Zaadz: Spiral Dynamics

Hey! Condoms in the Spiral

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:39:50 -0000

I'm trying to get some ideas re: HIV prevention and condom use with all the many colors of the spiral. I posted some thoughts/ideas and applications in Integral Institute (for those of you who also belomg to that pod)

http://pods.zaadz.com/ii/discussions/view/156050

and would love some feedback from all you great minds at work
Much Aloha
Keoni (john)

Re: Hey! Condoms in the Spiral

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:38:22 -0000

What is your ability to help the change in behaviour happen, is my first question?

What means can, do you want to use?

Here are some suggestions in Spiral Dynamics Language.

Beige,
Don’t bother giving them condoms, condoms can not be eaten. You can get lots of water in them though..

Purple;
Condoms are a holy means of protecting you against all kinds of bad spirits. Only to be used in the sacred act of having sex! Beware that when you are not careful enough, the condo will break and the daemons will curse you.

Only the proper rituals keep you from being cursed, do not hang them around your neck!! (As has happened with anticonception pills in the past)

Red;
Women: Sperm will kill you, use it or die!

Men: Condoms give respect’ due to the extra pressure around your “thingy” the sex will last longer, and you will be more respected because only fools and idiots have sex without.

Bleu,
God says so. And by the way, follow the rules of safe sex, or you will not be rewarded in the future.

Orange:
Use them for your own benefit and because bad sex will backfire later on. Use only the best condoms money can buy. When are the Gucci and Bjorn Borg condoms ready for sale?

If you want to have unprotected sex, ok, do a test first.

Green.
Think about each other and do not pollute after usage, so drop them in a bin please?

Yellow,
All the above reasons and more.

Turquoise.
Will see the importance of it in the greater whole.

Love and keep save

Ruud Boxma
on the CruxQuest

good spiral dynamics test?

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:47:10 -0000

i'm relatively new to the spiral dynamics theory....i was introduced to it by a fabulous professor a couple of years ago, but i'm only now able to delve into it more. so fascinating!

but i'm curious...does anyone know of a way to test where you are within the spiral? just based on descriptions, i have a pretty good idea of where i'm operating, but i'd like to know if there are any "official' tests (or "unofficial" good ones, for that matter!)

thanks, and namaste.

Re: good spiral dynamics test?

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:28:25 -0000

I came up with these two, based on my research of Ken Wilber/Integral, SD, Maslow, Elisabet Sahtouris, and others:

AQAL Spiral Theory (with Ken Wilber's level colors)

The Basic Spiral Growth Theory (no colors)

The first one specifically maps development out in relation to the Spiral Dynamics and Integral levels. The second one is probably more useful, though, in identifying where you are in life.

And, remember, you're not likely to be exactly in one level at any given time. Different areas of your life may develop at different rates. For example, if you do a lot of research into science you might move into Yellow/Teal with an intellectual understanding of systems theory and how ecosystems (including humans) work together, but emotionally you may still be working out your Blue/Amber personal issues about "fitting in" to human society, and working with arbitrary human society rules (which can easily contradict Universal/natural laws). In other words, you will develop as much as possible, whenever possible, but sometimes problems get in the way, and keep one element's growth stunted, like someone who's generally very healthy and grown up, and still has one baby tooth hanging around waiting. patienty to fall out!

-Turtle

Re: good spiral dynamics test?

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:37:29 -0000

Hi Jessica.
I remember downloading a free software test from the official SD site a couple of years ago. I don't know wether they still have it there. It was basically a questionaire with multiple choices. According to Wilber these test should be very hard to fake. The questions gave me some deeper insights to the theory. The results however do not come out in a nice sort of personality test "this is you" format. It's a bunch of diagrams and they can be hard to make sense of. If it's not on the site anymore I'm sure I can find the installation files on my harddrive somewhere if you're interested.

