In our courses / workshops we draw on a number of philosophical resources, including the Axial Age, the great wisdom traditions that are all rooted in the Axial Age or ‘secondary breakthroughs’ of axiality, and a complex integral realism.
From the Axial Age we take to heart a number of crucial features and translate them into a form appropriate for the 21st century. These include its balanced mode of thought, its ‘standing back and looking within and beyond’ that enabled an advance in cognition, ethics and spirituality, its vision of philosophy as a ‘way of life’ and not just theoretical discourse, and its focus on both personal and social transformation.
From the great axial wisdom traditions we draw on the underlying vision, and related practices, that is shared by their contemplative core. This sees a deeper and higher absolute realm of Being that underlies and sustains the manifest relative realm.
Finally, the new axial vision is guided by a metatheoretical framework called a complex integral realism, which is the result of a synthesis of the strengths of complex thought, integral theory and critical realism / metarealism – today’s three major integrative metatheories. It provides a holistic, integrative vision of the cosmos and human social being that combines the findings of modern science, the transrational apprehensions of the axial religions and the insights and arguments of contemporary integrative and emancipatory philosophy. It also strives to provide a vision that moves beyond the paradigm and worldview that underlies (post) modernity, which is saddled with biases, distortions and an unbalanced mode of thought.
We combine these various philosophical resources with therapeutic ones, which enables both a macro/philosophical understanding and practice and a more micro/personal healing and self-knowledge; and facilitates both a personal and social transformation.