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Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy
A leader in transpersonal psychology presents the first truly integrative model of spiritual consciousness and Western developmental psychology
The goal of an “integral psychology” is to honor and embrace every legitimate aspect of human consciousness under one roof. Drawing on hundreds of sources—Eastern and Western, ancient and modern—Wilber creates a psychological model that includes waves of development, streams of development, states of consciousness, and the self, and follows the course of each from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious.
Included in the book are charts correlating over a hundred psychological and spiritual schools from around the world, including Kabbalah, Vedanta, Plotinus, Teresa of Ávila, Aurobindo, Theosophy, and modern theorists such as Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Jane Loevinger, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Erich Neumann, and Jean Gebser. Integral Psychology is Wilber's most ambitious psychological system to date and is already being called a landmark study in human development.
The goal of an “integral psychology” is to honor and embrace every legitimate aspect of human consciousness under one roof. Drawing on hundreds of sources—Eastern and Western, ancient and modern—Wilber creates a psychological model that includes waves of development, streams of development, states of consciousness, and the self, and follows the course of each from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious.
Included in the book are charts correlating over a hundred psychological and spiritual schools from around the world, including Kabbalah, Vedanta, Plotinus, Teresa of Ávila, Aurobindo, Theosophy, and modern theorists such as Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Jane Loevinger, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Erich Neumann, and Jean Gebser. Integral Psychology is Wilber's most ambitious psychological system to date and is already being called a landmark study in human development.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
218 people are currently reading
3457 people want to read
About the author
Ken Wilber
225 books1,241 followersKenneth Earl Wilber II is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a systematic philosophy which suggests the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
May 1, 2010
"The will to a system lacks integrity." - Nietzsche
I would think that a person such as myself would be an ideal audience for Mr. Wilber's ruminations on mind and spirit. Like the Pandit, I have a broad interest in interdisciplinary approaches to the psyche and the spirit. We share a taste for Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and the emerging discourses of self-organization and systems analysis. Yet for the life of me I cannot understand what this book is supposed to add to our understanding.
Wilber is extremely erudite and a strong thinker, I will grant him that. His book draws broadly from the marketplace of ideas and would seem cosmopolitan in a manner of speaking. Yet despite the variety of ideas he examines, this book remains narrowly confined by the basic self-absorption of its project.
What we have here is a work that articulates Wilber's framework for understanding and integrating a wide variety of approaches and techniques under an overarching interpretive system. All of the thoughts and thinkers he considers are neatly arrayed in their respective quadrants on his gigantic graphs. So? What does this get us, other than the intellectual autobiography of one well-read meditator? Is his thinking that it will not occur to researchers that there are other fields of study than their own, without such a framework?
Most of what he says is fairly obvious to anyone who looks at the material he digests for us like a mother bird. There will be readers, of course, who have no desire to come to terms in a meaningful way with the source material, and for them, Wilber will save a lot of reading.
In the final analysis, Wilber is a systematizer, which explains the strangely plastic and lifeless quality of his prose, for systems are strikingly inert. As Hugh Kenner observed, a system can only mechanically unfold, or decay, like the orbit of a satellite.
I would think that a person such as myself would be an ideal audience for Mr. Wilber's ruminations on mind and spirit. Like the Pandit, I have a broad interest in interdisciplinary approaches to the psyche and the spirit. We share a taste for Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and the emerging discourses of self-organization and systems analysis. Yet for the life of me I cannot understand what this book is supposed to add to our understanding.
Wilber is extremely erudite and a strong thinker, I will grant him that. His book draws broadly from the marketplace of ideas and would seem cosmopolitan in a manner of speaking. Yet despite the variety of ideas he examines, this book remains narrowly confined by the basic self-absorption of its project.
What we have here is a work that articulates Wilber's framework for understanding and integrating a wide variety of approaches and techniques under an overarching interpretive system. All of the thoughts and thinkers he considers are neatly arrayed in their respective quadrants on his gigantic graphs. So? What does this get us, other than the intellectual autobiography of one well-read meditator? Is his thinking that it will not occur to researchers that there are other fields of study than their own, without such a framework?
Most of what he says is fairly obvious to anyone who looks at the material he digests for us like a mother bird. There will be readers, of course, who have no desire to come to terms in a meaningful way with the source material, and for them, Wilber will save a lot of reading.
In the final analysis, Wilber is a systematizer, which explains the strangely plastic and lifeless quality of his prose, for systems are strikingly inert. As Hugh Kenner observed, a system can only mechanically unfold, or decay, like the orbit of a satellite.
December 31, 2008
Wilber always amazes me with his ability to cut right to the heart of so much of modern thinking on particular issues. I know so little about modern psychology that I feel at a loss to rate the job he does in explaining the cardinal works and major interpretations of those works in this book, but most of the information I had prior knowledge of coming into this book he was spot on with. I really like the approach that Wilber takes to philosophy/spirituality/psychology/etc. but am skeptical of the holarchy approach. There is something very powerful in the way that Wilber writes, but also a frustrating element in his writing that scares me. I really like what he is saying, but his tone in referring to other's work and in defending himself from criticism tends to turn pretty nasty and petty at times. I can't put my finger on exactly why his writing puts me off, because I really want to like what he is saying and I know his writing comes from a place of sincere interest in truth of experience and expression of that experience. There is simply some part of his work that holds me at arms length. I always enjoy his work and will continue to read more of what he has done, because I feel his books are powerful and mean something. This book gives a unique, integral perspective on psychology, and continued movement in this direction is something that literature needs more of.
September 27, 2020
I nominate Ken Wilber for the greatest thinker of our age. I have read about his work before and decided to read this original work, which, although it is already 20 years old, is still ahead of its time. This is an incredibly wide spanning book, integrating the vast fields of consciousness, science, morality and culture with the phenomenal charts that Wilber is famous for. Wilber has set himself no less a task than orienting us to the full span of premodern wisdom, the revolutions of modernity and the critique of postmodernity bringing us to the brink of our current age, that Wilber proposes will be the "Integral" age of synthesis and ultimately transcendence. You may already see why some refer to Wilber as the new Hegel.
Wilber's writing is efficient, articulate and extremely potent. This is not a difficult to read book if you are prepared for a mind expanding experience. Those who proceed will be introduced to the concept of the four quadrants of human experience that all interact. These are the quadrants of subjective personal experience (mind), subjective interpersonal experience (culture), the objective physics and biology of the individual (science) and the objective physics and biology of the collective (social science). In broad terms Wilber gives his understanding of the emergence of form in all of these quadrants in "waves" and "lines" of transcendent and inclusive development called Holons. He then demonstrates convincingly how development of consciousness follows this model (as famously demonstrated by Jean Piaget) to levels that we in the West have forgotten about. Premodern cultures all agreed on transcendent levels of consciousness including soul and spirit. However premodern cultures did not differentiate culture from morality or rational inquiry, limiting our ability for progress with the repressive force of tribal and religious dogma.
The Modern age, according to Wilber, liberated and differentiated the quadrants of culture, science and morality from these strictures, an impressive feat that brought the blessings of science, liberalism and individual freedoms. On the other hand it also had the unfortunate consequence of raising the rational mind to the level of repressive agent, dismissing the subjective and the moral and ultimately disavowing all levels of transcendent conscious development. Everything was reduced to the material and the objective, in what Wilber refers to as the calamity of "Flatland", with its resulting alienation, ideologies and the disasters of the 20th century.
Wilber then turns to postmodernism and the realizations of relativism, pluralities of interpretation and egalitarianism with the potential to begin the process of integrating the moral, rational and subjective. However he points out the derailments of post modernism in its tendency towards moral relativism and outright abandonment of any theoretical authority.
Finally and most importantly Wilber presents a very cohesive picture of how we can move forward bringing back the best of the premodern, with its higher levels of conscious and spiritual development, the modern, with its differentiations of the "four quadrants" and the postmodern with its respect for context and cultural construction, into what he refers to as an "all quadrant, all level" integral approach to psychology and frankly all of human understanding. In this paradigm shifting argument Wiber has succeeded over the many decades of his career in leading nothing less than an integral revolution, that is our greatest hope of solving the many challenges of our time. I recommend this book to all serious thinkers ready to pursue their development past the barriers of the conventional. Transcend and include!!
