Norman Einstein

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Michael

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. ~ Woody Allen

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[Liz]

Thank you Steven, I have nothing of importance to add, just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading that. Such a gifted wordsmith. Air castles........gone to ponder

Liz

[henry]

i feel like i'm coming to bat after babe ruth. wonderful posts all around lately. did you know that aurobindo was a strident political revolutionary of gandhian stature as a young man before he was jailed in alipore? also, to catch up steven, steinbeck modeled two of his characters in "east of eden" after the murphy boys from salinas. mike would found esalen on murphy family property in big sur..thanks...henry

[Daniel]

Steven,

 Give me another round with it and I'll comment, so far, very original and interesting.

Dan

[Daniel]

I watched the videos I think Steven is referring to. At one point Wilber said "God needs PR". It does look like he is being Evangelistic. But I don't know. You can take this from several angles. Wilber does look more subdued and humble almost than he has in the past. Perhaps because of the focus of Integral Spirituality and of the website he has taken on the "Gospel according to Wilber" and thus behaves like someone who is on a mission from God, like the Blues Brothers. He almost impresses me as a figure head these days, passing out his sound bytes of wisdom.

I read the book. I did not like the style, I thought it was geared towards the 18-25 year old crowd, fairly immature in several parts and coming from the same mind that wrote SES it was a disappointment. The content had some great things in it though, confusing a times. It was like going to a algebra or calculus class, you really had to pay attention and follow along at times or you get lost (unless you're one of those egghead's). He's trying to be original and provocative, we can hand him that.

He is a form of entertainment in a sense. Look at Jimi Hendrix for example. Many claim he is the greatest guitar player of all time. Well, he was brilliant no doubt, but also could be pretty sloppy with his performances as well. Then look at someone like Segovia, precise and exact like a razor blade in his guitar playing, and yet not hailed as the "greatest" (probably because the baby boomers need a hero, Jimi Hendrix is thus hailed as their own, the greatest ever). Same with Wilber, hailed as "the greatest ever", brilliant yes...but also sloppy. We need a Segovia, someone who's classic and precise, and get away from this sloppy pop culture crap. Wilber may someday heavily impress finally, or greatly dissappoint even further.

Its not his best work. It's good, could have been better. Steven, I like your writing, a blending of serious critical writing with a novel like storytelling flair. As far as Wilber himself, I have learned a lot from this guy, but I agree with you, he is still a by product of a collective hodge podge of academia and he is fairly sloppy in supporting his views with any solid researched references (although he claims he does). It's the price of being Integral, you get a little of a lot, but don't ask him to be precise and get too involved with too much detail. He is complex and yet still skims the surface of things.

I've been listening to Alan Watts lately. I like him. Much of the stuff is rehashing what I already 'know", but he still puts a fresh view on it. He's got the spirit.

However much you love or hate Wilber, he still has potential to be better. I waiting for him to shed all the bullshit he's indulged in the past couple years and get on with those new stages that he always gripes that no one has reached.

I don't know if this is much of an addition to your commentary, for what it's worth though.

Dan

[Nickeson]

Daniel,

Look at Jimi Hendrix for example. Many claim he is the greatest guitar player of all time. Well, he was brilliant no doubt, but also could be pretty sloppy with his performances as well. Then look at someone like Segovia, precise and exact like a razor blade in his guitar playing, and yet not hailed as the "greatest" (probably because the baby boomers need a hero, Jimi Hendrix is thus hailed as their own, the greatest ever).Same with Wilber, hailed as "the greatest ever",

Good insight.
Deftness with media, good p.r., good market placement, do a lot to create greatness, right?

Steven

[Michael]

Another installment by the author of Norman Einstein, - Jeff Meyerhoff, is well worth reading in my opinion:

Psychological Analysis of Wilber's Beliefs
Bald Ambition: Chapter 10

While Wilber omits himself from his theory, there are ways that he unconsciously inserts himself back into the text of SES. Trying to hold at bay the many contradictions and counter-arguments, these unconscious insertions come in the form of a self-critique. It is as if Wilber's psychic shadow had to be given its say through these textual symptoms. Wilber projects this shadow onto his subject matter and unwittingly criticizes his own project. Projection occurs when one projects one's own views onto others and believes that those others actually hold those views. This is how most of us live up to the New Age dictum to create your own reality. Wilber does this a number of times during the course of the book and it gives a very interesting insight into him when they are decoded.

