Can we deliberately employ the non-local properties of mind in creativity, business and education? I recently argued that we can in an article published in the Journal of Nonlocality. Here is the full version of the article, with links up front.
J. Nonlocality: Special Issue on Psi and Nonlocal Mind, 2017
Integrated Intelligence as Practice: Ideas, Insight and Inspiration Marcus T. Anthony
Bryant College, Beijing Institute of Technology (Zhuhai)
The PDF file of this article can be found here:
Absract: Inspiration and insight in the sciences, education, business and arts are typically assumed to be founded upon neuro-centric cognitive processes. Personal experience and sensory data are often believed to be all that an individual may draw upon in the creative process. Yet the idea of non-local mind invites us to consider the possibility that inspiration and insight may utilize information and experience beyond that of the individual, and beyond the present moment, drawing upon past, present and future information fields. This paper highlights reports and deliberate invocations of non-local mind, including several current applications in the field of Critical Futures Studies. Some of the common tools and applications are briefly described. Finally, this paper identifies some of the typical problems that may arise from deliberate activation of the extended mind. The argument is situated within Anthony’s theory of integrated intelligence.
Integrated intelligence yesterday and today
Integrated Intelligence is the deliberate employment in problem-solving of a wide range of human cognitive abilities spanning not only the scientifically accepted, neuro-physiological cognitive processes, but also including the non-local mind. It is my argument that integrated intelligence is processed through the brain, such that the cognitive functions are similar to those represented in scientifically accepted models of creativity and intuition (Anthony 2008, du Tertre 2012). Integrated intelligence therefore incorporates mental functions which might be deemed “psychic” or “supernatural” by mainstream science, and thus typically derided or simply ignored.
Despite the current predominance of scientific skepticism, integrated intelligence has been widely accepted throughout human history, in all cultures (Markley 2015a). Markley argues that this intuitive faculty is often misunderstood, assumed to be accessible only to the gifted (such as seers, oracles, medicine people, prophets and so on); yet various spiritual disciplines have maintained that it can be developed through meditative discipline (Markley 2015a).
Acknowledgment and deliberate employment of integrated intelligence has featured strongly with many scientists, scholars and philosophers in the western world, including Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, and Bergson (Markley 2015a). Even though after the advent of the scientific and industrial revolutions the intuitive mind has tended to be discarded by many modern thinkers and organizations (Markley 2015a), there are many exceptions in recent history. Just a few individuals who have acknowledged the extended mind include psychiatrists Carl Jung and Stan Grof (2000), R. Buckminster Fuller, ecologist Barbara Marx Hubbard (2015), physicist Brian Josephson, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo, and futurists Oliver Markley (2015a,b) and Sohail Inayatullah. Outside of the accepted science of creativity, numerous popular ideas and programs either explicitly or implicitly embrace the ideal of the non-local mind. For example there are thousands of new age, self-and-spiritual development philosophies which hold to this ideal.
Finally, as outlined below, some western (and non-western) governments, organizations and individuals have attempted to tap into the non-local mind to facilitate enhanced foresight, strategy and problem- solving. My practical examples will focus particularly upon some examples from the field of Critical Futures Studies.
My purpose here is not to endorse such teachings as being non-problematic, merely to point out that beyond the accepted parameters of western mainstream science and education, such ideas are widespread. They are commonly found in almost all societies. For example, in the technology industries in Asia, many entrepreneurs and organizations regularly consult the IChing when making important business decisions, as will be outlined below (Chang 2015).
How much of the insights gleaned from such books, programs and apps are actually enhanced by non-local mind? How much can be attributed to neural-based incubation or pure self-delusion? Such questions are left for the contemplation of the reader.
The rejection of integrated intelligence In the western world, integrated intelligence was once commonly accepted as normal. However, with the advent of materialist science and experimentalism (Pickstone 2000), along with the industrial revolution of the mid-eighteenth century, science and psychology turned away from the inspirational, focusing upon physiological explanations for conscious experience. By the mid twentieth century any “parapsychological” or spiritual explanations or experiences were treated with hostility (Sheldrake 2014).
The emergence of the aggressive skeptic communities only reinforced the non-receptive nature of the intellectual environment. Perhaps the most telling case involved the widespread hostile decision which was directed at Nobel Prize winning physicist Brian Josephson, when he publicly acknowledged the rigorous work of the discipline of parapsychology in Great Britain. Josephson has since become a veritable pariah of the scientific community, suffering a virtual excommunication (Sheldrake 2014).
The oft-dismissal of integrated intelligence in modern science and neuroscience has created an unnecessarily delimited model of “mind.” This narrow representation does not acknowledge the greater range of non-local data which may be at the disposal of human beings. It has also been argued that the framing of mind in such impoverished terms is psychologically unhealthy, as the dissociation of “self” from the world creates a sense of alienation. Some have stated that this is central to the dilemma of human beings in the modern age (Sheldrake 2014, Tarnas 2000, du Tertre 2012).
