Start Here
The pieces below lay out the basic ideas in plain language – what we mean by “ways of seeing”. Read one or two, notice what rings true (or not), and then follow whatever catches your attention next.
What’s This All About?
Introduction: Why Reality Feels Broken (and How to See it Whole) Things feel like they are falling apart. Since COVID it seems like the world has become a little unhinged. Old certainties are dropping away. It isn’t just the noise of the culture wars or the collapse of trust in our institutions, though those are symptoms. It is a deeper, more unsettling sense that the pieces of our world simply...
In A Nutshell
Why Reality Feels Broken (and How to See it Whole) It's often remarked on that 'the wheels have come off ' since the pandemic. Something profound has shifted and we don't know why. It isn’t just the noise of the culture wars or the collapse of trust in our institutions. It is a deeper sense that the pieces of our world no longer fit together. We face a paradox of progress. We have mapped the...
1. What is Integral Seeing?
Integral Seeing starts from a very ordinary unease: the sense that the way we’ve been looking at the world no longer fits what we’re actually living. It treats our crises as crises of seeing and explores how different structures of consciousness – magic, mythic, mental and integral – create different worlds we can no longer fix with facts and arguments alone.
2. Why Our Old Ways of Making Sense Are Fraying
For centuries the modern West has run on a few big promises – progress, rational control, the sovereign individual – but the gap between those stories and lived reality is now tearing open, showing up as polarisation, culture wars and collapsing trust. This piece argues that what’s failing is not just our institutions but the over-stretched mental structure itself, and that we need an integral way of seeing that can hold magic, mythic and mental together without being captured by any of them.
3. Structures of Consciousness in Plain English
Structures of consciousness are different ways the world shows up for us – magical, mythic, mental and integral – each with its own gifts, distortions and feel. This piece sketches them in ordinary language and suggests that an integral stance means seeing all of them at work in us and around us, rather than being unconsciously driven by just one.
4. Myth, Story, and Narrative: What We Mean by These Words
“Myth”, “story” and “narrative” aren’t interchangeable: myth is the deep pattern, story is how we knit experience together, and narrative is the public script that organises attention and power. This piece teases them apart so we can see which myths and narratives are actually shaping us, rather than imagining we’re simply “telling it like it is.”
5. The Relational Field: A Different Ontology in One Sitting
The imaginal field is a way of seeing reality as relational and participatory, where imagination isn’t mere fantasy but a real mode in which meaning and possibility take shape. This piece sketches that shift beyond flat materialism, so symbols, synchronicities and depth of place can be taken seriously without lapsing into woo.
6. Integral vs Mental: What’s Actually Different?
The mental structure excels at analysis, control and problem-solving, but when it tries to run everything it flattens meaning and drives us into exhaustion and overreach. This piece contrasts that with an integral stance, which sees magic, mythic and mental at work, notices its own habits of “hammer and nail” thinking, and learns to stay present without rushing to tidy answers.