Customer Reviews

A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Though I have not sought refuge with Sidhartha I do like to sit and listen under the trees from time to time, especially if they are in a Garden of Eden like place. No doubt Ken, being the good Buddhist that he is, likes to sit under a tree from time to time himself. Over the years Ken has made an institution out of his own personal brand of Americanized Buddhism he calls Transpersonal Psychology. A bit of an irony but no big deal in and of itself. Ken tries to take an integrative approach to everything he writes about. For the most part his is the wholistic perspective of the Perrenial Philosophy. Additionally, in typical American style, he borrows what is useful and disregards what is not. He is trying his best to not only make sense of the world but to save it as well. His Theory of Everything may sound a bit presumptuous but I assure you his opinion is worth considering. He is not a saint. He is an academic. His voice is worth listening to without kneeling. Nor do I think he would want anyone to. He is a fine reporter of the things that concern him most. He is sincere and consistent. In TOE he does not so much offer a new theory of everything as publish a guideline for each of us, himself included, to keep in mind on our quest for wholeness. A kind of map and checklist for seekers on their way to Shambhala if you will. A guide.

Although the essence of Wilber's theory is most comprehensively explained in "Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality", this book contains many of his newer theoretical developments as well as more practical applications using his theory. It is very interesting that he relates some of our current social/political/environmental problems to the recent culture of baby boomers. Regardless with whether you agree with it or not it, this book is very thought provoking and well worth a read. If you like books that try to explain everything using one theory, I also recommend "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is amazingly written so that it is full of wisdom, intellectually stimulating and easy to understand!

Ken Wilber continues to write in lucid form an integral story of an integral world. In this book he summarizes and clearly discusses much of what he has been studying and living for much of his life. It is a real pleasure to read and learn from such a profound thinker.

This book wonderfully delivers what it is titled, a THEORY! of everything. It is solidly backed and, for me, puts many questions and debates to bed! I truly felt a big weight lifted off my sholders. I felt as though I may understand better why things are the way they are. At times a bit brief but non-the-less very helpful.

A few reviewers have written negatively and I'm not sure why. Possibly they haven't been able to grasp the true nature of Wilber's message because they presume too much. Not saying I have grasped it all but at least I can see the "integral" relationship that Wilber offers to everything and yes, as one reviewer complained was totally missing, even to Jesus.

This book is not a simple read especially for those new to Wilber. I felt at times it was too brief and I wanted more. I read the first 100 pages before I finally started to clue in so I stopped and started over. Much, much clearer. I recommend the same for all new to KW, integralism, psycho dynamic theory, etc. Others have listed a few books as intros which I'm sure are great. Ken Wilber himself says this book may be the best introduction to his work. Read it then reread it and hopefully you'll enjoy it and get as much out of it as I did.

I am now a huge fan of Ken Wilber and can't wait for more. For those interested check out his web site and the many other sites that "piggy-back" on his views. Very helpful indeed.

Thanks to Ken Wilber one of the greatest thinkers of our time or anytime. Best to you all.

-Stratos

...maybe especially for a skeptic, which I would consider myself. Having studied under Carl Sagan at Cornell and generally being firmly planted in the rational, I think only an approach like that of Wilbur's could get me entertaining some of the concepts I generally consider to be "out there." The reason is that he very inclusively maps a lot of belief sets and areas of science into an inclusive theory, that makes you know he heard your part of it, but points out there's more over in this other area (stage or quadrant or whatever). By being non-dismissive, he makes a more complete theory. I find myself applying the thinking in my daily life to things like evolutionary product design, organizational structure, etc.

The downside for me was writing style. I found Wilbur hard to crack, and it took a month or so of time investment in reading several of his books simultaneously for me to start to get it. Before I got it, I found him complicated and tedious. After I began to understand the general framework, I started finding him a bit repetitive (more in other works than this shorter one). I think this could be a challenging read as an intro course, without either some prior Wilbur or a reasonable grounding in a range of other philosophy/psych reading. I'd recommend either reading Wilbur's History of Everything or maybe "The Essential Wilbur" with this.

Nevertheless, this book is amazing, as is Wilbur, for his ability to synthesize so much information from so many fields of study into something so elegant.