Visionary experience in science, and the peculiar case of de Grasse Tyson A recent case highlights not only the potentially powerful insights that integrated intelligence may provide, but also the difficulty in discussing such ideas in some mainstream scientific circles. In the first episode of the documentary series Cosmos (2014), eminent scientist Neil De Grasse Tyson describes a seemingly psychic experience involving Giordano Bruno, the sixteenth century Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and astrologer.
Bruno was deeply influenced by his visionary experiences. However, at that time the Church was incredibly powerful, and heavily intolerant of any challenges to its sun-and-God-centered map of the cosmos. As in Cosmos, Bruno had a powerful vision which shaped his decision to leave the Church and push for ecclesiastical reform. In the dream Bruno experienced himself leaving his body, and flying out into the universe. There he felt he personally witnessed the limitless nature of the cosmos. What he experienced convinced him that Copernicus was right in positing the sun at the centre of the universe. Cosmos recounts Bruno’s dream as follows:
“I spread confident wings to space and soared toward the infinite, leaving far behind me what others strained to see from a distance. Here, there was no up. No down. No edge. No centre. I saw that the Sun was just another star. And the stars were other Suns, each escorted by other Earths like our own. The revelation of this immensity was like falling in love” (Cosmos 2014).
Thus Bruno became convinced that the God of the Church was far smaller than the extant God of all existence. He believed that the sun was just one of many stars, and speculated that many worlds might lie beyond the Earth and that they too might be inhabited. This got Bruno into a lot of trouble, and he was imprisoned for eight years as a heretic, before being cruelly burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. It is said that his tongue and palate were pierced with iron stakes (Tarnas 2000). Despite years of persecution, Bruno refused to renounce his beliefs, famously stating to his inquisitors, “Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it” (Cosmos 2014). The relative accuracy of Bruno’s vision helped him to develop ideas that would become highly influential in the development of modern science, and in the development of the secular state. Yet in Cosmos Neil De Grasse Tyson dismisses Bruno’s vision as: “…a lucky guess, and like all guesses it could have been wrong.” (Cosmos 2014). De Grasse Tyson’s take on Bruno suggests that he may understand little about the way the human mind functions in non-ordinary states of consciousness.(i)
There are two factors which challenge the claim that what Bruno experienced was merely “a lucky guess.” The first factor is perfectly accepted in cognitive science, and it is the process of incubation (Benedict 2014). The brain can unconsciously process information on a subject matter even when we are not paying attention, when relaxed, or when focusing upon something unrelated. We receive immense amounts of data each moment, and we are unaware of most of it. The brain can go about processing this data, regardless of our conscious volition. The result can be personal insight, the synthesis of connected subject matters and creative inspiration (Benedict 2014; du Tetre 2014). If we consider this incubation process, the relative accuracy of Bruno’s visionary experience may have been the result of his brain taking in all the data it had received, and converting it into the best map of the universe it knew how to construct. Given that Bruno was an obsessive reader of science, philosophy and theology, this vision would have been anything but a “guess.” Perhaps it could be described as a “data-based intuition.”
The second important cognitive function that challenges de Grasse Tyson’s “guess” statement concerns a factor that is not yet widely accepted in modern science: that consciousness is not confined to the brain and is in constant interplay with the world about us, and possibly with the very expanse of the universe itself. This has been given various names including nonlocal mind (Dossey 2014), the extended mind (Sheldrake 2013, 2014), the psychic realm (du Tertre 2014) and so on. If we consider this, then during his dream, Bruno’s mind may not have been delimited by his personal experience, including by his readings of science. What he “saw” in his visionary state may have been his mind engaging the intelligence of the cosmos itself.
Neil de Grasse Tyson’s rejection of Bruno’s visionary capacities in Cosmos is perplexing. How is it possible that such a learned man as de Grasse Tyson, extensively educated and employed at the world’s finest universities (Harvard, Columbia, Princeton) can be so dismissive of the often unconscious nature of perception and creativity via non-ordinary states of consciousness? We could mention the self-limiting nature of the mechanistic paradigm in mainstream science (Grof 2000, Sheldrake 2014, Tarnas 2000). We might suggest the pressure that the Cosmos series producers may have felt to please their “scientifically- literate” audience. Yet the answer may simply be that one of the world’s most eminent scientists has never experienced such states of awareness. After all, our “best” educational institutions also tend to be our most conservative. Science in modern educational institutions is taught and conducted with logical, detached and analytical ways of knowing. The emotive and subjective elements of perception have been systematically and deliberately erased from the scientific method, a process instigated to avoid personal bias and misconceptions (Sheldrake 2014).
Experiences which appear to evoke an integrated intelligence are widely reported amongst mystics in many spiritual traditions and with transpersonal experience in general, although the nature of the knowledge gleaned may not always be along the “scientific” lines that Bruno experienced. The history of science also has many similar reports. Kekule envisaged the benzene ring in a dream. Neils Bohr dreamt a planetary system as a model for atomic structure that led to his Nobel prize (Markely 2015a). Biologist Alfred Russell Wallace, a firm believer in an integrated intelligence in nature, pieced together the essence of his model of evolution while in a fever-induced trance. Wallace did this at the very same time in history that Darwin was finalizing his ideas about evolution. Michael Flannery claims that Darwin plagiarized parts of his thesis from a long letter sent to him by Wallace, just months before Darwin published The Origin of Species (Tsakiris 2014).
