This book made me glad to be a woman. In so many ways our society says women are defective. This book is a wonderful collection of essays by some of the brightest, most articulate women. It has wonderful language from so many authors affirming women and affirming how we can change the world. I particularly enjoyed Cheri Huber, Riane Eisler, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and all the authors have something important to say. The listing of on-line resources is terrific. The book is very optimistic (and the on-line resources even more so) about the possibility of creating a good future.

I think this is the best book I've ever read (mainly speaking of non-fiction). Mr. Wilber explores, explains and eliminates all the illusory boundaries that we humans create, both within ourselves and between ourselves and the "rest of" the universe. Have trouble understanding the concept of "oneness"? Ken describes the whole concept in ways I've never forgotten (I read the book about 16 years ago). He not only explores the existence and creation of those boundaries but gives practical methods of eliminating them, utilizing a variety of techniques and explanations, although realizing that those boundaries are there and beginning to understand them is a huge first step. This book introduced me to the Gospel of Thomas in addition to giving me a new understanding of the book of Genesis (from the Bible, duh) and some of its many underlying nuances. This book was very hard to read; sometimes I would read a page and have to put it down, not because it is written in a confusing way but because the concepts are so beautifully complex and numbingly mindblowing. And Mr. Wilber brings them to light. My conciousness (or lack thereof :) has never been the same after reading this book. In my opinion this book is required reading for everyone, especially if you want to understand yourself and the universe. Oh but I guess that's the same thing.

This was the first book about Christian spirituality I read that went beyond the common ideas I had been exposed to in churches growing up (I am 21). It was amazing to read about some of the things I had been feeling/desiring or just been curious about: spiritual growth and development, transformation of my life by Christ and what that might entail, meditation, and even mysticism. I realized I didn't know what mysticism meant and that I needlessly characterized it as a suspect or hippie-dippy type thing.
I come from a semi-conservative background, and some things Marion wrote about didn't connect with me at all, but at the same time so many did. I think he's right on the target when he says we all have plenty of work to do to achieve inner growth, and that the overall goal is to love like Jesus did. It seemed to me that in this book, Marion put forth an honest and informed blueprint to what the path might look like. Overall it was characterized by sincere compassion and love for people, which I think is its strongest attribute. It was also rooted in the Bible, which was cool.
Definitely give it a read! Borrow it from a friend if you don't want to buy it. It changed the way I think about Christianity and provided many examples of saints, mature Christians, and even "spiritual masters" (as he put it) from other religions to look into. Good stuff!

This volume contains two different, but related, works by Ken Wilber. The first, "A Sociable God," proposes a methodology by which the discipline of sociology can compare and categorize religions. Religion and spirituality are making something of a comeback in modern society from their previously purged status under the rationalist paradigm. This has taken many forms, ranging from fundamentalism to contemplative and mystical approaches, to Eastern traditions, to the rise of cults. Wilber says that the traditional studies of psychology and sociology have tended to view religion as an immature or even regressive approach to resolving inadequacies at the social level and immaturities at the psychological level. He poses the question whether this is really all there is to say about religion, or whether something very important and fundamental is being left out of this view. It is Wilber's view that there is very much more to be said about the contributions religion and spirituality can make to the development of humankind, while at the same time recognizing that there is, indeed, ample evidence of religions that seem to deserve the charges of "immature," "inadequate," and even "pathological," Jonestown and Charles Manson being two extreme examples of the latter.

Wilber bases his methodology on the spectrum of consciousness model about which he has written so extensively in numerous other works. His methodology distinguishes between "legitimate" religions, which feed the worldview of the self on a given level of the spectrum, fleshing out the content of that level, and "authentic" religion, which validates transformation to a higher level on the spectrum and delivers practices for doing so. Wilber asserts that this method can be employed to hierarchically evaluate religions according to how successfully they deliver what they claim to deliver, from Maoism to Moonies, from Buddhism to fundamentalism. Wilber then shows how religions can be examined in light of their contributions to the current developmental phases of humans worldwide. All this is done with Wilber's laser beam clarity in just 134 pages. Even talking about religion is rare in intellectual circles today, but proposing a methodolgy for crtically evaluating them? You have to read this just for his straight away courage for treading in such politically incorrect waters.

