Two Decades. A Thousand Conversations. One Integral Journey.

From Ken Wilber’s earliest dialogues to today’s explorations of the global Metacrisis and The Transformation Age, our ever-growing library offers the most complete story of human wholeness available online. Welcome on this transformative path.

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Integral Basics

25+ posts

Whether you’re new to Integral or returning for a refresher, this collection is your doorway into how Integral Theory works, with core teachings from Ken Wilber, Jeff Salzman, Corey deVos, Roger Walsh, and others.

Editor's Picks

90+ posts

Some of the very best practices, perspectives and presentations available in the Integral Life archives.

World Affairs

140+ posts

In this collection, you’ll explore the global Metacrisis and the deep causal structures behind the geopolitical, economic, and ecological challenges of our civilization.

Psychology

140+ posts

In one of our biggest and richest collections, you’ll navigate the human psyche in all its complexity—motivations, drives, shadows, traumas, relationships, practices, and much more.

Perspectives View all

What AI Wants From Us

What AI Wants From Us

Robert MacNaughton   August 21, 2026  
Robert McNaughton is an engineer by training who went to Naropa for music and contemplative psychology, and has followed AI for more than twenty years from two seats at once — cognitive science and contemplative practice. He and Keith Martin-Smith work through what right relationship with a technology nobody designed actually asks of us: the risks worth naming precisely, the ones we invent when we are frightened, and the human capacities that just became the scarce resource.
The Many Ways We Grow

The Many Ways We Grow

Ken Wilber   August 18, 2026  
Ken Wilber and Corey deVos offer a guided tour through the many kinds of growing up, helping us understand development not as a single ladder we ascend over time, but as an entire psychograph of different intelligences, capacities, and gifts. Whereas most developmental models focus on a single line unfolding through multiple stages, integral accounts for all of these different lines — cognitive, morals, needs, values, and a dozen others, each growing at their own pace.
The Two Moral Minds

The Two Moral Minds

Dr. Keith Witt   August 12, 2026  
Integral psychologist Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos explore the moral operating systems running underneath every judgment you make — the reflexive system you were born with, the discriminative system almost no one uses, and the eighty thousand years it took for moral authority to move from the tribe, to the temple, to the inner chambers of your own heart.
Kosmos: An Integral Voyage

Kosmos: An Integral Voyage

Ken Wilber   August 3, 2026  
Ken Wilber and Corey deVos ponder the evolutionary mysteries of the universe, speculating on how abundant life might be in the kosmos, why we haven’t met any of our galactic neighbors yet, and what might happen if a UFO landed on the White House lawn.
Holons: The Building Blocks of the Universe

Holons: The Building Blocks of the Universe

Corey deVos   July 24, 2026  
A fun, fascinating, and far-reaching exploration of one of the essential cornerstones of integral theory — holons, or the apparently endless series of “part/wholes” that fundamentally compose reality as we know it. Accompanied by music, imagery, and animation, this presentation will not only help you better understand what a holon actually is (and what it isn’t!) but also how this understanding can radically deepen your appreciation for the natural world.
Already Home: What Happens After Awakening

Already Home: What Happens After Awakening

JP Jakonen   July 21, 2026  
JP Jakonen woke up out of himself at thirteen in a sauna dressing room and had to remember his own name to get back. He and Keith Martin-Smith trade stories about early awakenings nobody had language for, the therapy and shadow work that had to come afterward, and the joy that arrives once you stop taking your life so personally.
The 100-State Meditation

The 100-State Meditation

Dr. Keith Witt   July 13, 2026  
Integral psychologist Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos guide us through a deeply personal hundred-state meditation — a sweeping integral practice that moves through love, emptiness, chakras, archetypal encounter, and cosmic awareness to reveal how repeated spiritual practice can reshape the pathways of consciousness itself.

Podcast Series

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Dr. Keith Witt

Licensed Psychologist, teacher, and author

Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos explore the rich terrain of the integral mind.
Evolving Spirit Series Banner

Kimberley Lafferty

Teacher, practitioner

Kimberley Lafferty explores the often unspoken world of spiritual experiences—those profound, extraordinary moments that connect us to something beyond the ordinary. Reflecting on her own journey and cultural taboos around sharing such experiences, Kimberley invites us to break the silence, embrace vulnerability, and discover the transformative power of sharing our stories.

