The Whole is Greater: Reflective Practice, Human Development and Fields of Consciousness and Collaborative Creativity

Abstract

Because Western experiments assume creativity is an individual phenomenon and rarely investigate how trust and openness might build collective resonance, flow, and creativity, the creative whole typically amounts to less than the sum of the parts. The author argues, however, that group creativity increases as members develop, especially through Wilber's (in press) transpersonal stages. He illustrates how organizational leaders have facilitated creativity through reflective practice. Presenting evidence regarding the field effects of collective consciousness, he suggests that our minds and hearts interact in subtle yet powerful ways, which leaders can intuit, to support the emergence of collaborative creativity.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective consciousness
• collective wisdom
• field effects
• intuition
• team creativity

Notes

1. Because most definitions of creativity involve not only novelty, but also appropriateness(Amabile, 1988), such research is therefore often irrelevant.

2. Although I am hypothesizing that a majority of any collective's members would be sufficient to shift the whole collective into collective consciousness, research is just beginning regarding this topic.

3. Starkweather (1976) viewed the creative person as one who feels free to conform or not, a conclusion that Torrance (1988) says his research has confirmed.

4. Assagioli (1976) postulated that individuals could achieve personal “psychosynthesis,” the “reconstruction of a coherent personality around a newly created, unifying center”(p. 21).

5. In Western psychology, the later stages of consciousness have only been examined by transpersonal psychology, which studies “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond the individual … to encompass wider aspects of humankind”(Walsh and Vaughan, 1993, p. 3). A number of researchers, after scientifically examining a “representative sampling from every … known and available” wisdom tradition(e.g., Tart, 1992; Walsh, 1989, claim that the evidence strongly suggests four stages of transpersonal development, each possessing a deep structure that is culturally invariant(Wilber, 1995, p. 278).

6. Note that I am speaking about a mode of awareness that may exist in an individual, not a collective. The phrase “group mind,” which is sometimes used to refer to collective consciousness, gives the impression that a new mind and, therefore, consciousness emerges as a collective entity, a position that is speculative at present. I am therefore simply hypothesizing for now that the reported experience of direct apprehension of the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations of others is due to some form of invisible interaction between the members of a group. Note also that I am not using Jung's (1964) term, the “collective unconscious,” which he used to describe the phenomena of universal, archetypal, and mythological images and symbols that appear across cultures. Although some of the sensings and interactions between the members of a group appear to be unconscious, building collective consciousness is primarily a conscious act. Effective creative collaboration explicitly nurtures diversity as the key to discovering underlying, common, archetypal energies and reaching a creative solution that incorporates many perspectives and expressions(Kenny, 2001).

7. Whether one claims that intuition permits direct sensing of a field created by a group, or of a transcendent, emergent structure—called “spiritual” or not—is a matter of controversy. Research has not yet provided an answer to this question. For a view of collective creativity and wisdom from a nonlinear, dynamical perspective, including the possible role of “attractors” and chaos theory, see Kenny (1996).

8. For Assagioli, Self-realization involves perceiving one's wholeness, which is divine in its essence. Thus, one moves from an identity as a partial, local self to an identity as a whole, divine Self.

9. Wilber(in press, excerpt G) believes that the “real test case of any theory of subtle energies is whether it can adequately explicate the chakras” [the energy centers of the body, rising up the spine]. His model postulates that the seven types of fields correlate with the energetic qualities that the wisdom traditions have associated with each of the seven chakras.

10. For an annotated bibliography of the 600-plus studies, see www.mum.edu/research.html.

11. The tacit, exceptional knowledge and insight that a group elicits, through the observable, felt, and/or subconscious interactions of its members, and applies on behalf of the common good. Wisdom involves the capacity to perceive accurately and understand situations(perspicacity), and to discern their significant elements and make sound judgments(sagacity) regarding what acts will best serve the common good, especially in fundamental, complex, challenging, and uncertain matters of life. “Tacit” refers to the fact that this insight and procedural knowledge are often not explicitly taught(Sternberg, 2003, p. xv). My definition draws on the theory and research of Sternberg (2003, pp. xv, xviii, and 149 and Baltes and Staudinger, 1993). Most of the world's cultures, in contrast to the West, view wisdom as inherently collective, as a capacity that exceeded the reach of any one individual.

12. The problem is even worse in some other countries. The percentage of engaged workers is about twice as large as Germany's and thrice Singapore's.

13. TM is by far the most widely studied meditative practice in the United States. Most of the studies have been published in refereed journals and utilize “quite sophisticated,” blind peer-review methods(Murphy et al.,1997).

14. The others are concentration, mindfulness, heart-centered, and creative meditation(Levey and Levey, 1999). The last one focuses on building strength of character, or the creative act of transforming oneself.