Opening its doors in 2006, Integral Academy is a postgraduate adult education school in Budapest, Hungary, in Central Europe. The mission of this academy is to teach integral theory and practice in a deep and clearly structured manner, with a comprehensive approach including all the elements of AQAL theory: quadrants, levels, lines, types and states of consciousness.
After our initial work doing short workshops and courses, we recognized the need to create a comprehensive program. Rather than people only sampling or tasting integral philosophy or practice on short lectures or one-time weekend workshops, our desire has evolved to allow people to be immersed in integral theory and practice, so that they can come to a fuller understanding of the benefits of the integral approach as developed by Ken Wilber.
On the practical level, our aim is to accomplish the dream of creating integral general practitioners, as Wilber termed them in 2004. The certification we provide to those who complete the program is integral counsellor, a term chosen to be consistent with Hungarian professional requirements.
Although our school started in 2006, Integral Academy as an institutional form was established in the spring of 2009, after several years of preliminary development. Bence Gánti, the Founder of Integral Academy had been studying and working with integral theory, its dissemination and naturalization in Hungary for twelve years (since 1997), before setting up Integral Academy in February 2009. After the initial years of developing the contents of course material, he elaborated a three-year integral psychology training course that he launched in 2006 within the institutional framework of Monász Adult Education Institute. September 2006 was the date of the onset of integral courses in the world at three different locations at the same time: two universities in the United States (JFK and Fielding) and our school in Hungary.
The uniqueness of our school lies in it’s content and its practicality too. When developing this training the main objective was to create an integral study and development experience, where besides the thorough and systematic in-depth theorethical course students also experience a three-year group pyschotherapy, and two-years of integral councelor training, where they develop practical counselling skills and techniques. Also there are required to participate in a 2-weeks meditation retreats (of their choice, from any authentic tradition with a living lineage), and contribute to a culturally creative community, where - as a result of the interplay of the elements mentioned above - their personality can develop and unfold onto a level 6, integral stage and above.
Our primary aim with this school is to foster the personality development with this 3-years journey to reach integral level and above. We believe passionately that this is how we can serve humanity, and it’s center of gravity in this transient age to get from postmodernity to post-postmodernity – at least that few percent that Ken Wilber predicts to reach the critcal 10 % in the next 10 years.
We feel, that by now (2009) we succesfully tested our course, and we accomplished the first steps. Our first generation of students succesfully finished the third year, with all of the theoretical studies, exams, therapies, retreats, community life, integral councelor training, and final thesis. We have more and more students each year, and the school grows, and with it – as the only and most serious integral happening in Hungary – the news of integral have spread around the whole country from lays to professionals. Integral theory and psychology became a known concept.
We also established ourselves in the lower-right reality on a national level, by gaining the permission for tuiton from the Ministry of Labor of the Hungarian State, and the accreditation from the Adult Education Accreditation Board of the National Institute of Vocational and Adult Education.
Our plans from now on is to work internationally, by building collaborations, and to enrich the global integral community, as we offer our experiences to the world.
"Integral Academy is an important application of my work and the work of many other Integral thinkers, teachers, and practitioners. Please take the time to look through their website, and hopefully connect with them and their associates to further yout own Integral understanding. Sending all my very best wishes and care, Ken Wilber."
