Course: Unified Theory of Knowledge - An Introduction to UTOK (with Gregg Henriques & Marcia Gralha)

Course content (full ticket):

1 special pre-recorded conversation “WTF is UTOK?” (Available February 15)

4 pre-recorded lectures

4 live interactive practice calls

4 Campfire/Community-Building Sessions

Curated Reading list, Homework

Class begins at March 10th 5 p.m. CET/ 11a.m. EST, Zoom

Learn How to Speak UTOK and See Yourself and the World in a New Way

What is your worldview? What is your understanding of human consciousness? What leads to neurotic suffering and how can we reliably be wiser and more adaptive in our everyday living?

UTOK, the Unified Theory of Knowledge, is a new system for understanding our selves and the world around us. Participants in this new course from Parallax Academy will learn UTOK’s most central insights and how to apply them to their lives. This course will allow you to zoom out and see the cosmos as a whole, and then zoom back into the world of everyday relational exchanges and human folly that drives unnecessary suffering, and learn how such patterns can be systematically be transformed into wiser ways of being.

UTOK diagnoses a key problem that arose in the context of modern, natural, scientific knowledge systems as the Enlightenment Gap. This refers to the gap in our knowledge in how to sensibly place mind in relationship to matter, and scientific knowledge in relationship to subjective and social knowledge.

The first two classes in this four-part series will walk participants through the Enlightenment Gap, explain why it arose and how UTOK gives us a novel and effective solution. The second two classes will shift to help participants apply the insights of UTOK to understanding the human condition in general, as well as the core processes that drive neurotic suffering and the key principles to reverse them.

Join the founder of UTOK, Professor Gregg Henriques and his life partner and UTOK collaborator, Marcia Gralha, M.A. as they provide you with a tour of the system and engage you in how to see your life through the lens of UTOK and apply its insights toward adaptive living. By the end of the course, you will know how to “ride the wave” of complexity and shine a CALM light on your neurotic tendencies and orient toward wisdom.

(Sunday class begins at March 10th 5 p.m. CET/ 11a.m. EST, Zoom)

Lesson 1: The Enlightenment Gap and the Tree of Knowledge System

This course begins by introducing participants to the Enlightenment Gap, and why it emerged. It proceeds to explain how it infects the current grammar of our thought and why it was never resolved. It then shares UTOK’s new map of Big History, called the Tree of Knowledge System. Participants will learn how the ToK System grounds UTOK in a coherent naturalistic ontology and does so in a way that effectively places mind in relationship to matter. It also shows us how human persons emerged out of the world of minded primates, and how science emerged as a particular kind of justification system from the world of cultured persons.

Lesson 2: The Tree, the Coin, and the Garden: UTOK’s Three Philosophical Pillars

A second aspect to solving the Enlightenment Gap is placing the objective knowledge generated by the natural sciences with the qualitative, subjective knowledge we experience as unique conscious agents and with the intersubjective stories and values we share as cultural beings to guide our actions and aspirations. UTOK has three philosophical pillars that correspond to the objective, subjective, and intersubjective ways of knowing. The Tree of Knowledge System grounds UTOK in science and the objective way of knowing. This class will introduce participants to UTOK’s iQuad Coin and Garden. The former is UTOK’s frame for the unique human subject, and the latter is UTOK’s frame for the intersubjective narratives that organize collective action and values. This class will help participants see how each of the three pillars provides an important epistemological vector and how they can be put together to see the whole of human knowing.

Lesson 3: Reinterpreting Folk Psychology via the Lens of UTOK

Embedded in UTOK is a new unified theory of psychology. It frames three broad processes that characterize human psychology. These are processes of investment, influence, and justification. These processes interact to form what UTOK calls “JII dynamics” (pronounced as jī). This class will teach participants the JII Dynamic and how to apply it to everyday human behavior. Specifically, everyday human behavior is framed by “folk psychology,” which is the notion that humans have beliefs and desires and their actions stem from those constructs. This class will teach you how to translate folk psychology into JII Dynamics. This will enable you to understand everyday interaction from a metatheoretical lens.

Lesson 4: Reversing Neurotic Loops with CALM-MO

Embedded in UTOK is a unified approach to psychotherapy that identifies the central processes that drive people into neurotic cycles and the reliable and valid ways to reverse them. This class will teach participants UTOK’s “triple negative neurotic loop” formulation for maladaptive adjustment and how to apply it. In addition, this class will cover UTOK’s CALM-MO, which is an integrative tool for psychological mindfulness. Participants will learn how to shine a CALM-MO light on their neurotic loops, and shift from being driven into misery to being oriented toward wisdom.

**What you will learn in the Introduction to UTOK:**

There is a profound, general gap in our knowledge for relating mind to matter
A new map of Big History that goes from energy to matter to life to mind to culture
How to see the world as a scientist and a subject
How to bridge scientific facts and human values into a coherent belief system
A better way to understand and interpret folk psychology
The basic process of neurotic loops
A tool that combines the key insights from the major perspectives for reversing neurotic loops
Connections with other folks who are interested in learning to “speak UTOK”

In addition, participants who sign up for the campfires will be given UTOK’s iQuad Coin and CALM-MO flashlight

This course will be co-taught by Professor Gregg Henriques and Marcia Gralha, MA

Gregg Henriques is Professor of Graduate Psychology at James Madison University. In the late 1990s, he started on his journey that would ultimately become UTOK, the Unified Theory of Knowledge, which is a consilient, scientific humanistic worldview that effectively relates science, wisdom, and the human psyche. Gregg is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology (Springer, 2011), and A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap (Palgrave McMillian, 2022). His scholarly work has been published in the field’s best journals, and he has developed a popular blog on Psychology Today, Theory of Knowledge, which has received almost 10 million views.

Marcia Gralha is a psychotherapist and UTOK Coach based in Belém, a city in the Amazonian North of Brazil. With an M.A. in Clinical Psychology and an interest in integrative psychotherapy, her academic journey took her on a six-year stay in the U.S. spanning Florida, North Carolina, and finally Virginia, where her path intersected with Gregg's. She returned to Brazil with a newfound passion: the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK). Since then, UTOK has become a guiding worldview, bringing coherence and orienting meaning to the postmodern fragmented pluralism she was used to. Collaborating closely with Gregg, Marcia has contributed to various UTOK projects, including writings, coaching, workshops, and the 2023 Consilience Conference. Marcia and Gregg have integrated UTOK into their lifestyle, embracing embodied practices and guiding conceptions that bring the theory to life. In Brazil, Marcia is at the forefront of the Nexus project: an online educational platform aimed at promoting psychotherapy integration in Brazil.