A lot of people probably don't like Ken Wilber

Reflections
1

A lot of people probably really hate Ken. It blows my mind. I can’t get it straight in my head. He’s provided a framework selflessly for our own development. I love him and have loved him deeply for 20 years.

I’m sure some would think he’s the devil because he talks about evolution of consciousness, something they don’t want. They want their own consciousness to be the dominant one. Like some mythic Christians.

I’m a little scared and shocked, generally speaking, because I feel like I can sense the direction the world is going in. Towards death not life. Towards destruction instead of growth and creation. There are people who are sick and tired of being here. I know I can’t be the only one.

When I look around, I see hatred, destruction and suffering, and wonder if we can survive it.

I also see the destruction of the earth by the love of money, wealth, capital. Reason run rampant. People seem to love money more than each other. Not only that, but they seem to love their own emotional indignation -the feeling of being separate and being RIGHT. It makes them feel empowered and strong, capable and dominant, in charge and in control. This makes it incredibly difficult just to get by, just to get along with each other because we’re always competing. On the highways, in the supermarkets. And yet, we love to fight and to struggle. If we didn’t, it would cease to exist. If we wanted to become enlightened it could happen in a day. Instead, we complain, point fingers, blame each other, find faults in strangers on the Internet, mock each other on social media. We would rather point out where each other is lacking rather than the good they’re doing and in their lives. It’s very sad.

Hellbent on destruction, power, greed, capital. Freedom to me, in America, just means the freedom to consume. The freedom to earn money and to buy things. It’s our God, our idol, the thing we love the most, in America, and hold our heads over all the other countries saying, “we’re better because we have a ton of money!”. Capitalism was, of course, a massive improvement at the turn of the century from the societies before it. But now it has outlasted it’s usefulness. We’ve held onto it too long, in other words because I guess we can’t think of something better than capitalism and don’t want to give up on it.

I’m not saying I think the answer is something like socialism, communism or Marxism. I think those are outdated too. But I do think there is something better than capitalism. A world commons perhaps. A global society. But it won’t happen as long as we’re attached to it.

And also, I’d like to say, I love our country. Of course I do. I love America. But not because of our wealth. Nor because of our “freedom” (to earn and spend that wealth). But because it’s a beautiful place. There are lovely, soul filled, kind strangers. But as far as our ideology, we must grow up and grow out of it. But I have my doubts it will ever happen. People are too stuck to their system of thoughts and ideologies. And they fight the ones who disagree tooth and nail. It’s a wonder there’s still a “freedom of speech” in this country. Pretty soon that will turn to war. I really do have a feeling we’re on the brink of some kind of war. Maybe it’s necessary because in order for something to be born, the previous state of awareness must die.

But until we really face death, confront it and witness it head on, we will remain stubborn, egotistical, and think we’re invincible - another problem here. Everyone thinks they’re invincible, justified and impervious to the next guy. Everyone thinks they’re entitled to be a jerk to the next guy. Because they’re been hurt. But so has that other person. And when you paint someone or push them into a corner, they will fight back.

Now there’s a society of have and have nots, and the haves want us all to think we’re victims. That way we continue to fight each other.

And we’re fighting each other rather than the actual villain which is influencing us to stay distracted in hating each other than the system we live in.

This has all probably been written before. Just my thoughts.

Thank you for reading this,
Kelley

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Kelly,
I understand how you’re feeling. The world, and especially America, has been, for a long time, in the midst of a brain polarization that I call the “Left Hemisphere Hijack.” The left hemisphere is the part of our brain that is hardwired to build “maps and models”, representations of the world and is incapable of Holistic thinking/feeling. It divides the world and everything in it including ourselves and others into separate parts and then believes it understands the whole of existence. That is a delusion. Money is an abstract created by the Left hemisphere and money people tend to be ruled by this half of the brain and have placed the greater totality of their awareness into the realm of abstracts to the extent that they can no longer realize that they’re not actually living in the moment but always projecting an arrival on to the “idea of a future moment.” They believe that freedom is about money which is an indication that they’ve yet to realize that freedom is an “inside job!”

I recommend reading “The Master and His Emissary” by Dr. Iian McGilChrist and his following book “The Matter of Things.” A Philosopher, Scholar, Psychiatrist, and Neuroscientist he brings the body of science about the brain and how our awareness and attention is directed differently by the left and right hemispheres and what’s happens when too much emphasis from left hemisphere has taken over and overrides the right hemisphere which views the world holistically and empathetically. As Joseph Campbell used to say “If you live your life for the profit you’ve lost the point of living.” That’s become a core value of the American culture which as we can see is in decline. Hold steady to your core values of love and empathy and don’t let it bring you down despite how tragically sad it actually is. You’re not alone! There are many of us that haven’t drank the kool-aid!

