Introduction - Part 1

I am revising my book The Chrysalis Age: A Handbook for Spiritual and Global Transformation in the New Millennium. As part of that process, I am posting the sections of the book as I revise them.

Introduction: Of Birth, Butterflies and Mapmaking

In its transformation from an Earth-bound leaf eater to a gossamer winged swallowtail, the caterpillar must first go through a transitionary, or chrysalis stage. From the outside it would appear that this small creature, wrapped in its cocoon, is merely hibernating. In truth this shape-shifting insect is undergoing an enormous transformation on both a structural and cellular level. When it emerges from its protective envelope it will have changed from a multi-legged larva into a multicolored butterfly seemly as light as the air it floats upon.

Our world is currently entering into its own chrysalis stage of transformation. We are slowly shedding the tight fitting skin of modernity and the vestigial trappings of the traditional world that preceded it for a more integral and complete way of seeing and being in the universe. As with the metamorphosis within the caterpillar’s cocoon, we can expect this transformation to be radical, extensive, and violent. It will be a simultaneous transformation of ourselves and our world that will extend over much of the coming century, if not beyond it.

The notion that the human species is experiencing a significant period of change that is affecting not only its various cultures and societies but also the very Earth we inhabit is not new. Many writers have compared this change to the one that swept through Western Europe in the fifteenth century. Although the comparison between the Renaissance and the world we are rapidly creating is illuminating, it is not entirely accurate. The Renaissance was truly a rebirth. We are not rebirthing some world we have seen before. We are producing something entirely different, but yet not separate from the world of our past. The world we are constructing is a result of the world we have made over the last century and which we continue, largely blindly, to fashion each day. Our world has always been integral, but we are adding layers of connections and levels of complexity to it at an unprecedented rate. We are immersed in the initial phases of a new age: a Chrysalis Age, a period of transformation that by the end of this century will leave much of our world unrecognizably different. Our success as a species in coping with this incredible transformation will depend largely upon our ability to recognize how our worldview, our way of understanding the universe, informs and directs the course of human affairs. By understanding how we can transform our worldviews from the shallow ways of seeing that are indicative of the modern perspective to the deeper ways of knowing that are available to each of us, we will be able to transform the world in a consciously creative manner. Though we are in a Chrysalis Age, there is no guarantee we will manage a metamorphosis into a global civilization resembling the metaphoric butterfly. Unlike the caterpillar, we cannot afford to rely upon nature’s hand to guide us toward the more perfect form. Without conscious guidance, personally and collectively, we are just as likely to emerge from the chrysalis a deformed maggot-like creature as a brilliantly tinted monarch.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment had as an ideal the Renaissance Man; an individual skilled in a number of fields and possessed of a broad base of knowledge. Our Chrysalis Age requires something similar: an Integral Human. We are in desperate need of women and men who can obtain a grasp, however loose, of the whole of human existence, from art and literature to science and technology, and from spirituality and psychology to politics and business. We have allowed our minds to become segmented and compartmentalized so much that we can rarely see more than a glimpse of what is outside our particular box. It has been suggested that Goethe was the last person to have a real grasp of the whole of his world. Where as Goethe studied and wrote about science, philosophy, art, and literature, in prose, poetry, and drama, we have allowed ourselves to become the necessary evil of our age; specialists. As my favorite childhood science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein was fond of saying “specialization breeds extinction; diversification breeds success.” This is not to say that we do not need experts. Experts are vitally important, but as their expertise becomes more and more specific, it often limits their ability to recognize how their specialized knowledge fits into the vast ocean of information that floods us from every corner. However, if we can learn to emphasize multiple perspectives, and holding the widest viewpoint possible, we can begin to integrate this information into a coherent picture of the world we live in. Together, as Integral Humans we can coalesce a complete apprehension of the world from the cacophony we are creating, turning it from a wall of noise into a symphony, and by doing so, guide ourselves safely forward into an unsure future.

The time when we could hope to understand the world simply by watching the evening news is long, long past, if it ever existed. What has really changed about the world is not so much that we can’t understand it with minimal effort, because we never could, but that now a minimal understanding of the world is actively dangerous. If we do not understand the economics of globalization, how can we hope to have a say in its implementation? If we do not understand the social, cultural, and political causes of terrorism, how can we hope to defend ourselves from it? If we don’t understand the science behind genetic engineering, how can we hope to understand the ethical considerations of cloning or stem cell research? If there was ever a time when we could blindly lead our lives oblivious to the world at large and simply hope that everything would work out for the best, it is long gone. This is all the more apparent in the wake of the hideous terrorist attacks of September 11th and the subsequent events that have followed, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the democratic awakening in the Middle East. If we are to have any hope of a future that provides a safe and sustainable world for our great grandchildren, then we must actively engage the world we live in now. We cannot afford to be ignorant or lazy. The luxury of these attitudes is not open to us and the toleration or pursuit of them will only lead to our destruction. This is why an investigation into the forces of collective and personal transformation is so important. These forces are expressed most openly as globalization and spirituality.