Wilber's writing is efficient, articulate and extremely potent. This is not a difficult to read book if you are prepared for a mind expanding experience. Those who proceed will be introduced to the concept of the four quadrants of human experience that all interact. These are the quadrants of subjective personal experience (mind), subjective interpersonal experience (culture), the objective physics and biology of the individual (science) and the objective physics and biology of the collective (social science). In broad terms Wilber gives his understanding of the emergence of form in all of these quadrants in "waves" and "lines" of transcendent and inclusive development called Holons. He then demonstrates convincingly how development of consciousness follows this model (as famously demonstrated by Jean Piaget) to levels that we in the West have forgotten about. Premodern cultures all agreed on transcendent levels of consciousness including soul and spirit. However premodern cultures did not differentiate culture from morality or rational inquiry, limiting our ability for progress with the repressive force of tribal and religious dogma.
The Modern age, according to Wilber, liberated and differentiated the quadrants of culture, science and morality from these strictures, an impressive feat that brought the blessings of science, liberalism and individual freedoms. On the other hand it also had the unfortunate consequence of raising the rational mind to the level of repressive agent, dismissing the subjective and the moral and ultimately disavowing all levels of transcendent conscious development. Everything was reduced to the material and the objective, in what Wilber refers to as the calamity of "Flatland", with its resulting alienation, ideologies and the disasters of the 20th century.
Wilber then turns to postmodernism and the realizations of relativism, pluralities of interpretation and egalitarianism with the potential to begin the process of integrating the moral, rational and subjective. However he points out the derailments of post modernism in its tendency towards moral relativism and outright abandonment of any theoretical authority.
Finally and most importantly Wilber presents a very cohesive picture of how we can move forward bringing back the best of the premodern, with its higher levels of conscious and spiritual development, the modern, with its differentiations of the "four quadrants" and the postmodern with its respect for context and cultural construction, into what he refers to as an "all quadrant, all level" integral approach to psychology and frankly all of human understanding. In this paradigm shifting argument Wiber has succeeded over the many decades of his career in leading nothing less than an integral revolution, that is our greatest hope of solving the many challenges of our time. I recommend this book to all serious thinkers ready to pursue their development past the barriers of the conventional. Transcend and include!!
May 14, 2013
Ken Wilber is in perhaps a good sense a latter day scholastic philosopher. His audacious intent is to attempt a synthesis of scientific rationality, mystical experience postmodernism, and eastern philosophy. The weakness of such synthesis is that, although interesting, it tends to be schematic, and based on meta-writing, rather than experiential test (scientific experiment, meditative practice etc.*) However it brings forward a wealth of ideas and patterns for your consideration.
* Wilber has scientific training and a long-standing meditation practice, so this criticism is not about his personal experience, nor of his wide scholarship, but the wide range of levels of credibility of his sources.
* Wilber has scientific training and a long-standing meditation practice, so this criticism is not about his personal experience, nor of his wide scholarship, but the wide range of levels of credibility of his sources.
October 21, 2009
This is a very exciting book, recontextualising Psychology and exploring formerly taboo-areas like spirituality. From an integral, wholistic perspective it only makes sense that psychology can't be complete without spirituality, but this is still very much taboo. Wilber not only creates a great, easy-to-read overview of developmental psychology but explores its higher dimensions and where we could start to create a completely new view of psychology - one that incorporates our mysterious longing to be one with Spirit.
March 22, 2022
Excellent! I would really love to have this as an audio book... Popsugar 2022
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June 7, 2019The last couple months, I've been talking to my coworkers about this weird author I can't figure out. I tell them, my coworkers, that I can't decide if he's a honest-to-God systems philosopher or a crazy person. Don't get me wrong: I have a special fondness for crackpots (because I worry about how I myself have crackpot tendencies: trying to read graduate level stuff without a grad-degree, drawing diagrams in my little hovel, not on the cognitive level to build up a bibliography like Joseph Tainter or Jonathan H. Turner, but willing to buy the books and work on them in my own humble way {it wouldn't be a Scott-Review if it didn't have the self-flagellation I routinely employ}).
This is my second Ken Wilber book I've read in toto, among others I've skimmed or half-read. My conclusion is that Ken Wilber is definitely brilliant, and his heart's in a good place, but there is like a solid 16% New-Age Snake-Oil vibe that permeates his writing (as opposed to someone like Talcott Parsons, in whom there is a -79% New Age Anything vibe). There's probably a reason he's published by Shambala and not by Wiley or SUNY, like some of the other transpersonalist/integralist writers. If you haven't investigated this super weird semi-academic niche, I'm going to give you a brief play-by-play of my own experience, because I don't know how else to situate this phenomenon that I've accidentally stumbled into: Academically Geared New Age.
I went through some personal stuff recently, and my general sense of well-being sort of collapsed (these are the periods when we open ourselves up to all sorts of odd things, isn't it? We can only pray that we're surrounded by genuinely good people and institutions when we have our little disintegrations, otherwise, who knows what might happen?). So, in my search for meaning and healthy practices, I started looking into psychology and positive psychology. I'd heard of some of the humanistic psychologists, who were like Heidegger and Sarte-lite: Rollo May and Carl Rodgers and Abraham Maslow. But all these dudes are dead. What happened to that sort of Human Potential wave after that generation? It got picked up by a cousin in human-development: the New Age Movement. I haven't read enough about the social Origins of the New Age movement, but I know that my mom was really into that stuff. And I was in to it too when I was little. But then my friend lent me an Academic text on Lao Tzu, and I realized that New Age was the softest non-fiction that was out there, and even though it said nice things, it wasn't rigorous and it seemed to just glide over all the hard-stuff that we encounter in living: suffering, responsibility, obligation, and institutions. That, and so much of it was based on woo-woo magical-thinking that, as far as I could tell, had no basis in reality. There of course are limits to this sort of critique: at what point do we as rational compatriots in dialectic draw the line between sound-faith and hogwash? Obviously, we end up having faith in something. The general contemporary trend I identify in my peers is a sort of low-definition scientism, if I had to give it a name. But even that ideology has the basic structure of a faith-relationship (as does political allegiance, or even the Cult of Literature). A person may never sit down and write out their manifesto, but they have general ideas about how there may be a God, but it's maybe sort of like a pantheistic thing, but mostly science accounts for our experience of reality, but why are we talking about this, it's pretty deep, huh? (I slipped into free-indirect-discourse: I'm not saying that's my opinion, that's just the general vibe I get).
So, anyway, while digging through positive psychology stuff (stuff grounded in clinical research, I did not want to start wading through self-help New Age woo-woo), I eventually stumbled into this super weird discourse on mystical experiences and personal growth. That's stuff I'm totally into! The more I dug around into the Transpersonal literature, the more I kept on seeing the name "Ken Wilber." And I was like, "who the hell is this guy?" He has a humble little Wikipedia page. Salon did an interview with him. He has an online presence. He's written a ton of stuff. From what I could gather, latter-day positive psychology developed into Transpersonal Psychology, and Ken Wilber is one of its major luminaries. I asked my friends who got psychology degrees if they had ever heard of him. One told me no and I should read the Psalms. The other told me he hadn't either, and we still haven't made definite coffee plans yet. So I just decided to begin reading him.
I should probably talk about the book. The above is an awful lot of preamble for a book review. But we never just read a book. We read a book in a certain period of our lives, under definite historical-social circumstances, and unless we're hardcore completitionists, we only take a book seriously if it answers some question we can't sort out on our own. Wilber kind of does this. I mean, enough to convince me he has important insights to share. But I don't think he and his messianic Integralism is the panacea that his circle apparently is convinced that it is. Next to his genuinely astute psychological observations, he's selling vacuum cleaners, man.
