Surfing the Inflection Point

As we approach election day here in the United States I would like to take a moment to express my deep gratitude to all of you for supporting our work in your own way and to perhaps offer some ways we can use media to help ourselves, those we love and all of humanity through these challenging times.

First, I want to thank everyone who is contributing to my Medicine for Mark GoFundMe campaign, helping to keep me stable until we find a cure. My medicine is helping and I am able to do more than I could before. I still struggle every day to function in many ways but I have a lot of help from family and friends and community services agencies. In the meantime I am doing everything within my power to continue my work and help as many people as possible to navigate the media war on our consciousness, which is part of the great transition we are going through. 

Secondly, I also want to thank all my long time supporters, contributors, co-researchers and co-learners for all that you have done to support and contribute to my work through the Integral Cinema Project.

Media Shaman Offerings

Finally I wish to thank the Transformative Media course participants who helped me awaken to the Media Shaman framing of this whole process. This awakening is not just about my framing of this work. It also includes a deeply personal re-awakening of my own Media Shaman journey which started many years ago when one of my teachers, Barbara Myerhoff, basically told me that I was a Media Shaman...that my stuttering was considered a calling to heal myself and others through media. With this reframing of the work into the Media Shaman framework, that original transformative framing from Dr. Myerhoff flowered inside my being and bore more fruit for my own journey of transformation. 

So you may be wondering what is a media shaman? Media shamans works toward using media to help heal and evolve themselves, others and the world. They transform their own perceptual field into an object in their awareness and an evolutionary accelerator, and help others do the same. The Media Shaman sees the bigger picture and uses media as an individual and collective healing and evolutionary intervention coming from these higher perspectives, attempting to address problems at the level of cause rather than the level of effect. 

Here are our new reframed Media Shaman offerings:

• Media Shaman Toolkit - A 3-part video course to improve your ability to make sense of the world, learn how to use the transformative potential of media, and help yourself and others evolve into the grounded consciousness we need right now (Available now; see video below)
• Media Shaman MasterClass - Our 15 week Transformative Media Creation and Reception Course on using, designing and creating media for the transformation of self, other and world (Course starting in mid-November; see video below). The MasterClass includes a Certificate of Completion and entrance into our ongoing Media Shaman Community of Practice.
• Media Shaman Studio - A free monthly online and live discussion exploration of consciousness and media (formally the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month group) 

Research Breakthrough: Using Media to Accelerate the Evolution of Individual and Collective Consciousness

Together we have made many great discoveries along the way and I want to share with you the biggest one we have come across so far. This discovery happened through our Transformative Media Creation and Reception course at Campus Co-Evolve (the Media Shaman MasterClass), with amazing contributions from all the participants of both cohorts so far and the Campus Co-Evolve team and its founder George Pór. What we discovered together is a way to accelerate the evolution of our individual and collective consciousness using media. This breakthrough is important because all major problems in the world are the product of an unprecedented gap between our technologies and our capacities to use them in a healthy way. This is a gap between the stages of development of our technologies and the stages of development of our individual, cultural and societal consciousness. So the key is for us to accelerate the evolution of our individual and collective consciousness to catch up to our technologies and keep pace with them going forward. And according to our research, the key to this acceleration of the evolution of consciousness is for as many of us as possible to become active observers of our own perceptual field using the very technologies we are trying to catch up with.

So what is the secret here? The secret is that if we train ourselves to continually observe our own perceptual field as an object in our experience, then our perceptual field becomes a developmental accelerator itself. This appears to occur when we use a unique educational process we discovered that trains us to be aware of how media communicates with us and affects us, how consciousness is embedded in our media, and how that embedding affects our own consciousness and perceptual field. This unique educational process is what we are calling media-assisted consciousness training and integrates the following approaches:

• Media metatheory theory and practice, or praxis;
• Individual embodied learning projects combined with collective intelligence research and support teamwork;
• Individual and collective perception practices;
• Media-mirroring techniques, which entails the use of media creation and reception processes as both a mirror for our own consciousness and a learning tool to transform our perceptual field into an object of our experience (Based on the work of Edgar Morin); 
• 3-brain neuroplasticity training to help participants restructure their own neural pathways and reprogram their minds to constantly observe their own perceptual field. 