In Wilber's system, he describes the various "realms" in the spectrum of consciousness, any one of which can be experienced temporarily by individuals as a "state,' or attained enduringly through evolutionary development by individuals or cultures as "structures." Each of the realms in the spectrum (grossly simplified as body, mind, spirit) can be investigated in accordance with its own nature, or with the appropriate "eye;" that is, the "eye of flesh," the "eye of mind," and the "eye of contemplation." Investigation of one realm with the eye of another produces, at best, a limited, or representational, understanding, and at worst, what Wilber calls "category error." Attempting to investigate the realm of spirit, for example, with the "eye of flesh," that is, the eye that perceives only sensory phenomena, will not yield real knowledge of the realm of spirit, which is not disclosed to sensory perception. This results in errors like "empirical" science, which purports to recognize only sensory phenomena, declaring the realm of spirit to be nonexistent or at least non-verifiable, because it can't be "seen." Well, it can't be seen unless you look with the right "eye." In "Eye to Eye," Wilber explains why it is critical that the proper "eye," and the corresponding modes of investigation, are used to investigate, and establish validity claims in, the various realms in the spectrum of consciousness.

He builds on this core material by investigating some of the promises and failures of the "New Age" movement and presents an outline of his concept of structure, stage and self, the mechanics of the evolutionary development of self. This volume also presents seminal material on what may be Wilber's most original and influential contribution to thought, the "pre/trans fallacy." Wilber says that many thinkers confuse pre-rational stages with trans-rational stages because both are non-rational. This results in either elevating the lower stages (babies are enlightened, hunter/gatherers were more "at one" with the universe, etc.) or diminishing the higher realms (enlightened sages are schizophrenic, confusion of higher with repressed lower ones, etc.)

These works are quite technical and demanding, and do not provide an overview of Wilber's system of thought. Therefore,I do not recommend them to the beginning Wilber reader. They are, however, indispensible to more serious students of his work. "Eye to Eye," I would argue is indispensible to any serious student of epitemology.

In the beginning, Spirit was only alone and blissful in infinite silent repose. In the formless purity of the Infinite there was nothing but empty clarity and radiance. There was nothing but a thoughtless, feelingless eternity of Love, and only one problem, one tiny problem: the Love wanted to share itself somehow.

And then a current of creativity began to act, to set a pattern, to stretch a rubber band of creation; suddenly, with perhaps a very big bang, Spirit threw itself out of pure unity and nothingness into a world of seeming multiplicity and somethingness. On the underside of time, in a process called "involution," it manifested itself in patterns of increasing density--from spirit to soul to mind to life to matter--and on the upside of time, in a process called "evolution," it has been progressing for billions of years to rediscover itself, fleshing out the involutionary patterns in unpredictable and creative ways, becoming more and more conscious of itself at each step, and heading toward that final level of absolute consciousness (or spiritual enlightenment) that is the only true goal of the game.

Volume 2 of Ken Wilber's _Collected Works_ traces this extraordinary journey of spiritual involving and evolving as it relates to humans in both ontogenetic and phylogenetic domains. Taking the ontogenetic perspective, the first book, _The Atman Project_, is an intellectually dizzying piece of work that explains the development of the human being from birth to adolescence to adulthood to death to between-life realms and beyond. Wilber defines the "Atman Project" as the "drive of God toward God," or the involutionary and evolutionary game that Spirit is playing. In tracing our own role in this cosmic sitcom, Wilber produces a map of human psychological development that is so comprehensive--covering all major schools of thought, both Eastern and Western--that no one interested in transpersonal psychology can afford to pass it by. From the fetus to the id to the ego to God, every step of personal evolution available as innate potentials to present-day human beings is outlined, explained, and backed with enough evidence (culled from orthodox clinical psychology for the lower and middle stages and orthodox contemplative spirituality for the higher ones) to convince anyone of the model's essential validity. The scope of the work--like most of Wilber's stuff--is simply astonishing. Mind you, however, it ain't light reading; a randomly selected paragraph says:

". . . Like the magical primary process, this paleological thinking frequently operates on the basis of a whole/part equivalency and predicate identity; but unlike the pure primary process, which is strictly composed of nonverbal images, precausal thinking is largely verbal and auditory. . . . Unlike the image of the primary process, it is a true type of thinking-proper, operating with protoconcepts, verbal abstraction, and elementary class formation."

