Innovation = Regenerating Knowledge

Integral Worlds Theory:
Articulating a “Whole” (New) Perspective

Integral Worlds is a pioneering approach for the holistic development of individuals, organisations, communities and societies. It serves to address imbalances – within an individual, organisation, community and or society, but also within specific fields, such as economics, enterprise, or human development. Over the past decades it has been gradually applied to a large number of knowledge fields: from economics to management, from development to education – with its applications, in theory and in practice, ever expanding. The Integral Worlds approach is simultaneously transcultural, encompassing the wisdom of the south, east, north and west; transdisciplinary, spanning the natural and social science and the humanities; transpersonal, straddling individual and community, organisation and society; and transformational, evolved out of original and particular local grounds towards integral global effect. Integral Worlds serves as the core knowledge base for the Trans4m movement.

A revolutionary paradigm-shifting approach, Integral Worlds draws on the particularity of each and every person, organisation, community and/or society – aiming to enhance a sense of calling, belonging and rootedness (local identity) with a view to catalyse a meaningful, wholesome contribution to humanity (global integrity).

Integral Worlds is modeled on life itself and aspires to contribute to healing today’s fragmented, conflictual and, often, destructive individual, organisational, communal and societal ways of being. It holds a vital key to the necessary and immanent shift of global consciousness towards a more healthy and holistic, peaceful and participatory, conscious and co-creative approach to development, in tune with the whole of creation.

Integral Worlds initiates processes of healing and holistic realignment by activating all the complementary parts of any human system, such as nature and community; culture and consciousness; science, systems and technology; as well as enterprise, economics and politics. Starting and continuous focal point of any transformation process within an Integral Worlds perspective is the inner core of the individual or collective entity, its deepest value base, spiritual and moral source.

The underlying circular design of our central model acknowledges that since time immemorial the circular shape has been a symbol for the totality. It also symbolises the cycle of life that each living system undergoes. In Integral Worlds, the outer globe marks a worldly, holistic perspective. Embedded in the outer global circle is the local context. At the very centre of such a globally embedded context is, what we call, the inner core. It is here, at the core of an individual, organisation, community, or society, that the impulse for transformation or development is initiated – be it through a perceived imbalance of the overall system, that becomes your objective concern, be it through a particular, subjective evolutionary calling. This inner personal core and the outer, global circle are then connected through the ‘4Rs’ of Integral Worlds: Realities (worldviews), Realms (Knowledge Fields), Rounds (different levels, from self to world) and Rhythms (transformative rhythms, applied to all of them).

Approach - Integral Development Model
Integral Worlds Approach – Key Overview Model