Wilber is at his best when he's discussing developmental-psychological schemes (he loves charts; I can't fault him, though: I love diagrams). He's basically doing systems science, but his argument is that systems science doesn't extend far enough into the transpersonal domains. And there's a good reason for that. But first, let me explain what these guys are talking about when they talk about "The Transpersonal." This is the idea that Eastern-Style Enlightenment/Satori/Moksha is a higher level of human evolution. And via serious religious practices, a person can tap into these higher domains. I have a long, complicated history with the idea of Eastern-Style-Enlightenment, but let me say generally that, well, obviously, some people have their cognitive shit together a lot better than others. And there's no doubt that this sort of highly-tuned mental discipline can produce some incredibly important interior experiences. But, what I believe, is that these sort of mystical experiences are deeply, profoundly personal. And though a person may communicate some of the insights the experience reveals, the verbal communications don't count for much when held up next to the genuine personal article. Wilber, which is the weirdest thing about his writing, Wilber just glibly goes along like these Eastern-Style-Enlightenment experiences are a sure thing and to be intellectually taken for granted. That's where his discourse really jars with me. At least Alan Watts, for all his faults, had the decency to explain that talking about Eastern-Style-Enlightenment was not at all the same thing as the experience itself. Wilber may mention this sort of caveat in passing, but it really is a significant aspect of religious practice to just wipe your hands with and lump into your system.
It reminds me of a hilarious zen explication about religious instruction. As you may or may not know, zen is into paradox, because the point of zen practice is to point the way beyond conventional-logical understanding (or, as Wilber would say, "Centaur Vision-Logic;" Wilber's nomenclature is consistently goofy). So, upon being asked by a pupil "what is the body of Shakyamuni?" which is a typical student way of asking "how do I get that good Enlightenment juice?," the zen master replied, "dried shit cube." Because that's as good as linguistic communication is in passing on The First Principle in zen. Wilber's slick discussions about "subtle, causal, and nondual" states of consciousness really just remind me of dried shit cubes.
But I don't mean for this review to be totally negative and rude. I can't convince myself that Wilber is not on to some fundamental truths about human nature. For instance, his discussion about lines of development is a powerful explanatory tool (not everyone is developed equally in every aspect of human nature, so that's why you can have gurus who end up committing felonies, or scientists who lack social grace (as the ole stock-character trope goes). His theorizing about personal development and pathology is also very useful. And he's definitely done the heavy lifting in reading through the literature on pathology. Here's a good quote about psychological disorders with respect to the effort to achieve personal growth:
As we saw, if something goes wrong during this general developmental period, the result is a
'script pathology,' a series of distorted, demeaning, unfair ideas and scripts about oneself and
others. Cognitive therapy has excelled in rooting out these maladaptive scripts and replacing
them with more accurate, benign, and therefore healthy ideas and self-concept (97).
The other cool thing he does is match up certain types of developmental disorders with certain types of therapy (cognitive therapy with cognitive distortions, existential therapy with existential issues, and so on, and places these within an overarching developmental scheme).
The one frustrating thing about this book, I mean, this one in particular, is that in many places, it references his earlier books for fuller discussions. Wilber seems to have a tendency to not go into fuller discussions. He said the original version of this book was supposed to be two volumes and over 100 charts (heck yeah!). But what we get, instead, is a really breezy run through of individual development, where development can go wrong, and then some stuff about cultural development and Wilber's special sauce: The Four Quadrants (it's as smart as it is hokey: I mean, yes, clearly, any effort towards consilience must take on a form like Wilber's, but Wilber's has the sense of a person who's got the general parts all sorted out, but doesn't have a solid metaphysics to glue it all together, and human psychological development and the expectation of "nondual consciousness" can only defer the necessary details so far until it starts to come off as insincere.).
He even admits towards the end that he hasn't given enough details: "Obviously, as I said in the Introduction, this type of approach can only begin with the most general of generalizations--outrageous generalizations, some would say..." (193).
It's getting late. I'm about to need to eat my salad and watch Law & Order. Long story short: I wouldn't recommend this book. "The Atman Project" was pretty neat. And I'm sure one of his earlier books I've got on order will probably go into detail about some of the topics that Wilber appears to have a grip on. But this book won't help you out of a jam. It's not a therapeutic book. It's a showcase for Wilber's Integralism, which at moments begins to sound like multi-level marketing. I'll let you know if any of his other material has some insights about inner growth and pathology therapeutics (because that's what I'm really interested in). But I'm going to stick with Voegelin as my theoretical North Star.
This is my second Ken Wilber book I've read in toto, among others I've skimmed or half-read. My conclusion is that Ken Wilber is definitely brilliant, and his heart's in a good place, but there is like a solid 16% New-Age Snake-Oil vibe that permeates his writing (as opposed to someone like Talcott Parsons, in whom there is a -79% New Age Anything vibe). There's probably a reason he's published by Shambala and not by Wiley or SUNY, like some of the other transpersonalist/integralist writers. If you haven't investigated this super weird semi-academic niche, I'm going to give you a brief play-by-play of my own experience, because I don't know how else to situate this phenomenon that I've accidentally stumbled into: Academically Geared New Age.
I went through some personal stuff recently, and my general sense of well-being sort of collapsed (these are the periods when we open ourselves up to all sorts of odd things, isn't it? We can only pray that we're surrounded by genuinely good people and institutions when we have our little disintegrations, otherwise, who knows what might happen?). So, in my search for meaning and healthy practices, I started looking into psychology and positive psychology. I'd heard of some of the humanistic psychologists, who were like Heidegger and Sarte-lite: Rollo May and Carl Rodgers and Abraham Maslow. But all these dudes are dead. What happened to that sort of Human Potential wave after that generation? It got picked up by a cousin in human-development: the New Age Movement. I haven't read enough about the social Origins of the New Age movement, but I know that my mom was really into that stuff. And I was in to it too when I was little. But then my friend lent me an Academic text on Lao Tzu, and I realized that New Age was the softest non-fiction that was out there, and even though it said nice things, it wasn't rigorous and it seemed to just glide over all the hard-stuff that we encounter in living: suffering, responsibility, obligation, and institutions. That, and so much of it was based on woo-woo magical-thinking that, as far as I could tell, had no basis in reality. There of course are limits to this sort of critique: at what point do we as rational compatriots in dialectic draw the line between sound-faith and hogwash? Obviously, we end up having faith in something. The general contemporary trend I identify in my peers is a sort of low-definition scientism, if I had to give it a name. But even that ideology has the basic structure of a faith-relationship (as does political allegiance, or even the Cult of Literature). A person may never sit down and write out their manifesto, but they have general ideas about how there may be a God, but it's maybe sort of like a pantheistic thing, but mostly science accounts for our experience of reality, but why are we talking about this, it's pretty deep, huh? (I slipped into free-indirect-discourse: I'm not saying that's my opinion, that's just the general vibe I get).
So, anyway, while digging through positive psychology stuff (stuff grounded in clinical research, I did not want to start wading through self-help New Age woo-woo), I eventually stumbled into this super weird discourse on mystical experiences and personal growth. That's stuff I'm totally into! The more I dug around into the Transpersonal literature, the more I kept on seeing the name "Ken Wilber." And I was like, "who the hell is this guy?" He has a humble little Wikipedia page. Salon did an interview with him. He has an online presence. He's written a ton of stuff. From what I could gather, latter-day positive psychology developed into Transpersonal Psychology, and Ken Wilber is one of its major luminaries. I asked my friends who got psychology degrees if they had ever heard of him. One told me no and I should read the Psalms. The other told me he hadn't either, and we still haven't made definite coffee plans yet. So I just decided to begin reading him.
I should probably talk about the book. The above is an awful lot of preamble for a book review. But we never just read a book. We read a book in a certain period of our lives, under definite historical-social circumstances, and unless we're hardcore completitionists, we only take a book seriously if it answers some question we can't sort out on our own. Wilber kind of does this. I mean, enough to convince me he has important insights to share. But I don't think he and his messianic Integralism is the panacea that his circle apparently is convinced that it is. Next to his genuinely astute psychological observations, he's selling vacuum cleaners, man.
