Something that became immediately apparent in that moment was that Gebser was writing from another place of knowing. It felt non-conceptual, like when one read the great mystical texts like The Cloud of Unknowing, or the Zen masters and Chan poets. It landed in that way. In retrospect, the most appropriate way of describing this first reading experience was that it felt like a kind of spiritual transmission. This is what writing from integral consciousness feels like, the book seemed to say.