ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a new integral framework. It gives the necessary general context and specific backdrop that is required to understand the relevance and significance, as well as the history and potential future of an integral approach to human development. The chapter reviews the rise of the Integral Age. The contemporary United States (US) integral philosopher and evolutionary activist Steve McIntosh offers with his work on Integral Consciousness a very useful historic account of the evolution of integral thinking itself. Spiral Dynamics differentiates eight different stages, from archaic consciousness to a post-integral consciousness, with the eighth stage merely indicating that the theory is open-ended, embracing the potential for further, not yet known, evolutionary phases. Spiral Dynamics depicts a dialectic, spiralling, upwards-oriented movement that all societies appear to go through. In cooperation with Ken Wilber, Don Beck fused his spiral theory with Wilber's integral four-quadrant theory, calling it 'Spiral Dynamics Integral'.
