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Ken Wilber
current suggested assesment
It has been said that Ken Wilber stands in the tradition of William James as
psychologist of the spiritual and "far and away the most cogent and penetrating
voice in the recent emergence of uniquely American wisdom." [ Tony
Schwartz Foreword to Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything]. His
first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, was written in 1973 when he was
only twenty three, and published in 1977, after being rejected by twenty
publishers. It became an immediate best-seller, and Wilber's output has been
prodigious and constant since. Although considered one of the founders
ofTranspersonal Psychology, he has since disassociated himself from the
movement.
"Wilber's approach appears to have provided a coherent vision that seamlessly weaves together truth-
claims from such fields as physics and biology; the eco-sciences; chaos theory and the systems sciences;
medicine, neurophysiology, biochemistry; art, poetry, and aesthetics in general; developmental
psychology and a spectrum of psychotherapeutic endeavors, from Freud to Jung to Kegan; the great
spiritual theorists from Plato and Plotinus in the West to Shankara and Nagarjuna in the East; the
modernists from Descartes and Locke to Kant; the Idealists from Schelling to Hegel; the postmodernists
from Foucault and Derrida to Taylor and Habermas; the major hermeneutic tradition, Dilthey to
Heidegger to Gadamer; the social systems theorists from Comte and Marx to Parsons and Luhmann; the
contemplative and mystical schools of the great meditative traditions, East and West, in the world's major
religious traditions."
An impressive claim. Wilber's critics may consider it a bit too impressive. But
this is not to deny that Ken Wilber in some respects seems like a latter day Pico
della Mirandola, unifying fields of knowledge that have for the most part been
separate and isolated since the Renaissance at least (Pico was a Renaissance
Neoplatonist who incorporated all fields of human knowledge into a single all-
embracing philosophical-religious system). It is just a question of whether -
giving the current exponential growth in human knowledge (in my mind a
symptom of a coming technological singularity) such a synthesis is even possible,
and if it is, how best to go about doing it? (and yes this is a subject that I myself
am also concerned with)
In any case, despite his powerful intellect, huge sweep of knowledge, and
tremendous sincerity, Wilber is not an original thinker in the style of, say,
Plato, Hegel, Spinoza, Whitehead, or Sri Aurobindo, to name just a few. Nor
I am sure would he claim to be (even if some of his followers do!). And like most
monolithic systematisers - like me, he is a Hedgehog, but he is far more extreme
than I am - he does tend to put things in boxes, in fact, he does this with far more
enthusiasm than I ever would. Time and again, he takes widely divergent maps
of consciousness and squeezes them into the same procrustean bed (for a good
example of this, see the table of charts at the back of Integral Psychology).
Perhaps because he reads so widely he does not have time to absorb in depth the
intricacies and details of each scientific field, and each spiritual teaching. Because
of this he tends to misunderstand teachers like Sri Aurobindo who go beyond the
simple Zen and Advaita-based monism of his own belief-system
Influences
Wilber draws eclectically from a large number of modern Western and traditional
Eastern philosophers and writers, almost all of whom he gives his own
interpretation on. These include evolutionary philosophers such as Hegel,
Schelling, Nicolai Hartmann, psychoanalytical theories of personality
and developmental psychologists like Piaget, postmodernists like Habermas, for
the West, and Indian, Tibetan, and Sino-Japanese non-dualist schools of
mysticism and metaphysics (Advaita Vedanta (especially Ramana Maharsha),
Madyamika (Nargajuna), Mahamudra in Tibetan Buddhism, and Ch'an/Zen) for
the East (along with western guru Da Free John / Adidam, who teaches the same
thing basically); and a few others like Plotinus, Sri Aurobindo (but not
Teilhard?), perennial traditionalists like Fritjof Schuon and Huston Smith, along
with flirtations with modern science, especially physics.
Wilbers I through V
The great 20th century linguistic philosopher Wittgenstein's ideas are divided
into two quite distinct phases, the Yonger or earlier Wittgenstein (Tractatus
Logicus Philosophicus) and the the later Wittgenstein (Philosophical
Investigations). Perhaps somewhat tongue in cheek, Ken has gone one better and
divided the development of his ideas through four stages or phases [see e.g.
The period from 1987 represents a period of deep personal crisis for Wilber, as
his wife develops cancer and he nurses his through her illness, treatment, and
conscious death in 1989. This period is chronicled in the book Grace
and Grit in 1991.
