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Andrew Cohen
June 2007 
The Swedish resistance towards higher levels of maturity [Part 1]
Posted on May 13th, 2007
by 
Nick
Nick
On Friday September 30th 2005, I was invited by headmaster Yvonne Bengtsson and five vice principals from Sofielundsskolan in Malmö Sweden to give a two-hour presentation on the application of Spiral Dynamics in education. (The school has 500 students from kindergarten to ninth-grade as well as four day-care centers for children aged one to five.) They were so interested that the meeting went on for three hours. This was the first time I had received such a positive and open response to Spiral Dynamics from any school in Sweden, it was a real breakthrough in being able to talk to adults in Sweden about levels of development in consciousness.
Sweden is seen by many as being centered in the Green meme, along with such countries as Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, UK, Canada, Australia, and parts of the US. However unlike the Danes, the Dutch, the British, the Canadians, the Aussies, and the Americans there is virtually no interest for Second tier or integral thinking in Sweden at all.
(Compare my description of Sweden to Peter Merry's recent blog describing the Dutch emergence.)
The Swedish resistance towards integral thinking is quite unbelievable. These other cultures have pockets of avant-garde people who have broken from the pack to develop new ways of thinking. But this is not so in Sweden, a postmodern culture that firmly believes there is nowhere higher to go. Swedes pride themselves on being an open, caring, pluralistic thinking culture of democratic individuals expressing global ethics and values. But the amazing reality is that development towards higher levels of maturity is seen as being EVIL and either ignored or aggressively stopped. And any pioneer in Sweden working in this field can show you the scares to prove it.
In March 2006 I was rung up by one of the vice-principals from Sofielundsskolan who was very alarmed after having heard from a psychologist employed by the city of Malmö that Spiral Dynamics and Don Beck were connected to Scientology. She was quite distraught and asked me again and again if this was true or not. I later found out that this particular male (males tend to be very proud!) psychologist had become jealous of the successful results that Mats Edin and I were having and fought back by spreading a wave of rumors and false accusations.
Then in September 2006 one of the male teachers at Sofielundsskolan started spreading accusations about me. He did a search on the internet and found a series of video interviews with me by Helen Titchen Beeth on her website Polilogues. He saw a link to Ken Wilber's Integral Spiritual Centre (ISC) and Integral Naked and became, together with a growing group of teachers very concerned with my connection to these sites and the very "sinful", "offensive", "religious", "spiritual", "sexist" and "cultish" symbols portrayed. I was accused of wanting to take over people's minds as well as the school. My profile here on Zaadz and the Zaadz site itself was seen as evidence of immoral business activity.
It put the school administrators in a challenging situation. I am the most important person they have and the easiest person to get rid of. On the one hand they were now getting very impressive results in the classes I was working with, while on the other hand a growing number of staff started expressing resistance (a backlash reaction towards what they know is inherently good and true) and anger towards working with me. The school administrator's where put under increasing pressure to stop using my services.
To add to things I had also recently circulated a paper describing the shift from Red to Blue and the necessity for the school to design a Blue system for the students to pass through. It stated: In Blue we are saved. In Blue we awaken to a transcendent purpose or "sacred cause." We give up our impulsivity, obey a higher power and do what we "should" do to satisfy our consciousness. The teacher is a rightful authority figure who gives hope and reveals life's meaning.
Many of the teachers reacted negatively when reading this and saw it as further evidence that I was sent to the school by a religious sect. I saw it as Green not liking Blue, and the lack of Blue in the school, which was one of the primary reasons this school, like many others in Sweden, is having so much trouble handling Red.
The school administrators rang and wanted to meet me urgently as things were heating up. I saw that it was vitally important that I was authentic, bold and upfront about who I am, what I stand for and about being a student of Andrew Cohen. Until this time no one had even mentioned his name, or new who he was. I said to them that it was important that they knew now as I expected an even greater negative reaction sooner or later. They felt comfortable and continued working with me.
Anyone that deeply cares about changing the world (while living in Sweden) in the way I am describing is either crazy, asking for trouble, wants to become unemployed, or is a hero. The "tall-poppy" syndrome is very active in Sweden and you will be told when you break from mediocracy.
Amazingly headmaster Yvonne Bengtsson said, "I was worried yesterday afternoon, but not now. We have a business deal and buy a product from you. I don't particularly care if you are a member of the Scientology church. What you help us with works and that's what counts." For Yvonne and the other administrators to support me in this way and the way she has continued to do is nothing less than bold and brave.
Many of the teachers demanded that the school administrators stop working with me and threatened to do that by going to the media. However the administrators felt that the situation could be handled if I met with all the staff and told my story. Which I did, though it felt more like an inquisition. I was defending myself in front of some 60 teachers for nearly one hour.
What does Nordic Integral stand for? What is Zaadz.com? How and why does Zaadz make money? What is your involvement with Ken Wilber's ISC? What does ISC mean by "an ongoing experiment called ‘teach the teachers'" and "the shape of a future religion will be born"? What does mind-shift mean? Who is paying you? Who sent you? Are you a member of the Church of Scientology?
Critical reason seamed to have left the room and many people became emotionally irrational. Rather than face their unwillingness to take on what they had to do in order to help students in Red become responsibility and mature, many, but not all, felt better by attacking me and thus not having to change themselves, thus leaving the kids in chaos and behaving destructively. The result was that half the teachers supported working with me (those working with the lower grades) while the staff for the higher grades were against working with me.