Wilber is at his best when he's discussing developmental-psychological schemes (he loves charts; I can't fault him, though: I love diagrams). He's basically doing systems science, but his argument is that systems science doesn't extend far enough into the transpersonal domains. And there's a good reason for that. But first, let me explain what these guys are talking about when they talk about "The Transpersonal." This is the idea that Eastern-Style Enlightenment/Satori/Moksha is a higher level of human evolution. And via serious religious practices, a person can tap into these higher domains. I have a long, complicated history with the idea of Eastern-Style-Enlightenment, but let me say generally that, well, obviously, some people have their cognitive shit together a lot better than others. And there's no doubt that this sort of highly-tuned mental discipline can produce some incredibly important interior experiences. But, what I believe, is that these sort of mystical experiences are deeply, profoundly personal. And though a person may communicate some of the insights the experience reveals, the verbal communications don't count for much when held up next to the genuine personal article. Wilber, which is the weirdest thing about his writing, Wilber just glibly goes along like these Eastern-Style-Enlightenment experiences are a sure thing and to be intellectually taken for granted. That's where his discourse really jars with me. At least Alan Watts, for all his faults, had the decency to explain that talking about Eastern-Style-Enlightenment was not at all the same thing as the experience itself. Wilber may mention this sort of caveat in passing, but it really is a significant aspect of religious practice to just wipe your hands with and lump into your system.
It reminds me of a hilarious zen explication about religious instruction. As you may or may not know, zen is into paradox, because the point of zen practice is to point the way beyond conventional-logical understanding (or, as Wilber would say, "Centaur Vision-Logic;" Wilber's nomenclature is consistently goofy). So, upon being asked by a pupil "what is the body of Shakyamuni?" which is a typical student way of asking "how do I get that good Enlightenment juice?," the zen master replied, "dried shit cube." Because that's as good as linguistic communication is in passing on The First Principle in zen. Wilber's slick discussions about "subtle, causal, and nondual" states of consciousness really just remind me of dried shit cubes.
But I don't mean for this review to be totally negative and rude. I can't convince myself that Wilber is not on to some fundamental truths about human nature. For instance, his discussion about lines of development is a powerful explanatory tool (not everyone is developed equally in every aspect of human nature, so that's why you can have gurus who end up committing felonies, or scientists who lack social grace (as the ole stock-character trope goes). His theorizing about personal development and pathology is also very useful. And he's definitely done the heavy lifting in reading through the literature on pathology. Here's a good quote about psychological disorders with respect to the effort to achieve personal growth:
As we saw, if something goes wrong during this general developmental period, the result is a
'script pathology,' a series of distorted, demeaning, unfair ideas and scripts about oneself and
others. Cognitive therapy has excelled in rooting out these maladaptive scripts and replacing
them with more accurate, benign, and therefore healthy ideas and self-concept (97).
The other cool thing he does is match up certain types of developmental disorders with certain types of therapy (cognitive therapy with cognitive distortions, existential therapy with existential issues, and so on, and places these within an overarching developmental scheme).
The one frustrating thing about this book, I mean, this one in particular, is that in many places, it references his earlier books for fuller discussions. Wilber seems to have a tendency to not go into fuller discussions. He said the original version of this book was supposed to be two volumes and over 100 charts (heck yeah!). But what we get, instead, is a really breezy run through of individual development, where development can go wrong, and then some stuff about cultural development and Wilber's special sauce: The Four Quadrants (it's as smart as it is hokey: I mean, yes, clearly, any effort towards consilience must take on a form like Wilber's, but Wilber's has the sense of a person who's got the general parts all sorted out, but doesn't have a solid metaphysics to glue it all together, and human psychological development and the expectation of "nondual consciousness" can only defer the necessary details so far until it starts to come off as insincere.).
He even admits towards the end that he hasn't given enough details: "Obviously, as I said in the Introduction, this type of approach can only begin with the most general of generalizations--outrageous generalizations, some would say..." (193).
It's getting late. I'm about to need to eat my salad and watch Law & Order. Long story short: I wouldn't recommend this book. "The Atman Project" was pretty neat. And I'm sure one of his earlier books I've got on order will probably go into detail about some of the topics that Wilber appears to have a grip on. But this book won't help you out of a jam. It's not a therapeutic book. It's a showcase for Wilber's Integralism, which at moments begins to sound like multi-level marketing. I'll let you know if any of his other material has some insights about inner growth and pathology therapeutics (because that's what I'm really interested in). But I'm going to stick with Voegelin as my theoretical North Star.
January 12, 2014
Having read several books by Wilber I was really looking forward to finally reading this one (first published in 2000).
Ken Wilber drives me crazy
I find so many of Wilber's books seem to repeat themselves and in the same way. He gives an overview of his basic theory (telling me about quadrants, levels, lines, states, inner/outer...) but rarely fills in the details to a level I would like. For example, in this book I was really hoping to get a better description of what he suggests are the most significant lines of development. I understand that there is no ONE way to do so, but I really would appreciate getting a reasonable description of SOME way with a reasonable amount of depth. This was touched on in this book, but realizing I need to go off to other writers (like Robert Kegan, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Jane Loevinger, John Broughton, Erik Erikson, Don Beck, ....) to get a decent understanding of what is being talked about. I have done some of this in the past - but frankly as a lay person it is more effort than I would like. I wish Wilber would give a decent, accessible, reasonably complete description of the things he repeatedly just alludes to (or buries in copious footnotes).
However, some developmental streams are identified and gone into in more detail:
Morals
Levels of Motivation
Worldview
Affect: development of emotional life or feeling life.
Gender Identity
Aesthetics
Various Cognitive Lines
Lines of the self: Gross, Subtle, Causal
Ken Wilber rocks my life
By the time I finished this book I have to admit I was reminded how much I appreciate Wilber's work and how hugely personally significant he has been in my own journey. His description of the 'disasters and dignities' of Premodern, Modern, Post-Modern, and Integral consciousness is wonderful.
In this book, he particularly emphasizes:
Pre-Modern: The wisdom of the Great Chain or Great Nest (Body to Mind to Soul to Spirit)
Modern: The differentiating of the four quadrants (or big three - Art, Morals, Science). At the same time, the collapse of inner realities to outer. The exterior objective world is what is really real - inner is not really real. Love as neural activity is real - but the suggestion, for example, that love is somehow is an ultimate reality is meaningless (within the modern paradigm).
Post-Modern: The recognition of the 'Myth of the Given'. The realization that human understanding is an interpretation. Interpretation then becomes central and the various contexts that influence that interpretation (culture). The inherent contradiction in the post-modern narrative that all narratives are just interpretations and thus no narrative is 'more' or 'better' or 'more developed' than any other. The resulting dismissal of the idea of progress, hierarchies of any kind, and evolution (other than just change). Somehow a post-modern can look at the 14 billion year evolutionary story and conclude that the story suggests things have 'changed' but certainly not 'evolved'!
Despite some of my frustrations, this is one of my favourite Wilber books. Like Integral Spirituality, I plan on returning to this book once in a while.
Ken Wilber drives me crazy
I find so many of Wilber's books seem to repeat themselves and in the same way. He gives an overview of his basic theory (telling me about quadrants, levels, lines, states, inner/outer...) but rarely fills in the details to a level I would like. For example, in this book I was really hoping to get a better description of what he suggests are the most significant lines of development. I understand that there is no ONE way to do so, but I really would appreciate getting a reasonable description of SOME way with a reasonable amount of depth. This was touched on in this book, but realizing I need to go off to other writers (like Robert Kegan, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Jane Loevinger, John Broughton, Erik Erikson, Don Beck, ....) to get a decent understanding of what is being talked about. I have done some of this in the past - but frankly as a lay person it is more effort than I would like. I wish Wilber would give a decent, accessible, reasonably complete description of the things he repeatedly just alludes to (or buries in copious footnotes).
However, some developmental streams are identified and gone into in more detail:
Morals
Levels of Motivation
Worldview
Affect: development of emotional life or feeling life.
