Ken Wilber

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Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (b. January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, USA), is an American integral thinker and author. Working outside the academic mainstream, he has drawn on a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, philosophy, mysticism, postmodernism, science and systems theory to form what he calls an integral theory of consciousness.

He is a leading proponent and seen by some as a controversial member of the Integral thought movement. He founded the Integral Institute in 1998.

He is a practicing Buddhist, and the beliefs of Madhyamika Buddhism, particularly as articulated in the philosophy of Nagarjuna, underpin his work.^[1]

Ken Wilber was born on January 31, 1949 in Oklahoma City, OK. In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med student at Duke University,^[2] and almost immediately experienced a disillusionment with what science had to offer. He became inspired by Eastern literature, particularly the Tao Te Ching, which catalyzed his conversion to Buddhism. He left Duke, enrolled in the University of Nebraska, and completed a bachelor's degree with a double major in chemistry and biology.

In 1973, Wilber completed his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, in which he sought to integrate knowledge from disparate fields. After rejections by more than twenty publishers it was finally accepted in 1977 by Quest Books, and he spent a year giving lectures and workshops before going back to writing. He also helped to launch the journal ReVision in 1978.

In 1983, Wilber married his second wife, Terry (Treya) Killam, and shortly thereafter Treya was diagnosed with breast cancer. From the fall of 1984 until 1987, Wilber gave up most of his writing to focus on caring for her. Treya died in January, 1989, and their joint experience was recorded in the book Grace and Grit (1991).

More recently, Wilber wrote Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES), (1995), the massive first volume of a proposed Kosmos Trilogy. A Brief History of Everything (1996) was the non-footnoted, popularized summary of SES in the form of an imagined, extended interview. The Eye of Spirit (1997) was a compilation of articles he had written for the journal ReVision on the relationship between science and religion. Throughout 1997 he had kept journals of his personal experiences, which were published in 1999 as One Taste, a Buddhist term for cosmic or unitary consciousness. Over the next two years his publisher, Shambhala Publications, took the unusual step of releasing eight re-edited volumes of his Collected Works. In 1999, he finished Integral Psychology and wrote A Theory of Everything (2000). In A Theory of Everything Wilber attempts to bridge business, politics, science and spirituality and show how they integrate with theories of developmental psychology, such as Spiral Dynamics. His most recently published book, Boomeritis (2002), is a novel which attempts to expose the egotism of his generation.

Since 1987, Wilber has lived in Denver, Colorado, where he is working on his Kosmos trilogy and overseeing the work of the Integral Institute.

Template:Integral thought One of Wilber's main interests is in mapping what he calls the neo-perennial philosophy, an integration of traditional mysticism (typified by Aldous Huxley's perennial philosophy) with an account of cosmic evolution akin to that of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo. He rejects the anti-evolutionary view of history as a regression from past ages or yugas that the perennial philosophy traditionally assumes. Instead, he embraces the traditionally Western notion of the great chain of being. As in the work of Jean Gebser, this great chain (or "nest") is ever-present while "relatively" unfolding throughout this material manifestation. As a Mahayana Buddhist, he believes that reality is ultimately a nondual union of emptiness and form, with form being innately subject to development over time. Wilber's writings are ultimately attempts to describe how form undergoes change, and how sentient beings in the world of form participate in this change until they finally realize their true identity as emptiness.

A key idea in Wilber's philosophical approach is the holon, which came from the writings of Arthur Koestler. In considering what might be the basic building blocks of existence, he observed that it seems every entity and concept shares a dual nature: as a whole in itself, and as a part of some other thing. For example, although you are made of parts (your nervous system, your skeletal system, etc.), you are also a part of your society, and of your nation-state. A letter is a self-existing entity and simultaneously an integral part of a word. Everything from quarks to matter to energy to ideas can be looked at in this way — everything in creation except perhaps creation itself is a holon.

In his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Wilber outlines approximately twenty tenets that characterize all holons.^[3] These tenets form the basis of Wilber's model of manifest reality. Beyond this, Wilber's view is that the totality of manifest reality itself is just a wave on the ocean of the unmanifest, of Emptiness itself, which is not a holon.

AQAL (pronounced aqual or ah-qwul) represents the core of Wilber's recent work. AQAL stands for "all quadrants all levels", but equally connotes 'all lines', 'all states' and 'all types'. These are the five irreducible categories of Wilber's model of manifest existence. In order for an account of the Kosmos to be complete, Wilber believes that it must include each of these five categories. For Wilber, only such an account can be accurately called "integral." In the essay, "Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This Together", Wilber describes AQAL as "one suggested architecture of the Kosmos".^[4]

All of Wilber's AQAL categories — quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types—relate to relative truth in the two truths doctrine of Buddhism, to which he subscribes. According to Wilber, none of them are true in an absolute sense: only formless awareness, "the simple feeling of being," exists absolutely.