The simple reason for this is that it is much more demanding to handle Red in a teenager (and even more in an adult) than it is in a child. It is not impossible, but it demands more cooperation between the teachers who have to stand united and support each other in what they are doing. It demands a group of teachers who are prepared to take a stand and be nothing less than bold and brave.
Sweden is seen by many as being centered in the Green meme, along with such countries as Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, UK, Canada, Australia, and parts of the US. However unlike the Danes, the Dutch, the British, the Canadians, the Aussies, and the Americans there is virtually no interest for Second tier or integral thinking in Sweden at all.
(Compare my description of Sweden to Peter Merry's recent blog describing the Dutch emergence.)
The Swedish resistance towards integral thinking is quite unbelievable. These other cultures have pockets of avant-garde people who have broken from the pack to develop new ways of thinking. But this is not so in Sweden, a postmodern culture that firmly believes there is nowhere higher to go. Swedes pride themselves on being an open, caring, pluralistic thinking culture of democratic individuals expressing global ethics and values. But the amazing reality is that development towards higher levels of maturity is seen as being EVIL and either ignored or aggressively stopped. And any pioneer in Sweden working in this field can show you the scares to prove it.
In March 2006 I was rung up by one of the vice-principals from Sofielundsskolan who was very alarmed after having heard from a psychologist employed by the city of Malmö that Spiral Dynamics and Don Beck were connected to Scientology. She was quite distraught and asked me again and again if this was true or not. I later found out that this particular male (males tend to be very proud!) psychologist had become jealous of the successful results that Mats Edin and I were having and fought back by spreading a wave of rumors and false accusations.
Then in September 2006 one of the male teachers at Sofielundsskolan started spreading accusations about me. He did a search on the internet and found a series of video interviews with me by Helen Titchen Beeth on her website Polilogues. He saw a link to Ken Wilber's Integral Spiritual Centre (ISC) and Integral Naked and became, together with a growing group of teachers very concerned with my connection to these sites and the very "sinful", "offensive", "religious", "spiritual", "sexist" and "cultish" symbols portrayed. I was accused of wanting to take over people's minds as well as the school. My profile here on Zaadz and the Zaadz site itself was seen as evidence of immoral business activity.
It put the school administrators in a challenging situation. I am the most important person they have and the easiest person to get rid of. On the one hand they were now getting very impressive results in the classes I was working with, while on the other hand a growing number of staff started expressing resistance (a backlash reaction towards what they know is inherently good and true) and anger towards working with me. The school administrator's where put under increasing pressure to stop using my services.
To add to things I had also recently circulated a paper describing the shift from Red to Blue and the necessity for the school to design a Blue system for the students to pass through. It stated: In Blue we are saved. In Blue we awaken to a transcendent purpose or "sacred cause." We give up our impulsivity, obey a higher power and do what we "should" do to satisfy our consciousness. The teacher is a rightful authority figure who gives hope and reveals life's meaning.
Many of the teachers reacted negatively when reading this and saw it as further evidence that I was sent to the school by a religious sect. I saw it as Green not liking Blue, and the lack of Blue in the school, which was one of the primary reasons this school, like many others in Sweden, is having so much trouble handling Red.
The school administrators rang and wanted to meet me urgently as things were heating up. I saw that it was vitally important that I was authentic, bold and upfront about who I am, what I stand for and about being a student of Andrew Cohen. Until this time no one had even mentioned his name, or new who he was. I said to them that it was important that they knew now as I expected an even greater negative reaction sooner or later. They felt comfortable and continued working with me.
Anyone that deeply cares about changing the world (while living in Sweden) in the way I am describing is either crazy, asking for trouble, wants to become unemployed, or is a hero. The "tall-poppy" syndrome is very active in Sweden and you will be told when you break from mediocracy.
Amazingly headmaster Yvonne Bengtsson said, "I was worried yesterday afternoon, but not now. We have a business deal and buy a product from you. I don't particularly care if you are a member of the Scientology church. What you help us with works and that's what counts." For Yvonne and the other administrators to support me in this way and the way she has continued to do is nothing less than bold and brave.
Many of the teachers demanded that the school administrators stop working with me and threatened to do that by going to the media. However the administrators felt that the situation could be handled if I met with all the staff and told my story. Which I did, though it felt more like an inquisition. I was defending myself in front of some 60 teachers for nearly one hour.
What does Nordic Integral stand for? What is Zaadz.com? How and why does Zaadz make money? What is your involvement with Ken Wilber's ISC? What does ISC mean by "an ongoing experiment called ‘teach the teachers'" and "the shape of a future religion will be born"? What does mind-shift mean? Who is paying you? Who sent you? Are you a member of the Church of Scientology?
Critical reason seamed to have left the room and many people became emotionally irrational. Rather than face their unwillingness to take on what they had to do in order to help students in Red become responsibility and mature, many, but not all, felt better by attacking me and thus not having to change themselves, thus leaving the kids in chaos and behaving destructively. The result was that half the teachers supported working with me (those working with the lower grades) while the staff for the higher grades were against working with me.
The simple reason for this is that it is much more demanding to handle Red in a teenager (and even more in an adult) than it is in a child. It is not impossible, but it demands more cooperation between the teachers who have to stand united and support each other in what they are doing. It demands a group of teachers who are prepared to take a stand and be nothing less than bold and brave.
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