Gender Identity
Aesthetics
Various Cognitive Lines
Lines of the self: Gross, Subtle, Causal
Ken Wilber rocks my life
By the time I finished this book I have to admit I was reminded how much I appreciate Wilber's work and how hugely personally significant he has been in my own journey. His description of the 'disasters and dignities' of Premodern, Modern, Post-Modern, and Integral consciousness is wonderful.
In this book, he particularly emphasizes:
Pre-Modern: The wisdom of the Great Chain or Great Nest (Body to Mind to Soul to Spirit)
Modern: The differentiating of the four quadrants (or big three - Art, Morals, Science). At the same time, the collapse of inner realities to outer. The exterior objective world is what is really real - inner is not really real. Love as neural activity is real - but the suggestion, for example, that love is somehow is an ultimate reality is meaningless (within the modern paradigm).
Post-Modern: The recognition of the 'Myth of the Given'. The realization that human understanding is an interpretation. Interpretation then becomes central and the various contexts that influence that interpretation (culture). The inherent contradiction in the post-modern narrative that all narratives are just interpretations and thus no narrative is 'more' or 'better' or 'more developed' than any other. The resulting dismissal of the idea of progress, hierarchies of any kind, and evolution (other than just change). Somehow a post-modern can look at the 14 billion year evolutionary story and conclude that the story suggests things have 'changed' but certainly not 'evolved'!
Despite some of my frustrations, this is one of my favourite Wilber books. Like Integral Spirituality, I plan on returning to this book once in a while.
January 31, 2013
So this is my second wilber book... but it was exactly like my first wilber book...well, for the most part. THe new thing was the "streams of consciousness" thing that he'd added since "Brief History of Everything." Ok - interesting. But why did I want to read all of the "integral" ideas again? I just felt it was a missed opportunity. with a title like "Integral Psychology", I thought He'd show how to weave together all of the psychological thinkers and their approaches. I guess I'm looking for a book called "integrating psychology". I found it odd that no existant psychological thinkiers (other than developmentalists) really found their way into the texts. Instead, it was his approach to psychology. That in mind, the subtitle (including the word Therapy) was totally misleading. Just like Jung, Freud, Adler, Rogers, etc, Therapy was but a footnote. I feel that the integral approach is useful, necessary, and, to whatever extent, the future. But what would have been more useful would have been an examination of how, with integral approach as the background, the various psychological thinkers fit into the paradigm. As a side note, it continues to annoy me that Wilber totally dismisses the transpersonal quality of Jung's work. Now that Redbook is published, I'd love to see if Wilber changes his tune regarding Jung as a mystic.
July 26, 2016
O carte de 6 stele. Este foarte dificil de exprimat in cateva fraze intreg continutul dar o sa incerc. Ken a reusit sa construiasca o harta a hartilor potentialului uman punand cap la cap teoriile pre-moderniste, moderniste si post-moderniste. In aceasta harta apoi sunt integrate principalele scoli de psihoterapie si etapele din dezvoltare in care pot fi utilizate. Este un continut atat de dens, incat ar lua o viata explorarea unui singur topic in detaliu. In acelasi timp ia in calcul liniile de dezvoltare care pot fi aflate pe diferite niveluri la un anumit moment al vietii si incadreaza experientele spirituale in aceasta harta si formele in care acestea sunt experimentate la diferite etape de dezvoltare. Astfel avem o harta completa a dezvoltarii de la corp la minte la suflet la spirit, rod a peste 3000 de ani de cercetari interioare si exterioare de la pre-modernism la modernism la post-modernism.
August 13, 2020
Most of Ken's book are similar, each expanding a bit to one side of the theory or the other. If you don't know his theory and are interested in developmental psychology you should definitely check him out.
September 25, 2025
seminal
August 14, 2024
In short, I would give this text a score sliding from 3 to 5.
5 if you have never read any or only a little "Integral Theory"
The book had some interesting ideas and started to unpack some of the treasures of an integral psychology, but a problem I have with so many of Wilbers works is that they generally present something like 5-20% new material.
If that 5-20% new material was 80%, then Id give the text a 5, but because it doesnt seem to be so I personally give it a 3/5.
But to be fair it makes sense as he is building off of and moving towards greater orders in the process but still.
Now, all that aside, the 22 pages of charts in the center of the book, is the beloved heart and soul of the book, and of such immense value. Perhaps it could all be one giant image and not need be a book at all, but its value is undeniable. lots and lots of treasure.
5 if you have never read any or only a little "Integral Theory"
The book had some interesting ideas and started to unpack some of the treasures of an integral psychology, but a problem I have with so many of Wilbers works is that they generally present something like 5-20% new material.
If that 5-20% new material was 80%, then Id give the text a 5, but because it doesnt seem to be so I personally give it a 3/5.
But to be fair it makes sense as he is building off of and moving towards greater orders in the process but still.
Now, all that aside, the 22 pages of charts in the center of the book, is the beloved heart and soul of the book, and of such immense value. Perhaps it could all be one giant image and not need be a book at all, but its value is undeniable. lots and lots of treasure.
August 14, 2013
Started reading Wilber in '97 and developed a profound respect for his writing. Learned a lot about human development. Integral Psychology is one of his best. His work is heavily researched and cited. This makes for pretty heavy reading. It also broadens your knowledge base giving you lots of other works and writers to look into. Wilber's writing is like watching a huge jigsaw puzzle of concepts being put together. There may be some missing pieces though, that's why he writes the next book. And why I enjoy reading them.
January 19, 2025
Favorite excerpts:
The commanding figure of Gustav Fechner. As one textbook breathlessly put it, “On the morning of October 22nd, 1850 - an important date in the history of psychology - Fechner had an insight that the law of the connection between mind and body can be found in a statement of quantitative relation between mental sensations and material stimulus.” Fechner’s law, as it was soon known. Another text explained its importance: “In the early part of the century, Immanuel Kant had predicted that psychology could never become a science, because it would be impossible to experimentally measure psychological processes. Because of Fechner’s work, for the first time scientists could measure the mind; by the mid 19th century the methods of science were being applied to mental phenomena. Wilhelm Wundt would take these original and creative achievements and organize and integrate them into a founding of psychology.
Every textbook seemed to agree that Gustav Fechner was one of the major breakthrough figures in the founding of modern psychology, and text after text sang the praises of the man who figured out a way to apply quantitative measurement to the mind, thus finally rendering psychology “scientific.” Even Wilhelm Wundt was empathic: “It will never be forgotten, he announced, that Fechner was the first to introduce exact methods, exact principles of measurement and experimental observation for the investigation of psychic phenomenon, and thereby to open the prospect of a psychological science, in the strict sense of the word.
… Faulkner maintained, as one scholar summarized it, “that the whole universe is spiritual in character, the phenomenal world of physics being merely the external manifestation of this spiritual reality. Atoms are only the simplest elements in a spiritual hierarchy leading up to G-d.”
… Letting go of that level is therefore experienced only with great difficulty. In fact, I believe that each of the major milestones of self-development is marked by difficult life-death battle, involving the death s of each level, which can often be quite traumatic. – Pg 36
The earliest fulcrums (F-0 and F-1) have, until recently, resisted treatment except for medication, precisely because they are so primitive and difficult to access. However, recent avant-garde and highly controversial treatments, ranging from Janov’s primal scream to Groff’s holotropic breathwork, have claimed various sorts of success, by again “temporarily regressing” to the deep wounds, reexperiencing them in full awareness, and thus allowing consciousness to move forward in a more integrated fashion.
…It is not that a given therapy applies only to one level of development, but that, in focusing on 1 or 2 levels, most forms of therapy increasingly lose their effectiveness when applied to more distant realms. All too often, one particular psychotherapeutic approach is used for all types of psychopathologies, often with unfortunate results. Rather, the one thing we learned from the existence of the multiple levels of the spectrum of consciousness is just how many different dimensions of existence there are, and how a sensitivity to these multiple dimensions demands a multiplicity of treatment modalities. Page 98
As we have seen, all Right-Hand events - all sensory motor objects and empirical processes - can be seen with the senses or their extensions. They all have simple location you can actually point to most of them: rocks, towns, trees, lakes, stars, roads, rivers…
But Left-Hand or interior events cannot be seen in that fashion. You cannot see love, envy, wonder, compassion, insight, intentionality, spiritual illumination, states of consciousness, value, or meaning running around out there in the empirical world. Interior events are not seen in an exterior or objective manner, they are seen by introspection and interpretation.
