Ken Wilber () von Frank Visser

FOREWORD
Ken Wilber

INTRODUCTION

Ken Wilber: The person and his work
The structure of this book

1. WHO IS KEN WILBUR? "I'M A PANDIT, NOT A GURU"

Top of the class
"An entirely new world"
"Life for me was sour"
"The Einstein of consciousness research"
"The lonely pursuit of the writer"
The Kosmos trilogy
"A fundamental pattern"
So, yet another Grand Theory?
"I'm a pandit, not a guru"
The seven faces of Ken Wilber

2. A FLYING START: "CONSCIOUSNESS IS LIKE A SPECTRUM"

What is transpersonal psychology?
The perennial philosophy as a guiding concept
A "perennial psychology"
The spectrum of consciousness

Evolution--the movement from Spirit to embodied individual
Involution--the movement from embodied individual to Spirit

Consciousness without boundaries
"And yet, something was definitely wrong . . ."

3. CRISIS AND REORIENTATION: IN SEARCH OF A NEW FOOTING

"Instantly the entire scheme became clear"
A forgotten truth
The search for the Self

Developmental psychology as a starting point
The prepersonal
The personal
The transpersonal
General principles of development
Pause for thought

A fall from Paradise?

Cultural evolution
The evolution of religion
New Age or Dark Age?

"No longer lost in thoughts"
To sum up . . .

4. FURTHER REFINEMENTS: SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Towards a New Paradigm?

The three eyes of knowledge
Three types of science
The pre/trans fallacy
A further refinement of the developmental model

Physics and mysticism: An unhappy marriage?

A holographic paradigm?
Quantum questions

Transpersonal sociology

Methodological considerations
The new religious movements

The stage model is complete

5. LOVE, DEATH, AND REBIRTH: YEARS OF TEST AND TRIAL

"Love at first touch"
"I went into a profound depression"
"My path has been Buddhist"
"I do not condemn the entire New Age movement"
"And that is what Treya had done for me"
Death and rebirth in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition

6. AN EVEN BROADER HORIZON: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL VIEW OF SPIRIT

The Kosmos trilogy

Popular holism falls short
Individual and cultural progress
The four quadrants
The collapse into flatland
Ascending and descending spirituality

An interview . . . with himself

The four quadrants revisited
Global consciousness as a platform
In the grip of flatland

The eye of spirit

The integral approach
Is humanity evolving?
The ever-present Spirit

The integration of science and religion

A closer look at science and religion
Earlier attempts at integration
The integral agenda

The taste of Oneness

A day in the life
Pitfalls on the Path
Continuity of consciousness

The Collected Works
Integral Psychology
Boomeritis
A theory of everything
The Integral Institute
"By far the most productive years of my entire life"
Towards a post-metaphysical spirituality

7. KEN WILBER IN PERSPECTIVE: THE BACKBONE OF WILBER'S MODEL

Materialist science: the domain of matter

Is there an inner dimension?
"The hard problem"
Back to introspection

Orthodox psychology: the domain of the personality

The realms of nature
The stage paradigm
Philosophy of development

Transpersonal psychology: the domain of the soul

Wilber versus Jung
Wilber's main opponents
The Wilber conference in San Francisco

Metaphysical religion: the domain of Spirit

The perennialists
The theosophical tradition
A Western Vedanta?

Epilogue: The map and the territory

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books by Ken Wilber
Complete bibliography of Ken Wilber

INDEX