Finding Radical Wholeness: The Integral Path to Unity, Growth, and Delight

by Ken Wilber

From integral philosopher Ken Wilber, a practical guide to finding a radical and complete Wholeness through a path that blends integral theory, psychology, spiritual practice, and shadow work.According to Ken Wilber, the perpetual human search for growth and fulfillment is often incomplete. In this book, Wilber integrates the wisdom of spirituality, psychology, shadow work, science, and integral theory to offer us a path to a radical and complete Wholeness of Waking Up, Growing Up, Opening Up, Cleaning Up, and Showing Up. Wilber shows readers how to apply integral theory to their everyday lives for transformation. For example, he shows how the theory of the Four Quadrants—the four perspectives through which we view the world—relates to our lives and allows us to show up and be more present. He also discusses how to evolve our multiple intelligences, how to increase our spiritual awareness, how to process what’s hidden in the depths of our consciousness, and how to enhance, deepen, and widen the feelings of bliss and love through the practice of integral tantric sex. Wilber introduces several practices—on topics such as the Witness, One Taste, and shadow work—to lead us to direct experiences that we can integrate into our lives. In this way, we truly understand Wholeness and can make room for everything life brings our way.No other path of growth includes these five categories—each of which is a unique path to wholeness. By combining them and integrating them, one comes to a realization of what Wilber calls Big Wholeness—a completeness in which everything in our experience comes together to pull us into this deep meaning, where we feel in touch not only with all of the important aspects of ourselves but also with everything in our world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Spirituality, Psychology, Science, Self Help, Religion

486 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 11, 2024

About the author

Kenneth 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.

Reviews

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh Jeez.

This is a pretty good addition to Wilber’s catalog.

Not much new here.

But some good clarifications.

And a few new gems 💎

The main topic of the book is integral enlightenment.

What Wilber refers to as (a) waking up, and (b) growing up.

Together at last.

Yes please.

Absolutely.

And if you a (c) cleaning up.

Than by all means.

LFG!

Wilber attempts to present all this for a Christian audience.

Not sure how effective it will be in the end.

But hey.

It’s worth a try.

And.

In the same text.

He introduces some ideas about integral tantric sex.

Ok.

That’s an odd choice to put all those together.

In the same book.

A little counter intuitive.

But then again.

What do I know.

I’m not Ken Wilber.

Somehow it works for me.

And my intuition is.

It will also work to keep Wilber out of the mainstream.

Where he has always never been.

And that’s ok.

And that’s a shame too.

But…

In the end

He is who and what he is.

And he’s calling it like he sees it.

And I personally love him for all that.

4/5 ⭐️

[Danielle Shroyer]

I preordered this book the moment I discovered it, as I’m a huge Ken Wilber fan. If you are too, you’ll find this is mostly a recap of his previous work, just set in a new structure of transformational “stages.” I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this. Here are a few:

1) It could have been half the length. It needed streamlining, boiling down, clarifying, and a good editor.

2) He’s unnecessarily harsh on religion in ways that detract from his point. (He seems a little mean green about the whole thing to be honest?) And while at some points he references Christian traditions of transformation, at many other points it’s like he forgot about them entirely. Each religion has paths of transformation. It is not despite their mythic origins, I’d argue, but in some part because of them. Obviously fundamentalism is a low form of any discipline. Anyone reading his book already knows that. We don’t need to be reminded every few pages. I can’t unpack my other thoughts on this here but yeah, he really misses the mark here.

3) Despite his naming these stages, he doesn’t really unpack HOW to do this, which is what I hoped the book was about. Alas, that’s my work for the next decade and beyond but I would have loved some more insights.

4) That being said, at the end he does get practical- but about something I don’t believe can be trained or forced, which is a higher (highest) state of consciousness. It felt like a strange choice of when to get into details. That, and two chapters on sexual tantra. Again, the lower levels are where 60% of people are so let’s maybe get practical about that first??

All in all I’m disappointed in this as I had high hopes. But I did find his quadrant helpful to revisit and consider in this larger scope.

