Rating: 
Summary: When you transcend, don't forget to include.
Review: It would be most interesting to conduct a study on the psychology of the scholarly. I found it most difficult to digest this writing due to the need to expose the material to the threshing machine, to separate the ego from the data. It is as if -- I read therefore I am important and my thoughts are valid. The same psychological 'self-worth' dilemma that permeates the common feasts also upon the intellectual. How many times and how many minds have written.. to be enlightened is to discharge the ego. ? So, why then the need to prove anything to me? My opinion matters not to the enlightened one. Yet in this writing the need to validate for the intellectual community is most apparent, ad nauseum. All the 'name-dropping' all the references simply testify to the intellectuals' need for a(p, for please)-prov-al. Some say it wasn't enough, not enough proof. Well, I have a theorem..if you are convinced it is because you have true experience, thus your conviction will show through in your work and others will experience it. There is nothing more convincing than what life teaches. I find books that speak from the soul carry far more depth..you can read hundreds of books, and write of your ideas henceforth, but tell me what has your life experience taught you. All authors want their readers to gain something from their writing. I personally gain nothing from having my intellectual ego stroked. My experience in reading this book was a conviction inappropriately dressed in intellectual urea. Why do I say this? Well, this book is 339 pages and I had a harder time with this book than I did the entire 'Urantia Book'.., 2097 pages covering far more science, philosophy, religion, spirituality, logic, and reason. Enough of books written from the minds of people who do nothing more than read. What about the idea of a philosophy that we can apply to real life. If Ken Wilber is THE new philosophy, than his art should ring in ones soul like the music of the Beatles - music that transcends and includes. Transcending the older generation of music lovers yet including them. This book transcends alright. It transcends a basic level of intellegence - so it may speak to the scholarly, but it fails to include. I feel this book IS worthy of attention. I think the ideas could have been expressed to include the wider audience it transcends, and at the same time reduced to about 120 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: The Birth of Common Sense
Review: This book inspired a 180-degree turnaround in my life. It awakened me to the true spirit of 'Common Sense', and sent me scrambling for other works by the same author. Ken Wilber is as enlightened as a Westerner can ever be, and his gift is the ability to share his wisdom - in a friendly and non-condescending way - with anyone who is prepared to receive it. If you're one of those seeking universal truths, don't miss this book!
Rating:
Summary: A "rare voice."
Review: A BRIEF HISTORY (hereafter referred to as "ABH") is addressed "to those of us grappling to find wisdom in our everyday lives, but bewildered by the array of potential paths to truth" (xii). Ken Wilber is "in a category by himself," Tony Schwartz writes in the book's Foreward. "He is . . . far and away the most cogent and penetrating voice in the recent emergence of a uniquely American wisdom" (xi). Written in an conversational, easy-access, question-and-answer format, ABH offers a simplified introduction to Wilber's integral vision, a vision which "attempts to include as many important truths from as many disciplines as possible, from the East as well as from the West, from premodern and modern and postmodern, from the hard sciences of physics to the tender sciences of spirituality" (p. xv). (A more in-depth discussion of Wilber's integral approach may be found in his 832-page SEX, ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY.) In this mind-stretch of a book, Wilber takes on "God, life, the universe, and everything . . . it deals with life, mind, and spirit, and the evolutionary currents that seem to unite them all in a pattern that connects" (p. xix). And as Schwartz notes, ABH "delivers just what it promises. It covers vast historical ground, from the Big Bang right up to the desiccated postmodern present. Along the way, it seems to make sense of the often contradictory ways that human beings have evolved--physically, emotionally, intellectually, morally, spiritually" (p. xi). In this book, Wilber triumphs in integrating Freud and Buddha (p. 141), suggesting that on the "precious path to global consciousness" (p. 121), the "coming Buddha will speak digital" (p. 281). Thoreau wrote: "With all your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is, the light that comes into the soul." In his recent book, WHY RELIGION MATTERS (2000), Huston Smith says that "the greatest problem the human spirit faces in our time is having to live in the procrustean, scientific worldview that dominates our culture" (p. 202). In ABH, Wilber also examines this dilemma. We are living under the Confucian curse of "interesting times" (p. 51), in a flatland of "zero" depth (p. 299)--"no consciousness, no mind, no soul, no spirit, no value, no depth, no divinity found anywhere in the disqualified universe" (pp. 224-5). We live in the scientific "world of the lab technician, slabs of meat each and all" (p. 244). And the "thought that somebody, somewhere might be higher or deeper . . . is simply intolerable" (p. 140). He writes: "Only by rejecting flatland can we arrive at an authentic environmental ethics and council of all beings, each bowing to the perfected grace in