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94-629: Integral theory as developed by Ken Wilber is a synthetic metatheory aiming to unify a broad spectrum of Western theories and models and Eastern meditative traditions within a singular conceptual framework. The original basis, which dates to the 1970s, is the concept of a "spectrum of consciousness " that ranges from archaic consciousness to the highest form of spiritual consciousness, depicting it as an evolutionary developmental model. This model incorporates stages of development as described in structural developmental stage theories , as well as eastern meditative traditions and models of spiritual growth, and

188-500: A Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet . Koestler would finally propose the term holon in The Ghost in the Machine (1967), using it to describe natural organisms as composed of semi-autonomous sub-wholes (or, parts) that are linked in a form of hierarchy, a holarchy , to form a whole. The title of the book itself points to the notion that the entire ' machine ' of life and of

282-515: A bit. Let's hold up a mirror and show it what it's doing, with the hope that it will separate the Mean Green Meme from legitimate healthy GREEN. Let's expose enough people to the duplicity and artificiality and self-serving nature of their own belief systems around political correctness to finally get the word out that there's something beyond that. Cowan and his business partner Natasha Todorovic disagreed with this view, leading Todorovic to publish

376-548: A broad resonance with many Eastern models of spiritual development, particularly those found in the Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions. They also find rough correlations with the concepts of the great chain of being and Aurobindo's elaboration of the five sheaths or koshas in Hindu thought. Wilber's ideas have grown more and more inclusive over the years, incorporating theories of ontology , epistemology , and methodology , creating

470-591: A certain culture might bring a particular style or emphasis to the actualization of a specific stage or state, i.e., the experience of higher spiritual states within Zen Buddhism might be colored by Japanese cultural norms, while the higher states experienced by a Hindu might be colored by the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta . Types are considered non-hierarchical and non-normative, whereas other features of Levels and Lines and States can be understood hierarchically. The individual building blocks of Wilber's model are holons ,

564-406: A clear and systematic way. A synthetic metatheory "classifies whole theories according to some overarching typology." Wilber's metatheory started in the 1970s, with the publication of The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), synthesizing Eastern religious traditions with Western schools of psychotherapy and Western developmental psychology . In The Atman Project (1980), this spectrum was presented as

658-493: A complete account of human existence. According to Wilber, each by itself offers only a partial view of reality. According to Wilber modern Western society has a pathological focus on the exterior or objective perspective. Such perspectives value that which can be externally measured and tested in a laboratory, but tend to deny or marginalize subjectivity, individual experience, feelings, and values (the left-hand quadrants) as unproven or having no reality . Wilber identifies this as

752-475: A constant order of succession, later stages integrate the achievements of earlier stages, and each is characterized by a particular type of structure of mental processes which is specific to it. The time of appearance may vary to a certain extent depending upon environmental conditions. The word integral was independently suggested by Jean Gebser (1905–1973), a Swiss phenomenologist and interdisciplinary scholar, in 1939 to describe his own intuition regarding

846-464: A developmental model, akin to western structural stage theory , models of psychology development that describe human development as following a set course of stages of development. According to these early presentations, which rely strongly on perceived analogies between disparate theories ( Sri Aurobindo 's integral yoga , stage theories of psychological development, and Gebser's theory of collective mutations of consciousness), human development follows

940-457: A few years dropped out of university and began studying his own curriculum and writing. In 1973 Wilber completed his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness , 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

1034-711: A framework which he calls AQAL, which is shorthand for "All Quadrants All Levels All Lines All States All Types." In this, Wilber's older frameworks are primarily reworked using what Wilber calls the four quadrant model. This model divides views of reality into the individual-subjective (upper left), the individual-objective (upper right), the collective-intersubjective (lower left) and the collective-interobjective (lower right) quadrants. This model can then be used to contextualize and comprehend differing views on individual development, collective evolution of consciousness, and levels or holons of neurological functioning and societal organization more clearly, ultimately integrating them into