In 2000 Wilber founded the Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying issues
of science and society in an integral way. The term "Integral" refers to the Grand
Synthesis approach of his more recent (Phase IV and onwards) philosophy.
Wilber has since been involved in the development of an Integral psychology and
Integral politics. This marks his movement away from a theorising-only
approach, into the practical world as well; the difficult realm of "ahriman" as
Rudolph Steiner would say, which one must master if one is to have any effect or
make any serious change in the world.
See also The five phases (a concise summary of the five phases of the
development of Wilber's ideas), and Overview of Ken Wilber's Theory of
Integral Psychology by Don Salmon, PhD (a good overview of the first four
phases, written before Wilber announced Phase V)
Wilber on Wilber
One thing I like about Wilber is that he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously
(although at least one blog post indicates he is defensive about criticism). The
following two quotations from the wikipedia pageare worth repeating here,
lest the reader think that with all his incessant theorising he is trying to create an
absolute system of thought. These quotations are also good in that they reveal the
way Wilber goes about explaining things.
"In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray
symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded
glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to
be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson
but a life."
"I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybody - including me - has some
important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a
more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace."
"Introduction", Collected Works of Ken Wilber, vol. VIII, p. 49 and in A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision
for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, 2000
Ultimately Wilber is a relativist. Everyone has something true to say. I can
understand where he is coming from, and sympathise with it, but I find this
position simplistic.
"Post-metaphysical" Developments
In researching this critique on Ken Wilber, I was most interested to read this
small hagiographic document Where's Wilber At? The Further Evolution of
Ken Wilber's Integral Vision During the Dawn of the New Millennium, by Brad
Reynolds. In spite of the author's over-enthusiastic style and language, I did get a
genuine feel of Wilber as someone who has made a breakthrough to a higher state
of spiritual attainment (this marking the latest (Phase V) stage of his
development) [Afterword 17 Dec 06 - I now consider this assesment false, I was
just tapping into an Intermediate Zone daimon). However, Michel
Bauwens' negative experiences with Wilber seem to indicate no such thing, since
surely what spiritual attainment comes down to is how one has become a better
person, everything else regarding claims of worshipfulness is egotistic cultism
and pop-guruism? In any case, Reynolds suggests that most critics of Wilber are
criticising his early work, and that he has already taken their concerns on board,
addressed their concerns and modified his views accordingly. Perhaps some of
Wilber's future writings may address the important issues Arvan and I have raised
here.
And in fact, one of his students has replied to one of them, or so it seems from the
very informative entry on him in Wikipedia. I quote:
Some (namely, the Croatian esoteric philosopher Arvan Harvat) have noted that attempting to integrate a
thoroughly non-dual approach like Zen with an evolutionary view is ultimately impossible: if your model
includes all possibility, how can it change? Wilber's response is that his theory is actually a 'rational
reconstruction of a trans-rational state of consciousness'. In effect, Wilber concedes the ultimate futility -
from a rational perspective - of his quest. His writings point beyond the rational to the mystical.
I read Wilber's books many years ago; the early ones like The Spectrum of
Consciousness (Phase I) and The Atman Project (Phase II) when I was
still developing my own ideas. I quite enjoyed his work at the time, and was
absolutely impressed by the great scholarship and huge list of references, and the
way he integrated the stages of the various theories of psychological and spiritual
development into a single unifiedparadigm. I was however disappointed with the
follow-up to The Atman Project - called Up From Eden (also Phase II) - in
which he presented a very rigid and unbelievable view of the evolution of
consciousness (rather in the mould of the clockwork cosmologies
of Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Steiner, and Meher Baba.) I stopped reading him at that
point, and have only recently looked at his more recent work (Phase IV and V) ,
basically through the Web and reviews, and more recently a few books
themselves that I bought. ( A Brief History of Everything, Integral
Psychology. and The Revised, Second Edition of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.
