About Dr. Marc Gafni

A Few Links Before We Get Started

Dr. Marc Gafni’s Bibliography
First Principles & First Values
Essays on Substack
One Mountain, Many Paths

Note to reader: we gently recommend that you track the provided links, which supply in-depth information and context to this bio-page.

Dr. Marc Gafni has been described as a world philosopher — a kind of galaxy heart brain — integrating wisdom from across multiple disciplines into what he has called a New Story of Value in response to the meta-crisis.

One cultural critic described Gafni as a cross between Einstein, Da Vinci, and Rumi, with a dash of Robin Williams working at the cutting edge of the new narrative, collaborating with a team of leading-edge thinkers articulating a new vision of meaning for the world.

Another wrote, “Gafni thinks in terms of panoramic vision but with an attention to intricate nuance and detail, which together generate a level of beauty and truth that, as Michael Murphy wrote, changes the game. And yet, he has the capacity to speak to virtually any audience with a direct sincerity, passion, and simple precision that melts hearts and blows open minds.”

The renowned feminist theorist, cultural critic, and spiritual teacher Sally Kempton described Gafni as one of the great heart masters of this generation.

Gafni is playing a pivotal role in evolving a new dharma or meta-theory of meaning overflowing with heart — a new set of distinctions that is helping to re-shape key pivoting points in global consciousness and culture.

Gafni’s doctorate is from Oxford University with a masters degree from Bar Ilan University. He holds an orthodox rabbinic certification from the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and non-denominational rabbinic ordination.

He is the author of forty books, of which only the first twelve have been published, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment.

The Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

In 2010, Gafni co-initiated the Center for World Spirituality with his close friend, leading Integral philosopher Ken Wilber. [Read Wilber about Gafni here.] The Center, which changed its name in 2023 to Center for World Philosophy and Religion, has evolved over the last twelve years into one of the most creative and audacious voices on the world scene. The mission of the Center is to articulate a download into the source code of culture and consciousness, what Gafni, together with the Center’s co-president Dr. Zachary Stein, has called a shared grammar of value — a New Story of Valuein response to existential risk. The name that they have given this New Story of Value is CosmoErotic Humanism.

Aubrey Marcus, the new board chair of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, has called his encounter with Gafni and CosmoErotic Humanism “the most paradigm shifting podcast I have ever recorded.”

Marcus, Gafni, Stein, the board of directors of the Center, and its leadership teams have founded the World Spirituality and Religion Press, which will be the primary publisher of the New Story of Value, with a commitment to deliver the New Story into the very heart of culture.

His present writing is fully focused on the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism, which focuses on the emergence of a new human civilization in response to the meta-crisis. His core writing and intellectual partner in these books is Dr. Zachary Stein. Marc works closely as well in this regard and others with Editorial Director and research associate Kerstin Tuschik. A second key project is the Phenomenology of Eros, together with Stephanie Valcke and Aubrey Marcus. The project director is Dr. Kristina Kincaid.

Marc, in visionary partnership with Aubrey Marcus, is preparing key popular, co-authored presentations of CosmoErotic Humanism for the mainstream public. Marcus is also the founding publisher and co-initiator of World Philosophy and Religion Press.

All four of the aforementioned interlocutors are dear friends and have engaged in extensive private study with Gafni, which is referred to as Holy of Holies study, generally for over ten years and minimally for hundreds of sessions. Holy of Holies is a sacred term, drawn from the Solomon Temple tradition, referring to the direct experience and study of the interior sciences. This is true of many of Gafni’s collaborators, who are both partners, close friends, and have also participated in Holy of Holies study in great depth. We mention this only to indicate the depth of the shared effort and collaborations, which is not project-based but rather emerges from a far deeper partnership, practice, study, commitment, and vision.

The core writings of CosmoErotic Humanism emerge from Gafni’s earlier work.  These volumes are described as the first six stages in Gafni’s work on his author page on the Integral Publisher website.They include the Hebrew volumes, Reclaiming Certainty (The Certain Spirit), Reclaiming Uncertainty as a Spiritual Value (The Uncertain Spirit), Soul Prints, The Mystery of Love, The Erotic and the Holy, Tears: Reclaiming Ritual, Integral Religion, and Rosh Hashanah, and the two volumes of Radical Kabbalah. The books were widely recognized as seminal. Radical Kabbalah is introduced with a letter by the leading Kabbalah scholar Moshe Idel, who was Gafni’s doctoral supervisor at Oxford University, and was described by Dr. Zak Stein as “Works like this come along once in a generation.

These earlier writings and their relationship to CosmoErotic Humanism are currently being discussed in a dialogue series with Layman Pascal.

At present, some of Gafni’s key books are published by the prestigious Integral Publishers and other titles by Simon and Schuster. Future volumes are slated for publication with World Philosophy and Religion Press.

The Three Great Questions of CosmoErotic Humanism

At the core of the New Story of Value are what Gafni and Stein call the three great questions of CosmoErotic Humanism.

The first question is Where are we? This is the great question of the Universe Story.

At the core of CosmoErotic Humanism is what Dr. Gafni and Dr. Stein are calling The Universe: A Love Story.  [See also a second contextual essay on the Universe: A Love Story and how that includes and transcends the classical religious and scientific Universe Stories.]

The second question is Who are you? This is the great question of personal identity.

The Your Unique Self, and Unique Self Theory, is CosmoErotic Humanism’s response to this question. Here is a link to Marc Gafni discussing Unique Self Theory with Ken Wilber and, in a more popular context, with Aubrey Marcus (Who are you? Part 1  and Who are you? Part 2).

The third great question of CosmoErotic Humanism is What is there to do? Or said differently: What is our deepest desire and deepest need? (see also Who are you? Part 1  and Who are you? Part 2)

The responses to these three questions are the ground for the emergence of a New Story of Value that has the capacity to generate a New Human and a New Humanity in response to the meta-crisis. This is what they are calling the emergence from Homo sapiens to Homo amor.

This shared story rooted in First Principles and First Values can then serve as the matrix for a global ethos for a global civilization in response to the meta-crisis.

We Live in a Time Between Stories

The key argument of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion is that we live — like in the Renaissance — in a time between worlds and a time between stories.

As the world broke down around them, Da Vinci and a small band in the Renaissance told a New Story of Value. That new story — to the extent that its plotlines were accurate, good, true, and beautiful, and firmly rooted in both the interior and exterior sciences — raised all boats and birthed all the great dignities of modernity. To the extent, however, that they ignored key plotlines in the Universe Story, for example, the articulation of a universal shared grammar of value, they seeded what have now become the disasters of modernity — which are the root causes for the meta-crisis of existential risk. [See Aubrey Marcus’ podcast featuring Marc Gafni on Responding to the Meta-Crisis.]

In this new time between worlds and time between stories, where the challenges and risks, as well as the potentials, are exponentially greater than those of the Renaissance, the only response that will change the vector of history is the one that lifted humanity out of the dark ages into the Renaissance: To tell a New Story of Value. It is only a New Story of Value that has the power to change the vector of history.

And this time, we must integrate the best of all the new stories and not leave any core plotlines out. We need interior sciences and wisdom teachings as well exterior sciences, merged together into a larger whole, to be the ground of our shared grammar of value.

The core mission of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion is the research, articulation, and writing of the Great Library, which tells this New Story of Value. The Great Library is a collection of books and media projects to function as a strange attractor toward our memory of the future.

The Great Library is made up of two kinds of books — foundational books and impact books. The synergistic introduction of these books into public culture is aimed directly at catalyzing a crucial, pivotal evolution of today’s consciousness and culture. At this phase-shift inflection in human history, without this conscious evolving of the source code of consciousness and culture, humanity will likely not survive the existential risks now threatening our civilization.

The Great Library is an expression of our mission at the Center to evolve the source code of culture and to participate in the evolution of love. ​Through writing and publishing, we create what we are calling the Great Library, a body of work written as our response to the question: What do we need to give our children, so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential — even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?

​That Great Library provides us with a shared language, a framework, or a context, from which we can co-create together a world that works for everyone. To have shared values, a shared framework, or what we call shared memetic structures, is one of these conditions.

Key to the entire project of the New Story of Value, as articulated in the Great Library, is what Gafni and Stein call Anthro-Ontology. Anthro-Ontology answers the question of: How do we know what we know?

Citation from Gafni: Love or Die

To get a sense of Gafni’s and the work of the Center at this stage, the following slightly extended citation from a recent essay might be helpful.

However, feel free to also skip down below if you are interested in immediately following the thread of vision, books, projects, and colleagues that we will briefly unfold below.

Citation from Gafni:

Eros is life. The failure of Eros destroys life. Our lack of Eros is poised to destroy the world. We call this existential risk, or the second shock of existence.

The first shock of existence is the realization — at the dawn of human existence — that the skull grins at the banquet. Life, before it continues, is first confronted by death. The first shock of existence is the death of the individual human being.

The second shock of existence is the death of humanity, or in a second form, the death of our humanity.

All civilizations have fallen because the stories that they lived in were, in some sense, stories based on rivalrous conflict governed by win-lose metrics. Every civilization was weakened by interior polarization caused by the lack of a shared story of value.

We now have a global civilization, but we haven’t created a shared story of value. We haven’t solved the generator functions that caused all civilizations to fall. Our global civilization has exponential technologies and extraction models depleting the earth of resources that it took billions of years to create, which is going to lead to a civilizational collapse.

Existential risk: risk to our very existence.

The choice is clear: love or die.

It is that simple. Eros is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity for the survival of the individual and the planet.

In the last half a century modern psychology has documented an age old truth: a fully nourished baby who is not held in loving arms will die. So too our world, personal and global — even with all the resources of intelligence and technology at our disposal — will die without being held in love. In the embrace of Eros.

We must embrace a personal path of love and a global politics of love.

Not ordinary love. Not love which is mere human sentiment — but Eros, or what we sometimes call Outrageous Love, which is the heart of existence itself.

We live in a world of outrageous pain. The only response to outrageous pain is Outrageous Love.

We stand in this moment poised between utopia and dystopia. We are at a time between worlds and a time between stories. We need a New Story of Value, eternal yet evolving, rooted in First Principles and First Values, which would become a universal grammar of value, a context for our diversity.

This is exactly what the Renaissance was — it was a time between worlds and a time between stories. In the Renaissance, we were swept with and challenged by the Black Death, a pandemic that swept Europe. The Black Death destroyed between a third to half of Europe and a huge part of Asia. It killed everyone. People died horrifically, brutally, in the streets. They had no idea how to meet this challenge, and so, in response to the Black Death, da Vinci and Ficino and their cohorts understood that they have to tell a new story of value — and that story was the story of modernity.

Did they get the story right? They got part of it right, and this birthed, to use Jürgen Habermas’ phrase, the dignities of modernity, the new way of information-gathering and universal human rights — but they deconstructed the source of value.