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1128-470: A fundamental cause of modern society's malaise, and names the situation resulting from such perspectives "flatland". The Integral or AQAL model places a great value on the highest stages and states. This can be referred to as nondual awareness or "the simple feeling of being," which is equated with a range of "ultimates" that are recorded and sought in a variety of Eastern and Western esoteric spiritual traditions. This nondual awareness transcends and includes

1222-447: A great deal of controversy when he argued in a derisive tone that many of the critiques he received were simply ad hominem and also failed to understand his model. It was argued this essay "insulted his critics, degrading and dismissing them by basically stating that he was smarter than everybody else." Psychologist Kirk J. Schneider , a proponent of humanistic-existential psychology, critiqued Transpersonal Psychology and Ken Wilber in

1316-475: A high spiritual state experience). Beck continued to use the SDi name along with the 4Q/8L (four quadrants/eight levels) system from A Theory of Everything , while Wilber went on to criticize both Beck and Cowan. In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), Wilber introduced his AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels All Lines All States All Types) metatheory, a framework which consists of five fundamental concepts, sometimes called

1410-463: A larger whole. For example, a cell in an organism is both a whole as a cell, and at the same time a part of another whole, the organism. Likewise a letter is a self-existing entity and simultaneously an integral part of a word, which then is part of a sentence, which is part of a paragraph, which is part of a page; and so on. Everything from quarks to matter to energy to ideas can be looked at in this way. The relation between individuals and society

1504-631: A loosely defined "Integral movement". Others, however, have disagreed. Whatever its status as a "movement", there are a variety of religious organizations, think tanks, conferences, workshops, and publications in the US and internationally that utilize the term integral and that explicitly refer to Wilber's definition of the term. Steve McIntosh (2007) pointed to Henri Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin as pre-figuring Wilber as integral thinkers. Gary Hampson (2007) suggested that there are six intertwined genealogical branches of Integral, based on those who first used

1598-418: A lower-right analysis of how society is set up to practically respond to tragedies (i.e., through systemic interventions or reparative measures) offers yet another viewpoint. According to Wilber all are needed for real appreciation of a matter. According to Wilber, all four perspectives offer complementary, rather than contradictory, perspectives. It is possible for all to be "correct," and all are necessary for

1692-426: A mature adult ego. The pre-personal and personal stages are taken from western structural stage theories, which are correlated with other stage theories. In his early work he posited four stages of properly spiritual development, going from the psychic to the subtle to the causal to the nondual (the last of which according to Wilber is not properly conceived of as a stage, but as the essence of all stages). This model has

1786-401: A more pluralistic understanding of the world's spiritual traditions. The book received positive reviews for presenting fundamental new developments in transpersonal psychology. According to Gregg Lahood and Edward Dale it was representative for the changes in transpersonal psychology, after the initial east-west synthesis and Wilber's neo-Perennial hierarchical models. Wilber responded strongly to

1880-826: A much wider audience. Cultural figures as varied as Bill Clinton , Al Gore , Deepak Chopra , Richard Rohr , and musician Billy Corgan have mentioned his influence. Paul M. Helfrich credits him with "precocious understanding that transcendental experience is not solely pathological, and properly developed could greatly inform human development". However, Wilber's approach has been criticized as excessively categorizing and objectifying , masculinist , commercializing spirituality, and denigrating of emotion. 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. Frank Visser writes that Wilber's 1977 book The Spectrum of Consciousness

1974-567: A paper refuting it based on psychological trait mapping research. Todorovic charged that when the Mean Green Meme concept is used to criticize a person making an argument, it "usurps arguments by undermining an individual before the debate has begun." After his collaboration with Cowan ended, Beck announced his own version of Spiral Dynamics, namely "Spiral Dynamics integral " (SDi) at the very end of 2001, while Cowan and his business partner Natasha Todorovic stayed closer to Graves' original model. In his 2006 book Integral Spirituality , Wilber created

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2068-435: A rest-category: four quadrants, several levels and lines of development, several states of consciousness, and "types", topics which do not fit into these four concepts. "Levels" are the stages of development, from pre-personal through personal to transpersonal. "Lines" of development are various domains which may progress unevenly through different stages. "States" are states of consciousness; according to Wilber persons may have