He is an excellent writer, clear and easy to understand, but passionate and
enthusiastic as well. And there is no denying his ideas have developed
tremendously; indeed with the more flexible and complex "Waves, Streams,
States, and Lines" approach of his AQAL and "post-metaphysical AQAL"
integral philosophy, he resolves many (but by no means all) of the limitations of
his older books. Even so, there remains a certain rigidity, due to Wilber's inability
to go beyond a reliance on Advaitin-Vajrayana-Daist metaphysics and bridge the
divide between the (admittedly higher intuitive insights of the) dualistic rational
mind and monistic higher consciousness. This is exacerbated by Wilber's
tendency to retro-date his own interpretations so that they are made to seem part
of the perennial philosophy or authors he is referencing, in that way he pretends
he is not saying anything new but simply repeating what sages of old have said
(this is actually a common practice in premodern wisdom cultures). For example,
according to Wilber the Great Nest of Being has been described by Plotinus,
Vedanta, Huston Smith, etc etc. But nowhere will you find anything about a
holarchical nest of being in any of those teachings. An ontological gradation,
sure, but not a "holarchy". If he had said "Plotinus (or whoever) describes a
metaphysical hierarchy of being, which I have reinterpreeted as a non-
metaphysical holarchy" I would have no objection.
Add to that a fixed and simplistic metaphysic (yes I know that Ken doesn't like
metaphysics, but how else do you define his holons? :-) with a simplistic linear
evolution and a simplistic putdown of ecophilosophy, and, reading A Brief
History of Everything, I had the strange experience of passionately agreeing with
half of what Wilber is saying,a nd equally passionately disagreeing with the other
half!
Why has Wilber become so successful, when so many other innovative thinkers
have fallen by the wayside or continued but with little acknowledgment?
Personally I don't think he is any more profound than others. In fact, in many
places he is less profound and original than many other recent grand synthesisers
(look at Edward Haskell, Arthur M. Young, Erich Jantsch, Stan Gooch ...), while
Alan Watts had already who incorporated East and West in the 1960s, and for
that matter Blavatsky did in the late 19th century.
One explanation for his success might be that in the world of dry and meaningless
postmodern academia, with its fragmented disciplines and surface-bound
understanding, Wilber is a refreshing voice that points the way to deeper spiritual
states. In the first few chapters of The Eye of Spirit he speaks eloquently of
spiritual awareness. There are inspirational paragraphs dotted through A Brief
History of Everything, and so on. In a world where anyone who goes beyond or
beneath surface consciousness and expouses mystic truths is considered a nutter,
he has the courage of his convictions. And that is admirable.
A third reason for Wilber's success is that because his presentation is very simple,
even simplistic, generalization of philosophy (e.g. ecospiritualism is lumped with
materialism, Aurobindo's Supermind is identified with the Vedantic Atman, etc).
His appeal is to those who can no longer accommodate the limited perspectives of
materialism or exoteric religion, not to serious esotericists. In this way he is like
Rajneesh, except he's writing for academia and the intelligent layperson rather
than spiritual (but with ego) "seeking" middle-management late baby boomers
with lots of liquid assets. But this simplicity and overgeneralisation of opinions is
actually a bonus, because he is able to reach more people that way (just as
Rajneesh could). Not everyone has the patience to read Plotinus, Hegel, or
Aurobindo!
This last-mentioned fact, that Wilber is not writing for serious esotericists, but for
those who are between materialism and gnosis, is why Wilber can be best
understood as a bridge-builder rather than an esotericist. It seems that esotericists
in general seem to take a dislike to him (apart from myself; even if I'm critical, I
like the guy!), as do academics from the other side of the spectrum, who consider
him New Age (there's just no pleasing some people!). In fact, "New Age" - at
least in the common or limited definition - is what Wilber is not. His own
adaptation of the Great Chain of Being that serves as the central metaphor for
most esoteric philosophies and pre-modernist teachings, cultures and societies,
completely rejects metaphysics, in an effort to appeal to modernism and
postmodernism. Thus is quite materialistic, although it is
certainlyholomaterialism (emergent evolution) rather than reductionistic
hylomaterialism.
Finally, the pro-Wilberian reader may ask, why the Ken Bashing on this site?
(albeit only mild Ken bashing)
I agree that the mistakes that Wilber makes are no worse than those of other
universalists (Ed Haskell's Unified Science for example is extremely rigid and
simplistic in its classifications). In some ways, Wilber's "AQAL" theory is an
even better approximation, as a single "map" of reality, to the presentations of
Hegel, Blavatsky, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Haskell, etc.
Finally, if any of Wilber's students are reading this, and feel I have gotten
anything wrong in any of these pages, I ask you to please contact me so that such
mistakes can be rectified forthwith.
Links - Ken Wilber
"Official" Sites
Integral Institute
Ken Wilber - by Alex Burns - December 16, 2000 - good summary and
huge list of links
A Light in the Wilberness by Brian Van der Horst - written in 1997, this is
a sympathetic overview of Wilber's teachings upto and including phase IV
Ken Wilber: Understanding and Applying His Work - by Daryl S.