They lost the basis for the good, the true, and the beautiful.

The basis used to be divine revelation: God told us. But it was owned by every religion, and every religion had overreached and over-claimed. The revelation was often mediated through cultural categories and wasn’t fully accurate — so modernity threw out revelation, but was unable able to establish a new basis for value. Value was just assumed to be real; as it says in the founding document of American revolution, we hold these truths to be self-evident — that is, we don’t really have a basis for value, but we just take that as a given. In other words, modernity took out a loan of social capital from the traditional world.

The source of value has never been worked out, and then, gradually, value began to collapse. The Universe story began to collapse. The belief that the good, the true, and the beautiful are real began to collapse. The belief that love is real began to collapse. As Bertrand Russell is reported to have said,

“I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I do not like it.”

What do you do if you grew up in a world in which value is not real? A world without a source of value, without a Universe story, without a story of human identity, without a story of desire, without a narrative of power? In the words of W.B.Yeats, the center does not hold. We become the hollow men and the stuffed men, gesture without form. You have a collapse at the very center of society, because you no longer have Eros. You no longer have a reality in which value is real — and so you have this lingering sense of emptiness. You have a complete collapse at the very center — and that’s the source of existential risk.

We are faced with global challenges. The only way we can meet them is through genuine global coordination.

  • Global coordination requires shared global will — political will and moral will.
  • We cannot arouse global will without global resonance — we need to resonate with each other like instruments resonate in the symphony.
  • We cannot have global resonance without global coherence.
  • We cannot have global coherence without global intimacy — but we are confronted with a global intimacy disorder.

We define intimacy as shared identity in the context of relative otherness. This is expressed in what we call the Intimacy equation:

Intimacy = shared identity in the context of [relative] otherness x mutuality of recognition x mutuality of pathos x mutuality of value x mutuality of purpose.

The global intimacy disorder is the root cause for existential risk, underlying its core generator functions. The global intimacy disorder is rooted in the failure to experience ourselves in a field of shared intrinsic value, which derives from the deconstruction of value.

Indeed, it is wholly accurate to say that the root cause of the two generator functions of existential risk is the failed story of intrinsic value, or what we might also call the breakdown of Eros.

    • The first generator function is the success story. Our modern success story is rivalrous conflict governed by win-lose metics, which violates all the terms of the Intimacy equation: there is no shared identity and no mutuality of recognition, feeling, value or purpose, and instead of relative otherness, there is alienated otherness. Such a story generates complicated fragile systems with no allurement or intimacy between the parts, systems which optimize for efficiency (as an expression of win-lose metric) and not for resiliency and life.
    • The second generator function is the deconstruction of intrinsic value The deconstruction of value means that human value does not participate in any sense in the intrinsic value of the real, for the real is dogmatically declared to have no intrinsic value. Thus, there is no shared identity between the interior of the human being and reality. There is no common participation in a field of shared intrinsic value. Instead of intimacy with value we are alienated from value — and only intrinsic value can arouse will — political, moral, and social will.

To sum up, without a shared grammar of value there is no global intimacy, and therefore no global coherence, and no global coordination in response to catastrophic and existential risk, which means — put simply — there will be, quite literally, no future.

If the global intimacy disorder is the root cause of the generator functions of existential risk then the root cause of the global intimacy disorder is the collapse of First Principles and First Values embedded in a Story of Value.

To solve Russell’s challenge, the apparent argument for the subjectivity of ethical values, we have to reground value theory in eternal yet evolving First Principles and First Values, and articulate a New Story of Value as a context of our diversity, which we call CosmoErotic Humanism.

A New Story doesn’t mean a made-up story. It means doing the hard work of integrating the validated insights of the traditional world, the modern world, and the postmodern world. This is the intention at the heart of CosmoErotic Humanism. CosmoErotic Humanism, together with other emergent strands, needs to become the ground of a world religion as a context for our diversity. We need religion even as we need science to articulate a shared global grammar of value.

At the core of this New Story of Value is what we term the interior sciences, which engage Value as Eros, or what we term ErosValue, as the primary structure of Reality and form the ground for CosmoErotic Humanism, the New Story of Value, and the shared grammar of evolving value as a context for our diversity.

Now we return to our thread from above.

Organizations that Partner with the Center for World Philosophy and Religion

Homo Amor Project

The science-based vision of Homo amor takes issue with the dogmatic materialism that lies at the core of the popular vision of the human being presented in works like Sapiens and Homo Deus. It offers a coherent vision of humanitya new science-based story grounded in First Principles — which rejects the dogmas of both religious and scientific fundamentalism. Homo amor is a new set of evolutionary frameworks that offer an evolving new-story vision of identity, the Universe, community, and power, without which we cannot successfully confront the magnitude of risks with which we are confronted.

David J. Temple

David J. Temple is a fictional personality created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. The two primary authors behind David J. Temple are Marc Gafni and Zak Stein. For different projects specific additional luminary writers may be named as part of the collaboration.

Great works that change the course of history are rarely attributed to a sole author, think the Upanishads, the Zohar, of the Bible. Or they are attributed to a single author as a fictional figure who holds the energy of that transmission into culture, think the Zohar or, according to many scholars, William Shakespeare. Such an authorship allows the writing to transcend the rivalrous conflict governed by win/lose dynamic that often drives writing projects and is itself one of the primary generator functions of the meta-crisis.

Such authorship also grounds the writing to be rooted in a broader community of leading thinkers and teachers who come together to evolve culture as a collective, what we refer to at the Center as a Unique Self Symphony.

The foundational Homo amor books — eight in total — will be authored by David J. Temple. Other key works in CosmoErotic Humanism will be authored by Marc and Zak, including key works around the Universe: A Love Story, metapsychology, personal myth, and more.

The Eros Project | Phenomenology of Eros Books

The Eros Project is researching and writing an opus-magnum, game-changing, twelve-volume New Phenomenology of Eros. The director of the project is Dr. Kristina Kincaid. The premise of the Eros Project is the reclaiming of a scientific vision of Eros and its First Principles as the animating lifeforce and information that is the source code for the self-actualizing Cosmos as well as the ethical driver of our lives. Eros, scientifically understood as the animating energy of evolution living uniquely in each of us, is an indispensable building block in the articulation of shared global ethos for a global civilization.

One Mountain, Many Paths

Together with the late Barbara Marx Hubbard, Gafni co-founded One Mountain, Many Paths. The group gathers weekly every Sunday as a Global Communion of Pioneering Souls committed to articulating First Principles and First Values and a New Story for a New Humanity. Or, as Marc and Barbara said together, a Planetary Awakening in Love through Unique Self Symphonies. One Mountain is held by an excellent leadership team, constantly innovating and upleveling the vision and its delivery.

Unique Self Institute

Gafni is co-founder of the Unique Self Institute with Claire Molinard. The Unique Self Institute, directed by Claire Molinard, is committed to answering the questions of Who am I and Who Are You? — and in doing so, to articulate a shared narrative of identity that transforms both our experience of ourselves and of each other in a fundamental way. Claire is joined by David Cicerchii at the helm of Unique Self Institute. Claire and David have been deep in study of CosmoErotic Humanism and Unique Self Theory with Gafni for over ten years. This new theory of self is core to the way we do education, politics, relationships, economics, psychology, and everything else.

Outrageous Love Project

Gafni is co-founder of the Integral Evolutionary Tantra Institute and the Outrageous Love Project with his evolutionary partner Dr. Kristina Kincaid.

Foundation for Conscious Evolution

Dr. Gafni is the Evolutionary Scholar in Residence and — since Barbara’s Marx Hubbard’s passing — the Director at the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

The Foundation for Conscious Evolution was founded by Barbara Marx Hubbard and continued by Dr. Marc Gafni. The purpose of the books and activist projects of this division is to articulate the momentous idea of Conscious Evolution: that Conscious Evolution is rooted in the tradition of Evolutionary Spirituality, itself sources in crystallizations of the interior sciences that appeared in the renaissance.

Together with author and social innovator Barbara Marx Hubbard, Dr. Marc Gafni has been working on a series of new works revolving around Evolutionary Spirituality.

In parallel, Marc Gafni and Andrew Cohen are actively dialoguing to establish the parameters of an emergent Evolutionary World Spirituality.

Eros Mystery School

Creating Evolutionary We-Space to practice Outrageous Love in community remains one of our core missions at the Eros Mystery School. Krista Steenbergen is the Co-Director of the Eros Mystery School, together with Dr. Marc Gafni. The Mystery School is an evolutionary educational platform that acts as a source of both renewal and inspiration, as we combine our individual transformation with taking an active stand in the world, for the healing and transformation of the collective whole.

It is intellectually challenging and spiritually incorrect. It stands out from the spiritual clichés and speaks truth to power with laughter, delight, integrity, and “Outrageous Love”, a core term in Unique Self theory and in Cosmo Erotic Humanism as developed by Marc Gafni.

For a taste of Eros Mystery School, read this beautiful poem.

The Crossing

A three-day journey that transforms you and society. From Homo sapiens to Homo Amor. There is outrageous pain in the world… this is an invitation to outrageous love and courageous action. You will learn to love in a way you have never loved before, you will find a resolve for a better world you didn’t know you had. You will undergo an identity shift that brings a new sense of meaning and purpose to your life.

The Crossing is our response to the meta-crisis looming over us, our children, and our children’s children. Our goal is to create a new cultural meme which can spread round the globe.

The Symposium Series

The Center for World Philosophy and Religion has recently initiated a symposium series in conjunction with the Monastic Academy.

This is how it has been described: Motive is to create an intensification of Spirit adequate to the historical moment. The goal is to work towards resolving the meta-crisis at the level of superstructure — to collaborate in the shaping and telling of a new World Philosophy.

In the context of planetary meta-crisis, we will convene a select group to work at the level of worldview foundations. We have an interest in articulating a philosophical and religious vision adequate to our times.

This symposium series focuses on the system of First Principles and First Values that are at the core of this work. The frameworks and distinctions offered weave together a Story of Value capable of reviving our faltering civilization, and thus offer a vision of the future beyond the metacrisis.

The Leadership of the Center

There are different groups of individuals who provide leadership or vision for the organization in different capacities.

The Center for World Philosophy and Religion and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution each has a distinct legal board which makes its decisions. All the decisions are made collectively by the appropriate board and board leadership. This listing includes present and former board members, advisory board members, research fellows, faculty, and officers of the organizations. The leadership group gathered around the Office for the Future brings together a leading group of committed thought leaders, civic and business leaders and activists.

Former Board Chairs include in order of their service:

  • Lori Galperin
  • Barbara Marx Hubbard
  • John P. Mackey of Whole Foods
  • Kate Maloney
  • Carrie Kish
  • Adam Bellow
  • Shareef Malnik
  • Gabrielle Anwar.

