Dear dmb, I have been taking my charge to check into Wilber very seriously. I re-read "Kosmic Konsciousness" and was all set re-read "Speaking of Everything" and then give up. I have a list of websites and books outlining, in more detail than either of us care about, just what is wrong with Wilber. After all at one point in the Kosmic interview Wilber is asked if dogs and trees could be enlightened beings. He does not dismiss the idea. During the course of the book he shows every evidence of relishing becoming the catch-all justification for every bit of New Age drivel imaginable. Shamanism, reincarnation, magic talismans it's all there. He does seem to draw a shaky line at past life regression but does not rule out jumping over it.
It is no mystery why Wilber finds himself in the New Age section of your local book store. He actually likes being in the New Age section, by the way. In one interview I heard him claims book sales from the New Age section are far greater than the philosophy section. I also note that in another interview he comments that during the DotCom bust his Integral Institute lost $100 million in pledges in a single day. Not to worry though, he had other pledges in the pipe that would make up the losses. But as I said I took this charge seriously and decided to look into his more "serious" work. As a result this is taking much longer than I thought. I am now working on Sex, Ecology and Spirituality. I have to tell you it is much better. I am still in the first third or so of the book and I will admit that much of his discussion of hierarchy, complexity even biology is very lucid. His use of depth and span to ranking holons is very good. In the early stages of SES I would have to say that his construction of levels is more coherent than Pirsig's. His stated aim is to reconcile scientific and religious thinking and he definitely shares that with Pirsig. I can see why you like the guy. He does not seem to share your distain for theism but maybe he gets around to that. I like the fact that he tackles head on a couple of issues regarding complexity and chaos that Pirsig does not seem to even be aware of. I am eager to see how he gets from lucid explanation to New Age cornucopia, this promises to be fun. I think I see early on how he gets there and what is wrong with his position but it is early in the game and, Buddha Natured Dogs aside, I am trying to retain an open mind as you suggested. At any rate I wanted to let you know I have not dropped the ball here. I suspect that you are otherwise occupied with school these days and I wish you well with whatever you are doing. I am still quite a ways from being up to speed on Wilber but thought this might be a good time to ask a couple of questions. How would you compare Wilber and Pirsig? They seem to share a lot in common and if anything Wilber's exposition is much longer and in some respects clearer. What works do you consider to be the "essential" Wilber? Are the ones I have mentioned on your list? Case moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
