Center for Spiritual Inquiry and Integral Education
Welcome to CSIIEThe Center for Spiritual Inquiry & Integral Education (CSIIE) is a gathering of imaginations, critical minds, and missions in process and growth-oriented discourse. Our aim is to provide a creative and nurturing space to generate leading-edge theory and practices of healing, pedagogy, and curriculum for personal and cultural transformation. Our educational policy is Open Access. Offering a cooperative framework in which scholars and practitioners can develop an integral approach (integral attitude) to their respective work, CSIIE is a platform for constructive change within the convivial context of a learning community.
CSIIE offers a wide variety of fee-for-service consulting and trainings (see link on right hand side of this page), and aims to provide a complementary and critical approach to current dominating higher education systems. Typically, these systems are embedded in and promote "education" as commodity within an economic marketplace of predatory capitalism, thus, dividing faculty and learners into fear-based and competitive ways of learning, skill-building, and knowledge protectionism. In contrast, CSIIE offers a community of inquiry where faculty and learners co-create educational experiences for their own joy and ethical interests. Rather than forcing such experiences into a narrow economic model, we sustain our educational process through social entrepreneurship and innovative approaches to scholarship and community practices.
Our New Office in Carbondale, IL is at Gaia House Interfaith Center on Southern Illinois University campus, 913 S. Illinois Ave., so drop by if you are in the area. Regular office hours: Tues. 1-5 pm, Thurs. 1-3 pm and you can book an appointment anytime as well (contact the Director, Michael, r.michaelfisher@yahoo.com).
Department Programs
CSIIE offers several certificate programs per Department: Integral & 'Fear' Studies, Spiritual Arts & Technologies, Mythic Ecological Heroism, and a general Certificate in Spiritual & Integral Studies. Click on "Departments" to the right on this page. You can also simply take courses that interest you at your own pace without pursuing any of our certificates.
Note: At this time, CSIIE certificates are not guaranteed transferable to any other educational institution, although they may be transferable as Life Experience Credits which some higher educational institutions may honor.
Not interested in taking a course or workshop? Consider customizing a thesis around a 'Big Idea' that you think would really impact your life and the world. Draw on our faculty and your own found mentors to develop this 'Big Idea'. For more information, contact our Director.
Courses
CSIIE has several Departments that offer specific (mostly on-line) courses related to spiritual and integral studies. Some instructors offer practitoner-based courses with significant face-to-face learning situations. We also offer additional non-departmental courses taught by our Adjunct and Guest Instructors.
Click on the titles of one of our featured sample courses below in order to view a course outline. You can also view a full listing of dozens of courses located by Department by clicking on "Courses" in the Navigation menu to the right side of this page, then click on the Department title and then click on the course title.
Payments for services to CSIIE can be made through PayPal (for courses, workshops, seminars) or if you prefer other forms of payment contact the Instructor or Presenter directly. In some cases payments may be made in installments and/or reduced via subsidies if you can show a need. Final decision on payment options is left up to the Instructor or Presenter.
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Religion, Art, Science, & Philosophy of the Matrix Films
DIFS-109 This 4 week Level One intro course (2 credits) brings learners to question the "barriers" that society and ourselves put on the possibilities of what is real and true, what is beautiful, what is good and the very nature of our consciousness and self-identity. If you are ready to 'fly' then you'll enjoy this discussion course with others who wish to learn about the Wachowski's use of spiritual and religious themes, with art, magic, science, politics and philosophy in their sci-fi action movie The Matrix (1999) and The Animatrix (2004). Start-up date TBA. Instructor: R. Michael Fisher
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Facing Your Fears of 2012 & After
DIFS-200D This is an intro. 4 week course (2 credits) that explores the source, claims, and cultural-historical and political-spiritual constructions of the "end of world" narrative in general, but specifically with a focus on 2012 as the supposed 'end of time.' Learners will have an opportunity to begin to build a critical and embracing (integral) approach to this unique historical moment without all the fear-mongering embedded in it currently. Start-up date TBA. Instructor: R. Micheal Fisher
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Magic in the 21st Century: Spiritual Technologies for a World in Transition
DSAT-101, 202, 203: (3 credits per module) This 16 week course is divided into three modules of 5 weeks each with a closing session in the final week. The course introduces and explores magic in the modern era and its practice. Magic is the creative synthesis of art, science, and philosophy. Opening new ways of perceiving and of being, magic is a process of integration and transformation. It is a way of changing. In the 21st century, magic is largely dismissed as an artifact of a fanciful past, calling to mind images of flying carpets, dragons, and castles in the sky. While mythology and bizarre imagery, as well as varying religious sentiments, are tangled up with our thinking around it, the theory and practice of magic can be applied directly in our own lives to great effect. Start-up date TBA. Instructor: Zachary Seibert
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Global Warming 101: An Introduction to Anthropogenic Global Climate Change
DMEH 101 (2 credits) This 4-week course offers an introduction to global warming a.k.a. Anthropogenic Global Climate Change (AGCC). Course topics include a layperson's introduction to the science behind AGCC; a review of the most common arguments against the existence of AGCC; past, present, and future consequences of AGCC; and potential solutions to the climate crisis. Start-up date TBA. Instructor: Treesong.
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Beyond the Limits of Environmentalism: A Role for Integral Ecology
DMEH 202 (6 credits) This 12-week course offers an overview of many of the positive and negative sides of the environmental and ecological initiatives created in a time of global crises. With many players with differing vested-interests and value-perspectives, often the greatest limitation to our effectiveness for complex solutions is due to the inability to find a perspective that adequately embraces all other perspectives. Without the respect of differing perspectives, and understanding their partial truths and role in an overall plan to improve things, little is accomplished and more often than not more harm is done in the conflict (and enemy-making) that dominates negotiations. In such a complex dilemma as environmental and ecological problems present, a new field of Integral Ecology is primed to help unite multiple perspectives in a new way. The course involves a balance of theory and philosophy with grounded application of integral ecology in case studies. Start-up date TBA. Instructors: Treesong & R. M. Fisher.
Learning Together: Local & Global
Think of what you are interested in from our menu, then think of who you want to learn that with, locally and globally. Send our e-Course Posters, and website links, to those in your networks of colleagues, friends, or that person you exchanged e-mails with one day because you wanted to stay in touch. We encourage local and global learning experiences at CSIIE, and everything you do to share your enthusiam for what we do is a bonus for everyone.
Are You an Instructor Looking for a Great Place to Teach?
CSIIE is always on the lookout for quality instructors who find our teaching/learning platform compatible with their own mission. See our "Instructors" link on the right side of this page and then drop us a line to talk about mutual benefits and opportunites for you and your teaching with us.
GaslandJosh Fox, Director of "Gasland" (International WOW Co., 2010), produced an award-winning documentary (Sundance), that exposes the air, soil, water pollution from the relatively unregulated current natural gas drilling process called "fracking." We at CSIIE have taken the initiative to devote some research, teaching, and promotional time in 2011-12 to Fox and his activist organization as they attempt to bring this tragedy to public attention in America (and around the world). We encourage our students, faculty and others to check out this worthwhile work at http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
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