Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber

Integral Spirituality Reviews

• 
  Drick

  I picked this book up after seeing it cited in another book; I was intrigued. When I started reading the book, I was blown away. Space does not allow me to begin to explain all that is here (even if I could). Suffice it to say that Ken Wilber is attempting to integrate psychological theory, spiritual traditions, religious traditions, and science into one integrated framework that speaks to the postmodern perspective of our age. At times I was completely lost, but in the end I was given a new lens or framework at which to consider my life and how I understand Truth and Reality. This was done not in a way that caused me to forsake my Christian tradition, but transform my understanding in a way that integrates a wide variety of other perspectives. Wilber tackles a wide range of developmental and scientific theories and models and yet writes in a way that is very accessible to the uninitiated. The only thing that needs to change is Wilber's picture. He looks like a serial killer or a cult leader in that picture. Other than that this is a book I will and will need to read again and again just to begin to grasp its basic ideas.
• 
  Sky

  Back in the day, many taoists used to make fun of Confucius. It's about time some folks do the same with Wilber, who's totally lost in way too much -isms and other difficult words, fancy colors and hierarchies...
• 
  Mitzi

  Sadly, I didn't finish this book - I gave up after the short intro to Wilber's integral theory. By the end of it my head was jumbled up with levels and stages and phases - it wasn't incomprehensible, it just wasn't enjoyable. I think the same ideas presented in a different way would have made me want to keep reading. Maybe trying an older Wilber book before attempting this one might have been a good idea...
• 
  David

  Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World, Integral Books, Boston, 2007.
  
  It was only in my second reading of this book that I began to feel that I was coming to grips with its depth and complexity. I have heard Ken Wilber described as the world’s greatest modern philosopher. The pioneer of the Integral Approach, he has come up with a way of thinking that includes every aspect of knowledge. It does not add to them so much as reorganizes them and relates them to other branches of knowledge.
  
  The key to this is the Quadrants. Take a square and divide it into four equal quadrants. The upper two are concerned with the individual, the lower two with the collective. The two left examine the interior, and the two right the exterior. Each quadrant can be further split in two as it is seen from its inside and from its outside. Most people do not distinguish between these approaches, which results in confusion. Does this sound complicated? Ken Wilber’s genius is that he can explain it and apply it to everything.
  
  Another stroke of genius is to distinguish between stages of consciousness, and states of consciousness, which most people do not separate. Stages of consciousness, also called levels of development, are growth stages, for example, as a child grows, the child will pass through different stages of understanding. Many other writers have already observed this and described the stages. Ken Wilber draws them all together and comes up with a synthesis. States of consciousness, however, are quite different. They include waking, dreaming, states of meditation, etc. And they can occur at each of the stages of development.
  
  In all four quadrants there is development or evolution. He sees evolution in the thinking of humanity, for example, how concepts in religion progressed from archaic to magical to premodern to rational (modern) to postmodern, and how this process is continuing and can be observed.
  
  Ken Wilber sees Buddhism as the most highly developed form of religion, but there is value in all religions. In fact, he states that it is necessary for people to progress through states of consciousness, which are taught by religions, to grow to higher stages of consciousness. And every person has to go through this growth individually. So he encourages everyone to become involved with his or her own religion, because to Ken Wilber, it doesn’t matter which one you choose. Every religion can trap its members in a low level of development, and every religion can assist people to grow to a higher level. There are fascinating chapters on the shadow self, and on the great chain of being.
  
  Another key insight is what he calls the pre/trans fallacy. ‘Pre’ refers to the pre-conventional stage, where a person is only concerned with his own needs. People then progress to the conventional stage where they have great respect for institutions and authorities. The next stage is trans-conventional, where a higher sense of morality emerges. The fallacy arises when these stages are confused. For example, at the time of the Vietnam war, many people were protesting against involvement in the war. Some were doing so out of fear of being drafted, they were only concerned for their own comforts. This comes from the Pre stage. Some felt it was their patriotic duty to support the war. This comes from the Conventional stage. Some were objecting to the war on the grounds that it was basically immoral. This comes from the Trans stage. So among the objectors were people in the Pre and Trans stages. But the Conventional stage people assumed all the objections were from the Pre stage, they were confusing the pre and trans stages. And this fallacy extends to many other areas of enquiry.
  
  If you persist with this book, and are prepared to wrestle with its complexity, you cannot fail to be impressed by Ken Wilber’s breadth and depth of vision. My only criticism is that he has not taken seriously the claims of the Christian faith, which, in its most developed stages, is neither triumphalist nor exclusivist. I think the time will come when Ken Wilber will be required reading for anyone who is interested in philosophy, psychology, religion, or just about anything else. You don’t have to agree with everything, but you have to admire his brilliance.
  