Cheers

Staale

Green or Yellow

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:22:27 -0000

I have three questions about SDi and Integral Politics that I have been thinking about for some time, and am still confused about.

The first question is this: Which of the following people or organizations are Green or Yellow, or neither?

Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Al Gore, the Democratic Party, Air America Radio, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Howard Dean, Ralph Nader, the Green Party, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid.

My second question is tied somewhat to the first, in that one individual mentioned, Bill Clinton, has mentioned Ken Wilber at the World Economic Forum and has even given Gore one of Wilber's books, and both Clintons have been characterized by progressives as being "Republican Lite", "Bush-Cheney Lite", etc. Is it a sell-out to the Trilateralist Multinational Corporations and their political allies to consider those who embrace the Integral Approach as individuals who understand 2nd Tier thinking, even though they serve 1st Tier, Corporate (Orange) institutions? And if so, how do we get beyond this if everything we are taught by SDi and Wilber is being co-opted by the corporatists?

Lastly, is anyone teaching these ideas to the social activist groups who mobilize large rallies and shout at the tops of their lungs at protest marches for Iraq and other issues? It seems to me, they are the "Mean Green Meme" personified and could use a heavy dose of Integral Politics, SDi, etc.

Jubu

NY Times Article about Warrior cultures (Purple/Red memes)

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:58:44 -0000

August 6, 2007

CONNECTIONS

Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in Our Post-Enlightenment World

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

In one of the final events of the recent Lincoln Center Festival, a lone Mongolian bard named Burenbayar came onstage and chanted "The Secret History of the Mongols." He had memorized the 13th-century text during long hours grazing animals on the steppes of Central Asia. And as is true of many ancient sagas, he sang of arms and the man - that is, of warfare and heroism.

His subject was Genghis Khan, a conqueror of many peoples who was both barbarically ruthless and soulfully sentimental, reveling in revenge by tearing out an enemy's heart and liver with his bare hands while also forgiving, again and again, the bloody treachery of an envious childhood friend. He was at all times a warrior whose goal was conquest and whose demands could not be assuaged, except by victory.

Almost every culture has such figures in their past, men like Odysseus, King David, Muhammad and Aeneas, whose triumphs were often attained through extreme, horrific battle. Such founding figures often also display powerful streaks of sensitivity and elevated vision along with prophetic abilities; on their broad chests and battle-readiness rest the later triumphs of their civilizations. But warriors don't have to display such qualifying attributes; throughout history they are revered.

Except for now, it seems, and particularly in the West. Today we are so wary of the warrior that we would find it unthinkable to celebrate him with elaborate descriptions of the beheading or disemboweling of his enemies. Instead we think of the warrior as a fanatic, an extremist with a streak of the berserk.

In "The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West" (Basic Books), a new book in which the idea of the fanatic warrior plays a central role, Lee Harris points out that the word berserk comes from Icelandic accounts of Norse warriors of the 12th century who were so fierce in battle they fought without armor and raged like wolves. They were called "berserksgangr." These days we tend to think of all warriors as berserk.

It isn't that we don't recognize, at some level, a need for warriors. At least in our cinematic fantasies warrior heroes abound. But they are kept on a short leash; they need a license to kill. Though they keep testing constraints on acceptable behavior, when they violate them, people around them tend, as the films put it, to "die hard"; freelance warriors like those played by Bruce Willis pay a steep personal price.

It is a measure of how distant we are from the ancient Greeks, Mongols and Romans that the most complete contemporary incarnations of the warrior are supervillains. Such evildoers display, as their ancient models do, a fierce tribal loyalty; a scorn for any life that stands in their way; a blood lust that megalomaniacally affirms human expendability. "Do you expect me to talk?" James Bond asks Auric Goldfinger, who has strapped Bond to a table where a knifelike laser beam gradually approaches his crotch. The villain laughs in amazement and says: "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."

