Stuart Davis vs. Steve Pavlina

well said bro. here's one thing i noticed though: most of the people (like me and you, Paul) who are easy on Pavlina are those who are long-time readers of his blog. the reason for this i think is because we've seen more dimensions of the blogging persona of Pavlina than those who criticize him based on a few blog posts.

“I’m willing to bet that Stuart was not able to feel much “outrage, a desire to see people punished, a sense of addiction to the drama” himself in response to the shootings at VaTech, and I think it scared him.”

well, i'm not sure about what Stuart felt. but that's how i felt. though it didn't scare me. i went through these stages: shock, disbelief, WTF!, empathy with the victims and their friends and families, anger and hatred toward the shooter, anger at the people using this incident to push their political agendas, compassion for the shooter, disgust with the media for feasting on the story, and then a sense of acceptance that life goes on.

~C

P.S. Check out Pavlina's post, Spiritual Depth Perception. very fluffy :)

C4 linked to this blog post in a discussion in the I-I pod, and I have taken the liberty of reposting it entirely.

The thread can be found here.

peace

Pelle

Great post, i am glad to see you trying to take a balanced position.  One thing i can attest to, is that I-I is NOT trying to make anyone into a strawman–the only reason Pavlina was brought into the Integral spotlight (or the Eye of Sauron, if you prefer) was that he was mistakenly identified as “turquoise” in a recent issue of Holons, which Ken had to publicly disagree with in order to preserve, well, the integrity of that altitude description.  That's what got the whole ball rolling.

Anyway, i understand your point about Steve's own personal definition of “subjective reality” being more or less synonymous with Witness.  Where it becomes dangerous is when he says something like this, which sounds pretty far from the “impersonal subjectivity” you seem to think he is pointing to:

“I can easily interpret the Virginia Tech shooting as a dream in a way that’s meaningful for me. For example, the key numbers (age 19, 33 dead) are significant for me. At age 19 I made a decision to turn my life around while sitting in a jail cell (as explained in podcast #1), and at age 33 I launched StevePavlina.com. The shooting occurred at the tail end of a weekend Erin and I spent in Sedona, Arizona, which unearthed and eventually resolved a lot of internal conflict about certain upcoming decisions. I don’t see this event as tragic in any way. It doesn’t cause me to feel outrage, a desire to see people punished, a sense of addiction to the drama. It just is.”

In this paragraph, he is championing HIS OWN relative subjectivity as the centerpiece of this massacre, NOT the Absolute Witness, NOT the Ultimate Self who is indeed dreaming this entire world of pain and pleasure into existence.  No, this is just little Steve trying to find his own meaning reflected in this tragedy.  Of course he wouldn't feel outrage, since details of his own personal life were secretly encoded into the circumstances of this shooting, thus proving that it is all indeed his own blood-drenched dream, a dream intended to help provide meaning for his own “subjective reality” of sitting in jail when a teenager and starting his website as a thirtysomething.  At first glance, that sounds like the delusions of a paranoid schizophrenia–but i will give him more credit than that.  However, his altogether disconsolate post about the shooting isn't just lazy writing, it is potentially dangerous for a great many people, and it is in this way that Pavlina's take is just a short stone's throw from the unabashed narcissism that constitutes the recent Secret trend of spirituality.

hi friends,

a few notes.  i promise you there is not some “marketing ploy” to tap into the Steve Pavlina market.  Ken didn't even know i was going to ask about it.  no one told me to write about it, in fact, if anything, i was discouraged by I-I from making a big thing about it (although i was given license of course, to write and create what i wanted).

further, i contacted Steve personally and asked him to join me as a guest on integral naked and respond in real time, in -person to these points.  he declined, saying he'd already done an interview with Coolmel.  in  my opinion, he is simply side-stepping the whole thing.

why did i have such a strong reaction to his blog?  i outline that in detail in my own response, but the short of it is, Steve Pavlina HOURS after real people were massacred, used the open would of others to advertise both narcissism and spiritual bypass.  it was honestly one of the ugliest things i'd seen in months.  and he refuses to take accountability for that.  he needs to be called out.

i get it.  i get he (and you, and others) think he's just taking a perspective.  but come on.  he opportunistically posted a wholesale dismissal of the tragedy, and in a brazen and bizzare way twisted the whole thing as some plaything of his imagination.  then he's blathering on about Sedona Arizona, and numerology, and on and on.  It's not right.   To see him defended has felt sad.  Coolmel said I lacked skillful means, and was essentially antagonistic.  I feel it's the other way around.  I feel what Steve Pavlina posted, at that moment in our culture in that manner, was outrageously cruel and narcissistic. 

