It ain't easy bein Green...

I saw this interesting post over at Integral Naked:

Ex-employee claims he was fired over level of 'spiritual evolution'

Santana sued over 'calibration'
Ex-employee claims he was fired over level of 'spiritual evolution'

Thursday, August 18, 2005; Posted: 1:47 p.m. EDT (17:47 GMT)

SAN RAFAEL, California (AP) -- A former personal assistant to Carlos Santana has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the veteran rocker, claiming he was fired after his consciousness was calibrated and determined to be too low.

Bruce Kuhlman, 59, charges that Santana's wife, Deborah, brought in a man known as "Dr. Dan" so employees could grow closer to God and become better workers.

"In Deborah's view, the higher a person calibrated with Dr. Dan, the better employee they were because they were more 'spiritually evolved,' " the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit, filed in Marin Superior Court, alleges that "spiritual calibration" allowed a person to develop a deeper level of consciousness.

Kuhlman is seeking monetary damages for lost wages, emotional distress and unpaid overtime, among other demands.

A spokesman for the 58-year-old guitarist, whose albums include "Supernatural," and his wife said the couple wouldn't comment on the lawsuit but will fight the case.

Kuhlman had signed an employee manual agreeing to arbitrate disputes, but Superior Court Judge John Sutro said the case could proceed regardless. An October 12 court date has been set.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

And this response to the article from an IN member:

Several years ago, when the Institute was only a year or two old, there was a couple from Boulder who worked with Ken. They gave a great deal of their time and money (and house and cars) in support of the early meetings. But they were too "green" for Ken, they insisted everybody had something worth saying. Ken asked Don Beck, who had only met them a couple times at social functions, to evaluate their developmental level. Don obliged, and Ken forwarded his response to the couple and to half a dozen of the other "staff" who were involved in the fledgling organization. Don's evaluation was not flattering and was used as an excuse to push this couple to the side (again, PUBLICLY). They drifted away quickly and the whole incident was forgotten.

There are a lot of things in the early years that Ken would like forgotten.

I guess Kermit was on to something after all?? Hehe...

Comments

[Matthew Dallman]

Another good find, DASHH. Wilber has suggested and implied over the years that his AQAL model, which includes, obviously, the various kinds of developmental level/stages/waves found in the work of various researchers, can be used in assessment, such as with the Santana and Wilber examples.

What hasn't been demonstrated by Wilber, in his work, in any satisfactory fashion is how exactly the kind of assessment using levels that he has in mind would actually work. In my own work, I have neither come across or come to a reasonable speculation that suggests that a levels assessment is a viable idea.

I've successfuly used the general notion of levels as a starting off point for an experiential exercise based upon voice dialogue (the technique which underpins 'Big Mind'). In other words, you just assume that the participants have some sort of access to the entire spectrum of levels, and create an exercise that brings out each person's capacity to speak from that level of their own voice/recognition/awareness. In that way, you can invite people to experience more of their own potential, firsthand.

It is useful to remember that the conception of levels, based upon both case studies and speculation, is phyllogenetic. In other words, what some call 'levels' are patterns observed in an appraisal of many many people. Wilber has written that to say someone is at a particular level is to say that, if tested, 50% of their responses are at that level, but 25% are above and 25% are below.

Importantly, I have never seen one study that backs up his claim, which leaves me to wonder if he just made it up, or bended it from some real study so as to make his own model more palatable to those people who might particularly give pause when faced with the notion of heirarchy, and how it has been used in deplorable ways (such as the two examples you cite).

But to deal with people like Bruce Kuhlman or the couple who helped Wilber, and make assessments in this way is to proceed on the level of a single person and their psychological reality. Or in other words, now you are at the level of ontogeny, more nuanced, particular, and complicated than the more general view of phyllogeny.

Phyllogenetic concepts do not seem to work very easily in situations that call for an ontogenetic approach. In trying to use SD as an assessment of a particular person or couple, you make the mistake of superimposing subtle species patterns over the psyche of a single person. Blaming a white man you see walking down the street for black slavery is an example of the impossible match of phyllogeny and ontogeny. This sort of assessment is a morally indefensible thing to do, but sadly quite common, at least in America.

Basically, what Wilber and Santana did was pure avoidance masked as some sort of science. They probably just wanted to fire the people involved, for whatever reasons.

Finally, I noted that the author of the INaked post was Brett Thomas. Which, if the same Brett Thomas who has been heavily involved with IU, II, and even IN as one of the avant-garde artists, is rather interesting.

[salaTHRUStra]

damn....

[Tuff Ghost]

Just had a law class on evidence so I can't help myself...Now, I'm a fan of no smoke no fire but this post is (at the moment) nothing more than hearsay. One semi-anonymous poster on an internet forum. They may have an axe to grind, they may be perfectly correct, but at this stage, we just don't know. To make grand inferences based on this one post is a little bit silly (that's not aimed at Matthew by the way, the points he makes in his post are entirely valid, regardless of the truth of the claim. But Falk has said "How beautifully consistent and 'in character' of Wilber and his Integral Dictatorship." Well yes, if you're willing to believe everything anyone says about Wilber. There are certainly big problems with the culture of I-I, but that doesn't mean that this particular post is correct. It's circumstancial evidence at best.

[Tuff Ghost]

To answer Matthews query: It's not Bthomas, but someone who borrowed his access. So someone close to him then. Not that anything is cleared up by that revelation.

[Matthew Dallman]

You are absolutely right, TG. The stuff particular to the forum poster's account of Wilber and two unnamed associates is circumstantial. I should have couched my conclusions with that qualifier. My views on that particular issue thus stand limited.

bows,
md