Our current Board Chair is Aubrey Marcus.

The Holding Container for All the Projects: The Office for the Future

The holding ground for the entire vision and all of the aforementioned entities and projects is the Office for the Future.

All of these initiatives function under the larger umbrella of the Office for the Future, co-founded by Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marc Gafni, Zachary Stein, and chaired by Stephanie Valcke, with Wouter Torfs and Mathi Gijbels as co-chairs.

Earlier Contexts:

Biographical Context of Gafni’s Work

Over the past 30 years, Dr. Gafni has developed evolutionary and activist programs rooted in his commitment to what he has termed participating in the evolution of love.

He is a Rabbinic lineage holder in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah, as well as a close reader and student of world philosophies. In the latter context, he has served as guest editor of the academic Journal of Integral Theory and Practice on issues of Integral spirituality and a faculty member of J.F.K. University.

Gafni self-describes as a citizen of both the new lineage of World Spirituality even as he continues to practice in the classical first practices of the Hebrew wisdom Solomon lineage. Gafni has initiated multiple leading-edge visionary programs including writing and hosting a leading National Television show on a major network in the Middle East on Ethics and Spirit.

Gafni also initiated the Success 3.0 Summit and movie with John Mackey and Kate Maloney, whose method and movement was to bring together key thought leaders and change agents to collaboratively evolve a bold new Integral vision of success, rooted in the entrepreneurial values of Wake Up, Grow Up, Show Up, and Evolutionary Love.

Addendum

It is historically true that many of the great figures of history were profoundly attacked in their days. The attack almost always critiqued not only their philosophical or scientific positions or their political leadership, but always went to defame and demean their character.

One such figure is Dr. Marc Gafni. He is, according to all reports, friend and foe alike, one of the most brilliant thinkers on the scene today, with a contribution to make that, according to his friends and supporters, is critically important at this particular juncture in our political and social history. Gafni and his partner Dr. Kristina Kincaid recently met to discuss the context and the experience of public attack with Aubrey Marcus in a moving interview. A full refutation of any false claims made over the years appears at WhoIsMarcGafni.com.

Learn more about Dr. Gafni’s teaching at:

www.officeforthefuture.com

www.centerforintegralwisdom.org

www.marcgafni.com

www.WhoIsMarcGafni.com

PRAISE FOR RADICAL KABBALAH

Ken Wilber, Integral Philosopher

“A work of inspired, audacious scholarship. The breadth, depth and the sheer importance of this work moved me.

I immediately recognized it as a seminal work, identifying a critical lineage of enlightenment from the tradition of Kabbalah, which needed to be incorporated into the Integral model.

All this will inform the emergence of a genuine framework for a world spirituality based on Integral principles — a critical need at this moment in time.”

Zachary Stein, Integral Scholar, Metrics Theorist, Harvard University

“Gafni’s books are unrivaled in their provision of a profoundly new language of liberation. These are teachings for our time — a time to practice spirituality in the world, fearlessly, with eyes open, and to participate in a planet needing to be transformed by the power of justice and love.

Read these books. You will be compelled by the rigor and depth of the scholarship while swooning from the depth and beauty of the ideas. Works like this come once in a generation.”

Sally Kempton, Author of Meditation for the Love of It

“Marc Gafni has written a magisterial work. Like Gafni himself, it combines depth of intellect with integrity of heart and has much to teach us, both from a scholarly perspective and as a contemporary transmission of what Gafni calls Evolutionary Kabbalah.

In short, the book provides an spiritual, intellectual and existential matrix for Gafni’s teaching on Unique Self as an enlightened individual expression of the divine. This is one of Lainer’s most important and radical ideas, and it has, as Gafni describes it here, profound implications for the understanding of enlightenment in the post-traditional American spiritual community.”

Prof. Richard Mann, University of Michigan, Editor, Transpersonal Series, Suny Press

“This work by Dr. Marc Gafni makes a landmark contribution to a number of fields. I am reminded in reading of the legitimate excitement that was generated by Elaine Pagels and others as they opened up the parallel tradition of the Gnostic gospels that had been expunged from the Church’s teaching.

I expect Gafni to gradually emerge as one of the significant intellectual figures of our time, making a substantive contribution to the evolution of consciousness.”

PRAISE FOR A RETURN TO EROS

“Marc and Kristina are going where few dare to go. They are showing us what it means to live a fully erotic life.”

—John  Gray,  bestselling  author  of  Men  Are  from  Mars,  Women Are  from  Venus

A Return to Eros is the map for the new human. Read it and be forever enlivened and transformed! I believe this is the most compelling invita-tion ever written to live the Erotic Life. It changed my life.”

—Kristen  Ulmer,  former  professional  extreme  skier  and  author of  The  Art  of  Fear

“Surrender to this book. Erudite, provocative, and filled with lively insights, there is much to be learned from it about the sexual confusion of our times.”

—Adam  Bellow,  author  of  In  Praise  of  Nepotism:  A  History  of Family  Enterprise  from  King  David  to  George  W.  Bush

A Return to Eros is a book written with no hang-ups, no compromises, and no holds barred. It rocks!”

—Jonny  Podell,  iconic  American  rock  ’n’  roll  music  agent  at the  Podell  Talent  Agency

“I’ve known Kristina for many decades . . . great to see she is sharing her life work with the world . . . Join the outrageous love train!”

—Shep  Gordon,  legendary  rock  ’n’  roll  manager  and  New  York Times  bestselling  author  of  They  Call  Me  Supermensch

A Return to Eros evolves our understanding of love, and does it in a way that will transform your own experience of love and Eros. It is a radi-cally inspiring and important book that can help all of us recognize more deeply how love’s energy literally drives reality.”

Sally  Kempton,  author  of  Awakening  Shakti

A Return to Eros should be placed on the shelf next to the great works on emotional and sexual emancipation, including Marcuse’s Eros and Civi-lization and O Brown’s Life Against Death. Gafni and Kincaid remind us that eros and ethics are inseparable, that we must free the erotic from the ghetto of the merely sexual, and in so doing awaken our passion for truth and justice. There may be no more urgent lesson for our culture, which now stands on the brink of another descent into barbarism, that it is through and from love that true power flows.”

—Zak Stein, EdD (Harvard), Co-President of the Center for for World Philosophy and Religion, co-founder of Lectica, Inc.

PRAISE FOR MARC GAFNI’S YOUR UNIQUE SELF

“It is very rare that one comes across a teacher or a book that is ‘changing the game.’ My friend, Dr. Marc Gafni, is such a teacher. He is a rare com-bination of brilliance, depth, and heart. Marc’s teaching on the Unique Self in an evolutionary context is ‘changing the game.’”

—Michael  Murphy,  founder  of  Esalen  Institute  and  author  of Golf  in  the  Kingdom

Your Unique Self could only have been written by someone who pas-sionately lives his own uniqueness. Marc Gafni is a brilliant teacher and heart master with a rare capacity for empathy and a gift for creating com-munity. This book contains the essence of his teaching on what it means to live from an enlightened life from a ground of one’s own personal uniqueness. This is a book that deserves to become a classic.”

—Sally  Kempton,  author  of  Meditation  for  the  Love  of  It

“Dr. Marc Gafni’s Unique Self teaching is seminal. What you hold in your hands is a radically exciting and groundbreaking book that will change forever not only how you think about enlightenment, but how you understand, from a post-metaphysical perspective, the very nature of human life itself. The Unique Self work is magnificent, and it belongs among the ‘great books.’

—Ken  Wilber,  author  of  A  Brief  History  of  Everything

“At last—a safe, precise, and potent infusion—Unique Self ! Not so much a book, as an antidote, Unique Self stands with spiritual teacher, scholar, and master, Marc Gafni’s Soulprints and Mystery of Love as a trilogy of love and healing for humanity. Read and be restored.”

—Lori  Halperin,  leading  clinician  and  theorist  in  fields  of marital  and  sexual  dysfunction

“With exceptional brilliance and an awakened heart, Dr. Marc Gafni speaks to all of us who are interested in the evolution of consciousness.

His teachings on the Unique Self enlightenment are essential for the next stage in our evolution. They have emerged from his direct experience, and I highly recommend them.”

—Michael  Bernard  Beckwith,  author  of  Spiritual  Liberation: Fulfilling  Your  Soul’s  Potential

“Marc, a fellow drinker at the holy taverns has written a fine, fine book. Kabbalists say a Day of Tikkun (evolution, soul-repair) is coming. There are great stories here from the Hasidic masters and from Marc’s own life, honoring the unique soulmaking that has brought you to this moment. This book will deepen that astonishing mystery and awaken you to the individual beauty of your path.”

—Coleman  Barks,  author  of  Rumi:  The  Big  Red  Book

“Marc Gafni’s overflowing heart and transmission of the Unique Self teaching profoundly moves me. Dr. Marc holds the lineage energy of the great Hasidic masters of Kabbalah, which he brings with him into the visionary initiative of Center for Integral Wisdom. There is little doubt in my mind that Your Unique Self: The Future of Enlightenment will become one of the classic texts that forms the World Spirit vision that our world needs so deeply.”

—Lama  Surya  Das,  author  of  Awakening  the  Buddha  Within: Tibetan  Wisdom  for  the  Western  World  and  founder  of  the Dzogchen  Meditation  Centers

“At this historic moment, our human mind is passing the border toward a new consciousness. Marc Gafni is far enough ahead of most of us to articulate insights he gained beyond that borderline. Yet, like all great teachers, the author becomes transparent. Here is an invitation and a great opportunity to listen—not to Marc Gafni, but to your Unique Self. Thus this book becomes an indispensable travel guide into the realm of a vast new consciousness.”

—Brother  David  Steindl-Rast,  Benedictine  monk  and  author  of The  Spirit  of  Practice

About Dr. Marc Gafni2024-09-09T10:57:31-07:00

Great Library Books

Our Latest Release of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

To find these books organized by topic, please visit our Topics page on the Top Menu.

Our new book can be pre-ordered from the US and Canada (we are working on creating direct ordering from Europe and other countries – please stand by!):

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come

by David J. Temple

AS THE META-CRISIS DEEPENS, THE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND HUMANITY HANGS IN THE BALANCE.

First Principles and First Values is the tip of the spear in the fight for a humane future. Establishing frameworks for a new school of thought called CosmoErotic Humanism, the book is built around forty-two propositions that provide new source code for the future of planetary culture.

Like Europe in the early Renaissance, humanity is in a time between worlds, at a time between stories. First Principles and First Values contains blueprints for the bridge needed to cross from this world to the next.


“The position argued for in this book is of vital importance . . . it needs urgently to be read.”
IAIN McGILCHRIST, author of The Master and His Emissary

Order Here

Explore the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

The core mission of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion is the research, articulation, and writing of the Great Library, a collection of books and media projects to function as a strange attractor toward our memory of the future.