Paulson
For Ken Wilber - an artist's spiritual friend - Alex Grey - a short page
dedicated to Ken Wilber, with a visionary portrait
The Euro-report: around the world with Ken Wilber - by Brian Van der
Horst - a detailed sympathetic review of the the influence of AQAL and Wilber's
ideas in general in Europe.
Let me set the record straight - Interesting insider blog post by Matthew
Dallman on Integral-Institute / Integral University as merchandising. It fits with
my own more superficial and "outsider" impressions too. I have noticed a certain
uniquely American capitalist marketting approach on the desperation in the
Integral Institute websites. Does it mean anything? Yepo, it's just the New Age
and America trying to make a buck. Of course true spirituality is not about money
at all, but I wouldn't begrudge the Wilberians the opportunity to sell their wares.
On the otrher hand, Wilber's claim to Dallman's intellectual property is more
reprehensible.
Comparative
Other developments
Ken Wilber's AQAL Map and Beyond - website by Rolf Sattler, includes
the online book of the same name. The first part of this book discusses some of
the most fundamental limitations of Wilber’s map, and in the second part presents
a dynamic mandala that overcomes them.
Integral (Holistic) Mathematics - A sort of spin-off theory from Wilber's
integral philosophy (heterodox rather than orthodox)
This first version of a grand unified theory presents a rather simplistic, but still
interesting, thesis in which consciousness emerges from an underlying Ground of
Being, a transpersonal psychological idea, and that the further up one goes, the
more consciousness is split up into progressively more limited dualistic opposites.
The first split is between the Ground of Being and the Self, the second between
organism and environment, the third between ego and body, until finally one gets
to the fourth split, resulting in very limited persona-shadow of everyday
consciousness. It reminds me a lot of an inverted version of the Gurdjieff-
Ouspensky law of three (more laws with each level), although here there is a two-
fold rather than a three-fold division.
The goal in psychospiritual development here is to reunite each duality and
reclaim the unity underlying each split until finally one attains the monistic
cosmic consciousness of the consummate mystic and realises one's identity with
the Absolute Reality. The different strata or divisions are each associated with
different psychoanalytical methods, as shown in the diagram above.
Even so, Wilber may have been inflexible in rejecting his early ideas. As Stephen
Dinan points out
Grof has found that authentic regression into the deepest layers of traumas, blocks, and neuroses is vital to
healing and further growth. In this respect, his model of development aligns more with Carl Jung or
Michael Washburn, who see adult development as a process of spiraling through origins to reaccess lost
potentials of the psyche: a descent and return. The world of children, and especially fetuses, is charged
with an enlivening numinosity (sacredness), something adults typically lack.
Stephen Dinan Post-Modern Monk and Modern Shaman: The Theories of Ken Wilber and Stan Grof, Originally
appearing in The Inner Door
It is difficult to know how authentic this childhood or fetal numinosity is. I would
tend to be extremely sceptical of it, inasmuch as (in Grof's work, profound as it
may be) it is filtered through the lense of adult consciousness enhances or altered
through psychotropic drugs, hypnotic recall, free association, and so on). Small
children, like animals, live in a world of the immediate present, of sensation and
association and strong feelings, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily
spiritual or mystical (or conversely that they aren't, it doesn't matter either way.
But the fact that the experience is so widespread mean sit must amount
to something. As a pheonomeologist I accept the validity of all expriences first,
and then fit them into a unified theory later.
"Stanislav Grof is one of the world's greatest living psychologists. He is certainly a pioneer in every sense
of the word, and one of the most comprehensive psychological thinkers of our era. Fortunately, Stan and I
are in substantial agreement about many of the central issues in human psychology, the spectrum of
consciousness, and the realms of the human unconscious."
The Spectrum of Consciousness, Quest Books, 1977
Inspired by Tibetan Buddhism and Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber makes a radical
break from his original psycho-cosmology of Spectrum of Consciousness, and
in The Atman Project (1980), Up From Eden (1981),A Sociable God (1983)
and Eye To Eye (1983) proposes a paradigm of the Cycle of consciousness and
psychological development, from totally pre-personal to completely
transpersonal. Instead of the ego lifting its repression of the unconscious, Wilber
focused primarily upon the Great Chain of Being with an unveiling
an evolutionary pantheism in which each successive stage follows upon and
includes the capacities of those that preceeded it, while transcending their
weaknesses (this is to be a standard theme throughout Wilber's later
formulations). Unfortunately, he misunderstood Sri Aurobindo, and his
experience then, as now, was based on a more monistic Advaitin realisation. He
also still retains the Jungian and Freudian concept of a primordial psychic unity
right at the beginning; there is no real conception of an original Absolute, despite
the apparent emphasise on involution and evolution.
