My review of Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, by Gary Stamper, Ph.D. (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012) has just been published today at the Integral Leadership Review. Here is a little section from the beginning of the review:

Book Review: Gary Stamper, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior

Is the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement Ready for the Leap to Integral? A Review of Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, by Gary Stamper, Ph.D. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012.

Reviewed by William Harryman



When I see a new book coming out from someone involved with the integral movement (Stamper co-founded and led the Seattle Integral salon), and especially the Ken Wilber version of integral theory, I steel myself for the seemingly obligatory two to three chapters that attempt to explain the integral model for those who are not familiar with it. Much to his credit, Gary Stamper, in his new book, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, has not done that. He has written a book about the work he does with men in his Integral Warrior trainings, work that happens to be deeply influenced by Wilberian integral theory and Spiral Dynamics, both of which require some explication. There is, to be clear, a lot of integralese in this book, but it doesn’t have the heavy-handed feel with which other books based in integral theory are often burdened.

Essentially, Stamper has written a how-to spirituality book for men. There have been a few of these in recent years, coming mostly from the Jungian world or from a previously scattered group that has coalesced into “muscular Christianity,” a masculinist spiritual Christian movement. The only other books that include integral theory are Martin Ucik’s Integral Relationships: A Manual for Men (2010), David Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire (1997), Joseph Gelfer’s The Masculinity Conspiracy (2011, online e-book) and Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualties and the Problem of Patriarchy (2009). Both of Gelfer’s books are in-depth academic treatises rather than spiritual how-to books.

Before continuing, a brief overview of the last 40 or so years of the men’s movement might help to contextualize what Stamper’s Awakening the New Masculine is attempting.

Boysen Hogdson - Honing Our Integral Edges

Several years ago, one of my clients (a Mankind Project group leader) told me that he had heard there was effort being made to include an integral perspective, specifically a Spiral Dynamics Integral approach, into the Mankind Project training and leadership systems.

Boysen Hodgson, one of the national leaders of MKP, recently posted an article about where those efforts have led - a new telecourse to introduce members to the integral model.

I'd be curious to see if this leads to some reevaluation of their training model (New Warrior Weekends) that some initiates have claimed are emotionally abusive.

Honing Our Integral Edges

All Quadrants, All Levels

by Boysen Hodgson
August 17, 2011

In the ManKind Project, we’re voracious integrators. Our trainings and groups are a tightly mixed alchemical combination of exercises, modalities and practices from across the spectrum of personal growth, psychology, spiritual, ritual and physical practices. Men from different traditions and multiple generations have brought their unique gifts to the ManKind Project and our men’s circles, and men show up around them to learn and integrate new ways of thinking and new skills to use in the work that we do.

We’re a learning organization, at every level. Here’s one of the ways I’ve learned.

For nearly 2 years, Rich Tosi, David Kaar, Tom Pittner, George Daranyi, Carl Griesser, John Gaughn, Bill Kauth, myself  and a up to 5 other ManKind Project leaders and community members met on the phone every two weeks to talk about the intersection and integration of Spiral Dynamics and Integral thinking into the DNA of the ManKind Project.

The call was commonly called the ‘Spiral Call’. It started as a court of support for our past Chairman, George Daranyi. It evolved into a platform for a close knit tribe of men to discuss cultural change on a micro and a macro level.

We explored how to fully embody the kind of leadership we want to model in MKP – an Integral style that deeply honors and values the differences and stages that men who come to us are in, and invites them to push their edges. A style of leadership that seeks to transcend attachment to any one way of seeing the world … and embraces and honors them all for the gifts they bring and the ways they have helped all of us evolve (to transcend AND include).

We weren’t holding theoretical discussions. We were looking on every phone call at specific issues, challenges and evolutionary steps that the ManKind Project was facing.

Read the whole article.