This is an invitation “to steal the culture,” as cognitive scientist John Vervaeke would say. Not only is this practice a means to transform and enliven the work you do with others, it is also in itself an answer to the increasing limitations and dangers of the modern Western mode of thinking and being. The ongoing practice of emergent dialogue—carried into your life and work, relationships and projects—becomes part of a radical experiment to shift the axis of Western culture from separation and division to entangled, interdependent intersubjectivity.
As a practitioner of emergent dialogue, you join in a bottom-up process of creating transformative microcultures in which joy, intimacy, awe, freedom, and collective insight are unleashed between us. You learn to navigate complexity from wholeness. Learning how to perceive and become available to this intersubjective co-intelligence is the foundation of a new, transindividuated self sense—one that includes and transcends our individuality. Through emergent dialogue, your relationships and projects become part of a bottom-up network of experiments that can lay the foundations for the future.
Through your committed engagement in the program, you can:
The only way to learn emergent dialogue is through practice. You cannot learn it by studying or thinking about the concepts only; dialogue is something that you have to do. Yet, “doing” here is more than speaking together; it’s a matter of sensing, presencing, letting go, choosing, and being available to the emergent edge of what happens between us.
During the five months of the program, you will have many opportunities for practice. We combine ongoing instruction and exercises in each teaching session, and twice monthly small practice groups will allow you to explore and develop what you have learned.
Transmission & Initiation. The first, and most important, element in learning emergent dialogue is an experiential recognition of this living space between us. Establishing this through transmission is essential. It is an initiation into collective presencing.
Experience & Exploration. Practice starts with perception training: developing the sensing “muscles” to perceive the subtle, embodied connectivity of the living intersubjective field. Again, this is not a concept or an idea, but depends on the palpable experience of this field and the sensitivity to recognize it. From here, we inquire together into the nature of this space of interbeing, and in the process, it and we develop a new way of being human together.
Understanding. In addition to exploring and inquiring together, we will also provide content for the mind to place the practice of emergent dialogue in a larger context. This includes philosophy, history, developmental psychology, and cultural evolution.
The three parts of the program build on each other. Like the facets of a jewel, they cannot be separated but we can focus on each one in order to make the emergent dialogue process more clear and accessible.
Each 2-hour teaching session will begin with an approximately 45-minute exploration of one aspect of emergent dialogue. This exploration will be led by Thomas Steininger, Elizabeth Debold, and Pamela von Sabljar. You are invited to share in this inquiry during the session.
This opening is followed by small group exercises (for about 30 minutes) designed to give you experience with these different aspects of emergent dialogue. Finally, the last part of each session invites you to continue the inquiry in the whole group. The teaching team will also bring in relevant concepts to help you to understand the process you are in. They will also take questions, discuss implications, and provide context about emergent dialogue–and offer guidelines for the small group work that will happen the next week.
I am managing editor of evolve Magazine, a translator, author and facilitator of emergent dialogue. I have studied Zen Buddhism with various teachers, engaged in hospice work and have nearly 20 years’ experience working with We Space and emergent dialogue. Currently, I am writing a book about a poetic art of living that will be published later this year.
My work is informed by a life-long interest in collaboration, community, inter-connectivity, and intersubjectivity. I’ve been an artist, architect, entrepreneur, and parkour coach, but my greatest interest will always lie in the infinite potential to be found in the space between individuals, and the meshworks between movements. I’m a certified Integral Facilitator, co-living community manager, and evolve Magazine‘s biggest non-German-speaking fan.
It is such a joy to have been workng with this dedicated team and other members since 2009. Although I am a naturopath by profession, I am involved in facilitating different Co-Conscious We-space and emergent dialogue programs at emerge bewusstseinskultur e.V. and One World in Dialogue and am part of the support team of evolve Magazine’s salon work.
I am founder and Director of Research at Open Up, which is about developing psychotherapeutic breathwork and a source of credibility and opportunity for what is possible in exploring new understandings of human healing potential and sustainable change. I look at humans, society and the world holistically and am driven by a strong passion to help transform the narrative and cultural conditioning; our internal structure of the world. I work with widely different people and extensively with younger generations, empowering them to foster regenerative leadership. Through an experiential and educational approach, I facilitate to support the exchange of discoveries for our mutual growth, understanding through what is most alive, to come alive.
As a cultural anthropologist, I’m fascinated by exploring how collectives find purpose and create togetherness. In the past ten years, emergent dialogue became to me a life practice in this discovery. Being a member of the editorial team of evolve Magazine, I established and co-lead with my colleagues a network of almost 30 evolve salons in the German speaking countries where we take deep dives into the evolution of culture and consciousness, based on the magazine topics.
After a long trifold path through the arenas of small business start-ups, collective spiritual practices, and developing physical communities, my paths began to merge 30 years ago into the world of collaborative technologies. That journey ultimately landed me in the realm of intersubjective practices five years ago. Thanks to the new world that opened, the context that most drives me now is, “How do we create–From the We– the localized human-scale economies that will absolutely work… for the we, and the planet?”
Before the course gets underway, we’ll use this time to connect and prepare for the journey ahead.
Can we sense something beyond individual experience?
How can meditation help to cultivate sensing beyond mind?
What attitude and motivation opens the field of coherence?
How can we call the living intersubjective into presence?
Can we discover and align with Eros as a collective?
What does this intersubjective space want to unfold now?
Can potential conflict transform into a higher integration of perspectives?
How can we allow intersubjective synergy to do its work?
Our aim is to bring this process of emergent dialogue to as many human beings who would benefit from its potential as possible. We recognize how urgent it is to discover new ways of sense-making together and to unleash a deeper creativity to respond to the crises we are in as a species. This emergent capacity for intersubjective dialogue belongs to humanity, not to us. We want to make it available as widely as possible so that money is not an obstacle to anyone who sincerely wants to take part.
We offer all of our programs in the spirit of the gift economy—or, in German, a Geschenkkreislauf—where we offer what we have learned and you respond with a gift, usually a financial contribution. However, we have come to realize that, for some programs and this program in particular, we cannot simply offer it for free and ask for contributions. Too many who sign up for free end up not having a commitment to the program, which makes the practice groups unstable and hurts the learning environment. So, we are asking for a specific contribution when you register.
To help us cover our costs and be able to continue our work, you can be a Supporter, and make a payment of 300 euros. If you cannot afford this contribution–due to being a student, getting hit by the economic aftermath of COVID, having a fixed income, living in a country where this is far too expensive–then we suggest making an Essential contribution of 150 euros. We also invite you, if you are able, to make a contribution of 500 euros as a Benefactor. Your contribution will help provide scholarships to those who cannot afford to contribute financially and are eager to learn. AND…
IF YOU TRULY WANT TO COMMIT TO THE PROGRAM, AND CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY THE MINIMUM, PLEASE BE IN TOUCH. We have scholarships and will not turn away any motivated person who happens to have financial limitations or who lives in a part of the world where even the minimum is far too expensive.
If you have limited resources
Thank you for your generosity and for supporting others to take part.