Integral Edge Series Banner

Keith Martin-Smith

Award-winning author, writing coach, and Zen priest

Keith Martin-Smith brings a deep, multi-perspective lens to the chaos, cutting through the noise to find what actually matters. This isn’t just another commentary on the world. It’s a guide to seeing—and living—beyond the divide.

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Ken Wilber

Philosopher, writer, creator of Integral Theory

In Zen Buddhism, the word kensho describes a sudden glimpse or insight into the nature of reality. At Integral Life, the “Ken Show” intends to offer you a very similar opportunity.

Recorded between 2018–2023, these are some of the most important and far-reaching dialogues in Integral Life’s history.

How to Think Integrally

How to Think Integrally

Ken Wilber   September 19, 2018  
Ken and Corey explore some of the major qualities of integral thinking at the “vision logic” or “construct aware” stages of development.
The Major and Minor Scales of Integral Politics

The Major and Minor Scales of Integral Politics

Ken Wilber   November 13, 2018  
Ken Wilber and Corey deVos take an in-depth look at the “major and minor scales” of integral politics — an inventory of the most critical elements, polarities, and patterns of self-organization that are at play within all of the major political systems across the world, from the rise of civilization to today.
The Baby and the Bathwater: Saving Liberalism

The Baby and the Bathwater: Saving Liberalism

Ken Wilber   January 17, 2019  
In this episode of The Ken Show we explore five themes near and dear to the liberal heart — tolerance, nonviolence, power, privilege, and gender — celebrating the healthy aspects of each that we want to include in a more integral embrace, while weeding out the unhealthy regressive narratives that most of these have devolved into.
On the Front Line of the Culture War — Give Me Some Real Examples, Not Just Theories!

On the Front Line of the Culture War — Give Me Some Real Examples, Not Just Theories!

Ken Wilber   February 15, 2019  
Watch as Ken and Corey offer their views on some of the most controversial policy debates of our time, each of which has become a battle line in our constantly escalating culture wars.
The Four Quadrants: A Guided Tour

The Four Quadrants: A Guided Tour

Ken Wilber   March 20, 2020  
Ken and Corey take a in-depth tour through one of Ken’s most well-known contributions to integral philosophy: the Four Quadrants. Watch as Ken shares his personal story about the origins of the Four Quadrant model — the day everything came together — as he weaves 3rd-person theoretical descriptions of the model with his own 1st-person experience and creative process.
Integrating Shadow

Integrating Shadow

Ken Wilber   July 16, 2020  
Ken and Corey offer a stunning overview of the psychological shadow. Ken describes several different kinds of shadow, how shadow can show up differently in all four quadrants, and the relationship between shadow, violence, and social transformation.
Ken Wilber Goes to High School: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

Ken Wilber Goes to High School: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

Ken Wilber   September 28, 2021  
In this very special episode of The Ken Show we are joined by Aissatou Diallo, Zoe Tray, and Noah Delorme, students at Choate Rosemary Hall who have been studying Ken Wilber’s seminal book, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality for their senior year project. Watch as Ken, Aissatou, Zoe, and Noah unpack many of the core insights of SES and discuss the unique value Integral work holds for a new generation of thinkers, leaders, artists, and scholars.
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Witt & Wisdom Series Banner

Robb Smith

Founder of IAM, Co-founder of Integral Life

Series of written articles and accompanying webcasts that Robb Smith hosts for the Integral Life community in real-time as the Great Release unfolds, giving rise to the Transformation Age.
Inhabit Series Banner

Ryan Oelke

Co-founder of Buddhist Geeks, teacher

Practice-based series with Ryan Oelke and Corey deVos, designed to help you embody your own unique expression of integral being and more fully inhabit the territory of your life, your relationships, and your world.

Integral Edge Series Banner

Mark Fischler

Professor of Criminal justice

Join Mark Fischler and Corey deVos as they bring integral justice into focus on today’s pressing cultural, legal, and societal issues.