Renowned biologist Barbara Marx Hubbard (2015) has recently revealed her own experiences of the spiritual inspiration behind her scientific work, as detailed in another section, below. She argues that the rational mind works best when “higher or intuitive mind receives inspiration, guidance and insights…” (Hubbard 2015 p 111). She also tells of conversations with Buckminster Fuller, where the late architect and inventor shared his experiences of transpersonally-inspired invention. Buckminster Fuller’s integrated intelligence included direct communications with other spiritual realms (Hubbard 215).
What are we to make of this? The easy solution is to dismiss the accounts as delusion or insanity. Yet as mentioned above, many cultures throughout history have had an entirely different relationship with such “other” ways of knowing.
Inspiration as guidance
Inspiration is not necessarily an immediate revelation of data for the purpose of enhancing a specific project. Many scientists and technological experts report a sense of overall guidance across their entire life, as if they are being compelled towards some greater purpose.
Ecologist and biolologist Barbara Marx Hubbard regularly employs integrated intelligence. She rises early and meditates with a “sensitive open consciousness, expectant, curious, but not driven.” She describes getting answers from “the higher mind… expanded knowing” (Hubbard 2015, p111). Hubbard believes that she gets intuitive insights to deep life questions. These can be life changing. She relates one anecdote, when in 1980 she was researching a new book about the future of humanity. While walking by a beautiful monastery in Santa Barbara staring out to sea, she contemplated the question of what kind of person could be entrusted to handle the incredible power and technology that human beings were developing.
“Tired, I sat upon the stone wall, looking at the great arc of the shining sea, the mountainous Earth arisen, and then, mysteriously, magically, hang-gliders – human butterflies – appeared, afloat above the Monastery at Mt Calvary in an ecstasy of freedom and weightlessness. Mass metamorphosis! We shall all be changed. Suddenly an intuition occurred to me – The resurrection was real. He did it. And so will all of us who are willing to do as he did, all who are willing to follow the commandment of love… It seemed to me that Jesus was a future human, an evolutionary template. His demonstration lodged in us an expectation of a personal future in a transformed body, in a transformed world, in a universe of many mansions. The capacities to do as he did have been activated by the expectation. Now is the fullness of time” (Hubbard 2015, p 112).
Hubbard then consulted the Bible, which in turn inspired her to write 1600 pages. “The thoughts were literally coming to me by some higher knowing beyond the mental mind, yet seemingly logical from the point of view of the new powers of humanity”(Hubbard 2015, p 112).
Hubbard then used this inspiration to make great contributions to both futures studies and ecology. She refers to this deliberate employment of integrated intelligence as “intuitions (which) go far beyond ordinary methodology.” For her, this is a kind of co-creative process between the individual and spiritual intelligences. Such intuitive process is a key in collective “conscious ethical evolution,” she writes. It enables us to “infuse our new powers with love,” where “powers,” refers to modern technologies (Hubbard 2015, p. 112).
When Hubbard related her experience in Santa Barbara to Buckminster Fuller one day, Fuller told her that he had had a very similar experience. Fuller then went to the New Testament and wrote “almost the exact same evolutionary interpretation” that Hubbard had written. Notably, he never published them, because language such as “Christ” and “God” were effectively forbidden within the scientific and engineering communities (Hubbard 2015, p 112).
In Hubbard and Fuller’s case, there is a direct sense of personalized spiritual guidance associated with their integrated intelligence. They believe that there are beings in other realms of existence passing on direct and indirect inspiration as they went about creating and innovating.
Whether the source of data is believed to be personalized or impersonal (as with Kekule and Bohr) both kinds of inspiration entail a source that is beyond one’s immediate locale, and perhaps temporal position.
One further aspect of inspiration where integrated intelligence has many possible powerful applications is that of research in general. There are several researchers, thinkers and authors who advocate what I call “integrated inquiry” (Anthony 2012, Ferrer 2000, Hart 2000, Nelson 2014, Puhakka 2000). Integrated inquiry is the deliberate employment of the nonlocal, intuitive mind while conducting research, either formally, or informally. In other words, integrated inquiry is integrated intelligence within research contexts. (ii)
Visionary experience in the arts, humanities and business
Creative and spiritual inspiration are far more readily discussed outside of mainstream science – in the arts, humanities and sometimes in business. There is a long history of creative geniuses claiming to be inspired by spiritual sources and/or altered states of consciousness: Keats, Blake, Coleridge, Huxley, Emerson, Thoreau and many more.
This has varied according to the sway of history and culture, and location. In the US in the 1950s at the height of behaviorism and scientific progressivism, any non-rational experience would likely have been frowned upon, especially in scientific and academic circles. However, in California in the 1960’s, it would almost have been surprising if a creative individual had not claimed some form of spiritual or divine inspiration for her works of music or literature.
