Today, there's a notable absence of a robust theory of change to guide leaders. It's troubling that previous methods of shaping our human life-world are no longer effective. As democracy gradually turns into a mere semblance of participation, authoritarian regimes are increasingly sought to prevent impending collapse and chaos. On one side, religious fundamentalism and its ethnic-nationalist-corporatist variant, fascism, are gaining momentum. On the other side, technologists promise that AI can evade these threats by providing a truly rational, computational intelligence, free from the human imperfections that lead to ideological fervor.

As human civilization has evolved, so too has our ability to intentionally and creatively design our environment. This creative capacity is referred to as "ontological design," as the worlds we construct influence the type of people we will become. There are three major eras in our world-building activities that will sound familiar to most people: the premodern, modern, and postmodern. In addition, there is a new, metamodern approach. All of these have value, but none are sufficient. World-building is both a collective activity, but this activity is constrained by, or afforded by, the ways in which individual persons conceive of themselves relative to the world-building collective. Each era, therefore, is uniquely characterized.

The premodern approach to world building involved primarily human and animal labor. People understood themselves as (along with the animals) part of the natural cycles of birth and death. There was very little understanding of the individual self. People experienced their individuality as pre-constituted by the collective.

The modern approach to world building is drastically different. Legacy institutions, such as democratic nations, educational academies, and institutionalized religions, were constructed using this approach. It differentiates between mere labor, which involves repetitive cycles leading to no significant outcome, and work, which yields enduring features in the world.

In the modern era, the emphasis is on the differences among individuals, particularly regarding their talents and positions. High-status and talented individuals acquire leadership roles and shape the world for everyone else. These leaders, along with their institution's members, perceive themselves as the source of 'power-over' agency constituting the collective. This is the fundamental world-building power of colonialism.

Postmodernism, exemplified by the response of the 1960s generation in the US, rejects this type of world-building power as the participatory implications of democracy began to be taken seriously. This is the domain of "action" as Hannah Arendt defined it - the participation of people (the demos) in the political sphere, primarily through the hermeneutic processes of speech acts. Action, in this context, is the public expression of one's inner sense or the declaration of one's intentions for the making-of-the-world. Individuals began to perceive themselves as agents who could collectively construct an entirely different world.

This led to significant social improvements through the work of dedicated activists. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that there is something extremely problematic and dangerous about this postmodern turn. It became narrowly focused on dismantling existing structures, while failing to build alternative, restorative, and re-enchanted worlds.

We now introduce the new approach known as metamodernism. The metamodern approach is evident in the concepts of Inner Development Goals, Bildung, the recent shift towards mindfulness, and the increase in therapeutic coaching based on various cognitive stage theories. These concepts are all extensions of the human potential movement that shifted away from collectivist/activist approaches focusing primarily on the inner life of the individual. While these trends are promising, they often focus too much on the individual's interior and lack sufficient emphasis on world-building capacities. Additionally, these movements often avoid leadership and promote a peer-to-peer ideology.

We are also noticing there is a kind of equal and opposite approach emerging, where people are returning to legacy religions. While this is in some sense a rerun of premodern sensibilities, what it shares with metamodernity today and how it differs from premodern religions of yesterday, is its distinct focus on the individual growth, healing, and salvation. Even when embedded in a community church, the self is construed to be a sovereign individual, the locus of self-transformation.

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Where do we go from here?

We offer an approach that both incorporates and transcends all existing methods. We believe it's both feasible and essential to develop exceptional leaders whose character and vision can expedite the transformation of collective identities. Like contemporary leaders, they perceive themselves as individuals capable of shaping the world. However, unlike traditional leaders, they recognize that their ability to do so relies on the willing participation of free individuals in a collective. This presents a unique challenge in the history of human culture. This brings us to the core question:

The complete Leadership Program consists of four core modules focused on training elite skills (the Four Powers) and one specialization in which you apply these skills to solve real-world problems. Individuals select from one of two concurrent tracks: Horizons of Biological Intelligence or Naturalizing Machine Agency.  Each track offers a unique perspective on understanding the interrelationships between evolutionary intelligence, emerging layers of collective intelligence, and the potentials of getting AI right and the risks of getting AI wrong.

Horizons of Biological Intelligence grounds the inquiry in biological, neuroscientific, and cognitive terms — exploring the new sciences of mind and distributed intelligence.