Wilber's Critique of the Romantic-Jungian position.
Wilber's central thesis is the "pre-trans" cycle of involution and evolution (or the
outward arc and the inward arc as he terms it). This is the idea that in it's
development the psyche - whether a newborn human infant or a prehistoric
hominid evolving greater intelligence, or the beginnings of myth and civilisation -
begins in a state of undifferentiated unconscious universalism. From there it
passes through stages of increasing individualisation and ego-development
(outward arc) whereby it is able to recognise itself as a separate entity. Only after
having attained this state is one able to progress on the mystical path and
transcend the ego in order to consciously return to the undifferentiated One
(inward arc).
His follow-up to The Atman Project - a book called Up From Eden - in which he
presented a historical linearisation of his sequence of planes of consciousness -
was a disappointment. I found it presented a very simplistic and rigid view of
the evolution of consciousness, albeit no worse than the clockwork cosmologies
of Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Steiner, and Meher Baba. It is certainly easier to simply
categorise planes of consciousness then to describe the organic evolution and
transformation of that consciousness though the various planes.
Although Ken Wilber's map of consciousness contains many fine and profound
elements, there are also points of weakness too, which arise when his theory is
accepted as a literal description of the evolution of consciousness. Just to list a
few (you can find more here):
1. The Pre-Trans theory means that children are unable to have genuine mystical
experiences (that is only possible he claims after the development of the adult
ego). But there is plenty of evidence that children can and do have mystical
(transpersonal) experiences no different from those of adults. (I read an
interesting paper that points this out, giving examples, unfortunately I don't
have it at hand - when I dig it up I'll put the reference on this page)
2. again, it is assumed that because infants cannot talk they exist in an amorphous
state of undifferentiated unity with their environment (a fallacy that dates back
to Freud).
3. the same assumption is made regarding animals.
4. it is also assumed that human evolution and civilisation proceeds from magical-
animistic to mythical to rational-scientific (an old Victorian chestnut, with
embellishments by Julian Jaynes The Bicameral Mind)
5. it is further assumed that "magical" thinking is considered inferior (pre-) to
rational thinking, rather than understood as mentation pertaining to a different
strata of existence.
In short, whereas Ken Wilber's powerful intellect and wide grasp of facts are not
disputed, his actual conclusions are both simplistic and unpersuasive. Worse, they
are not amenable to disproof as they ignore all facts that contradict them.
According to the Pre-Trans paradigm it is not possible for a child to have genuine
mystical experiences, because they are still at the "Pre" stage, and have not yet
developed a full ego and then graduated to "trans". However, T. Armstrong,
(1984) "Transpersonal experience in childhood" the Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, 16(2), 207-230 and more recently Jayne Gackenbach Childhood
Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and
Theoretical Integration both refer to transpersonal mystical experiences among
children. confirms this in more detail. All this makes Wilber's methodology seem
very dubious
Bibliography - 1980-1982:
The Atman Project : A Transpersonal View of Human Development
by Ken Wilber
Up from Eden : A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution
by Ken Wilber
applies the thesis of Atman Project to the evolution of humanity, of
consciousness, and the development of culture and civilization. The approach
draws heavily from Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind). Personally I don't believe in it, but there are
interesting parallels with Rudolph Steiner's theory of the development of human
consciousness
The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes: Exploring the Leading Edge
of Science, 1982
It is also at this period that Wilber adopts the paradigms of 'Holographic Mind'
taught by the Human Potential Movement, based on the teachings of Arthur
Koestler. In this incorporation of Koestler's thought into the Wilberian paradigm,
evolution is now understood as a holarchy, in which each layer is a whole (holon)
that is part of a greater whole, and each successive level - from matter to body to
mind to Spirit - encompasses and includes the former.
