An
Introduction to Ken Wilber will introduce students to Wilber's
integral vision of the Kosmos that has evolved over his more than three decades
of work toward a workable "world philosophy" that integrates the best of both
East and West in the hard and soft sciences, religion and spirituality, wisdom
and compassion. Our journey together will explore the story of the universe in
terms of both human evolution and human development, and will consider philosophical
and practical issues that arise in Wilber's work. Trained as a scientist, his
work envelops and integrates biology, physics, psychology, philosophy, anthropology,
sociology, theology, spirituality, and more. A Brief History of Everything
(Shambhala, 1996) and /or A Theory of Everything (2000) will serve as our
primary text(s) for the class. We will look closely at the themes in his 2002
novel, Boomeritis, and explore the ramifications and influence of the Integral
Institute (visit www.integralinstitute.org
for more on this). Because Wilber writes and publishes about as quickly as many
of us read, the actual course will differ from what is below. Every attempt is
made to keep up with him. Week
#1: OVERVIEW: BIOGRAPHY, CHRONOLOGY, APPROACH, AND BASIC TERMS
We'll begin with a brief
look at Wilber's background—who
he is, what he's done, and how he's done it, from The Spectrum of Consciousness
in 1977 to Boomeritis in 2002, including the formation of Integral Institute.
Then we'll consider the chronology of his book publications. Finally, we'll begin
an introduction to the vocabulary that will be relevant throughout the course. Week
#2: HOLONS, HOLONS, AND MORE HOLONS First
used by Arthur Koestler, the term "holon" denotes that which is both a whole,
and a part of something else. We will explore the idea that the universe is made
of nested holons—each
of which is whole in the sense that it is composed of other holons, and each of
which is a part of a more highly developed holon. Once we have established this
basic relationship, we will take a closer look at the tenets or characteristics
of holons—that
is the characteristics of everything we know of so far—everything
we will consider throughout the course. Week
#3: UP FROM EDEN: A TRANSPERSONAL VIEW OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
First published
in 1981, Eden is Wilber's study of human evolution—that is of the
evolution of consciousness from our earliest, pre-verbal ancestors, through our
current-day existence, and on into the transpersonal realm. Our whirlwind tour
will include cognitive, moral, religious and spiritual evolution.
The Atman
Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development, first published in 1980,
and intended as a companion volume to Eden, Atman is Wilber's study of
human development—of the development of the individual human holon, especially
from birth to late adolescence. Our exploration will culminate in the parallel,
or, some would say, identical, natures of human evolution and human development:
in effect, each of us develops from birth through late adolescence through the
same basic structures or stages that our species, on average, has evolved through
so far. Week
#4: THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS Wilber's
first book, published in 1977, Spectrum presents his model of the spectrum
or stages of human consciousness. This, in essence, is the foundation upon which
his work with evolution and development rests. Because he has refined the model
since its inception, we will take a brief look at the original presentation, but
focus our attention on the model as it has appeared more recently in his work,
including his adaptation of Don Beck's and Chris Cowan's Spiral Dynamics.
Briefly, we will explore human evolution/development from pre-conscious (and pre-personal,
pre-egoic, pre- verbal, etc.), through conscious (personal, egoic, verbal, etc.),
to super-conscious (transpersonal, transegoic, transverbal, etc.). Week
#5: THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS Most
of our attention during session number 4 will be on Wilber's first six stages—those
that are generally accepted in one form or another by modern science (biology
and psychology). Session number 5 will complete these stages and turn to the transpersonal
stages—psychic,
subtle, causal and nondual. Week
#6: EYE TO EYE: CATEGORY ERRORS OF FLESH, MIND AND SPIRIT
Published in 1983, Eye
to Eye collects numerous early essays. Here we'll consider the respective
"eyes" of flesh (the senses, or gross realm); of mind (reason, ideas, images,
logic, concepts); and of spirit (contemplation, ineffable direct experience);
and how each at times treads upon the territories of the others, often with disastrous
results. These "category errors" are at the heart of the conflicts among "hard"
science (flesh); philosophy and psychology (mind); and spirituality/religion (spirit).
Our discussion of these eyes and errors will include Wilber's specific use of
the concepts of legitimacy, authenticity, and authority. Week
#7: THE PRE/TRANS FALLACY continues
the theme raised in our exploration of "eyes" and errors, but with a much sharper
focus. The pre/trans fallacy (ptf), also known as "pre/post" (ppf) refers to the
tendency to confuse lower levels of development or evolution with higher levels
because they share some similarities. Such confusion tends to incorrectly either
reduce higher levels or elevate lower levels: to claim that an infant's experience
of the world as an undifferentiated whole is a mystical experience would be an
incorrect elevation; to assert that a genuine mystic is insane would be an incorrect
reduction.