We watch these figures or read about their exploits with a certain sense of superiority. We like to think we have transcended this kind of ruthlessness; we are no longer tribally bound, but universally concerned; we don't imagine eliminating our enemies in battle, we imagine driving them to the bargaining table. The West, riven by tribal and religious wars for centuries, imagines that humanity is capable of overcoming that past. Genghis Khan has been superseded by Jimmy Carter. The world's remaining barbarians, even those in our midst, will eventually come to learn the virtues of the Enlightenment, the powers of reason and the prospects of a democratic future.

On the other hand Mr. Harris's arguments should give us pause. And his book demands close attention even by those who would mistakenly consider him another form of berserk. By taking a long view of history Mr. Harris argues that the modern view of how to vanquish enemies is based on false ideas: first, that history progresses; second, that it progresses toward greater influence of reason; and finally, that reason, through its powers, can overcome all opposition. Our smug disdain for the warrior, he suggests, is based on a mistaken view of the powers of modernity and the Enlightenment.

In Mr. Harris's view these errors are affecting the crucial confrontations now taking place between jihadists and Western liberal culture. We keep straining, he says, to see terrorists as if they were just slightly more extreme versions of ourselves, reflecting our own convictions, as if the jihadist were advocating destruction in the name of a version of liberalism.

A Palestinian blows himself up in a pizza parlor, a Shiite drives a car bomb into a crowded plaza of Sunnis (or vice versa), videotapes display beheadings and Internet sites herald massacres. Such horrific deeds are taken almost as proof of suffering, poverty, frustration. The surest cure for terrorism, the argument goes, would be to ameliorate injustice; in the meantime violence can be curbed with well-considered policing.

But Mr. Harris suggests that the jihadist is more accurately thought of as a fanatic, a warrior of the old school, whose technique has been remarkably successful over the centuries. Such warfare accepts no rules other than fealty to the tribe and accepts no compromise other than victory. Islam, he points out, has made "permanent conquests in every part of the world into which it has expanded with only three exceptions: Spain, Sicily, and certain parts of the Balkans": three areas where Islamic fanaticism was confronted with opposing fanaticism.

Mr. Harris argues that by failing to characterize Islamist warfare accurately, the West deludes itself, even employing another Enlightenment idea - tolerance - to grant harbor to those who seek to destroy it. And the West implicitly affirms that, in the end, reason will triumph.

But why? The Enlightenment had inordinate faith in itself and the evolutionary progress of history. But look closely at the few places in the world where these ideas have triumphed, Mr. Harris writes: their success is more fluke than destiny. Democracy and reason displaced warfare and fanaticism not because of their superior powers, but because of rare historical circumstances difficult to replicate (including, he argues, in Iraq). Their survival, far from being inevitable, is always tenuous; liberal societies will always need to live with war.

So Mr. Harris mounts a challenge, and even if we harbor less apocalyptic visions, that challenge is considerable. If we believe, as Mr. Harris affirms, that the societies that have arisen out of Enlightenment ideas, whatever their flaws, really are morally superior to others, if we are convinced that the values of the West are rare and crucial and fragile, then to what extent are we willing to make a stand on their behalf?

In the most extreme case, how does a liberal society embrace the practices of the warrior, which are inimical to its most fervent beliefs? Wouldn't this destroy precisely what's being defended? Mr. Harris can't fully imagine the ways in which liberal society will evolve under such circumstances, but he believes we will soon need to find out. And one way or another somebody like Genghis Khan will be involved.

Connections, a critic's perspective on arts and ideas, appears every other Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/arts/06conn.html?pagewanted=print 8/6/2007

Re: NY Times Article about Warrior cultures (Purple/Red memes)

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:35:14 -0000

Fortunately, Purple and Red stages don't have to be destructive. When it does become destructive, it's a sign that basic needs (especially physical, but relationship needs as well) are being stifled. Healthy Purple and Red - a sign of a stable foundation of physical health, sustainable access to needed resources, and healthy/peaceful/loving parents and other role models - can be seen all over the world. In the Pureple stage we learn great skills such as taking good care of one's family and friends and being self-sufficient as a community. And at the Red stage we learn how to be courageous leaders and active participants in our community.

