Subject: Re: MD Shambolic. A review by Squonk. 13.
Hi Squonk,
I have been reading your valiant attempt at seriously analyzing Wilber from
his one article on the Shambhala web site. The problem is you don't seem to
get him. You are trying to attack the individual trees without
understanding why the forest exists.
Let's give you some context. Wilber's first book in 1977 with his first
book the Spectrum of Consciousness. From that book and onward Wilber set
before him the goal of trying to get a handle on the mind, human individual
development, and human social/cultural development.
Basically Wilber asked the question: What is the human potential, the
theoretic birth right of any human on this planet? If you read Freud the
most you can be is a well adjusted neurotic. If you read Maslow you can be
a self actualized individual. A far cry from Freudian theory. But is that
really the top?
Supposedly, Siddhartha Gautma, was an ordinary rich kid living a few
thousands years ago in India. He was confronted by death, old age and
illness and realized his shelter life was not enough. He set off on a
spiritual quest that led him on a fateful day to sit under a Bodhi tree and
remain in meditative state. [ side note: Siddhartha was much like Robert
Pirsig/aka Phaedrus. Both were on the track of an illusive vision that led
them to sit and ponder. Siddhartha lived in a culture were sitting and
meditating for days on end was acceptable. Pirsig did not live in such an
accepting culture. His wife had him committed to an institution and
electro-shock therapy rendered Phaedrus into Robert Pirsig pre-Zen & the art
of motorcycle. Eventually Pirsig was able to tap back into Phaedrus insight
and ZMM was written.] Getting back to Siddhartha, he sat and sat, until one
day he awoke. He was now the "Buddha" an "awakened one". By all accounts
the Buddha was a remarkable human being and a formidable, almost godlike
person. This Wilber says is our birthright! Now imagine what a theory of
human development that would track us from birth to Buddhahood!
Thus began a monumental task. Wilber set out to create a unified system of
human individual and cultural development.
A unified theory of physics is an easier task because all the science have
an similar underlying theoretical language.
No such similarity between all the fields that touch upon human beings had
ever existed. Wilber had to find his way through, psychology, sociology,
philosophy, mysticism, theology, and across all human cultures. Essentially
anyone who had ever considered human beings and who and what we were, from
the first human writers till the present day, all needed to be considered.
No one had ever under taken such a task. This alone is the reason why so
many people are interest in Wilber.
What was even more amazing is that Wilber realized that once you ignore the
claims of exclusivity in all the world's thinkers, they all were building
systems that overlapped and interrelated. You could lay them all out on
charts and show how they all fit together.
In Integral Psychology he gives an appendix which shows some of these
charts: They include:
Huston Smith
Plotinus
Buddhist Vijnanas
Stan Grof
John Battista,
Hindu Chakra system
James Mark Baldwin
Sri Aurobindo
Jewish kabbalah
Hindu Vedanta
William Tiller
Leadbetter & Theosophy
Adi Da
Piaget
Commons & Richards
Kurt Fischer
Jeffery Alexander
Juan Pascual-Leone
Herb Koplowitz
Patricia Arlin
Giesla Lavouvie-Vief
Jan Sinnott
Michael Basseches
Jane Loevinger
John Broughton
Sullivan, Grant & Grant
Jenny Wade
Michael Washburn
Erik Erickson
Neuumann
Scheler
Karl Jaspers
Rudolph Steiner
Don Beck
Susanne Cook-Greuter
Clare Graves
Robert Kegan
Kohlberg
Tobert
Blanchard-Fields
Kitchner & King
Deirdre Kramer
William Perry
Turner/Powel
Cheryl Armon
Peck
Howe
John Rawls
Buel
Carol Gilligan
Hazrat Inayat Khan Sufiism
Mahamudra
Evelyn Underhill
Helminiak
Joel Funk
Daniel Brown
Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi
St. Palamas
traditional Samadhis
Yoga Tantra system
St. Teresa
John Chirban (Eastern Orthodox Christianity)
St. Dionysius
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
St. Gregory Nyssa
Alexander & TM
Dion Fortune
Maslow
Chinen
Benack
H. Gardner
Melvin Miller
J.Habermas
Jean Houston
G.Lenski
Jean Gebser
A. Taylor
Jay Earley
Robert Bellah
Duane Elgin
And these are only the thinkers who he has charted in his book Integral
Psychology (2000). The point of the list is to give a visual image of how
much Wilber is trying to integrate.
