Ken Wilber

[GrandTrinity]

I have been interested in this dudes work for a while now, and I finally have been having a little time to listen to his audio transmissions. Are any of you familiar? He seems to be a Tao master and a master of Buddhism, everything...integral.

 

The most interesting thing I hear so far (only heard 1/10th of his Kosmic Conciousness tapes) is about the 3 levels: Gross, Subtle and Causal. The tantra masters say that the gross is the first chakra, Causal is the 7th and everything inbetween in subtle...pretty interesting stuff if you ask me...he says a lot of other things too...

 

What do you all think of ken wilber?

[voice]

Hey GT,

 

I read alot of his stuff back in the early 1980s (what he later calls, I believe, Wilber 1 and Wilber 2). Then in the 90s I got back into spiritual things after reading his "Sex, Ecology and Spirituality". His approach totally appealed to my very-analytic, structure-loving mind.

 

I then got into HealingDao stuff, and kept puzzling about how to integrate them. I know that in one book he shows a chart that shows correspondences between his levels and some Taoist thinker. But, I found it forced.

 

In trying to show similarities between all paths, I think that he loses the personality of each tradition. And, traditions will contradict each other, but that contradiction works in the broader context of their path.

 

From a Taoist perspective, I think that his major problem is that he just talks about spirit. He doesn't talk much about method. And Taoism is largely about method. He doesn't talk about yin, yang, yuan, the 5 phases, the 7 directions, the 8 forces etc. He has a really ego-centered approach, with no real recognition of the importance of learning from the shen of other beings (like Sun, Moon and Stars).

 

Don't get me wrong - his stuff is great, and I am really, really looking forward to when Volume 2 of his trilogy finally gets released.

 

I though of getting his KC CDs that you are listening to for long drives.

 

What do you think?

 

Chris

[sean]

My favorite is his work elaborating on the Pre/Trans fallacy.

 

From: http://www.praetrans.com/en/ptf.html

 

The essence of the pre/trans fallacy is itself fairly simple: since both prerational states and transrational states are, in their own ways, nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye. And once pre and trans are confused, then one of two fallacies occurs:

 

In the first, all higher and transrational states are reduced to lower and prerational states. Genuine mystical or contemplative experiences, for example, are seen as a regression or throwback to infantile states of narcissism, oceanic adualism, indissociation, and even primitive autism. This is, for example, precisely the route taken by Freud in The Future of an Illusion.

 

In these reductionistic accounts, rationality is the great and final omega point of individual and collective development, the high-water mark of all evolution. No deeper or wider or higher context is thought to exist. Thus, life is to be lived either rationally, or neurotically (Freud's concept of neurosis is basically anything that derails the emergence of rational perception - true enough as far as it goes, which is just not all that far). Since no higher context is thought to be real, or to actually exist, then whenever any genuinely transrational occasion occurs, it is immediately explained as a regression to prerational structures (since they are the only nonrational structures allowed, and thus the only ones to accept an explanatory hypothesis). The superconscious is reduced to the subconscious, the transpersonal is collapsed to the prepersonal, the emergence of the higher is reinterpreted as an irruption from the lower. All breathe a sigh of relief, and the rational worldspace is not fundamentally shaken (by "the black tide of the mud of occultism!" as Freud so quaintly explained it to Jung).

 

On the other hand, if one is sympathetic with higher or mystical states, but one still confuses pre and trans, then one will elevate all prerational states to some sort of transrational glory (the infantile primary narcissism, for example, is seen as an unconscious slumbering in the mystico unio). Jung and his followers, of course, often take this route, and are forced to read a deeply transpersonal and spiritual status into states that are merely indissociated and undifferentiated and actually lacking any sort of integration at all.

 

In the elevationist position, the transpersonal and transrational mystical union is seen as the ultimate omega point, and since egoic-rationality does indeed tend to deny this higher state, then egoic-rationality is pictured as the low point of human possibilities, as a debasement, as the cause of sin and separation and alienation. When rationality is seen as the anti-omega point, so to speak, as the great Anti-Christ, then anything nonrational gets swept up and indiscriminately glorified as a direct route to the Divine, including much that is infantile and regressive and prerational: anything to get rid of that nasty and skeptical rationality. "I believe because it is absurd" (Tertullian) - there is the battle cry of the elevationist (a strand that runs deeply through Romanticism of any sort).

 

Freud was a reductionist, Jung an elevationist - the two sides of the pre/trans fallacy. And the point is that they are both half right and half wrong. A good deal of neurosis is indeed a fixation/regression to prerational states, states that are not to be glorified. On the other hand, mystical states do indeed exist, beyond (not beneath) rationality, and those states are not to be reduced.

 

For most of the recent modern era, and certainly since Freud (and Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach), the reductionist stance toward spirituality has prevailed - all spiritual experiences, no matter how highly developed they might in fact be, were simply interpreted as regressions to primitive and infantile modes of thought. However, as if in overreaction to all that, we are now, and have been since the sixties, in the throes of various forms of elevationism (exemplified by, but by no means confined to, the New Age movement). All sorts of endeavors, of no matter what origin or of what authenticity, are simply elevated to transrational and spiritual glory, and the only qualification for this wonderful promotion is that the endeavor be nonrational. Anything rational is wrong; anything nonrational is spiritual.