I'm sure he has many great assets.  I'm sure he's a valuable dude in many ways.  But in that blog, at that time in our culture, he made a collosal, dissociative move, and now he refuses to simply talk with me in person so he can fix it.

But, so be it.  I already feel yucky and sticky from all this stuff, and it's taken the focus off the VA shootings.

By the way, not all anger is projection.  I waited days before I responded to Steve's post, and I did 3-2-1 with it, and went to pains to make sure it wasn't just my disowned shadow. 

However, I am still sexually attracted to you Paul.  So fear not the loss of that haunting lust.

I still hold that Pavlina stepped off the deep end with this post, and that The Secret is unhealthy at any stage.

I also think Pavlina is smarter than his blog. It was very interesting to read Pavlina's response on Joe Perez's blog. It would be fun to chat with Pavlina in person sometime.

I had an E-mail conversation with Steve over his endorsement of The Secret about a month ago. His responses to my questions didn’t identify him to me as being very highly developed; in fact they were quite sad, seeing he is obviously a role model for a lot of people. Having said that, I never did take a closer look at his website, so I can’t speak more in detail about this…

Frans

Twisted Mystic said: “Coolmel said I lacked skillful means, and was essentially antagonistic.  I feel it's the other way around.  I feel what Steve Pavlina posted, at that moment in our culture in that manner, was outrageously cruel and narcissistic. ”

Coolmel is dead fer chrissakes! :)

anyway, what i meant by the skillful means part was that it would've been better if the sequence of events went something like this: IN contacted Pavlina, talked to the dude and asked him to explain his seemingly reductionistic and not so compassionate post before he got criticized on IN. this way, IN/I-I's criticisms would have more perspectives taken into consideration.

i think, from the point of view of Pavlina, he got alienated more than a number of times already, starting from the Holons, to the KenWilber.com blog post, and now the IN video and audio discussions. if i were Pavlina, i would think twice before agreeing for an the interview too.

but anyway, i'll be posting an interview i'm having with Pavlina soon, which hopefully would shed more light on his interiority and intentions.

~C

wow - i didnt know about this VA tech thing involving pavlina, I-I and the zaadz blogosphere…..

i'll have to get caught up!

suffice it to say it does not surprise me to hear:

a) someone obviously invested in the misguided new age belief system (as pavlina appears to be) making unintentionally offensive remarks about serious tragedy - it kinda goes with the territory because the new age belief system is (by definition, i would say) a defense against reality - and so doesnt do well with serious tragedy and tends to fall back on bad metaphysics.

b) someone as commited to very grounded real spirituality like davis being incensed by this kind of offensive new age schtick and putting it out their in fiery terms. it kinda goes along with that moment in my IN dialog with wilber where he says the problem with something like the secret is that it can't pass teh auschwitz test…… ya know - the problem with new age spirituality is that it doesn't know what to do with the reality of random senseless pain and suffering…. but it can't acknowledge the insufficiency of it's self-created-reality beliefs and os it's stuck trying to come up with the classic bad metaphysics i have already pointed out pavlina resorting to ….

c) people who are still unclear about the serious problems of the ubiquitous new age trip, loyal to pavlina and somehow thinking that stuff like “the secret” can still be compatible with Integral, coming to his defense.

sounds like an excellent wake up call! people - either you get that magenta level magical thinking is not healthy green or (better yet) an aspect of turquoise - or you don't - there is not any middle ground here. either you think people in the twin towers on 911, VA students who were shot, prisoners in auschwitz etc created that reality or you don't, it's a question of intellectual honesty, emotional depth and spiritual maturity. once you cross a certain threshold ( call it the centauric existential initiation into second tier cognition, psychology and spirituality) it is clear that none of this stuff holds any water or is of any use - now pavlina and his defenders claim that he knows this but is using skillful means tro communicate with his new age base……. i suggest that one can find better ways to bring along people as a spiritual mentor than to make a fast buck off of a bad fad, endorse it, come up with authoritative-soudning metaphysical  rebuttals to genuine concerns and then talk out the other side of your mouth to people who see through it as BS…… come on!

i had posted something last week that got some good dialog going about the whole holons/the secret/I-I controversy and will update a longer blog piece i have planned on The Problem of New Age Spirituality for Integral to include this chapter once i have looked into it more……


this is not about any personal attack on pavlina it's about acknowledging the serious problems with bad new age beliefs and the prominent people who continue to give them credibility - this should be clearly distinguished from integral in no uncertain terms….