So if a particular group is being destructive, they aren't getting through the stages properly, and need a lot of support to meet their needs, starting with clean air, water, healthy food, shelter, affection, reasonable safety, a healthy community, and good role models to help them learn how to take good care of themselves.

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Re: NY Times Article about Warrior cultures (Purple/Red memes)

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:00:57 -0000

That is all very well and good, but what do you do if that particular group wants to cut your head off with a sword, blow you up with a bomb or shoot you down in the street with a Kalishnikov. Remember one thing, none of the warrior tribes who roamed over the Eurasian landmass for more than a thousand years sat down peacefully and gave up warfare. They were met with fierce resistance, not good drinking water, food, clothing, shelter, etc.

They took what they wanted to take, the rest they destroyed. The ancient cities of Europe, Central Asia, Western Asia and East Asia are full of ruins left by these warrior cultures. You are missing the point of the article. Until these groups are dealt with, the needs you mention will be rejected by them as they tie you up and cut your head off.

We cannot ignore the lessons of history, otherwise WE will be history, and the whole world will be worse off for it. LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR. I AM NOT FOR PERMANENT WAR, ONLY STRONG AND VIGILANT DEFENSE OF WHAT WE HOLD TO BE THE BEST OF OUR CIVILIZATION, WHICH WOULD INCLUDE CLEAN AIR AND WATER, FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER, ETC. It is just that there are too many "warriors" among the people of the Middle East and Central Asia who look at our world like the Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Mongols did the Roman and Medieval world, as places to conquer and subdue.

You have a good heart and an even better soul. We need people like you, but please, and I say this as a holder of a Master's Degree in History, do not, as Harris describes, forget that these cultures want to destroy the West, not only becasue of what we have done to them, but because of what we are. Because we went through the Renaissance, Humanism, the Enlightenment and they did not. We have to also reach out to those among them that want to go through these stages as fast as they can to achieve the level of technology and stability we have achieved. If we show our mutual enemies in these cultures that we don't care about these values, then no one else will.

I suggest you do a lot of reading in historical and political texts dealing with Asia, Africa and even Latin America, although there is not much left of the warrior cultures there, that balances both the positive and negative sides of the stories their histories and politics tell. Don't just be one-sided with the peace, love and beads crowd. Being sensible and practical is the one way we can help those at the lower memes (unhealthy aspects of) move up the spiral and eventually make the leap to second tier.

A lotus for you,

Jubu

Re: good spiral dynamics test?

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:35:53 -0000

I have been aware of Spiral Dynamics (and intrigued) for a couple years, but have just begun diving deeper into real learning recently. I just took the Online People Scan, and it provided incredible insight. Additionally, I downloaded Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral from Audible.com.

Melissa

the power of worldviews

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:21:20 -0000

hey everyone - just realized this pod existed and thought i'd link you to my latest spiral dynamics inspired blogpost - the power of worldviews.

i am interested in 2 things right now:

1) finding less jargony langiuage with which to bring these ideas to a wider audience.

2) helping release the regressive green/magenta's stranglehold on SD, integral and spirituality in general...

check out the above link and let me know here or there what you think!

i look forward to browsing this interesting looking pod.

all the best
~julian

Finding SD in the news media

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:25:31 -0000

Hello all,

Do any of you read newpaper articles, magazine articles, listen to tv or radio news and think that SD explains or could make sense of what you read, heard or saw?

Do you also wonder why SD is not being discussed more in light of recent events?

Jubu

Best Turquoise book I've read (so far!)

