Introducing Ken Wilber: Concepts for an Evolving World

By Lew Howard

Ken Wilbers revolutionary thinking is beginning to shift the orientation of Western culture. Wilber combines his knowledge as mystic, scientist, psychologist and philosopher to create comprehensive concepts for understanding our world and our place in it. This integral approach is much needed in a world torn by conflicts of religion, culture, and ideology.

Lew Howard says, I wrote this book to make the work of Ken Wilber accessible to the average person. Wilbers integral understanding (which is an interlocking whole) is broken down into concepts that can be individually understood. These understandings result in an integral conception of the Kosmos. Wilbers insights revolutionized my spiritual practiceand can do the same for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 17, 2005
• ISBN: 9781463481933

Lew Howard

Lew Howard is a retired nuclear reactor engineer. His engineering career included reactor operations, research and development, nuclear fuel contract management, and consulting regarding uncertainties in cost and schedule for construction of nuclear power plants. His expertise includes mathematical modeling of complex operations using probabilistic analysis. This career was Lew’s vehicle for developing advanced logical skills and the ability to teach complex concepts to the average person. Lew’s lifelong study of spirituality and psychology led him eventually to a seven-year study of the work of Ken Wilber. He desires to make Wilber’s academic work understandable to the general public. Lew lives in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife, Ti Howard, and their seven-year-old grandson.

Book preview

Introducing

Ken Wilber

Concepts for an Evolving World

by

Lew Howard

Title_Page_Logo.ai

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy

© 2005 Lew Howard. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 04/27/05

ISBN: 1-4208-2986-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-8193-3 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005901369

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Chapter 1

THE BIG PICTURE

Chapter 2

THE FOUR QUADRANTS

Chapter 3

HOLONS EVERYWHERE

Chapter 4

THE QUADRANTS REVISITED

Chapter 5

POST-METAPHYSICAL SPIRITUALITY

Chapter 6

THE KOSMOS

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

Chapter 7

PEOPLE DEVELOP

Chapter 8

GRAND TOUR OF THE MEMES

Chapter 9

SOCIETIES DEVELOP

Chapter 10

WORLDVIEWS DEVELOP

Chapter 11

STATES AND STAGES

Chapter 12

INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION TO PART III

Chapter 13

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION

Chapter 14

ARE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES REAL?

Chapter 15

THE SUBTLE

Chapter 16

CAUSAL EMPTINESS

Chapter 17

THE NONDUAL

Chapter 18

SPIRITUAL TRUTH,

OR JUST WORDS

Chapter 19

MEDITATION

Chapter 20

FLATLAND

Chapter 21

BOOMERITIS

Chapter 22

THE GROWING EDGE

Chapter 23

INTEGRAL INSTITUTE

Permissions and

Copyrights:

From Boomeritis by Ken Wilber, ©2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, ©1996. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From Integral Psychology by Ken Wilber, ©2000. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber, ©1995. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From Grace and Grit by Ken Wilber, ©1991. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From A theory of Everything by Ken Wilber, ©2000. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From One Taste by Ken Wilber, ©1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From Transformations of Consciousness by Ken Wilber, ©1986. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From The Essential Ken Wilber by Ken Wilber, ©1998. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 2 by Ken Wilber, ©1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com

From Spiral Dynamics by Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan, ©1996. Reprinted by arrangement with Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford, UK, www.blackwellpublishing.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to acknowledge the crucial contributions of my dear wife, Ti Howard, who is my partner in spiritual endeavors. She saw the need for this book and urged me to write it. She has been diligent and perceptive through many passes of reading, proofing and critiquing the manuscript.

I thank Brad Reynolds for his comments that have been helpful regarding technical accuracy in representing Wilber’s work.

PREFACE

I wrote this book to make Ken Wilber’s work accessible to the average person. Wilber’s basic ideas are not hard to understand, but they are new to most of us. We need to have new ideas presented in small bites—lest we choke on a bite that is too large. I have created—step by step—a bridge from where we are to the contents of Wilber’s books. It is a bridge of simpler language.