Best,
Brian

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IMO Integral theory and practice is our best solution to the issues you have stated.

Please don’t despair. As a cultural historian I will state with confidence that humanity, and biological life, indeed the entire planet, have come through worse than we face right now – that’s how we got where we are.

When we step back and look at the really big picture, like Wilber does, and see just what we’ve come up from and come up through, then what faces us now doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

Evolution is not done with us. IMO

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Hi Kelley,

A tribute to you for sticking it out anyway. For what it’s worth, I’m a fellow traveler on the Path of exhausted heart and with little left to raise my spirits. I’m also quite beyond just giving up. Like you I have seen the best and worst, some days it is truly beyond my limits to endure any more, except with gnarly focus on the tedious and mundane. It would be insincere and very preachy of me to try to give you any more advice or “integral” doctrine to keep you “thinking” like a philosophy major instead of as a real human heart. So sometimes, what I do is sex, food, drink, and plenty of exercise to re-ground the body in holding on to my life (anyway) in this miserable f-d up 3-D world which can go to hell any old time.

Keep on truckin’ Buddy. It may get better, it may not, but the experience has been the trip. Totally and completely insufficient right now. I get it too. But who knows whether what we have been through will raise us all out of despair somehow, someway. No more blaming or self-shaming myself in any way for what has been well beyond my/our capacity to understand or deal with. We tried. Period. And with Love.

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Two things:

Im sure there are some people who hate Ken. Just as Im sure there are people who hate me. If you say things that people dont like, they may hate you. Since you cannot please everyone the only alternative is to say nothing. But eventually some bully goes after those who say nothing.
1- there will always be some people who hate any person

The other thing is that some may be placing Ken on a pedestal and allowing no criticism. I hear a lot of cult like language in reference to Ken. People with a culty view of Ken may be sensitive to criticism and ironically the more valid the criticism the more they see it as an viscious attack rather than as legitimate criticism.
2-It might not be hate but justified critucism.

I myself try not to mention Ken. He has expressed a desire to withdraw so no point in addressing a person who is no longer playing on the field.

But of course he isnt the messiah. He is a human with faults and those faults manifested larger the larger his project grew.

The way I express this is not criticism against Ken, but a lacking in Integral Practice. IP is astoundingly lacking in “Cleaning Up” so as the organization grew it was not cleaned up and apparently some things happened. Without better tools, the movement itself has difficulty even addressing even slightly thorny issues. Some may see the symptoms that derive from this and assign them to Ken personally.

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The only bully here is you, ray. You’ve been a problem here for a while now and it’s miraculous you haven’t gotten the message.

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Haha. This is my point.

Its miraculous YOU have not gotten the message.

Stop setting up Ken a your surrogate victim. Clean your own shit up buddy and stop looking to me and others as your scapegoat.

As I said though - you’ll have to look outside Integral Practice for cleaning up. IP is pretty weak sauce.

I will also add - its kind of impossible to “bully” someone who actually is 2nd tier. Ergo - you figure out the conclusion yourself

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Im fine with holding space for your and other peoples demons. It has no impact on my own self image and Im unconcerned with the public image of my persona.

But understand it is your anger, frustration and indeed hate and other pent up emotions that have been festering and looking for a target. Allow me to represent all that for a time.

I just dont think Ken is the messiah and as a mere mortal has made mistakes like all of us.

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You’re the problem, ray. Have you not received this feedback from this forum countless times? Why are you still saying it’s everyone else’s projections? Or more, how can you say that with all the evidence that it is actually you who are the problem, ray?

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Pretty sure you have a severe personality disorder or mental illness. It’s exhausting dealing with you because you destroy everything. You’re bad for this forum. I’m just another one who thinks so. Maybe look at the evidence, ray. How many times have you received this feedback here? Does that say nothing about you?

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No it says absolutely nothing about me.

That is basic healthy psychology.

Words of others NEVER say anything about you.
Words of others ONLY say something about the speaker.

Good God this is basic Kindergarten level. If you and whoever else doesnt understand this Its not my problem. If youve been in Integral several decades and still havent figured this out tben i am EXACTLY the messenger to bring it home.

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That’s right ray. You’re God. Keep telling yourself that. You’re the messenger and we’re all just dummies who don’t know your greatness.

You’re an abusive narcissist.

I’ll pray for you buddy. Good luck. The last word is yours. I don’t have the energy to deal with you. Thought I did. I don’t. I learned the lesson many have probably learned before me.

Don’t feed the trolls

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I would be curious for any neutral observers to point out specifically what was it in my original response that could remotely be constituted as “Bullying”.