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:33:43 -0000

I'm on holidays in Bali and my wife couldn't scrape me off the pool lounge yesterday as I read this book. It's a superb turquoise adventure. I'd value comments, especially from others who have read this book, or similar works. Cheers, Andrew Hollo Purple to Turquoise: A Review of â€œThe View From the Centre of the Universeâ€ (2006) by Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams. When I was in my early teens, I had sleepless nights because of a TV documentary about the millions of â€œinvisibleâ€ organisms which live in our hair, on our skin, and within our bodies, quite unbeknown to us. I lay awake not because I was frightened, but excited. Magnified tremendously, this broadcast showed them crawling around like dinosaurs, complete with scaly flanks and barbed tentacles. Like most boys of my generation, I was fascinated by the prospect of discovering alien life, yet here was something equally intriguing - and it was real! And right under my nose. Well, under my fingernails when I scratched myself. What if those organisms, in turn, had similar parasites? And what if they, in turn, did? Scaled in the other direction, what if we humans were blind to the fact that we existed on some giant creatureâ€™s epidermis? Which, in turn . . . well, you get the picture. These ideas lurked and never really congealed into something solid until, yesterday, I read Primack and Abramâ€™s masterful book. â€œThe View from the Center of the Universeâ€ attempts nothing less than a plain English explanation of our place in the cosmos, fusing Primackâ€™s â€˜hard scienceâ€™ astronomy with Abramâ€™s metaphorising to create a compelling Turquoise cosmology: something that builds upon purpleâ€™s creation myths, redâ€™s desire for centrality, blueâ€™s insistence on truth, orangeâ€™s quantification & testability and greenâ€™s yearning for wholeness. What impressed me most about this book were the way the authors addressed â€˜simpleâ€™ questions like, â€œWhat is a human?â€ Their answer? â€œI can trace my lineage back 14 billion years through generations of stars. My atoms were created in stars, blown out in stellar winds or massive explosions, and soared for millions of years through space to become part of a newly forming solar system - my solar system. And back before those creator stars, there was a time when the particles that at this very moment make up my body and brain were mixing in an amorphous cloud of dark matter and quarks. Intimately woven into me are billions of bits of information that had to be encoded and tested and preserved to create me. Billions of years of cosmic evolution have produced meâ€ (p. 281 italics in original) Itâ€™s hard to know to summarise a book I found unputdownable; almost every second page is dog-eared and underlined. Primack and Abrams speak through vivid images, stories and metaphors. Just one of these is the Cosmic Uborubos - picture a circular snake eating its own tail. From tail to fangs are the the 60 orders of magnitude between the smallest subatomic particles and the largest superclusters of galaxies. As humans, we are roughly halfway around and our sensory apparatus is tuned to pick up just a narrow sliver (from a millimetre or so, up to the size of large mountains). This range of 6 or so orders of magnitude are the realm which we consider â€˜realityâ€™, where â€˜common senseâ€™ works and physical intuition is reliable. The remaining 54 orders of magnitude are only available to us â€˜with assistanceâ€™: the microscope, the telescope, or mathematics and physics. Whatâ€™s any of this got to do with SD? Primack and Abrams offer a Second Tier cosmology which fuses well verified scientific theories like relativity and evolution with those less well tested yet accepted: particle physics (subatomic particles donâ€™t exist per se, they have energy states which generate probability clouds); double dark theory (dark energy and cold dark matter fill 95% of the â€˜spaceâ€™ which most of us imagine is the universe - I always thought it was a vacuum, a nothing), cosmic inflation (an explanation of how we got from the Big Bang to the irregularities which created hundreds of billions of galaxies such as our Milky Way) and the fractal theory of biological scaling (which explains why we humans canâ€™t possibly be a critter on the skin of a larger critter - theyâ€™d never be able to evolve a circulatory system large enough). So far, this sounds like a science book right? Wrong. This is where the partnership between the authors comes in. Theyâ€™re a husband and wife team who teach a course at the University of California called â€˜Cosmology and Cultureâ€™. What is a cosmology? It is â€œa social consensus on how to think about whatever is out thereâ€ (p. 19). A bit like memes. Especially v-memes. For example, a tremendously successful purple culture, which we call Ancient Egypt, developed a cosmology based upon multiple non-dogmatic myths, with no requirement for consistency. Monotheistic (blue) religions today continue to offer a view of the universe which many accept today: an omnipotent God, who inhabits some higher sphere, creates earth from the firmament and populates it. The inherent cosmology of most educated Westerners is the materialist (orange) Newtonian model: a sense of â€˜cosmic homelessnessâ€™ based on a view that we live on a small rock circling an insignificant heap of gas within an immense vacuum punctuated by other similar gaseous clouds and balls of rock. Green cosmologies also exist: they posit a universal â€˜energyâ€™ or some intangible (and unprovable) universal harmonic or pulse which we can connect with should we choose to do so. This is where Primack and Abrams shine: their move to a Second Tier cosmology which binds the scientific with the mythic. The former recognises that we have the ability, increasingly, to quantify, to test and to reason. (Some of the developments in astronomy and physics since I saw that TV documentary as a teenager 30 years ago are almost beyond belief). The latter recognises that we must develop a shared set of stories and meanings which may, one day, enable us to harness our joint efforts in the interests of saving the only planet we know of which has evolved consciousness. In a nutshell, this bookâ€™s great contribution is its ability to help us integrate cosmic ideas into our lives. Itâ€™s the most readable turquoise book Iâ€™ve found yet.