Early in the book Wilber warns us about the concept of wholeness: "?Wholeness' - this is a very dangerous concept . . . dangerous for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is always available to be pushed into ideological ends. Whenever anybody talks of wholeness being the ultimate, then we must be very wary, because they are telling us that we are merely ?parts' of their particular version of ?wholeness,' and so we should be subservient to their vision - we are merely strands in their wonderful web."[40] Of course he argues that he avoids this danger, but for those of us who disagree this is an excellent description of a problem with Wilber's grand synthesis. Whole fields of knowledge, distinct spiritual states and vast historical epochs find that they are "merely ?parts'" in Wilber's "particular version of ?wholeness.'" This might feel to them like being "subservient to [his] vision . . . merely strands in [his] wonderful web."

Later in the book, Wilber unwittingly describes my analysis of his ignorance of his own psyche and the intellectual consequences of it. He writes, "I believe it is a profound truth of human development that one can fully transcend any level only if one fully honors it first (thus allowing embrace/Agape). Otherwise one's ?development' is simply a reaction to, a reaction against, the preceding level, and thus one remains stuck to it with the energy of disapproval - Phobos, not Eros."[41] This is a good description of what has happened to Wilber himself. He has not worked through and embraced his own psychological issues and so acts them out in his thinking, writing and behavior. His aversion to loss (Phobos) is transformed into a positive, constructive system-building and is a "reaction against" negative or critical thinkers rather than an "allowing embrace." His unresolved issues with maturity and immaturity come out as a strongly developmental and progressive program with himself at the spiritual pinnacle, i.e. the most mature. His fear of being a big fish in a small pond or merely the "tallest building in Kansas City" pushes him to grandiosity. And the insecurity he feels about keeping his big synthesis afloat is compensated for by his repetitive, incantatory and defensive argumentation.

Wilber describes his own shadow methodology when describing the early Christian scholar, Origen's method of interpreting Christian myths. Wilber writes that,


The brilliance of this scheme is that it takes a prerational myth (literal) and reworks it at both a rational (ethical) level and a transrational (mystical) level, so that ?the myth' can be made to say whatever it is necessary to make it say, quite regardless of how its originators actually meant it. In other words, the interpretation takes the myth quite beyond itself - first into the space of reason, and then into the space of spirit. The myth is thoroughly preserved - and utterly negated.


This allows Origen to put into the myths whatever meanings from a higher level he wishes to put into them, so that he can both claim scriptural authority and basically ignore it at the same time.[42]

This is an excellent description of what I claim Wilber is doing with his story of the Kosmos. Wilber takes the "literal" knowledge of the sciences and "reworks it" on a "rational (ethical) level and a transrational (mystical) level" to make everything make sense. Through selective scholarship the knowledge "can be made to say whatever it is necessary to make it say." The knowledge is "preserved" in that it lives in Wilber's new synthesis and yet it is "utterly negated" in that it is ripped out of the academic debates in which it is situated and given its larger validity. Wilber's method of culling preferred pieces of knowledge from diverse sciences allows him to give his story of the Kosmos "whatever meanings from a higher level he wishes to put into them." He "can both claim scriptural authority" (by saying he is using our taken-for-granted knowledge and by having 238 pages of endnotes), and "basically ignore it at the same time" by only really using a select few scholars and misrepresenting those who disagree.

Speaking of Norman Einstein, I recieved the latest IN newsletter this morning with this headline:

The Einstein of consciousness and the Zen Master behind the ?most important and original discovery in the last two centuries of Buddhism? talk about this revolutionary new method of pointing out one?s own Big Mind Big Heart right now?.

Seems like KW grandiosity grows and grows.

[jimtzu]

doesn't this part reflect/tie in with steven's sidebar post?

Later in the book, Wilber unwittingly describes my analysis of his ignorance of his own psyche and the intellectual consequences of it. He writes, "I believe it is a profound truth of human development that one can fully transcend any level only if one fully honors it first (thus allowing embrace/Agape). Otherwise one's ?development' is simply a reaction to, a reaction against, the preceding level, and thus one remains stuck to it with the energy of disapproval - Phobos, not Eros."[41] This is a good description of what has happened to Wilber himself. He has not worked through and embraced his own psychological issues and so acts them out in his thinking, writing and behavior. His aversion to loss (Phobos) is transformed into a positive, constructive system-building and is a "reaction against" negative or critical thinkers rather than an "allowing embrace." His unresolved issues with maturity and immaturity come out as a strongly developmental and progressive program with himself at the spiritual pinnacle, i.e. the most mature. His fear of being a big fish in a small pond or merely the "tallest building in Kansas City" pushes him to grandiosity. And the insecurity he feels about keeping his big synthesis afloat is compensated for by his repetitive, incantatory and defensive argumentation.