For more on this breakthrough check out the talk we did with some of the course participants for the Up Convergence Conference and to experience it yourself take the Media Shaman MasterClass in Transformative Media Creation and Reception starting mid-November.

This Moment...

And in this moment, as the world holds its breath, no one can be sure what the world will look like on November 4th. We are in a potentially major liminal inflection point moment, as we discussed in our last update. One of the things we can do is to be one with the uncertainty, entering a liminal space in our own beingness, and move through the moment with full awareness and presence, letting go of what was and opening to what might be...and do our best to Surf the Inflection Point. And if you want some tools to help you navigate through these challenging times, both our Media Shaman Toolkit and the MasterClass are designed to help.

In deep gratitude to you all...Stay well, Stay Safe, Stay Awake.

Mark

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director
Integral Cinema Project

Transformative Media Creation and Reception Course

Announcing a new online course in 

Transformative Media Creation and Reception: 

Designing and Creating Transformative Media Experiences for Self, Other and World 

with Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Starting the week of November 3, 2019

This is a course for aspiring and accomplished change makers who want to learn how to use media to extend and deepen their efforts to create transformation in self, other and world. It will illuminate the comprehensive toolkit for designing media to catalyze healing, personal growth and the evolution of consciousness on an individual and collective level.

Together, we will learn about the co-evolutionary relationship between moving-image-based communication mediums, consciousness, media, culture and society, and how these mediums can be used as a driving force for individual and collective healing, growth, and revolutionary and evolutionary change and transformation. We will also be exploring how to consciously create and receive moving image works as a transformative practice for self, other and world through the development of both individual and group projects. No previous media-making experience required.

For more information and to sign up for this course visit: 

https://campus-coevolve.org/course/transformative-media/

Campus Co-Evolve: https://campus-coevolve.org/
Admissions: https://campus-coevolve.org/admissions/

The Big Picture of the NOW

Here, by popular request, is Mark Allan Kaplan, media psychologist and founder and Executive Director of the Integral Cinema Project, explaining why "All problems are problems of consciousness" as he unpacks the current global situation: how we got here, why it's unprecedented in world history, and why media in all its evolving forms may be the best and most powerful tool to awaken us into a new paradigm of being.

If you want to take a deeper dive, Mark will be teaching "Transformative Media Creation and Reception" for Campus-Coevolve.org starting in early October, 2019. (I am a Contributing Faculty Member.) To find out more, please visit: https://campus-coevolve.org/course/transformative-media/

You can also join us for our Conscious Movie-of-the-Month discussion group hosted by the Conscious Good Creators Network and stay tuned for our Conscious Media-making certificate program, also at Conscious Good. To find out more about these offerings visit: https://conscious-good.mn.co/

July 2019 Conscious Movie-of-the-Month

The Conscious Movie-of-the-Month for July 2019 is Avatar (2009).

During the month of July you are invited to watch the movie Avatar on your own. If you have already seen it, we recommend watching it again with the intent of seeing any patterns of consciousness you had not seen before, including the patterns mentioned below. If you do not own a copy, you can stream it online or get a free rental from your local library. You are also invited to share your thoughts, reflections and musings about the movie in our group's online discussion forum.

At the end of the month, we will have a video conference call where we will explore the movie from a conscious, integral and transpersonal perspective, and you will have the opportunity to share more of your personal reflections and ask any questions.

Recommended by one of the members of our group, Avatar feels like a perfect follow up to our exploration last month of What the Bleep in many ways, including that both these movies were able to tap into the zeitgeist, both explored transformations of consciousness and its relationship to physical reality in their own unique way, and both were created on the cusp of an evolution in film technology. Exploring Avatar after What the Bleep is also a great way for us to get into the difference between tapping into a certain cultural stream (What the Bleep) and tapping into the full collective field (Avatar).

On its own, Avatar is also the perfect film for us to explore how to integrate multiple structures of consciousness in a moving image work, which it does masterfully. It also gives us the opportunity to explore how and why this pattern appears in the most financially successful films of all times and how this approach can enable us to potentially affect more hearts and minds. Plus, even though Avatar was released during the Christmas season...it is also makes a pretty good summer movie adventure.

Healers in the Hood: Reflections on the Passing of John Singleton, "Selma" and the New Consciousness in African American Cinema

John Singleton at the Premiere of “Selma” (2014)

As part of the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club hosted by Conscious Good Creators Network, we are viewing the film Selma (2014) as our monthly selection. I was struck by the news of African American filmmaker John Singleton (1968–2019) passing away just a few days before we started. I noticed some synchronicities or resonances between our choice of film and the life, work and passing of Singleton. Selma is the work of African American filmmaker Ava DuVernay who is part of a whole new movement and consciousness within African American cinema that most likely would not exist without Singleton’s groundbreaking work.

Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay pays tribute to John Singleton Twitter (2019) 

 
The history of African American cinema has been profoundly affected by the history of African Americans and their struggle against great individual, cultural, social and systemic injustices and challenges. The evolutionary journey of African American media artists and their works is like a creative mirror on our collective journey as a country. Because of this great injustice gap, the evolution of African American cinema is the story of many creative, cultural and social groundbreakers fighting against a system that was and still is in many ways rigged against people of color.

Every generation has had courageous individuals who sought to break some of these barriers and open the doors to those generations to come. John Singleton was one of the brave creative souls who raised and deepened the cinematic consciousness of African American cinema by unpacking the overt and covert effects of living within the shadows of racism. His breakout film Boyz n the Hood (1991), made when he was just 23, depicted the everyday lives and realities of African Americans, going deeply personal to tap into the universal.

Since his passing many African American film scholars, critics, historians and commentators have written about Singleton’s various contributions to African American cinema and American cinema in general, including: What Hollywood Owes to John Singleton, his Influence on African American Cinema, and how he Changed Black Culture on Film Forever.

My colleague Jonathan Steigman and I created a video podcast series called New Black Cinema for White People in which we take a deep dive into the new generation of masterful young filmmakers standing on the shoulders of John Singleton and other trailblazing African American media artists. One of the groundbreaking elements of the works by this new generation is their use of both subtle and extremely overt complex communication to pierce the veil of structural white supremacy. From broad satire to quiet drama, from big budget pop culture films to low budget independent works, these filmmakers are working at the top of their game and creating cinematic works designed to raise the consciousness of American culture and society to the hidden dimensions of racism and structural white supremacy. By exploring the personal and collective costs of the hidden dimensions of racism, these creators seek a way to transcend and heal them with love and compassion for all sides.

Ava DuVernay is one of this movement’s leaders, helping and mentoring others the way Singleton did. DuVernay and this group of the new wave in African American cinema are operating at an integral or near-integral structure of consciousness, integrating all the gifts from the previous generations of activists and artists. One of these gifts is the integration of Singleton’s collective through the personal stories approach with a higher, deeper and more expansive “big picture” perspective producing more complex and multi-layered storytelling.

In Selma, DuVernay unpacks the personal, interpersonal, cultural and social dimensions of Martin Luther King’s racial and social justice consciousness raising effort during the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches in 1965. So we have a film about the consciousness raising efforts of Dr. King and others on the individual and collective front lines, made by a filmmaker who herself seeks to raise consciousness even further around these issues through her works. In this, DuVernay and her cohort in this new generation are standing on the shoulders of those who came before them, including Singleton, and pushing the dialogue ever forward.

And so, this month, we take this moment to mourn and honor the passing of one of these groundbreakers as we explore one of the cinematic works that has sprung from the creative garden he helped seed.

References

• What Hollywood Owes to John Singleton https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/04/john-singleton-appreciation-boyz-n-the-hood
• John Singleton’s Influence on African American Cinema https://www.tvovermind.com/john-singletons-influence-on-african-american-cinema/
• John Singleton Changed Black Culture on Film Forever https://www.laweekly.com/arts/john-singleton-changed-black-culture-on-film-forever-10150468
• New Black Cinema for White People (Podcast Series) https://vimeo.com/album/5379791

______________________

*Special thanks to Jonathan Steigman for his editorial assistance in creating this article and for his contributions to the research into this new movement in African American Cinema.

April 2019 Conscious Movie-of-the-Month

The Conscious Movie-of-the-Month for April 2019 is The Matrix (1999).

The Matrix (1999)

Welcome to the first Conscious Movie-of-the-Month exploration.

If you have not already joined our free Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Group/Club, you can still join us anytime by signing up for a free membership at the Conscious Good Creators Network.

If you are already a member, you are invited to watch The Matrix on your own and feel free to share your thoughts, reflections and musings about the movie in our group's online discussion forum.

At the end of the month, on Thursday April 25th at 7:00pm Pacific Time we will have a video conference call where I will share my reflections on the movie from a conscious, integral and transpersonal perspective and you will have the opportunity to share more of your personal reflections and ask any questions.

Thanks to group member Harry LeBlanc for suggesting The Matrix.

________________________

The Matrix seems like a great movie for us to start with because this month is the 20th anniversary of the film's release and because it represents various different forms of what constitutes a conscious movie...

The viewing experience of The Matrix has given many viewers a consciousness raising experience, myself included. I vividly remember the first time I saw the film. I saw it opening week back when it was released in theaters in the Spring of 1999. It just blew me away and gave me a deep and profound altered state of consciousness. When the movie was over and I came out of the theater, everything seemed so much more real...the twinkling stars in the early evening sky, the subtle spring fragrances wafting through the air, the collective dance of the movie goers streaming in and out of the theater, and so much more...and at the same time I was contemplating deep questions about the nature of the reality I was seeing and the life I was living.

The Matrix was also consciously created to affect viewer consciousness...the creators, The Wachowskis, studied Integral Theory and were attempting to apply the integral structure of consciousness to the narrative, visual, auditory and time-based expressive elements of the movie in order to elevate viewer consciousness.

The Matrix is also of major historical significance in that it introduced a more complex form of cinematic storytelling into pop movie culture, which has had an influence on collective consciousness by advancing the evolution of cinematic consciousness and helping to catalyze a shift in the co-evolution of cinematic consciousness and viewer consciousness.

Cinematic consciousness as I define it comes from my research into the relationship between the moving image, consciousness, culture and society. This research suggests that human beings project their structures of consciousness into their creative works. This in turn appears to create similar composite structures of consciousness embedded in these works. In a sense these embedded consciousness structures create a kind of cinematic consciousness that lives within the constructed cinematic reality of these moving images. And this cinematic consciousness in turn affects viewer consciousness.

I will be sharing more on the film during the month here online and on our video conference call on the 25th. I will also be sharing with you a Conscious Movie Viewing Practice for you to play with if you feel so moved to do so.

Thank you for joining me on this adventure...time to take the Red Pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Announcing the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club

A Monthly Exploration of Consciousness and the Movies

Conscious Good Creators Network presents the Conscious Movie-of-the-onth Club with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.

About the Club 

Join fellow conscious media creators and media enthusiasts each month for an in-depth look at conscious cinema with host and facilitator Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. Together we will explore how consciousness is expressed in and through the movies, and how we can use movies to help us evolve our consciousness.

As a member of the club you will have access to the club’s online forum and the entire Conscious Good Creators Network. At the beginning of each month we will announce the movie of the month for us all to watch on our own and then explore together in the online discussion forum. On the last Thursday of the month we will have a video conference call where Mark will share his reflections on the movie from a conscious, integral and transpersonal perspective. Participants will also have the opportunity to share personal reflections, questions and musings.

As a member of the club you will also be invited to experiment with some of the conscious media viewing practices Mark has developed over the years. These can help you to deepen and expand the viewing experience and help you develop your own transformative media viewing practice if you so desire.

About the Host/Facilitator 

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an award-winning filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist, media psychologist and researcher, and the founder and executive director of the Integral Cinema Project. As an artist and media-maker Mark has been exploring conscious art and media since childhood, attempting to use these creative mediums to help himself transcend his own communication challenges of being a severe childhood stutterer. He uses his conscious art practices to find his "voice" and use that voice to help raise the consciousness of himself, others and the world. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers in the conscious and transpersonal media movements and is the world's leading researcher and theorist in the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts.

For more on Mark visit: www.markallankaplan.com, and to learn about the Integral Cinema Project visit: www.integralcinema.com.

Details

• Dates/Times: 
• Movie of the month announcement, first of the month, starting April 1, 2019 
• Online discussions, ongoing 
• Video conference calls, 7pm PST, last Thursday of the month, starting April 25, 2019 
• Cost: Free (requires free membership to the network) 
• Host: Conscious Good Creators Network 

About Conscious Good Creators Network 

Conscious Good Creators Network is a community-driven media platform for visual storytellers dedicated to raising consciousness. Conscious Good launched the Creators’ Network as a place where conscious creators and audiences can connect. It’s a place to interact with fellow conscious media tribe members, share resources, ideas and support one another.