Re: Best Turquoise book I've read (so far!)

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:35:01 -0000

This certainly look like a great book, but I am curious as to why you consider it Turquoise rather than Yellow. It certainly looks solidly Yellow from the reviews I have seen so far?

Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:49:09 -0000

Hi folks, this is my first but far from last post here. Just joined. Intensive SD student and thinker.

Thought you might be interested in this mention of SD in response to this post in Vision Cafe Group.

Someone said

I think that the most challenging part of getting my vision out is getting others to understand my vision the way i do and to bend my vision in ways that everyone can understand what i want to do. the worst part about communication in the world is that no one can understand eachother. what happens when you dont understand something? well, its simple, you argue. people get scared when they have to listen to something that they dont understand or wont take the time to understand.

And I said

I so resonate with what you say. Communicating for understanding is such a challenge and so important to peace in the world. "Bending" one's vision to help people understand it, that is a great metaphor.

What I have found most useful is to study how people think and believe, and then pick my words, medium, and style of communication tailored to my listener(s) or audience. Talking to one or a few people is of course far easier than a big group, or posting to everyone.

There are many many many ways to study how people think and believe. Many of them are called "typologies" such as Jungian typology, which has many "children," one of the current ones being Meyers-Briggs Personality Theory/Test.

There is also the Enneagram, which in my opinion is just about the best system for understanding people and tailoring your communication to reach them or "land" in their understanding. There are dozens of good books about the Enneagram.

The very very best way of understanding (and communicating to) people I have found so far is called Spiral Dynamics. The best source is the book by that name, by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. It's in Amazon and our book database here. A quick summary of the system is in Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything, also from amazon and in our database here. The Spiral Dynamics book is not cheap, even used on Amazon, but can change your whole life, your whole way of relating to people and understanding yourself as well. It is very powerful and could really help you spread your vision to others, I believe.

Spiral Dynamics explains why people argue and get scared when they have to listen to something they don't or won't understand, and explains ways around that problem.

There are many other approaches to handling your challenge, but you might want to explore these. I seek to be helpful to you, that's my only purpose in this post.

Here's to our Visions !!!!!

Aloha, Rev. O.M. Bastet

Re: Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:46:30 -0000

Hey Om!

I saw this when you first posted it and I've been meaning to respond. I guess I was waiting to see what others might say, but no one else seems to be jumping aboard. Apparently, this pod isn't very active at the moment.