Creative inspiration can be deeply personal. Ash Vadher (2015) is a former politician who both served in the British parliament and worked with Nelson Mandela in South Africa. After making the decision to leave politics, he found himself in a difficult financial position, with his family at risk. His two sisters stood to lose their life savings, perhaps around five million dollars. One night during this time Vadher went to sleep in his London apartment, which overlooks the Thames river and the houses of parliament. As the night unfolded he had a dream where he gazed out onto the river, and it was shimmering. It seemed to Vadher as if a great energy was trying to force its way up from beneath the water and communicate with him. Vadher felt intuitively that the shimmering represented wealth, like diamonds and gold.
At that time Vadher had been contemplating getting into the gold trade as a means to address the family debts, and the dream led him to commit to that decision, especially into business opportunities in Africa. Two months later, while in Nairobi pursuing a major investment, he found himself being shown through a great vault, with metal boxes of gold. As he reached into one of the large boxes, he pulled out a pencil box, opened it and saw it was full of uncut diamonds. As he gazed at the sparkling rocks before him, it struck him that what he was seeing was the unfolding of his recent, profound dream. Though there were many setbacks, he was able to experience much success in the business, and earn back the money his sisters had lost (Vadher 2015).
Significantly, for Vadher his Thames river vision was no ordinary dream. For him, as a man of Indian ancestry, it was the grace of God speaking to him. He saw it as a kind of divine guidance, and acted accordingly.
In East Asia the traditional idea of the harmonious society was one where the emperor had access to divine guidance, facilitating great insight, foresight and wise decision-making. According the Taiwanese technology trader William Chang (2015), it is still common for ninety per cent of companies in that part of the world to use divination when making key business decisions. In particular, the I-Ching is often consulted to determine if particular companies and individuals can be trusted to provide harmonious business relationships, and success. The worldview is quintessentially Taoist. Rather than attempting to impose themselves on the world, the wise businessperson listens receptively to what the universe is urging, Chang (2015) observed 2015.
Nowadays, this divination process has evolved into electronic form, using mobile device-based versions of the I-Ching. Chang (2015) finds that such divination is now used by the vast majority of Chinese business leaders and investors, including in mainland China, where he says that business people and leaders are hungry to re-learn traditional Chinese business wisdom. In the West, such practices are perhaps most similar to those adopted by the new age community, in such business teachings as those found in John Kehoe’s Mind power (2007), Rhonda Byrne’s The secret (2006) and in Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and grow rich.
Such divination practice is suggestive of an integrated intelligence, a kind of on-tap synchronicity. If divination is more than simple delusion, then it must entail some form of entangled consciousness, the intertwining of the mundane and the “divine.”
Policy, Strategy and the Future
The focus of this paper now turns toward the deliberate practice of integrated intelligence. Perhaps the most famous systematic employment of integrated intelligence in the modern West was in the Stargate program, a formerly secret government program operated by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which ran from 1978 till 1995. The purpose of this program, initiated during the Cold War, was to determine whether psychic perception, and in particular remote viewing, could be harnessed to gain military advantage over the Soviets.
The program was abandoned after seventeen years. The official reason given was that it never gleaned any useful data, but several of the remote viewers who worked there including Joseph McMoneagle, Hal Puthoff, Russel Targ and Ingo Swann have come forward to passionately dispute this (McMoneagle 2002, Targ 2012). However, this project has already been widely debated, so the rest of the discussion on practical applications of integrated intelligence will focus elsewhere. In particular, attention will now turn to several practitioners within the field of Critical Futures Studies. This analytical field of Futures Studies focuses not so much upon predicting the future, but on disrupting unchallenged images of the future and in positing possible and preferred futures (Inayatullah 2015). It is important to note that the practitioners referred to below are atypical of the field in that they openly embrace the intuitive mind.
Most critical futurists do not do so in such an open way. In Critical Futures Studies, a number of practicing futurists both acknowledge the importance of the intuitive mind in thinking about the future, and apply practical tools to help organizations and individuals to develop strategy and policy. These futurists tend to draw upon an existing body of literature and practice that has emerged amongst certain ‘fringe’ thinkers and strategists in the western world in recent decades. These include Gawain (2002), Hendricks & Ludeman (1996), Miller & Miller (1976), Carl Simonton, and Elise Boulding (1988).
The Futurists
Futurist Ruth Miller (2015) has employed a process she calls Appreciative Inquiry in her futures consultation business. These are intuitive methods associated with imaging. They “provide access to an inner awareness… and… non-local possibilities that normal processes avoid” (Miller 2015, p 107). Miller employs relaxed states of consciousness, facilitated by breath control. This is followed by focusing upon images and any auditory, olfactory prompts which emerge from the psyche (Miller 2015, p 104). Similarly futurist Jose Ramos (2015) uses guided imagery as a means to use intuition practically with groups of clients.
