Tim: Great article. I’ve been trying to apply Wilber’s model to some recent experiences, and I’ve been coming up short… despite the fact that I probably know Wilber’s model better than anyone else under the age of 25. This helps me out a lot. As for the “stages”, well, Wilber admits that they’re fictions- nobody is really “at” a given stage, as such, which makes them similiar to the forementioned Qabalistic sephiroth- they’re imaginary “fulcrums” in what is really a spectrum-model.

Dominant masculinist purpose - a natural extension of the Western, imperialist, colonial enterprise, in other words. And, I would say that anyone who openly declares that they want to be the “Einstein of the consciousness movement”, pretty much disqualifies themselves from the task right then and there.

i think alot of the nationalistic stuff actually more accurately goes in blue and not purple. the purple stuff is home to a lot of the racist material that allows us to dehumanise brown people cause they’re not like white america, and helps expalin the kind of disconnect between the number of african americans who have family in military service vs the number of white and so forth, which is a strong undercurrent to the war on terror. on the purple level its the war on other races, and their ways. it’s partly how the nazis got that kind of primitive blood and soil mysticism, too. fetishising the race as it were.

most of the nationalistic stuff is more accurately under blue and the ‘mythic order’ of america, which is also how the fundamentalist chrisitan thing is so easily conflated with the mythic america thing, and not the orange rational enlightenment level, which holds the ideals of america as laid forth by the constituion, but the mythic level is older and stronger.

it’s kind of fun once you understand the framework well enough to play with it. that’s why i wonder why people have problems with wilber. his system actually gives you more room to play with things if you look at it the right way.