C4,

The marketing perspective you have, seems true.  Especially since Stu, can't be bothered to use his verbal rants to go after Andrew Cohen, a demonstrable guru power-tripper cobtrol freak, but instead goes after Steve Pavlina, simply because of bad philosophy?

Weird that.

Note - I love Stu's rants - but the targets should be chosen with better care.

Now on the other subject, personal subjectivity, is a lot like magic - wish and you will receive.  There is a lot of favorable reports on magic, and integral doesn't really address the “magickal” level, where, say you DO get what you wish for - see Chaos Magick.   Now, Pavlina also says that things just don't come to you, you have to do the steps you see in front of you to make them happen.

Most likely 99% of “using magical spells” is simply orienting one's individual actions in a new way, that ACHIEVES your goal, and here's a hypothesis - what if this INCLUDES openness to some psychic information?

For example, if you “do a spell” (and I don't do these things, personally) to attract a new job, and IF you believe that psychic phenomena exist, then your subconscious can feed you impulses to “go here”, or “let's check out Craigslist today”, etc.  So you JUST HAPPEN to be in the right place, at the right time.

No real magic” happened, except for an openness to some psychic phenomena, and then using that information to inform one's next actions.

An example.  I go out with a buddy the other day, and we are simply getting some dinner, and going to a movie.  But before I go, I am seized with a conviction that I'm going to meet a whole group of people.  I don't know why.   But I “go with” that conviction, and decide to dress to meet people - with some style, rather than jeans and one of my geek shirts.

After the movie, my bud says, “oh, by the way, (girl he is dating) is going to a party.  She said we could come by, and meet some her friends”.

I said, 'sure, why not”.  Now, first I had heard of this, first he had mentioned it - not even hints, and yet, my intuition about the evening was correct.

And I was dressed for the part, went to the party, had a decent time, met a lot of new people.  AND I knew nothing about this before hand.

In this sense, IF YOU BELIEVE IN PSYCHIC PHENOMENA, you can make a very good case that, 99% of life (in a first world country, it must be said) operates on the subjective reality principle.   Do what needs to be done to make something happen - (work hard, take advantage of opportunities, etc) and be attuned psychically to the people who can help you with that goal.

Thoughts?

Julian,

The fact that Stu finds Steve Pavlina MORE OFFENSIVE than Andrew Cohen - something is screwed up there, isn't it?

first ebuddha - did he say that specifically? - please point it out - i think i missed it….of course cohen is problemtaic - but this conversation is not about him is it?

second p'sal and c4:

ok i have looked at the relevant material and it's worse than i thought…

i hear you echoing again the defense that we should read much more of pavlina's blog before we critique his perspective.

i don't agree.

his perspective on the secret was crystal clear and it was enough. his perspective on virginia tech is crystal clear and it is enough.

this kind of really bad new age narcissistic dissociative stuff masquerading as spiritual insight is enough.

i don't care if the man writes brilliantly on everything else from sustainable rocket science to recipes for organic vegan rissoto, i don't care if he donates 90% of his income to tibetan refugees, i don't care if he can summarize wiber's cannon in 25 words or less and compare it to the great german philosophers while he stands on his head and does fuken pranayama  (none of which is the case, but you see my point i am sure….) this is pure new age drivel and in both cases it is massively offensive.

it is an expression of a worldview that is clearly tweaked by the classsic new age distortions.

rekluse is being kind but accurate when he says at first the comments on VA Tech sound schizophrenic - they do! you correlated  the numbers of the gunman's age and the number of people dead and extracted personal meaning from it for your life!? steve please…. this is PURE narcissism of the most magnificent new age variety - it's offensive to real people everywhere who are not in your infantile omnipotent dream and it's a disservice to people who don't know any better and look to you for insight. WAKE UP!

 those of you defending this and calling davis' outrage overblown or unreasonable/unfairly judgmental - give me a break - what is wrong with you that you aren't outraged by this kind of thing?

seriously:

he took the age of the mass murderer and the number of innocent young people executed as being a little communique from the universe to him and saw no reason to buy into the addiction to drama fostered by believing in the dream!?

there's only one dream you need to wake up from buddy!

davis is on the money when he says that magical thinking is appropriate in a 3 year old but not a grown man - especially in response to a senseless tragedy.

thank you pavlina for so beautifully illustrating just where these sorts of bad ideas go and just why the outcry against the secret was necessary and accurate…

i'll send this comment to steve himself.