The style of _Atman_ takes some getting used to, but once you've got it you're in for a remarkable ride into understanding the growth and ultimate goals of your own self.

The next book, _Up From Eden_, takes the phylogenetic (collective) view of human evolution, starting with the Big Bang and explaining how all subsequent development is simultaneously a transcendence and an inclusion of what went before it. As Wilber puts it, "early life forms (plants) went beyond but included lifeless matter and minerals in their makeup; and animals went beyond plant forms (simple life) but included life in their makeup. Just so, humans go beyond but include animal characteristics, and, by implication, humans include but transcend _all_ prior evolutionary stages." From the earliest hominids to modern _homo sapiens sapiens_, each evolutionary progression has been marked by one crucial factor: an increase in consciousness. Thus, extrapolating the obvious (and backing it with the claims of enlightened mystics), Wilber identifies the _goal_ of evolution as simply an _absolute_ transcendence of everything in the discovery of an absolute level of consciousness (which is Spirit itself). Those humans who have attained this degree of transcendence in their own ontogenetic development, such as Christ and Buddha, act as the "growing tip" of human phylogeny, stretching our potential into increasingly higher domains, and making the goal of this game just a little bit closer for the rest of us.

But _Up From Eden_ isn't just a historical documentary, tracing evolution up to the present, suggesting what might lie in the future, and leaving it at that. No, _Eden_, like _Atman_, is also an invitation for us to pursue our own further ontogenetic growth, and thereby contribute in potentially powerful ways to the growth of the species as a whole. Wilber has issued the map, described the party, and invited us to attend, but it is up to us to get in the car and drive there. And if we refuse--if we prefer instead to kick back and take it easy at our present level of consciousness development--"we contribute nothing; we pass on our mediocrity."

For those who have hesitated in buying this volume because you already have _Atman_ and _Eden_, perhaps the essay included with these two books will arouse your interest. "Odyssey," a 38-page account of Wilber's personal experience up to the early '80s, is a fascinating little gem that explains how Wilber became interested in mysticism, how he overcame the "pre/trans fallacy" that permeated his early work (see CW: Volume 1), how his meditation practice had progressed from subtle to causal levels, and how he developed a model for meditative development that explained culture-specific "surface structures" and their relation to universal "deep structures"--a model used in both _Eden_ and _Atman_.

In short, these books are two of the most important in the development of Wilber's later work, and it's hard to find anything to complain about. They're well worth the time and money for anyone who wonders even dimly what the heck we actually are, and has, at some point, stared into the starlit sky and pleaded into the silence: "Why, oh _why_, is there something rather than nothing?"

I first read No Boundary 10 tears ago and have bought around 10 copies for friends.It was here that I began to see that boundaries really don't exist but we draw them, and once we do, we have drawn a conflict line, guaranteed. And once we understand unity consciousness, that we are all one, it becomes progressively harder to attack another person or group-might just as well talk into the mirror. Wilber provides a true revelation as to what it's all about. It's a great introduction to his thinking, and as a second read you might want to follow up with the very moving Grace and Grit. In my opinion, Ken Wilber is the most brilliant writer alive today, in any field, and his integral vision is both deep and profound.