Wilber purports that many claims about non-rational states make a mistake he calls the pre/trans fallacy. According to Wilber, the non-rational stages of consciousness (what Wilber calls "pre-rational" and "trans-rational" stages) can be easily confused with one another. One can reduce supposed "trans-rational" spiritual realization to pre-rational regression, or one can elevate pre-rational states to the trans-rational domain. For example, Wilber claims that Freud and Jung commit this fallacy. Freud considered mystical realizations to be regressions to infantile oceanic states. Wilber alleges that Freud thus commits a fallacy of reduction. Wilber thinks that Jung commits the converse form of the same mistake by considering pre-rational myths to reflect divine realizations. Likewise, pre-rational states such as tribal thinking, groupthink, and the occultism of the Nazis or Charles Manson may be misidentified as post-rational states. Interestingly, Wilber characterizes himself as having fallen victim to the pre/trans fallacy in his early work.

Wilber describes the current state of the "hard" sciences as limited to "narrow science", which only allows evidence from the lowest realm of consciousness, the sensorimotor (the five senses and their extensions). What he calls "broad science" would include evidence from logic, mathematics, and from the symbolic, hermeneutical, and other realms of consciousness. Ultimately and ideally, broad science would include the testimony of meditators and spiritual practitioners. Wilber's own conception of science includes both narrow science and broad science, e.g, using electroencephalogram machines and other technologies to test the experiences of meditators and other spiritual practitioners, creating what Wilber calls "integral science".

According to Wilber's theory, narrow science trumps narrow religion, but broad science trumps narrow science. That is, the natural sciences provide a more inclusive, accurate account of reality than any of the particular exoteric religious traditions. But an integral approach that evaluates both religious claims and scientific claims based on intersubjectivity is preferable to narrow science.

In 2005, at the launch of the Integral Spiritual Center, a branch of the Integral Institute, Wilber presented a 118-page rough draft summary of his two forthcoming books.^[5] The essay is entitled "What is Integral Spirituality?", and contains several new ideas, including Integral post-metaphysics and the Wilber-Combs lattice.

"Integral post-metaphysics" is the term Wilber has recently given to his attempts to reconstruct the world's spiritual-religious traditions in a way that accounts for the modern and post-modern criticisms of those traditions.

The Wilber-Combs Lattice is a conceptual model of consciousness developed by Wilber and Allan Combs. It is a grid with sequential states of consciousness on the x axis (from left to right) and with developmental structures, or levels, of consciousness on the y axis (from bottom to top). This lattice illustrates how each structure of consciousness interprets experiences of different states of consciousness, including mystical states, in different ways.

Wilber's conception of the perennial philosophy has been primarily influenced by Madhyamika Buddhism, particularly as articulated in the philosophy of Nagarjuna.^[6] Wilber has been a dedicated practitioner of Buddhist meditation since his college years, and has studied under some widely recognized meditators, such as Dainin Katagiri, Maezumi Roshi, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche and Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. The nondual mysticism of Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Plotinus, Ramana Maharshi, and Andrew Cohen, as well as the teaching and works of Adi Da, which Wilber has on several occasions singled out for the highest praise (while expressing reservations about Adi Da as a teacher) ^[7], are also strong influences. These influences have led Wilber to assert that those desiring enlightenment should seek out "the outlaws, the living terrors, the Rude Boys and Nasty Girls of God realization" and that "Every deeply enlightened teacher I have known has been a Rude Boy or Nasty Girl". ^[8]

Wilber's conception of evolution or psychological development draws on Aurobindo, Adi Da, Andrew Cohen, Jean Gebser, the great chain of being, German idealism, Erich Jantsch, Jean Piaget, Abraham Maslow, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, Howard Gardner, Clare W. Graves, Robert Kegan and Spiral Dynamics.

Wilber has a growing influence among business and organizational theorists, political analysts, community change agents, and especially among religious thinkers seeking to reframe conventional theology. He is currently associated with a number of spiritual teachers, such as Andrew Cohen, Lama Surya Das, Father Thomas Keating, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and religious scholar Ronald H. Miller, who have, to a greater or lesser degree, expressed assent to his theoretical approach.