My desire to write this book has developed over a period of years. When I was introduced to the works of Ken Wilber about seven years ago, I found his ideas to be interesting and inspiring. I read more of his books, and when his Collected Works were published, I bought and read them all—which took me a couple years. This evolved into a serious study of all of Wilber’s works.

Ken Wilber opened an integral worldview that was new to me. I changed my approach to spiritual practice. I began to see relationships and principles behind what I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. I began to see the deeper basis of disagreements between individual people—and between collective groups.

I was, and am, deeply moved by the glimpses of Wilber’s personal life as revealed in his books, Grace and Grit and One Taste. Wilber’s intimate sharing of details of his loves and losses, his growth and pains, joys and struggles, and his passion for spiritual realization, give me a sense of personal relationship to him. Wilber expresses his rich feelings and he is an authentic person, who shares his real-life experiences. He tells of his being overwhelmed by the task of care giving while his wife struggled with cancer, and his great sorrow at her death. Appendix A is a heart-felt, brief biography.

In my enthusiasm for Wilber’s ideas, I talked to my friends. I led a 10-week discussion group on his book, A Brief History of Everything. I found many people just did not understand it, or see how it applied to them. Others could not see how to fit Wilber’s ideas into their current belief system. At that time, I could not explain Wilber’s concepts in a meaningful and convincing way. The discussion group attendance dwindled significantly and I felt frustration in being unable to interest many people in exploring ideas that seemed, to me, to be extremely relevant and life changing.

I observed that Wilber’s writing is often at an academic level and he expresses himself with big words from the academic discipline of philosophy. His sentences are long. He has the philosopher’s desire to make his argument airtight and he covers all the subtle nuances of his subject. This makes his work inaccessible to the average person. Wilber’s editor at Shambhala, Kendra Crossen Burroughs, put it this way: But despite Wilber’s skill in explaining complex philosophical ideas, much of his work is written for a professional or academic audience and remains beyond the reach of more casual readers.¹

Another complication for a newcomer is that Wilber’s ideas have evolved. He refers to his various stages of understanding as Wilber-1, Wilber-2, Wilber-3 and Wilber-4. Wilber-2 expresses a developmental view that is a significant change from the Romantic view of Wilber-1. Wilber describes his evolution of understanding in the Introduction to his Collected Works.² For the sake of brevity and clarity, I do not describe Wilber’s phases 1 through 3, but go directly to Wilber-4, which is the culmination of his work published to date. I condense the Wilber-4 concepts—published in 1995 and after—into a single, simpler book.

This book avoids excessive technical terminology, yet is intended as an accurate introduction to the Wilber-4 work. A key element of the book design is that Wilber’s integral understanding (which is by definition an interlocking whole) is broken down into smaller concepts that can be individually understood. These concepts are presented in a sequence that enhances the reader’s understanding—step by step—and leads the reader to an integral conception of the Kosmos. This is a teaching process. When technical vocabulary is required, it is introduced gradually, at a rate a more casual reader can absorb.

Wilber’s ideas have great relevance to many of the big and very complex problems we encounter every day. Wilber has much to offer for the resolution of a great number of these problems—gender issues, ecology, science versus religion, religion versus spirituality, the very difficult problems between contending ethnic groups, and the urgent need for resolution between conflicting ideologies. These conflicts threaten to engulf and destroy us all. Wilber exhibits a remarkable ability to point out ways to resolve conflicting points of view—while honoring all the parties.

Recently, some close friends and I had a discussion group based on the draft of this book. The group made very valuable suggestions regarding clarity, and finding my typos. It was a gratifying experience to confirm that this book made Wilber’s work much more accessible to them. More than that, the group was inspired to meditate, to study, and to leave behind old self-concepts now seen as inadequate. All the group members are using Wilber’s ideas to deepen their spiritual lives.

Writing this book has been a spiritual experience for me. Every time I read or re-read Wilber’s descriptions of the higher states of consciousness, I feel deeply moved and inspired. I have to stop, wipe my eyes, meditate and internalize what I have just read.

