Steve McIntosh

Stephen Ian “Steve” McIntosh (born July 3, 1960) is an American author, activist, lawyer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and president of Now & Zen, Inc., and an influential writer in the field of integral thought.

Biography

Steve McIntosh is a first-generation American, born in Norwalk, Connecticut to an English mother and Australian father. He grew up in Los Angeles, with his first career focusing on Olympic-class bicycle racing, including riding in America’s “National Tour”, the Coors Classic bicycle race in 1980 and 1981. In 1983 he was a pioneer in the new sport of mountain bicycle racing, riding for Ross Bicycles, the world’s first factory sponsored mountain bike racing team.

In 1984 he graduated from the University of Southern California business school, winning the USC Entrepreneur Program’s “Best Business Plan Award”. In 1987 he graduated among the top of his class from the University of Virginia Law School where he served as articles editor of the Virginia Law Review. After becoming a member of the California Bar in 1987, he worked for the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro. In 1990 he moved to Boulder, Colorado to become vice president of the start-up environmental products company, Earth Wise, Inc. In 1991 Earth Wise was acquired by Celestial Seasonings tea company, where McIntosh served as an executive officer and general counsel. In 1995 he left Celestial Seasonings to found Now & Zen, Inc., serving as the company’s CEO until 2012.

Now & Zen, Inc., headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, is a brand of "natural lifestyle products", featuring the famous Zen Alarm Clock, which wakes users gradually with a series of acoustic chimes. All Now & Zen products have been conceived and designed by McIntosh, with a brand aesthetic that combines the harmonic proportions of sacred geometry with motifs from traditional Japanese culture. The company’s mission is to provide products that remind people that they live in the presence of the sacred, however they may define it.

As a result of his focus on progressive spirituality and cultural evolution, in the late 1990s McIntosh became involved in the integral movement. In 2000 he was invited to join leading integral author Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, where he served in both the Integral Art branch and the Integral Business branch. He left the Integral Institute on good terms in 2002 in order to establish himself as an independent voice in the integral movement. This led to the 2007 publication of his first book: Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview Is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality (Paragon House 2007). Integral Consciousness was followed in 2012 by McIntosh's second integral philosophy book, Evolution's Purpose: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins (Select Books, New York). Then in 2015 his third spiritual philosophy book was published: The Presence of the Infinite: The Spiritual Experience of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness (Quest Books).

McIntosh divides his time between his home in Boulder, Colorado, and his desert retreat in Castle Valley, Utah, near Moab. He is married to Tehya McIntosh, and has two sons, Ian and Peter.

Integral movement

In addition to his books, McIntosh is the author of a variety of scholarly articles on integral philosophy and politics. McIntosh has also been featured in numerous interviews in the growing on-line seminar sector, including Beyond Awakening, The Daily Evolver, and What Is Enlightenment? Magazine. He has also been interviewed by New Dimensions Radio, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and other progressive media.

In 2012 McIntosh partnered with integral authors and former EnlightenNext editors Carter Phipps and Elizabeth Debold, together with University of Colorado philosopher Michael E. Zimmerman, to found the think tank, The Institute for Cultural Evolution. Through a series of targeted campaigns, this non-profit social policy foundation is working to evolve public opinion and build political will around difficult issues affected by the culture war, such as climate change. In 2015, the work of the Institute for Cultural Evolution began to receive national media attention for its work on political polarization.