However, Wilber's work has been largely ignored by academia. He has published just two articles in one peer-reviewed academic journal (the Journal of Consciousness Studies), and he is rarely mentioned in other peer-reviewed academic journals.^[9]

The Croatian esoteric philosopher Arvan Harvat has argued that attempting to integrate a thoroughly nondual approach like Zen with an evolutionary view is ultimately impossible: if your model includes absolutely everything, how can it change? Wilber's response is that it is only form that evolves; emptiness remains unchanged. Trans-conceptually, one can embrace one's own transrational (and hence ultimately ineffable) experience-awareness, and this is what constitutes true nondual enlightenment.^[10]

Others, including Georg Feuerstein, argue that Wilber's Neo-perennial Philosophy is a confusion between concepts of differentiated nondualist doctrines (such as Plotinus's neo-Platonism and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta) and truly unitary monism of Zen and Advaita Vedanta: the former philosophies distinguish between emanated or manifest reality and the unchangeable source, while for Zen or Advaita the Source and reality are essentially one and the same. This is expressed in a famous Zen saying of which Wilber is quite fond: "Nirvana is Samsara fully realized; Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood." ^{[citation needed]}

Wilber's response to criticisms like this is typified in this quotation from the extended audio interview Speaking of Everything: "...when I lay out the stages of development, I am giving what I explicitly called in SES a ‘rational reconstruction of the trans-rational’.^[11] Thus, differentiated non-dual doctrines and truly unitary monist doctrines are describing (or coming from) different levels of consciousness, the former from a causal perspective that differentiates between emptiness and form (and hence must see form as emanationary), and the latter from a nondual perspective that equates emptiness and form (and hence renders emanation a redundant concept).

Much criticism of Wilber's integral model (for example, some of the "Integral World Reading Room" essays) concerns specific technical matters and ignores the fact that Wilber's paradigm is based essentially on "orienting generalizations", the basic abstract common denominators of specific fields of human knowledge.^[12] However, in an online critique entitled Bald Ambition, Jeff Meyerhoff takes issue with Wilber’s methodology and philosophy, arguing that Wilber does not actually use his own method of "orienting generalizations":

Wilber’s unstated philosophical assumptions are both problematic in themselves and prejudiced against differing philosophical commitments which, because they contradict Wilber’s assumptions, are excluded from his inclusive synthesis.

— Jeff Meyerhoff, ^[13]

Meyerhoff argues that people who are actually working in the fields which Wilber attempts to integrate strongly disagree with the way that Wilber portrays the consensus of those fields. Wilber's overall synthesis, on this view, is thus unreliable.

These are not the only criticisms of various aspects of Wilber's work or his work as a whole. Chris Cowan, who has broken with his former co-worker, Don Beck, over his and Wilber's use of Spiral Dynamics theory, has written a strong rebuttal against Wilber's concept of the so-called "mean green meme" (MGM).^[14] So has Bill Moyer, who, in contrast, refers to the "Healthy Green Meme".^[15] (Cowan also responds to Wilber's reply to his and Moyer's positions.^[16]) Both Cowan^[17] and Ray Harris are critical of Wilber and Beck's "Boomeritis" analysis of culture; Harris argues that the critique is actually politically reactionary.^[18]

Wilber's arguments against Darwinism in A Brief History of Everything are said – by David Lane^[19], by a number of skeptics including Robert Todd Carroll,^[20] and even in discussion on Wilber's own Integral Naked forum^[21] – to indicate a lack of scientific understanding on his part. As a result of the Integral Naked discussion, Wilber wrote a strongly worded reply (which appears on the "Vomiting Confetti" blog^[22]) which contains a number of controversial claims, and in which, among other things, he advises his students to read Intelligent Design theorist Michael Behe (a member of the Discovery Institute), rather than Richard Dawkins.

Wilber has also been taken to task regarding his interpretations of Shabd Yoga (by David Lane^[23]), Mahayana Buddhism (by Arvan Harvat ^[24]), and Sri Aurobindo (by Rod Hemsell ^[25] and others). Matthew Dallman^[26] and Michel Bauwens^[27] have pointed out certain cultic elements associated with Wilber and some aspects of the current integral movement. They point to the lack of openness to criticism, the lack of analysis of Wilber's assumptions, and to the use of the Spiral Dynamics-based colour coding to dismiss arguments from critics. The emphasis on Wilber and his Integral Institute as the central focus of integral thought is seen as stifling to the development of integral as a diverse, participative process or, ultimately, as a dialectical worldview.

William Irwin Thompson, who shares Wilber's admiration for Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, and Eastern philosophy, has harshly criticized Wilber's theoretical approach and scholarly achievements. In his 1996 book Coming into Being: Texts and Artifacts in the Evolution of Consciousness, Thompson characterized Wilber's approach as "compulsive mappings and textbook categorizations" and as excessively objectifying and "masculinist".^[28] In a subsequent interview, Wilber characterized his own work as that of "a storyteller" and "a mapmaker", rather than that of a philosopher or a theoretician.

