I’ve now read/watched a few of the sources linked to. The whole thing is pure story-telling. Not once does anyone talk about evidence. No-one talks about whether any of this is true. No-one talks about what any of this is useful for. No-one even talks about where all this stuff came from. I found a video of Ken Wilbur himself talking continuously for one and a half hours, and while I’m awestruck at the ability to do so, I am not at all awestruck by the content of it. I did not watch the whole thing, but I watched enough to decide not to.
Ken Wilbur may not be the official head of the movement, but he is its founder, source and at least unofficial guru. As the guru, so the school. I hear them talk and talk, while waiting for some sort of a point, but it never arrives.
No-one even talks about where all this stuff came from.
A lot of it does have articulated sources even when they aren’t articulated in the particular talks you watched. Spiral Dynamics for example comes from Don Edward Beck / Christopher Cowan.
Instead, most conversations involved esoteric spiritual topics, impulsive self-expressionism, and re-explaining the integral model in 4,102 different ways. For a philosophy based on including and integrating as much as possible, its followers sure expressed it by forming a nicely-sealed bubble around themselves.
[...]
Well, a number of experts began questioning Wilber’s choice of sources. And as for the claims that what he portrayed as consensus in some fields such as developmental psychology or sociology, it turned out there was still quite a bit of debate and uncertainty around some of Wilber’s “basic” conclusions. Often, what Wilber portrayed as the “consensus” of a certain field actually amounted to an obscure or minority position.
[...]
Wilber’s eventual response to many of these critics was nothing short of childish—a dozen-or-so page (albeit extremely well-written) verbal shit storm that clarified nothing, justified nothing, personally attacked everyone, and straw-manned the shit out of his critics’ claims.
Yet Mark Manson still says:
I do believe he will be written about decades or centuries from now and will be seen as one of the most brilliant minds of our generation. But as with most brilliant thinkers, his influence and ideas will be carried on by others in ways which he did not anticipate or intend.
The Circling guide says about the current state of Integral:
Circling did not begin as an outgrowth of Ken Wilber’s integral world-view, which includes the AQAL (All Quadrants / All Levels) theory of human development. However, it is a perfect fit, and has been embraced by many integral communities, particularly the Boulder Integral Center in which Circling is the leading modality being taught.
[...]
Circling has moved integral theory from the position of being merely a “good idea” of uncertain applicability to world problems and even early errors and hubris (Google Mark Manson’s article The Rise And Fall of Ken Wilber for an entertaining account of the early days of integral theory), into the position of being one of the best hopes that we have for our individual and collective healing and transformation. And the very process of how two highly disparate modalities can come together and join into a larger system, precisely models the change that many of us want to see, and also models integral theory itself at its best.
This transformation of the Integral community is likely what leads Elo to list ideas from Circling/Internal Family system therapy/Non-Violent communication that aren’t ideas of Wilber as what he got from the integral community and not spiral dynamics (which is central to Wilbers thought).
I’ve now read/watched a few of the sources linked to. The whole thing is pure story-telling. Not once does anyone talk about evidence. No-one talks about whether any of this is true. No-one talks about what any of this is useful for. No-one even talks about where all this stuff came from. I found a video of Ken Wilbur himself talking continuously for one and a half hours, and while I’m awestruck at the ability to do so, I am not at all awestruck by the content of it. I did not watch the whole thing, but I watched enough to decide not to.
Ken Wilbur may not be the official head of the movement, but he is its founder, source and at least unofficial guru. As the guru, so the school. I hear them talk and talk, while waiting for some sort of a point, but it never arrives.
A lot of it does have articulated sources even when they aren’t articulated in the particular talks you watched. Spiral Dynamics for example comes from Don Edward Beck / Christopher Cowan.
I think Mark Mansan wrote The Rise and Fall of Ken Wilber in which he describes the problem as:
Yet Mark Manson still says:
The Circling guide says about the current state of Integral:
This transformation of the Integral community is likely what leads Elo to list ideas from Circling/Internal Family system therapy/Non-Violent communication that aren’t ideas of Wilber as what he got from the integral community and not spiral dynamics (which is central to Wilbers thought).