2162-427: A set course, from pre-personal infant development, to personal adult development, culminating in trans-personal spiritual development. In Wilber's model, development starts with the separation of individual consciousness from a transcendental reality. The whole course of human development aims at reconnecting spirit to itself through developing a transcendental consciousness that passes through and then dis-identifies from

2256-423: A single metatheory in which all academic disciplines and every form of knowledge and experience are argued to fit together. The integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo describes five levels of being (physical; vital; mind or mental being; the higher reaches of mind or psychic being; Supermind), akin to the five koshas or sheaths, and three types of being (outer being, inner being, psychic being). The psychic being refers to

2350-418: A somewhat different way, cultures and collectives) may go through a wide variety of states. These can include higher spiritual states, as well as states of depression or anxiety, as well as psychologically regressive states that are holdovers from earlier stages of development. "Types" is a category meant to describe idiosyncratic styles or emphases that one might bring to any of these other elements. For example,

2444-497: A spectrum of consciousness in a developmental context. He also helped to launch the journal ReVision in 1978. In 1982, New Science Library published his anthology The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes , 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

2538-556: A temporal experience of a higher developmental stage. "Types" is a rest-category, for phenomena which do not fit in the other four concepts. In order for an account of the Kosmos to be complete, Wilber believes that it must include each of these five categories. For Wilber, only such an account can be accurately called "integral". In the essay, "Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This Together", Wilber describes AQAL as "one suggested architecture of

2632-424: A term first introduced by the philosopher Arthur Koestler , which means that every entity and concept is both an entity on its own, and a hierarchical part of a larger whole. In order for an account of the Kosmos to be complete, Wilber believes that it must include each of these five categories. For Wilber, only such an account can be accurately called "integral," describing AQAL as "one suggested architecture of

2726-400: A universal metatheory in which all academic disciplines, forms of knowledge, and experiences cohesively align. As per 2010, integral theory had found its primary audience within certain subcultures, with only limited engagement from the broader academic community, though a number of dissertations have used integral theories as their theoretical foundation, in addition to ca. 150 publications on

2820-565: A variety of psychic and supernatural experiences. In the advancement of his framework, Wilber introduced the AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels) model in 1995, which further expanded the theory through a four-quadrant grid (interior-exterior and individual-collective). This grid integrates theories and ideas detailing the individual's psychological and spiritual development, collective shifts in consciousness, and levels or holons in neurological functioning and societal organization. Integral theory aims to be

2914-490: A whole in and of itself, as well as a part of a larger whole. In this way, a holon can be considered a subsystem within a larger hierarchical system. The holon represents a way to overcome the dichotomy between parts and wholes , as well as a way to account for both the self-assertive and the integrative tendencies of organisms . Holons are sometimes discussed in the context of self-organizing holarchic open (SOHO) systems . The word holon ( Ancient Greek : ὅλον )

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3008-420: A whole is a part of another whole, in turn part of another whole, and so on. Each holon can be seen from within (subjective, interior perspective) and from the outside (objective, exterior perspective), and from an individual or a collective perspective. According to Frank Visser, Wilber's early work was praised by transpersonal psychologists , but support for Wilber "even in transpersonal circles" had waned by

3102-600: Is a combination of the Greek holos ( ὅλος ) meaning 'whole', with the suffix -on which denotes a particle or part (as in prot on and neutr on ). Holons are self-reliant units that possess a degree of independence and can handle contingencies without asking higher authorities for instructions (i.e., they have a degree of autonomy ). These holons are also simultaneously subject to control from one or more of these higher authorities. The first property ensures that holons are stable forms that are able to withstand disturbances, while

3196-563: Is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory , a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience. Wilber was born in 1949 in Oklahoma City. In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med student at Duke University . He became interested in psychology and Eastern spirituality. He left Duke and enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln studying biochemistry, but after