In 1980 & 1981 Wilber publish Up from Eden and the Atman Project. These
two books tracked human individual development from cradle to Buddhahood and
human history from beginning to the current and onto a society of Buddha's.
Wilber had found a way to unify Western & Eastern theology & mystical
traditions and Western sociology, psychology & general historical cultural
records all into one system that brought all of these thinkers into the same
system frame work! Thus giving a cross-cultural and cross-discipline
structure. Now, like in the fields of chemistry, physics, biology,
mathematics where they were all thinking and writing in the same language
and frame work, Wilber brought anyone (who had been translated into English)
who had considered the nature of human reality into a common framework.
Thus forcing all those thinkers across the discipline and across the globe
into the same "room" . They all had no excuse to ignore the other. Now
they all had to consider the other because a common framework was available!
And it worked! Wilber built a bridge and the inter-discipline and
inter-cultural traffic was increasing.
But Wilber didn't stop thinking and studying. He came across the work of
Arthur Koestler. Using Koestler's Holon theory Wilber started re-working
everything. In 1995 The next stage of development of Wilber's efforts was
published as the book Sex [as in sex roles and the biological difference
between the two sexes], Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution.
This launched his most robust and mature model & map making of human
development. Wilber correct the mistakes he saw, and that others pointed
out in his previous work. This 1995 model/map has been what he has been
perfecting, explaining, & defending in all his later work.
In 1997 Wilber published The Eye of Spirit, to address the many people In
a multitude of fields and disciplines who have been writing about his ideas
as presented in 1995. In 1996 in a journal called ReVision had an ongoing
discussion of Wilber's work from a collection of thinkers in a variety of
academic and nonacademic fields. This and other articles & interviews was
published in a 1998 book : Ken Wilber in Dialogue. The contributors were:
Donald Rothberg, Roger Walsh, Michael Murphy, Michael Washburn, Stanislov
Grof, Sean M. Kelly, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Michael
McDonald-Smith, Michael Zimmerman, Peggy Wright, Jurgen Kremer, Jeanne
Achterberg, Robert McDermott, and Kaisa Puhakka.
Basically the world of thinker were all dealing with Ken Wilber's system.
And Wilber has not stopped working and writing. He has yet to publish his
next volume which was to built off of the work he had started in SES 1995.
Which was to add another perspective to the human individual & Collective
reality that he had not touched on in his SES 800+page book.
Thus, if you are anyone in almost any field of endeavor that touches upon
human reality, where ever you are in the world, in what ever university, you
will at some time in your academic studies come across the writing of Ken
Wilber. Wilber has built a structure that has brought all the world's
thinker together for the first time in a way that you can actually compare
"apples to apples". No theory, no theology, no mystical tradition, no
psychological system, no sociological system, no anthropological system,
none of them can claim to have a system that can not be cross referenced.
No longer can these systems ignore each other. There is a structure that
makes all their claims mutually inclusive. Now everyone has to take into
account the other. This is the genius of Ken Wilber's work. It is a
Unification of human reality. He does make sense out of everything and
everyone.
If you are a thinking person anywhere on this globe you will come up
against the work and writing of Ken Wilber. Which is why his name keeps
coming up. Pirsig had a mystical vision which he managed to bring back into
a classic system. Wilber may not have had a Buddha-like event to triggered
his theories, but he has done his homework. Wilber's writings are part
mystical, part psychological systems, part anthropological, part sociology,
part metaphysics. Because Wilber's ideas incorporates all these fields and
endeavors to bring them together. A monumental task. A monumental vision.
It is as impressive as Pirsig's work.
So many serious thinkers, across the globe are considering the work of Ken
Wilber. If you consider yourself a person interested in the nature of
reality &/or the nature of human reality you to should pick up one of his
books. My suggestion is A Brief History of Everything, which is a sort of
abridged version of SES. But, ultimately you should read SES. I can not
imagine a serious thinker about humanity who can ignore the book Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality.
Someone who is also interested in truly understanding the nature of reality,
Gary
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