This is my first introduction to Wilber's writings. I had been referred to him by several people, including a well known spiritual guru in the UK who said that Mr. Wilber was likely to be recognised as the greatest philosopher of our times and that he is reputed to read several hundred books as background to his works. I had in fact been referred to the Theory of Everything but had been given this book as a present.
Wilber's writing style is clear and simple, although it is true that he does repeat ideas. The latter appears more to be a way of making sure that his audience follows his ideas which, although clear, could sometimes appear to be based on complex notions to the uninitiated or "lay" reader.
In essence, he lays out a framework, one of the first clear attempts I have seen to do this, that positions most if not all religious, spritual, and philosophical attempts at explaining conciousness. What does this mean? He asks the familiar question of what is the meaning of life: of "I". He then goes to show that in the contradictions that emerge in the different answers is actually a set of differences that can be explained by the level of conciousness at which the question is being addressed.
He is extremely well read and uses examples from almost all of the religions, from pschology and psychoanalysis, as well as from philosophy, to develop his ideas. One unfortunately wishes that this was not a book of a hundred or so pages but rather a book of several thousand as one senses that he could go on with his discussions to far deeper levels. In fact, he suggests at the end of the many chapters further reading (worth the price of the book in itself).
For someone interested in spiritualty, buddhism, mysticism, and pschology this book is a must. First because he is a great philosopher, second because he writes very well, and third because he gives one a holistic view that many other writers do not.
Having read his book I feel far more comfortable wading through the rest of my reading as things seem to have a far greater clarity of perspective.

I used to torment a friend with the question, "Where are the edges of the universe?" Ken Wilber's second book, written nearly thirty years ago, confronts its reader with the more important question, "Where are the edges of the self?" Our lives, he observes, are largely spent drawing boundaries (p. 18) between life and death, good and bad, pleasure and pain, heaven and hell, success and failure. We "live a life of opposites" (p. 16), and we are "bewitched by boundaries" (p. 25). But "the ultimate metaphysical secret," Wilber writes, "is that there are no boundaries in the universe" (p. 30). Seeing through the illusion of opposites is liberation--"the discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth" (p. 28).

This book is like a sign along the road, pointing the way toward enlightenment. In his examination of "our most cherished boundary" (p. 43), self/not-self, Wilber integrates psychology, philosophy, post-modern thought, and religious doctrine of East and West. He shows how "we progressively limit our world and turn from our true nature in order to embrace boundaries" (p. 3). We believe that our skin (p. 5), mind (p. 6), or ego (p. 7) separates us from our not-self when, in fact, we "possess a remarkable spectrum of consciousness, a vast rainbow of extraordinary potentials and possibilities, and those potentials do indeed run from matter to body to soul to spirit" (p. xii). Wilber recognizes that the ordinary person "will probably listen in disbelief if it is pointed out that she has nestled in the deepest recesses of her being, a transpersonal self, a self that transcends her individuality and connects her to a world beyond conventional space and time" (p. 110).

Saint Augustine wrote that the business of life "is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen." NO BOUNDARY may be read as a book about personal growth, restoring to health the eye of the heart, and "expanding one's horizons, a growth of one's boundaries, outwardly in perspective and inwardly in depth" (p. 13). Among other approaches, Wilber turns to the Buddhist doctrines of dharmadhatu, which teaches us "between every thing and event in the universe there is no boundary" (p. 38), and suffering. "A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life," he writes, is "beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities, for suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality and forces us to become alive in a special sense--to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It may be said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace" (p. 76).

If we learn to "see through the illusions of our boundaries," he writes, "we will see, here and now, the universe as Adam saw it before the Fall: as organic unity, a harmony of opposites, a melody of positive and negative, delight with the play of our vibrative existence. When the opposites are realized to be one, discord melts into concord, battles become dances, and old enemies become lovers. We are then in a position to make friends with all of the universe, and not just half of it" (p. 29). So where are the edges of the universe? After reading this book, I now realize that they exist only within the boundaries of my unliberated mind.

Wilber has been called "one of the greatest thinkers of our time," and for those new to Wilber, NO BOUNDARY is a good introduction to his integral vision.