This is a great adventure. Please join me in exploration of fascinating new territories. The experience will reward you for your efforts to understand. This is an introduction to the work of Ken Wilber and I hope it will be your entrance into Wilber’s more complete presentation. The footnotes will guide you to the sources of greatest interest to you.

Lew Howard

Albuquerque, New Mexico

September 2004

INTRODUCTION

Ken Wilber is a revolutionary thinker. His work is beginning to shift the thinking of Western culture. This book is your ticket for a journey of exploration into a new concept of the universe and your place in it. Wilber’s uniqueness as a person and as an intellectual innovator stems from his combining the experiences of a mystic, and the rigorous mind of a scientist, psychologist, and philosopher—together with his creative genius.

Ken Wilber, the Mystic

Wilber began with a study of the great world religions—especially their esoteric, hidden or secret aspects. He has studied and meditated with spiritual masters from many of these religious traditions. He has practiced meditation for over thirty years. Although he is primarily Buddhist, he has included many other approaches—Christian mysticism, Vedanta, Zen, Transcendental Meditation, Kashmir Shaivism, Kabbalah, Daism, Sufism and more. Wilber’s writing began as his attempt to piece together for himself a common map of the highest levels of mystical experience.

Wilber’s perspective is supported by his own direct experience of the highest levels of spiritual consciousness, but he also draws upon a thorough understanding of traditional sources. He has access to the state of nondual consciousness, where spiritual realities are integrated with the ordinary world. He remains conscious as the Witness during waking, dreaming and deep sleep. While he is meditating, his brain waves show the characteristics of waking, dreaming and deep sleep simultaneously—which is highly unusual. He meditates daily for one or two hours, as he wakes up from sleep.

From his own experimental results, his own direct experience, he perceives that the entire universe is Spirit. There is only Spirit—and that Spirit manifests as matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. That is the experience of the Nondual level—which is the highest level of spiritual realization.

Wilber often emphasizes that this level of experience is available to any person who conducts the experiment of the practice of meditation for a sustained period of time—many years. Just as it takes many years to master a musical instrument, or become fluent in a foreign language, or earn a Ph.D. in physics, it takes many years of sustained practice to master meditation.

Ken Wilber, the Scientist

Wilber is a scientist and approaches everything with a rigorous scientific mind. Some thirty years ago, as he was nearing completion of a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry, he decided to switch to a subject he considered more interesting—the spectrum of human consciousness.

Wilber has always read voraciously. When he is doing research for one of his books, he reads many hundreds of books, as many as four a day. He incorporates ideas from these many sources. He seeks to include and honor all branches of knowledge. Wilber has been a prolific author for over 30 years, producing eighteen books, numerous essays, interviews, forewords to a number of books, and many articles and interviews posted on his website.

Wilber integrates various worldviews. He does not just give us yet another worldview; he shows how all the worldviews fit together in a unified system. He shows us a deeply spiritual perspective compatible with a rigorous scientific approach. And he honors both spirit and science by showing how they fit together. He titled one of his books The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion.

Wilber also gives much attention to the philosophical question of how we know that what we know is really true. The evidence … is grounded at every point in direct experience that can be confirmed or rejected by any who adequately follow the interior experiments in consciousness. These experiments, generally known as meditation or contemplation, cannot be dismissed on the ground that they are ‘merely subjective’ or ‘interior’ apprehensions—after all, mathematics is ‘merely subjective’ and ‘interior,’ but we don’t dismiss it as unreal or illusory or meaningless. Just so, the contemplative sciences have amassed an extraordinary amount of phenomenological data—direct experiences—relating to the … soul and spirit levels.³

Wilber bases his argument on the steps followed by the scientific method, which he also calls the three strands of all valid knowing.⁴

• Specify the experiment to be performed. If you want to know this, do this.

• Perform the experiment (meditation or contemplation in this case), and observe the results—the data.

• Check the results with others who have competently done the same experiment. Then you can join in the communal confirmation (or rejection) of the results.