The Great Library is made up of two kinds of books, foundational books and impact books. The synergistic introduction of these books into public culture is aimed directly at catalyzing a crucial, pivotal evolution of today’s consciousness and culture. At this phase-shift inflection in human history, without this conscious evolving the source code of consciousness and culture, humanity will likely not survive the existential risks now threatening our civilization.

The Great Library is an expression of our mission at the Center to evolve the source code of culture and to participate in the evolution of love.

Through writing and publishing, we create what we are calling the Great Library, a body of work written as our response to the question: What do we need to give “our children” so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential—even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?

That Great Library provides us with a shared language, a framework, or a context, from which we can co-create together a world that works for everyone. To have shared values, a shared framework, or what we call shared memetic structures is one of these conditions.

Watch Dr. Marc Gafni Unfold the Vision of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

Foundational Books by Our Founders & Co-Presidents Published

See the Bibliography of Dr. Marc Gafni

Your Unique Self

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

Underlying the vision behind democracy is the recognition that every individual has dignity, adequacy, and worth. This democratic understanding of the worth and standing of the individual lies at the core of what the West calls enlightenment. The Western idea of enlightenment, rooted in the great vision of the Biblical prophets, is generally understood to have entered mainstream consciousness through the political democratic movements of the mid-18th century. Western enlightenment is primarily concerned with the democratization of political power.
Classical enlightenment, sometimes called Eastern enlightenment, because it was greatly emphasized in the East, is about the individual merging into the greater one. The appearance of separate self is an illusion, which must be overcome as the individual realizes that one is really not separate at all but part of the one. The goal of Eastern enlightenment is moving beyond the grasping ego and the desperately seeking separate self by attaining a state of consciousness in which the illusion of separateness is dissolved in the greater one. This path of classical enlightenment is seen as the path beyond suffering.
Unique Self enlightenment brings the Eastern and Western understandings about enlightenment together into a higher Integral World-Spirituality embrace. Unique Self enlightenment is based on your commitment to transcend separate self into the one essence, even as you realize that this essence sees through your unique perspective. Unique Self opens the door to the potential democratization of enlightenment. To awaken to your Unique Self is to be lived as God, which, in truth, means to be lived as Love.
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A Return to Eros

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank) & Dr. Kristina Kincaid

Discover the hidden relationship between Erotic, the Sexual and the Sacred.

None of the four old philosophies about sex are sufficient to inspire us or even hold us in our sexuality. Sex is not merely negative or positive. Sex is not just neutral, nor is it merely sacred because it creates babies.

Erotic Mystics from the hidden tradition of Solomon’s temple taught a secret doctrine. Sex is the source of all wisdom. Sex is an expression of the erotic impulse of existence itself alive in us-the yearning for contact, pleasure, and aliveness. The Sexual however is not the sum total of the erotic. Rather, the sexual models the Erotic. The sexual teaches us how to live an Erotic life in all dimension of our existence.

It is these secret doctrines that were later taught by Mary Magdalene and that sparked excitement around bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code.

Deep understanding of the sexual becomes the portal to accessing aliveness in every dimension of our reality. This realization demands that you live sexually without shame and shows you how to re-eroticize all areas of your life.

A Return to Eros: On Sex, Love, and Eroticism in Every Dimension of Life, from Drs. Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid, reveals the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy. They reveal what Eros actually means and share the ten core qualities of the Erotic, which are modeled by the sexual. These include being on the inside, fullness of presence, yearning, allurement, fantasy, surrender, creativity, pleasure, and more.

A Return to Eros shows why these qualities of the erotic modeled by the sexual are actually the same core qualities of the sacred. The relationship between the sexual and the erotic becomes clear, teaching you how to live an erotically suffused existence charged with purpose, potency and power.

To be an Outrageous Lover–not just in sex but also in all facets of your life–you must listen deeply to the simple yet elegant whisperings of the sexual. This book will forever transform your understanding and experience of love, sex, and Eros.

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Self

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

Two major works have been written within the framework of Integral Wisdom about the nature of Self and God. While they share important features, namely the evolutionary context of the conversation and a vision of Self beyond Ego, their interior visions of the quality of the Self beyond Ego are profoundly different.

Both of these visions of Self, or key dimensions of the two versions, have been adopted, directly and indirectly by many spiritual teachers. In Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism, Marc Gafni articulates the two models, their shared features and their differences, and as we seek to articulate an Integral Wisdom, why these differences matter so desperately.

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Radical Kabbalah (2-Volume Set)

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

Buy on Amazon

Education in a Time Between Worlds

by Dr. Zachary Stein (Co-President of the Think Tank)

Our world is currently undergoing major transformations, from climate change and politics to agriculture and economics. The world we have known is disappearing and a new world is being born. The subjects taught in schools and universities today are becoming irrelevant at faster and faster rates. Not only are we facing complex challenges of unprecedented size and scope, we’re also facing a learning and capacity deficit that threatens the future of civilization.

Education in a Time Between Worlds seeks to reframe this historical moment as an opportunity to create a global society of educational abundance. Educational systems must be transformed beyond recognition if humanity is to survive the planetary crises currently underway. Human development and learning must be understood as the Earth’s most valuable resources, with human potential serving as the open frontier into which energy and hope can begin to flow.

The expansive essays within this book cover a diverse array of topics, including social justice, the neuroscience of learning, deschooling, educational technology, standardized testing, the future of spirituality, basic income guarantees, and integral meta-theory. As an invitation to re-vision the future of schools, technology, and society, Education in a Time Between Worlds replaces apathy and despair with agency, transformation, and hope.

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Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

by Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

Hailed as “one of the most significant books ever published,” this work of far-reaching vision is a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of human consciousness

In this tour de force of scholarship and vision, Ken Wilber traces the course of evolution from matter to life to mind and describes the common patterns that evolution takes in all three of these domains. From the emergence of mind, he traces the evolution of human consciousness through its major stages of growth and development.

Wilber particularly focuses on modernity and postmodernity: what they mean; how they impact gender issues, psychotherapy, ecological concerns, and various liberation movements; and how the modern and postmodern world conceive of Spirit. This second edition features forty pages of new material, new diagrams, and extensively revised notes.

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Integral Spirituality

by Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

This cutting-edge theory of spirituality for today’s global society honors the truths of modern science and postmodern culture while incorporating the wisdom of the great world religions

Applying his highly acclaimed integral approach, Ken Wilber formulates a theory of spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity—including the revolutions in science and culture—while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions. He shows how spirituality today combines the enlightenment of the East, which excels at cultivating higher states of consciousness, with the enlightenment of the West, which offers developmental and psychodynamic psychology. Each contributes key components to a more integral spirituality.

On the basis of this integral framework, a radically new role for the world’s religions is proposed. Because these religions have such a tremendous influence on the worldview of the majority of the earth’s population, they are in a privileged position to address some of the biggest conflicts we face. By adopting a more integral view, the great religions can act as facilitators of human development: from magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral—and to a global society that honors and includes all the stations of life along the way.

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Social Justice and Educational Measurement

by Dr. Zachary Stein (Co-President of the Think Tank)

Social Justice and Educational Measurement addresses foundational concerns at the interface of standardized testing and social justice in American schools. Following John Rawls’s philosophical methods, Stein builds and justifies an ethical framework for guiding practices involving educational measurement. This framework demonstrates that educational measurement can both inhibit and ensure just educational arrangements. It also clarifies a principled distinction between efficiency-oriented testing and justice-oriented testing.

Through analysis of several historical case studies that exemplify ethical issues related to testing, this book explores and propounds speculative design principles and arguments in favour of radically democratic school reforms, which address how the future of testing might be shaped to ensure justice for all. These case studies cover the widespread use of IQ-style testing in schools during the early decades of the 20th century; the founding of the Educational Testing Service; and the recent history of test-based accountability associated with No Child Left Behind.

Social Justice and Educational Measurement will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in education, testing and assessment, and the philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to policymakers and educational administrators.

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Tears

by Dr. Marc Gafni (President of the Think Tank)

This is a book about tears. It is about the dance of tears in our lives. Tears are not of one texture. There are many forms of holy tears. And there are also, or so it appears from the perspective of one level of consciousness, unholy tears. This book is about learning to discern between these different forms of tears. To learn the language of tears is to discern between the different forms of sacred tears.

Ultimately, however, from a higher level of consciousness all tears are holy in their root. Part of what it means to wake up is to identify the nature of your tears, and to give your tears voice. To wake up is to know the language of tears. When you are awake, you hear and hearken to the melody and message of your tears.

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Religion of Tomorrow

Ken Wilber (Co-Founder of the Think Tank)

A provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century

A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves, this core insight has become obscured.

Here, Ken Wilber provides a path for re-envisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the evolution of humanity in every realm while remaining faithful to that original spiritual vision. For the traditions to attract modern men and women, Wilber asserts, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past hundred years—for example, about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth of consciousness—that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus were unable to include in their meditative systems.

Taking Buddhism as an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral Approach—which is already being applied to several world religions by some of their adherents—can avert a “cultural disaster of unparalleled proportions”: the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. Moreover, he shows how we can apply this approach to our own spiritual practice. This, his most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is a thrilling call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow.

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Foundational Books by Senior Fellows of the Think Tank Published

Conscious Evolution

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

Emergence

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation

by Barbara Marx Hubbard (Former Chair of the Think Tank)

The God Problem

by Howard Bloom (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

The Relevance of General Systems Theory

Edited by Ervin Laszlo (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

Evolution: The Great Synthesis

by Ervin Laszlo (Senior Fellow of the Think Tank)

Impact Books Published

Loving Your Way to Enlightenment

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

The Mystery of Love

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Soul Prints

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Your Unique Self (Success 3.0)

by Dr. Marc Gafni (Available)

Source Books That Inspired Us

Process and Reality

by Alfred North Whitehead

Adventures of Ideas

by Alfred North Whitehead

The Lights of Penitence

by Abraham Isaac Kook

Absorbing Perfections

by Moshe Idel

The Lonely Man of Faith

by Joseph B. Soloveitchik

God, Man and History

by Eliezer Berkovits

Biology and Knowledge Revisited

Jean Piaget Symposia Series

The Theory of Communicative Action

by Jürgen Habermas

The Essential Peirce

by Charles Sanders Peirce Edited by Nathan Houser & Christian Kloesel

Get Your Preview Draft of Two Forthcoming Outrageous Love Books HERE

You Want to Know More About Our Forthcoming Books?

Get Access to Our Stacks & Archives

On our main topics pages, you get a direct experience of our ongoing work at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion – the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism. We invite you to explore our books, papers, podcasts, etc.

You Want Even More?

Take the next step with us and access our Stacks & Archives with our Free Great Library Card.

