In February 2014 I successfully defended my PhD dissertation, titled "Toward an Aesthetic Epistemology: Transforming Thinking through Cybernetic Epistemology and Anthroposophy." The following is the abstract and a slideshow presentation that pulls out the crux of my arguments. Abstract The complexity, subtlety, interlinking, and scale of many problems faced individually and collectively in today’s rapidly changing world...

Let’s get right to it, shall we? With respect to ontology, let us say that there is no “it,” no independent reality that is exclusive of the observer.  This is a basic insight from second-order cybernetics: the observer must always be included in the observed.  Despite this, of course, we do have much talk and...

Introduction Video games are a huge global phenomenon, driving well over $70 billion dollars in sales in 2011—a number that is only rising year by year.  For comparison, global music sales in 2011 was about $16 billion, while global theater tickets was about $33 billion.  This has consequences—largely unexplored—for people that are interested in spiritual...

Abstract This essay outlines connections between the Elemental Cycle as an archetype of transformation, transdisciplinarity, and  cybernetics.  A number of questions are addressed: the nature and importance of connecting these fields, an examination of resources and the dominant disciplinary discourses for the associated fields, and a critical examination of my assumptions, beliefs, and position. Introduction How often...

PDF: Goethean Studies Notebook (40mb) PDF: Higher quality, print version (180mb) This notebook was created as a personal record of the 1999-2000 Goethean Studies program at Rudolf Steiner College. This unique course, conceived of and taught primarily by Dennis Klocek, is still being offered -- it is now called Consciousness Studies. When I took the course,...

Are you fascinated by the beauty of forms in the natural world?  Do you sense something amazing at work out there, like an intelligence that lies just beneath the surfaces of things?  Then I invite you to read a new essay that explores the building of a new aesthetic consciousness that seeks to connect us...

The world has problems; LOTS of them.  But as long as there are people like my friend Nancy, who devote their lives and love to one of the most important and practical callings on the planet, education of our young, I have hope for the future. Let me give you a picture, in her own words,...

A cursory Google search (2009) didn't turn up anything promising in regards to comparing Rudolf Steiner and Sri Aurobindo.  Hopefully this will help: Rudolf Steiner and Sri Aurobindo: A Beginning Comparison Summary: This longer essay summarizes the basic elements of the spiritual-cosmological worldviews of two of the most important modern, integrative spiritual thinkers: Rudolf Steiner and...

Embracing Reality offers two things, something of a semi-biographical contextualization of the development of Wilber's thoughts and writings, and a series of more-or-less detailed summaries of those same works.  For anyone who is not familiar with the different phases of Wilber's thought, this is a nice reference work, and was most edifying for its picture...

This lecture presentation was given at the East Bay Waldorf School in 2007 (see flyer below).  It explores the Matrix trilogy of movies from the perspective of spiritual science. Close attention is paid to the actual events in the "text" of the movies, with an eye towards illuminating features concerning the major characters and...

Trust me, YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS!!! Frank Chester (find out about his initial work here, and read reviews of his work here) has just returned from a very well received presentation of his research on the Chestahedron at Sunbridge College in Spring Valley, New York. Many in the audience expressed disappointment afterwards that...