McIntosh begins his book with some ambitious promises. Published in December 2007, Integral Consciousness is his first book and, in it, he spends 342 pages - in three parts - helping readers `wire up their brains' to adopt the `new' worldview of integral consciousness. He says that this worldview - or `higher state of consciousness' - creates a larger and more complex experiential awareness that means the reader will see things they didn't see before. And, that's not all: "more energy for life, more compassion for others, more personal power and strategic wisdom". And, before I forget, the ability to participate in a cultural revolution that is as profound as the Enlightenment was a few hundred years ago. Not bad for $26.95 and a couple of days of reading, huh?
I judge the success of the book like McIntosh's if it can `pace and lead' me to three things:
provide me with a different description of concepts I already know, in this case, the stages of consciousness and culture originally discerned by Clare Graves and refined into the body of work known as Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Chris Cowan;
explain and clarify ideas that I've formerly felt confused by. Here, McIntosh provides a very cogent explanation of the dialectical nature of the spiral of development. Also, for someone like me who's quarter-read several of Ken Wilber's books, McIntosh has done the hard work and provides helpful and clear explanations of holons, the AQAL model, and Wilber's conception of lines and levels of development.
create some a-ha! moments. For me, this occurred with McIntosh's work in linking the cognitive (objective), emotional (subjective) and moral (inter-subjective) in a way which completely transformed my conception of values-memes (although he writes the entire book without using the concept of the meme at all).
McIntosh has several agendas with this book and, to my mind, he succeeds with some better than others. He is an `independent scholar', a philosopher in the 18th Century style: those "gentlemen of leisure" whose curiosity took them rambling across the (then) ill-formed landscapes of what would become The Sciences. McIntosh traverses philosophy, history and philosophy of science, psychology, evolutionary biology and spirituality - and ends up firmly in politics. His PR agent advised him to focus the public attention for the book on his message that integral consciousness will (eventually) create a form of global governance (shrewdly topical in that McIntosh and his countrymen will be electing a new President shortly). He gives an entire chapter and an Appendix to this concept and has gone so far as writing a "Declaration of the Values of Governance". This is in keeping with McIntosh's (second tier) belief that we are on the cusp of a transcendent shifts in consciousness which will naturally play out in the political arena, just as the orange v-meme played out in the late 18th century in France, the USA and England.
Now, for the things I like less about the book. There's a strong purposeful stance i.e., that evolutionary consciousness is directed toward something. To quote McIntosh, "Ultimately, I think there is a `unity of truth' about the real nature of spiritual reality, and as we ascend I trust we will all come to know this truth in its fullness" (p. 231). McIntosh is wisely guarded about his own spiritual views, although at one point confesses that the teachings of Jesus are those which appeal to him the most. I'm not convinced by McIntosh (or anyone else for that matter) that there are comprehensible `truths' out there, even when our consciousness has evolved beyond the post-integral stage. This position seems at odds with his otherwise well-formulated view of humanity's construction of reality based upon a dialectical spiral of consciousness and culture.
Almost as a footnote, I also question the structure of the book. While McIntosh provides sound justification for the two distinct parts and two Appendices, there's an ultimate failure of unity. There's just too much going on here, I fear. As a comprehensive summary (re-read the subtitle) perhaps that was his aim. I'd also have liked better footnoting and endnotes. But they're mere quibbles in judging a book that is very clearly the summit of McIntosh's labours over many years.
For anyone who has an interest in any of the topics he covers (spirituality, politics, integral theory, cultural evolution, developmental psychology) this is a well-researched, nicely balanced exposition of the key thinking in the world today - with useful original contributions from McIntosh himself. It certainly fulfilled the task of rewiring some segments of my brain, and refurbishing some existing - and decidedly dodgy - electrical work. And, over the coming days, weeks and months, I'll look for evidence of greater energy, power, wisdom, compassion as well!
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