…The disaster of modernity was that it reduced all introspective and interpretive knowledge to exterior and an empirical flatland: it attempted to erase the richness of interpretation from the script of the world. The attempt by postmodernism to reintroduce interpretation into the very structure of fabric of the cosmos was in part a noble attempt to escape flatland, to resurrect the gutted interiors and interpretive modes of knowing.
…But, as we will see in the bad news section, each of those assumptions has also been blown radically out of proportion by the extremist wing of post modernism, with very unfortunate results. The extreme postmodernists do not just stress the importance of interpretation, they claim reality is nothing but an interpretation. They don’t just emphasize the Left-Hand or interpretive aspects of all holons, they attempt to completely deny reality to the Right-Hand or objective facets. This, of course, is precisely the reverse disaster of modernity - not reducing all Left to Right, but reducing all Right to Left - and we can see, as is frequently the case, that extreme reactions are often the mirror images of what they loathe. page 163
Thus, the time is certainly ripe for the beginning of an all-quadrant approach, or simply an approach that equally honors first-person phenomenal accounts, second-person intersubjective structures, and third-person scientific/objective systems: the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies. Page 185
The commanding figure of Gustav Fechner. As one textbook breathlessly put it, “On the morning of October 22nd, 1850 - an important date in the history of psychology - Fechner had an insight that the law of the connection between mind and body can be found in a statement of quantitative relation between mental sensations and material stimulus.” Fechner’s law, as it was soon known. Another text explained its importance: “In the early part of the century, Immanuel Kant had predicted that psychology could never become a science, because it would be impossible to experimentally measure psychological processes. Because of Fechner’s work, for the first time scientists could measure the mind; by the mid 19th century the methods of science were being applied to mental phenomena. Wilhelm Wundt would take these original and creative achievements and organize and integrate them into a founding of psychology.
Every textbook seemed to agree that Gustav Fechner was one of the major breakthrough figures in the founding of modern psychology, and text after text sang the praises of the man who figured out a way to apply quantitative measurement to the mind, thus finally rendering psychology “scientific.” Even Wilhelm Wundt was empathic: “It will never be forgotten, he announced, that Fechner was the first to introduce exact methods, exact principles of measurement and experimental observation for the investigation of psychic phenomenon, and thereby to open the prospect of a psychological science, in the strict sense of the word.
… Faulkner maintained, as one scholar summarized it, “that the whole universe is spiritual in character, the phenomenal world of physics being merely the external manifestation of this spiritual reality. Atoms are only the simplest elements in a spiritual hierarchy leading up to G-d.”
… Letting go of that level is therefore experienced only with great difficulty. In fact, I believe that each of the major milestones of self-development is marked by difficult life-death battle, involving the death s of each level, which can often be quite traumatic. – Pg 36
The earliest fulcrums (F-0 and F-1) have, until recently, resisted treatment except for medication, precisely because they are so primitive and difficult to access. However, recent avant-garde and highly controversial treatments, ranging from Janov’s primal scream to Groff’s holotropic breathwork, have claimed various sorts of success, by again “temporarily regressing” to the deep wounds, reexperiencing them in full awareness, and thus allowing consciousness to move forward in a more integrated fashion.
…It is not that a given therapy applies only to one level of development, but that, in focusing on 1 or 2 levels, most forms of therapy increasingly lose their effectiveness when applied to more distant realms. All too often, one particular psychotherapeutic approach is used for all types of psychopathologies, often with unfortunate results. Rather, the one thing we learned from the existence of the multiple levels of the spectrum of consciousness is just how many different dimensions of existence there are, and how a sensitivity to these multiple dimensions demands a multiplicity of treatment modalities. Page 98
As we have seen, all Right-Hand events - all sensory motor objects and empirical processes - can be seen with the senses or their extensions. They all have simple location you can actually point to most of them: rocks, towns, trees, lakes, stars, roads, rivers…
But Left-Hand or interior events cannot be seen in that fashion. You cannot see love, envy, wonder, compassion, insight, intentionality, spiritual illumination, states of consciousness, value, or meaning running around out there in the empirical world. Interior events are not seen in an exterior or objective manner, they are seen by introspection and interpretation.
…The disaster of modernity was that it reduced all introspective and interpretive knowledge to exterior and an empirical flatland: it attempted to erase the richness of interpretation from the script of the world. The attempt by postmodernism to reintroduce interpretation into the very structure of fabric of the cosmos was in part a noble attempt to escape flatland, to resurrect the gutted interiors and interpretive modes of knowing.
…But, as we will see in the bad news section, each of those assumptions has also been blown radically out of proportion by the extremist wing of post modernism, with very unfortunate results. The extreme postmodernists do not just stress the importance of interpretation, they claim reality is nothing but an interpretation. They don’t just emphasize the Left-Hand or interpretive aspects of all holons, they attempt to completely deny reality to the Right-Hand or objective facets. This, of course, is precisely the reverse disaster of modernity - not reducing all Left to Right, but reducing all Right to Left - and we can see, as is frequently the case, that extreme reactions are often the mirror images of what they loathe. page 163
Thus, the time is certainly ripe for the beginning of an all-quadrant approach, or simply an approach that equally honors first-person phenomenal accounts, second-person intersubjective structures, and third-person scientific/objective systems: the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies. Page 185
Currently reading
November 26, 2008Hope I get past the introduction before my head explodes! Bless my heart, I keep trying to understand Wilbur...
August 8, 2025
I think this is so far the most transformational book I’ve ever read. What a phenomenal piece of knowledge that’s hidden from our everyday discourse; humans develop along consistent stages of consciousness, AND that development isn’t just empirical for individuals; it’s empirical for entire societies. The lens Wilber outlines provides fresh clarity to everything from personal conscious development to social/political/economic theorizing. It provides context for the path we all very clearly seem to be on, comfort in its structure, and a large degree of empathy for my past self as well as all who struggle with this process (individually and collectively).
The insistence on remaining consistent and tying in the transpersonal stages of development is a breath of fresh air and increasingly obvious at the current cultural and political moment; it’s really hard to continue pretending we’re all atomic individuals while the economic system which rests on that assumption burns our planet to the ground. True Spirituality of any type (and I LOVE how general he keeps the discussion; a universal truth should not depend on any one tradition or any one region of the planet) truly involves an integral embrace of all the avenues of human thought;
Are we to pretend the astonishing correlations between conscious states and measurable material phenomena simply don’t exist? Shall we dump that evidence arbitrarily? Are we to pretend a brain scan can communicate any information about what it’s LIKE to experience that state? Are we truly going to bet on one day being able to purely analytically describe the very real phenomena that is transpersonal and spiritual states of consciousness experienced directly by the individual when we can’t even describe what it feels like to see the color red? Will we just ignore the multitude of evidence available that suggests that these states are not only merely achievable independently across cultures and times but also consistently described as transcending rationality and logic, the projections down from those experiences into transmissible words, concepts, ideas, etc, all mapping to the same sets? And, as Wilber so eloquently puts it, what does it mean to suggest you can ever have a well adjusted Nazi?? What does it mean to suggest it’s not possible to concretely determine that Nazism cultivated a culture that was itself sick, thereby producing chronically sick individual conscious states? Can the cultural background, the direct experience of what it’s LIKE to exist in a wider society, therefore, ever be removed from the analysis of consciousness? Isn’t that crucial information? And lastly, are we to pretend it’s not possible to critically analyze the material conditions that lead to Nazism? Shall we throw up our hands and suggest it’s all random and there was no way to know such cultural phenomena’s would form? And when frameworks are provided that deliver extraordinary explanatory power, shall we dismiss them as randomly correlating? No lmfao. No to all of those! We need every piece of the puzzle to fit into any framework or discussion or analysis or understanding of consciousness. “A malformation—a pathology, a "sickness" — in any quadrant will reverberate through all four quad-rants, because every holon has these four facets to its being. So a society with an alienating mode of production (LR) - such as slave wages for dehumanizing labor-will reflect in low self-esteem for laborers (UL) and an out-of-whack brain chemistry (UR) that might, for example, institutionalize alcohol abuse as self-medication. Similarly, a cultural worldview that devalues women will result in a tendency to cripple individual female potential and a brain chemistry that could definitely use some Prozac.”