all. Only by rejecting flatland can we come to terms with the devastating culture gap, and thus set individuals free to unfold their own deepest possibilities in a culture of encouragement. Only be rejecting flatland can the grip of mononature be broken, so that nature can actually be integrated and thus genuinely honored, instead of made into a false god that ironically contributes to its own destruction" (p. 307). In following "evolution from matter to life to mind" (p. 15), Wilber reveals "a more accurate, comprehensive map of human potentials" that directly translates "into a more effective business, politics, medicine, education, and spirituality" (p. xvi). (He covers this application in greater detail in A THEORY OF EVERYTHING.) ABH offers an "'all-level, all-quadrant' approach to consciousness, therapy, spirituality, and transformative practice" (p. 221). Reading Ken Wilber is like being in the presence of someone who knows something you should know. He is a "rare voice" (p. xiii) that belongs on your bookshelf. G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: Just skip to Chapter 13
Review: Unless you really are interested interested in the "history of everything" and not in brief, just go to chapter 13. The book is almost like a semester course on the evolution of thought, psychology, and metaphysics. If you picked up this book as a guide to the quest for your true nature, just skip to the 13th chapter. This is one of the best written explainations of "I am-ness" (Nisargadatta) along with many explainations of Zen and non-dualistic school principles in american english that I have found. The book is worth buying for that chapter and the one following it. The rest is interesting if you want detail on things that don't really mean anything except to a historian of metaphysics.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: This book was written as a summary of the work presented in Sex Ecology, Spirituality and was intended for a more popular audience. I recommend it as the best first Wilber book, as a relatively accessible introduction to his thought. That said, this is not a popular market "spirituality" book. There is a lot of meat here. I am among those who think Ken Wilber is one of the great thinkers of our time. His great contribution to world thought is as an integrator of a staggering breadth of philosophical thought, psychological research and accounts of mystical experience. He maintains that each of the wisdom traditions and methods of inquiry into human experience has at least some valid contribution to make. He then sets about the daunting task of finding the ground upon which they all can be said to agree and integrating them into a theoretical structure that can be used to understand how, though no single discipline can present the whole truth, all can deliver a piece of it. For example, it is not that neuroscience is right and mysticism is wrong or vice versa. They are both right but incomplete. There really are neurons that can be observed to behave in certain ways. But that is not, and cannot be, all there is to say about human experience. Wilber succeeds establishing an integral theory of consciousness that draws from the wisdom of all the traditions of inquiry to a greater extent than any other thinker I have read. I have read nine of Wilber's books so far, and I think this is the best one to start with, if you are interested in looking into his work. For those who have read some of his other work, this is a good, succinct overview of his system that can be a useful look at the forest when you get immersed into some of the more detailed material about the trees.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing
Review: As a psychotherapist who has used system's thinking as a basis for my work, this book has proven to be a revolution. Wilber's incredible capacity to glean salient facts and then synthesize them, understandably, for the reader is amazing. If I had only read the first 30 pages of this book, my work would have changed. The cherry on the top is his suggestions of the directions we need to work toward. A rare book indeed, that marries spirit with science, philosophy, psychology, physics, etc. Bravo.
Rating:
Summary: Transcending to Your Divinity
Review: Wilber's _Everything_ charts the evolution of consciousness by both the entire Kosmos and by individuals. He includes his map for achieving a supreme, all-encompassing Divine awakening. Those who have had peak experiences (Wilber says many of these experiences are "peek" experiences) may find corroboration in these pages. Wilber devotes several pages to "talking you into" the One Taste ... and it works! Further, Wilber describes in detail the steps or "rungs of the ladder" a person can expect to transverse in the climb from the awareness of a newborn to ultimate vision. He describes problems one might meet in this aspiration to enlightment as well as his suggestions for eliminating deep, unconscious knots. A careful reading of this book could provide any aspirant with key tools and new understanding of both self and Self. This book turns me on!
Rating:
Summary: An Eastern Perspective Dominates this book
Review: I remember the excitement I experienced when I started thumbing through the pages of this book.Wilbur's incredible genius shines through it from cover to cover and it leaves you fascinated. Perhaps the most brilliant philosopher of our time. However, in his attempt to integrate all thought systems into a cohesive whole, the soul sense seems to be left out due to his strong eastern metaconscious position. This seems to be more of an ego disassociation than an integration. Identification with the Godhead is grandios.