G. Merritt

Although I am a voracious reader, usually at least one book a day, I was so overwhelmed by this book that I did not read another for over two months. It works on every level, as a love story, as a tutorial in philosophy and religion, as a guide through the maze of spiritual offerings in today's world and as a primer for how to be helpful to people with terminal illnesses. It is a great introduction to Ken Wilber's works, and gives the reader a look at his heart as well as his mind. Treya's life and death are my inspiration for the way I want to live, and when the time comes, the way I want to die. Reading this book was the turning point of my life, and I am grateful to Ken Wilber for having the courage to bear his and Treya's souls for his readers' benefit

"Because I can no longer ignore death, I pay more attention to life," Treya Wilber observes in the face of cancer (p. 407). Shambhala recently published the Second Edition of this book, twelve years after the death of Ken Wilber's wife. Heart wrenching and profound, this book lives up to its title by taking its reader through all the grace and grit of his wife's five year struggle with cancer. "Grace and grit" summarizes Treya's entire life, Wilber writes. "Being and doing. Equanimity and passion. Surrender and will. Total acceptance and fierce determination. Those two sides of her soul, the two sides she wrestled with all her life, the two sides that she had finally brought together into one harmonious whole" (pp. 390-91). Derived in part directly from Treya's journals, Wilber's book is as much about Treya's "nightmarish tour through medical hell" (p. 23), as it is about the couple's ability to "stay open to life and grow in compassion" (p. 341) through "profound inner change" (p. 164).

"GRACE AND GRIT is her story; and our story," Wilber writes (p. x). It is a real love story that unfolds against a Buddhist backdrop that tells us: "Life is a bubble, a dream, a reflection, a mirage" (p. 363). At age 36, Treya met the man of her dreams, in 1983. They married four months later. Ten days after the wedding, Treya discovered she had breast cancer, and then underwent surgery and radiation. Eight months later, she suffered a recurrence, followed by more surgery and eight months of soul-poisoning chemotherapy (p. 279) and baldness. Eight months later, Treya was diagnosed with diabetes, followed by years of recurrent tumors throughout her lungs and brain (pp. 240; 268).

Her cancer teaches Treya many things, including real suffering: "There is suffering in this world, no way around that one" (p. 280). However, through tonglen meditation, Treya finds compassion for it (p. 315). She learns "to be human. To be truly human. That is most important" (p. 170). Treya learns to "live in the present, not in the future, giving her allegiance to what is, not what might be" (p. 312). She discovers "passionate equanimity--to be fully passionate about all aspects of life, about one's relationship with spirit, to care to the depths of one's being but with no trace of clinging or holding" (pp. 335-6).

Of the five Wilber books I've read, this one comes closest to a memoir, offering its reader a revealing look at Ken Wilber, the man and "support person." "I'm a ... " he says (p. 361), as he silently performs his "daily chores" for Treya, including cleaning, laundry, cooking, dishes, groceries, and vegetable juicing (pp. 336, 362). He writes, "learning to make friends with cancer; learning to make friends with the possibility of an early and perhaps painful death, has taught me a great deal about making friends with myself, as I am, and a great deal about making friends with life, as it is" (p. 356). He also learns to "practice the wound of love:" "Real love hurts; real love makes you totally vulnerable and open; real love will take you far beyond yourself; and therefore real love will devastate you. I kept thinking, if love does not shatter you, you do not know love" (p. 396).

"Treya's story is everyperson's story," Wilber writes in his Introduction to the the Second Edition of his book. As such, it has much to offer any reader interested in personal growth, spirituality, relationships, illness, or caretaking, and it deserves a large audience. It also offers an easy introduction to Ken Wilber's vision. This is both a five-star book, and a five-pointed cosmic star book, "luminous and radiant."

G. Merritt

'Grace and Grit' is the single most moving book I've ever read. If you read through all the other comments, they cover exactly what I felt, but I still had to add my own opinion. This is my first journey into the transpersonal philosophy of Ken Wilber, and I found the spirituality and philosophical aspects of the book not just fascinating, but necessary. The whole work, from Treya's letters, to her journal, to Wilber's additions, fit into one seamless whole that packed a hell of a punch.

It was not just the poignant love story, but the amazing way that Treya lived through that part of her life, and the honest way the Wilber approached it in the book.

It is a work that I will always carry with me, its message too important to ignore. And I will urge every single person I know to read it, if just to be exposed to the impact of it all.

Jim Marion is a Christian mystic, attorney, and former Catholic monk. Not only did Ken Wilber write the Foreward to Marion's book, but his influence is evident throughout this 324-page spiritual journey. This "is a pioneering book," he writes, "a truly inspired revelation, and a gentle guide to the deepest terra in our souls, where there awaits, as there has through all eternity, Christ as Source and Suchness of this and every world" (p. xii).