• 
  Giorgi Bazerashvili

  After "No Boundary", Ken Wilber once again amazed me with his holistic, big-picture and integral understanding and approaches of spirituality and psychology. In this book, he talks about an Integral framework that he calls the AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels) framework, which, basically describes all of life if one thinks about it.
  
  Understanding all quadrants and all levels is required if we want to have a map of human development. This framework integrates individual and collective parts of life, with it's inner and outer zones. There are very important illustrations here, which help us zoom out a little and look at one of the most comprehensive maps clearly, where we can see that intentional, behavioral, social and cultural phenomena are just parts of a whole. They are just a perspective or one aspect of our being in each moment of our lives.
  
  But again, this is just a map, not the territory, and because of that, Ken suggests us the Integral Life Practice (ILP), which unites the practices to train 8 major zones from 4 quadrants. Those are the life-changing stuff if put in practice.
  
  He also talks about structuralism and various models of human psychological and cultural development, including Graves' Spiral Dynamics, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, etc. and asks a very important question, how can we define Enlightenment? and is the Enlightenment from 2000 or 10,000 years ago the same as it is today? He suggests that it isn't, because we not only have to take into account the various mystical states that people can experience in each ages of history, but also the stages, that are being developed as history and evolution unfolds reality. So, some of the stages that are available today, was not available hundreds or thousands of years ago.
  
  We are talking about the stages that Graves defined as different colors: red, blue, orange, green, yellow, turquoise, etc. According to Wilber, Enlightenment means becoming one with all the states and stages that are currently available in the memory of Kosmos today.
  
  Also, he mentions very important issues, like "pre/post fallacy" and "the myth of the given". Those are crucial to consider if we want to understand issues such as religion vs science, science vs spirituality, why science will never answer the question of the ultimate concern, and why failing to do so creates much more evil in the world. Also, it's important to think about a whole new paradigm that comes with post-metaphysics, as Wilber call it, according to which, there is no given reality waiting for us to be discovered, and there are no pre-created structures of the human psyche that the mankind hasn't tapped into yet. No, those are all co-created and have been co-created since the beginning of the universe.
  
  That is supposed to be the reason why only meditation won't solve your problems because there are things that just can't be seen while sitting on your cushion. Also, shadow work is worth mentioning, which Ken talks about too, and considers crucial for becoming a whole human being.
  
  In short, this was a very interesting read. Anyone interested in holistic understanding of spirituality must read this book (and other works of Ken Wilber)
• 
  Andrea

  This book is not an easy read. You have to really want to read it, but it's worth it especially for the chronic seeker such as myself. For me it really made sense and helped me reconcile where I am vs. where a lot of fundamentalist Christians, etc. are; even atheists. Highly recommended - but it's not easy!
• 
  Jake

  Ken Wilber is an incredible intellectual and author. He is a great source for those of us who enjoy exploring the crossroads between philosophy, science, and spirituality.
  
  This book is WIlber's latest thinking on spirituality. It has some really mind blowing concepts.
• 
  Meadow Johnson

  Interesting idea, but very poorly written. It would benefit from a good editor for structure, repetition, and to remove the crude analogies and overused idioms.
• 
  Temo Tchanukvadze

  
  
  
  It's hard to read because the subject itself is really complex and Ken does everything to translate this wisdom in plain words.
  Long story short, he combined multiple models into one integral model - All Quadrants All Levels(AQAL). If you are familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Spiral Dynamics then AQAL is something you shouldn't miss.
  If you ever wondered why only meditation is not enough probably this book will give you an answer.
• 
  Ruben Mes

  Mind-expanding.
  
  What can I say? Ken Wilber helped me put my worldview into perspective.
  
  Where I thought Terence McKenna made a lot of sense, I now realize how there's a lot more nuance to it than I realized, and Wilber helped me see it!
  
  There are a couple of tremendously powerful concepts and ideas introduced in this book, and I can really recommend anyone interested to take the time and study them.
  
  Among them are the Pre/Trans-Fallacy, the Level/Line Fallacy, the Myth of the Given, finding the Kosmic Address and more.
  
  Ken Wilber writes in and articulates in a way that I perceive as incredibly 'heady/brainy/cognitive, and might put off people. However, I found that it was well worth my time to persevere.
  
  And now and again he unexpectedly goes into his 'mystic mode' and attempts to describe the ineffable.
  
  Highly recommended for integral thinkers and seekers of truth. Although Wilber attempts to write in a digestible manner in order to present his ideas in an accessible manner, it still was demanding something of me.
  