Julian,

” first ebuddha - did he say that specifically? - please point it out - i think i missed it….of course cohen is problemtaic - but this conversation is not about him is it?”

Don't think so, but “selective outrage” also implies priority.   Especially since the six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing is so much closer., with regard to Cohen, and there is actual abuse of real people involved, not just offended because of what someone said.

“and this conversation is not about him, is it?”

No, of course not.  But do you have an issue with the conversation being broadened?  Not about you, really - just bringing it up because I find it strange.

It is pretty interesting what people decide to comment on, in my opinion, especially as part of what Stu is doing - is being offended.  (and I understand the offense, regarding the dissociation in Pavlina's post).

I understand we all make our choices - and in this case, some of those choices are simply political/social- regarding what we express what we are “offended” by.  That choice usually is a political, or at least a social choice.  I simply find it interesting when those choices are not the obvious choices, given the realm a person moves in.  (Again, not about you, in this case).

One more thought - there is - has always been - a good product choice in the West, in terms of selling, to fuse a bit of magical thinking, with a spiritual perspective.  From that marketing perspective, it's a wise choice (from New Age to Deepak to the Secret).

Complete different thought/point - I disagree with the whole New Age thing, having been burned by it, in my youth. However, it must be said, in the presentation that Steve Pavlina presents Subjective Reality, he does focus on “taking responsibility”.  Which isn't too functionally different than the position of Victor Frankl's  Man's Search for Meaning, or other psychological theories of empowerment, in terms of what a person does, or how a person responds.

“The three core ideas of his theory are that life has meaning even under the worst imaginable circumstances; our core drive as humans is our search for meaning; and that we all have the freedom to discover what has meaning for us.”

with respect - you missed the point entirely.

the take away is what he said not how it gets spun. what he said is indefensible - & a wonderful example of why new age beliefs are so superficial and insulting when the chips are down.

i am sure his (& your) intentions are really good - this does not change the UL reductionism, regressivce magical thinking, PTF and elevating of dissociation.

the well meaning badly distorted half truth is worse than the lie - because it confuses even some smart folks….while sounding on a par with the deeper truths it is mangling.

If you acually read Pavlina's blog you will notice two things:

1) He displays teal cognition in several articles, talking about levels of consciousness, states, types and lines of development.
2) In some articles he slips back into green spirituality and occasionally all the way back to magenta.

Only seeing point 1 or point 2 is a partial truth, we need to acknowledge both points.

I do think it's appropriately to call a spade a spade, and to name his green stuff as green. What I can't really understand though is the outrage against his occasional display of green. This is simply where he's at guys! We have to let people be where they're at in the spiral.

Some might say that being green is fine, but displaying pathological green must be met with an integral rebuttal. Yeah… kind of… maybe.
But is S Pavlina that pathological? While we can all spot some pathology in the article being discussed, all in all I would say that his blog promotes healthy development in yourng readers (most of his readers are young, apparently). Even when he promotes The Secret he deconstructs a lot of the magical thinking that movie might encourage in susceptible people.

I would also like to encourage everyone to look inside themselves. Why the need to attack Pavlina? Let's remember that teal hates green with a passion, whereas turquoise can take a step back and enjoy the truths of green in an expanded context. Turquoise actually has a harder time standing teal, since that is the stage last exited. Food for thought.
Compulsively needing to attack green will actually hinder your progress up the spiral.

peace
pelle

I guess the real thing is, is Steve's use of “subjective reality”, a mountain or a molehill?   I would say the WAY that Steve emphasizes “personal responsibility” in his use of the New Agey Subjective Reality view, is more of a molehill, than a mountain.  That's my view.  In this, I agree with P'Sal, and Pelle.

But Paul, who ya calling a lady, grandma??