It’s nothing less than mind-blowing, this book. He touches the pulse of exactly what makes most premodern spiritual or religious traditions insightful yet painfully unfinished. They all renounce the material world in one way or another, yet if individual conscious development depends on collective conscious development (a conclusion many of the premodern sages arrived at, nondual reality being one and all that), then you’re gonna have to start thinking in terms of systems! Where was the Buddha’s Marxist analysis?? Why didn’t Jesus bring up the slave based Roman economy? Surely such massive deprivations were essential to point out when discussing individual spiritual experiences? Surely an understanding of the neurological and psychological mechanisms of trauma would be priceless tools in discerning the different spiritual path of a concubine as opposed to the emperor? As Gabor Matte so gracefully put; “Here's what the Buddha left out, if I may be so bold: before the mind can create the world, the world creates our minds.”
Any discussion of just the world creating our minds isn’t enough. Any discussion of just the mind creating the world isn’t enough. BOTH are required for any serious engagement with reality, and this book is the first I’ve found to FINALLY explain this with absolute clarity.
If I could give it 10 stars then dedicate my first born and my left nut to this man, I would.
The insistence on remaining consistent and tying in the transpersonal stages of development is a breath of fresh air and increasingly obvious at the current cultural and political moment; it’s really hard to continue pretending we’re all atomic individuals while the economic system which rests on that assumption burns our planet to the ground. True Spirituality of any type (and I LOVE how general he keeps the discussion; a universal truth should not depend on any one tradition or any one region of the planet) truly involves an integral embrace of all the avenues of human thought;
Are we to pretend the astonishing correlations between conscious states and measurable material phenomena simply don’t exist? Shall we dump that evidence arbitrarily? Are we to pretend a brain scan can communicate any information about what it’s LIKE to experience that state? Are we truly going to bet on one day being able to purely analytically describe the very real phenomena that is transpersonal and spiritual states of consciousness experienced directly by the individual when we can’t even describe what it feels like to see the color red? Will we just ignore the multitude of evidence available that suggests that these states are not only merely achievable independently across cultures and times but also consistently described as transcending rationality and logic, the projections down from those experiences into transmissible words, concepts, ideas, etc, all mapping to the same sets? And, as Wilber so eloquently puts it, what does it mean to suggest you can ever have a well adjusted Nazi?? What does it mean to suggest it’s not possible to concretely determine that Nazism cultivated a culture that was itself sick, thereby producing chronically sick individual conscious states? Can the cultural background, the direct experience of what it’s LIKE to exist in a wider society, therefore, ever be removed from the analysis of consciousness? Isn’t that crucial information? And lastly, are we to pretend it’s not possible to critically analyze the material conditions that lead to Nazism? Shall we throw up our hands and suggest it’s all random and there was no way to know such cultural phenomena’s would form? And when frameworks are provided that deliver extraordinary explanatory power, shall we dismiss them as randomly correlating? No lmfao. No to all of those! We need every piece of the puzzle to fit into any framework or discussion or analysis or understanding of consciousness. “A malformation—a pathology, a "sickness" — in any quadrant will reverberate through all four quad-rants, because every holon has these four facets to its being. So a society with an alienating mode of production (LR) - such as slave wages for dehumanizing labor-will reflect in low self-esteem for laborers (UL) and an out-of-whack brain chemistry (UR) that might, for example, institutionalize alcohol abuse as self-medication. Similarly, a cultural worldview that devalues women will result in a tendency to cripple individual female potential and a brain chemistry that could definitely use some Prozac.”
It’s nothing less than mind-blowing, this book. He touches the pulse of exactly what makes most premodern spiritual or religious traditions insightful yet painfully unfinished. They all renounce the material world in one way or another, yet if individual conscious development depends on collective conscious development (a conclusion many of the premodern sages arrived at, nondual reality being one and all that), then you’re gonna have to start thinking in terms of systems! Where was the Buddha’s Marxist analysis?? Why didn’t Jesus bring up the slave based Roman economy? Surely such massive deprivations were essential to point out when discussing individual spiritual experiences? Surely an understanding of the neurological and psychological mechanisms of trauma would be priceless tools in discerning the different spiritual path of a concubine as opposed to the emperor? As Gabor Matte so gracefully put; “Here's what the Buddha left out, if I may be so bold: before the mind can create the world, the world creates our minds.”
Any discussion of just the world creating our minds isn’t enough. Any discussion of just the mind creating the world isn’t enough. BOTH are required for any serious engagement with reality, and this book is the first I’ve found to FINALLY explain this with absolute clarity.
If I could give it 10 stars then dedicate my first born and my left nut to this man, I would.
May 24, 2023
As his title suggests, Wilber seeks to first encompass, then reconcile and finally integrate a host of often contradictory modes of thought concerning a vast concept — that of human consciousness. His work is admirable for its openness toward — and respect for — sharply differing views. And, necessarily, it is almost mind-numbingly ambitious in scope. His approach cannot avoid taking a “big-picture” view of his topic; that, in itself might tend to alienate readers who object to “big-picture” thinking on grounds that it becomes overly lax in addressing the many “yeah-buts” that are bound to arise in terms of inconvenient details.
It seems to me that Wilber overcomes that obstacle by acknowledging the troublesome details, the possible holes in every argument, every model, every theory — and suggesting that further investigation is required to resolve them; that the forest is valid despite the existence of trees that appear not to fit into his view of the landscape. He therefore positions himself as simply one of many thinkers upon whose shoulders subsequent investigators may stand to further explore the universe of human consciousness.
Is this a book for the casual reader, one (like myself) whose interest in psychology is touristic rather than devotional? My answer is Yes — and No. I found it daunting and yet worthwhile and enlightening. It’s impossible to summarize the book in a brief review; and to do justice to it one would have to devote to it more than a selective reading. But if the book had accomplished nothing more than having enabled me to grasp Wilber’s holistic conception of consciousness, it would have been well worth the many hours I spent with it. On first looking into Wilber’s plan for the book, I had resolved to just read Part I, outlining the “Foundation” of his theories. But having done so, I found it impossible not to continue reading as he proceeded along his “Path” from premodern to modern to postmodern.
I think it’s in Chapter 15, where he endeavors to pull his entire argument together — to reconcile its far-ranging elements — that Wilber leaves the reader with what might be termed wisdom. Most cogently, he summarizes the achievements — and the failures — of modernity:
”As the Big Three of art, morals and science began to differentiate and clarify on a widespread scale — I, we and it; first-person, second-person and third-person; self, culture and nature; the Beautiful, the Good and the True — each was allowed to yield its own truths unburdened by invasion from others. That modernity let these differentiations collapse into dissociation (so that scientific materialism could and did colonize the other spheres) condemns the pathological dissociation, not the dignity of the differentiations themselves, for they ushered in everything from democracy and feminism to the abolition of slavery to the rise of the ecological sciences to the worldwide increase in lifespan of over three decades; great dignities indeed.”
That chapter alone justifies the entire effort — both the writing and the reading of it.
It seems to me that Wilber overcomes that obstacle by acknowledging the troublesome details, the possible holes in every argument, every model, every theory — and suggesting that further investigation is required to resolve them; that the forest is valid despite the existence of trees that appear not to fit into his view of the landscape. He therefore positions himself as simply one of many thinkers upon whose shoulders subsequent investigators may stand to further explore the universe of human consciousness.