Jesus taught that "the Kingdom of God is within" (p. 3). In his partly autobiographical book, Marion seeks to describe the Christian spiritual path to that Kingdom (p. xiii). For him, the Kingdom of Heaven is not just near "at hand," it is "here and now" (p. 2). Marion defines the Kingdom of Heaven as "a particular level of human consciousness, not a place to which Christians are destined after death" (p. 1). This is a four star book with many five-star passages. In one such passage, Marion follows the development of human consciousness from the archaic consciousness of infants (pp. 33-36), to the magical consciousness of children (pp. 37-39), to the mythical consciousness of pre-adolescence (pp. 41-47), to rational consciousness (pp. 49-61), to vision-logic consciousness (pp. 63-68), through the "dark night of the senses" (pp. 87-104), to subtle consciousness (pp. 105-114), and ultimately to fully-integrated Christ consciousness, to illustrate his argument that there are "different levels of human consciousness, different levels of spiritual understanding, and the nondual vision of the Kingdom of Heaven is the highest level" (p. 21). Spiritual growth can proceed at "a snail's pace" for many Christians, and Marion asserts that all "prayer, Bible study, preaching, fasting, music, Holy Communion or Mass, healing services, chanting, rituals, almsgiving, monasteries, convents, pilgrimages, meditation, icons, and sacraments have only one purpose--to accelerate people's growth in consciousness upwards and eventually into the nondual vision of Jesus' Kingdom" (p. 23).

Marion's book will appeal to anyone, Christian or not, interested in spiritual growth. Many Christian readers will find this book deeply inspiring, others will no doubt consider it radical Christianity, and still others may reject it as sophistry. However, few readers will disagree with Marion's observation that "we need to realize our divinity, own it, take up the responsibility of it, and live it" (p. 226). If you like this book, try any of Ken Wilber's books.

G. Merritt

Jim Marion's book is important reading for any Christian who has set out on a spiritual journey, and it is a must read for the Christian who in not receiving the support of The Church and feels alone in this journey. PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST will help put all that your are experiencing in your spiritual journey within a Christian context and will help keep you on "The Way" that Jesus taught. Marion's section on the Nine Levels (stages) of Consciousness for the Spiritual Path should be read by every Christian from radical fundamentalist to extreme liberal (rationalist) in order to better understand the way to God, the Way of Love, that Jesus taught. This is the Narrow Way that Jesus spoke of, and it is not an easy way as Marion so clearly shows; but, if you want to follow the Way of Jesus to God, you had better read this book. Marion's Stages of the Spiritual Path reminds me of Deepak Chopra's book, HOW TO KNOW GOD, and Joan Borysenko's book, SEVEN PATHS TO GOD, which I think will greatly compliment your reading of PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST. So read with an open mind, let the Spirit guide you, and blessings on your spiritual journey.

In this book Jim Marion outlines what, for most Christians, is probably a radical and very divergent interpretation of Jesus' words. If you're not already acquainted with Christian mysticism or the more esoteric interpreations of Jesus' words and life then prepare to have your brain (and spirit) stretched!

Marion portrays the Christian conversion process not as a discreet point in time where one accepts Christ and is then "saved", but rather as the soul's spiritual journey back to God. He explains this by using his own life as an example and he places the whole journey into the framework of a psychological contruct of Ken Wilber's having to do with the various levels of consciousness that we humans (individually and corporately) progress through in our spiritual journey. Marion also draws extensively on the experiences of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (Christian / Catholic mystics) to add historical (from a religious viewpoint) credence to what he is saying.

The book is fairly cerebral and is not an easy read, and is certain to ruffle feathers. But if you stick with him and mull over the ideas in this book it will profoundly change the lens through which you view your spiritual journey. You may not agree with everything Marion writes, but this type of "blow-the-lid-off" religious thought is desperately needed in a world where organized religion's primary effect seems to be to simply maintain the spiritual status quo. If you've become bored with "church" and have a nagging feeling that standard Christian dogma doesn't quite add up then this book will be an excellent springboard to higher religious thought.

