The Theme for IEC 2022:
World Peace with the Integral Approach
As we gather to share our integrally informed perspectives, we have a unique opportunity to reflect on the topic of world peace—as a core question of humanity and also as a higher vision of evolutionaries—and the integral approach.
We might nurture a dream of a higher-stage humanity, where people are living in planetary peace enacting their higher selves. Many of us might have had peak experiences that show what is possible, and which make it even more difficult to understand why we still have wars on Earth.
We will focus not only on the war in Ukraine, the most recent and unsettling war today on the European continent. Many have thought such aggression unimaginable in the 21st century. We will also look at other war zones such as Syria, Afghanistan, and several African countries, and contemplate the issue of peace both locally and globally.
The integral approach might help us understand and make meaning of what is happening, and how the different aspects of human culture can be seen as parts of a whole: political, economic, ecological, psychological, and historical perspectives and perspectives from the global North, South, East and West, to name but a few. It can help us find out how we can facilitate our individual and collective growth to create a future where we can all live our higher selves and achieve world peace. The integral approach helps us take a closer look at the topic.
What is world peace and what would it look like?
Might there be different answers to this question at different stages of development?
How does peace look at each stage of development?
How can we design systems from an integral stage perspective that allow people at different stages to live together in peace, freedom, and solidarity?
We can look at peace within the different quadrants, see how higher states of consciousness are related to inner peace, and look into how inner states can help achieve outer peace in the world. We can take into account the lines (such as cognitive, ethical, spiritual, etc.) and the types, both in individuals and in collectives such as cultures and nations.
What does a peaceful world look like if we grow up, wake up, clean up, and show up? What can we achieve as one united humanity in a world at peace?
These are just some questions that are drawn from integral theory, but there are many other important viewpoints from the areas of psychology, trauma, and healing, to spirituality, finances, economics, politics, sustainability, and other aspects of planetary life.
Come and be with us in person or online via zoom!
This year we have designed a hybrid format that combines online and live events.
Please read more about the Hybrid format to understand what it means and what are your options to join.
What does IEC mean, and is it local or global?
IEC stands for Integral European Conference, as these gatherings started in Europe in 2014, eight years ago. At that time, there were also major integral conferences held in the USA, and inspired by that, leading integralists on the European continent joined forces and organized the first IEC in 2014 to create a continental gathering particularly focused on integral theorists and practitioners from any one of the fifty-one European countries, with guests from other continents as well.
Over the years, IEC has grown from being a European “local” conference to become the main global venue of the integral world, where integral experts and others interested in this approach can meet and exchange their latest findings. Due to its free, experiential, and fun nature, this conference is at the same time like a deeply meaningful holiday, and an opportunity for transformational personal growth.
What are the qualities of IEC gatherings?
At integral conferences, participants experience a high concentration of presence and awareness, as well as a very stimulating and high quality intellectual environment. “It is just impossible to have a boring conversation here,” is how Dr. Roger Walsh, renowned transpersonal and integral psychologist, put it. At these conferences, people have a positive openness towards each other, and besides enjoying an intellectual feast, they are also ready to open up, play, and engage in deeper experiential processes together. It is a purposeful, colorful, and fun community to be with.
What is the integral approach about?
One important aspect is the evolutionary orientation of positive growth: seeing the developmental potentials of people, organizations, and humanity at large that unfold in stages. In the integral view, evolution occurs not only in the objective, physical, exterior world as natural science has it, but also in the subjective interiors as psychology and spirituality describe it, and the integral framework helps connect the two. Thus, science, psychology, and spirituality are no longer separated but integrated, translated into what we call the four quadrants, the matrix of our interiors and exteriors, the individual and the collective.
Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, a meta-theory that integrates over a hundred schools of psychology, spirituality, philosophy, sociology, and other human sciences, serves as a common denominator and theoretical reference point for IEC, because we consider it to be the most encompassing approach we know of today. Besides the expert Ken Wilber, IEC also brings together many other experts and practitioners from the evolutionary and developmental worlds. Thus, IECs are open and welcoming to people with all sorts of varying points of view.
A useful metaphor for IEC might be a wide-open „tent,” where people with many evolutionary and developmental approaches gather, and where Wilber’s Integral Theory is the „central pole.” The overarching tent canvas houses many other „tribes” from around the globe, all coming together to share knowledge and have transformative experiences.
People and organizations who have come together at IECs are, to name just a few:
Susanne Cook-Greuter and Associates with Vertical Development; Integral Coaching Canada and many other coaches and organizational developers; Terri O’Fallon and Kim Barta with STAGES;
Integral Facilitators from Ten Directions with Diane Hamilton; Robert Kegan, developmental psychologist from Harvard; Stanislav Grof, Dr. Roger Walsh, Gabor Matè and other transpersonal psychologists, and many other psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, coaches, and counselors; migrant, refugee, and torture victim healers; medical doctors and alternative medical practitioners;
Don Beck and colleagues with the Gravesian-based Spiral Dynamics community; Frederic Laloux’s Teal world including Brian Robertson with Holocracy; Torbert’s Action Inquiry Leadership world; Otto Scharmer with his Theory U and Presencing for individual and societal change from MIT;
Thomas Hübl and his community; Tom Steininger and Elizabeth Debold from Evolve and One World in Dialogue; Circling Europe and the global Circling community; John Dupuy and the whole team from iAwake Technologies; Non Violent Communication; environmental activists;
Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and other yoga people; followers of Jean Gebser’s worldview stages; Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan Buddhists; Christians and Christian mystics; followers of Sufism, the mystic tradition of Islam; native Hungarian shamans and other shamanic traditions and energetic approaches; near-death experience experts;
Enneagram experts; next stage technology and AI people; collective consciousness and We-Space practitioners like Integral Flow and other Constellation methods; ecology and sustainability practitioners; artists, painters, musicians, and actors inspired by the integral approach – all these and many others join together at IECs. Contributions range from academic presentations to general lectures, a great variety of experiential workshops, transformative processes, and all-community socializers.
