational change and individual transformation has been sought out by future-forward people around the world for over a decade. Working to help spark and sustain breakthroughs using science-inspired, wisdom-wired tools and techniques, Nick has helped over 50,000 managers, hundreds of world-class companies, national governments and millions of TV viewers to switch themselves on, break out of the box and break through challenges to flourish. Nick is the CEO of a leadership and sustainable innovation company and founder of a wisdom and world-change media company. He is a celebrated international inspirational speaker, has been a UK ambassador for Entrepreneurship, and received a triple First class degree from Cambridge University in medicine and philosophy. He has taught at many of the most respected universities and top business schools in the world.

nickjankel.com

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