 

Spirit is indeed nonrational; but it is trans, not pre. It transcends but includes reason; it does not regress and exclude it. Reason, like any particular stage of evolution, has its own (and often devastating) limitations, repressions, and distortions. But as we have seen, the inherent problems of one level are solved (or "defused") only at the next level of development; they are not solved by regressing to a previous level where the problem can be merely ignored. And so it is with the wonders and the terrors of reason: it brings enormous new capacities and new solutions, while introducing its own specific problems, problems solved only by a transcendence to the higher and transrational realms.

 

Many of the elevationist movements, alas, are not beyond reason but beneath it. They think they are, and they announce themselves to be, climbing the Mountain of Truth; whereas, it seems to me, they have merely slipped and fallen and are sliding rapidly down it, and the exhilarating rush of skidding uncontrollably down evolution's slope they call "following your bliss." As the earth comes rushing up at them at terminal velocity, they are bold enough to offer this collision course with ground zero as a new paradigm for the coming world transformation, and they feel oh-so-sorry for those who watch their coming crash with the same fascination as one watches a twenty-car pileup on the highway, and they sadly nod as we decline to join in that particular adventure. True spiritual bliss, in infinite measure, lies up that hill, not down it.

[GrandTrinity]

I dont know about that, thats some pretty heady shit. All of WIlbers shit is very heady. I agree with Voice, all of this is so out there, it is hard to apply. Its so heady. But when Wilber talks about the chakras and dreams and yoga I find it very enlightening...sometimes I think wow, this guy is a genius. Other times I am like, wow, that is too much upper brain and not lower brained...overall his stuff is awesome, and I definetly think he is ahead of his time, now, if only I had an outline of what to literaly apply to my own life from his teachings...gotta listen to the rest of this (about 15 hour?) audio book, peace.

[sean]

I dont know about that, thats some pretty heady shit. All of WIlbers shit is very heady. I agree with Voice, all of this is so out there, it is hard to apply. Its so heady. But when Wilber talks about the chakras and dreams and yoga I find it very enlightening...sometimes I think wow, this guy is a genius. Other times I am like, wow, that is too much upper brain and not lower brained...overall his stuff is awesome, and I definetly think he is ahead of his time, now, if only I had an outline of what to literaly apply to my own life from his teachings...gotta listen to the rest of this (about 15 hour?) audio book, peace.

2513[/snapback]

I dunno, I've found the Pre/Trans Fallacy to be a very relevant thing to contemplate and I think it helps avoid the two common pitfalls it describes. That is, writing off all experiences that seem illogical to you as being mere infantile regression, which the mainstream often does, vs. glorifying any rejection of logic as "genius", which the fringe and avante garde often does.

[voice]

I loved the pre/trans fallacy. Intellectually, it is a superb set of ideas. And, like any idea, it can be used as a weapon. I used it as a weapon to put down other paths like shamanism and wicca because of their earth-centredness. I used it as a weapon to protect my mind-centered meditation.

 

Enter Taoism and the learning from the Shen of the 4 basic directions, and from planetary beings such as the Sun, Moon and Stars. That has no place in Wilber's paradigm, but it is central to the Taoist way.

 

Wilber does, in is all-levels all-quadrants model, have absolute spirit in the center, and from it the involution of all forms, that we than traverse back through physical and spiritual evolution. But, those forms he has are primarily mental. Unlike that Taoists, he is has few correlates of higher spiritual states at the jing level - he doesn not recognize stellar consciousness etc.

 

So, his model is great, but it does not include what I find so useful in the Taoist approach. Maybe in ten years when I've been able to take, digest and embody all of the HT practices, I will be able to revise his model. But, right now, I know to that to do so would just be intellectual.

 

Chris

[sean]

Interesting thoughts Chris. Frankly I don't know enough about his work to say one way or the other. I didn't find the pre/trans fallacy to be a rejection of wicca, taoist alchemy, shamanism, etc., but you probably know a lot more about it than me, I've only just read excerpts like the one above on the net and contemplated them briefly, never any of Wilbur's actual complete works. I just took it as a fair warning that things aren't always as they seem on the surface.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

I have started reading Ken's work... It's quite interesting. Will write my thoughts on it soon.

[rain]

My favorite is his work elaborating on the Pre/Trans fallacy.

 

From: http://www.praetrans.com/en/ptf.html

 

Many of the elevationist movements, alas, are not beyond reason but beneath it. They think they are, and they announce themselves to be, climbing the Mountain of Truth; whereas, it seems to me, they have merely slipped and fallen and are sliding rapidly down it, and the exhilarating rush of skidding uncontrollably down evolution's slope they call "following your bliss." As the earth comes rushing up at them at terminal velocity, they are bold enough to offer this collision course with ground zero as a new paradigm for the coming world transformation, and they feel oh-so-sorry for those who watch their coming crash with the same fascination as one watches a twenty-car pileup on the highway, and they sadly nod as we decline to join in that particular adventure. True spiritual bliss, in infinite measure, lies up that hill, not down it.

 

hey thanks sean for posting that one. Ive been stalling reading the integral downloads, just briefly scanned some texts and charts, been opposed to the dry intellectual approach..but haha byebye boredom.

practise practise practiseAND read.

[TTT]

This youtube movie is awesome of Ken: