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Let us begin this overview by first noting what appears to be a rather dismal fact: today we hear a lot about Cultural Creatives and the new and exciting rise of an Integral Culture—a holistic, balanced, inclusive, caring culture that moves beyond the traditional and the modern and into a postmodern transformation.  But, in fact, significant psychological evidence indicates that in today’s world, less than 2% of the population is at anything that could be called an “integral” wave of awareness (where “integral” means something like Gebser’s integral-aperspectival, Loevinger’s autonomous and integrated stages, Spiral Dynamics’ yellow and turquoise memes, Wade’s authentic, Arlin’s postformal, the centauric self and mature vision-logic, etc.).

 The same evidence suggests, however, that a very large percentage of the population—close to 25%—is at the immediately preceding wave of development (which is Loevinger’s individualistic stage, Spiral Dynamics’ green meme, Paul Ray’s cultural creatives, Wade’s affiliative, Sinnott’s relativistic, etc.).  Moreover, because most of this population has been at the green-meme wave for several decades, it appears that a large portion—perhaps up to one-third—are ready to move forward to the next wave of expanding consciousness(Pluralist Exit)—which means, move forward to a truly integral wave of awareness. 

 In other words, that modest 2% of the population that is now integral might soon swell to 5%, 10%, or more.  I believe that, as with any evolutionary unfolding, we will especially start to see evidence of this increasingly integral consciousness at the growing tip, or at the leading edge, or in the avant garde (by whatever appellation)—in academia, the arts, social movements, spirituality, thought leaders.  “Integral theories”—or attempts at such—are already starting to emerge across the board in academia, especially as the leading-edge theorists continue to throw off the yoke of extreme postmodern pluralism (and the green meme) and start finding not just the incommensurabilities but the integral commonalities of cultures.  There seems to be little doubt that in so many ways the growing tip is reaching toward the integral light….

 In short, we appear to be entering an integral age at the leading edge (with significant portions of the culture at large to follow). 

Ken Wilber

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