[Barb Cherem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ken needs to get a copy editor, as this book is so uneven and undisciplined with brilliant ideas sometimes lost or eclipsed due to the lack of coherence and ease of the read. Better organization in the TOC would help. I would have a TOC that was divided differently because this too would be helpful to the reader: Part I: Foundations: Ch. 1-4 ; Part II: Stages of Growing Up & their colors: Ch 5-9; Part III: Beyond Growing up: Cleaning Up, Showing Up, Opening Up: Ch. 10-12; and Part 4: “Miscellaneous”. In places, the voice is informally conversational, other time explanatory, and at still other spots the voice is un-necessarily repetitive and condescending. Can get tiresome.

The brilliance is in the differentiation of Waking Up's direct experience, with the language of spiritual intelligence that we use to describe this direct experience which is drawn from where we are in the Growing Up schema. Think this is quite profound and rings true.

The other area of brilliance is Showing Up, which is Ken's quadrants.I think Ken does a wonderful critique of how today's times suffer from inattention to the two missing internal quadrants. This has occurred due to their slow erosion since the advent of scientific materialism of the wonderful Enlightenment period, when everything of value needed measurement, and so those internal values that can't be well measured got squeezed out, with the loss of enchantment and mystery, the internal life quadrants.

But such greatly illuminating areas get eclipsed again by uneven and dense language. The 4 page chapter on Opening Up has no references or footnotes. And though Howard Gardner, the father of multiple intelligences is mentioned, this chapter doesn't represent his intelligences based on research, but rather something totally other, with no reference as to the credible folks who might've developed them. The typology seems thrown in with little to no development, even the notes in the back give little evidence as to where these emerged from, but having taught Gardner's typology several decades back, and in looking him up now, this is not his. Many chapters are most often closer to 20-35 pages, but this has four pages and others have 9; what's that about? Very uneven treatments.

I really felt the book lacked discipline, and felt offended that the author didn't respect the reader's time, as Ken made many things that are so beautifully clear in other books on consciousness (See Finding Brahman, or Consciousness is all there is). Ken's explanations are often overly complex, wordy, and/or dense . I like the Developmental movement and much of what Ken does, esp. his quadrants, but this book just didn't serve the reader well. Disappointing.

[Jessica Popp · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up after about a third of the way through. His writing style was so rambling and convoluted that the editor probably threw up his hands realizing that only a complete rewrite could bring clarity of thought to this missive. Very disappointing, bc the premise is very interesting but it was a worse slog than a poorly written textbook and I don’t have time or the incentive to put in that type of content.

[The Tactical Witcher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, this book is a complete mess. It is not Integral, to say the least. Redundancy and painful repetition run galore, as well as a lack of structure, of evidence, of idea construction and organisation. Not to mention the recurring namedropping! Let me clarify.

From very early on he employs Jordan Peterson as a crutch:

most people agree that Peterson usually backs his ideas with very solid experimental and scientific research. So we can assume that his opinions will be backed by considerable evidence.

In fact, several meta-analyses of tests of paranormal capacities (ESP, clairvoyance, precognition) have concluded that the existence of these paranormal events is “virtually certain.”

Hmm, really dude? Give me the references, I'm curious. I'm not disputing the existence of ESP here (I do in fact believe it exists), just the truth value of this statement.

Unlike the way many modern Western thinkers want to see them, myths are not profound metaphors or analogies with deep meanings—they are simply, literally, exactly what they say they are—accounts of historical events: God really did rain locusts down on the Egyptians; Christ really was born of a biological virgin; Elijah really did go straight to heaven in his chariot at death; Lot’s wife really was turned into a pillar of salt; and so on: there is nothing deeply metaphoric about any of that, it’s simply mythic literal.

Okay, so you are saying, then, that the people who wrote the Epic of Mahabharata really truly believed in every detail of the story (flying chariots, epic weapon wars, giant god monkey etc.). Same with the Epic of Gilgamesh and endless Greek myths. So there really was a Minotaur enclosed inside a labyrinth, huh buddy? They really believed in this stuff. Okay.

Christ had moved beyond a mythic-ethnocentric realization to a universal-worldcentric realization beyond ordinary words.

So, here, the mythical figure of Jesus Christ gets validation of actually having existed. Well, Joseph Campbell disagrees, for one.