Bibliography - 1983-1987:
In 1995 Wilber published his 800 page opus Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The core
of its argument was a call to integrate "the Big Three"--the big three of art,
morals, and science; or the Beautiful, the Good, and the True; or I, we, and it; or
first-, second-, and third-person dimension. These are each associated with a
pronoun:
"Sir Karl Popper's 'three worlds' (subjective, cultural, and objective); Plato's the Good (as the ground of
morals, the 'we' of the Lower Left), the True (objective truth or it-propositions, the Right Hand), and the
Beautiful (the aesthetic beauty in the I of each beholder, the Upper Left); Habermas' three validity claims
(subjective truthfulness of I, cultural justness of we, and objective truth of its). Historically of great
importance, these are also the three major domains of Kant's three critiques: science or its (Critique of
Pure Reason), morals or we (Critique of Practical Reason), and art and self-expression of the I (Critique
of Judgment)."
An integral theory of consciousness; Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4 (1), pp.71-92, 1997
Here we see Wilber's representation of the four quadrants, with the characteristics
of intentional (individual subjective) , neurological (individual objective), cultural
(collective intersubjective) and social or socio-economic (collective
interobjective). In addition, each has its own pronoun, the personal pronouns for
the interior quadrants (individual subjective being "I" and the collective
subjective "We" or "You"), and the impersonal (including a plural "it") for the
exterior ones.
Or in other word Arts (Upper Left), Morals (Lower Left) and Science (Upper and
Lower Right ); the True (Upper and Lower Right ), the Good (Lower Left) and
the Beautiful (Upper Left); and Self (Upper Left), Culture (Lower Left), and
Nature (Upper and Lower Right).
And indeed anyone who has studied comparitive esotericism may have many
examples of Archetypal triads. These might range from the theological trinities of
many religions (Egyptian, Hindu, Christian, etc), to the early Vedantics (Being,
Consciousness Bliss), Samkhyans (three gunas), Neoplatonists (Abiding,
Precession, Return; and Being, Life, and Mind, etc), Gnostics, Kashmir Shaivites,
Tantriks (three main nadis), andTaoists (three Tan Tiens), to twentieth century
esotericists like Steiner (Thinking, Feeling, Willing, three streams of evolution,
and the Three Fold Commonwealth), Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Law of Three),
and many others have done. However it seems to the present author that Wilber's
triads don't match the conventional ones. The two left-hand quadrants are often
similar - corresponding to Steiner's or Jung's feeling principle (Arts and Morals,
or the Beautiful and the Good). The two right ones which he groups together
correspond to the thinking principle. There is a match here with some of the
polarities in Stan Gooch's Total Man. So it is not a true triad, but rather a
quaternity, which indeed is the basis of Wilber's system.
The Holarchy
This Phase of Wilber's work,
further refined in follow up works
like Eye of Spirit (1997), Integral
Psychology (2000) and the grandly
but appropriately named A Theory
of Everything (2000), Wilber's
edifice reaches its maximum
complexity, with the development
of a so-called "integral theory of
consciousness." Here he
incorporates the physical,
neurological, social, cultural,
philosophical, and spiritual
dimensions of human
consciousness, creating an even
more detailed map than his earlier
ones, known as AQAL - all
quadrants, all levels.
Each quadrant even has its own Great Chain of Being, although Wilber himself
rejects the latter term.
The Great Chain is perhaps a misnomer. It is not a linear chain but a series of enfolded spheres: it is said
that spirit transcends but includes soul, which transcends but includes mind, which transcends but
includes body, which transcends but includes matter. Accordingly, this is more accurately called "the
Great Nest of Being."
Ken Wilber Waves, Streams, States, and Self--A Summary of My Psychological Model (Or, Outline of An Integral
Psychology)
"the world is not composed of atoms or symbols or cells or concepts. It is composed of holons"
According to Koestler, a holon is both itself a whole while at the same time being
a part of a larger whole, so that reality becomes a series of nested Holons. But
unlike Koestler, Wilber describes the characteristics of holons in terms of vitalism
and teleology. Holons have drives to maintain their wholeness and their partness,
they are units of consciousness. This Consciousness is diffused through all four of
their quadrants.
"consciousness actually exists distributed across all four quadrants with all of their various levels and
dimensions. There is no one quadrant (and certainly no one level) to which we can point and say, There is
consciousness. Consciousness is in no way localized in that fashion. It is true that the Upper Left quadrant
is the locus of consciousness as it appears in an individual, but that's the point: as it appears in an
individual. Yet consciousness on the whole is anchored in, and distributed across, all of the quadrants
intentional, behavioral, cultural, and
social. If you "erase" any quadrant, The AQAL Holon
they all disappear, because each is
intrinsically necessary for the
existence of the others."