A number of critics, such as integral theorist and developmental psychologist Mark Edwards^[29] (who, incidentally, is very critical of Meyerhoff's critique^[30]), also complain that it is frustrating to try to debate Wilber, not because his arguments are difficult, but because of his manner of arguing. For example, Wilber often charges that his critics are distorting or misreading his ideas, or that what they are criticizing is not what he himself is saying and that it is necessary to read and understand all of his books, but that even his own books do not communicate the complexity of his ideas, so that the critics must be in personal dialogue with him in order to understand the complex development of his philosophy. Compounding the issue, Wilber is very selective regarding whom he communicates with and rarely engages those who are critical of his theory.

Jorge Ferrer criticizes the Wilberian approach from the point of view of a relational and participative spirituality and proposes non-authoritarian forms of spirituality. To him, Wilber's system is inherently authoritarian in intent and effect, forcing a synthesis from above on what should be the result of an open dialogue. His book Revisioning Transpersonal Theory critiques and deconstructs Transpersonal psychology, perennialism, and Wilber's own theories, in favour of a more participatory approach to spirituality.

John Heron^[31] finds that Wilber's account of integral psychology in terms of lines and levels of development is fundamentally incoherent because of an untenable status afforded to nondual individualism and a failure to acknowledge the centrality of relational spirituality.

Christian de Quincey considers Wilber's integral theory to be an intellectual edifice that lacks emotion. This statement (made in 2000 in "The Promise of Integralism: A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology" in the Journal of Consciousness Studies ^[32]) and others in the same essay led to a bitter exchange of replies and counter-replies between Wilber and de Quincey, which can be found on de Quincey's and the Shambhala websites.

In June 2006 Wilber wrote a controversial series of blog posts in which he used profanity, attacked critics, compared himself humourously to Wyatt Earp, and said that those offended by his postings were in the "lower tier" levels in the development of consciousness.^[33] His actions in this regard have been variously condemned as cultic, misleading, puerile, and not in the spirit of mature academic dialogue by Matthew Dallman ^[34], Geoff Falk ^[35], Michel Bauwens ^[36], Jim Chamberlain ^[37], Frank Visser ^[38], by some posts on Wilber Watch ^[39], and by others. Wilber's supporters have been more positive, responding, for example, that this type of discourse is appropriate for the blog medium.^[40]

• Huston Smith
• Nicolai Hartmann

• The Spectrum of Consciousness, 1977, anniv. ed. 1993: ISBN 0-8356-0695-3
• No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth, 1979, reprint ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-743-6
• The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development, 1980, 2nd ed. ISBN 0-8356-0730-5
• Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution, 1981, new ed. 1996: ISBN 0-8356-0731-3
• The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes: Exploring the Leading Edge of Science (editor), 1982, ISBN 0-394-71237-4
• A Sociable God: A Brief Introduction to a Transcendental Sociology, 1983, new ed. 2005 subtitled Toward a New Understanding of Religion, ISBN 1-59030-224-9
• Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm, 1984, 3rd rev. ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-741-X
• Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists (editor), 1984, rev. ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-768-1
• Transformations of Consciousness: Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Development (co-authors: Jack Engler, Daniel Brown), 1986, ISBN 0-394-74202-8
• Spiritual Choices: The Problem of Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner Transformation (co-authors: Dick Anthony, Bruce Ecker), 1987, ISBN 0-913729-19-1
• Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life of Treya Killam Wilber, 1991, 2nd ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-742-8
• Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 1st ed. 1995, 2nd rev. ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-744-4
• A Brief History of Everything, 1st ed. 1996, 2nd ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-740-1
• The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad, 1997, 3rd ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-871-8
• The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader, 1998, ISBN 1-57062-379-1
• The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion, 1998, reprint ed. 1999: ISBN 0-7679-0343-9
• One Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber, 1999, rev. ed. 2000: ISBN 1-57062-547-6
• Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, 2000, ISBN 1-57062-554-9
• A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, 2000, paperback ed.: ISBN 1-57062-855-6
• Speaking of Everything (2 hour audio interview on CD), 2001
• Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free, 2002, paperback ed. 2003: ISBN 1-59030-008-4
• Kosmic Consciousness (12 hour audio interview on ten CDs), 2003, ISBN 1-59179-124-3
• With Cornel West, commentary on The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions and appearance in Return To Source: Philosophy & The Matrix on The Roots Of The Matrix, both in The Ultimate Matrix Collection, 2004
• The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary, Spiritual, and Poetic Writings, 2004, ISBN 1-59030-151-X (selected from earlier works)
• The Integral Operating System (a 69 page primer on AQAL with DVD and 2 audio CDs), 2005, ISBN 1-59179-347-5
• Executive producer of the Stuart Davis DVDs Between the Music: Volume 1 and Volume 2.
• Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World, 2006, ISBN 1-59030-346-6