This certainly happened in the case of Buddha, and it very much looks like a similar opening occurred with Jesus Christ, when he opened to a turiya I AMness that was one with Spirit itself.

Now, the physical existence of Buddha gets validation. He was not a metaphorical figure according to Ken Wilber, but actually, properly and physically existed. Then must we assume that all the stories surrounding him actually really happened, because, well, people then were mythic-literal and incapable of using allegory, right?

But Campbell doesn’t know the half of it. Every myth produced by the amber mythic-literal stage is taken literally, as its name implies.

Off you go, Campbell. See ya.

However, Campbell (and apparently many others) failed to realize that “as if” phrases emerge at—and can be understood only by—the formal, operational cognition stages (that is, orange rationality). In other words, “as if” (and “what if”) are themselves the products of rationality, as has been demonstrated by Piaget and many other developmental psychologists. That means, as Campbell himself maintains, that only myths held in the space of reason can be authentic. And with that, gone is the notion that myths offer some sort of transrational wisdom. Only myths held by reason are authentic.

Still here Campbell? Dude, has Wilber even ever read a Campbell book? Has he really? I heard he speed-reads. And what about Erich Neumann? And Jung? Dismiss these guys also? What the hell's got into Wilber these days? I'm baffled.

Jesus Christ himself was so pure it was as if he were born from a biological virgin.

That's literally not how the Virgin Birth has been interpreted. I refer you again to Erich Neumann's The Origins and History of Consciousness.

Almost no myths are originally metaphoric or symbolic. They are just what they say they are—they are literal; there is no hidden meaning.

Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt” means exactly what it says it means—she was literally turned into a pillar of salt.

And so Wilber continues to annihilate Campbell, Neumann, Jung and all mythologists ever to have existed.

Abundant research makes it very clear that, in many instances, altered states reveal genuine realities—real realities that are dimensions of this world, just rarely seen or felt. For example, baseball players regularly report that when they are at bat, they can count the number of stitches on the baseball as it speeds toward them. They are in an altered state. We don’t doubt the reality of the baseball or that it actually has a certain number of stitches—those are genuine realities. But very few people can count the stitches of a baseball while it is speeding 100 miles per hour at their face.

Now THAT is proof ladies and gentlemen. Ultimate, utter, undisputable proof of existence.

At this orange rational stage, the notion of evolution itself often becomes reinterpreted by spiritual intelligence as something like “Spirit-in-action.”

Oh, really. Let me check with my buddy Richard Dawkins. Oh, he's not answering the call for whatever reason.

As only one example, the probability of correctly producing a single protein chain containing 150 amino acids in the correct order—by chance—versus incorrectly doing this is 1/1077; that is, several times greater than the total number of organisms on the planet.

Richard, we need you here big time buddy.

This drive to create “order out of chaos,” according to Prigogine’s Nobel Prize-winning work, is an inherent drive of the material universe itself, which started with the Big Bang.

Namedropping, ain't we? More to come.

Given that evolution is ultimately driven by Eros or Evolutionary Love—and given that God is Love—this is exactly why anybody as brilliant as Peirce could easily see evolution as being Spirit-in-action.

Broken green dominates the liberal arts fields in academia—and is increasingly invading the STEM fields as well, as Jordan Peterson reports—entertainment, and the media.

Here we go, more praise and namedropping. Wilber still hasn't realised he can't reify evolution as such: "as evolution continued forward", he writes, as he did before in this book Trump and a Post-Truth World: An Evolutionary Self-Correction.

For example, when you find somebody to project your own adulterous impulses onto—say, your partner—they will seem to possess the projected trait and you will seem to be completely lacking in it. Then you will begin to uncontrollably suspect your partner of wanting to fool around. You might even accuse them of doing so. Even if they deny it, if you keep suspecting and accusing them of it, this might actually contribute to them being unfaithful, or at least thinking really hard about it.

Well, duh, I thought we were all Oneness, Infinite Bliss etc. Why all the fuss Mr. Wilber? All in One, One is in all. Swapping partners should be no big deal. Grow Up.

a satori causes a change in brain physiology

What about vice versa?

So when I am making love and I start to feel a oneness with my partner, or our bodies start to merge and fuse together, or the love for my partner becomes so intense that begin to dissolve as a separate self, then I let that love spill out of me and move beyond my partner till it embraces the entire World.