[Nickeson]

Hey,
I have been waiting for some months to read Meyerhoff?s shrinkage of Mister Wilber. I think he did a fair and well balanced job. Michael, thanks for bringing this to our attention over here.

At the risk of over-working the analogy I want to go back to my first impression of AQAL as a projection of Wilber?s psyche. Looking deeper into that impression I find two elements:

1) Years ago when I was heavily under the numinous influence of a couple of spontaneous visions and dreams that represented universal wholeness, I would have not-quite-so-numinous, seemingly secondary visions and dreams featuring four quadrants coming together to form one, or variations thereof. I learned from reading Jung that the ?quaternity? was an archetypal symbol of the wholeness of the Self and the building block for integrating apparent oppositions. Jung used it in enough instances in developing theory that it became something of a trademark for him and so I was surprised that when Mister Wilber first presented AQAL he did not reference Jung. But it is telling that he did not.

2) Jung also warned against ?identifying with the archetype? as this would lead to an ?inflation,? which according to the Jung Lexicon is ?A state of mind characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, often compensated by feelings of inferiority.? Putting those together I had to conclude that the man had identified with his AQAL archetype, in essence identifying the ?ego? with the ?Self? and the result is what we see today.

I noticed there was a recent thread?that parallels the content of this one?on Lightmind regarding Mister Wilber?s megalomaniacal tone in asking for article submission to his blog. I wonder a little how he is going to get people to submit articles there when they no longer post anything on his Multiplex forums.

I think this is my swan song in critiquing Mister Wilber. In all future pieces I want to keep my critiques limited to aspect of Integral thought and reference him only by implication. After reading Integral Spirituality  I have concluded that Mister Wilber is in essence a liberal protestant media evangelist in everything but name, or, from another perspective, not the Einstein of Consciousness, but the Dr. Norman Vincent Peale* of Buddhism. The lame quality of Integral Spirituality has shrunk him considerably in my mind and to criticize him beyond this point would leave me feeling like I had just mugged an old woman.
Steven
*Please pay particular attention in the referenced article here the controversy around Peale's Power of Positive Thinking.

[Daniel]

I want to think positive about this whole thing!  (great insights into criticism of Norman Vincent Peale from the link you provided, I never realized that his system was considered a type of self hypnosis).

Perhaps the essence of this discussion is that "Integral" is overrated? I'm always learning new things from the Institute however (in bits and pieces). But that's it. Hell, I don't even have the time to live an Integral life! I get up comb my hair, shave and rush off to survive in the postmodern jungle.

I don't wholly agree that "Integral Spirituality" is a lame duck. Genpo Roshi's claim that it is "possibly the most important spiritual book in postmodern times" is from a mouth piece of I-I essentially of course, what else would he say? But the claim is overblown and overexaggerated.The operative word or his loophole is "possibly", he did not say "absolutely the most important book..."  I read the book. It has some good things to say, sometimes excellent (possibly some folks are more well read and exposed to a higher variety of theorists and writings that prompts them to see the same work in a more diminished light?) The style is surprisingly immature at times and I wonder if Mr Wilber has suffered some psychological regression. But, it's a point of view. Put it in the boxing ring with other heavy weights and I am sure it could catch some black eyes and maybe a broken nose.

I think its just another book he hammered out one weekend and tossed it out for those hungry for more to eat up. Its not one he locked himself up for 2 years in isolation over as supposedly he did with SES. He's a literary philosopher icon who wants to get into the multimedia culture the same way Imus crossed over from radio into TV. The problem is Wilber makes promises and gives impressions on things that are not wholly true. He indirectly and slyly misrepresents himself. This book is a great example of that. He makes it out to be the next best thing since sliced bread and its NOT! Its just more Wilber intellectualizing and throwing out new variations on his integral theory. Its good, but not "vast in scope" as another one of his buddies from I-I, Rodger Walsh, claims.

Thank you for the post, more great writing! I'm looking forward to your 1st edition when it comes out on Integral Books! (will it get by the Integral Nazis?  ) 

Dan