Integral Edge Series Banner

Lisa Frost

Integral Master Coach, facilitator

Between 2021 and 2023, Lisa Frost and Corey deVos recorded a podcast series that continues to offer timeless guidance for deepening Integral Life Practice, with powerful ways to Wake Up, Grow Up, Clean Up, and Show Up in life, relationships, and work.

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Developmental coach Keith Martin-Smith and integral scholar JP Jakonen trade awakening stories — a satori in a sauna, a breakdown in a kitchen — and land on what actually matters once the self is seen through: cleaning up your shadow, and remembering to enjoy the joke. This is a conversation for anyone who has tasted awakening and asked, "…now what?" Waking up isn't the finish line — it leaves the conditioned self, with all its traumas and blind spots, fully intact. Keith and JP map the work that remains: waking up, cleaning up, and the part most teachers skip — joying up. Drawing on Ken Wilber's Integral model, Zen koans, and the Fourth Way, they explore why suffering is mostly the conviction that "someone's home," how nonduality meets shadow work, and JP's teacher Junpo's charge: "Do not fail to awaken — and do not fail to live." --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
What Happens After Awakening? | Keith Martin-Smith & JP Jakonen | Integral Edge #20
Corey breaks down self-development as a sequential awakening into new “views” of reality: early on, everything is fused in a first-person inner experience, and over time we differentiate “me” from “not-me,” then recognize objective outer reality, shared culture, and finally larger systems. The punchline is that growth isn’t just separating these influences—it’s reintegrating them with ownership: this is my mind, my body, my culture, my society. That integration creates a fuller identity and even reshapes our autobiographical story—sometimes with one detail that reorganizes the whole “stack.” Excerpted from "Authoring Your Life Story: The Hero’s Journey and You" Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/authoring-your-life-story-the-heros-journey-and-you/ #SelfDevelopment #IntegralTheory #FourQuadrants #PersonalGrowth #Identity #SelfAwareness #DevelopmentalPsychology #ShadowWork #NarrativeIdentity #WittAndWisdom
How Your “Self” Is Built: Quadrants + Development
Keith Martin-Smith opens a new run of AI talks by wrestling with Abby Awomosu's provocative essay "Your Imagination Was Always Empire's Last Frontier," which argues the empires of AI aren't after your work or your reasoning — they're after the part of you that dreams. Keith takes the argument seriously, praises what's true in it, then maps exactly where it overreaches, using an integral lens that refuses both the doomer and the evangelist. Along the way: why a faculty left idle goes quiet, the delicious irony of an anti-AI essay written by AI, the case for modernity's gifts alongside its harms, the shadow hidden inside a righteous critique, and what "conscious participation" with AI actually looks like. AI is our child — carrying our brilliance and our greed in equal measure, a tool whose worth reflects the skill of the hand that wields it. Whether you're an AI skeptic, an enthusiast, or somewhere in the confused middle, this talk offers a way to hold the whole picture without collapsing into fear or hype. 0:00 Highlights 0:49 Introduction 2:53 Part One: The Writing Style 4:39 Part Two: The Steelman 12:02 Part Three: The Boogeyman 21:12 Part Four: The Projection 24:48 Part Five: The Integration --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Is AI Stealing Your Imagination?
We're being handed false choices every day — the worst of one side pitted against the worst of the other. Here's the skill that lets you see through it. Start free with our brand-new polarity primer, Two Sides of Every Truth (about 30 min, no experience needed) → https://integrallife.com/polarities-two-sides-of-every-truth In this clip from the latest Witt & Wisdom, Corey DeVos breaks down what political polarization really is — and unveils the full toolkit behind Integral Life's "Summer of Polarities," including a live demo of the Debate Analyzer on a real Christian nationalism debate. More from this clip: The Polarity Engine — AI tool that maps any polarity (Core members) → https://integrallife.com/polarity-engine Polarity Lab with Nomali Perera — live 5-month course, starts July 18 → https://integrallife.com/polarity-lab The Debate Analyzer → https://integrallife.com/debate-analysis-index/ Watch the full episode → --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
The Antidote to Political Polarization