:)

the stuff that i, stuart, and colin bigelow are critiquing in pavlina is not green.

the sentiment you are expressing is green, and it's a ok one as far as it goes.

beyond the color-coding, the bad philosophy, dissociated metaphysics, and solipsistic magical thinking being espoused as higher spiritual insight is not only irksome, it has real world consequences.

people who don't know better take this stuff seriously (and try to live by it)  and pavlina's take on the secret (in which he suggested that we “create” the reality of child abuse with our thoughts and that there are no other people with intentions competing with ours because it is all all our dream) and his take on VA tech (in which he suggests that having strong feelings about the incident is being “addicted to the drama”, he states flat out that he doesn't think this is a tragedy, reiterates the BS stoner first year philosophy student  “subjective reality” idea, and then stunningly displays his narcissism by projecting some kind of personal numerological significance onto the events as if they were a special affirming message to him from the universe…) are prime examples of what is so superficial and checked out about the new age.

his young students (as you call them) should not be encouraged to interpret their own experience of life through these incredibly distorted dissociation-inducing spiritual lenses. no stagewise growth, healthy integration or real world spirituality will come of it….. only a perpetuation of spiritual fragmentation, callus emotional disconnection, and very poor thinking.

as i have been saying for some time now - there is a difference between healthy stage-appropriate spirituality and this kind of degraded viral pathology - which of course is super-popular in our superficial dissociated society right now…

remember this all started because Holons chose to evaluate pavlina erroneously.

the ensuing defense of his work by integrally-informed people shows some things pretty clearly:

1) there is a lot of work to be done to clearly differentiate the new age from integral.
basic tenents like say -

a) the PTF,
b) the difference between AQAL integrity and reductionistic (in this case UL reductionism) category errors, and
c) an understanding of how psychological development, cognition, and interpretation of real events in the world are related - are still not adequately understood.

2) many integrally-informed people are quite confused about the difference between the new age and integral and still hold the ubiquitous new age coping mechanisms close to their hearts and defend them with all sorts of odd arguments.

3) the serious engagement of actual practices that help to deconstruct these errors in cognition, psychological defenses, and spiritual bypasses is not being emphasized enough as the siamese twin of integral theory.

lastly - i dont care how you color code it, or if you have ever heard of integral, - any reasonable, emotionally connected, intellectually honest, grounded in reality response to pavlinas latest gaffe would include some sense of being ast least appalled if not outraged - he posted this stuff the day after 32 young adults were senselessly executed. it's quite simply an insult to the human condition.

there's no relativizing that…

did we “create the reality” of the murders and is this an “important message” - no and no.

two things created this tragedy:
1) mental illness - which (of this kind) in all likelihood in is purely genetic.
2) bad gun control laws/enforcement.

of course we can look at the other elements, AQAL style - but in this case these two are key.

a kid with a history of psychiatric problems should not have been able to buy a gun and should probably have been institutionalized or under very close observation until (and even after) the meds that could really help him were administered.

probably the biggest contender for third place is this: the teachers should have had better recourse to a way of communicating their concern to authorities that could have done something to help this mentally ill boy.

none of us created this reality with our thoughts. period.

the tragedy at tech would still have happened even if the whole new age community was visualizing sexy millionaire bunnies disappearing down quantum rabbit holes into realms of psychic self-development in which the dream dissolved to reveal steve pavlina's ego as the creator of all manifest reality - because quite simply all of that is vacuous nonsense that has no impact on anything.

i am not attacking anyone here - just pointing out incredibly bad interpretations and manglings of philosophy and spirituality.

healthy green? what would MLK say to this tragedy? Gandhi? let's check out the ACLU's perspective, even barack obama in certain moments, hillary too…….. you won't hear a trace of the magical thinking solipsistic nonsense i am dismissing here in genuine healthy green interpretations.

unhealthy green relativizes the whole thing and refuses to pathologize the gunman's interior state - in it's extreme it refuses to see the tragedy for what it is…

regressive green into magenta new age gets all tripped out on how our thoughts must have created this, right? because our thoughts create everything and this is all MY dream….. bad premises lead to bad conclusions and a kind of dissociated fragmentation results.

Julian:
mental illness- which (of this kind) in all likelyhood in is purely genetic

No, it is not purely genetic. Not even schizophrenia is purely genetic. It is probably best not to comment on this if you don't know your basic Medicine. Check out some twin studies on schizophrenia and you'll see this yourself. There can definitely be a heavy genetic component though, no argument there.