SIGN UP FOR THE NETWORK AND THE CLUB

Conscious Media-Making Course Video and Presentation

In this introductory course for the Conscious Good Creators Network, Integral Cinema Project founder Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. explores what is conscious media and conscious media-making, what are some of the different potential forms of conscious media-making, and how different states and stages of consciousness effect the media-making process. Mark also explores how these structures of consciousness within us are communicated between us, the works we create and the individuals and collectives that experience our works…and how this knowledge can be used to create deeper and more transformative media experiences for creators and viewers on the individual and collective levels. Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an award-winning filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist and media psychologist and researcher. As an artist and media-maker Mark has been exploring conscious art and media since childhood, attempting to use these creative mediums to help himself transcend his own communication challenges of being a severe childhood stutterer and find his "voice" and use that voice to help raise the consciousness of himself, others and the world. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers in the conscious and transpersonal media movements and is the world's leading researcher and theorist in the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts. www.markallankaplan.com & www. integralcinema.com Conscious Media Creators Network is a community-driven online media platform for visual storytellers dedicated to raising consciousness. Conscious Good launched the Creators’ Network as a place where conscious creators and audiences can connect. It’s a place to interact with fellow conscious media tribe members, share resources, ideas and support one another. Use the following link to join the network: https://conscious-good.mn.co/share/7i... This talk was presented on Sunday February 24, 2019 between 12pm to 1:30pm PST on the Conscious Good Creators Network as part of their "Stream of Consciousness" speaker series.

The complete course video is available at: https://youtu.be/A5P2DmRk23w

The presentation slides are available at: https://www.slideshare.net/markallankaplan/conscious-mediamaking-101

Conscious Media-Making 101 from Mark Allan Kaplan

Conscious Media-Making Course

Conscious Good Creators Network presents an introductory course in Consciousness Media-Making with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.

About the Course

In this introductory course we will explore what is conscious media-making, what are some of the different potential forms of conscious media-making, and how different states and stages of consciousness effect the media-making process. We will also be exploring how these structures of consciousness within us are communicated between us, the works we create and the individuals and collectives that experience our works…and how this knowledge can be used to create deeper and more transformative media experiences for creators and viewers on the individual and collective levels.

About the Instructor

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an award-winning filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist and media psychologist and researcher, and founder and executive director of the Integral Cinema Project. As an artist and media-maker Mark has been exploring conscious art and media since childhood, attempting to use these creative mediums to help himself transcend his own communication challenges of being a severe childhood stutterer and find his "voice" and use that voice to help raise the consciousness of himself, others and the world. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers in the conscious and transpersonal media movements and is the world's leading researcher and theorist in the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts. For more on Mark visit his website www.markallankaplan.com, and for my on the Integral Cinema Project visit www.integralcinema.com.

Details:

• Date: Sunday February 24, 2019
• Time: 12pm to 1:15pm PST
• Cost: Free (requires free membership to the network)
• Host: Conscious Good Creators Network

About Conscious Good Creators Network

Conscious Good Creators Network is a community-driven media platform for visual storytellers dedicated to raising consciousness. Conscious Good launched the Creators’ Network as a place where conscious creators and audiences can connect. It’s a place to interact with fellow conscious media tribe members, share resources, ideas and support one another.

SIGN UP FOR THE NETWORK AND THE COURSE

Integral Goes to the Movies on YouTube

Now featured on the Integral Cinema Project YouTube channel, Integral Goes to the Movies, my 90-minute presentation that I recently gave for Bay Area Integral, in which I attempted to illuminate the structures of consciousness embedded both within various films and within the medium itself.

Acclaimed filmmaker and Integral Cinema Project founder Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. presents a mind-blowing new way to look at and think about the moving image in all its evolving forms. This March 16, 2016 talk for Bay Area Integral at the Rudramandir Center in Berkeley, CA has been turbocharged with dozens of visual aids and nearly 100 film clips to create a multi-dimensional visceral experience of the evolution of cinematic consciousness.

