Don Beck and Andrew Cohen are two visionaries deeply concerned about the state of the world and passionately interested in change. They have each pioneered distinct and original frameworks for personal and social transformation. In this talk, Beck and Cohen draw on years of experience catalyzing change in individuals, groups, and whole cultures to transmit the profound shift in perspective necessary to creatively and sanely meet the future. The presentation consists of in-depth discussions of both Spiral Dynamics and Evolutionary Enlightenment, plus a brief excerpt from the question-and-answer session with Cohen and Beck.
Don Beck is a global activist and authority on Spiral Dynamics, an analytical and practical theory of cultural development. Sometimes called the “Theory That Explains Everything,” Spiral Dynamics provides new insight into the enormous complexity of human existence, making it possible to craft elegant, systemic solutions to some of our major global problems.
Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher and founder of the award-winning magazine, EnlightenNext. He has created a contemporary, original teaching called Evolutionary Enlightenment. Developed in response to the unique spiritual demands of our rapidly changing world, this non sectarian spiritual path represents a new moral, ethical, and philosophical framework for our time.
BIO
Don Beck has been developing, implementing, and teaching the evolutionary theory of Spiral Dynamics for more than three decades. Beck has elaborated upon the work of his mentor, Clare Graves, to develop a multidimensional model for understanding the evolutionary transformation of human values and cultures. As cofounder of the National Values Center in Denton, Texas, and CEO of the Spiral Dynamics Group, Inc., Beck is employing the Spiral Dynamics model to effect large-scale systems change in and among various sectors and societies of the world. He is the author of Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership & Change, written with Christopher Cowan in 1996.
Beck's long consulting career has taken him to such diverse settings as 10 Downing Street to consult with Tony Blair's Policy Unit; the south side of Chicago to address the problems faced by inner-city schools; the World Bank to consider the future of Afghanistan; and the boardrooms of major banks, energy companies, airlines, and government agencies. In his 63 trips to South Africa between 1981 and 1988, he had significant impact on political leaders, the business sector, religious leadership, and the general public in order to help bring about the peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. Out of his experiences there, Beck wrote The Crucible: Forging South Africa's Future (1991) with Graham Linscott.
Before his work in South Africa, Beck taught for twenty years at the University of North Texas. There he was named Outstanding Professor in 1978, named Honor Professor in 1979, and listed as an “Outstanding Educator in America” in 1980. Beck has also been the team psychologist for The South African Springboks, winners of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and has been associated with the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, the Texas Rangers (baseball), and the U.S. Olympic Committee for Men's Track and Field. He writes a “sports values” column for the Dallas Morning News. He makes his home in Denton, Texas.
Andrew Cohen, founder of EnlightenNext magazine, is a spiritual teacher and acclaimed author widely recognized as a defining voice in the emerging field of evolutionary spirituality. A life-changing awakening in 1986 brought Cohen to the end of his own search for liberation while simultaneously starting him on an exploration of the meaning and significance of enlightenment for our time. This has led him to a profound investigation of the human predicament and into dialogue with sages, saints, and spiritual luminaries from nearly every tradition and beyond.
In 1992, Cohen released the first issue of EnlightenNext (formerly What Is Enlightenment), expanding his own inquiry through the public forum of a magazine and pioneering an innovative form of spiritual journalism reminiscent of classical Socratic dialogue. Over the last decade on the pages of EnlightenNext, Cohen has brought together leading thinkers—mystics and materialists, philosophers and psychologists—to call for a higher and wholly contemporary synthesis of the spiritual truths found in the East and the empirical rigor of the West. Through the magazine and his writings, Cohen is creating a new context for understanding enlightenment as a human evolutionary imperative. Together with a growing network of integral visionaries, including Ken Wilber and Don Beck, he is helping to define a culture of thought that places spiritual transformation at the center of any vision of transforming the world.
