Collected Works of Ken Wilber : Integral Psychology, Transformations of Consciousness, Selected Essays

Rating:
Summary: Wilber's effort to integrate psychological approaches
Review: This book is too much to explain in a short review. Here is a start: Wilber is best known for his evolutionary model, in which he explains what phases a person goes through during one's life. One can stay stuck somewhere on these evolutionary scales. Most therapeutic appraoches don't have this evolutionary vision. Wilber explains how to make the match: what kind of psychological model will help to solve problems at which evolutionary level?

(a longer review can be found at http://users.pandora.be/merlevede/eqnl0302.htm#BOOKREVIEW)

Rating:
Summary: Wilber's effort to integrate psychological approaches
Review: This book is too much to explain in a short review. Here is a start: Wilber is best known for his evolutionary model, in which he explains what phases a person goes through during one's life. One can stay stuck somewhere on these evolutionary scales. Most therapeutic appraoches don't have this evolutionary vision. Wilber explains how to make the match: what kind of psychological model will help to solve problems at which evolutionary level?

(a longer review can be found at http://users.pandora.be/merlevede/eqnl0302.htm#BOOKREVIEW)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent new book, plus a whole lot of great essays
Review: Volume four of the Collected Works is critical reading material for any serious Ken Wilber student. It contains his contributions to the _Transformations of Consciousness_ book, his introduction to _The Holographic Paradigm_ (but not the ReVision interview found in that book), as well as a new book, _Integral Psychology_, which will be released individually in April 2000. The real meat of the book, however, lies in the voluminous collection of essays, interviews, and book forewords that Wilber has written over the years.

Of special importance is the essay titled "Death, Rebirth, and Meditation," in which Wilber, following the Tibetan Buddhist data, details the process of dying and death in intricate detail. He also clearly defines his use of the word "soul" and shows how even Buddhism is not exempt from the doctrine of an eternal and indestructible soul, despite popular notions to the contrary. He explains how certain Advaita teachers who insist that the Absolute is the only transmigrate are somewhat mistaken, and he also mentions the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, and says that while some persons _may_ be able to remember past lives, most memories are strictly mental, and therefore they dissolve completely once the present-life mind disappears into the soul during the dying process.

Also important is Chapter 14 of _Integral Psychology_. Here Wilber gives, for the first time, a truly thorough analysis of the mind-body problem (much more than he did in SES or TEOS). The chapter is expanded upon in an endnote that is particularly illuminating, discussing everything from the naivete of most forms of "panpsychism," to the extremely low level of consciousness possessed by quantum particles, to the necessity of all exteriors (matter) as having interiors (consciousness), since, as Wilber explains, "To say that the physical universe is a universe of all exteriors and no interiors is like saying the world has all ups and no downs--it makes no sense at all. Inside and outside arise together wherever they arise. . . ." He insists, however, that the real solution to the mind-body problem is not solved through mental understanding of dualistic interrelations, but rather through the radical transcendence of all dualism in nondual awareness, "whereupon the problem is radically (dis)solved."

Anyway, I highly recommend it to Wilber students, as well as to anyone with a serious interest in psychology, philosophy, or spirituality who finds something profoundly lacking in the position of scientific materialism and seeks a saner, more comprehensive approach to matter, life, mind, soul, and the infinite reality that contains the entire display.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent new book, plus a whole lot of great essays
Review: Volume four of the Collected Works is critical reading material for any serious Ken Wilber student. It contains his contributions to the _Transformations of Consciousness_ book, his introduction to _The Holographic Paradigm_ (but not the ReVision interview found in that book), as well as a new book, _Integral Psychology_, which will be released individually in April 2000. The real meat of the book, however, lies in the voluminous collection of essays, interviews, and book forewords that Wilber has written over the years.

Of special importance is the essay titled "Death, Rebirth, and Meditation," in which Wilber, following the Tibetan Buddhist data, details the process of dying and death in intricate detail. He also clearly defines his use of the word "soul" and shows how even Buddhism is not exempt from the doctrine of an eternal and indestructible soul, despite popular notions to the contrary. He explains how certain Advaita teachers who insist that the Absolute is the only transmigrate are somewhat mistaken, and he also mentions the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, and says that while some persons _may_ be able to remember past lives, most memories are strictly mental, and therefore they dissolve completely once the present-life mind disappears into the soul during the dying process.

Also important is Chapter 14 of _Integral Psychology_. Here Wilber gives, for the first time, a truly thorough analysis of the mind-body problem (much more than he did in SES or TEOS). The chapter is expanded upon in an endnote that is particularly illuminating, discussing everything from the naivete of most forms of "panpsychism," to the extremely low level of consciousness possessed by quantum particles, to the necessity of all exteriors (matter) as having interiors (consciousness), since, as Wilber explains, "To say that the physical universe is a universe of all exteriors and no interiors is like saying the world has all ups and no downs--it makes no sense at all. Inside and outside arise together wherever they arise. . . ." He insists, however, that the real solution to the mind-body problem is not solved through mental understanding of dualistic interrelations, but rather through the radical transcendence of all dualism in nondual awareness, "whereupon the problem is radically (dis)solved."

Anyway, I highly recommend it to Wilber students, as well as to anyone with a serious interest in psychology, philosophy, or spirituality who finds something profoundly lacking in the position of scientific materialism and seeks a saner, more comprehensive approach to matter, life, mind, soul, and the infinite reality that contains the entire display.