3290-569: Is based on the work of Clare W. Graves , and which shows strong correlations with Wilber's model. Beck and Christopher Cowan had published their application and extension of Graves's work in 1996 in Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change . Wilber also referenced Graves's emergent cyclical levels of existence in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality , when he introduced his quadrant model, and began to incorporate Spiral Dynamics in

3384-532: Is complimentary of some aspects of Wilber's work, but calls Wilber's writing style glib. Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof has praised Wilber's knowledge and work in the highest terms; 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. Grof has described Wilber's writings as having an "often aggressive polemical style that includes strongly worded ad personam attacks and

3478-724: Is deeply at odds with the modern evolutionary synthesis . In 2005, at the launch of the Integral Spiritual Center, a branch of the Integral Institute , Wilber presented a 118-page rough draft summary of his two forthcoming books. The essay is entitled "What is Integral Spirituality?", and contains several new ideas, including Integral post-metaphysics and the Wilber-Combs lattice. In 2006, he published "Integral Spirituality", in which he elaborated on these ideas, as well as others such as Integral Methodological Pluralism and

3572-402: Is former fan Frank Visser, who published a biography of Ken Wilber and his work. Visser also has dedicated a website to Wilber's work, including critical essays by himself and others. and a bibliography of online criticism of Wilber's Integral Theory. A major, specific criticism of Visser's is that Wilber misunderstands Darwinian evolutionary theory, and erroneously posits a role for "spirit" in

3666-507: Is irrelevant in, and widely ignored at mainstream academic institutions, as well as sharply contested by critics. The independent scholar Frank Visser argued there is a problematic relation between Wilber and academia for several reasons, including a "self-referential discourse" wherein Wilber tends to describe his work as being at the forefront of science. Forman and Esbjörn-Hargens responded directly in 2008 to criticisms by Frank Visser regarding

3760-423: Is no closer to reality than Van Gogh 's sky . The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy , but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as

3854-411: Is not conducive to personal dialogue." Wilber's response is that the world religious traditions do not attest to the importance that Grof assigns to the perinatal. Wilber's account of his wife Treya's illness and death, Grace and Grit (1991), was released as a feature film starring Mena Suvari and Stuart Townsend in 2021. Holon (philosophy) A holon is something that is simultaneously

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3948-554: Is not the same as between cells and organisms though, because individual holons can be members but not parts of social holons. In his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution , Wilber outlines twenty fundamental properties, called "tenets", that characterize all holons. For example, they must be able to maintain their "wholeness" and also their "part-ness;" a holon that cannot maintain its wholeness will cease to exist and will break up into its constituent parts. Holons form natural holarchies , like Russian dolls , where

4042-469: Is perennial, consistent throughout all times and cultures. This proposition underlies the whole of his conceptual edifice, and is an unquestioned assumption. According to David L. McMahan, the perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars", but "has lost none of its popularity". Mainstream academia favor a constructivist approach, which is rejected by Wilber as a dangerous relativism. Wilber juxtaposes this generalization to plain materialism, presented as

4136-422: Is the basic framework of integral theory. It models human knowledge and experience with a four-quadrant grid, along the axes of "interior-exterior" and "individual-collective". According to Wilber, it is a comprehensive approach to reality, a metatheory that attempts to explain how academic disciplines and every form of knowledge and experience fit together coherently. AQAL is based on four fundamental concepts and

4230-696: 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. Wilber stated in 2011 that he has long suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome , possibly caused by RNase enzyme deficiency disease. "I" Interior Individual Intentional e.g. Freud "It" Exterior Individual Behavioral e.g. Skinner "We" Interior Collective Cultural e.g. Gadamer "Its" Exterior Collective Social e.g. Marx All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL, pron. "ah-qwul")

4324-505: 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 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." In 2012, Wilber joined

4418-574: The symbolic , hermeneutical , and other realms of consciousness . Ultimately and ideally, broad science would include the testimony of meditators and spiritual practitioners . Wilber's own conception of science includes both narrow science and broad science, e.g., using electroencephalogram machines and other technologies to test the experiences of meditators and other spiritual practitioners, creating what Wilber calls "integral science". According to Wilber's theory, narrow science trumps narrow religion, but broad science trumps narrow science. That is,