I tailor the way I communicate depending on who I am communicating with. I do consider such things as Spiral Dynamics and also typologies, but not in a direct way. The knowledge is there and plays out mostly in a subconscious way. I don't usually actively think about what type or meme someone is.

I haven't studied the Enneagram much, but I have studied Jungian typology very deeply moreso than I have with SD. Hanging out on various Jungian typology forums has taught me how to shift the way I'm communicating. A large percentage of discussions on Jungian typology forums are simply about how people discuss... meta-communication to an extreme level. I'm an INFP and INFPs particularly love meta-communication. When I visit an INTP board, its an entirely different world. Before visiting an INTP board, I didn't realize how significant personality could be.

I've been on some integral forums where I thought people could use some insight from personality theory. The majority of the arguments on the now closed Lightmind seemed to me to be nothing other than differences in personality styles. I've wondered for some time why personality theory doesn't get discussed much amongst integralists.

Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:32:45 -0000

This is a diverging branch of the thread titled Using SD to enhance communication of Vision. We are now getting into the potentially vast subject of comparing, contrasting, and synergizing SD with other "typological" systems, in order to enhance not just communication but just about any purpose in life.

152 members in this Group, hope others will jump in. Are you all on Notifications of posts to this Discussion Group??? Hope so !!!!

The following is my response to Marmalade's post in that thread. Please read that.

Well, orange Marmylade (haha, that's extra funny here !!!!)

You and me is gonna get some action goin' in this joint !!!!!

You said
I've wondered for some time why personality theory doesn't get discussed much amongst integralists.

And I wonder the same thing. "Type" is more than gender !!!! (I forget some of the other types Wilber mentions.) OTOH there are lots of trivial typologies out there, superficial in the sense of not really good categorizing, challenging to use and not profound in implications.

You said
The knowledge is there and plays out mostly in a subconscious way.

That's the way it should be. When I learned NLP they taught us that unless you employ your knowledge automatically from your subconscious, you haven't really "learned" it. That does pose challenges if we are asked to explain why we do something, sometimes, though, I am sure you've noticed !!!

You said
I'm an INFP and INFPs particularly love meta-communication. When I visit an INTP board, its an entirely different world. Before visiting an INTP board, I didn't realize how significant personality could be.

I don't think I am such, but I adore meta-level ANYTHING.

Now, this idea of visiting different Boards to see how the different types sound in cyberspace, in print alone, that opens new vistas for me. Could you offer some links so I can pursue this?

You said
The majority of the arguments on the now closed Lightmind seemed to me to be nothing other than differences in personality styles.

This is a very profound point and highly related to Spiral Dynamics. When people argue and it's really just personality style differences, that is typical First Tier behavior. When people get present to/disidentified with their type, then and only then can they move to 2T. That is why studying these typologies seems SOOOO IMPORTANT, to me. You cannot transcend and include your personality type in any system (and thus build your own weaknesses, use your own strengths, and communicate effectively) unless you KNOW your type in various systems.

Other miscellaneous thoughts on the subject:

The Jungian typology system I know best is the Humphrey-Osgood one in Understanding Understanding, from the '60's. I am a fairly balanced Introvert-Extrovert, Sensation-Thinking type, but with strong Feeling, and nontrivial Intuitive. I never learned how to map that system onto the currently popular further-downstream Jungian-derived Meyers-Briggs, which I think is the system you were typing yourself in.

I regard the Enneagram system as probably one of the top 3 most fundamental, most profound, and thus, most useful, but only if one studies the spiritual bases, not just the personality books. There is only one good BOOK on that, called The Spiritual Dimension of the Ennegram, by Sandra Maitri. (Her second book isn't so great, IMHO.) She has a website, http://www.sandramaitri.com/ I believe, and teaches her stuff in workshops. But even she doesn't go all the way with explicating the spiritual bases of the Enneagram. (That info is directly from Almaas, who does have web presence, and I have not read his stuff. I got it from one of his students.)

