Jeff Carreira & Carter Phipps - A Collective Experiment in Conscious Evolution

EnlightenNext magazine—formerly What Is Enlightenment?—is more than just a magazine. Over the past two decades, editor in chief and spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and a group of his students have been involved in an ongoing exploration into what it takes to live a truly enlightened life that is completely relevant to our twenty-first-century world. In many ways, the magazine has been an outward reflection of this inquiry, bringing together insights from leading spiritual teachers, scientists, philosophers, activists, and other visionaries to make sense out of enlightenment and the human experience at this time in history.

In this talk, recorded during the 2008 Integral Leadership in Action conference in Boulder, Colorado, we get an insider’s perspective on this long-term experiment in conscious evolution from two of Cohen’s closest students: Jeff Carreira, EnlightenNext’s director of education, and Carter Phipps, executive editor of EnlightenNext magazine. Offering a fascinating history of the magazine, Carreira and Phipps describe how the insights in its pages have both informed and been informed by their collective spiritual practice. Refreshingly intimate and full of spiritual passion, they offer a rare depiction of the many struggles and hard-won victories that have defined the ongoing evolution of EnlightenNext, the magazine and the organization.

BIO
 
Jeff Carreira, Director of Education at EnlightenNext, oversees the education and membership programs which support a growing global network of individuals committed to guiding humanity through an evolutionary leap in consciousness. Over the past 16 years he has become one of the leading representatives of EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen and his teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment. Carreira gives talks and seminars around the world and also trains and supervises other teachers and seminar leaders. In February 2007, he initiated a weekly conference call and webcast series, which has attracted an international audience of over 10,000 people— "evolutionaries." Carreira has also served as Andrew Cohen's personal assistant and works closely with him in developing programs for EnlightenNext.  Prior to his involvement with EnlightenNext, Carreira spent five years working as a research engineer before obtaining a Master's degree in Education and spent the following twelve years in teaching and educational management.

Carter Phipps is executive editor of EnlightenNext magazine. In his ten years with the magazine, he has been responsible for some of its most in-depth investigative features, including the “The Real Evolution Debate,” a spiritual and scientific analysis of evolutionary worldviews, and the acclaimed “Is God A Pacifist?” a philosophical analysis of war, peace, and nonviolence. Phipps has also helped to forge the magazine’s reputation as the premier popular publication espousing the ideas of integral philosophy through his feature articles on the work of Ken Wilber (“A Philosopher of Everything”) and on Steve McIntosh (“Integral Politics Comes of Age”). Covering topics from metaphysics to politics to science and technology, Phipps’s work combines the careful rigor of contemporary journalism with a passionate concern for the development of human culture.

Phipps is increasingly recognized as a key player in the growing network of thinkers, activists, spiritual leaders, scientists, scholars, and cultural pioneers who are reshaping the face of spirituality and progressive culture today. He regularly represents EnlightenNext magazine at conferences and leadership gatherings, including the invitation-only assembly of religious leaders at Montserrat, Spain, convened by the 2004 Parliament of the World’s Religions. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the Edinburgh Festival of Spirituality and Peace, and he has been a guest speaker at Brown University, JFK University, and the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, as well as at conferences sponsored by Praxis Peace Institute, Wisdom University, and Integral Institute. Phipps was recently interviewed for the BBC Radio show “Reporting Religion,” has been featured on the globally syndicated New Dimensions radio show and is a regular guest on Deepak Chopra’s Wellness Radio on Sirius.

Phipps received his BA in Business Economics from the University of Oklahoma and worked as a computer engineer for a number of years. He currently lives with his wife in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts where he practices the Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings of Andrew Cohen.