4512-427: The "Integral Psychology" section of The Collected Works of Ken Wilber (Vol. 4) in 1999, and gave it a prominent place in the 2000 edition of A Theory of Everything . Wilber and Beck put a strong emphasis on the distinctions between the 1st tier (Green and earlier) vs 2nd tier (Yellow and later) levels, associating integral thinking with the 2nd tier. They developed the concept of the "Mean Green Meme" (MGM) regarding

4606-416: 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. Wilber believes that the mystical traditions of the world provide access to, and knowledge of, a transcendental reality which

4700-475: The AQAL "altitudes" through which different lines of development move. The first eight of these "altitudes" parallel Spiral Dynamics, but the new concept was argued to create a more comprehensive, integrated system. By 2006, Wilber and Beck had diverged in their interpretations of the Spiral Dynamics model, with Beck positioning the spiral of levels at the center of the quadrants, while Wilber placed it solely in

4794-461: The Green level of Spiral Dynamics, which they associated with postmodernism. Wilber further developed this idea into the " Boomeritis " concept, devoting a chapter to each in A Theory of Everything . As Beck explained: Ken and I asked: How do we uncap GREEN? How do we keep it moving? Because so much of it has become a stagnant pond, in our view. So we said, let's invent the Mean Green Meme. Let's shame it

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4888-485: 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 . 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 "...

4982-405: The Kosmos". The model's apex is formless awareness, "the simple feeling of being", which is equated with a range of "ultimates" from a variety of eastern traditions. This formless awareness transcends the phenomenal world, which is ultimately only an appearance of some transcendental reality. According to Wilber, the AQAL categories — quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types – describe

5076-415: The Kosmos." "I" Interior Individual Intentional e.g. Jane Loevinger and Sigmund Freud "It" Exterior Individual Behavioral e.g. Skinner "We" Interior Collective Cultural e.g. Jean Gebser and Jurgen Habermas "Its" Exterior Collective Social e.g. Marx The AQAL-framework has a four-quadrant grid with two axes, specifically the "interior-exterior" axes, akin to

5170-507: The acceptance of Wilber's work in the academic world by criticizing Visser's often critical website, noting it lacks peer review, resulting in an un-academic presentation of critiques of Wilber's work. They also said that presenters at the first academic integral theory conference in 2008 had largely mainstream academic credentials, and pointed to existing programs in the alternative universities John F. Kennedy University (closed in 2020), Fielding Graduate University and CIIS as an indication of

5264-462: The already mentioned distinctions: quadrants, lines, levels and states. They are styles, emphases, or interpretations that influence a person's or a culture's perspectives, but that are non-hierarchical and non-normative. No type is in-and-of-itself better than another. Examples includes masculine/feminine typologies, the nine Enneagram categories, and Jung 's psychological typologies. All types are considered potentially valid, though Wilber also argued

5358-491: The case of Nazi doctors). States are temporary states of consciousness, such as waking, dreaming and sleeping, bodily sensations, and drug-induced and meditation-induced states. Some states are interpreted as temporary intimations of higher stages of development. Wilber's formulation is: "States are free, structures are earned". A person has to build or earn structure; it cannot be peak-experienced for free. What can be peak-experienced, however, are higher states of freedom from

5452-479: The criticisms in an interview, and criticized Ferrer's book in a short statement as being exemplary of the 'green mean meme', a rhetorical term jointly coined by Wilber and Don Beck that criticizes what they saw as the tendency for post-modern (i.e., green) thinkers to be aggressive, judgmental, and implicitly hierarchical while explicitly claiming to be caring, sensitive, and non-hierarchical. Ferrer in turn rejected Wilber's criticism. A long standing critic of Wilber's

5546-435: The developmental conveyor belt of religion. "Integral post-metaphysics" is the term Wilber has given to his attempts to reconstruct the world's spiritual -religious traditions in a way that accounts for the modern and post-modern criticisms of those traditions. The Wilber-Combs Lattice is a conceptual model of consciousness developed by Wilber and Allan Combs . It is a grid with sequential states of consciousness on