Video directed & edited by Jonathan Steigman
With Integral Cinematic Meta-Design by Mark Allan Kaplan
Special thanks to Bay Area Integral and the Bay Area Integral team

Integral Goes to the Movies: Bay Area Integral hosts an evening with Mark Allan Kaplan

Join us for INTEGRAL GOES TO THE MOVIES, an evening of movie clips, popcorn, and some serious fun with Integral film theorist, filmmaker, and media psychologist Mark Allan Kaplan.

Using various movie clips Mark will show us how to be a savvy spotter of Integral trends in popular media and deepen our understanding of the ways current media and technologies are helping to transition us into an Integral Age.

Mark will unpack how films as diverse as Groundhog Day and Inception, and TV shows like Lost and Sense8, map the evolution of consciousness. You will...

• Learn how Integral and all the other altitudes of consciousness are embedded in our media
• How these media altitudes mirror, help or hinder the evolution of our individual and collective consciousness
• Discover which movies viscerally represent the different Integral lenses
• Get a copy of Mark's Top 10 Integral Movies List

Going to the movies usually isn't a solo affair so we set a special price for couples. So bring a friend or a date for a fun and stimulating evening of pop culture.

And, yes, we really will provide popcorn...

Click here to find out more and sign up for 

INTEGRAL GOES TO THE MOVIES

with Mark Allan Kaplan

Wednesday, March 16, 7:00 to 9:30pm

in Berkeley, California

Introduction to Meta-Movieology Course Back by Popular Demand

MetaIntegral Academy is excited to once again offer the wonderful and ground-breaking 8-week course in Meta-Movieology created and facilitated by Mark Allan Kaplan beginning on September 4, 2014. Mark is widely recognized as "the preeminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema" so you are in for a real treat. If you are a movie enthusiast and into integral and evolutionary approaches to personal growth and development, this course is for you!

Register Today...

Meta-Movieology I

An 8-Week Course in Using Movies to More Deeply Understand and Fully Embody an Integral and Evolutionary Perspective

PUT DOWN THE BOOKS, PICK UP THE POPCORN 
AND ENTER THE WORLD OF EVOLUTIONARY ENLIGHTENTAINMENT

From: September 4, 2014 (Thursday) at 12:00am PDT
To: November 9, 2014 (Sunday) at 12:00am PDT

What Is It?
Meta-Movieology is a groundbreaking meta-approach to learning Integral Theory through a transformative moving image viewing practice. In this course you will develop a deeper and more visceral understanding of the basic elements of the Integral approach by using the aesthetic and multisensory power of the moving image for embodied learning and evolutionary growth.

Location:
This event takes place online.

DETAILS:

The moving image in all its evolving forms has a unique capacity for affecting multiple aspects of our being. Movies can make us think and feel deeply; they can give us new perspectives on self, other and world; they can immerse us in other worlds and give us rich and deep embodied experiences. In fact, recent research has revealed that immersive and virtual moving image experiences can actually produce the same neurological and biological responses in our brains and bodies as actual lived experiences.

Over the last several years Mark Allan Kaplan has discovered a profound and fun approach to using the power of movies to help us see, feel, and viscerally experience the integral and evolutionary perspective. This approach includes special viewing practices to help us experientially observe Integral frameworks within any moving image work and extend the profound theoretical concepts and perspectives of the Integral-evolutionary approach from the mind into our emotional and energetic bodies. These experiential perspective-taking exercises help us make the abstract concrete and make it easier for us to extend these perspectives into our everyday lives.

This course is for anyone interested in Integral Theory, for those interested in the transformative power of the moving image, and for anyone who loves movies and is interested in their own personal growth and development. For those unfamiliar with Integral Theory it will offer a simple, powerful, and intuitive way into the integral-evolutionary perspective.  For those already familiar with the Integral model, this is a wonderful opportunity to revisit and viscerally deepen your understanding of integral theory and see and feel how it can be applied to just about any interest, activity, or pursuit that you may have. For those who are interested in their own personal growth and development and love movies, either as a viewer or creator, this work will give you a deeper appreciation and understanding for the medium, along with a greater capacity to use it for healing and growth of self, other and world.