Waking up was supposed to fix everything. So why did it fall apart? Zen priest and former psychotherapist Chad Bennett sits down with Keith Martin-Smith to dismantle one of the most seductive ideas in spiritual life: that if you just awaken deeply enough, the rest of you will sort itself out. It won't. Enlightenment doesn't clean up after you. In this conversation, two old Dharma brothers explore why waking up, growing up, and cleaning up have to be practiced as a single braid — not three separate projects. They get into why telling someone they're whole when they feel broken only makes it worse, what a "frozen part" of you is actually guarding, why most people don't try hard enough, and what it really means to befriend your own experience in a culture that's forgotten how to be friends. Equal parts teaching, live practice, and the easy warmth of genuine friendship. In this episode: - Why awakening collapses without integration - The two-part meditation Chad guides live on the call - Including your experience vs. indulging it - "Most people don't try hard enough" — the right kind of effort - What is a friend? (and why so few people can answer) --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Integral Edge: Waking Up Was the Easy Part
In this free excerpt from Witt & Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt, Nomali Perera, and Corey deVos explore why the Enneagram is much more than a personality typing system. Rather than reducing us to one of nine boxes, the Enneagram can help reveal the deeper patterns, defenses, gifts, fixations, and longings that shape our lives. Keith explains why the Enneagram stands out among typologies: it includes psychology, development, relationship, pathology, and spirituality in a single dynamic map. Corey raises the skeptical question of whether systems like the Enneagram work partly because we project ourselves into them, while Keith and Nomali explore how that “mirror” can become a powerful tool for self-knowledge. Together, they show how the Enneagram helps us see through our personality — not to reject it, but to hold it more lightly, understand our patterns more clearly, and reconnect with the deeper wholeness beneath the type. --- Excerpted from Holy Fools: The Enneagram Beyond Personality https://integrallife.com/holy-fools-the-enneagram-beyond-personality/ --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
The Integral Enneagram: Beyond Personality
This clip explores a key developmental shift in how we perceive the “meta-crisis” or “polycrisis.” At the green stage, we gain the ability to see: - Complex adaptive systems - Cultural patterns like sexism and bias - Subtle dynamics shaping society But there’s a limitation. Green can see systems in the world—but it struggles to see itself as a system. Teal introduces a deeper level of awareness: the ability to recognize that even our perspectives, identities, and interpretations are constructed by the mind. This shift—from seeing systems to seeing the frame that sees—is a major turning point in human development. --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
A Developmental Understanding of Complex Adaptive Systems
What if the global metacrisis isn’t just something happening out there in the world — but something each of us is actively participating in? In this episode of Integral Edge, Keith Martin-Smith sits down with Dr. John Churchill to explore one of the most pressing and perplexing questions of our time: how do we make sense of a world where every major challenge seems interconnected, accelerating, and beyond any single solution? From climate change and AI disruption to cultural fragmentation and rising loneliness, we are no longer dealing with isolated problems. We are facing a polycrisis — a complex web of systems that can only be understood through a shift in how we see reality itself. And the problem is, even our most advanced ways of thinking may not be enough. Drawing on developmental frameworks, Keith and John unpack the critical transition from green to teal consciousness—a shift from seeing complex systems in the world to recognizing that we ourselves are part of those systems. Where green can identify patterns of bias, inequality, and interdependence, teal begins to see that even our perspectives, identities, and interpretations are constructed frameworks of the mind. This opens the door to a more radical question: Is the meta-crisis something we can fix—or is it revealing the limits of the mindset that tries to fix it? Together, they explore: - Why modern problems can no longer be solved in isolation - The difference between systems thinking and self-reflexive awareness - How labeling something a “crisis” shapes how we relate to it - The role of the “heart-mind” in navigating complexity - Why integration—not elimination—is the key to development - And what it means to participate consciously in a world that is rapidly evolving This is not a conversation about easy answers. It’s an invitation to see more clearly—to recognize the lenses through which we interpret reality, and to consider what might emerge when those lenses themselves become visible. Because the future may not depend on how we fix the world, but on how deeply we learn to understand the multiple ways of seeing it. --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Seeing Through the Metacrisis | with John Churchill
