Ken Wilber

I’ve decided to explore Wilber lately along with Ken Harris, after listening to a BATGAP interview that intrigued me. I read his older books decades ago, and since then have been put off by the mega-organization he’s built, but found him unexpectedly personable and worth listening to. So, what do people here know about him and his system of integral theory of everything?

I tend on principle to avoid TOEs mainly because people often end up polishing up an intellectual edifice and squashing everything into its place in the whole, but I like Wilber’s approach of show up, wake up, grow up, and clean up. Waking up doesn’t guarantee a person is going to be morally upright because it is a different category of development from growing up and cleaning up. Cleaning up according to Wilber is the work of therapy, where we look at old habits and traumas that are creating destructive reaction patterns. Growing up is a worldwide, historic enterprise according to which individuals and populations move from the pure egotism of infancy to the integral consciousness that overcomes oppositions in an enhanced understanding. Sounds Hegelian to me. Of course, as in Captain Obvious here.

Anyway, as a historian I know that he is making big, big generalizations that can’t stand up to close scrutiny in the particulars, and yet there is an intriguing thesis here. He has a progressive view of history that sees us moving more and more in the direction of awakened, transparent integral consciousness. Looking at human experience through his lens does clarify a lot of otherwise confusing phenomena, but I want to keep my grains of salt handy. Anyone out there care to comment?

I remember enjoying his autobiographical One Taste at the time, and was surprised that people like Bill Clinton and Al Gore had read it. Basically what you said, he seems to over-believe and over-theorize, but there is some useful stuff.

I listened to the podcast a while ago, but I think I missed/forgot what "show up" was???

One thing that surprised me about ken's talk was how adament he was that pathologies exist and are in a separate domain as waking up -- I think he was emphasizing "we know this to be true. Enlightenment doesn't touch psychological pathologies" -- I don't remember him saying that in the stuff I read a decade or two ago. I remember him being much more of a non-duality is the ultimate and pretty much is the culmination of all quadrants being awesome and if you are enlightened you cleaned up everything. I didn't remember him limiting things so much -- and I had to imagine that maybe he's finally seeing what we all have seen in his choice of associates: adi da, andrew cohen, marc gafani --- Ken Wilber has a knack for associated with pathological folks.

As a sorta biologist, I can also tell you he makes all sorts of mis-statements about that domain. So basically, the only thing really good about his approach is the general framing. He fucks up all the time with over interpreting the data/theories and makes huge leaps in causal assumption in other fields (communities that have X % of mediators have X% lower crime rate, therefore there is a conscious field that meditators resonate with and lower crime --- really odd stuff like that, which of course, I won't be able to reference anymore since I don't have the book, which was theory of everything, but anyway...)

I found the pointing out instructions scattered through some of his works (One Taste, etc), and consolidated in The Simple Feeling of Being to be immensely helpful when working with 2nd gear/Self-inquiry practices.

I also found it odd and off-putting that Wilber felt compelled to put a photo of his face on the cover of seemingly every one of his books. Or that a section of his web page, at one time, was entirely devoted to shirtless photos of himself.

Integral (partially) Naked

(maybe an obscure joke? one of his websites was --- whoa, no still is: in.integralinstitute.org/ )

Jim wrote: Or that a section of his web page, at one time, was entirely devoted to shirtless photos of himself.

In fairness, Ramana Maharshi was photographed shirtless way more often, and his pecs look less awakened

Michael V wrote:

Jim wrote: Or that a section of his web page, at one time, was entirely devoted to shirtless photos of himself.

In fairness, Ramana Maharshi was photographed shirtless way more often, and his pecs look less awakened

Hahaha, that is an incredibly awesome observation!

Jim wrote: I found the pointing out instructions scattered through some of his works (One Taste, etc), and consolidated in The Simple Feeling of Being to be immensely helpful when working with 2nd gear/Self-inquiry practices.

I also found it odd and off-putting that Wilber felt compelled to put a photo of his face on the cover of seemingly every one of his books. Or that a section of his web page, at one time, was entirely devoted to shirtless photos of himself.

That was back when he was a hottie!

Seriously, though, that’s a good tip about the pointing-out instructions.

The most problematic aspect of Wilber for a lot of people is his continuing advocacy and acceptance of people with abusive and shady track records (Cohen, Gafni). I think, though, he may be thinking that more evolved people need to help those who are less evolved, to bring them up to speed. In his book on Trump, he says we need to show love, respect, and understanding to Trump supporters rather than ridicule and blame. Sounds like a tall order, but I have to admit, the ridicule and blame thing isn’t working all that well

Laurel Carrington wrote:

Jim wrote: I found the pointing out instructions scattered through some of his works (One Taste, etc), and consolidated in The Simple Feeling of Being to be immensely helpful when working with 2nd gear/Self-inquiry practices.

I also found it odd and off-putting that Wilber felt compelled to put a photo of his face on the cover of seemingly every one of his books. Or that a section of his web page, at one time, was entirely devoted to shirtless photos of himself.

That was back when he was a hottie!

He was ripped, no doubt about it! I wonder if his tiers system accommodates for 4, 6, and 8 packs. Or no packs.