Eye of Spirit p. 273
" "Structure" indicates that each stage has a holistic pattern that blends all of its elements into a structured
whole. "Level" means that these patterns tend to unfold in a relational sequence, with each senior wave
transcending but including its juniors (just as cells transcend but include molecules, which transcend but
include atoms, which transcend but include quarks). And "wave" indicates that these levels nonetheless
are fluid and flowing affairs; the senior dimensions do not sit on top of the junior dimensions like rungs in
a ladder, but rather embrace and enfold them (just as cells embrace molecules which embrace atoms).
These developmental stages appear to be concentric spheres of increasing embrace, inclusion, and holistic
capacity."
Ken Wilber Waves, Streams, States, and Self--A Summary of My Psychological Model (Or, Outline of An Integral
Psychology)
Moreover, as the diagram indicates, each higher holon includes the ones beneath
it, and is itself included in the ones above it. The whole thing is summed up in the
following cosmological diagram
But while impressive, this diagram also contains a lot of arbitrary assumptions,
and there are many inconsistencies between quadrants and levels, and indeed in
Wilber's entire holistic AQAL philosophy, as explained here
It is at the Wilber-IV phase that he proposes 4 stages of his own writings, and
critiques his earlier work. As he later explains, "the earlier books (are
only)...useful in forming the subcomponents of a more integral theory." [Wilber,
forward to Frank Visser, Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion 2003]. Of these earlier
books, Phase I, which he calls his Romantic-Jungian stage, is the result of his
own Pre-Trans fallacy, whilst Phase II with its Involution-Evolution cycle he
sometimes refers to as (among other things) the Aurobindo/Wilber model [Eye of
Spirit], thus associating his own misreading of Aurobindo with Aurobindo
himself.
Wilber uses the word "integral" - meaning "to integrate, to bring together, to join,
to link, to embrace. Not in the sense of uniformity...but in the sense of unity-in-
diversity, shared commonalities along with our wonderful differences" [A Theory
of Everything] to describe his philosophy. In 1999 some Sri Aurobindo followers
expressed concern at Ken Wilber using the term "Integral Psychology" as a title
for one of his new books, as this term has already been used by the Aurobindo
community to refer to a spiritual/esoteric/occult psychology based on the
teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In the 1960s Swami Satchidananda
had also adopted the Aurobindoan term "Integral Yoga" for his own completely
unrelated teaching). However, it seems that Wilber himself had actually adopted
the term from Swiss cultural historian Gene Gebser (1905-1973) as early as the
mid 1970s [Where's Wilber At? p.28 n.8]
Wilber's definition is much more limited than my use of the term, because he is
concerned here only with one aspect, all--inclusiveness, and does not consider (at
least not in his definition) the other, equally important aspects of evolutionary
transformation (although this is implicit in his own developmental model)
and Divinisation (which he denies in favour of old-fashioned Daist and Buddhist
nonduality)
...Propositions in the Upper Right are said to be true if they match a specific fact or objective state of
affairs: a statement is true if the map matches the territory - so-called objective truth representational truth
and the correspondence theory of truth)....
In the Upper Left quadrant, on the other hand, a statement is valid...if it authentically expresses a
subjective reality...not just truth but truthfulness or sincerity...
In the Lower Right quadrant of interobjective realities, the validity claim is concerned with how
individual holons fit together into interlocking systems; truth in this quadrant concerns the elucidating of
the networks of mutually reciprocal systems within systems of complex interaction...(the) functional fit.
In the Lower Left quadrant, on the other hand, we are concerned not simply with how objects fit together
in physical space, but how subjects fit together in cultural space. The validity claim here concerns the way
that my subjective consciousness fits with your subjective consciousness, and how we together decide
upon those cultural practices that allow us to inhabit the same cultural space...in other words, concerns
the appropriateness or justness of our statements and actions (ethics in the broadest sense).
An integral theory of consciousness
The above represents a very profound approach, which can serves as contributing
to the foundation for a new universal science. The only thing I would disagree
with is, why only four types of validity claim? Yes I know this is tied in with the
four-quadrant model, but one could equally posit seven (corresponding
to Christopher Hill's Phoneix Evolution), seven or twelve (as in
classical astrology), or more realities or perspectives of consciousness, each with
their own truth and justification.