Sohail Inayatullah (2015) is an Australian-based futurist who regularly incorporates relaxed, imaginative meditations into his futures workshops with organizations, corporations and governments. He gets clients to close their eyes, relax and “feel their way into the future” (Inayatullah 2015, p 116). Inayatullah believes that such a process gives clients permission to move away from the overly “cerebral” aspects of Futures work, and to tap into the collective mind of the group. His visioning process sometimes involves entering a six story building, each floor representing a chakra of Indic lore, with the sixth story representing the third eye of intuition. Here he invites participants to meet their future selves, and to glean wisdom from that wise old man or woman (Inayatullah 2015).
Inayatuallah also deliberately engages his intuition in journal writing, which allows him to gain insight into his life problems. Finally, as he facilitates his workshops, he often brings himself “present”, where he finds he can tap into intuition most readily, “read” the feeling of the room, and make spontaneous decisions about how to proceed next (Inayatullah 2015).
As the author of this article (Anthony 2008, 2015) I have written widely about integrated intelligence, as well as having employed it in my workshops and research. I have long advocated the need to synthesize “rational” and intuitive cognitive functions in modern education. I have also written theoretical and practical papers and books detailing how to activate integrate intelligence, including utilizing it during the research and writing process (Anthony 2011, 2013, 2015). The tools which I have focused upon teaching include activating feeling-based intuition, recording dreams, practicing meditative states, keeping an intuition diary, and harnessing synchronicity (Anthony 2013).
One of the longest-serving futurist practitioners in academic and corporate settings is Oliver Markley (2015a, b). Markley developed a Visionary Futures course at the University of Houston, Clear Lake in the 1980s, where he used guided imagery accessed in relaxed states of consciousness in his Futures Studies programs. The process involved both self suggestion and facilitator-guided instruction. Markley makes clear that he sees consciousness as a non-localized phenomenon which enables human beings to tap into an integrated intelligence, across both time and space, including tapping into minds and fields of collective intelligence far beyond that of human civilization. This includes inter-dimensional and alien consciousness (Markley 2015c).
Notably, Markley was very open about what he was doing. He was able to gain the trust of administrators, and wrote up his methods very clearly in his curriculum documents (Markley 2015b). He reports that students were receptive to his futures programs, which were conducted within an atmosphere of trust and respect for the students.
Prior to his work at UHCL, Markley was also part of “skunk-works” at Stanford University, which worked with organizations in developing strategy and policy. This is where he learned and refined his “imaginal” tools. The participants and senior staff at Stanford included Willis Harmon and Ruth Miller (Markely 2015b, Miller 2015).
On the basis of his long experience, Markley maintains that these future-oriented applications of integrated intelligence can be used for problem-solving, policy analysis and strategic planning, both personal and corporate (Markley 2015b, c).
Markley refers to a pertinent example from his time at UHCL involving a team from a large automotive and electronic data systems corporation. The group had come to the group “to learn the state-of-the-art tools of applied futures research” (Markley 2015b, p 124). The group included senior members of staff. The discussion turned to visionary futures research methods, and the group expressed a desire to experience one of Markley’s preferred tools: Mental Time Travel. The focus of the session was to be the company’s ‘‘Third World’’ policy, specifically the question: What would the future of our company and of the world look like if major ‘First World’ Corporations such as us… strategically embrace the poverty- stricken ‘Third World’ nations and cultures as customers? (i.e., not just as the source of low-cost labor) (Markley 2015b, p 125).
Two UHCL futures faculty and several graduate students and alumni also joined the exercise. All participants were invited to relax and focus. Then two Mental Time Travel journeys, one for each policy option, were facilitated by Markley. The stakeholders imagined journeying through two different futures: the first being the ‘‘do’’ option, then one representing the ‘‘do not’’ policy option. The results were clear- cut. All participants, both corporate team members and academic participants, experienced much the same thing. Writes Markely:
Our conclusion? Globally, ‘‘the chain’’ of human systems is only as strong as its weakest link. In the very long term, sustainable growth and well-being is dependent on the well-being of all nations, not just the ones that have a good shot at becoming prosperous. Thus, it is clear that developing a Third World customer base is essential. The corporate team, in mulling this over came to an additional conclusion: The strategic question that should be focused on is not: Whether or not the corporation should move in this direction; Rather, it needs to be: How might it be feasible to help leaders at all levels in our corporation to experience and see this for themselves, so that meaningful progress in this direction might become feasible to achieve? (Markley 2015b, p 124-125).
In this instance, the work enabled participants to gain new insights, and importantly, to reframe the questions which underpinned their strategy. This ultimately led to a core shift in the organization’s relationship with workers in the developing world (Markley 2015c).
Markley maintains that such work can be framed around secular or spiritual frameworks. Secular models might include Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields, Bohm’s implicate order or quantum physics. Spiritual framework can involve numerous spiritual traditions, including Christianity’s the Holy Spirit, Judaism’s Shekinah, Sufism’s barakah, and the Buddhist’s Alayavijnana (Markley 2015b). These processes do require a skilled facilitator or crafted programs of recorded guided imagery instructions, an appropriate mental set (Ramos 2015) and an appropriate, receptive institution (Anthony 2015; Ramos 2015).
The implications for the art and science of inspiration Human intelligence is not merely a function of the individual, but of the society and social networks that a person is connected to. Prolonged schooling constitutes part of the social setting of most people in the modern world. Modern education facilitates the expression of creativity and innovation, particularly in any domain which requires complex base knowledge, such as in science, technology and mathematics. Similarly is also true that without extensive modern education systems, various expressions of intelligence could not reveal themselves. For example, Russian psychologist Luria conducted research which revealed that Siberian peasants in the early twentieth century had very little capacity for abstract reasoning. Their formally uneducated lives had granted them no exposure to tasks requiring those skills. They struggled to make even essential generalizations about other places in Russia, even when provided with concrete facts about those places. Today the capacity for abstract reasoning is widespread across the developed societies of the world (Flynn 2007). In this case we can see that abstract reasoning is a latent human ability that requires education or at least social encouragement in order to flourish.
Similarly, integrated intelligence is probably a cognitive set that can be enhanced through acknowledgment of the facility, and encouragement (Targ 2012, du Tertre 2012). Having conducted numerous workshops aimed at developing integrated intelligence, and having seen first-hand what is required to do so, it is my belief that the reason why most people fail to develop their integrated intelligence is because modern education systems and other modern social settings typically provide little or no exposure to related ideas, experiences and activities. (iii)
The idea of the non-local mind and socially-enhanced intelligence invites us to contemplate the broader implications for creativity and innovation, including in organizational and corporate settings. How can we deliberately employ these entanglements with other people, places, things and times? The examples posited in the field of Critical Futures Studies, above, provide some insight.
Problems and ethics
Deliberate facilitation of the non-local mind brings forth some problems. These are practical as well as ethical.
An important issue which is sometimes glossed over by those who research or work in fields related to integrated intelligence is that of ethics. If we accept that we really can glean information from other places, times and people, then we are immediately invited to consider the issue of whether it is right or wrong to do so.
Joseph McMoneagle, the former military remote viewer, was adamant that a well-defined ethical system was necessary for remote viewing. He believes that governments will tend to use psi for whatever purposes they feel fit (Broderick & Goertzel 2015). McMoneagle revealed that the original six remote viewers in the Stargate program established their own ethical guidelines founded on the values and limits within the U.S. Constitution. When government representatives wanted to push beyond those, McMoneagle resisted (Broderick & Goertzel 2015). Clearly some other organizations and individuals may also abuse integrated intelligence for their own purposes. So when doing this kind of work, one must set clear ethical boundaries.
A related issue is that of privacy. How will stakeholders feel if they are exposed to a group of people whom they suddenly realize may be able to read their minds, or at least sense aspects of their cognition, including personal pasts, psychological and spiritual issues? The degree of trust required in such settings is immense, and not to be dismissed. I witnessed this personally in the late 1990’s when I worked with a healing group of about forty other people in New Zealand. Integrated intelligence became a vital aspect of the diagnosis of group and individual problems. What I saw is that this level of transparency is too much for many people. It creates a radical destabilization of the worldview, including how we relate to other human beings. With my healing group, some participants chose to leave, and in short time. I personally found it extremely challenging, but persisted because of a strong personal motivation, wanting to work on some of my biographical issues.
Of course, it is not necessary to tear open the heart of every participating individual in groups and workshops exploring integrated intelligence for specific purposes. Markley’s (2015b) work with students at UHCL, and his participation in “skunk works” there and at Stanford were focused on organizational problem-solving. Still, inevitably, once the intuitive mind is developed, personal privacy is reduced.
Another important question to ask if we are to attempt to tap into the non-local mind, and use the data to solve problems or construct strategies and preferred futures, is how are we to know the precise source of the information we are using? If we are indeed entangled within consciousness fields, can we be certain the source of data is reliable? Possible self-limiting non-local input might come from:
• a competitor, work colleague or administrator wishing to sabotage our success. • someone who is unconsciously afraid of our success (say, an elderly parent who fears your success might take you away to another location). • collective fields of intention, such as familial, racial, religious and cultural. These might contain ingrained beliefs which form effective attractor fields. • impersonal, self-limiting “habits” of the consciousness field, analogous to Sheldrake’s (2014) morphic resonance. • discarnate entities with their own intentions.
While the language of the last category might invite immediate incredulity, the idea is not incompatible with the idea of non-local mind. In almost all introspective spiritual traditions there are warnings regarding engaging manipulative disembodied minds or spirits (Grof 2000). Some advocates such as Le Shan (2007), believe that the non-local mind can only be used for the betterment of all, as if some cosmic law has been ordained that it only be used this way. Yet this is a naive conclusion, and my own experience also leads me to conclude that it is incorrect.
There is evidence to support my perspective from reports into near death experiences, where NDEers see or experience thought structures as being potentially harmful or destructive. NDErs often experience expanded, non-local awareness after they sense themselves leaving the body. Some “return” from their experience convinced of the importance of assuming responsibility for one’s emotional projections and judgmental thoughts towards others (van Lommel 2011).
