Tom Atlee

Tom Atlee is founder, co-director, and research director of the non-profit Co-Intelligence Institute. From the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, his work focused on developing a society’s capacity to function as a wise democracy. Since 2005, his work has increasingly focused on the dynamics of conscious evolution — in particular the conscious evolution of social systems. These intertwined undertakings are motivated by a desire to turn our social and environmental challenges into positive developments for our society.

Tom’s social change vision is based on new understandings of wholeness which recognize the value of diversity, unity, relationship, context, uniqueness and the spirit inside each of us and the world. Co-intelligence is a form of intelligence grounded in that kind of wholeness. It has collaborative and collective dimensions, which we see clearly in higher forms of politics and governance. Co-intelligence theory also acknowledges many facets of intelligence (like head and heart), wisdom, and the higher forms of intelligence (natural and sacred) that move through and beyond us. Although Tom and the Institute focus on very practical issues of group, social and political dynamics, co-intelligence has many esoteric dimensions as well.

His work in conscious evolution has unfolded in close partnership with Peggy Holman, lead editor of The Change Handbook, and Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution! Tom collaborated with them on both books, on organizing a series of “evolutionary salons” and, along with Susan Cannonl, on organizing a new nonprofit, Evolutionary Life. With Peggy he has undertaken intensive research on evolutionary dynamics that can guide the transformation of social systems (one key paper is here, others are here) and envisioning and building a movement for the conscious evolution of social systems. He is lead editor of the Evolutionary Life newsletter.