Rating:
Summary: A Brief Mystery of Everything
Review: An interesting, well written, and occasionally poetic, philosophical monologue about the spiritual limitations of modern science and an explanation of Ken's holistic flavor of the "correct" way to interpret reality. Critique: Wilber sounds more like a preacher or a sage than a fellow seeker of the truth. He sees the scientific method as reductionism, and has a quarrel with the concept that logic (or philosophy) can explain everything. At the same time, he makes extensive use of logic and science where it fits his argument. His "Theory of Everything" boils down to a somewhat unique blend of mysticism, or spirituality, and reasoning. Through it he attempts to convey his holistic and all-encompassing view of God, Creation, and how Man fits in that picture. He rejects the Christian belief of a one-and-only God, consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Instead, he is happy to include all of the above, as well as Buddha, Dharma & Shranga, and who else you want to add as part of the same holistic view, culminating in the eastern belief that Man is part of the Kosmos, which is part of God. (Emptiness = Creation & One = All.) In particular he finds fault with the "flatland" view of the new science (Systems Theory) - which is based on the recent discoveries regarding chaos and complexity, and how interrelated systems behave in an unpredictable environment. In his mind, these "web-of-life theories" differs from his interpretation, in that it does not account for the concepts of absolute meaning, beauty, virtue and value. But, perhaps because they could be perceived as rather closely related to his holistic view, they draw considerable criticism from him (page 129). In total, he expects (a-la Lobsang Rampa, "The Third Eye") the reader to throw out his preconceived ideas about the relevance of science and religion, without absolute proof, and without supernatural revelation, in exchange for another mother-of-all theory. The well trained scientist will classify Wilber's ideas in kind with perpetual motion. The sincere Christian will consider him dangerous, in his ability to distort the truth. The average individual might have a harder time to separate fact from fiction. On a positive note - Wilber does attempt to address some serious deficiencies in our view of reality. In some of his attempts he can even be described as brilliant, though his ability to synthesize meaning from cutting edge issues. The problem is - its just another theory. By diverting his considerable talent into the realms of mysticism, and without the tools of science and logic, he forgoes the opportunity to use his talents in furthering real understanding. He might have done better if he had finished his studies at university.
Rating:
Summary: A Brief Mystery of Everything
Review: An interesting, well written, and occasionally poetic, philosophical monologue about the spiritual limitations of modern science and an explanation of Ken's holistic flavor of the correct spiritual way to interpret reality. Critique: Wilber sounds more like a preacher or a sage than a fellow seeker of the truth. He sees the scientific method as reductionism, and has a quarrel with the concept that logic (or philosophy) can explain everything. All this while he makes extensive use of logic and science where it fits his argument. His theory of everything boils down to a somewhat unique blend of mysticism, or spirituality, and reasoning, through which he attempts to convey his holistic and all-encompassing view of God, Creation, and how Man fits in that picture. He rejects the Christian belief of a one-and-only God, consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Instead, he is happy to include all of the above, as well as Buddha, Dharma & Shranga, and who else you want to include as part of the same holistic view, culminating in the eastern belief that Man is part of the Kosmos, which is part of God. (Emptiness = Creation & One = All.) In particular he finds fault with the "flatland" view of the new science, or Systems Theory, based on the recent discoveries regarding chaos and complexity, and how interrelated systems behave in an unpredictable environment. In his mind, these web-of-life theories differs from his interpretation in that it does not account for the concepts of absolute meaning, beauty, virtue and value. But, perhaps because they could be perceived as are rather closely related to his holistic view, they draw considerable criticism from him ( page 129). In total, he expects (a-la Lobsang Rampa, "The Third Eye") the reader to throw out his preconceived ideas about the relevance of science and religion, without absolute proof, and without supernatural revelation, in exchange for another mother-of-all theory. The well trained scientist will classify Wilber's ideas in kind with perpetual motion. The sincere Christian will consider him dangerous, in his ability to distort the truth. The average individual might have a harder time to separate fact from fiction. On a positive note - Wilber does attempt to address some serious deficiencies in our view of reality. In some of his attempts he can even be described as brilliant, though his ability to synthesize meaning from cutting edge issues. The problem is - its just another theory. And by diverting his considerable talent into the realms of mysticism, without the tools of science and logic he forgoes the opportunity to use his talents in furthering real understanding. He might have done better if he had finished his studies at university.
| 
