Most of us are aware that we are becoming more and more effective in our lives every day. We know we have the capacity to grow. Anything that will clarify and quicken our development is welcome. And many of us have discovered one or more developmental maps we can use to gauge where we are and chart how to get to our next milestone.
Over the 40 years that I have worked as a psychotherapist collecting technologies for transformation and charting my own development along with my clients I have formed a map that I have come to call The 8 Orders. If you have a favorite developmental map [Maslow, Erickson, Gebser, Piaget, Wilber, Fowler, Cook-Greuter, my… the list goes on and on] it has probably influenced the development of the 8 Orders. And if you don’t yet have a favorite map, consider this an introduction.
I first published a version of the map over 15 years ago and it has continued to evolve. It started as a map for the development of our sense of our Selves, but it has expanded to include relationships, complex adaptive systems, and Being as a whole.
I have decided to publish the version that I am using now in a manner that we allow me to continue to upgrade it. And I will introduce it in a series of conversations on Zoom during August 2025. You are invited to join in.
Conversations:
The conversations will be on the Tuesdays in August [5, 12, 19, and 26] from 7:00 to about 8:30 Central time. Each will focus on a specific aspect of cognitive maps in general and the 8 Orders in particular.
August 5, 2025: What are cognitive maps as a heuristic for understanding and relating to reality? What are they for? What makes for a good one? Why do we have to keep revising them?
August 12, 2025: How much of what is real can we expect to reference on a single map? What are the aspects of Being that we might be able to reference on a single coherent map?
August 19, 2025: How are the levels in the 8 Orders a reflection of the development of my own consciousness and how can the map help me anticipate what challenges I face and what steps I might take to further my own transformation?
August 26, 2025: Human civilization is itself an evolving structure. There are crises facing humanity that are mostly of our own making. How can the map of the 8 Orders help us make sense of what we are facing and what guidance can it give us about how we must proceed to create a human culture that is safe, satisfying and sustainable and thus able to care for our fragile planet.
Resources:
I have a playlist on YouTube that has a set of videos of the content of the class that should be viewed before you come to each conversation. That playlist will grow over the course of the month.
There is a page on the Summary tab about the 8 Orders.
There are copies of the maps available for download and for you to print out copies for yourself.
To get links to the videos and the conversations, add your contact information to this Google Form. There is no charge for the materials or for participation in the conversations.
Because there are terms we will use in the video and the weekly conversations that may be unfamiliar or that have multiple meanings in different disciplines I have constructed a Glossary of Terms which is available online.