As for pathological green and its slipping back into magenta, I do see it, and I do call a spade a spade. Like I said, it does happen to S Pavlina occasionally, but unlike the hoards of new age preachers out there, Pavlina does produce large quantities of useful material inspired by teal cognition. That's the perspective we also have to acknowledge in this debate.. I do feel that his article on Virginia Tech showed a lack of compassion, and the article itself eventually got lost in a green/magenta maze. Under no circumstances will I defend his posting of that article, it is certainly not an integral piece of writing.

pelle

i am glad you are happy to distance yourself from pavlina's gaffe pelle.

well regardless of additional possibilities the fact remained that this kid needed meds, observation and institutionalization (as opposed to meditation, group therapy and visualization techniques…yeah?). my point is he had a psychiatric condition - and i said in all likelihood - meaning tthat of course additional variables are possible…

the fact remains that yours mine and pavlina's thoughts had no effect whatsoever on Cho and what he did - anyone who says they did is delusional.

as to your other resommendations of SP's work - i refer you to my above comments…

anyway y'all thanks for the help coming up with this overview in response to all of this. more to come on the problem of the new age for integral…

i appreciate the debate.

peace out.

~julian

Yes Julian, I distance myself from that blog post, but I don't distance myself from (nor approach) Steve Pavlina. There's no need to go on some kind of witch hunt. All we can do as integral folks is to provide people with alternative high quality material in everyday language to give them a chance to taste a new level. We cannot spend all our time and intelligence chasing every green blog post that might appear on the net. And like I've said 27 times or more now: I think it's a particularly bad idea to let S Pavlina represent green since he obviously accesses integral cognition in a lot of other blog posts.

I do agree that most schizophrenics need medication.
However, we don't know yet (from what I've read…) that the shooter was a schizophrenic. Anyhow, it is notoriously difficult in all kinds of psychiatric patients to predict future violent behavior. It is just one of those uncomfortable facts of life that one has to make one's peace with.

peace
pelle

What’s striking about Stuart’s critique is that, if one seeks out what Pavlina actually means by “subjective reality” (found here in his Q&A on subjective reality), we find a worldview strikingly similar to Stuart’s: In subjective reality, “you” have a completely different identity. “You” are the consciousness within which everything exists — time, space, people, places, events… EVERYTHING. You are NOT a human being with a body and a mind.

Its true that they are similar in this respect. Here is where they disagree:

A secondary element is that within a subjective universe, thought is the primary creative element.  All thoughts manifest in some form, whether conscious or unconscious.  So the physical universe is like a giant computer, crunching your thoughts into reality. Thoughts are waves, and the physical universe is the summation of all those waves.

Steve believes that the universe is a projection of the primordial Absolute, the ground of being, and that part is fine. But he goes on to say that your thoughts and intentions are not part of the conventional mind, but are, in themselves, pure Absolute Consciousness, and because of that, they transcend and control the conventional, relative universe. If we are going to be honest, we have to admit that this view is simply wrong, and has the worst possible consequence of inflating the ego to God-like proportions.

Tracing Pavlina's reasoning through the Q&A post, I notice that he's not at all interested in exploring the earth-shaking realization of no-ego/no-self. He deploys it for one reason: to support his belief in intention manifestation.

“He deploys it for one reason: to support his belief in intention manifestation.”

That is a VERY VERY GOOD phrasing, I think.   I believe that this - intention manifestation - is where I - and perhaps others? - are attempting to give Steve Pavlina his due. 

On the MECHANICS of intention manifestation - is he right or wrong?  What is the view of integral on intention manifestation?

Because this is what Steve Pavlina is intending to create - whether your intention is to manifest more money, or manifest recognition of the ground of being.

Julian,

If you are around - what's your belief/lack of belief in psychic phenomena?  I know it's off-topic, and probably “not your bag, baby”, just curious, how pscyhic phenomena fits into your philosophy.

That is a VERY VERY GOOD phrasing, I think.

w00t! :)

I believe that this - intention manifestation - is where I - and perhaps others? - are attempting to give Steve Pavlina his due. On the MECHANICS of intention manifestation - is he right or wrong?  What is the view of integral on intention manifestation?

