A Multidimensional Matrix of Integral Learning

Imagine a geodesic sphere, with 20 nodes on its surface, each representing a center of integral practice, all linked together through an Integral Commons that allows thousands of members of these centers—from integral ecology to integral politics to integral business to integral spirituality—to communicate with each other, forging a multidimensional matrix of integral learning.

Welcome to Integral University, the world’s first Integral Learning Community.

Integral University—also known as the Multiplex—will at first be an online learning community with the world’s most extensive integral knowledge library, interactive learning environments, and online courses. It will very soon offer accredited courses in a variety of fields, certificates of learning, training seminars, and, eventually, accredited graduate-level degrees.

Now under construction and set to launch early 2005, Integral University is not only an integral community of practice, but a crucible of integral learning. The Multiplex will pioneer—and exemplify—new modes of being and knowing and working and playing, all based on a more integral life and consciousness.

The Multiplex will link together integral centers, integral salons, integral communities, and integral approaches into a network that itself is integral. This integral network, instantly bringing together thousands of practitioners from around the world, will create an enclave of integral consciousness as a seed of tomorrow’s more integral, embracing, compassionate, and inclusive culture.

The Multiplex is therefore indeed an example and a catalyst of what Toynbee called a Rising Culture. It reaches beyond (and yet includes) any existing cultural types—beyond the cultural creatives, beyond traditional, modern, and postmodern habits—to create, by its own ongoing learning and self-organizing, a more genuinely integral and embracing culture of consciousness.

What will this Rising Culture look like? Why don’t you join us and help to determine the answer to this question yourself? Membership in Integral University is open to any individuals who sincerely wish to bring an integral approach to their life, work, relationships, career, and consciousness. Please see the Bulletin Board for updates on how you could become a part of this extraordinary adventure in consciousness.


The Pattern of Practical Wholeness

Early 2005, around 20 websites will go up all at once, linked together through an Integral Commons. Each website is actually a center at Integral University (aka the Multiplex). The number of centers is set to expand from 20 to 40 or more within the next two years, with each of these already under planning or construction.

Each center website at Integral University is hosted by one or more of the foremost authorities in that particular field, all of whom are associates of Integral Institute. General membership in The Multiplex, however, is open to anybody who sincerely wishes to become involved in integral training, practice, and applications.

When you log on to Integral University, you are ushered into the Integral Commons, which is at the core of the geodesic sphere that is the University itself. Integral Commons has everything you need to understand and participate in any of the 20 centers of integral practice. From the Commons, you can click onto any of those centers (which are nodes on the surface of the interlinked geodesic sphere)—that is, you can click onto any of the 20 websites representing a center of integral practice (Integral Ecology, Integral Spirituality, Integral Medicine, Integral Law, Integral Psychotherapy, Integral Business, etc.). Membership in The Multiplex gives access to all 20 centers, although individuals often choose to focus on one or two centers that particularly interest them.

Each IU Center site has a minimum of the following:

  1. A Knowledge Base containing the major seminal writings about that integral center (such as Integral Psychology, Integral Practice, Integral Business, Integral Ecology, etc.), along with an extensive audio archive of discussions that are already occurring around a particular integral topic; these include literally hundreds of hours of audio discussions among the world’s leading integral thinkers, available nowhere else.

  2. An interactive Learning Center offering online courses; live conference call bridges and "office hours" with IU faculty; and interactive learning events featuring the use of cutting-edge webcast technology.

  3. A Collaboration Forum with a threaded discussion area (where individuals use their real names—no flaming, no drive-by shootings, but serious dialogue to advance an area of integral practice), including discussions moderated by IU faculty.

  4. A Community Action section featuring a calendar of upcoming events, especially focusing opportunities for individuals to interact in person; a directory of integral businesses and practitioners; and announcements of interest to the Integral Community.

  5. A starter kit of all of the basic information and practical tools needed to begin applying an integral approach in the particular field—personal or professional—represented by that center.

  6. A newsletter on developments in the integral area, presentations, seminars, courses, salons around the world, and news of members’ activities.

Integral University is not a one-way educational site. It is highly interactive. It is, indeed, the world’s first Integral Learning Community.

Integral Learning and the Rising Culture

There are two tiers of integral learning pioneered at IU. The first involves each of the integral centers themselves—such as Integral Psychology, Integral Law, Integral Ecology, Integral Education, Integral Practice, Integral Art, and so on. Each of those centers—and the many members around the world who are partners in those centers—will pioneer the hands-on practical application of integral principles to their chosen areas.

That is the first tier of integral learning—namely, all of the partners of a particular center will form a mega-feedback loop on how to apply the Integral Approach in their areas; which types of approaches work, which don’t; advice and practical tips on how to proceed; trial and error in the application of Integralism. What works?—and what doesn’t?—when you practice Integral Business, Integral Medicine, Integral Spirituality, Integral Law, Integral Ecology, Integral Transformative Practice, and so on....

However, not only will each center be pioneering ways to apply integral approaches in their own fields—personal to professional—each of the centers will be talking with each other. And that is the second tier of integral learning pioneered by Integral University. Not only how can I effectively learn and practice Integral Ecology, but what can Integral Ecology learn from Integral Psychology? And what can Integral Psychology learn from Integral Law? And what can Integral Law learn from Integral Art?

In the first years of Integral Institute, we have been amazed at how much of this type of second-tier learning occurs. Crucial principles of Integral Business have actually come from Integral Art; major breakthroughs in Integral Ecology have come from Integral Psychology. But then, what else would one expect from an Integral Approach, where everything is connected to everything else?

Integral University will pioneer both of those levels of integral learning, with each center learning more effective ways to implement the Integral Approach in its own area, and each center—and all its members—talking to each other about what everybody can learn from... everybody else.

The first version of Integral University is now under construction and is set to launch in the near future.

But IU 1.0 is simply a huge feedback loop, a community of learning and practice, which will provide—and create—the necessary practical knowledge that will allow us to launch IU 2.0... which will create the practical learning that will allow the launch of IU 3.0... and so goes the creation of a Rising Culture of Consciousness.

If you would like to be part of this historical creation, please stay tuned to the Bulletin Board for late-breaking news on IU.