Wilber applies this approach to the higher levels of mysticism and meditation as well as the realms of science, psychology, and philosophy. And if you want to know if this data is real, all you have to do is follow the experiment—contemplation—and see for yourself. Of those who adequately do so, the majority report a simple conclusion: you are directly introduced to your True Self, your Real Condition, … and it is none other than Spirit itself.⁵

Ken Wilber, The Psychologist

Wilber has developed a new and comprehensive view of psychology. His view does not eliminate any previous valid psychological knowledge, but it places psychology in a much broader context. Wilber sees a broad sweep of human development from infancy to adulthood to the spectrum of spiritual stages. He also examines the possible pathologies at each stage and the appropriate therapies to correct these problems. Wilber’s psychological work is introduced and summarized in Parts II and III.

Ken Wilber, the Philosopher

Wilber’s Integral Vision is a project of phenomenal scope, complexity and importance: building a world philosophy. This is A Theory of Everything, as he titled a recent book. He also calls this an integral point of view. He is not so much building a new philosophy as he is creating an over-arching system of understanding that can contain and organize the many diverse fields of human thought. His system includes places for the physicist, linguist, psychologist, political scientist, sociologist, historian, medical researcher, systems theorist, anthropologist, and the great mystics of the world’s religions, as well as others.

Wilber’s still-evolving Theory of Everything is built on several basic concepts that he calls holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states, types and the self-system. These concepts come together as an All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) conceptual structure that forms a basic framework for his views—which will be explained as this book unfolds.

The goal of this book is to develop a description of this map, or Theory of Everything, its components, vocabulary, and ways of applying it to real-world situations. The Glossary at the end of the book explains Wilber’s specialized vocabulary.

Revolutionary Comprehensiveness

The comprehensive nature of Wilber’s work is one of its greatest virtues. Jack Crittenden’s Foreword to Wilber’s The Eye of Spirit, is titled What Is The Meaning of Integral? Crittenden says, But it is exactly the comprehensive and integral nature of Wilber’s vision that is the key to the sometimes extreme reactions that his work elicits.⁶

I want to focus on what is actually involved in the debate. Because, make no mistake, if Wilber’s approach is more or less accurate, it does nothing less than offer a coherent integration of virtually every field of human knowledge.⁷

Michael Murphy, Dr. Larry Dossey, Roger Walsh and many others with a broad perspective have given Wilber’s work very high praise. In 1997, Wilber invited 400 academic scholars and writers to join him in formation of the Integral Institute that is dedicated to the application of Wilber’s integral vision to the world at large (Chapter 23). These experts are organized into a dozen core teams. The teams function as crucibles in which the concepts are hashed out and fused into integral applications.

The critics have also been numerous and very vocal. Crittenden continues, "Most critics have taken umbrage at Wilber’s attacks on their own particular field, while they condone or concede the brilliance of his attacks on other fields. Nobody, however, has yet presented a coherent critique of Wilber’s overall approach. The collective outrage, as it were, is astonishing, but the criticism has been little but nitpicking."⁸

Is it any wonder, then, that those who focus narrowly on one particular field might take offense when that field is not presented as the linchpin of the Kosmos? …

I suggest that the critics who have focused on their pet points in Wilber’s method are attacking a particular tree in the forest of his presentation. But if we look instead at the forest, and if his approach is generally valid, it honors and incorporates more truth than any other system in history.⁹

Wilber insists, You can’t honor various methods and fields, without showing how they fit together. That is how to make a genuine world philosophy.¹⁰

Physical Sciences and Interior Sciences

One criticism of Wilber’s work comes from the worldview that the physical world is all that is real. According to this viewpoint, the inner worlds of ideas, psychology, emotions, meaning, culture, and spiritual awareness are all just neurons firing in a physical brain. This is a major viewpoint in our era. This perspective denies the validity of our interior experiences as conscious beings. This subject is explored in Chapter 20, Flatland.

Wilber’s concepts make room for both physical and interior truth. There is a place for truths obtained by observing the physical behavior of people (and their DNA, neurons and biochemistry). There is also a place for truths obtained by dialoguing with people about their interior experiences. Thus, the interior world is granted validity within its domain equal to the validity of the exterior world within its domain. Wilber’s integral viewpoint offers us a global map that organizes the different kinds of truth that come from diverse fields of study. Wilber’s All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) map orients us to different kinds of knowledge and gives a viewpoint from which to see interrelationships between the interior and exterior realities.