Its an important point. Some people have responded to criticism of the Secret by arguing that really the movie/book is just a popularization of the Law of Attraction, which was somehow mishandled into the materialistic/narcissistic travesty that it is, but the LoA itself is legit. But to me, the LoA also misunderstands the relationship of Absolute and relative as it is understood in the mystical traditions across cultures, and a narcissistic spirituality as seen in the Secret is the inevitable consequence.

Does it matter that Pavlina gets the mechanics of intention manifestation wrong? I think it matters a great deal. Right View is the beginning of the Eightfold Path, and I don't think he or the LoA have it. He claims that our true self is pure consciousness, pure awareness. But how does he know this? I can't find on his blog any mention of an actual experience of pure witness or any attempt to have an such experience that could verify the what he holds up as the cornerstone of his worldview. This is another reason to think that his nondual ideas are little more than an initial premise toward the final goal of justifying intention manifestation ideas. Which of the two does he consider the most profound?

In Intuition vs. Ego, he outlines for us how we can distinguish between the ego and the higher self in the following ways: Fear vs. fearlessness. Outside-in vs. inside-out. Scarcity vs. abundance. Head vs. heart. It seems that despite his belief that “'You' are the consciousness within which everything exists,” when we press for a description of the higher self, we find a deeply dualistic vision. Some people say that its just because he's speaking to a particular audience, but Pavlina's conception of intention manifestation requires dualism.

after all this, and reading each response, i am still just baffled and dumbfounded that anyone could read Steve's post, which he put up hours after a massacre, and not be offended, much less defend it.  i am actually more put-off now than i was when the whole thing started.  any teacher who takes the numerical values of mass murderer and contorts them into narcissistic phenomenology is -in my book- a real liability to love UNTIL they correct it.  i have tried to get Steve on Integral Naked, he has refused.  i believe he'd prefer to side step this whole mess, and is being supported in doing that.  to me, this is not even integral this or new age that.  it's an affront to HUMANS when a person so brazenly seizes unspeakable horrors as an opportunity to advertise spiritual bypass; to dissociate from other's suffering while pathologically aggrandizing ego.  in the most gaudy way imaginable.  i'm sorry.  i feel those who can't see that have lost contact with the point of this.  REAL PEOPLE were MURDRED in a REAL TRAGEDY.  GOD! Steve's response was disrespectful, self-engrossed and confused. if Steve won't recognize that, WE SHOULD.  because our brothers and sisters DIED, and what PAVLINA did with that moment made it WORSE.  to see very bright people defend and rally around such choices makes me sad. 

I feel there is a strong polarization in this very interesting dialogue. Does one see this event from the ego or relative self, or from the perspective of the non-self (a non dual perspective)?

if one is talking from the relative self, feeling no outrage seems a bit…crazy. That “no-outrage” reaction could situate the person at an archaic or magic level,  but certainly a self-centric world view.

If one is talking from a non-self perspective which is non-dual as in “trans”, well that kind of reaction is quite normal. I'm reminded of many saints (in different culture) who had, when living non-dual experiences, such reactions to what was happening to the world and to themselves (their body). Tragedies around themselves seemed dream like, and even their deaths. Reality was in their identification with the witness, and they treated the waking state as we treat a dream.

That is what Steve did: he treated reality as a dream….and he did some shadow work with it. Yes: I see his text as his own shadow work. But I would say that in his shadow work he did not go the whole way and ask the question: “If Cho was a part of me, which one would he be?” He flirts with the thing, but fails to go deeper….on his blogue at least.

And that is what struck me. I'm not chocked by his absence of compassion, because I give him the benefit of doubt of really seeing his life from a non-dual perspective (I don't know him). But what struck me is that he says at lenght how much he is free from violence: he doesn't eat animals and so on… I got the idea that he implied that this could not hapen to him! I felt, while reading his text, that he was saying that violence had left him. On that aspect, I think that shadow work ( a relative self/ego technique) brings one to humility: although we may have worked through many dark aspects of ourselves, the consciousness of it's persisting existence in our life brings us to humility. And from a non-dual and trans perspective it is the same: shit can happen…but it's ok!

Finally, I'm reminded of the ideal of the Boddhisattva: one who has reached non-dual consciousness, but who will not cease to work, through compassion, for the good of humanity. This ideal is a perfect blending of knowing the world to be a dream, but working hard with it.

And finally finally, I thank Pavlina, because he has the courage to state his opinion, although he knew it was going to steer much cyber ink.

And the same to Paul!

Love to you all,

Patrick