Pilgrimage to Wholeness

Countdown to 2026

Our intention is to celebrate 100 years of the publication of Jan Christian Smuts’ ground-breaking book, Holism and Evolution, in 2026. The concept of Holism was founded in the Greek root word ‘Holos’ as dynamical coherent wholeness and from which the Holos Earth Project derives its name. 

At the point of penning this note, we have 37 months to prepare for the celebration if we were to choose the month of May 2026: Smuts’ birthday was 24th May, 1870.

We like to see the journey we have begun with the founding of the Holos Earth initiative five years ago in 2018 as a pilgrimage to a gathering in which we will identity and celebrate projects aimed at implementing the holistic integrative vision of being and becoming.
It was, after all, Smuts’ humble consideration that the concept of Holism to be an initial framework to be further developed by transformative thinkers and practitioners. 

Already in 2000, Ervin Laszlo penned the paper Transition from logos to holos: The challenge of civilisational change.
He identified the need for a paradigmatic societal shift from ‘logos’ (materialistic reductionism) to ‘holos’ (organismic syncretism) if civilisation is to progress.  

We are grateful for the growing support the holistic perspective and practice has found in various disciplines. Although, initially this was focused in the field of medicine and wellness, it has now expanded into a multidisciplinary spectrum of research and practice and we wish to celebrate, illuminate and draw lessons from those who have pioneered holistic endeavours.

Through the years, the holistic philosophy has expanded into the notion of organismic ‘regeneration’. The concept is now applied to leadership, agriculture, economics, and culminated, amongst others, in Daniel Christian Wahl’s seminal and award-winning book, Designing Regenerative Cultures (2016).

Consequently, we are deeply grateful for the hours recently gifted in conversation to the Holos core team by Daniel Christian Wahl which was recorded in four key themes:

In addition, we will add extracts on the vexed issue of our Western philosophical disconnect leading to the so-called left-brain hemisphere bias. 

Extracts, introduced by Holos-Earth members who posed the key questions, from these recording will be offered in our future on-line sessions. We believe they will serve to guide us as we navigate the turbulent transition into the next era of civilisation. 

We are in the process of preparing and organising a program for this event and invite your collaboration, proposals and participation.

We will organising Zoom calls separate from our normal lecture events.