Orienting Generalizations

Wilber has accomplished his task by assembling very basic conclusions, which he calls orienting generalizations, from thousands of books representing various disciplines, including philosophy, religion, science, ecoscience, systems theory, medicine, neurophysiology, art, poetry, aesthetics, psychology, psychotherapy, meditative traditions, and mystical experiences. He includes writers both ancient and modern, from East and West, North and South.

The orienting generalizations are the basic and broad conclusions from each of these many fields of study. These conclusions are truths generally accepted by scholars in these many fields—but may be relatively unknown outside that field. Though experts in the specific fields may disagree about details, they basically agree about these generalizations. These conclusions orient us to the general terrain of human knowledge.

Wilber’s orienting generalizations provide a way to integrate the different fields. These generalizations provide a context for understanding everything. Wilber has emphasized the importance of context in determining meaning. When information is viewed in a larger context than previously used, the meaning is changed—enhanced.¹¹

What’s In This Book?

The volume and complexity of Wilber’s writing constitute an obstacle to a newcomer. I developed a sequence of presentation intended to introduce, step by step, the basics of Wilber’s concepts. I suggest reading the material in the order presented.

This book has four parts:

• Part I summarizes Wilber’s Integral Vision. Wilber has a very comprehensive vision of how the various aspects of the universe fit together in a three-dimensional grid which he calls All Quadrants, All Levels or AQAL. His concepts culminate in a new understanding of the ultimate nature of the Kosmos (Chapter 6).

• Part II describes Integral Psychology, in which Wilber provides a fresh look at psychological development. Wilber has strongly argued that psychology alone is just part of the story of our development—the story is completed by adding the spiritual levels.

• Part III explores The Spectrum of Spiritual Experience, in which Wilber provides spiritual perspective based on his study of the world’s greatest mystics and his own extensive spiritual practice. Wilber has also emphatically argued that the spiritual levels taken alone are just part of the story—the spiritual story is completed by adding the psychological levels. He seeks the integration of Freud [Western psychology] and Buddha [Eastern spirituality]—the marriage of depth psychology with height psychology.¹²

• Part IV presents Obstacles and Opportunities. Flatland and Boomeritis constitute the primary obstacles to the further evolution of our consciousness both individually and collectively. The Growing Edge chapter includes examples of applications of integral concepts to current world situations. Wilber’s Integral Institute is developing integral solutions for problems in areas such as politics, medicine, law, business, education, psychology, and spirituality.

Summary of Wilber’s Integrative Concepts

Ken Wilber’s integrative concepts are summarized here, and are developed and explained through the rest of the book.

• Wilber has examined hundreds of different worldviews—how the world looks from different perspectives. He argues that these different worldviews all have something to teach us. He has worked to tease apart these conflicting points of view in order to incorporate the parts that are on target and discard parts that are off the mark.

Wilber says, Everybody is right—but only partly right. When we were in school, we knew a person had to be quite smart to score 100 percent on a true-false test. Wilber points out a person would also have to be quite smart to score zero on a true-false test. Wilber says, Nobody is smart enough to be 100 percent wrong. So, Wilber builds his world philosophy from the accurate parts of many diverse worldviews. Chapter 22 includes discussion of this concept in terms of developmental levels.

• Wilber has surveyed the history of human development from two interacting points of view: First, he considers the psychological and spiritual development of each individual person in the course of their lifetime. Second, he considers the evolution of human societies from prehistory to the present. Wilber points out that the developmental stages of societies as a whole are similar to the sequence of developmental stages for each individual. Of course, any one individual may follow this developmental sequence to a stage either less developed or more developed than the average of their society. And each of us navigates through the basic structures of consciousness in our own unique way—the process is fluid and highly individual. This evidence is presented in Part II.

• Wilber views psychology and spirituality as being on the same spectrum—the spectrum of consciousness. He follows psychological development—both exterior and interior—from infancy to adulthood, including adult growth stages that may, or may not, be achieved by a particular person. Wilber then goes on to complete the spectrum by describing the spiritual experiences and levels available as structural potentials for all people. He points out that the spectrum of psychological stages and the spectrum of spiritual stages shade into one another like the hues of a rainbow. This is the subject of Parts II and III.

