The New Story by Brian Swimme

Hi Julian,

Thanks for posting that. I look forward to the rest. Brian Swimme is an inspirational speaker. I recommend sets of DVDs from his website; the powers of the Universe.

Warm regards,
Bjorn

Julian, I agree.  Wonderful stuff.  I have blogged on his stuff before, and use his material in my classes.  (You might have learned about him a year ago if you followed my blogs more! ;-)  )

My most recent blog also mentions Swimme.  Come check it out, if you're interested.

Swimme asks a vital question:  Can science have a soul-shaking impact?  Can it stir the soul to wonder and to growth?   He believes it can, and through his telling of our “story” to date, it is easy to agree with him.  In his work, I see a vital wedding between scientific rigor and rationality, and the transformative poetry and vision of spirit.

Best wishes,

B.

well, you didn't respond to my other remark!  :-)

But I'm glad you're highlighting it.  He has a new series out called “Earth's Imagination” that I hear is really good.  I haven't had a chance to view it yet.

With all due respect, what is this guy talking about?

All I know is that they are starving and dying in Africa, parts of Asia, the modern human is confused, sick, and as ignorant as we were 2000 years ago.

We need to solve the problems of our story, and this scientific romanticism sounds very elitist to me.

What of the story of the starving children of this planet, and those denied good, by oppression, disease, and by the circumstances of their birth.

With the mentality of the world's elite, this entire wonderful new story is going to be another weapon of mass destruction hoisted on us, while we sit around and pat each other on the back on the progress we are making, and how enlightened we are becomming.

This guy speaks in general platitudes unrelated to real people's lives

He is as bad to me as all those religious nuts Julian ragged a while ago

He just sounds prettier

He sounds like we live in a world without

Nuclear bombs

Oppression, starvation, and madness

Racism, sexism, etc. etc etc and the other ills that guys like this NEVER attempt to get the elite and powerful to concentrate on

THERE IS NO NEW STORY; WE HAVE ON THIS GODAMMED PLANET THE SAME OLD GODAMED STORY!

SO KNOCK THE BULLSHIT OFF!

Zak, I hear the passion and concern in your voice for those who are suffering.  If you studied more about the work Swimme is doing, and his motivations for doing it, you might reconsider the direction of your anger, however.  His concern is that a number of our “old” stories have been destructive in their own ways, breeding attitudes which either treat the world as the possession of a particular tribe or people (a number of old monotheistic perspectives come to mind) or simply as something to be “used” and exploited by humanity.  He points out we are in the midst of a major extinction event, primarily human-caused, and he traces this towards our attitude towards the world and our place in it. 

In Wilber-speak, his approach is somewhat “Green,” but I believe it's a healthy, respectful approach nonetheless that seeks to awaken us to the wonderous gift that creation really is.  Which includes all precious life on it, human and non.

Julian, this is great!

I think this is so important.

This new story brings with it a whole new ethic and a whole new way of life.

This would surely transform our culture if it were to take hold, and I think it will.

It may even be able to transform the contents of mythic (Amber) religion itself, replacing the creation story with intelligent design.

But maybe not. Maybe it will just help mythic (Amber) move into rational (Orange).

Bruce, from the relatively little of Swimme that I have heard and read I thought he was a Turquoise thinker, that this deep-time context is Turquoise.

This is from the real evolution debate:

As cosmologist Brian Swimme explains it, this law defines the vast deep-time trajectory of a universe that “begins with matter, develops into life, develops into thought, develops into God.”

I had thought that would be a Turquoise view, though of course the God word can be misleading. 

Also, when he speaks in the first video about the old stories not functioning but still having importance he seems to be creating a respectful hierarchy, which would be something we would see in Turquoise.

But it wouldn't surprise me for a moment if, despite there being a lot of Turquoise aspects, there were a lot of Green aspects as well, even too much. In fact, that would be the most likely thing, I would think. What about his work do you think is unecessarily Green (pluralistic, morally relatavistic, non-hierarchichal for those new to Ken Wilber's work).

Zakariyya, even though Swimme tends to think on a planetary level (a cool video from Matt), the deeply evolutionary view would care about all aspects of creation or manifestation, including those in less-developed parts of the world, and be deeply concerned about their development. I am pretty sure that Brian Swimme also deeply cares about that, but the survival of the human species would be the more fundamental question, which is probably why he stresses it (implicitly perhaps).