Great Library Vision

Great Library Books2024-08-31T10:38:05-07:00

White Papers

Latest Released White Paper

[For Weekly Oral Essays from Our Think Tank, Visit Our Office for the Future Medium Publication]

Book Review “First Principles & First Values” by David Nicol

Read on Substack

David Nicol is an Australian native now living in North California. His book, Subtle Activism: The Inner Dimension of Social and Planetary Transformation (SUNY Press) was the first comprehensive study of the idea that focused collective intention can powerfully and measurably contribute to social change.

David writes a blog on Substack called Geistic Musings, offering his “reflections on the intersection of consciousness and culture.”

Book Review “First Principles & First Values”

A New Story of Value for Our Times

Today I want to share about (what I think is) a vitally important new book that offers profound context for why we need these novel forms of knowing to start to move into the center of culture as a matter of urgency in this time between worlds.

The book is First Principles & First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on Cosmoerotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, by David J. Temple. David J. Temple is a pseudonym that represents a consortium of writers associated with the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, with Marc Gafni and Zak Stein being the primary authors.

Because of the significance of the book’s thesis, I go into some detail below to convey the essential argument. I hope you will stay with me, because there is something deeply hopeful about these ideas for our future.

First Principles is an attempt to articulate the foundations of a new worldview that can guide humanity through the global metacrisis. We have become deeply conditioned by postmodernity to be cynical of intellectual efforts to create frameworks of universal value, but this is indeed at the heart of the authors’ thesis. Post-modernity’s deconstruction of old stories of value has overreached, resulting not only in a pervasive global mood of nihilism but also an inability to coordinate in any meaningful way at a time when the stakes could not be higher.

Into this void, First Principles offers a ‘New Story of Value’ that provides a context for integrating the best of premodern, modern, and postmodern thought. It does so by explicitly articulating a universal set of values that underlies reality all the way up and down the evolutionary chain, and is validated by both science and the wisdom traditions. Below I provide a specific example. (more…)

More Think Tank Documents in Development

To find these essays organized by topic, please visit our Topics page on the Top Menu.

Scholars at the Center for World Philosophy & Religion are conducting research and co-creating publications which can help to chart the course for the next step in the emergence of humankind. Some of our authors have traditional academic credentials, and others are independent scholars and thinkers who bring unique perspectives to bear, often informed by real-world involvement in putting insights from Integral Wisdom into practice.

Note: Dr. Marc Gafni is involved at different levels in many of these projects, ranging from being the lead author, co-author, or at times simply writing an introduction to frame the topic in terms of the larger conversation.

See the Bibliography of Dr. Marc Gafni

The following white papers, extended essays, and book excerpts have been or are now being actively developed at the Center for World Philosophy & Religion think tank – the links lead to the final or current versions of the papers.

White Papers2024-08-31T10:40:16-07:00

Executive Leadership Team for Center for World Philosophy and Religion

Dr. Marc Gafni – Co-Founder, President, and Lead Scholar

Dr. Marc GafniDr. Marc Gafni is a philosopher, public intellectual, author and social innovator. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, rabbinic certification from the chief rabbinate in Israel, as well private rabbinic ordination. He is also ordained and holds a doctorate in religious science. He is the initiating thought leader, together with Ken Wilber, of World Spirituality based on Integral principles, as well as the leading theorist and teacher of Unique Self Enlightenment. He is the director of Center for Integral Wisdom, a think tank he co-founded in 2010 with Mariana Caplan which is creating a body of work to evolve the source code of human existence.A rabbinic lineage holder in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah, Gafni self-describes as a “dual citizen” of both integral World Spirituality and classical Hebrew practice. He is a guest editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice on issues of Integral spirituality, has been a faculty member of J.F.K. University, and is the author of eight books including the national bestseller Soul Prints, and The Mystery of Love, an exploration of the relationship between the erotic and the sacred. His newest books are Your Unique Self and Radical Kabbalah.

An iconoclastic artist and provocative visionary, Dr. Gafni has led spiritual movements and learning communities as well as created and hosted for several seasons a highly popular national Israeli television program on culture, meaning, and spirit. He is the father of four children (the youngest being two years old), is in committed relationship, and lives in Northern California.
[in-depth biography…]

Dr. Zachary Stein – Co-President and Lead Scholar

zakZak Stein‘s work focuses on social justice and education through the lenses of developmental psychology and integral metatheories. He holds degrees in philosophy and religion from Hampshire College, and educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education from Harvard University. He was a co-founder of Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published in a wide range of outlets including American Psychologist, New Ideas in Psychology, Mind, Brain, and Education, Integral Review, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education. He is currently the Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and Core Faculty at Meridian University.

Ken Wilber – Co-Founder, Leading Voice on our Wisdom Council, and Lead Scholar

Ken WilberKen Wilber is the most influential figure in defining the terms of discussion on what constitutes the “Integral” perspective today and he is a leading voice on the CWS Wisdom Council. His corpus of 25 widely translated books has erected an intellectual framework for understanding the nature of converging trends in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines. His books have often been bestsellers, and his scholarly books have been the basis for numerous academic programs, master’s and doctoral dissertations.

Revered as the “Einstein of consciousness,” Ken has written over twenty books exploring different facets of human development and cultural evolution. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was only 23, became a seminal text in the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. Among his diverse corpus of writings are a novel, Boomeritis, which provided a groundbreaking critique of postmodernity, and The Simple Feeling of Being, a corpus of mystical, spiritual writings of transcendent and lyrical beauty.

Wilber has also played an active role in supporting and promoting integral thinking. He is a leading voice in support of World Spirituality based on Integral principles and has been one of the founding members of the Wisdom Council of the Center for World Spirituality.

Sally Kempton – Co-Founder, Vice-President, and Scholar

sallygoldenscarf[1]Sally Kempton has been practicing and teaching in a Hindu tradition for 30 years, twenty of them as a Swami, or Hindu monk of one of the Dasnami order of sannyasins. A former New York journalist who wrote extensively for the Village Voice, Esquire, New York Magazine, and The New York Times, she left her career in the early 1970s to study with her guru, Swami Muktananda. In the 1980s, she became one of the key teachers in the Siddha Yoga tradition as well as the first editor of a magazine, Darshan, which aimed at finding the shared truths within different spiritual traditions.Sally has spent many years studying Kashmir Shaivism and yoga philosophy, as well as investigating esoteric mysticism as it appears in different traditions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Sufism. Since 2002 she has lived and taught as a lay teacher of meditation and spiritual wisdom. Her work aims at bringing the wisdom of non-dual philosophy and yoga into the problems and challenges of daily life. Sally’s teaching is based on the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, on the core texts of yoga and devotional Hinduism, and deeply influenced by Integral theory. She is the author of two books, The Heart of Meditation and Meditation for the Love of It, writes a column, Wisdom, for Yoga Journal, and teaches regular teleconference classes as well as retreats and workshops at conference centers like Kripalu, Esalen and Mt. Madonna.

Kerstin Zohar Tuschik – Editorial Director of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

KerstinZoharSquareKerstin Zohar Tuschik has served as Executive Director of the Center for many years and has now shifted to the position of Editorial Director of the Great Library, working closely with Dr. Marc Gafni as Senior Editor, Scholar, Researcher, and sometimes co-author for major book projects. She is also a Senior Teacher for Unique Self and Representative for the Center in Germany.

Her professional, academic, and experiential background ranges from professional stage dancing and its didactics, physics, human resources development, project management, coaching, and alternative education to personal and spiritual growth. She has been on a conscious spiritual path for more than 30 years, studying different practices and approaches (including Kundalini Yoga, Trauma Therapy, Constellations Work, etc.) with various teachers.

Integral Theory has helped her to connect the dots. Through her dedication to this field, she met Dr. Marc Gafni in 2011 and connected deeply to his vision of a World Spirituality based on Integral Principles and his trans-lineage-path Dharma of Unique Self, Eros, Outrageous Love, and the New Enlightenment. Working and studying with him while working with this international trans-lineage sangha (our band of Outrageous Lovers) is a deep Pleasure and Joy for her.

Krista Steenbergen – Executive Director

steenbergen.png

She is the Executive Director of the Center and also serves as the Outrageous Love Ambassador, bringing excitement and enthusiasm for our shared practice: loving our way to enlightenment through writing Outrageous Love Letters.

She graduated as a Religion Scientist, focussing her studies on sexuality & gender. In 2009 she was initiated as a Priestess during a Vision Quest as part of a three year training. Next to that she has studied with many tantric teachers, including two intensive Tantra Teacher Trainings.

Suzette Messa – Board Secretary

messa.pngSuzette Messa is the Board Secretary for the Center for Integral Wisdom and functions in various executive roles within the Foundation for Conscious Evolution and Sefer, Inc., including running the technology for the weekly One Mountain, Many Paths gatherings, managing Dr. Marc Gafni’s vibrant schedule and helping wherever is needed.

Suzette is a Business Consultant for a Fortune 100 company and holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Marketing from California State University.

Her professional career and passion are focused on bringing innovative solutions and technology into the world. She was instrumental in launching three start-up companies and helped revolutionize an industry through the co-creation of the first online travel application.

Dr. Kristina Kincaid – Director of the Outrageous Love Project

Kristina-KincaidCropped-300x300Dr. Kristina Kincaid is the Director of the School of Integral Evolutionary Tantra (IET) in New York City. IET teaches, coaches and mentors individual to take the next step in self-transformation. IET was created to develop cutting edge Leaders, Projects and Initiative of conscious collaboration in the world. IET understands that in order to respond to the challenges that face our planet today, it is imperative to create a WE-space, where we as individuals, and individual systems, realize that enlightened consciousness is beyond ego, and is the essential next stage of self-transformation.

The School is an affiliate division of The Center for Integral Wisdom (CIW), a non-profit activist think tank founded in 2010 by Marc Gafni, Mariana Caplan and a leadership team that has expanded to dozens of the most respected spiritual teachers, leaders, authors and activists in the world. CIW is articulating and advancing a spiritual movement that is moving across the globe in the hearts of people everywhere. Evolving the source code of human existence is the urgent need and great planetary adventure of these times. Kristina is a CIW Scholar and a member of the Board of Directors.

Kristina is on faculty at The Institute of Core Energetics and holds an M.A. in Energy Medicine and a Doctorate in Theology from Holos University. A graduate of the Institute of Core Energetics and the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, she also holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas, Austin.

She is also a Senior Teacher of the Unique Self Enlightenment Process. Her Eros and passion for the Unique Self work, includes not only the depth and heart of the teachings but also the visceral, bodied realizations that are transmitted through the dharma and grounded through physical practices. The teachings allow a process of real, radical transformation. She is honored and excited to be part of bringing out into the world, this cutting edge transformational work pioneered by Dr. Gafni.