Yup, a terrific way to really appreciate sex. No doubt. No effect whatsoever on performance. Nope. None at all.

Whatever happened to our Ken Wilber of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution, or The Spectrum of Consciousness, we want him back! This one is, well..., seems to be having some ego problems.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is too long. I just need to get it out. I suggest you do NOT read it :)
Summary: Read a different Ken Wilber book like "A Theory of Everything". Not this book.

As my people know, I've been diving into the mindful mystical books for a few years. Ken Wilber is new to me. But, once I picked him up I now see him everywhere. He's quite famous. I read a small book summarizing his theories before this and it was dense but fascinating. He has this very compelling theory of "everything." His Wikipedia-level life story seems to imply that he's well loved but also eccentric. Maybe that's how most genius types are?

Anyway, this book came out, more for a lay audience (me) and so I bought it. The book itself is shockingly poorly written. It's like a first draft collection of essays, dictated into a recording device, transcribed, and unedited. It's repetitive in ways that seem unlikely to be intentional. It should be 25% as long. It sometimes feels alternately cranky, defensive, narcissistic, genius, and bullshitty. He refers to his theories that I happen to have read before so I got the references, but even Einstein would need a chart and figures to understand them. Yet there are none in the book. He is constantly referencing things (like this very non-intuitive color scheme of levels of human growth) without ever explaining it. It's baffling.

But, the ideas of Ken Wilber are so fascinating that I couldn't stop reading it. And, I was almost angry at him for not writing a better book. Some chapters were so disheveled that I just mindlessly got through them.

I wish you'd read this book and then we could get a beer to exchange shock and awe. But, sadly, you should not read it. This book should be part of a class about the value of editors. I really can't believe it found it's way to being published in this state. Fascinating and I wish I knew the backstory.

[Rakeela Windrider · Rating 1 out of 5]

The right-leaning slant of this book was really disappointing. I expected a spiritualist tract, not what I got. This author tortures his own logic to justify shadow-boxing with leftists, asserting a rude equivocation between antifascists and neonazis which ignores that IRL we have: concentration camps, enforced disappearances, domestic incidences of torture, arbitrary deportations, and a nakedly corrupt government that is selling pardons and governing to benefit its cronies. This moral equivocation reveals a lack of respect for integrity. If I seem too left-aligned, perhaps my review will make bigoted people listen to the book and hear its message of increasingly universal standards of care.

Not that I’m necessarily impressed with the book in that respect either. In terms of the spiritual content, it seems to me that this oneness it seeks is narcissistic and self-satisfying, a very hedonistic search for a kind of arrogant bliss which obliterates the seeker’s ability to respect and weigh the merits of multiple competing perspectives. This I feel is the source of a lack of empathy that is common in the book’s content. I feel like this book doesn’t promote a sincere engagement with the ideas of other people, but generally feeds a superiority complex whereby listeners learn to disregard the stated ideals of other people in favor of pathologizing analysis. It encourages the reader, who is presumably following along in all sincerity, to see themselves as uniquely enlightened and perceptive.

P.S. Ken Wilbur defines “eternal life” as “living in the moment”.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Enjoyed it. I will likely refer back to it. It expanded my vocabulary and conceptual landscape some. The Tantric history, theory, and practices are interesting.

Some of the language seems hyperbolic. It often presents itself as having ultimate solution(s). It seems to reflect positivistic biases of [our] cultures. On the other, hand much of it does reflect and resonate with my experience.

The above thoughts are very subjective. This may be just the book someone is looking for, or not make sense to others. For me it was a good read, with some caveats, that has also provided some inspiration.

(Previously I had minor familiarity with Ken Wilber and some of these ideas. This is the first book of his I've read.)

(I listened to the audiobook. I feel that the narrator, Christopher Ragland, did an excellent job.)

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually, I listened to the audiobook and the narrator really brought what could have been a dry over/re-view of the Wilber Integral metatheory alive for me. (I also bought the hardcover and Kindle versions for futur reference.)