There are some people that suggest that Wilber has been too repetitive in his last few books. That he's simply been repeating the same basic refrain over and over again. I can understand that criticism, but I disagree with it. Wilber's theory of integration is both complex and important, and I find it incredibly useful to have new books in which he expands the examples of his theory. My own feeling is that the integral theory is a very important theory to understand, so the more in depth Wilber goes, and the various diffirent paths of exploration he goes at his thory from, the happier I am, as I feel like I have a greater grasp of what he's speaking about. As an aside, there is a wondeful novel called We All Fall Down by Brian Caldwell which seems to take quite a bit of Wilber's theory, and even mentions him several times in the book. The novel is a great example of a man caught trying to transform his life into something better, but who is able only to translate. It's about the frustration and difficulties in trying to move up to the next level of consciousness. Techinically, it's set in a Christian framework, but it elevates past that small structure and uses it to really bring home quite a few of Wilber's theories. It's a wonderful novel and I'd highly recomend it to any fan of Wilber.

In his latest effort, Ken Wilber continues his masterful mapping of the dimensions of human consciousness with The Eye of Spirit. Taking a break from his Kosmos Trilogy --the projected three-volume tour of the universe that has already produced the highly controversial Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality-- Wilber addresses the pressing concerns of the modern mind: Who am I? What is my role in this world? What's in store for us humans?

Calling for an "integral" approach to these questions, The Eye of Spirit blends together a series of poignant essays on such varied subjects as art and literary theory, feminism, modern systems theory, and mysticism, demonstrating not only where their strengths and weaknesses lie, but also situating the various disciplines in relation to each other --how they complement or (attempt to) assassinate one another. (Fans of Wilber's other works be warned: some of these essays rely heavily upon previously published works, so you may want to wait for the paperback version)

As usual, Wilber neatly handles a vast range of material --including some virulent criticism (see the recent issues of ReVision magazine for a taste)-- with characteristic aplomb and good sense. If nothing else, The Eye of Spirit is an excellent introduction to the world of transpersonal psychology and to the world at large. Well worth the price.

Author Ken Wilber irritates some and amazes others. With his increasing popularity and acclaim has come deeper criticisms. Unfortunately, most of the critics misrepresent Wilber's views. As an academic student of sociology and philosophy, I know that Wilber *generally* covers all the bases. He explains why the mechanistic or reductive views of reality are illogical and false. He calls them "flatland" because they limit reality to the data coming from the physical senses - a surface phenomenon. Wilber argues, with a great many philosophers, sages and gurus, that the realms of the mind are equally as "real" as the physical. He describes with authority the basic agreement among all spiritual traditions about the "Great Chain of Being," or the spectrum of reality (physical-mental-spiritual). And he does so without resorting to what logical positivists (e.g., R.Carnap) used to call "metaphysical construction."

In "The Eye of Spirit," Wilber covers all that and adds a beautiful chapter called "Always Already," in which he lucidly and almost poetically affirms what the great non-dual traditions have always taught: that "spirit" and the totality of "God Realization" is already 100% present in your consciousness right now. Meditation and spiritual practices, then, are just ways to help people realize this "always already" fact - which is good news for the many people whose spirituality is spontaneous and without much if any "discipline."

Most of Wilber's books do not reveal much about the man behind the work. For most academic writers that is fine. But Wilber's writing, though seemingly theoretical or academic at times, is in fact about the most intimate of topics: coming to know ourselves. Perhaps because his writing is so broad in scope and yet ultimately so intimate in its implications, Wilber thought his readership might be entitled to a peek at how he is doing with his own personal atman project. This book lets the reader peek away,and you may or may not like what you see.

This was the first Wilber book I read. I had known about him for years, but my reading list is long and I just didn't pick his work up, until a respected friend gave me a copy of One Taste, and I could no longer put it off. I am now reading my eighth of his books. With that perspective, I offer these thoughts.

