FERRER, Jorge

(Spain)

Title of contribution:

The Transpersonal – Integral Dialogue            

An Integral-Participatory Vision of Spiritual Evolution (Acad)

Where & when:

Toscana (Main)
Saturday, 26th 10:30-11:00

Ibiza I.
Saturday, 26th 12:00-14:00

An Integral-Participatory Vision of Spiritual Evolution (Acad)

A legion of scholars and religious figures—from Kukai to Zaehner to Wilber to the current Dalai Lama—situate different spiritual goals as steps toward what they consider to be the ultimate realization (e.g., God, nonduality, emptiness). These hierarchical gradations of traditions are arguably prey of spiritual narcissism, understood as deep-seated belief in the universal superiority of one’s favored spiritual choice, path, or account of ultimate reality. This presentation explores how to avoid spiritual narcissism and sectarianism in spiritual evolutionary models without falling in pernicious relativisms. Eschewing dubious equations among spiritual paths and ultimates, participatory integralism embraces a “more relaxed” spiritual universalism—one that affirms an undetermined mystery as the creative source of the multiverse’s manifold spiritual worlds, while simultaneously providing resources for discernment in spiritual matters. The presentation concludes with a number of strategies to minimize—perhaps even overcome—spiritual narcissism and sectarianism in spiritual evolutionary models.

About Jorge Ferrer

Jorge N. Ferrer, Ph.D., is core faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco. He is the author of Participation and the Mystery: Transpersonal Essays in Psychology, Education, and Religion and coeditor of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies. Advisor to Religions for Peace at the United Nations on global interreligious conflict. Jorge is a San Pedrista (wachumero) who has studied entheogenic shamanism for more than two decades.