• Ken Wilber brought forth his original concept of the Four Quadrants to account for the realities of interior and exterior, individual and collective. This revolutionary concept includes everything in our understanding, and reveals that all one-quadrant approaches are only partial truths. The details are presented in Chapters 2 and 4.

• The concept of quadrants is intrinsically related to the concept of holons. The Kosmos is structured as hierarchies of development. For example, the human body is composed of organs and tissues, which are composed of cells, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms. The elements of these hierarchies are a whole at one level, and are a part of the next higher level. Thus, each element is a whole/part. The whole/parts are called holons. This is a very profound and far-reaching concept developed in Chapter 3.

• The All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) concept is a three-dimensional grid for organizing and understanding all types of knowledge. When a body of knowledge is placed in this unifying framework, the result is integral knowledge. Some examples are: integral psychology, integral politics, integral feminism, integral medicine, integral law, integral business, integral education, integral yoga, and integral spirituality. Integral applications are discussed in Part IV.

It is my expectation that readers will finish this book with knowledge of the Wilber-4, or AQAL, model and a foundation for reading Wilber’s original works.

Do You Want Simplicity or The Truth?

I suppose all of us have a part that yearns for simple answers to the perplexities of our lives. And we are surrounded by shrill voices claiming they can provide us with these simple answers. We are bombarded by a modern-day Tower of Babel: TV 30-second sound bites proclaiming their quick fixes for the world’s problems; and newspaper and magazine articles with every imaginable point of view. But we quickly notice that these simple solutions are quite contradictory. Life is confusing. Whether we like it or not, our modern world is complex. The demands on us are conflicting; how can we sort them out?

Amidst our confusion, Wilber tells us we need a larger view—a view that includes everything. This is a view that includes not only the ideals of our ethnic group, our culture, and our religion, but also includes recognition of other ethnic groups, other cultures and other religions. Wilber even has a place for the secular view that repudiates all religions. At first, we may think this business of including everything is just too hard. And it is indeed intimidating. We can’t swallow it all in one gulp. So we begin by nibbling around the edges of Wilber’s Integral Vision. It is like the old joke, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

PART I

WILBER’S INTEGRAL VISION

Chapter 1

THE BIG PICTURE

We look first at the cosmos—the universe. Wilber points out that these words are now commonly used to mean the physical universe. He sees such usage as being very narrow. There is more to the cosmos than the physical cosmos!

Kosmos

Wilber re-introduces the original Greek word Kosmos to convey the inclusion of everything that exists—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit.¹³ The Kosmos includes the physical cosmos, and the study of the Kosmos is called Kosmology, and that is what we are now exploring.

Natural Hierarchies

Wherever we look in the Kosmos, we find hierarchies. A hierarchy is defined as a body of entities arranged in a graded series, and hierarchy is a natural characteristic of the Kosmos.

Wilber distinguishes natural hierarchies from dominator hierarchies. Dominator hierarchies occur when one of the entities in the hierarchy assumes an unjustified importance or control. This is a pathological condition that we will discuss later.

Natural hierarchy can be illustrated by some examples:

• In the physical realm, we are familiar with the sequence in which atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form cells, cells combine to form organs and tissues, which are constituents of organisms—such as people. Each stage physically incorporates the prior stage. It is a natural progression.

• Wilber uses as an example this hierarchy: letters are combined to make words, words are combined to make sentences, sentences are combined to make paragraphs, and paragraphs are combined to make books. We notice that the entities are arranged as a hierarchy that is natural and inescapable. You cannot use paragraphs to make words. You cannot use letters to make paragraphs without also making words and sentences. Sentences are not dominating words or letters. Each has its natural place.

• In subsequent chapters we will investigate the stages of development of consciousness in a person, the stages of development of societies, and the stages of development of worldviews. We will find in each of these cases that the stages constitute natural hierarchies.