A single photograph. A human being floating in space, looking back at Earth through a capsule window. And in that image — every thought ever thought, every life ever lived, every moment of love or ambition or grief our species has ever known. This is what 4 billion years of evolution looks like when it finally sees itself whole. #Space #Overview #Evolution #Consciousness #Awe #Earth #Astronaut #Philosophy #IntegralLife #WittAndWisdom #SpaceExploration #Meaning #HumanEvolution #CosmicPerspective #MindBlown Excerpted from Expanding Reality: Inner Space, Outer Space, and the Spaces In Between: https://integrallife.com/expanding-reality-inner-space-outer-space-and-the-spaces-in-between/ --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
The Most Profound Image in 50 Years
What does a moon launch have to do with your worldview? More than you think. In this excerpt from Witt & Wisdom, Corey DeVos and Dr. Keith Witt use a live demonstration of integral theory — applied directly to space exploration — to show how a genuinely complete map of reality transforms the way we understand anything. From the Copernican Revolution to the "blue marble" photograph to the overview effect that astronauts reliably report when they first see Earth from space, every great leap outward has also been a leap inward — a developmental earthquake that changed not just what we know, but who we are. Along the way: why the four-quadrant model ends the endless wars between competing schools of thought, why we lost the political will to return to the moon within five years of landing there, and what it actually means that a single human being can escape the gravity of this planet and look back at every thought, every life, every moment of beauty or grief our species has ever known — all contained in one luminous sphere. Excerpted from Expanding Reality: Inner Space, Outer Space, and the Spaces In Between: https://integrallife.com/expanding-reality-inner-space-outer-space-and-the-spaces-in-between/ --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Cosmos, Consciousness, Connection
What's the difference between a flow state and a fear state — and how do you know which one is actually running your life? In this excerpt from Witt & Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos explore one of the most important — and least examined — questions in human performance: are you driven by your deepest values, or by a much older anxiety you've never quite looked at directly? Keith introduces a practical framework for distinguishing integrative motivation (acting from genuine purpose) from compensatory motivation (performing to avoid something you're afraid of) — and invites you to feel the difference in your own body, right now. Corey then gets personal — tracing his own 23-year integral career through this lens, naming the childhood wounds and feelings of not-belonging that quietly fueled his early drive, and reflecting on what it looks like when compensatory energy finally gives way to something more genuinely abundant. The conversation closes on a rarely discussed idea: that real growth isn't just about climbing to new heights — it's also about going back to recover what you left behind. If you've ever suspected that your best work might be coming from the wrong place, this one is for you. --- Excerpted from "What’s Really Driving You? The Hidden Psychology of High Performers" https://integrallife.com/whats-really-driving-you-the-hidden-psychology-of-high-performers/ --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Fear State, or Flow State?
Why does woke culture so often seem to undermine its own best intentions — and what would it actually look like for it to finish what it started? In this excerpt from a longer seminar, meta-theorist Mark Edwards applies a powerful and largely overlooked lens from Ken Wilber's early work to one of the most polarizing cultural phenomena of our time. His argument cuts against both the left and the right: cancel culture, language policing, and moral absolutism are not signs that the woke movement has gone too far — they are signs that it hasn't gone far enough. Drawing on decades of work in organizational psychology, integral theory, and DEI practice, Edwards maps the developmental arc that woke culture is trying to complete, explains precisely where and why it gets stuck, and articulates what a more mature expression of the same emancipatory impulse would actually look like. If you find yourself frustrated with woke culture — or frustrated with its critics — this conversation is for you. Watch the full 2-hour presentation here: "Woking Up: Why Woke Culture Doesn’t Go Far Enough" https://integrallife.com/woking-up-why-woke-culture-doesnt-go-far-enough/ --- Free Email Course on Building Your Integral Life: https://integrl.link/course Our website: https://integrl.link/site Participate in our daily Integral Life Practice sessions: https://integrl.link/calendar Follow our news on Facebook: https://integrl.link/fb Integral thoughts on Twitter: https://integrl.link/tw
Where Woke Goes Wrong (And Where It Doesn't Go Far Enough)
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