Kristina is also the Chairperson and creator, along with Dr. Gafni, of the OutrageousActsofLove.com, OutrageousLoveLetters.com and OutrageousEroticLoveLetters.com Projects. Outrageous Love Projects are community writing and art projects being utilized to birth the inner Rumi, the inner Outrageous Lover, in every man, woman and child. A grass roots movement that was birthed from Dr. Gafni’s creation of a community practice of writing outrageous love letters. The movement’s intention is to literally democratize enlightenment, empowering everyone to radically participate in the very evolution of love itself!

Lastly, Kristina has traveled extensively studying indigenous healers around the world and documented her findings in a film series called “In Search of Healing.” Her passions include the deep mysteries of the body, genetics, and evolution. Her journey has taken her into deep explorations of the feminine and healing around sexuality. She has a Healing practice in New York City.

Claire Molinard –  Unique Self Institute

Claire MolinardClaire Molinard M.Sc, PCC, Vice-President of CIW France, is an Integral master Coach™ and the Co-Founder of Unique Self Coaching Collective. Along with Barbara Alexander, they have designed a Unique Self Coaching process that facilitates Unique Self emergence based on the Unique Self teachings and Integral theory. Initially trained as an Acupuncturist, with graduate Studies in Chinese Medicine, Philosophy and literature, Claire has lived and worked in various places of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the US. Her spiritual journey spans from studying Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga in her early twenties to Ken Wilber’s philosophy and Integral Theory. As a Unique Self lineage holder, Claire is committed to coaching individuals and change agents to embody their Unique Self. As a long term Zen practitioner, Claire feels deeply sourced by both transmissions, and is most at home in the trans-lineage movement articulated by Ken Wilber and Marc Gafni at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion.

Chahat Corten –  Treasurer

Chahat Corten, spiritual teacher, is one of the founding members of the Venwoude Integral Practice community in Holland. She stood with her partner Ted Wilson in the development of spiritual contexts and in the founding and development of Venwoude. Chahat is well-trained and thoroughly cooked in sacred communal living and many modalities of spiritual practice. Gentle and holy laughter and ecstatic creativity merged with penetrating wisdom — unique teachings in the realms of relationship and sexuality — embodied practice and the formation of evolutionary WE-space, rooted in her realization of emptiness and fullness — is what she offers from her heart. Chahat has been empowered as a World Spirituality teacher.

Terry Nelson – Vice President and Board Liaison

Terry-Nelson-100x100Terry Nelson writes, “In my 30 years working as a Lifespring trainer, I have coached thousands of people all over the world to be more successful in fulfilling their commitment to becoming fully human. I think the work of CIW, to provide us human beings with a new and powerful lens through which to view our spiritual journey, will help all of us greatly. Hopefully, this wisdom will also reduce the likelihood of bad things being done in the name of religion. I am not a fan of crusades or suicide bombers. Enough!”

Terry is currently an executive development coach. He is a former Vice-President of Lifespring, a personal development training company. He worked as an analyst for the Congressional Budget Office and was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Training Project Director in Thailand. For the last 11 years, he has coached his kids’ basketball and soccer teams. Terry lives in Mill Valley, California, with his wife and two children. He holds a B.A. from U.W. at Madison and an M.P.A. from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell.

Thomas G. Goddard, J.D., Ph.D. – Vice President

tom-goddard-100x100Thomas Goddard is the President and CEO of The Integral Company, a firm dedicated to helping individuals and organizations to operate consciously and joyfully in the world. In his work with organizations, Dr. Goddard brings his expertise in Integral Theory and industrial and organizational psychology to diverse organizations, primarily in the health care sector.

His work with organizations has taken him throughout the United States and to Latin America, the South Pacific, and the Middle East. In his work with individuals, Dr. Goddard empowers his clients to live full, conscious lives.

Dr. Goddard has earned a law degree and master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology. He has received specialized training in emotional intelligence, Respectful Confrontation, shadow work, Tantra, the Shalom process, and consciousness studies. A founding member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, he has led mindfulness and Integral Theory trainings and workshops for the National Institutes of Health, Shalom Mountain, The Omega Institute, The Chrysalis Group, and the Center for Creative Therapies and the Arts. Dr. Goddard serves as one of the three members of the Executive Council of Shalom Mountain, Inc., a retreat center in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

Tom writes, “My spiritual journey throughout my adult life has been marked by a yearning for a global, transformational conversation at the ‘deep end of the pool,’ where the mystics of all the great spiritual traditions meet in deep resonance with one another. The Center for Integral Wisdom has drawn my support because it offers the best opportunity for such a conversation I’ve seen in nearly 40 years of searching.”

Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D.

Venu-100x100Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D. is founder and president of Integral Gastroenterology Center, P.A., an active private practice in gastroenterology. Inspired by the works of Ken Wilber, he started his practice in 2005 with a passion to bring an AQAL approach to patient care. With extensive experience on the front line of the American health care system, he has engaged in the best of what traditional allopathic medicine can offer and lamented the vast flatland of unconscious healthcare. His mission, with his brother Vinay, is to consciously co-evolve the practice of medicine. Venu graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. with Distinction in Biological Sciences. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He completed medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, with election to Alpha Omega Alpha. He underwent medical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he continues to serve as a volunteer clinical instructor. He practices in north Houston. Venu’s spiritual stream has flowed from his mother’s traditional Hindu rituals to Ken Wilber’s writings, from Vipassana to Adyashanti, and now to Marc Gafni’s Unique Self insights. He believes the Unique Self holds the key for all stakeholders in healthcare to enjoy lives well lived.

Vinay Rao Julapalli, M.D., F.A.C.C.

Vinay-100x100Vinay Rao Julapalli, M.D., F.A.C.C. is founder of Integral Cardiovascular Center, PLLC. He has been active in private practice in cardiology for the last five years and intends to integrally transform the future of medicine. He sees that healthcare is at a pivotal juncture in its transformation from acute care of disease to the promotion of wellness, a shift that can flourish only by transcending and including old paradigms through integrally informed and validated injunctions. “Medicine is suffering a broken heart. To make it whole, we need to co-create and implement leveraged actions on the front lines of community practice that entail win-win, conscious solutions for all — our community, employers, physicians, and other healthcare providers. The result will be no less than the grand unfolding of a new, integrated future of health and well-being.” In solidarity with his brother Venu, Vinay’s Unique Self has called him to help enact this mission. Vinay graduated from medical school at the University of Texas (San Antonio) and completed medical training in internal medicine, cardiology, and interventional cardiology at the University of Texas (Houston), home to the largest medical center in the world. During his medical training, he helped create and implement changes in protocols that have transformed the way acute myocardial infarction is treated in the community. He practices in north Houston and is on staff at Memorial Hermann – The Woodlands Hospital and Houston Northwest Medical Center. He was recently elected Chairman of Cardiology there for 2013-2014.

Executive Leadership Team for Center for World Philosophy and Religion2023-06-27T13:05:06-07:00

Current Board Chair and Former Ones Who Have Completed Their Terms

Current Board Chair of the Advisory Board of the Center

Aubrey Marcus

In 2023, Aubrey Marcus joined the board of the Center. He is the founder of Onnit, a globally disruptive brand based on a holistic health philosophy he calls Total Human Optimization. Onnit remains an industry leader with products optimizing millions of lives, including many top professional athletes around the world.

Aubrey currently hosts the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, a motivational destination for conversations with the brightest minds in athletics, business, mindset, and spirituality with over 100 million listens. He is the author of the NYT Bestselling book Own The Day, Own Your Life and has been featured on the cover of Men’s Health and other publications. He has also produced several documentaries including Awake In The DarknessDragon of the JungleAyahuasca, and Huachuma.

He is currently the visionary behind the donation based coaching platform Fit For Service which recently hosted the transformational music festival, Arkadia. If you ask Aubrey what he is most passionate about, it is raising awareness for psychedelic medicine, including dedicated philanthropic support to MAPS.org and Heffter Institute. He is a 27 year native of Austin, Texas where he currently resides with his wife Vylana.

Watch His Message to the Board

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Former Board Chairs of the Center Who Have Completed Their Terms

Carrie Kish – Vice President and Board Curator

Carrie-KishCarrie Kish (special committee OAL) is a Senior Consultant and the Director of Business Development for CultureSync. Carrie is a consultant, a leadership trainer and a coach who specializes in leadership training for executives, small businesses and non-profit leaders. She has over 20 years of experience as a coach and a trainer, including working as a coach for Anthony Robbins. She is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold several businesses.

Gabrielle Anwar  

Gabrielle Anwar is a British actress, writer and film maker.

Gabrielle about her role as co-chair of the board of The Center For Integral Wisdom

“I co-chair the board of The Center For Integral Wisdom. We are a think tank for the future, for the future generations, our children and grandchildren, and so on. As much as Pikler can directly improve an individual’s lifetime if implemented in infancy so, the CIW can directly improve the contentment of one’s life. Rather than reading self-help books, or engaging in therapy, though both certainly have an important role, the CIW and the work we do heals the tumult inevitable in one’s lifetime by not focusing on the past, but the present and the future, infusing the world, both internal and external with love. Outrageous love. The practice is astounding and entirely unparalleled.”

Shareef Malnik

Shareef Malnik is Owner of The Forge Restaurant, Chairman of NextWave Funding, and a movie producer. However, Malnik might be best known for his charitable endeavors. Malnik proudly holds the position of Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Make-A-Wish Southern Florida. He has also held the prestigious title of Chairman of the InterContinental Make-A-Wish Ball for the past 12 years, helping to raise more than $15.5 million which has been used to grant wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. In 2013, Malnik was honored as Make-A-Wish Board Person of the Year. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Foundation.

Adam Bellow – Co-Editor-in-Chief 3.0 Integral Wisdom Publishing

Adam BellowAdam Bellow is the Editorial Director at Broadside Books (HarperCollins) and Publisher/CEO of Liberty Island Media. A publishing professional for over 25 years specializing in nonfiction books for a conservative readership, Adam is also the founder of Liberty Island Media, an online magazine and publishing company for conservative-themed fiction. He is the author of In Praise of Nepotism: A History of Family Enterprise from King David to George W. Bush and the editor of New Threats to Freedom and The State of the American Mind.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, Social Innovator & Author

Barbara-Marx-HubbardThe late Barbara Marx Hubbard has been called “the voice for conscious evolution of our time” by Deepak Chopra and is the subject of Neale Donald Walsch’s book, The Mother of Invention. A prolific author, visionary, social innovator, evolutionary thinker and educator, she is co-founder and president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. She is the producer and narrator of the award-winning documentary series entitled Humanity Ascending: A New Way through Together. She also serves as Chair of the Center for Integral Wisdom’s Wisdom Council.