Hierarchies are inescapable, because all developmental patterns evolve by a process of increasing wholeness and inclusion (See Chapter 3.). This creates a natural ranking by holistic capacity. The higher stages incorporate more of the Kosmos. The higher stages provide a glue or pattern that unites and links the lower stages into a coherent whole.¹⁴

Dominator Hierarchies

Dominator hierarchies disturb people, and well they should be disturbed. When any part in a natural hierarchy attempts to dominate the whole, then you get a pathological or dominator hierarchy—a cancerous cell dominates the body, a fascist dictator dominates the social system, a repressive ego dominates the organism, and so on.

The cure for these pathological hierarchies is not to get rid of hierarchy as such. The cure is to arrest the arrogant element and integrate it back into its rightful place. Some people hesitate to do this, because they are reluctant to make the value judgments involved, and are reluctant to disturb the peace by arresting the offending element. However, if the pathological condition is not corrected, the pathology can destroy the entire entity.

Some people claim that in getting rid of hierarchies they are being holistic. But actually, the only way to reach holism is to recognize the hierarchic nature of the situation. Without hierarchy, you simply have heaps, not wholes. If there is a dominator hierarchy, then treat the offending element as pathology—and fix it.¹⁵

Each element in a hierarchy is a whole at one level, and then is a part at the next higher level. The trouble comes when the element that is supposed to be a part at a particular level gets puffed up and acts as though it is the whole—the boss. If an employee gets puffed up and attempts to give orders to the boss, he is being pathological—and is in danger of being fired. This attempt to dominate the hierarchy is inappropriate and is pathological, an illness, a disease. This applies to all kinds of hierarchies—physical, social, cultural and spiritual.¹⁶

The Four Spheres

The physical world emerged first. Wilber calls it the physiosphere. This is simply the physical realm of galaxies, stars, planets, continents, mountains, rocks, oceans and atmosphere. Then, after a rather long time, there emerged the biological world—plants and animals. Wilber refers to this as the biosphere. Next, after another long time, there emerged the sphere of mind—the noosphere. The word is based on the Greek nous or mind. The noosphere is a development of human minds. Then, the mind of mankind (noosphere) became aware of the sphere of Spirit or God, which Wilber refers to as the theosphere that is the Ground of all the other spheres. Theosphere means God-sphere. Of course, God or Spirit was present before the physiosphere—because Spirit is the ground, or basis, of all creation. (See Part III)

Why is this hierarchy important? It is important because it is necessary to keep in mind the hierarchic arrangement of these four spheres. Otherwise, some rather strange (and false) conclusions can be drawn.¹⁷

One of Wilber’s basic concepts is that, at each stage of evolution, the higher stage transcends and includes the lower stage. The higher stage goes beyond the lower stage (transcends it) and also includes the lower stage as one of its components. As an example, remember the sequence of atoms, molecules and living cells.

We can apply the transcend and include concept to the sequence of the spheres:

• The physiosphere, the physical universe, comes first. This level provides the foundation for emergence of plants and animals.

• The biosphere, plants and animals, including mankind as an animal, comes next. The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. Thus, the physiosphere is the lower part of the biosphere. Plants and animals physically include parts of the physiosphere—atoms and molecules. And the biosphere is also very dependent on various parts of the physiosphere—the sun for heat, and water, air and minerals for plant growth. There are complex cycles of interaction between the physical and biological realms for such things as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water.

• The noosphere, the realm of human mind, transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is the lower part of the noosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere, not the other way around. The biological realm includes the reproduction of bodies through sexuality and the social organization of family and small groups—as seen in animals. The noosphere moves social organization up to human villages, cities and states and this transcendence of the biosphere creates culture and society. The noosphere is not in the biosphere.¹⁸ Culture, with its symbols and toys and tools, rests on the biological base, but cannot be reduced to, explained by, or contained in that base.

