Future Sense: Five Explorations of Whole Intelligence for a World Thats Waking Up

Future Sense offers an interweaving of global and personal themes: a far-reaching synthesis of ideas in tune with emerging global developments. It points to how greater whole intelligence can strengthen us in transforming the world and our lives at the same time.

Faced with today’s enormous global challenges, humanity often seems ineffective, distracted, or powerless. Many are pessimistic about their descendants’ future chances. In Future Sense however, Malcolm Parlett shows us that tackling global problems begins in the microcosm of our own lives. Our interconnectedness means that changes in the small worlds we inhabit have ripple effects in the big world. Each of us – constructively or not – is co-creating humanity’s future.

Based on the author’s experience as a psychological practitioner and fellow human being, the book is structured around five explorations. Each describes a key dimension of whole intelligence, revealed through observations, stories and insights related to individual lives, applications in human systems and to world issues. It provides a useful and accessible language to use across specialities.

Future Sense explores whole intelligence – as demonstrated when an individual, community, or organisation functions in ways that are instantly recognisable as creative, and that reflect the best human values.
This is a book of big ideas, psychological insights, and a different form of grassroots activism.

Malcolm Parlett has worked as a psychological researcher, teacher, consultant, therapist, group leader, editor, and coach. He has held three visiting professorships, and is a leading thinker in the field of Gestalt studies. His interests include the environment, politics, and the intergenerational effects of war; also travel, grandparenting and friendship. He lives in Oxford.