Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949) is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory,[1] a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience.[2]
Ken Wilber
January 31, 1949
Duke University
(no degree)
University of Nebraska at Lincoln
(no degree)
The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977)
The Atman Project (1980)
Grace and Grit (1991)
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995, 2001)
Life and career[edit]
Wilber was born in 1949 in Oklahoma City. In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med student at Duke University.[3] He became interested in psychology and Eastern spirituality. He left Duke and enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln studying biochemistry, but after a few years dropped out of university and began studying his own curriculum and writing.[4]
In 1973 Wilber completed his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness,[5] in which he sought to integrate knowledge from disparate fields. After rejections by more than 20 publishers it was accepted in 1977 by Quest Books, and he spent a year giving lectures and workshops before going back to writing, publishing The Atman Project, in which he put his idea of a spectrum of consciousness in a developmental context. He also helped to launch the journal ReVision in 1978.[6]
In 1982, New Science Library published his anthology The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes,[7] a collection of essays and interviews, including one by David Bohm. The essays, including one of his own, looked at how holography and the holographic paradigm relate to the fields of consciousness, mysticism, and science.
In 1983, Wilber married Terry "Treya" Killam who was shortly thereafter diagnosed with breast cancer. From 1984 until 1987, Wilber gave up most of his writing to care for her. Killam died in January 1989; their joint experience was recorded in the 1991 book Grace and Grit.
In 1987, Wilber moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked on his Kosmos trilogy and supervised the work and functioning of the Integral Institute.[8]
Wilber wrote Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), the first volume of his Kosmos Trilogy, presenting his "theory of everything," a four-quadrant grid in which he summarized his reading in psychology and Eastern and Western philosophy up to that time. A Brief History of Everything (1996) was the popularised summary of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in interview format. The Eye of Spirit (1997) was a compilation of articles he had written for the journal ReVision on the relationship between science and religion. Throughout 1997, he had kept journals of his personal experiences, which were published in 1999 as One Taste, a term for unitary consciousness. Over the next two years his publisher, Shambhala Publications, released eight re-edited volumes of his Collected Works. In 1999, he finished Integral Psychology and wrote A Theory of Everything (2000). In A Theory of Everything Wilber attempts to bridge business, politics, science and spirituality and show how they integrate with theories of developmental psychology, such as Spiral Dynamics. His novel, Boomeritis (2002), attempts to expose what he perceives as the egotism of the baby boom generation. Frank Visser's Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (2003), a guide to Wilber's thought, was praised by Edward J. Sullivan[9] and Daryl S. Paulson, with the latter calling it "an outstanding synthesis of Wilber's published works through the evolution of his thoughts over time. The book will be of value to any transpersonal humanist or integral philosophy student who does not want to read all of Wilber's works to understand his message."[10]
In 2012, Wilber joined the advisory board of the International Simultaneous Policy Organization which seeks to end the usual deadlock in tackling global issues through an international simultaneous policy.[11][12]
Wilber stated in 2011 that he has long suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, possibly caused by RNase enzyme deficiency disease.[13][14]
Other ideas[edit]
Mysticism and the great chain of being[edit]
One of Wilber's main interests is in mapping what he calls the "neo-perennial philosophy", an integration of some of the views of mysticism typified by Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy with an account of cosmic evolution akin to that of the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo. He rejects most of the tenets of Perennialism and the associated anti-evolutionary view of history as a regression from past ages or yugas.[19] Instead, he embraces a more traditionally Western notion of the great chain of being. As in the work of Jean Gebser, this great chain (or "nest") is ever-present while relatively unfolding throughout this material manifestation, although to Wilber "... the 'Great Nest' is actually just a vast morphogenetic field of potentials ..." In agreement with Mahayana Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta, he believes that reality is ultimately a nondual union of emptiness and form, with form being innately subject to development over time.
Influences[edit]
Wilber's views have been influenced by Madhyamaka Buddhism, particularly as articulated in the philosophy of Nagarjuna.[37] Wilber has practiced various forms of Buddhist meditation, studying (however briefly) with a number of teachers, including Dainin Katagiri, Taizan Maezumi, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Alan Watts, Penor Rinpoche and Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. Advaita Vedanta, Trika (Kashmir) Shaivism, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Ramana Maharshi, and Andrew Cohen can be mentioned as further influences. Wilber has on several occasions singled out Adi Da's work for the highest praise while expressing reservations about Adi Da as a teacher.[38][39] In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber refers extensively to Plotinus' philosophy, which he sees as nondual. While Wilber has practised Buddhist meditation methods, he does not identify himself as a Buddhist.[40]
According to Frank Visser, Wilber's conception of four quadrants, or dimensions of existence is very similar to E. F. Schumacher's conception of four fields of knowledge.[41] Visser finds Wilber's conception of levels, as well as Wilber's critique of science as one-dimensional, to be very similar to that in Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth.[42] Visser also writes that the esoteric aspects of Wilber's theory are based on the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo as well as other theorists including Adi Da.[43]
Reception[edit]
Wilber has been categorized by Wouter J. Hanegraaff as New Age due to his emphasis on a transpersonal view.[44] Publishers Weekly has called him "the Hegel of Eastern spirituality".[45]
Wilber is credited with broadening the appeal of a "perennial philosophy" to a much wider audience. Cultural figures as varied as Bill Clinton,[46] Al Gore, Deepak Chopra, Richard Rohr,[47] and musician Billy Corgan have mentioned his influence.[48] Paul M. Helfrich credits him with "precocious understanding that transcendental experience is not solely pathological, and properly developed could greatly inform human development".[49] However, Wilber's approach has been criticized as excessively categorizing and objectifying, masculinist,[50][51] commercializing spirituality,[52] and denigrating of emotion.[53] Critics in multiple fields cite problems with Wilber's interpretations and inaccurate citations of his wide ranging sources, as well as stylistic issues with gratuitous repetition, excessive book length, and hyperbole.[54]
Frank Visser writes that Wilber's 1977 book The Spectrum of Consciousness was praised by transpersonal psychologists, but also that support for him "even in transpersonal circles" had waned by the early 1990s.[9] Edward J. Sullivan argued, in his review of Visser's guide Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion, that in the field of composition studies "Wilber's melding of life’s journeys with abstract theorizing could provide an eclectic and challenging model of 'personal-academic' writing", but that "teachers of writing may be critical of his all-too-frequent totalizing assumptions".[9] Sullivan also said that Visser's book overall gave an impression that Wilber "should think more and publish less."[9]
Steve McIntosh praises Wilber's work but also argues that Wilber fails to distinguish "philosophy" from his own Vedantic and Buddhist religion.[55] Christopher Bache is complimentary of some aspects of Wilber's work, but calls Wilber's writing style glib.[56]
Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof has praised Wilber's knowledge and work in the highest terms;[57] however, Grof has criticized the omission of the pre- and peri-natal domains from Wilber's spectrum of consciousness, and Wilber's neglect of the psychological importance of biological birth and death.[58] Grof has described Wilber's writings as having an "often aggressive polemical style that includes strongly worded ad personam attacks and is not conducive to personal dialogue."[59] Wilber's response is that the world religious traditions do not attest to the importance that Grof assigns to the perinatal.[60]