January/February  2006

All together now:
Integral and the work of Ken Wilber

By Roz Brown

If there’s anything on which most students or even critics of Ken Wilber can agree, it’s that his contribution to modern philosophy is astounding.

Wilber, 56, began his quest to promote his integral vision while in his early 20s and has since written more than two dozen books, and articles too numerous to mention. As philosophy is, by its nature, dynamic, Wilber’s writings have evolved but never stagnated‹he is always refining his theories about what he calls “integral” understanding. This began in 1996, with the publication of A Brief History of Everything (Shambala, 2000), in which he proposed a philosophy that integrates body, mind, soul and spirit with self, culture and nature. Ironically, long before the twin towers, the war in Iraq or the recent onslaught of natural disasters, Wilber was promoting what he called, “the need for an integral vision for a world gone slightly mad.”

Wilber cites several influences as forerunners to his integral theories, including James Mark Baldwin, American philosopher and psychologist; Michael Murphy, co-founder of the Esalen Institute; and particularly, Swiss cultural philosopher Jean Gebser. First published in German in the early 1950s, Gebser’s work introduced a new understanding of cultural anthropology. He described states of consciousness in a progression: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic and integral‹integral beginning the advancement to several higher waves. Gebser believed that human beings naturally progress through each of these worldviews. He suggested the next structure of consciousness, which he called integral, would bring about a global worldview. Wilber has carried Gebser’s work to a profoundly higher level, and is using advances in technology, such as the Web, to extend his philosophy and realize tangible results.

In the forward to one of Wilber’s books, The Eye of the Spirit (Shambala, 1997) Jack Crittendon captures best what Wilber means by integral: “If Wilber's approach is more or less accurate, it does nothing less than offer a coherent integration of virtually every field of human knowledgeŠ that seamlessly weaves together truth-claims from such fields as physics and biology; the eco-sciences; chaos theory and the systems sciences; medicine, neurophysiology, biochemistry; art, poetry, and aesthetics in general; developmental psychology and a spectrum of psychotherapeutic endeavors... Wilber simply backs up to a level of generalization at which the various conflicting approaches actually agree with one another.”

So, what coherent system would incorporate the greatest number of truths? In Wilber's view, nobody is wrong, “everybody is right,” and every approach to understanding is true, but partial; the goal is to fit those truths together, rather than picking one and getting rid of the others.

As described at the Integral website, Wilber's purpose is to find “genuinely integral approaches in the various areas of human activity.” That means there is no integrated person unless she has an integrated spiritual practice and an integrated connection to her body and lives in an integrated culture that has an integrated relationship with nature, and on and on. While many disciplines‹healthcare, for instance‹suggest you can have one without the other, Wilber believes we currently operate from a “quadrant” perspective that, unless harmonized, makes that impossible. The four quadrants Wilber posits are nature, systems, self and culture.

The educational component of the Integral website reminds us: “You can exercise and diet as much as you like, but if you break your leg you'll need a well-equipped surgery or hospital to help you but if as a society we don't believe in the value of healthcare for all then the hospital will be run down and there will be no individuals willing and able to have the motivation to train as doctors and nurses but it doesn't matter how much you believe in your own good health it won't work unless you do something about your physical health and watch what you eat but however healthy you are as an individual that won't make a difference if you live right in the centre of a polluted city... and so we go round the quadrants.”

Quadrants then become one of the five aspects in the Integral approach to the human capacities map‹the other four being levels, lines, states and types.

Integral Institute

As an outgrowth of his writing, in 1998 Wilber founded the Integral Institute (I-I), a think-tank for studying issues of science and society, hoping to influence fields as diverse as politics and spirituality, psychology and business, medicine and art.

The Institute has gone through several phases, including an exploratory phase that brought together the world’s leading integral thinkers for a succession of landmark meetings and dialogues. One of those participants, convinced the Institute could advance a comprehensive approach to the world’s complex problems, immediately donated a large sum of cash to formally launch the enterprise. Over the next two years, a series of meetings that included over 400 of the world’s leading integral theorists took place, followed by a phase that saw the creation of core teams still central to I-I.

According to I-I, replacing piecemeal approaches with systematic solutions is imperative, whether they address individual and personal issues or social problems such as war, hunger, disease and overpopulation. Thus, there are four main goals:

1. Integrate the largest amount of research from the largest number of disciplines.
2. From this research, develop practical products and services that can be used by individuals or businesses to fuel their development.
3. Apply integrated knowledge and problem solving to critical issues including alliances with other organizations that include training.
4. Create the world’s first Integral Learning Community and ultimately, says Wilber, improve the quality of life on the planet.

As Wilber says, “Today we hear a lot about Cultural Creatives and the new and exciting rise of an Integral Culture‹a holistic, balanced, inclusive, caring culture that moves beyond the traditional and the modern and into a postmodern transformation. But, in fact, significant psychological evidence indicates that in today's world, less than two percent of the population is at anything that could be called an Œintegral’ wave of awareness... the same evidence suggests, however, that a very large percentage of the population‹close to 25 percent‹is at the immediately preceding wave of development... in other words, that modest two percent of the population that is now integral might soon swell to five percent or ten percent, or more. I believe that, as with any evolutionary unfolding, we will especially start to see evidence of this increasingly integral consciousness at the growing tip, or at the leading edge, or in the avant garde (by whatever appellation)‹in academia, the arts, social movements, spirituality, thought leaders.”
In 2005, the Integral Institute offered a wide variety of training, from personal development to organizational leadership to integral psychotherapy and integral sustainability, in equally varied locations.

Integral University and Integral Naked

Most recently, I-I announced its Integral University‹the world’s first Integral Learning Community to encourage the cros3s-fertilization of ideas, and the outreach website, Integral Naked.

According to the web site, “ Integral University online will consist of (at least) 25 fully functional websites all hooked together through Integral Commons.” Such sites will include Integral Psychology, Integral Sex and Gender, Integral Politics, Integral Finance, Integral Psychiatry, Integral Art and more.

Integral University is the world's first truly integral learning community, where the AQAL approach (all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types) is brought to bear on an astonishing variety of disciplines for personal, academic, and professional development.” At this site, you can find thousands of pages of original material that has been written by those considered the best integral scholars in the world, as well as audio materials.

Yet another avenue for exploring contemporary issues as they relate to the Integral approach is Integral Naked. Making bold promises, the website says, “At the core is a series of intense, raw, straightforward discussions that cover a full sweep of contemporary issues—from business to personal growth, from education to meditation, from politics to ecology, from sexuality to spirituality.”

Artistic, avant garde and entertaining, these dialogues and events create a salon environment for the Integral vision, via your personal computer, that is sure to appeal to a younger generation, and what Wilber seemed to have in mind when writing Up from Eden (Quest Books, 1996) nearly a decade ago: “At this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. There is the 'edge of history.' There would be a real New Age."

Resources, local and beyond

For more information on the Integral Institute,see the following:

• A Brief History of Everything, by Ken Wilber (Shambala, 2000)
• A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, by Ken Wilber (Shambala, 2001)
• Kosmic Consciousness, by Ken Wilber (Sounds True, 2003)
• The Integral Operating System, by Ken Wilber (Sounds True, 2005)
• www.integralinstitute.com
• www.integralleadership.com
• www.integralnaked.org
• www.wilber.shambhala.com

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