This book is rather unique in that it is much more of a practicum for doing what the title promises: Finding Radical Wholeness. If one follows the arguments and practice notes, there's a good chance one will have moments of wholeness, also known as enlightenment. As Wilber says, it's actually easy. Not something to strive for or achieve, but simply (or not so simply) experience over and over until one comes to dwell in blissful love or loving bliss.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good! Wilber’s latest is accessible and designed for readers who may not be completely familiar with his large body of work. I particularly liked the chapters which dealt with the current social unrest and the culture wars and thought that Wilber’s model allows for some deep insight into it. The only reason it doesn’t get 5 stars is there is little new in terms of theory development here, but that is fine. The books job is to help readers “wake up” (a very different idea to woke I must add) and flourish in all areas of their lives. Bravo Ken!

[zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

wilber says a lot of interesting and thought provoking things, but they are sandwiched between racial micro aggressions and unnecessary condescension, ultimately robbing him of a lot of his credibility. perhaps if he was slightly less self-assured and patronizing, i would take him serious. but ultimately, he’s just as much of a nutcase as the religious fundamentalists he makes fun of.

[Toni Lamotta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken at his best

A lot of repetition of the same concepts and examples but it drives home the experience of living in love and bliss. A worthwhile read.

[Steph Stern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of Wilber's thinking

[Mohammed Raei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Wilber, but as in the case of 70% of his books, he could really use a writing coach.

[Zach Baughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for the TLDR peeps but an absolutely crucial read for anyone wanting a better grasp on what’s happening in the world

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, this book is repetitive, it's the most personal growthy Wilber I've read, could benefit from an editor, and is mostly a rehash of things us big Wilber fans have read or heard dozens if not hundreds of times. If this is your first time or if you're wanting to dip back into Wilber, the Religion of Tomorrow is more comprehensive.

BUT!

- There's some great new stuff! Integral Sexual Tantra!?
- Distinguishing Waking Up from the outside versus the feeling of waking up from the inside
- No one comes close to how good this stuff is overall, and the simple language (versus the footnotes, or SES or whatever) I find really helpful in sharing Integral wisdom (for others), versus sharing Integral knowledge (for my own ego)
- I got a deep transmission
- I've never heard Wilber talk so much about love.

I just wrote to my Relateful students about how I particularly loved the chapter on Cleaning Up and Shadow therapy, so I'll share most of that here:

This chapter on "Cleaning Up and Shadow Therapy" is the clearest, most comprehensive, and shortest overview of repression and psychology I've seen to date. For many of you there won't be any particularly new concepts, but it will provide a very lucid and clear overview of how shadow works.
It's really an incredible summary that covers the high-level theory of how repression works, why meditation doesn't address it (and therefore spiritual teachers all have shadow), it's application to current events like "Trump Derangement Syndrome," romantic relationships, golden shadows, and the process of reintegration—essentially, the common core of all therapeutic modalities.

Relatefulness isn't therapy, but I think this will be a delightful read that illuminates much of what happens in the sessions we facilitate.

It also makes clear why the 2nd person—the ability to be able to really deeply empathize, to see the world through another, is critical for shadow integration. We've all seen people come to relateful sessions only engaging the 1st person without seeming to grow much from it; this chapter makes a compelling case as to why.

If you skim, jump to page 241 in the book. If you don't read it at all, basically the idea is that we disown stuff we can't deal with less and less intimacy with our identity—we move from 1st to 2nd to 3rd person; in order to become more intimate with reality we have to reverse that process, going from naming (3rd), to dialogue (2nd) to identity (1st).

In Ken's words:

"We create shadow material by taking some "I" elements and disowning them as an alien "it." We deny it, we disavow it, we disown it, we split it of from our conscious self, and then it appears as if it belongs not to my own 1st person or "I" but to some 3rd person—him, her, or it. But it's actually mine.
In order to cure the problem, we have to take that "it" back and re-own it, reintegrate it, return it to the self, to the "I," and thus restore the psychological wholeness that we lost when we repressed this shadow material. "Where it was, there I shall become." And every time we do this, we are creating a greater mental Wholeness, which expands our self-sense from a narrow persona that si split from our shadows to a more complete, accurate, and whole psyche. Welcome to the Wholeness of Cleaning Up!"

Oh, he also includes some hidden references to A Course in Miracles, which I always love.