Steve McIntosh on “Evolutionary Enlightenment”
by Tom HustonIntegral philosopher Steve McIntosh weighs in on EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen’s new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening…
Andrew Cohen’s important new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment, demonstrates spiritual evolution on every page. Rooted in the venerable soil of Eastern nondual teachings, while simultaneously expressing an emerging new form of evolutionary spirituality, Cohen’s insights provide rich nourishment for the discerning seeker. Evolutionary Enlightenment clarifies what it means to transcend one’s ego and sheds new light on the true nature of the self. Moreover, this deep yet accessible book effectively integrates the science of evolution and the new integral philosophy of development into a livable form of spirituality that will transform all who practice it.
Even though my personal spirituality is rooted more in the Western theistic tradition than the Eastern nondual tradition, I nevertheless find Cohen’s teachings to be compatible with my own sense of spiritual truth. And I am especially grateful for his discussion of cultural evolution in Part IV of the book, with its emphasis on using our spirituality to catalyze the emergence of a higher form of civilization. Cohen himself has evolved considerably since his last book was published ten years ago, and his current teachings now reflect the leading edge of spiritual evolution in our society. Evolutionary Enlightenment is a modern-day masterpiece—a splendid contribution to the new field of evolutionary spirituality.
—Steve McIntosh, author of Evolution’s Purpose, and Integral Consciousness
John Bunzl is a successful UK businessman with a simple yet powerful idea for how to practically address difficult international issues like climate change. It’s called Simultaneous Policy (“Simpol” for short), “a peaceful political strategy to democratically drive all the world’s nations to apply global solutions to global problems.” Sound interesting? It did to us, too. So after meeting Bunzl at EnlightenNext’s Midsummer Renaissance Festival in London this past July, we began to explore some of his fascinating “integral” critiques of progressive politics and the controversial idea of global governance.
In anticipation of her appearance at the EnlightenNext Midsummer Renaissance Festival in London on July 30-31, 2011, Dr. Elizabeth Debold, senior editor of EnlightenNext magazine, wrote a short, provocative piece for The Guardian that began, somewhat pointedly and rather tongue-in-cheek, with her proposal that women are at risk of turning back the clock by participating in a dangerous trend—the refusal to take leadership and actively engage in creating cultural change:
