Comments on: Ken Wilber

By: Leo Marrs

Leo Marrs — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 08:48:08 +0000

I appreciate the critique (devil’s advocate), I really do. But a more thorough reading of Ken’s work would develop in a writer far more capacity to hold paradox than is displayed here.

By: adam b

adam b — Sun, 22 May 2011 03:17:46 +0000

This is the funniest part of the essay:

“I have suffered first hand because of the stupidities of the Catholics: my mother stopped using birth control due to their teachings and so I was packed into a very small house with eight brothers and sisters.”

By: John Hayes

John Hayes — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:56:51 +0000

On further reading of Ken Wilber’s Integral Spirituality, I find that his use of secondary sources, which leads him to misstatements that a more disciplined study of history would have avoided, is greatly compensated for by his very original and paradigm-changing integral approach to spirituality (and everything else). His treatment of “Spirit in the 2nd Person” is a priceless insight into the mystical experience. It has uncovered what has been open to view by mystics but, to my knowledge, not clearly seen by anyone until now. I’m coming to suspect that his AQAL approach is indispensible to critical thinking in general. It’s unusual for one person to change the rules for clear thinking so authoritatively.

By: John Hayes

John Hayes — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:52:33 +0000

Joseph,

I highly appreciate your critique of Ken Wilber. I’ve just started reading his books, my first one being Integral Spirituality. I became acquainted with his work through the audio recordings of the “Beyond Awakening community blog”, which I’m listening to. The idea of integral thought attracts me. But I also appreciate your point that he doesn’t seem to know how integral the mystical interior life itself is, at least for an active mystic. I sensed that blind spot almost at the beginning of Integral Spirituality, but your critique made that point, as well as another about his sweeping statements about the Enlightenment (and many other things) based on his reliance on secondary source materials. Isn’t the internet neat? I’d never have known about your critique without it.

Since you might be wondering, something about myself. I, too, have a philosophy background, having started out in a minor seminar, which I left in my third collegiate year to pursue a Ph.D., but left that after getting an M.A. to become a social worker and then a lawyer (economics were the major factor). But once a philosopher always a philosopher, so I didn’t stop learning. My education included the classics, middle ages, modern (I got a Hegel infection that accounts for my need to integate) and mostly continental contemporary thinkers (lots of Heidegger), but all as mentors in thinking. I attended Duquesne University in the heyday of existential phenomenology. About ten years ago I began to have mystical experiences that turned everything upside down. Now my thinking is unlike anything I’ve ever studied. Nobody I know really has wriiten anything about it. John Ruusbroec (14th Century) comes closest except for having a mind that thought burning heretics was a good thing.

Any how, I’ll check out your blog and Face book for your other writings, for which I’m sure I’ll be grateful. I know very few people who actually think. You seem to be one.

John Hayes

By: Al

Al — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:36:14 +0000

Hello from Florida,

I see you have a problem with the English language. I would like to know what you are learning/understanding about the person of Jesus as well as his teachings. Remember, that the words we speak of Jesus is not the WORD. The WORD is one and comes thru revelation subsequent to a clean moral life. I thank you in advance, al z

By: elizabeth enfield

elizabeth enfield — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:19:22 +0000

i started by reading No boundaries by ken wilbur which i found at my local dump where they recylce books. I only rea spirituallity. your paper is quite iteresting because when i’m in arizona for the winter i atend a weekly meeting satruday mornigs at htelocal sedona library a group called integral studies….
i also have sutdied buddhismand i am interested in the aspoects you describe as concerning this and i also have been reading and discussing with my tow favoirte groups how helen shcucma received htis giant christian text which seems to interpret the teahcings of jesus of old in a new way, especially the “New Interpretation of the Testament as given to Regina Dawn Akers, having moved from boston to north carolina and then upon ‘divine ‘ recpetion now inpueblo colorado.
i will present your discussion to theg gorup when i have it printd out tomorrow at y library. but a lot of your reerences which are quite complete i haven’t read and it sounds good except i am not a knowledagable person on these readings nad i tend ot folow my instincts, intutitins and expereiences rather than knowledge becaue as i ‘vealways have had ‘faith’ after fifty years as being a backgournd in judaiism,,,,light,,,ican rad hebrew, i have a christ consciousness since what he teaches as a rabbi two thousand years ago is simple and direct, and is similar to all the good teachigns of the best spiritual teachings. i tend not to use ‘religion’ as a source of any of my beleifs becasue of ‘mans” hand in ordering, rituallizing and giving laws that were not given by god or even jesus, since, accordidng to one of my own teachers there are only three direct quotations he has left for us.
i can go on and on, i need your help . so please write and tell me how to forward this to my group without getting burned at the stake.
sincerley elizabeth enfield, pilgrim and seeker.
eamil: softwear1@comcast.net ( no form letters please )!!!