Historical background to the South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry

IMPORTANT NOTE  This history covers the period up to 29 July 2016, when the building pictured below was sold

The Centre in New Zealand, completed October 2000. This photo taken in March, 2007. This Centre was previously named the International Centre for Co-operative Inquiry (ICCI) which was for ten years from January 1990 to January 2000 located in a restored farmhouse, near Volterra, in central Tuscany, Italy (see the photo below). Over each of these ten years ICCI hosted one or two residential co-operative inquiries on transpersonal themes, with participants from Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, the UK and the USA. Also for each of these ten years I commuted for several months to New Zealand running a variety of courses and workshops, and launching more transpersonal co-operative inquiries. So from the beginning ICCI had a strong connection with New Zealand, and there have been many visits to and fro by friends, colleagues and co-inquirers.                                                               The Centre in Tuscany. This photo taken in March, 1990.During the ten years in Italy, I wrote five books relevant to the interests of ICCI: Feeling and Personhood: Psychology in Another Key, London, Sage, 1992; Group Facilitation: Theories and Models for Practice, London, Kogan Page, 1993; Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition, London, Sage, 1996; Sacred Science: Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle, Ross-on-Wye, PCCS Books, 1998; The Complete Facilitator’s Handbook, London, Kogan Page, 1999. Sacred Science includes full reports of the transpersonal co-operative inquiries which took place in Italy and New Zealand, from 1990 to 1997 inclusive, and of two earlier ones in the UK.

ICCI was closed down and the property sold on 31 January 2000. The work in Italy  has been relocated to the new building in New Zealand  (top photo above), to launch an expanded phase of activity. The new name – South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry – affirms the significance both of its new location and of its commitment to individual and cultural as well as co-operative forms of human inquiry.  

Barbara Langton and I purchased two hectares of land in the countryside north of Auckland in January 1999. A new building, pictured above, was completed in October 2000. The existing cottage on the property was renovated in 2001 and has become an important workshop space. An inaugural international inquiry was held here in February 2002, followed later in the same year by workshops in the USA and UK. For current and forthcoming activities, see Courses and workshops.

The original ICCI website at www.sirt.pisa.it/iccihas now been closed down.

JohnHeron                                                                                                          January 2003