Regarding Ken Wilber's A Theory of Everything, and A Brief History of Everything. Wilber's books are very interesting, in his synthesis of latest thinking from all over the spectrum of knowledge--evolutionary biology, economics, psychology, history, physics, etc., to name a few--and his building a unified framework or world view that is profoundly inclusive of ideas from all of these fields. He is a "mapmaker" of sorts, an abstractionist and pattern-finder, plotting out how things relate in the various spheres of knowledge, and hanging them together in a single richly-textured fabric--of categories, structures, hierarchies and relationships. Everything from religion to evolution to particle physics are fit within the framework. I have some questions about the validity of some of the premises on which he hangs some of his notions, but the quadrant system he presents--and the common patterns he observes in all of these various spheres of knowledge--is quite amazing. It is interesting and thought provoking reading, if you are interested in a synthesis of the latest ideas on how "everything" hangs together (the "theory") and how it has come to be this way (the "history").

Ken Wilber is one of the most gifted thinkers of our time. I think this is a very good summary of his incredible vision. I enjoy reading all of his books but I felt that this one took it one more step ahead. If you are a beginner in this field, I'd recommend the classic, "The book on the Taboo against who you are" by Alan Watts and a more recent book called, "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. Both of them are excellent as well! Good luck and enjoy on your journey!

This is a terrific book that gives you a general overview of how integral theories can be applied to various aspects of life like politics and business. Since the integral field is only in it's infancy, the book contains only overviews. So I have no clue why the ignorant idiot in the other review called the book "blah blah blah". The book is superb as are all Ken Wilber books.

If you want a good background to his works, read "Brief History of Everything", if you want to know about practicing it in your personal life, read "One Taste", if you want to know how to approach problems in relation to science and religion, read "Marriage of Sense and Soul". TOE gives you a good idea, a vision of what Integral business, integral politics etc. will look like, so it's a very visionary book. If you are seriously interested in applying integral theory, checkout the Integral Institute, (http://www.integralinstitute.org)

In short, I believe, Ken Wilber is a genius and like Deepak Chopra says, we must read all his books, because he is a tremendous gift to the world. Most critics of his work seem to be ignorant, so they post reviews like one of them in this list. I believe we all need a heavy dose of Ken Wilber, and only people passionately committed to the Path of Ignorance will ignore his work!

Wilber promotes a model of human evolution called "spiral dynamics". The evolutionary stages of this model are correlates of the stages of most other evolutionary theories like those of Freud, Piaget, Eriksson etc (Something Wilber himself makes a point of).

Spiral dynamics differ from these models in that the evolutionary stages are not labeling age-groups of childhood and adolescence, but rather typifying general human outlooks. Even if the lower stages typify childrens outlooks in being more egocentric, childhood & youth essentially speaking has nothing to do with the stages' characteristics.

Furthermore, Wilber proposes that there are more stages beyond the point where other theories call a complete evolution. These are transpersonal stages reflecting this model's spiritual outlook with a base in eastern philosophy. That is, with "transpersonal" is meant that with further evolution the ego-sphere increasingly loosen to allow identification with the spiritual essence of human being rather than its present manifestation.

Human evolution is seen as the dominance of progressively higher stages on the evolutionary ladder in the societies of our worlds history. The transpersonal stages, or second tier stages, have yet to become norm of human evolution, but Wilber proposes that we stand on the brink of a possible transformation.

The postmodern notion of value-relativism giving rise to an indifferentiated sphere of plural value systems can be seen as the stepping point for a new, integral, conciousness where value systems once more are ranked, yet not in the historic sense of dominance ranking, but in the sense of ranking values by stage specifity and degree of health at that stage.

Alternatively however, the postmodern relativism, because it calls every value "separate but equal", may in fact trigger a degeneration. This is because unhealthy developmental tendencies may find shelter under the wings of the philosophy of value relativism. Relativism however, is seen as essential to break up earlier value-hierarchies based on dominance. Without it, we wouldn't have gotten to where we're at in the first place.

This book is a good introduction to Wilbers work. Anyone who aspire to be into philosophy today needs to be familiar with Wilber. He's becoming increasingly mandatory,...and relevant.

I certainly did not expect to be handed a Theory of Everything, or as the author refers to it T.O.E. Unfortunately, I did expect to read a good book. What I ended up with was seriously flawed. Ken Weber Frankenstein'd several theories of human psychology into a very tall pill of [poop].

Flaw 1: The Theory was weak and unsupported. It sounds reasonable; however it is only supported with endless name dropping, cross references, and circular logic.

Flaw 2: What does it all mean? Ken promised that he would apply his TOE to practical matters. Here is one of the two sentences that applies it to spirituality "...integral transformative practice to socially engaged spirituality to relationships as spiritual path." What? Blah, blah, blah, blah!

Flaw 3: Ken never finishes his topics. You know the type of writing that continues to promise answers in future chapters. They never come! Instead, he self promotes other books that he wrote that he promises answers the outstanding questions.

I sure hope he is not truly a leader in this field of study.