In the summer of 1997, a group of philanthropists approached Ken Wilber with an offer of substantial funds to start an organization that would advance more comprehensive and integrated approaches to the world's increasingly complex problems. Wilber invited some 400 of the world's leading integral thinkers to gather together for a series of meetings at his home in Boulder, Colorado. Joe Firmage, who was invited to several of these meetings, announced that "there is nothing anywhere in the world that is doing what Integral Institute is doing," and then promptly donated a million dollars in cash. With that donation, Integral Institute was formally launched. It was incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c) in 1998.
Integral Institute has gone through three major phases since its inception. The first was launch and exploration, consisting of almost two years of meetings with over 400 of the world’s leading integral theorists. The second was oriented around the creation of core teams, which is still a central activity of I-I. The third is the formation of Integral University, the world’s first Integral Learning Community, and the outreach website, Integral Naked.
For more of this history, please see Letter From the President. For ways that you can become involved in the above activities, please see Join Us. For late-breaking news in all these areas, see the Bulletin Board.
Ken Wilber is generally regarded as the world's most influential integral thinker. He is the first psychologist-philosopher in history to have his Collected Works published while still alive, and with his 22 books translated in up to 30 foreign languages, Ken is perhaps the most highly translated academic writer in America.
Integral means "comprehensive, inclusive, covering all the bases"—or at least trying to. A comprehensive, integral, or inclusive approach is, almost by definition, a little bit hard to grasp at the beginning. However, as its general features become familiar, the integral approach to various problems actually becomes fairly simple to understand and easy to apply.
Many people believe that Jack Crittenden's foreword to one of Ken's books does an excellent job of introducing the integral approach and its general importance. For convenience, we've made "What Is the Meaning of Integral?" available both on its own page, and as a PDF by clicking here. See also About Us, The Integral Approach for a summary of integral methodology and examples of how it can be applied.
Although Ken is clearly a central figure in Integral Institute, its many members, friends, and associates are a crucial part of I-I and its work in the world. Please see below for some of Integral Institute's Founding Members, and see the Letter from the President and the Bulletin Board for some of I-I's ongoing work and service in the world.
Here are some of the founding members of a few of the major branches of Integral Institute.
Integral Psychology
Robert Kegan, Francisco Varela, David Chalmers, Roger Walsh, Frances Vaughan, Mike Murphy, T George Harris, Susann Cook-Greuter, Don Beck, Robert Forman, Bert Parlee, Nathaniel Branden, Leland Johnson, Allan Combs, Raz Ingrasci, Brian van der Horst, Edith Zundel, Adam Engle, Frank Visser, Peter McNab, Thomas Jordan, William Torbert, John Rowan, Antony Arcari, Jenny Wade, Kaisa Puhakka, Joel Funk, Mike Mahoney, David Deida, Connie Hilliard, Dick Mann, Michael Zimmerman
Integral Business
Warren Bennis, Bob Richards, Fred Kofman, Sam Bercholz, John Forman, Tony Schwartz, Ian Mitroff, Jim Stuart, Eric Klein, Bob Anderson, Joann Neuroth, John Cleveland, Marilyn Hamilton, Michael Putz, Daryl Paulson, Tami Simon, Leo Burke, Geoffrey Gioja, Michel Bauwens, Paul Landraitis, Rick Strycker, Larry Greene, Yasuhiko Kamura, Deepak Chopra, Jordan Gruber, Byron Belitsos, Fred Studier, Joe Firmage
Integral Politics
Gregory Wilpert, Lawry Chickering, Jim Garrison, Drexel Sprecher, Tyler Norris, Mark Gerzon, Jack Crittenden, Michael Ostrolenk, Debora Lerner, Jim Turner, Waheed Hassan, Tom Rautenberg, Keith Thompson, Alex Burns, Georgie Anne Geyer, Kees Breed, Ray Harris, John Steiner, Gus diZerega, Thomas Jordan, Margo King, Mark Selig, Sara Ross, Rob Fersh, Maureen Silos, Reginald Daniel, Christy Carpenter, Mike McDermott, Bill Ury, Paul van Schaik, Barbara Cavanaugh, Betsy Lehrfeld
Integral Medicine
Larry Dossey, Ken Pelletier, Fred Luskin, Kekuni Minton, John Astin, Richie Davidson, Jerry Coursen, Tom Goddard, Wanda Jones, Joan Borysenko, Marilyn Schlitz, William Buchholz, Bija Bennett, Gary Schwartz, George Leonard, James Ensign, David Lorimer, Jeanne Achterberg, Linda Russek, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Integral Education
Alexander (Sandy) Astin, Jack Crittenden, Robert Thurman, Helen (Lena) Astin, Antony Arcari, A.V. Ashok, Linda Campbell, Janis Claflin, Gordon Dveirin, Warren Farrell, Kate Fotopoulos, Bill Godfrey, Ray Greenleaf, Andy Hertz, Patrick Howley, Richard Slaughter, Dan Spinner, Bud Stone, Arthur Zajonc, David Scott, Rachel Kessler, Sylvia Timbers, Fred Kofman, Toni Murdock, John Petersen, Petra Pieterse, Dean David Shrader
Integral Law and Criminal Justice
Jim Turner, Betsy Lehrfeld, Jake Gibbs, Dennis Giever, Randy Martin, Thom Gehring
Integral Art
Alex Grey, Carlo McCormick, Anne Barclay Morgan, Stuart Davis, Fariba Bogzarin, Haydn Anthony, Zack Gould, Warren Bellows, David Zindell, Ronit Herzfeld, Karin Swann, Mark Riva, Les Kahn, Philip Rubinov Jacobson, Ed Kowalczyk, Barra Kahn
Integral Ecology
Chris Desser, Michael Zimmerman, Gus diZerega, Ian Wight, Sean Hargens, Alan Atkisson, Matthew Kalman
Integral Spirituality
Father Thomas Keating, Deepak Chopra, David Deida, Andrew Cohen, Roshi Bernie Tetsugen Glassman, Saniel and Linda Bonder, Sam Bercholz, Brother David Stendl-Rast, David Frenette, Richard Baker, Michael Lerner, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, Roger Walsh, Michael Murphy, George Leonard, Brother Wayne Teasdale, Frances Vaughan, Michal Levin, Graeme Chapman, Craig Hamilton, Robert Thurman, Jessica Dibb
University Students Outreach ("Integral Kids")
David Arrell, Allan Breedlove, Shailagh Clarke, Ivan Guerrero, Scott Warren, Vipassana Parker, Seth Halvorson, Sean Hargens, Tom Huston, Janet Logothetti, Steve March, Andre Marquis, Andrew Russell, Norio Suzuki, Uri Talmor, Nicole Trudel, Marcia Kay Walters, Stefanie Warren, Travis Webster, David Zeitler
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