5640-449: The early 1990s. In 2002 Wilber stated that he had long since stopped identifying himself with the transpersonal field, citing what he found to be deep and irreconcilable confusions in the field. Andrew P. Smith, writing in 2004, notices that Wilber, though probably widely known, is mostly ignored and hardly criticised by "conventional scholars," likely because Wilber's work is not peer-reviewed. According to Zimmerman in 2005, integral theory

5734-774: The emergence of a integral movement. Esbjörn-Hargens (2010) argued that integral theory was making inroads in the academics, both in terms of the number of academics interested in the theory as well as through its use in a number of doctoral dissertations. While receiving attention in publications on humanistic and transpersonal psychology in the 1980s and early 1990s, since the publication of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in 1995 Wilber's work has mostly been discussed in alternative and non-academic fora and websites. While responding to criticisms in Ken Wilber in Dialogue (1998), Wilber has mostly ignored criticisms of his work. In 2006 Wilber created

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5828-531: The entire being, rather than the liberation of only a single faculty such as the intellect or the emotions or the body. Structural stage theories are based on the observation that humans develop through a pattern of distinct stages over time, and that these stages can be described based on their distinguishing characteristics. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development , and related models like those of James Mark Baldwin , Jane Loevinger , Robert Kegan , Lawrence Kohlberg , and James W. Fowler , stages have

5922-451: The esoteric aspects of Wilber's theory are based on the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo as well as other theorists including Adi Da . Wilber has been categorized by Wouter J. Hanegraaff as New Age due to his emphasis on a transpersonal view. Publishers Weekly has called him "the Hegel of Eastern spirituality". Wilber is credited with broadening the appeal of a "perennial philosophy" to

6016-415: The evidence for types is somewhat less persuasive than the four other elements of AQAL theory. Holons are the individual building blocks of Wilber's model. Wilber borrowed the concept of holons from Arthur Koestler 's description of the great chain of being , a mediaeval description of levels of being. "Holon" means that every entity and concept is both an entity on its own, and a hierarchical part of

6110-465: The evolution of both subjective and objective realities. According to David C. Lane , writing in 2017, Wilber's integral theory is a religious myth build on "a deeply held theological doctrine that evolution is driven by a divine purpose." Wilber's work began to draw attention from people interested in 'integral thinking' following the completion of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in 1995. Some individuals affiliated with Ken Wilber have said that there exists

6204-424: 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

6298-517: The five elements . This includes the four quadrant model, levels of development, lines of development, states of consciousness, as well as the notion of types. In this schema the four quadrant model is foundational, and the remaining four elements are then added to flesh out topics more fully. According to Wilber, the AQAL model is one of the most comprehensive approaches to reality, a metatheory in which all academic disciplines and every form of knowledge and experience fit together coherently. "Levels" are

6392-425: The generalized stages of development, from pre-personal through personal to transpersonal. "Lines" are specific domains of development - akin to the concept of multiple intelligences - which may progress unevenly in a given person or a given group. That is, different lines can be, and often are, at different levels or altitudes at the same time. "States" are states of consciousness. According to Wilber persons (and, in

6486-595: The higher reaches of mind (higher mind, illuminated mind, intuition, overmind). It correlates with buddhi , the connecting element between purusha and prakriti in Samkhya , and correlated by Wilber with his transpersonal stages. Aurobindo focuses on spiritual development and the process of unifying of all parts of one's being with the Divine. As described by Sri Aurobindo and his co-worker The Mother (1878–1973), this spiritual teaching involves an integral divine transformation of

6580-717: The highest praise while expressing reservations about Adi Da as a teacher. 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. 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. 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 . Visser also writes that

6674-516: The late 1980s in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, for its spiritually absolutist tendencies, which he argued ignore human fallibility, a critique to which Wilber was invited to respond. In 1998 an edited volume was published by Rothberg and Kelly entitled Ken Wilber in Dialogue which compiled written, critical exchanges between Wilber and over ten of his critics. Among the critics was Michael Washburn, who previously engaged Wilber in an argument about