Kate Maloney, Ph.D., Technology Entrepreneur, Producer & Co-Director of the Success 3.0 Summit & Co-Board Chair

Kate MaloneyKate Maloney, Ph.D. holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and a Doctoral degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Organizational Psychology/Business and Financial Applications. She has applied her formal training and study to the areas of business and development as an organizational psychologist, executive consultant, affiliate professor, author, and business owner. Kate is active at creating a transformational workplace, and implements cutting-edge business practices which have created a best in class company with a hip, fun, high-performing culture.

Lori Galperin – Co-Founder

Lori GalperinCroppedLori Galperin is a clinician, writer and teacher who began her 27 year career working in the area of sex & marital therapy. Training at Masters & Johnson Institute, she eventually became co-director, co-founded the first inpatient sexual trauma program in the country, and ultimately established and clinically co-directed three such programs. Her work spanned diverse populations including incest families, sex offenders, victims of sexual abuse and individuals struggling with sexual addiction.

In 2000, Lori turned her attention to another under-served population: eating disorder clients, co-founding and clinically directing 3 residential treatment centers over the next 13 years. Most recently she has been working with populations with co-occurring disorders in a context that utilizes all prior skill bases.

Lori currently resides on the Monterey Peninsula of N. California, where she recently participated in the founding of the Monterey Institute of Mental Health. She is also hard at work in collaboration with Dr. Marc Gafni on a book project entitled: Unique Self Recovery, a distillation & application of the heart Marc’s Unique Self teachings to the process of healing.

John P. Mackey, Co-Founder & Co-CEO Whole Foods Market

John MackeyJohn Mackey is Chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, a $4 billion Fortune 500 company which has been named a Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For every year since 1998. John Mackey was named the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2003.

John is a strong believer in FLOW principles, including free market principles and empowerment management. He is also one of the most influential advocates in the movement for organic food. Whole Foods was the first grocery chain to set standards for humane animal treatment.

Current Board Chair and Former Ones Who Have Completed Their Terms2023-09-03T02:46:41-07:00

Senior Scholars, Research Fellows, and Research Associates

Dr. Marc Gafni – Co-Founder, President, and Lead Scholar

Dr. Marc GafniDr. Marc Gafni is a philosopher, public intellectual, author and social innovator. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, rabbinic certification from the chief rabbinate in Israel, as well private rabbinic ordination. He is also ordained and holds a doctorate in religious science. He is the initiating thought leader, together with Ken Wilber, of World Spirituality based on Integral principles, as well as the leading theorist and teacher of Unique Self Enlightenment. He is the director of Center for Integral Wisdom, a think tank he co-founded in 2010 with Mariana Caplan which is creating a body of work to evolve the source code of human existence.A rabbinic lineage holder in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah, Gafni self-describes as a “dual citizen” of both integral World Spirituality and classical Hebrew practice. He is a guest editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice on issues of Integral spirituality, has been a faculty member of J.F.K. University, and is author of twenty five books, of which the first ten have been published, including the national bestseller Soul Prints, and The Mystery of Love, an exploration of the relationship between the erotic and the sacred. His newest books are Your Unique Self, Radical Kabbalah, and, together with Dr. Kristina Kincaid, A Return to Eros.

An iconoclastic artist and provocative visionary, Dr. Gafni has led spiritual movements and learning communities as well as created and hosted for several seasons a highly popular national Israeli television program on culture, meaning, and spirit. He is the father of four children (the youngest being two years old), is in committed relationship, and lives in Northern California.

[in-depth biography…]

Dr. Zachary Stein – Co-President and Academic Director

zakZak Stein‘s work focuses on social justice and education through the lenses of developmental psychology and integral metatheories. He holds degrees in philosophy and religion from Hampshire College, and educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education from Harvard University. While studying at Harvard, he was a co-founder of Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business.

He has published two books.  Social Justice and Educational Measurement was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book,  Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He also writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. His work has appeared in a variety of journals including, American PsychologistNew Ideas in PsychologyMind, Brain, and Education, Integral Review, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education. 

He has taught at Harvard University,  Meridian University, and JFK University. His invited speaking engagements span a wide range of venues, from metamodern podcasts to the National Security Agency and off-the-grid spiritual retreat centers. Partial curriculum vitae: CV_Stein_Winter2015

These days:

  • He is co-founder of The Consilience Project, which is dedicated to improving public sensemaking and building a movement to radically upgrade digital media landscapes.
  • He is a scholar at the Ronin Institute, where he researches the relations between education, human development, and the evolution of civilizations.
  • He acts on the scientific advisor boards of technology start-ups, where he uses his expertise in ethics and human development to help guide innovation.
  • He offers human development and learning science consultations to schools, organizations, and educational technology companies.
  • He serves as Co-President and  Academic Director of the activist think tank at the Center, where he writes and teaches at the edges of integral meta-theory.

Ken Wilber – Co-Founder, Leading Voice on our Wisdom Council, and Lead Scholar

Ken WilberKen Wilber is the most influential figure in defining the terms of discussion on what constitutes the Integral perspective today, and he is a leading voice on the Wisdom Council of the Center. His corpus of 25 widely translated books has erected an intellectual framework for understanding the nature of converging trends in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines. His books have often been bestsellers, and his scholarly books have been the basis for numerous academic programs, master’s and doctoral dissertations.

Revered as the “Einstein of consciousness,” Ken has written over twenty books exploring different facets of human development and cultural evolution. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was only 23, became a seminal text in the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. Among his diverse corpus of writings are a novel, Boomeritis, which provided a groundbreaking critique of postmodernity, and The Simple Feeling of Being, a corpus of mystical, spiritual writings of transcendent and lyrical beauty.

Wilber has also played an active role in supporting and promoting integral thinking. He is a leading voice in support of World Spirituality based on Integral principles and has been one of the founding members of the Wisdom Council of the Center.

Howard Bloom

Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Freud, and Buckminster Fuller” by Britain’s Channel4 TV and “the next Stephen Hawking” by Gear Magazine.  Bloom is the author of seven books, including The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and the new Einstein, Michael Jackson & Me: A Search for Soul in the Power Pits of Rock and Roll.  The Office of the Secretary of Defense threw a symposium on Bloom’s second book, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, and brought in representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. The eleventh president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam called Bloom’s third book, The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism, “a visionary creation.”  And the Sheikh who runs Dubai named a racehorse—the Beast–after that same book.  Bloom has published or lectured scholarly conferences in twelve different fields, from quantum physics and cosmology to neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychology, information science, governance, and aerospace.  His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street JournalWired, Knight Financial News Service, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, and the blog sites of Psychology Today and The Scientific American.  In a full-page article in Business Insider, SpaceX’s Elon Musk praised one of Bloom space projects, the Two Billion Dollar Moon Prize. The Two Billion Dollar Moon Prize was also covered in Time, Newsweek, CBS, NBC, Fox News, and Politico. And Jeff Bezos tweeted a Bloom blog from the Scientific American calling for the establishment of a permanent transport infrastructure in space.

Daniel Schmachtenberger – Director for Research & Development and Senior Vice President

DanielSchmachtenbergerDaniel Schmachtenberger is the Founder of the Consilience Project and Director for Research & Development and Senior Vice President at the Center. His background in systems science, human behavior, and activism brought him to focus on the global systems that interconnect and drive our major global challenges.

He has spent much of the last decade studying the etiology, scope, magnitude, timelines, and interconnectedness of major issues; inventorying global resources and solutions; doing detailed comparative analysis of economic and comparative analysis of economic and governance systems; and developing comprehensive systems solutions, adequate to the issues and realistically achievable.

Sally Kempton, Co-Founder – Sacred Feminine Leader, Author – Awakening Shakti

Sally KemptonSally Kempton has been practicing and teaching in a Hindu tradition for 30 years, twenty of them as a Swami, or Hindu monk of one of the Dasnami order of sannyasins. A former New York journalist who wrote extensively for the Village VoiceEsquireNew York Magazine, and The New York Times, she left her career in the early 1970s to study with her guru, Swami Muktananda. In the 1980s, she became one of the key teachers in the Siddha Yoga tradition as well as the first editor of a magazine, Darshan, which aimed at finding the shared truths within different spiritual traditions.

Sally has spent many years studying Kashmir Shaivism and yoga philosophy, as well as investigating esoteric mysticism as it appears in different traditions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Sufism.

Since 2002 she has lived and taught as a lay teacher of meditation and spiritual wisdom. Her work aims at bringing the wisdom of non-dual philosophy and yoga into the problems and challenges of daily life. Sally’s teaching is based on the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, on the core texts of yoga and devotional Hinduism, and deeply influenced by Integral theory. She is the author of several books, The Heart of Meditation, Meditation for the Love of It, and Awakening Shakti, writes a column, “Wisdom,” for Yoga Journal, and teaches regular teleconference classes as well as retreats and workshops at conference centers like Kripalu, Esalen, and Mt. Madonna.

Sally says, “I was originally drawn to the spiritual path through the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a radically prescient nineteenth-century Indian saint who realized God through the practices of several different traditions. My deepest conviction is that all the traditions contain authentic pathways to mystical realization, as well as authentic guidelines about how to live. As we move outside of conventional religious frameworks, it’s imperative that our practice carry an authenticity and rigor that is comparable to the rigor of the traditions, even as it acknowledges and works with the gifts and questions of modernity and post modernity.

“I am excited that the Center has the potential to define a trans-lineage spirituality that is powerful enough to hold practitioners steady in the radical transitions of our times, and to lead us in working with the transformative energies all around us for the highest good. To me, World Spirituality holds a promise that as a group, we can discover pathways to full self-realization and skillful enlightened action, which are rigorous, authentic, dogma free, and capable of riding the energy of this pregnant moment in human evolution.”

One of her most recent works is her book Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddess of Yoga.

For more books and CDs by Sally Kempton, see her website>>>.

Lori Galperin

Lori GalperinCroppedLori Galperin is a clinician, writer and teacher who began her 27 year career working in the area of sex & marital therapy. Training at Masters & Johnson Institute, she eventually became co-director, co-founded the first inpatient sexual trauma program in the country, and ultimately established and clinically co-directed three such programs. Her work spanned diverse populations including incest families, sex offenders, victims of sexual abuse and individuals struggling with sexual addiction.

In 2000, Lori turned her attention to another under-served population: eating disorder clients, co-founding and clinically directing 3 residential treatment centers over the next 13 years. Most recently she has been working with populations with co-occurring disorders in a context that utilizes all prior skill bases.

Lori currently resides on the Monterey Peninsula of N. California, where she recently participated in the founding of the Monterey Institute of Mental Health. She is also hard at work in collaboration with Dr. Marc Gafni on a book project entitled: Unique Self Recovery, a distillation & application of the heart Marc’s Unique Self teachings to the process of healing.

Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D.

