P.10 ......... "I do suggest ... that for the overall welfare of total man's existence in the world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of any society's governing figures should be to promote human movement up the levels of human existence."
"Putting there three dimensions (I, we, and it; or art, morals, and science; or Beauty, Goodness, and Truth) together with the major levels of existence would give us a much more genuinely integral or holistic approach to reality."
-Ken Wilber
LEVELS
Ken
Wilber
synthesizes dozens of developmental models to create a map of
consciousnesses. A very general outline of these levels as Wilber
borrows from Piaget, Gebser and Beck/Cowan of Spiral Dynamics, is from
1st tier: archiac (infrared), magic (magenta), egoic (red), mythic (amber), rational (orange), postmodern (green) to 2nd tier: integrative (teal) and global (turquoise).
Check out Altitudes (another term for levels in the Wilber-5 model) byHolons Magazine. Here is a really cool collage on the Levels created by Steve Self at Formless Mountain.
Levels of Human Development by Ken Wilber is another good beginning to the topic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spiral Dynamics
An important theory/model that Wilber draws from is Spiral Dynamics, a book written by Don Beck and Chris
Cowan based on the pioneering work of
Professor Clare Graves and his 50 years of research. There are some differences
in both theories, SD and Gravesian theory, therefore we recommend studying both.
Clare Grave’s original theory was called “The Emergent Cyclical, Double
Helix Model of the Adult Human Biopsychosocial Systems” (there is an immediate
‘quadratic’ flavor to this title). He brilliantly discovered the
double-helical relationship between exterior life conditions and interior
subjective worldspaces BEFORE the discovery of the DNA molecule.
[Note: Integral Creatives uses both the SD color levels and Integral altitude model colors (based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Purple/magenta, amber/blue, teal/yellow are interchangeable: Wilberian altitude and SD vMEMEs.; the other level colors are the same (orange, green, turquoise). vMEMEs refer to the value line of development, while altitudes can be used across multiple lines.]
Don Beck has partnered with Ken Wilber, creating
SDi (Spiral Dynamics Integral). Here is an Integral Naked article about SDi.
Don Beck recommends Jessica Roemischer's article
as the best short and concise introduction to the theory, found here: http://www.wie.org/j22/beck.asp
Christopher Cowan has partnered with Natasha
Todorovic, as Gravesian purists. Here they describe the levels:
There are multiple developmental lines such as cognitive, moral, emotional, psychosocial, psychosexual, aesthetic, kinesthetic etc.) similar to the multiple intelligences of Gardner, that progress through the stages and bring up the topic of heterarchies.
Integral theory emphasizes the cognitive line as important for the growth of other lines, such as moral and self-system.
Some important distinctions are that one can understand integral theory, a 2nd tier map, cognitively while having a self-system in 1st tier.
Here is a good article titled Lines of Development and the Integral Psychograph from Integral Life