Perhaps I will create a new thread here sometime to discuss the Enneagram. Maybe do a site search first to see what else has been said here in the Community.

Other than the SD sytem and the Enneagram, I like one that I learned from some (now unavailable) spiritual teachers long ago, and have further developed myself. It is called Cosmic Essence, and is based on the observation (not idea) that each of us contains all the qualities of consciousness, such as truth, joy, intelligence, wisdom, honor, compassion, etc., but specializes in one or two. (Vaguely like soul archetypes, which is also a useful typology, especially as developed by my friend Michael Lincoln.)

I have written a long paper on Cosmic Essences, as I am currently the only one doing "readings" of this for people, but I want to get it out there and teach more people, as it is profoundly useful and healing. Our Cosmic Essence is our gift to the world, just from who we are, before any effort or action, we just radiate it. And it channels and colors all our actions. I think it's more fundamental than any other type, including soul archetypes. .

Hey, thanks for the great exchange, Marmaladekitty.

Namaste, OM Bastet

Re: Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:36:53 -0000

The discussion of typologies is a bit off-topic re SD and communication, so I have started a new thread in reply to Marmalade's post just above, called SD and Personality-Soul Typologies. Bop on over there and check it out !!

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:02:16 -0000

Marmylade? That's Marmy-poo to you!

Arrrgh! I just had one of those annoying experiences where a post disappears while typing it.

My knowledge of Jungian typology is extensive, but I don't think I've ever heard of Humphrey-Osgood or of the book Understanding Understanding. As you guessed, I'm using the MBTI system, but I'm familiar with some other ones. I find Socionics confusing and can't say I know it well.

I'd like to hear more about Humphrey-Osgood if you'd like to share. Also, I'm all ears about those other typologies you mentioned.

Here are some of the specific type forums that are all fairly active. Unfortunately, not all types equally enjoy being on forums. Its basically INPs and NTs that predominate on-line.

http://infp.globalchatter.com/

http://forums.intpcentral.com/

http://www.intjforum.com/

http://www.entp.org/discuss2/

Here is a more general forum, but it has a section for each of Kiersey's Temperaments. You can find many INFJs on this forum... and a small smattering of STs.

http://www.mbticentral.com/forums/

Also, I've seen threads with type polls on atheist forums. They tend to be mostly INTJs with INTPs as a close second, but also with a decent number of INFPs. Here is a thread I started about this at Open Source Integral.

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A5581

And here are some other related discussion threads.

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A9081

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A8863

Re: Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:16:04 -0000

I promise not to mention Marmy-poo on the GN Feature..... hahahahaha !!!!

Chance has brought me back to this thread, and I see you asked about the typology I have studied the most. Took some internet searching but here is the book I was referring to, I got the author's name wrong it's Humphry Osmond, with 2 co-authors John A. Osmundsen and Jerome Agel, and the title indeed is Understanding Understanding.

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?title=Understanding+understanding&titlex=Understanding+Understanding&author=Osmond%2C+Humphry%2C+and+Osmundsen%2C+John+A.&authorx=Humphrey+Osmond

There are just four types: Sensation, Thinking, Feeling, Intuitive, with extravert and intravert for both. People are classified by their top and second, and I or E. I immersed myself in it, with several friends, and we lived and breathed it for several years, so it got deep into my psyche...

There are many more fundamental (and thus more powerful) typologies I have discovered since then -- the Enneagram, left-right brain, Cosmic Essences, and Spiral Dynamics -- but this was my first introduction to the concept of "experiential world" so it was foundational to my thinking ever since then, 1974-ish (I think we discovered it when it was quite new.)

I never bothered to learn the Jungian system this one is based on....

Thanks for all the many links. I look forward to when the Flow brings me to explore them !

Blessings, OM Bastet