Venu-100x100Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D. is founder and president of Integral Gastroenterology Center, P.A., an active private practice in gastroenterology. Inspired by the works of Ken Wilber, he started his practice in 2005 with a passion to bring an AQAL approach to patient care. With extensive experience on the front line of the American health care system, he has engaged in the best of what traditional allopathic medicine can offer and lamented the vast flatland of unconscious healthcare. His mission, with his brother Vinay, is to consciously co-evolve the practice of medicine.

Venu graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. with Distinction in Biological Sciences. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He completed medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, with election to Alpha Omega Alpha. He underwent medical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he continues to serve as a volunteer clinical instructor. He practices in north Houston. Venu’s spiritual stream has flowed from his mother’s traditional Hindu rituals to Ken Wilber’s writings, from Vipassana to Adyashanti, and now to Marc Gafni’s Unique Self insights. He believes the Unique Self holds the key for all stakeholders in healthcare to enjoy lives well lived.

John Gray, Ph.D., Social Thought Leader & Author (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)

John Gray

Dr. John Gray is the leading relationship expert in the world. His relationship and health books have sold over 50 million copies in 50 different languages. His groundbreaking book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, is the best-selling non-fiction book of all time. It launched his Mars Venus book series that forever changed the way men and women view their relationships. John helps men and women better understand and respect their differences in both personal and professional relationships.

Dr. Warren Farrell – Senior Vice President for Gender Issues

Warren_Farrell-100x100Dr. Warren Farrell has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. He feels, though, that the mind can be misused as easily as well-used; spiritual centering facilitates the mind being well-used both externally and internally. Dr. Farrell’s books are published in over 50 countries and in 15 languages.

They include two award-winning international best-sellers, Why Men Are The Way They Are plus The Myth of Male Power. His book on couples communication, Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say, was a selection of the Book-of-the Month Club. His book, Father and Child Reunion, has inspired many dads to be more involved with their children. And Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap–and What Women Can Do About It was chosen by U.S. News and World Report in 2006 as one of the top four books on careers.

Dr. Farrell has taught at the university level in five disciplines, and appeared on more than a thousand TV shows from Oprah to Larry King Live. He has been featured repeatedly in Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has two daughters, and lives with his wife in Mill Valley, California.

Terry Nelson – Vice President and Board Liaison

Terry-Nelson-100x100Terry Nelson writes, “In my 30 years working as a Lifespring trainer, I have coached thousands of people all over the world to be more successful in fulfilling their commitment to becoming fully human. I think the work of CIW, to provide us human beings with a new and powerful lens through which to view our spiritual journey, will help all of us greatly. Hopefully, this wisdom will also reduce the likelihood of bad things being done in the name of religion. I am not a fan of crusades or suicide bombers. Enough!”

Terry is currently an executive development coach. He is a former Vice-President of Lifespring, a personal development training company. He worked as an analyst for the Congressional Budget Office and was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Training Project Director in Thailand. For the last 11 years, he has coached his kids’ basketball and soccer teams. Terry lives in Mill Valley, California, with his wife and two children. He holds a B.A. from U.W. at Madison and an M.P.A. from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell.

Dr. Kristina Kincaid – Director of the Outrageous Love Project

Kristina-KincaidCropped-300x300Dr. Kristina Kincaid is an Anthropologist, Theologian, Master Embodiment Practitioner, Relationship and Sexuality Teacher, Speaker and Author.

She holds an MA and a Doctorate in Theology and Energy Medicine from Holos University. A graduate of the Institute of Core Energetics and the prestigious Barbara Brennan School of Healing, Kristina also earned a BA in Anthropology from the University of Texas, Austin.

Dr. Kincaid is known for her transformative work around sexuality, personal growth and intimate relationship with self and other through the body.

Kristina has traveled the world studying with powerful Healers of our tim e- from the most primitive to the most advanced, cultivating an extensive background of bodywork and energy healing rooted in science. Her passions include the mysteries of the body.Her own personal healing journey has taken her into deep explorations of healing around sexuality.

Kristina’s personal mission is to teach conscious relating that is an affront to shame and guilt. Her commitment is to spark a movement of embodied practice that empowers women and men to take responsibility for their own arousal and desire resulting in the full liberation and reclamation of their true potency and power.

Kerstin Zohar Tuschik – Editorial Director of the Great Library of CosmoErotic Humanism

KerstinZoharSquareKerstin Zohar Tuschik has served as Executive Director of the Center for many years and has recently shifted to the position of Editorial Director of the Great Library, working closely with Dr. Marc Gafni as Senior Editor, Scholar, Researcher, and sometimes co-author for major book projects. She is also a Senior Teacher for Unique Self and Representative for the Center in Germany.

Her professional, academic, and experiential background ranges from professional stage dancing and its didactics, physics, human resources development, project management, coaching, and alternative education to personal and spiritual growth. She has been on a conscious spiritual path for more than 30 years, studying different practices and approaches (including Kundalini Yoga, Trauma Therapy, Constellations Work, etc.) with various teachers.

Integral Theory has helped her to connect the dots. Through her dedication to this field, she met Dr. Marc Gafni in 2011 and connected deeply to his vision of a World Spirituality based on Integral Principles and his trans-lineage-path Dharma of Unique Self, Eros, Outrageous Love, and the New Enlightenment. Working and studying with him while working with this international trans-lineage sangha (our band of Outrageous Lovers) is a deep Pleasure and Joy for her.

Swami Chetanananda

Shawn Ramer

Kathy Brownback

Benjamin Swartout: Researcher, Fellow, Co-Leading publishing of the Great Library

Benjamin graduated from Lafayette College school of Engineering in 2011. During his time there, Benjamin attempted to address injustices through leading activist work with organizations like Save Darfur and Amnesty International. In the midst of confronting  massive systemic inequalities, which seemed beyond repair, Benjamin found the work of Integral Theory and the Center for Integral Wisdom which helped him reclaim the  hope and vision of a more beautiful world.

After college and earning his Permaculture Design Certificate through Kibbutz Lotan, he then worked in Silicon Valley at Bloom Energy and SunPower. Benjamin returned to Israel for a year in 2016 as a Fulbright Scholar, where he learned about the convergence of the environmental crisis and the Conflict in the Middle East. This took place on Kibbutz Ketura, a rarefied living laboratory of Arab, Israeli, and international students all learning with and from each other.

It was during this  year, that he began studying with Dr. Marc. While deepening his understanding of the Unique Self theory  and learning sacred texts  from original sources, Benjamin has also been working as a proton accelerator engineer at Varian Medical and a hardware engineer at Apple and Beats headphones.

As part of a 3 year internship with the Center for Integral Wisdom, Benjamin is currently co-leading the creation of a  publishing and editing process for the Homo Amor Great Library.

Benjamin also enjoys Tai Chi, sci-fi movies, and walking barefoot!

Senior Scholars, Research Fellows, and Research Associates2023-07-27T06:02:26-07:00

Advisory Board

Advisory Board Members of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, the Office for the Future, and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. Each organization has a distinct legal board, which takes its decisions, all the decisions are made collectively by the appropriate board and board leadership. The listing below includes present and former board members, research fellows, faculty and officers of these organizations.

We have intentionally not broken them out by designation, as all of these people contribute equally needed value to the overall missions of these distinct organizations.

In alphabetical order: 

  • Sam Alexander
  • Kristina Amelong
  • Gabrielle Anwar
  • Helma Buis
  • James Bampfield
  • Keith Bellamy
  • Adam Bellow
  • Paul Bennett
  • Howard Bloom
  • Harry de Bont
  • Olivier Bockenmeyer
  • Kathy Brownback
  • Mariana Caplan
  • Swami Chetanananda
  • David Cicerchi
  • Chahat Corten
  • Jacqueline Clark
  • Peter Dunlap
  • Warren Farrell
  • Peter Fiekowski
  • Sharon Fiekowski
  • Marc Gafni
  • Lori Galperin
  • Mike Ginn
  • Mathi Gijbels
  • Bill Gladstone
  • Tom Goddard
  • Deidre Gruendler
  • Kohlene Hendrickson
  • Carol Herndon
  • Barbara Marx Hubbard †
  • Philippe Joannis
  • Venu Julapalli
  • Vinay Julapalli
  • Jamie Long
  • Sally Kempton
  • Kristina Kincaid
  • Ken Kinghorn
  • Carrie Kish
  • Claudia Kleefeld
  • Paul Kvamme
  • Shareef Malnik
  • Christopher Marston
  • Suzette Messa
  • Simona Muratori
  • Claire Molinard
  • Victoria Myer
  • Terry Nelson
  • Christopher Nelson
  • Don Pet
  • Shawn Ramer
  • Tonya Ridgely
  • Suzy Akmen Rogovin
  • Daniel Schmachtenberger
  • Raquel Sommer
  • Zak Stein
  • Krista Steenbergen
  • Benjamin Swartout
  • Wouter Torfs
  • Kerstin Tuschik
  • Kristen Ulmer
  • Stephanie Valcke
  • Mike Weiss
  • Timothy Wilken
  • Derek Yoder
Advisory Board2023-07-27T06:01:52-07:00

Essentials: What Is an Activist Think Tank?

What Is the Center for World Philosophy & Religion?

The Center for World Philosophy & Religion is an Activist Think Tank. It is a group of people who think about the structure of the way things work and how we can make it better. We are engaging the deep structural issues that affect how society works, how love flows, how compassion unfolds, the way politics unfolds, the way economics are structured. We are inspiring action.

At the Center, we may be the only think tank of this kind in the world today. Actually, the essential source code issues – how to create a shared language of meaning and spirit in the world today – are peripheral in our society today. It’s left to fringe conversation and never enters the mainstream to evolve the dialogue. We have started along with other visionary thinkers such as Ken Wilber along with our talented and dedicated faculty, our leadership team, and our Scholars.

We are engaging these source code issues through three primary modalities.

First, we have our Dharma Labs.

Dr. Marc Gafni also teaches live online at our sister organization One Mountain, Many Paths – Live Online Services Every Sunday at 10 am PT.

Second, we are writing a series of books and white papers which change and evolve the source code of consciousness in key areas of society. We are engaged in medicine, secondary school education, business, psychology, and the recovery movement. We are developing a practice based on “outrageous acts of love.” We are spearheading the Digital Intimacy project, a success project, and coaching. We are evolving the meaning of enlightenment through the “democratization of enlightenment” teaching, entrepreneurship, spiritual practice, our understanding of the masculine and feminine. And on and on. Each one is a source code changing move, an engagement in the ongoing evolution of love.

Third, we are offering live and evergreen online courses which have so far brought together more than 5,000 people.

Welcome to the Center, an Activist Think Tank based on Integral Principles seeking to evolve the source code of love.

Essentials: What Is an Activist Think Tank?2022-10-10T06:22:27-07:00
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