Customer Reviews

The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 6

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As another reviewer suggests, this is indeed an extremely ambitious work. Wilber's life's work is exceedingly ambitious, and this volume is the most comprehensive and the most demanding single volume he has yet published

First, I will say to the KW book shopper, this is not the best of his works to start with, in my opinion. Even for the serious reader, I would recommend "ramping up" to this book by reading some of his other work first. You'll get more out of this one if you do. At least read "A Brief History of Everything" first, which KW wrote as a more accessible summary of the thought presented in SES. Because KW's work draws on thinkers from so many disparate fields, the terminology alone can be daunting in SES, unless you are already conversant in the languages of developmental psychology, linguistic analysis, sociology, metaphysics, epistemology, eastern religions and so on. Reading ABHE first will at least give you a good overview of the territory before plunging into SES. I had read eight other KW works before I took on this one, and I think my understanding of SES benefitted from that.

That said, this is a stunning work, and if any one volume of KW's work can be said to lay out the core of his thinking, this would be it. The book begins by outlining what KW calls the "Twenty Tenets," which are, as he calls them, "orienting generalizations" that place in context all that comes after. Here he explains his holarchical model, the "spectrum of consciousness," the basic characteristics of the evolution of consciousness, and his Four Quadrants model of wisdom traditions, or approaches to understanding the universe, which may be his most unique contribution to philosophical thought. From there he proceeds to flesh out his integral theory of knowledge, which seeks to establish a way for us to reconcile (and integrate) the valuable contributions of approaches as disparate as neuroscience and mysticism, Freudian analysis and systems theory. And he shows how this affects our approaches to, yes, sex (gender identity, roles of the sexes, feminism, the mens' movements, et al), ecology (what do various worldviews, belief systems, and perpectives along the spectrum of consciousness mean for our approach to ecological issues, and what are their prospects?) and spirituality (what place does spirituality still have in the story of humankind, and how do we make sense of the seemingly limitless and contradictory number of approaches to this oldest and most important of questions?)

The most unique contribution KW has made to world thought is to begin the integration of the many wisdom traditions and modes of inquiry--to set out a methodology for doing so and to begin to do it. Am I having a mystical experience, is God speaking to me, or is it just something my brain chemistry is doing? Or is it just a culturally-conditioned response? Or regression to a prerational state? Any one approach has its answer, but who is right? And what place does each kind of answer have have in an integrated approach to understanding? Wilber says each of the many modes of serious inquiry has part of the truth, but not all of it. He asks how we honor the valuable contributions from each such partial view to begin to develop a comprehensive view of the whole. SES is Wilber's most all-inclusive single attempt to address these questions. His work is essential to any serious thinker or seeker of the truth today. And for any remotely serious student of Ken Wilber's work, you must read this book.

I believe SES is so valuable not only because Ken Wilber has taken the time to master the essential findings of a dozen different academic disciplines, but because he then combines this brilliant scholarship with the insight of a meditation master. In India these rare individuals are called "Pandits" - scholars who have fully opened "the eye of contemplation." Mystics usually do not even attempt to bring the "ineffable" truths they discover in transverbal states of consciousness into the world of conceptual discourse and sensory evidence. Scientists almost always assume that rationality is the highest faculty we have available to understand our world, and ignore the vast areas of human experience that cannot be easily weighed or measured.

Because Wilber is attempting the extraordinarily difficult feat of integrating these two paths, I think we should keep this "degree of difficulty" in mind as we evaluate his work. He may not always keep his toes perfectly pointed as he enters the water, but how many other theoreticians currently working could include anywhere NEAR this many moves (truths) in a single dive (system of thought?) SES (and Integral Theory as a whole) is far from perfect, and Wilber himself certainly is far from perfect (whatever "perfect" might mean)- but if you care about developing a more compassionate, courageous and effective approach to the daunting challenges facing humanity in the coming decades, you will not want to ignore the tremendous intellectual goldmine he offers in SES.

I believe SES is so valuable not only because Ken Wilber has taken the time to master the essential findings of a dozen different academic disciplines, but because he then combines this brilliant scholarship with the insight of a meditation master. In India these rare individuals are called "Pandits" - scholars who have fully opened "the eye of contemplation." Mystics usually do not even attempt to bring the "ineffable" truths they discover in transverbal states of consciousness into the world of conceptual discourse and sensory evidence. Scientists almost always assume that rationality is the highest faculty we have available to understand our world, and ignore the vast areas of human experience that cannot be easily weighed or measured.

Because Wilber is attempting the extraordinarily difficult feat of integrating these two paths, I think we should keep this "degree of difficulty" in mind as we evaluate his work. He may not always keep his toes perfectly pointed as he enters the water, but how many other theoreticians currently working could include anywhere NEAR this many moves (truths) in a single dive (system of thought?) SES (and Integral Theory as a whole) is far from perfect, and Wilber himself certainly is far from perfect (whatever "perfect" might mean)- but if you care about developing a more compassionate, courageous and effective approach to the daunting challenges facing humanity in the coming decades, you will not want to ignore the tremendous intellectual goldmine he offers in SES.