Is this a book for the casual reader, one (like myself) whose interest in psychology is touristic rather than devotional? My answer is Yes — and No. I found it daunting and yet worthwhile and enlightening. It’s impossible to summarize the book in a brief review; and to do justice to it one would have to devote to it more than a selective reading. But if the book had accomplished nothing more than having enabled me to grasp Wilber’s holistic conception of consciousness, it would have been well worth the many hours I spent with it. On first looking into Wilber’s plan for the book, I had resolved to just read Part I, outlining the “Foundation” of his theories. But having done so, I found it impossible not to continue reading as he proceeded along his “Path” from premodern to modern to postmodern.
I think it’s in Chapter 15, where he endeavors to pull his entire argument together — to reconcile its far-ranging elements — that Wilber leaves the reader with what might be termed wisdom. Most cogently, he summarizes the achievements — and the failures — of modernity:
”As the Big Three of art, morals and science began to differentiate and clarify on a widespread scale — I, we and it; first-person, second-person and third-person; self, culture and nature; the Beautiful, the Good and the True — each was allowed to yield its own truths unburdened by invasion from others. That modernity let these differentiations collapse into dissociation (so that scientific materialism could and did colonize the other spheres) condemns the pathological dissociation, not the dignity of the differentiations themselves, for they ushered in everything from democracy and feminism to the abolition of slavery to the rise of the ecological sciences to the worldwide increase in lifespan of over three decades; great dignities indeed.”
That chapter alone justifies the entire effort — both the writing and the reading of it.
May 13, 2021
A true attempt to integrate all of human psychology. Wilber investigated many models of the evolution of human psychology and tries to create an integrated model and integrates them all. He looks at inner subjective/objective and outer subjective/objective traits and creates a quadrant that showcases how consciousness can create body, mind, spirit, soul, and Self.
His research is informed by eastern and western sources. Also, he looks at premodern, modern, and postmodern ways of thinking.
Much of his research has already been elaborated in his magnum opus, but this is good introductory material for those who have not read it yet.
Some Quotes:
Thus, the first seven years of life involve adaptation to the physical realm (especially food, survival, safety). The second seven years involve adaptation to the emotional-sexual-feeling dimension (which culminates in sexual maturation or puberty). The third seven years of life (typically adolescence) involves the emergence of the logical mind and adaptation to its new perspectives. This brings us to around age twenty-one, where many individuals’ overall development tends to become arrested.
Each time the self (the proximate self) encounters a new level in the Great Nest, it first identifies with it and consolidates it; then disidentifies with it (transcends it, de-embeds from it); and then includes and integrates it from the next higher level
It was this scientific materialism that very soon pronounced the other value spheres to be worthless, “not scientific,” illusory, or worse. And for precisely that reason, it was scientific materialism that pronounced the Great Nest of Being to be nonexistent.
The self, at every level, will attempt to defend itself against pain, disruption, and ultimately death, and it will do so using whatever tools are present at that level. If the self has concepts, it will use concepts; if it has rules, it will use rules; if it has vision-logic, it will use vision-logic.
We might say, only as consciousness gained some distance from nature could it paint nature more realistically.
We are all the sons and daughters of a Godhead that is the Goal and Ground of every gesture in the Kosmos, and we will not rest until our own Original Face greets us with each dawn.
Constructivism means consciousness doesn’t merely reflect the world, it helps construct it. Contextualism means that holons are nested, indefinitely. Integral-aperspectivism means that as many perspectives as humanly possible must be included in an integral embrace. That the Kosmos is endlessly holonic—there is the message of postmodernism
His research is informed by eastern and western sources. Also, he looks at premodern, modern, and postmodern ways of thinking.
Much of his research has already been elaborated in his magnum opus, but this is good introductory material for those who have not read it yet.
Some Quotes:
Thus, the first seven years of life involve adaptation to the physical realm (especially food, survival, safety). The second seven years involve adaptation to the emotional-sexual-feeling dimension (which culminates in sexual maturation or puberty). The third seven years of life (typically adolescence) involves the emergence of the logical mind and adaptation to its new perspectives. This brings us to around age twenty-one, where many individuals’ overall development tends to become arrested.
Each time the self (the proximate self) encounters a new level in the Great Nest, it first identifies with it and consolidates it; then disidentifies with it (transcends it, de-embeds from it); and then includes and integrates it from the next higher level
It was this scientific materialism that very soon pronounced the other value spheres to be worthless, “not scientific,” illusory, or worse. And for precisely that reason, it was scientific materialism that pronounced the Great Nest of Being to be nonexistent.
The self, at every level, will attempt to defend itself against pain, disruption, and ultimately death, and it will do so using whatever tools are present at that level. If the self has concepts, it will use concepts; if it has rules, it will use rules; if it has vision-logic, it will use vision-logic.
We might say, only as consciousness gained some distance from nature could it paint nature more realistically.
We are all the sons and daughters of a Godhead that is the Goal and Ground of every gesture in the Kosmos, and we will not rest until our own Original Face greets us with each dawn.
Constructivism means consciousness doesn’t merely reflect the world, it helps construct it. Contextualism means that holons are nested, indefinitely. Integral-aperspectivism means that as many perspectives as humanly possible must be included in an integral embrace. That the Kosmos is endlessly holonic—there is the message of postmodernism
act47-org
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May 20, 2019
For how engaging the book was overall I give it four stars. For Wilber's overall effort both with this book and his vision in general I give top top marks! This is a book that is both informative on the history of mainly developmental psychology (a part of psychology that don't get as much credit as it should these days) but also psychology overall. But Wilber then goes further in trying to integrate psychology into his integral framework which is both interesting and probably necesary to take the subject to the next level. A great book to read for people who have an interest in either psychology, philosophy or spirituality (or better up, all of the three).
January 24, 2021
A micro perspective on integral theory vs the more macro approach of A Brief History of Everything. It helped me solidify my understanding of integral theory, while adding a few extra insights.
Next question: how to develop an integral practices? The theory is great, but without practice it is just that a theory. So, to establish that my next reads are One Taste, Spiral Dynamics and the work of Dalai Lama among others.
Next question: how to develop an integral practices? The theory is great, but without practice it is just that a theory. So, to establish that my next reads are One Taste, Spiral Dynamics and the work of Dalai Lama among others.
September 21, 2025
A masterpiece for those who like to integrate psychology with spirituality. Wilber explains and compares many different theories and therapies with eastern religions and spiritual masters. He explains how all is one, all forms of therapy are doing functions on different planes or levels. He explains the whole foundation of modern psychology and how objectivity has limited it entirely. He is very well read and uses many different psychologists as examples. first Wilber book left me fascinated.
July 19, 2020
Wilber presents an introduction to a pretty comprehensive model of adult mental / emotional / spiritual development. I found this book extremely insightful - the ideas here have really helped me to make sense of this crazy world that we live in.
At times I got lost in the terminology, but for the most part it was plenty accessible.
At times I got lost in the terminology, but for the most part it was plenty accessible.
August 15, 2022
A great unification of psychological models.
Wilbur attempts bridge the gaps between premodern, modern and postmodern theories of psychology, developmental growth, and Transpersonal actualization. He succeeds in many ways in his integral approach, though one can find the goal obscured in the cross referencing of a myriad of terms and theories.
Wilbur attempts bridge the gaps between premodern, modern and postmodern theories of psychology, developmental growth, and Transpersonal actualization. He succeeds in many ways in his integral approach, though one can find the goal obscured in the cross referencing of a myriad of terms and theories.
June 3, 2018
Really beautiful book that organizes and clarifies so much knowledge from across the breadth of the ‘Great Tradition’.
I feel I understand the overall historical situation of humankind much better for having read this book.
I feel I understand the overall historical situation of humankind much better for having read this book.
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November 7, 2020
the information here is very valuable, but the book is poorly organized and repetitive. it's very detailed though. it works better if instead of trying to read it all, you use it as a reference book and make periodic visits to it.
September 5, 2018
Metaphysical proof that there are hierarchies of Spirit.
November 14, 2019
This was a very good book.
July 6, 2020
These reads just keep on coming to me at the right time.
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