6768-477: The latter property signifies that they are intermediate forms, providing a context for the proper functionality for the larger whole. The term holon was coined by Arthur Koestler in The Ghost in the Machine (1967), though Koestler first articulated the concept in The Act of Creation (1964), in which he refers to the relationship between the searches for subjective and objective knowledge: Einstein's space

6862-460: The levels in psychological and cultural development, with the hierarchical nature of matter itself. According to Wilber, various domains or lines of development, or intelligences can be discerned. They include cognitive , ethical , aesthetic , spiritual , kinesthetic , affective , musical , spatial, and logical - mathematical . For example, one can be highly developed cognitively (cerebrally smart) without being highly developed morally (as in

6956-411: The lower left quadrant (e.g., the collective-intersubjective quadrant that relates to a culture's interpersonal values and beliefs). Beck saw Wilber's modifications as distortions of the model, and expressed frustration with what he saw as Wilber's undue emphasis on spirituality, while Wilber declared Spiral Dynamics to be incomplete, as those who study only Spiral Dynamics "will never have a satori" (e.g.,

7050-628: The main paradigm of regular science. In his later works, Wilber argues that manifest reality is composed of four domains, and that each domain, or "quadrant", has its own truth-standard, or test for validity: Wilber believes that many claims about non-rational states make a mistake he calls the pre/trans fallacy. According to Wilber, the non-rational stages of consciousness (what Wilber calls "pre-rational" and "trans-rational" stages) can be easily confused with one another. In Wilber's view, one can reduce trans-rational spiritual realization to pre-rational regression, or one can elevate pre-rational states to

7144-499: The natural sciences provide a more inclusive, accurate account of reality than any of the particular exoteric religious traditions. But an integral approach that uses intersubjectivity to evaluate both religious claims and scientific claims will give a more complete account of reality than narrow science. Wilber has referred to Stuart Kauffman , Ilya Prigogine , Alfred North Whitehead , and others who also articulate his vitalistic and teleological understanding of reality, which

7238-509: The nature of spiritual development, with Washburn seeing it as a u-turn to the Dynamic Ground also experienced in childhood but lost in maturity, giving way to ego-transcendence, and Wilber seeing it as a novel understanding only emerging after adult development. Psychologist Jorge Ferrer , in his 2001 publication Revisioning Transpersonal Theory , included a criticism of the AQAL model as overly hierarchical and culturally biased, arguing for

7332-463: The perspectives of various theories and scholars: Each of the four approaches has a valid perspective to offer. The upper-left subjective emotional pain of a person who suffers a tragedy is one perspective; the upper-right objective neurological reaction of the brain during and after a tragedy offers an additional perspective; the lower-left way a culture understands and conceptualizes a tragedy and how to cope with it offers an additional perspective; and

7426-416: The phenomenal world, which is understood to be only an emanation or manifestation of a transcendental reality. Thus, Wilber promotes a type of panentheism , which signifies that God (or spirit) is both present as the manifest universe but also transcends it. Wilber argues this is the "ultimate" truth or nature of life. According to Wilber, the AQAL categories—quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types—describe

7520-576: The philosophy of Nagarjuna . 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

7614-604: The pre/trans fallacy in his early work. Wilber describes the state of the "hard" sciences as limited to "narrow science", which only allows evidence from the lowest realm of consciousness, the sensorimotor (the five senses and their extensions). Wilber sees science in the broad sense as characterized by involving three steps: He has presented these as "three strands of valid knowledge" in Part III of his book The Marriage of Sense and Soul . What Wilber calls "broad science" would include evidence from logic , mathematics, and from

7708-677: 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

7802-460: The relative truth of the two truths doctrine of Buddhism . According to Wilber, none of them are true in an absolute sense. Only formless awareness, "the simple feeling of being", exists absolutely. 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