First, the part that may trouble some. KW does come off as pretty darn egotistical in this book. He seems to realize it and mentions in the introduction that these diary entries were (supposedly) not written with intent to publish, and therefore what may seem like boasting and namedropping were in fact just factual entries meant for himself. These now candidly published entries might to the outside reader seem a bit...immodest. This would be a trivial matter but for the nature of KW's work, which after all is ultimately about transcending the ego.

I found KW's disclaimers about that less than entirely convincing, but the fact that he may still personally be a spiritual work in progress in my mind does not diminish the brilliance of his work. I was electrified when I read this. I have been a serious student of philosophy and spiritual practice for 30 years, and I find KW's work among the most brilliant and, to me, practically helpful work I have seen. Some say he does no original thinking, but only synthesizes the work of others. Yes, he only synthesizes the work of an unprecedentedly enormous body of thought, writing and accounts of mystical experience in a staggering array of fields over millenia, in ways no one else has before. I think this would qualify as original thought. Some say he doesn't write well. I find that he explains the ideas of many great thinkers more understandably than they do themselves. He relates their work to that of other great thinkers in ways that I,and I suspect most, never saw before. His writing can be moving and inspirational as well.

I'm not sure I would recommend One Taste as the first Wilber book to read, although it worked fine for me. It is one of his most accessible books. One reviewer thought his references were too obscure, but, this being a journal, KW has taken less care than usual to explain all his references, because this was ostensibly originally written for himself. Readers already familiar with his other work will be less baffled. One Taste has the advantage of being one of his most recent books. Because KW is constantly refining his thought, this gives the reader a look at his most current thinking. I give it four stars instead of five, because I wasn't interested in many of the boring personal details ("I went shopping today"), but the meaty parts are first rate. I find his work so personally helpful in my own practice precisely because it is a synthesis of so much other work. He links it together in ways I could never have myself (which, to my knowledge, no one else has done either) and has helped me to take a more integral approach to what had before been disparate and disconnected elements of my practice and study.

I've read several books by Ken Wilber now and always come away from them impressed by the depth of his knowledge, moved by the passion of his prose, unsure about the validity of his models, and irritated by the size of his ego. However, if you can bring yourself to ignore for the moment the irritating self-importance (so paradoxical in a writer whose aim is to convince the reader that loss of self is the ultimate spritual goal) and the surprisingly non-compassionate attacks on people who disagree with him, Wilber does have an interesting way of organising many divergent systems in human thought into an apparently coherent whole (especially his "four quadrants" and his concept of nested holons). Many of the grand disputes of philosophy could be resolved if models could be constructed that gave equal importance to different ways of looking at the world: Wilber provides one such model. But the problem with models like this is that they are not in themselves "provable" (an upper right quadrant demand of course!) - rather like Jung's archetypes - and so may look solid but actually be built on sand. They are rather cleverly constructed to render almost all criticism of them invalid in advance (e.g., my desire to "prove" the validity of such models is because I'm limited in being a right quadrant thinker) - well, Karl Popper carried out a pretty rigorous demolition of philosophies constructed in such a way over half a century ago, in "Conjectures and Refutations". But as tools to use when trying to resolve dilemmas, or even to illuminate new possible approaches to intractable issues - I think they're great. As for Wilber the person, I'm not sure I'd want to get to know him too well (is he as intimidating in person as he is in his writing style?), but a few parts of the journal at least hint at the real human being who lives behind the dense curtain of prose.

This is the first book by Ken Wilbur I have read and now I will read others. It is a book in which the man behind the theories reveals himself as real, unique and human. He could be the guy next door (if the guy next door writes voraciously and entertains our major thinkers). I have had the experience of reading a theoretical work and then finding out the that the actual life of the author is really at odds with his or her writings, leading to a feeling of disillusionment. I have long avoided his books because they seem, well, so long. However, now, after getting a sense of who he is, what he loves, watches on TV and reads, I'm willing to read (some of) his other books. I put together a book list for myself from his suggestions and I felt as if he would be a good mentor in this respect. His descriptions of his own meditation practices are inspirational and engaging. It is true that he writes repeatedly in the book about his almost daily experience of bliss and rapture but his enthusiasm is one more thing that makes him so interesting and down to earth. I hope he writes more in this vein.