Join Mark for this introductory course, which explores how the six basic Integrally-informed lenses of holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states and types can be utilized as powerful transformational practices for using any moving image work, from movies to video games, for your own evolutionary growth and development. This course will be taught through 8 weekly 2-hour conference calls (recordings for the calls will be posted for participants who are not able to join a call). The first week you will be introduced to Meta-Movieology in general. Each of the subsequent 6 weeks will be devoted to a single Meta-Movieology lens and practice. The final week will be a reflection and wrap up week. Each week Mark will assign practices for you to do that week using that week’s lens. There will also be weekly readings and movie viewing assignments, along with online threaded discussions to connect with fellow participants and deepen your understanding of this work. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity – Integral Theory and the movies will never look or feel the same.

Dates: 8 weeks: Aug. 31st – Sept. 21st; Sept. 28th – Oct. 12th; and Oct.19th – Nov. 9th

Cost: $345.00 USD plus $12.50 handling fee (includes a free download of the Meta-Movieology meditation video “The Pond”)

Number of Participants: Up to 20

Instructor: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Weekly Conference Calls:  Thursdays 1-3pm Pacific Time

September 4 – Week 1: Introduction
September 11 – Week 2: The HOLONIC Sense
September 18  – Week 3: I Heart QUADRANTS
October 2 – Week 4: LEVELS of a Groundhog's Day
October 9 – Week 5: The Imaginarium of Developmental LINES
October 23 – Week 6: Altered STATES
October 30 – Week 7: TYPOLOGY Code
November 6 – Week 8: Conclusion

Note there is no call on September 25th or October 16th.

Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments:*

Week 2: "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
Week 3: "I Heart Huckabees" (2004)
Week 4: "Groundhog Day" (1993)
Week 5: "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (2009)
Week 6: "Altered States" (1980)
Week 7: "Source Code" (2011)

*Participants will be required to either rent or buy the movies listed as Weekly Movie Viewing Assignments. All other materials will be supplied by the instructor.

COURSE TESTIMONIALS

"I was surprised at how deep the Meta-Movieology practice goes. After completing the course, I have a richer experience with films, which has cascaded into other areas of my life."
– Heather, San Carlos, CA

"I can't say enough good things about the Meta-Movieology course. It was delightful and profound. This course enabled me to see integral concepts in movies that I had not recognized before and that's saying a lot because I have followed Ken Wilber since his first publications." 
– Dennis, Silver Springs, MD

"Mark is a great teacher! I am out of my league as far as my experience with integral is concerned, yet the materials, movies and weekly discussions in this course met me right where I was at. I found the meditations mind blowing and key to the shifts I am experiencing in my expanding awareness. I feel so fortunate to have stumbled on this opportunity."
– Anne, Charlotte, NC

"The Meta-Movieology course is at the theoretical, practical, and pedagogical cutting-edge of integral and evolutionary film theory and practice – it is a sophisticated training in how to experience film, and therein how to deepen one’s experience of the world within and around us. While being theoretically advanced, this course is taught in a manner that anyone, beginner or advanced practitioner, can readily get and do so with transformative results. I very highly recommend this course of study."
– Michael, Augusta, GA

PRESENTERS

Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an independent award-winning filmmaker and the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts.  Mark has a B.A. in Motion Picture and Television Production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, an M.F.A. in Motion Picture Directing from the American Film Institute, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and a Certificate in Integral Studies from Fielding Graduate University. He has worked professionally in the entertainment industry as a producer, writer, director, editor, researcher, and consultant. Mark’s creative works have been shown on television, in theaters, schools, and colleges, and at film festivals and expositions around the world. He has also conducted seminal research in Integral, transpersonal, transformative, and transdisciplinary approaches to film, video, and multimedia at Interval Research Corporation, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as founder and lead researcher of the Integral Cinema Project, an independent research, production, and educational initiative sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society. Mark received Integral Institute's 2008 Integral Life Award in recognition of his continuing groundbreaking research into the application of Integral Theory to cinematic media theory and practice.

“Mark’s work is the first mature application of Integral Theory to any domain of art.” 
– Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. (Founding CEO of MetaIntegral)

“Mark is the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of integral cinema and his work represents one of the most advanced and profound meta-theory’s of art and media to date.” 
– Michael Schwartz, Ph.D. (Professor of History and Philosophy of Art, Georgia Regents University)

“Mark’s passionate quest to explore the further reaches of film and media theory and practice is inspiring and holds great promise.”
– Jean Picker Firstenberg (President Emeritus, American Film Institute)

Click here to register - join Mark and other integralists, evolutionaries, and movie enthusiasts in this enlightening and entertaining course!