• Donald Jay Rothberg and Sean Kelly, Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations With Leading Transpersonal Thinkers, 1998, ISBN 0-8356-0766-6
• Joseph Vrinte, Perennial Quest for a Psychology with a Soul: An inquiry into the relevance of Sri Aurobindo's metaphysical yoga psychology in the context of Ken Wilber's integral psychology, Motilal Banarsidass, 2002, ISBN 81-208-1932-2
• Frank Visser, Ken Wilber: Thought As Passion, SUNY Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7914-5816-4, (first published in Dutch as Ken Wilber: Denken als passie, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2001)
• Brad Reynolds, Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber: A Historical Survey and Chapter-By-Chapter Review of Wilber's Major Works, 2004, ISBN 1-58542-317-3
• Lew Howard, Introducing Ken Wilber, May 2005, ISBN 1-4208-2986-6
• Raphael Meriden, Entfaltung des Bewusstseins: Ken Wilbers Vision der Evolution, 2002, ISBN 88-87198-05-5

• Ken Wilber's Official Website
• Ken Wilber's Integral Institute
• Integral Naked pay site billed as: "Behind the Scenes with the Most Provocative Thinkers in Today's World"
• Shambhala Publications' Ken Wilber site
• Belief.com Articles By Ken Wilber
• "An Integral Theory of Consciousness", an essay by Wilber
• "What Is Integral Spirituality?" (1.3 MB PDF file) Wilber's 118 page rough draft summary of his two forthcoming books

• Interview by Otto Scharner by Dialog on Leadership (September 2003)
• Interview with Andrew Cohen
• Shambhala Interview conducted shortly before the release of Boomeritis
• Video of Wilber discussing "How to Stage a 2nd-Tier Protest" on YouTube

• Who Is Ken Wilber?, by Jack Crittenden
• Reading Ken Wilber: A beginner's guide to his works
• Mini-review of A Theory of Everything
• The Integral Encyclopedia Wiki A separate Wiki based on the integral theory of Wilber and others
• "Ken Wilber" by Alex Burns on disinformation.com
• "Extended Glossary" for Speaking of Everything on enlightenment.com

• Ken Wilber's Philosophy, and some critical appraisals by M. Alan Kazlev, Arvan Harvat, Michel Bauwens and others on Wilber and Sri Aurobindo
• Critics of Ken Wilber - a collection of critiques of the work of Ken Wilber, some online.
  • The Wild West Wilber Report - Frank Visser's summing up of the Wyatt Earp episode, including links to all relevant Wilber posts, as well as to comments and responses by others.
  • A Spectrum of Critics organises Wilber critics in a spectrum from "strong positive" to "strong negative"
  • Wilber Watch - a blog by Frank Visser that provides a forum for both supporters and critics of Wilber to discuss integral ideas outside official forums like Integral Naked and the Integral Institute.
• Bald Ambition; A Critique of Ken Wilber's Theory of Everything by Jeff Meyerhoff, for a synopsis of the same arguments see Meyerhoff Six Criticisms of Wilber's Integral Theory
• "Adi Da and The Case of Ken Wilber" contains a collection of Ken Wilber's writings on Adi Da, with critical commentary from Adi Da's devotees
• A Critical Look at Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrant Model - essay by Thomas J. McFarlane
• A Critique of Ken Wilber's Account of Deep Ecology & Nature Religions by Gus DiZerega
• Critiques of Ken Wilber by Geoffrey D. Falk and others
  • "Norman Einstein": The Dis-Integration of Ken Wilber - online book by Geoffrey D. Falk
• Wilber's misrepresentations of Spiral Dynamics®, Part I - Part II - according to SD co-founder Chris Cowan
• On Ken Wilber - Hopelessly New Age, Hopeless for the Humanities - critical essay by integral artist Matthew Dallman, some of which is based on his experience as art director at Integral University
• "Ken Wilber and Sri Aurobindo: A Critical Perspective" by Rod Hemsell - argues that Wilber misinterprets Aurobindo's teachings.
• Response to Ken Wilber's, "Integral Theory of Consciousness" by Garry Jacobs. Criticises Wilber's position from an Aurobindonian perspective.

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