  However, his casual style, repetitions and examples after concepts made this book a lot easier for me to go through, and I do appreciate this approach a lot, especially as this was my second Ken Wilber book.
• 
  Ksenia

  I guess it's a good read for those who are already on board with Wilber's ideas. I'm not a stranger to all sorts of weird social science texts and theories, but this was hard to get through. Now I have to admit that his general point is interesting and relevant, but nobody needs a >300 pages book full of weird diagrams and acronyms to get it across.
  
  Like so many writers who came up with A Big Theory of All Stuff, Wilber is over-confident, prone to cherry-picking facts and references. These kind of texts rarely hold up to any scrutiny if you're trained in any of the sciences he uses (or misuse?). I was quickly irritated and didn't get to the very end, to be honest.
  
• 
  Israel Reed

  I think I'll definitely need to re-read this at a later date; at which point I'm sure I'll give it five stars. As of now though, I have to admit, most of this went way over my head. There are some really compelling and powerful ideas presented here. But this is indeed extremely dense and complex material to try and make sense of in one go. I would probably suggest doing a bit of reading on spirituality, religion, developmental psychology, and metaphysics before trying to tackle this. Although I do look forward to giving it another try when I'm ready.
• 
  Zeb

  Did not really read this, but attempt to read it. Could not get into it in the introduction, tried other chapters, the more I tried the less I succeeded. There might be an interesting message hidden in there, but clearly, it is not for me. Way to complicated, convoluted, constructed. Not giving a ranking, because that would not be fair after my failed attempts at even getting anywhere with this.
• 
  Denise

  While I am generally on the same page with Ken Wilber, and I believe his theories here are accurate, this book is too heady to be much of a help to those on a Spiritual continuum and lacking in heart to assist Spiritual companions with meeting people where they are. I had to get to the very last chapter in the book to find truly helpful thoughts.
• 
  Ietrio

  Never mind the Dark Ages! Wilber is here with a message of happiness.
• 
  Peter Levenstrong

  Gives religion a purpose in our present day world
• 
  Michael Wolf

  Solid perspectives of the challenges facing our society's movement toward integral/transpersonal leadership.
• 
  Esther

  Thought provoking, balancing and pompous.
• 
  -kevin-

  I found this very insightful. He does repeat each of the ideas a number of times, which is good, especially if one does not get it the first time.
• 
  Giovanni Bianco

  É complicado avaliar este livro. Classifiquei com 4 estrelas numa tentativa de representar que o livro é, ao mesmo tempo, genial e tosco, como (infelizmente, creio) tem sido o estilo do Wilber em sua fase V.
  O brilhantismo do livro se mostra, principalmente, na consolidação do perspectivismo integral característico da fase Wilber-V, pela incorporação de uma abordagem pós-metafísica (embora com algumas dificuldades), pelo Pluralismo Metodológico Integral e pela matemática de perspectivas. Também é interessante a análise da espiritualidade como "esteira transportadora" da transformação, embora a tese de que o nível Laranja (SD) não tenha uma espiritualidade atuante seja, na minha visão, excessivamente simplificadora. O mesmo pode-se dizer da análise sobre o terrorismo, que, por sua brevidade, cheia a etnocentrismo norte-americano.
  Incomoda também o estilo dúbio, uma mistura infeliz de tom coloquial com uma pretensão de superioridade intelectual que é irritante. Gostaria de os insights realmente importantes deste livro -- e são vários os bons momentos -- não viessem acompanhados deste estilo arrogante.
• 
  Willa

  this is the clearest analysis of the different aspects of Spirituality and what it could or should be in the Integral Age. It gives a very clear understanding of the complexity of the different views and perspectives that make up our relationship to Spirit, and how, as our consciousness developed, traditional religions, while being timeless in certain aspects, couldn't fully serve us anymore in other aspects. So now the big task for humanity is to find the way forward, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but recognising the shortcomings of traditional spirituality, and seeking new ways (without falling in the trap of post-modern 'pick and choose').
  It's very well-written although I sometimes crinch a bit at Ken's attempt to lighten up serious matters - personally I feel I'm mature enough to stomach some seriousness without his jokes... but then maybe I'm just a very boring person...
• 
  Naum

  I must confess, I was totally bogged down in the author's jargon and schematics.
  
  Truly, am interested in theories of levels of consciousness and how people (and cultures, in the aggregate) move up the continuum, but this was difficult sailing as I had to reread sections and then, still, some parts left me glazed over.
  
  The source material is fascinating, but I am not certain that the author (Ken Wilber) has the authoritative take on the matter and I need to explore further (which I have already to some extent, via references in works from other authors) the levels and stages in systems Wilber compares and contrasts.