Deep Democracy is a natural process that takes place in all processes of community building, but often goes unnoticed or unused. Just as conventional democracy strives to involve all individuals involved in the political process, Deep Democracy goes a step further in striving for a deeper level of dialogue and inclusiveness that makes room for all people (with the individual right to vote) and for all different and competing views, tensions, feelings and communication styles – in a way that supports the awareness of relative rank, power and privilege, and the potential of these forces to marginalise other views, individuals and groups.
Developing awareness of and appreciation of all levels of experience
Mindell coined the term Deep Democracy to describe the importance of developing awareness of and appreciation of all levels of experience. Deep Democracy further formulates quantum mechanics in terms of the relationship between the observer, the event, and the method of observation. It is a radically new way of thinking about reality, and sheds new light on the relative value of scientific and philosophical approaches that attempt to explain reality by focusing on one-dimensional aspects but fail to address the phenomena of all dimensions.
three different levels of consciousness:
Mindell formulates the observation process on three different levels of consciousness: the measurable, objective and easily expressed aspects of our experience; the non-measurable, subjective and expressable aspects; and the deepest, unspeakable. Deep Democracy recognizes the equal importance of consensus reality issues and concerns (measurable objective descriptions of problems and people), dreamland figures (roles, ghosts, directions), and essence experiences (common ground) that connect everyone. It shows how we can experience the universe more fully by appreciating all the different aspects of our consciousness equally.
source: http://www.deepdemocracyinstitute.org/deep-democracy-explained.html
Arnold Mindell speaks about Worldwork, London 2008Part
2: Deep Democracy and Worldwork
also see http://www.worldwork.org/