In the late part of this present phase though, Wilber publishes Integral
Psychologywhich integrates over a hundred different psychologies and models of
the levels of consciousness, East and West, premodern, modern, and postmodern;
and the grandly but appropriately named A Theory of Everything, in which he
proposes the intriguing idea of the "Human Consciousness Project" (A Theory of
Everything, p. 7). This would involve the mapping of consciousness found in
cross-cultural variations of the Great Chain or Nest of Being, the Four Quadrants,
and the "waves and streams" of consciousness of the Spiral Dynamics of Clare
Graves, Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, to create an "all-level, all-quadrant"
model of consciousness, equivalent to, or even greater than in scope and
importance, the Human Genome Project.
Bibliography 1995-2001:
The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad, 1997
Shambhala Publications, 432 pages
Also
Wake Up, The AQAL Matrix Has You: AQAL Matrix Revolution - a
funky presentation
Since I first posted this page more than five years ago, back in 2004, what was
then called Post-Metaphysical AQAL, and is now called Integral Post-
Metaphysics, has become the official philosophy of the mainstream integral
community. Its most important features are: the rejection of Huston
Smith's perennialist metaphysics (itself based on Vivekananda Neo-Hinduism and
Guenon-Schuon Traditionalism), and apostmodernist rejection of objective reality
(which is dismissed as a "myth of the given"), in favour of emphgasis on
perspectives
The impression I get from reading Brad Reynolds on-line chapter, is that Wilber
V represents a transformation in Wilber's own personal outlook, a spiritual
breakthrough or leap to a higher level. But, as Wilber himself pointed out in
his Wilber III phase, and in his critique of his guru Adi Da, not all developments
of the various components of the being proceed at the same pace. So whilst
Wilber's spiritual development might have progressed (at least this is the
impression I have from reading Brad Reynolds' hagiography of him, in that I did
contact a spiritual energy when reading it, but perhaps I was just picking up the
psycho-spiritual energy and would probably contact the same energy when
reading any devotional material; although I don't know enough to make a definite
unbiased statement), the intellectual position remains strongly intellectual, and at
leats as far as external writing goes, exotyeric and non-gnostic
Wilber's problem unfortunately is that he throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Recognising certain unnecssary intellectual abstractions of non-
gnostic metaphysics and trying to attain a sort of Buddhistic nonduality purity
(through his enthusiasm for Nagarjuna), he ditches
authentic esoteric or gnostic metaphysics as well. But without metaphysics, there
cannot be emanation or planes of existence, so Wilber shifts his focus to a here-
now evolutionary view based on Rupert Sheldrake's notion of morphogenetic
fields and formative causation, applying it now to all four quadrants. Ironically, I
remember reading once in an issue of ReVision(maybe a quarter of a century ago)
where Wilber was dismissive of Sheldrake because the latter does not have a
proper hierarchy of being!
Ken Wilber diagram on "The Inheritance of the Past in All Four Quadrants"
from Excerpt A: An Integral Age at the Leading Edge
- Part I. Kosmic Karma: Why is the Present a Little Bit Like the Past?
Phase V also sees Wilber retain and further develop his and Don Beck's revised
version of Spiral Dynamics, using it as a paradigm for human evolution. He also
writes a curious novel attacking baby boomers (of which he himself is one), and
further works on his Integral Institute, which has now established a number of
new projects like Integral University and the rather hip-sounded Integral
Naked (although if you expect to find sexy young new paradigm philosophers
doing tantric practice in the altogether you'll be disappointed).
From what I have read of and about Ken Wilber, I would have to say the latter.
For the rest though, it's an intersting diagram. While simplistic and railroading all
these different systems intoa single developmental spectrum, I tend to look more
favourably now at Wilber, or at least some of his work, than i used to.
Further reading
See also Where's Wilber At? The Further Evolution of Ken Wilber's
Integral Vision During the Dawn of the New Millennium, by Brad Reynolds.
Unfortunately, the hagiographic style of the author is rather hard to take, and the
whole thing reads rather like an over-enthusiastic devotee praising their guru-
master, or the writings of a convert to a new religion (for the record, Wilber
himself denies he is any sort of guru, preferring to consider himself a pandit or
scholar of spiritual teachings). If you stomach (or ignore) that side of it, this essay
gives some good pointers of Wilber's current approach.
Bibliography - 2001-present:
Ken Wilber, Speaking of Everything, live audio interview with the world's most
widely published spiritual philosopher. Just $24.95 for 2 CDs plus Alex Grey
illustrated Glossary pamphlet.