• The theosphere, the realm of God or Spirit, is the Ground or basis of all of the levels of the Kosmos. The theosphere includes the noosphere, biosphere and physiosphere. (See Part III)

Wilber uses a mind experiment to test the order of a hierarchy. If we imagine that one level of a hierarchy is destroyed, then all higher levels of the hierarchy are also destroyed. This demonstrates which levels are higher than others. For example, if the physical earth were destroyed, the biosphere and noosphere would also be destroyed—showing that the biosphere and noosphere are higher than the physical earth. If the biosphere were destroyed, all human minds would be destroyed, along with human bodies and all plants and animals. The physiosphere would continue to exist quite well—the mountains and oceans would remain—thus showing the biosphere is higher than the physiosphere. If all human minds were destroyed, the biosphere would get along just fine. The elephants, jungles, cockroaches and ecosystems would not miss us—showing that human mind (noosphere) is higher than the biosphere.

In contrast, ecological philosophers tend to use a hierarchy as follows:

Even the eco-philosophers, who abhor hierarchies that place humans on the top of the evolutionary scale, have their own very strong hierarchy: … subatomic elements are parts of atoms, which are parts of molecules, which are parts of cells, which are parts of organisms, which are parts of ecosystems, which are parts of the biosphere. They thus value the biosphere above particular organisms, such as man, and they deplore man’s using the biosphere for his own selfish and ruinous purposes. All of that comes from their particular value hierarchy.¹⁹

The fallacy in the logic of the eco-philosophers mentioned above is explored in Chapter 3 under the heading of social holons.

[The] startling fact is that ecological wisdom does not consist in how to live in accord with nature; it consists in how to get subjects [people] to agree on how to live in accord with nature. This wisdom is an intersubjective accord [accord between people] in the noosphere, not an immersion in the biosphere.²⁰

Wilber is, of course, interested in preserving the environment and ecosystems of the earth. But he wants to see it done for what he considers the right reason. The level of mind, human mind, has the biosphere as one of its components—thus, for humans to destroy the biosphere is simply suicide.

The Great Nest of Being

Wilber has sought to identify the common basis of all the major world religions. He begins with an ancient concept called the Great Chain of Being—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. This is a hierarchy of being and knowing. Wilber traces this perennial philosophy back to Plotinus and Plato and beyond as summarized by Wilber in The Marriage of Sense and Soul.

The core of the premodern religious worldview is the Great Chain of Being. Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth points out that this is the view of virtually all the premodern religions. In this view, Reality consists of interwoven levels reaching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. Each level transcends and includes its junior levels. And all are enveloped by Spirit, by God, by Goddess, by Tao, by Brahman, by the Absolute.

This stunning unanimity of deep religious belief led Alan Watts to state flatly that We are hardly aware of the extreme peculiarity of our own position, and find it difficult to realize the plain fact that there has otherwise been a single philosophical consensus of universal extent. It has been held by [men and women] who report the same insights and teach the same essential doctrine whether living today or six thousand years ago, whether from New Mexico in the Far West or from Japan in the Far East.²¹

Wilber points out that the term Great Chain of Being is a misnomer, because the actual view is of a Great Nest of Being with each senior dimension enveloping its junior dimension. This is why the Great Nest is most accurately portrayed as a series of concentric spheres or circles…²²

This is diagrammed in Figure 1-1. The letters A and A + B and A + B + C emphasize the inclusion of the prior stage as the stages move from matter to life to mind to soul to spirit. (Spirit is both the highest level (causal) and the nondual Ground of all levels²³—represented by the paper on which the figure is drawn, as discussed in Chapter 17.) Each stage transcends and includes the prior stage. The labels, physics, biology, psychology, theology and mysticism are, of course, the names of the disciplines that study the different levels. An integral approach must include all of these levels.²⁴

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1-1. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Greater Depth ²⁵

Wilber emphasizes that each level includes its junior level and adds new qualities:²⁶

• The body adds sensations, feelings and emotions that are not found in rocks.

• The mind includes emotions, and adds higher cognitive abilities—reason and logic.

• The soul includes mind, and adds higher cognitions and affects such as archetypal illumination, vision, love and cosmic consciousness.

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Figure 1-2. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Less Span²⁸

Modernizing the Great Nest of Being

Wilber starts with the traditional Great Nest of Being—and then modernizes it. First, he notes the distinction between depth and span. In the