~David

Hi, David, yes, he might be cognitively Teal or Turquoise, and I do not find him to subscribe to a “flatland relativism” either.  Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, in his classification system, identifies him as “eco-holistic,” a more sophisticated perspective than the one he describes as “eco-radical” (explicitly postmodern), but less sophisticated than his “Integral ecologist” stage (Turquoise).  So, I think Esbjorn-Hargens places him at Teal  However, when I've heard him talk about different spiritual perspectives, I got more of a Green feel.  So, maybe a little of both?  :-)

Hey Julian, It is great that you are turned on to Brian Swimme.  I have loved him for years and have often written about his stuff along with Thomas Berry who he has co-authored The Universe Story.  I agree, this is 21st Spirituality at its awesome best.  I got the Earth's Imagination a month or so ago.  The discussion about Free Energy, how we keep evolving in whatever mode we are in, to mop it up…..and how we are at this amaze phase change now, where 'we' are a mode of the earth's imagination, and for the first time ever can begin to infuse this imagination with compassion, with earth-centered concern for the well-being of everything….Synergy is how Brian speaks about it…. 'a mutually enhancing relationship with the entire earth community'. If memory serves me correctly, our discussions in January 2007 in the integral pod had a lot of references to Brian Swimme. (I wish I could link back to those, but I can't figure it out). You won't find 'the magical thinking stuff'  with Brian or with Thomas— though this whole journey is 'magical' in a poetic sense–for godsake,  we are made of stardust!  like really…  how awesome it is to have arrived in this moment, in these bodies, at this amazing juncture in time with this awareness.  This is IMO about what being TRANSRATIONAL is about….. it is about this phase change where we become aware and responsible for our amazing human mode of being as an integral expression of the evolving universe…. Maybe we will find ourselves, respectfully,on the same wave length yet!  warmly, Jane  

Bruce, yes, most likely it is both.

But I would like to explore this a little further because I don't think we should place him at Teal rather than Turquoise without good evidence.

What makes me think he is Turquoise (in these videos at least and on this particular subject; I think it is common to see people take a dip on emotional subjects like politics or spirituality) is because he seems to be offering the evolutionary, deep-time context as an operating system. I believe Ken Wilber suggested that such an idea could come at Turquoise at the earliest in a guru and pandit, but I couldn't find it. At any rate, Swimme seems to be suggesting that the new story is something to live by, an operating ethic. Could that happen at Teal? Could that be a Turquoise aspect of Swimme's work?

I think it's really interesting about Sean Esborne-Hargen's work. “Eco-radical” sounds perfect for Green ecology. I tried to google for some more information, but I only found two things and only had access to one of them. The one I did have acces to you can find here, and it is worth looking at if you haven't seen it (I'm pretty sure it is something you have seen, Bruce).

He does put Swimme/Berry's new cosmology in Teal. I don't know why exactly or if it could be due to Berry.

However, aspects of his holonic level include global networks, entire living systems, global awareness, and macro-mangement, all of which Swimme seems to touch upon in these videos. In the video I linked in my above comment, Matt's video, I believe he is talking about macro-management when he speaks of creativity on a global level. Does this make sense? Also, the paper was written in 2004.

Finally, in that 2004 paper, they (Brown and Esborn-Hargens) place Black Elk, St. Francis, Goethe, and Mathew Fox in third tier. Do you think this is justified, or do you think it is a Wilber IV analysis? Where do you think these people I have listed are vertically? Have you read Black Elk Speaks? I imagine you have. I liked the medicine-wheel post, by the way.

They do list  “deep committment to all sentient beings” as an aspect of their mystical stage, but when their in-a-nutshell explanation is “one with nature” it makes me think that perhaps they aren't sensitive enough to the difference between states and stages.

I also wonder why he puts Teilhard de Chardin in Teal.

Finally ( a last minute addition!) where would you put Michael Dowd? He was what I had in mind when I mentioned transforming the contents of Amber (though he could be Orange or Green as well), that is, the transformation of Amber indifference toward the environment (or even some end-time hostility or destruction enabling) to what Hargens calls “stewardship.”

First, I am not angry at all. How could I be, since what you describe Swimme deals with has been around since the fall of man, it would be redundant to being “angry”.

My point is that these new-age [scientific mystics], who are coming up with this - including - Wilber, science, and religion claptrap, know nothing about the universe. As well they don't have the capacity or knowledge to excite real change. All they have is  emotional new age platitudes, not real knowledge, but hordes of followers who are deceived that they have real knowledge, and they don't!  That is my “anger”.

The same thing goes for that idiot Harris, another “false prophet” of ignorance, Julian is praising. Julian mocks, critiques, and exposes new age religious parasites [a good thing] I mock and expose new age - scientific mystics - who don't know what they are talking about.

That said, the guy is most likely a decent humanitarian, with a little on the cap, but I assure you not much. He is an entertainer,  like most of these ignorant new age scientific mystics, not a worker dealing with real truth.

We need to deal with the problems of the human condition, from a standpoint of REAL KNOWLEDGE,  seeking understanding and information of the etiologies of our problems. If we dont, we are doomed!

And it will be because of ignorance, and not understanding that REAL KNOWLEDGE HAS TO BE JUDGED ON ITS OWN MERIT, based on the capacity to see.

Julian

Don't scratch too hard, you might cut yourself.

Julian my rant is not really a rant, I just like keeping things real when people in a world like we are in, start agreeing too much!

Mr. Swimme seems all right, though it seems he is connected to this person [Barbara Hand Clow ] whom I don't have any problems with, but judging by some of your past posts Julian, you might.

http://www.handclow2012.com/journeyninedimensions.htm

This “new story” stuff seems to be similar to something I came across a year ago on Global Mind shift

Just keep in mind folks, I have to keep the bad boy image, so when the shit REALLY hits the fan, we can survive.

Hi Julian, I didn't see any ID in the new story at all. What I am saying is that if this new story were really to become popular, to take hold, it could transform things for evangelicals and the like. They could favor ID rather than God made Eve from Adam's rib and such. That would be a big improvement. For one thing, it would set them up very nicely for a transition to rationalism, a rational view of evolution.

Julian: when he says things like “life invented eyes” i think in a poetic sense it is wonderful, in a scientific sense it is anthropomorphizing (imbuing with human qualities) a large abstract concept (life or evolution, or natural selection or gene mutation) that itself has no conscious agency - and thereby creating potential confusion about at what stage the process of self-organization becomes conscious of itself.

How would you phrase this?

So, before the Big Bang there was nothing. Then there were those first moments. Why?

Let me give you a quotation from a Tom Huston article named “Which Came First: The Chicken or the Big Bang?”

“Since the 1970s, theists have invoked this fine-tuning argument as empirical evidence for a creator by asserting that there are only two explanations: God or chance,” writes Robert Lawrence Kuhn, host of the PBS roundtable discussion series Closer to Truth, in the summer edition of Skeptic magazine. “However,” he adds, “to pose such a stark and simplistic choice is to construct a false and misleading dichotomy.” Instead, Kuhn proposes no less than twenty-seven different explanations for why we happen to find ourselves in such a biologically accommodating place… .

“Still other scientists, arguing on behalf of what's known as the anthropic principle-the general idea that our universe's life-friendliness is not a random accident-find this kind of speculation absurd. “To be blunt, in my view, it's just giving up,” cosmologist James N. Gardner, author of Biocosm, told WIE. “It represents a failure to recognize that just as the appearance of a seemingly well-tuned natural world constituted a vital set of clues for Darwin to follow, so, too, does the appearance of a seemingly well-tuned cosmos constitute a vital set of clues that should be pursued.” Arizona State University physicist Paul Davies agrees. In his latest book, Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life, he argues that most theories about a multiverse simply represent a failure of the imagination. He much prefers two alternatives: 1) the idea that there is some kind of implicit life force or evolutionary impulse guiding the emergence of life and consciousness in our universe, or 2) what's been described as Davies' “self-creating universe in a teleological backward causation” theory.

“Yes, the theory is as strange as it sounds, but Davies believes it's no more bizarre than any other explanation in Kuhn's taxonomy. He proposes that the natural laws forged so precisely fourteen billion years ago in the big bang happened to favor the eventual emergence of life because our existence as living beings, here and now, actually fine-tuned them to be that way-retroactively. “Crazy though the idea may seem at first,” Davies explains, “there is in fact no fundamental impediment to a mechanism that allows later events to influence earlier events.” Invoking arcane mysteries of quantum physics such as entanglement, nonlocality, and the idea that conscious observation plays an essential role in “collapsing” quantum potentials into concrete reality, Davies contends that the presence of conscious observers today is no accident. Our existence, he says, is due to the ability of conscious observations to ripple forward and backward in time, influencing even the quantum fluctuations that took place in the initial nanoseconds of the big bang itself-a time when the laws of physics were still susceptible to subtle tweaking. “If the conditions necessary for life are somehow written into the universe at the big bang,” Davies told New Scientist last fall, “there must be some sort of two-way link.” In other words, the universe may be continually pulling itself up by its own bootstraps-from the future to the past-as a self-correcting, self-contained, and very living system.”

We must organize the rich, the wealthy and the powerful to stop the bullshit, and FINALLY end extreme poverty and disease in this planet, before we can benefit from all this new age, new story bullshit.

When I get the time [I am writing three books while working a full time job] I will start posting on my pod - charity central- ideas about pursuing the goal of organizing, and proselytizing those in this world with influence, wealth, and power to FINALLY [since we have the technology to do it] move on erasing from the standpoint of charity, EXTREME POVERTY, AND DISEASE, WHERE IT SHOULDN'T BE EXISTING.

 Bringing onto wholeness the poor starving girl in Afghanistan, or black boy dying of Aids in Africa, or poor white folks in Appalachia, that should be the NEW STORY

All I have now is my big mouth, and big heart, if one day by the grace of God I get the resources of a Bill Gates, or George Soros, there is no doubt, I will live off the 40, 000 I earn a year working, and give all of that to the needy, and die a poor man.

The NEW STORY is right before our eyes, we are just too blind to see it

To me, that should be the NEW STORY

Or we as a race DON'T DESERVE THE BOUNTIES OF THE UNIVERSE!

Look for posts soon on charity central about this.

Zak

My friend just sent me a copy of this Salon.com article that seems relevant.