Week #8: THE FOUR QUADRANTS AND THE BIG THREE We
will spend two sessions on Wilber's Four Quadrant model, which essentially identifies
the individual, collective, interior, and exterior characteristics of every holon—briefly,
intentional, behavioral, cultural and social. These four quadrants can be simplified
to what he calls the Big Three: Beauty (Art—talked
about in "I" language); Goodness (Morality—talked
about in "we" language); and Truth (Science—talked
about in "it" language). Week
#9: THE FOUR QUADRANTS AND THE BIG THREE Once
we have a sense of the four quadrants, we'll take a look at their "practical"
applications. More specifically, we'll see how the combination of the quadrants
with the spectrum of consciousness (or Beck and Cowan's Spiral Dynamics) lead
to what Wilber has called an "all-quadrant, all-level, all-line" approach to human
development. We'll also see the relationships among the Big Three and how they
were affected first by their differentiation (the dignity of modernity, below),
and then their dissociation (the disaster). Week
#10: DIGNITY AND DISASTER: MODERNITY, POSTMODERNITY AND BOOMERITIS
With "modernity"—the
dominance of reason over myth, came various liberation movements (end of slavery,
civil rights, women's movement, etc.) away from self/family/group/tribe/religion/nation-centrism
and toward a more world-centric view (which, obviously, not everyone embraces,
even today). Modernity, in differentiating the Big Three, failed to integrate
them, so Truth, Goodness and Beauty, dissociated, and went to war, with Truth
(science, descended to scientism) dominating. This dominance, which still affects
us today, basically devalued anything that could not be proven empirically. The
eye of flesh took over, and denied anything that could not be proven with its
tools. We'll then look at postmodernity's dignified, healthy response to this
disaster and its own subsequent disaster, which Wilber has called "boomeritis." Week
#11: ASCENDERS, DESCENDERS, WISDOM AND COMPASSION Here
we'll explore the attempts to integrate what the disaster of modernity dissociated.
In so doing, we'll look at the Perennial Philosophy (or Great Chain or Holarchy
of Being)—movement
from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit (ascending), and the opposite movement
(descending), and consider these two paths in terms of their separate, and often
adversarial proponents, and their prospective, and ultimate, integration in a
balance of ascending wisdom and descending compassion. Week
#12: NO BOUNDARY No
Boundary, published in 1979, and subtitled Eastern and Western Approaches
to Personal Growth, follows Spectrum with Wilber's overview of various
approaches (as the subtitle states) to negotiating the levels of consciousness
along with their respective pitfalls. The basic premise, is that our suffering
in this life stems from artificial boundaries that we create in our experience,
and that a variety of methods, many of which contradict each other, claim to be
able to help us with this suffering. What Wilber suggests in this early work,
and what his later work, along with that of others seems to support, is that specific
therapies, approaches, and practices are effective at some levels, but not at
others. This volume begins to sort out such specifics. We will briefly examine
what it means to have no boundaries, and what is available to deal with those
we do seem to have.
Transformations of Consciousness and Integral
Psychology continue the exploration of the role of development in the emergence
of pathologies and the respective therapies that are appropriate in treating them. Week
#13: ONE TASTE and GRACE AND GRIT One
Taste, the 1999 publication of Wilber's 1997 journal, is a wonderful juxtaposition
of his personal and professional lives. In his own words, it is a "philosophical,
more than personal journal," but the philosophy comes to us through various means,
including some creative writing, insight into his meditative practices and mystical
states, his opinions on various aspects of popular culture, and brief snippets
of his friendships and intimate relationship. His own words, however, ring true.
One Taste is, finally, about One Taste, about no boundaries, about the
eyes of flesh, mind and spirit each and all as manifestations of the Divine—again,
of One Taste.
We'll also spend some time with Grace and Grit here,
the account of Wilber's wife, Treya Killam Wilber's, diagnosis with breast cancer
ten days after their wedding, and their subsequent attempts to treat it. Week
#14: "THE SPIRIT OF EVOLUTION" As
we begin the process of closing the course, we will briefly consider Wilber's
1995 Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES), subtitled, The Spirit of Evolution,
and the first volume of his Kosmos Trilogy. SES (revised in the Collected
Works, vol. 6, in 2000), effectively brings together and updates his earlier works,
and is, again in his words, "about evolution, and about religion, and, in a sense,
about everything in between. . ." We will also consider briefly Integral Psychology.
In our final session, we will answer some questions, ask more than we can answer,
take a deep breath, and see a somewhat bigger picture than that with which we
began. Week
#15: A THEORY OF EVERYTHING A
Theory of Everything, published in 2000, provides a brief overview of the
"all-quadrant, all-level, all-line, all-state, all-type" approach, the relationship
between science and religion, and some prospective examples of what a truly integral
vision might mean for business, politics, science, education, and spirituality.
We will close the course with some consideration of the practical applications
of Wilber's work, the formation of Integral Institute, a final look at the message
and meaning in Boomeritis, and the fundamental task that it suggests for
each of us-in terms of integral transformative practice.
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