There are other ethical considerations in the deliberate activation of integrated intelligence. Again mirroring the research into near death experience (van Lommel 2011) acknowledgment of the non-local dimensions of mind often leads to a shift in self-concept; and while most new age literature describes this in transformative and positive ways, the reality may be more nuanced. The sense of self may begin to weaken, or dissipate. Should those who are susceptible to mental illness engage in such practices? Are workshop practitioners to be made liable for any mental discomfort or pathology that emerges in the wake of doing such program?
Beyond a possible shift in self-concept, there may also be increased problems in relating to others and to society at large. When one’s personal experience of mind and life is non-local, even as one’s colleagues, family and friends live in a “localized” world, how is one to make sense of that? Does one’s sense of isolation (ironically) expand as one becomes increasingly different from others? This is precisely what Peter L Nelson (2014) reports in Journey of a Seer. For Nelson, this sense of being different emerged in childhood, and became exacerbated in his early university years as he came to conclude that his experience of non-locality was not an illusion, and that it was society that was deluded. This sense of alienation has lasted into his late life (he is now in his seventies).
The limits of intuition Intuition is a fuzzy intelligence. It makes itself known primarily through what I call “the feeling sense” (Anthony 2013). Integrated intelligence may also operate through all the known sense modalities (du Tertre 2012). Yet even with images, auditory and olfactory prompts, the feelings associated with these are often key to their understanding.
Nor does intuition exist in a perfectly demarcated cognitive zone separate from “rational” expressions of intelligence. Many intuitive researchers have pointed out that intuition works best when employed along side the rational mind (Inayatullah 2015, Markely 2015b, Ramos 2015, du Tertre 2012). Further, intuition is particularly susceptible to be led astray by desire (Inayatullah 2015). Others simply call this “the ego.” The key point is that it is not always easy to know from which place within the human mind any given feeling or image has emerged. Therefore, self-deception is always a working issue with the employment of integrated intelligence.
Credibility An ethical consideration for an individual or organization which employs integrated intelligence is whether to acknowledge the process to the broader community.
It has been observed that the employment of integrated intelligence in corporate and educational settings is politically sensitive (Anthony 2015, Markley 2015b, Nelson 2014). Notably, participants from the large motor vehicle and electronics company in the case described by Markley (2015b), above, decided that the process of Mental Time Travel, though practical, was “too politically risky” to bring to their company leaders. So the idea was vetoed (Markley 2015b, p 126) . Nonetheless, the organization eventually adopted the more globally responsible policy initiative that their visionary experience suggested, and with good results (Markley 2015c).
Markely (2015b) advises several ways of addressing the credibility problem when using integrated intelligence with organizations:
1. Production of high quality media materials on the topic. 2. Co-creation of an informal, experiential community of practice where intuition can be explored, developed and mentored by those who are qualified or interested; and using both personal/professional concerns and workplace problems as experiential R&D. Do not publish the outcomes unless, or do only if it is politically expedient. Carefully document them for later possible release. 3. Recruit one or more “champions” from senior staff, professional, managerial and executive ranks. The people should be interested and willing to mentor the community of practice in the tactics and strategy of organizational change management. 4. Talk discretely in increasingly public circles about the work, communicating successes and struggles, while avoiding embarrassing those who might not wish to have their names associated with the work. 5 . Publish in academic and professional circles, communicating notable successes (Markley 2015b, 125-126).
Conclusion
The great irony is that the scientific revolution which Bruno’s visions helped bring about and ultimately died for has also disowned the very cognitive processes which drove many of his insights. This rejection has created the split in the modern mind, where we tend to disown our essential connection to nature and the cosmos, and to our inner worlds. Yet there remains a strong undercurrent of research and practice in science, the arts and business in both the West and Asia, standing in contradiction to this.
Perhaps to bridge the current “split” we need another Bruno to rise like a phoenix from the flames of history and reignite – or at least re-legitimate – our integrated intelligence. We know from history and counter-culture that such experiences and practices are common to all eras, and amongst all kinds of thinkers and creators. Perhaps that day is not far away.