7896-1031: The relative truths we encounter at previous stages and states. The basis of Wilber's theory is his developmental model. Wilber's model follows the discrete structural stages of development, as described in the structural stage theories of developmental psychology , including but-not-limited to Loevinger's stages of ego development , Piaget 's theory of cognitive development , Kohlberg's stages of moral development , Erikson 's stages of psychosocial development , and Fowler's stages of spiritual development. To these stages are added psychic and supernatural experiences and various models of spiritual development, presented as additional and higher stages of structural development. According to Wilber, these stages can be grouped in pre-personal (subconscious motivations), personal (conscious mental processes), and transpersonal (integrative and mystical structures) stages. All of these mental structures are considered to be complementary and legitimate, rather than mutual exclusive. Wilber's equates

7990-641: The stage a person is habituated to, so these deeper or higher states can be experienced at any level. The notion of states find additional clarification in the formulation called the Wilber-Combs lattice, which argues that states are experienced and are immediately interpreted by the level or main structure of consciousness operating in the person. In this way, relatively high states can be interpreted by more or less developed and mature persons. Types are models and theories that do not fit into Wilber's other categorizations. Wilber makes types part of his model in order to point out that these distinctions are different from

8084-468: The structure of human consciousness that would follow the modern or mental structure. Gebser was the author of The Ever-Present Origin , which describes human history as a series of mutations in consciousness . He only afterwards discovered the similarity between his own ideas and those of Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin . After completing Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), Ken Wilber started to collaborate with Don Beck , whose Spiral Dynamics

8178-478: The subjective-objective distinction, and "individual-collective" axes. The left side of the model (interior) mirrors the individual development from structural stage theory, and the collective mutations of consciousness suggested by Gebser or through the collective value memes as offered by Spiral Dynamics. The right side of the model describes, among other things, levels of neurological functioning and societal organization. Wilber uses this quadrant diagram to categorize

8272-540: The term: those aligned with Aurobindo, Gebser, Wilber, Gangadean, László and Steiner (noting that the Steiner branch is via the conduit of Gidley). The editors of What Is Enlightenment? (2007) listed as contemporary Integralists Don Edward Beck , Allan Combs, Robert Godwin, Sally Goerner, George Leonard , Michael Murphy , William Irwin Thompson , and Wilber. Ken Wilber Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949)

8366-587: The topic. The Integral Institute published the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice , and SUNY Press has published twelve books under the "SUNY series in Integral Theory" in the early 2010s, and a number of texts applying integral theory to various topics have been released by other publishers. Ken Wilber's integral theory is a synthetic metatheory , a theory whose subject matter he intended to organize and integrate pre-existing theories themselves, doing so in

8460-525: The trans-rational domain. For example, Wilber claims that Freud and Jung commit this fallacy. Freud considered mystical realization to be a regression to infantile oceanic states . Wilber alleges that Freud thus commits a fallacy of reduction. Wilber thinks that Jung commits the converse form of the same mistake by considering pre-rational myths to reflect divine realizations. Likewise, pre-rational states may be misidentified as post-rational states. Wilber characterizes himself as having fallen victim to

8554-402: The x axis (from left to right) and with developmental structures, or levels , of consciousness on the y axis (from bottom to top). This lattice illustrates how each structure of consciousness interprets experiences of different states of consciousness, including mystical states, in different ways. Wilber attracted a lot of controversy from 2011 to the present day by supporting Marc Gafni , who

8648-446: Was accused of sexually assaulting a minor, on his blog. A petition begun by a group of Rabbis has called for Wilber to publicly dissociate from Gafni. Wilber is on the advisory board of Mariana Bozesan's AQAL Capital GmbH, a Munich -based company specialising in integral impact investing using a model based on Wilber's Integral Theory . Wilber's views have been influenced by Madhyamaka Buddhism , particularly as articulated in

8742-795: Was praised by transpersonal psychologists , but also that support for him "even in transpersonal circles" had waned by the early 1990s. 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". Sullivan also said that Visser's book overall gave an impression that Wilber "should think more and publish less." Steve McIntosh praises Wilber's work but also argues that Wilber fails to distinguish "philosophy" from his own Vedantic and Buddhist religion. Christopher Bache

8836-486: 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 . Wilber wrote Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995),

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