Naturalizing Machine Agency looks at the landscape from the point of view of LLM’s, AI, and machine agency — exploring semantic vs. computational linguistics, and algorithmic vs. extended cognition.

Mid program, the two tracks meet for an in-person, school-wide symposium, working together to integrate the two approaches into one compelling articulation of the primary directions innovators and institutions should pursue to create the best of both possible worlds.

Our program experience is deliberately designed to transform the way you look at the world, the way you face challenges, and how you set goals for yourself and others. You will learn how to transform “problems to be solved” into situations to be assessed, “information overload” into choice fields to be searched, “unpredictable circumstances” into possibility landscapes to explore, and “unavailable means” to goals to be fine tuned. You will learn how to transmute fear, skepticism, hesitancy and confusion to curiosity, trust, enthusiasm, and conviction. You'll have dedicated time to advance your projects and priorities and build collaborations among peers, enhancing your current work.

Bonnitta is an insight guide, philosopher, and futurist. From 2014-2022 she designed, developed, and directed the MA Course in Consciousness Studies at the Graduate Institute (now Salem University). In 2022 she launched the POP-UP School where she develops and directs transformative courses such as A New Theory of the Body, Lyric Culture: Ontological Designs for Backloop Realities, and Varieties of Religious Experience. Now this work is culminating in The Divinity School, which offers a certificate course and an upcoming MA in Leadership. Her work is deeply embodied and grounded in cutting edge cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary theory, contemplative studies, and metaphysics.

Completing the program affords you a Certificate in Leadership as a first step in what will become a two year MA degree. We require almost 200 hours of live calls and just under 300 hours of homework. Beyond this, students will present a real-world, professional level project at our four day in-person retreat, which is included in the tuition and scheduled at the end of the third quarter before we move into the fourth Power, Passionate Action.

We will  have two days of two hour live calls per week with a four-hour weekend intensive every 10 weeks for each of our tracks. Homework is a mixture of scholarly, practical, and reflective assignments that will require approximately 6 hours per week.

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Tuition for the Certificate in Leadership one year program is $12,000.

We encourage participants to apply what they are learning right away, practicing skills in their everyday work and social relationships. As you train at The Divinity School, you will discover more free time and energy than what was available to you beforehand.

So if you have an important project or are involved in a significant undertaking you can relate to the program as a “performance coach” or professional trainer who is actually helping you master your time and energy use.

It may seem like commitment is a constraint on your time and attention. However, the deeper your commitment, the more it affords emergent possibilities — things become possible that were not possible before. Strong commitment from participants allows a deep mutuality to develop, creating waves of deepening intimacy, and catalyzing collective insight. The more value each person brings to the experience, the more value the experience delivers to each person.

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Our team has previously designed and directed fully accredited MA graduate programs. We have designed the certificate program to qualify for credits that are required for getting a two year MA degree. Once you have completed the certificate program, and we have been approved for accreditation, you can begin the second year of our program and submit a culminating thesis or capstone project for final review.

Please note: the accreditation process for new programs may take 3-5 years. Some of the provisions for accreditation may change during that period. Students are eligible for the MA if they have already earned a Bachelors degree at another institution.

The Divinity School emerges out of the context of late stage capitalism, institutional decay, technological accelerationism and hype, and widespread cultural apathy and mistrust. The Divinity School participates in a renewal of education and leadership, to make both more relevant to our times, both practically and spiritually.

Many of the confusions weakening culture today - e.g. that humans could destroy nature permanently, that being oversensitive and easily overwhelmed is a sign of special insight or character, that trying to create a backup planet is a good use of resources, that it’s possible to live in a world without meaning, or that AI could improve the richness of life on its own - all of these come from bad ideas and bad habits about the fundamentals of who humans are and how we should relate to our communities and environments. Without addressing these basically bad metaphysics and habits of thought and action, culture will continue to be impoverished. But on the other side is incredible clarity, richness, courage, and passion.

The Divinity School is inspired by a future in which cultures are in service to life. With the desire and enduring commitment, our cultures could certainly and quickly reclaim their power to be in service to regenerating the sacred in our lives. This is the most rewarding and meaningful relationship to life that a person can cultivate. We hope you will join us. The future is both yours and ours to build.