References
Anthony, M. 2008. Integrated intelligence. Copenhagen, Sense. Anthony, M. 2011. “Integrated Inquiry: Mystical Intuition and Research,” The Open Information Science Journal. 2011, 3: 80-88. Anthony, M. 2013. How to channel your dissertation. Hong Kong, MindFutures. Anthony, M. 2015. “Classical Intuition and Critical Futures Studies.” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 131-138. Byrne, R. 2006. The Secret. Los Angeles, Atria Books. Broderick, B. & Goertzel, B. 2015. “The future of psi research,” in Broderick, B. & Goertzel, B. (Eds) 2014. Evidence for psi: thirteen empirical research reports. Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company. Boulding, E. 1988. Building a global civic culture. Syracuse University Press, New York. Carey, B. 2014. How we learn. New York, Random House. Chang, W. 2015. Interview as part of an interview for the Futures of Consciousness project, on 24.09.15., Hong Kong. Cosmos, A Personal Voyage 2014. Television series, Fox National Geographic Channel. Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dossey, L. 2014. One mind. New York, Hay HouseDu Tertre, N. 2012. Psychic intuition. Pompton Plains, New Page Books. Ferrer, J. 2000. “Transpersonal knowledge.” In Hart, T., Nelson P. & Puhakka, K. (Eds), Transpersonal knowing. New York, Suny. Flynn, J. 2007. What is intelligence? New York, Amazon Digital Services. Gawain, S. 2002. Developing Intuition. New York, New World Library. Grof, S. 2000. Psychology of the future. San Francisco, Suny. Hart, Tobin 2000, “Inspiration as transpersonal knowing,” in Hart, T., Nelson P. & Puhakka, K. (Eds), Transpersonal knowing. New York, Suny. Hendricks, G. & Ludeman, K. 1996. The corporate mystic: A guidebook for visionaries with their feet on the ground. New York, Bantam. Inayatullah, S. 2015a. “Intuiting the future.” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 115-118. Inayatullah, S. 2015b. What works: Case Studies in the Practice of Foresight. Tamsui, Taiwan, Tamkang University Press. Kehoe, J. 2007. Mind power into the twenty-first century. New York, Zoetic Books. Le Shan, L. 2009. A new science of the paranormal, London, Quest. Markley, O. 1994 “Experiencing the Needs of Future Generations.” In Thinking About Future Generations. Kyoto: Institute for the Integrated Study of Future Generations. Markley, O. 2007 “Mental Time Travel.: A practical business and personal research tool for looking ahead.” Futures, 40(1), 17-24. Markley, O. 1992. “Using Depth Intuition in Creative Problem-Solving and Strategic Innovation.” Selection Forty in Sidney Parnes (Ed), Source book for creative problem-solving. Scituate, MA: Creative Education Foundation. Markley, O. 2015a. “Introduction to the symposium on ‘Intuition in Futures work.’” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 83-90. Markley, O. 2015b. “Learning to use intuition in Futures Studies. Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1). 119-130. Markley, O. 2015c. Interview with Marcus T Anthony as part of The futures of consciousness project, July 27, 2015. Marx-Hubbard, B. 2015. “Intuition and Evolution – How I find it essential to use intuition in my futures work.” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 111-114. McMoneagle, J. 2002. The stargate chronicles:Memoirs of a psychic spy. Charlottesville, VA, Hampton Roads. Miller, R. 2015. “Applying intuitive methods in explorations of preferred Futures.” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 101-110. Miller, J.P., & Miller, R. 1976. Enhancing Policy Development through the use of Intuitive Methods. San Jose, CA: San Jose State University Press. “Neil deGrasse Tyson,” 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2016. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Nelson, P 2000, “Mystical experience and radical deconstruction.” In Hart, T., Nelson P. & Puhakka, K. (Eds), Transpersonal knowing. New York, Suny. Nelson, P. 2014. Way of a seer. Nevada, Empiricus. Pickstone, J. 2000. Ways of knowing. Manchester, Manchester University Press. Ramos, J. 2015. “The inner game of Futures Studies.” Journal of Futures Studies. JFS.2015.20 (1): 91-110. Rothberg, D. 2000 “Spiritual inquiry,” in Hart, T., Nelson P. & Puhakka, K. (Eds), Transpersonal knowing. New York, Suny. Sheldrake, R. 2013. The sense of being stared at. London, Park Street Press. Sheldrake, R. 2014. Science set free. Los Angeles, Deepak Chopra. Targ, R. 2012, The reality of ESP. Wheaton, IL, Theosophical.
Tarnas, R. 2000. The passion of the western mind. London, Ballantine Books. Tsakiris, A. 2014. Why science is wrong about almost everything. San Antonio, Anomalist Books. Vadher, A. 2015. Interview with Marcus T Anthony as part of The futures of consciousness project, June 27, 2015. Van Lommel, P. 2011. Consciousness beyond life. London, HarperOne. Washburn, M., 2000. “Transpersonal cognition in developmental perspective.” in Hart, T., Nelson P. & Puhakka, K. (Eds), Transpersonal knowing. New York, Suny.
Notes
i It cannot be claimed that de Grasse Tyson is entirely contemptuous of the importance of first person experience when conducting science. On Wikipedia (Neil deGrasse 2016), he is quoted as describing himself as an “agnostic,” and rejects the label of “atheist.” Further, he uses the word “spiritual” in relating his emotive relationship to the cosmos. Yet he makes it clear that he is not referring to religious experience, but a sense of awe and connectivity.
ii Though there is not space to explore this area here, I have written several related papers (Anthony 2011), and a popular book (Anthony 2012).
iii There is an argument that the development of psychic experience emerges as part of collective human consciousness evolution, moving through pre-personal, personal, and transpersonal levels of cognition. The most well-known advocate of this model is Ken Wilber (2000). Washburn summarizes this perspective, arguing that transpersonal illumination occurs as part of “a deep, psychic transformation” (Washburn 2000, p 2007). However, perhaps we need to distinguish between simple intuitive and psychic experiences, and profound personal cognitive shifts. It is my belief and experience that no great shift within the psyche is required in order to tap into human intuition. The fact that most ordinary human beings claim to have had psychic experiences (Sheldrake 2014), is suggestive of the validity of this argument.