All I can conclude is something I have said about the flaws in Integral Theory and Integral Practice have this guy seething with rage and embodying it as a personal attack against him.

The rest just becomes absurdity after that.

The only message I am getting is that while there are many outstanding voices in Integral, there are also a lot of pointless and petty individuals as well.

This is exactly why the Integral Community has mostly failed - the inability to accept they are not in fact the chosen people and Ken in fact is not a Messiah nor indeed anything beyond above average.

Seeing me pointing this out as “bullying” is beyond the pale and of course is worthy to speak out against

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That’s a pity.

My conclusion is that while Ken’s work is insightful and does provide a scaffolding and a select few have been able to use this to get to “2nd Tier”, most of the time more than 90% of the community are just fooling themselves. They are talking the talk without walking the walk. People use their relationship with Ken as evidence of being Integral. What we have is a community where most people are at Green and some at unhealthy Green (MGM) but they believe they are higher because, well - they personally knew Ken Wilbur or have been following him for however many years.

There is a complete lacking in here of understanding healthy conflict and healthy challenges. There is a fundamental and endemic flaw of not understanding the difference between criticizing an idea and a personal attack.

If I do stop interacting with this community, this will be the reason. Or, looking it up on a Google search I find someone has already typed out what I see.

Critics also picked apart Wilber’s model itself, showing minor contradictions in it. […]

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.
[See discussion above for the same]
For many, that was the day the intellectual giant fell, the evolution stopped, the so-called “Einstein of consciousness” took his ball and went home.

From there, the integral movement began to sputter. Rabbi Marc Gafni, a spiritual leader with whom Wilber aligned himself and even co-sponsored seminars, was later indicted in Israel for child molestation. Despite this, Wilber and his movement refused to distance themselves or repudiate him. In fact, the whole integral scene doubled down, claiming that its critics were “first-tier thinkers,” and were coming up with lies in order to attack a greater, higher level of consciousness that it didn’t understand.
[I have experienced similar strategies in here many times. People who accuse any any criticism of Integral is 1st Tier and then ad hominem assigning to me 1st Tier Status and indeed saying that I have psychological problems and disorders because I see flaws in certain ideas and want to discuss those flaws in a discussion forum established for that purpose]
The seminars slowed to a crawl. Wilber’s health deteriorated greatly (he was diagnosed with a rare disease that keeps him bed-ridden). He stopped writing. Ten years on, despite developing some fans in academia (some in high places), Wilber’s work had yet to be tested or peer-reviewed in a serious journal. Much of his posting online devolved into bizarre spiritual claims (such as this one about an “enlightened teacher” who can make crops grow twice as fast by “blessing them”).

The brilliant scientist-turned-monk-turned-recluse-turned-New-Age-celebrity, whose ideas changed everything for so many people (myself included), devolved into the butt of another New Age joke. How the mighty have fallen.
https://markmanson.net/ken-wilber
And now, the community following him is following the same trajectory.

And that, my friends is why most people will move on and away from Integral as they approach 2nd Tier. There are far too many people emotionally invested in keeping Integral Theory and Practice stuck in unhealthy Green.

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Let me know when you decide to leave. Can’t wait to get back to normal, positive interactions and people who actually care about each other rather than tearing down anything that’s written for sport and entertainment like you, bud.

I’ll be holding a party for when you do “decide to leave”, you troll

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I just think you are a basic idiot.

You and many in here are like ticks embedded in the nutsack of Ken Wilbur, draining his theories of any life blood or chance of being implemented on a mass scale.

Ill come and go as I please, will not inform you when nor if I will make a final post and I could care less about kindergarden namecalling.

Back to your OP - nobody in the wider world cares about Ken enough to “hate” him. Just stating facts is enough to make him irrelevant.

If I see a discussion worthy of comment, ill post. If I see someone worthy of ridicule, ill post that.

Here, i’ll do it now … there. Ive set a few dates in my calendar to check on this forum.

Lol

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By the way - I recognize you are “unwinding”, aka “losing it”.

I am not one to hinder anyone’s progress in this. Allow me to give you a little push all the way down this existential mudslide.

Im sure you have a lot more petty absurdities locked up tight inside you. Feel free to embarras yourself further.

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If you hate Ken and the community so much, why do you keep posting? Why are you still here? Hasn’t it been made clear to you over the past however many months that no one pays attention to you anymore except maybe new people? That most everyone here has figured out that you’re a troll at best and at worst a monster with ill intentions for this community and the people in it? Why do you belittle everyone you post under? Why do you think you’re smarter and better than everyone here? How are you so blind to your own neurosis?

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You really are having a problem with comprehension.

Critique =/= hate.

Suggestions for improvement =/= hate

I suspect you had a really difficult school experience if you thought every evaluation you got from a teacher that said “satisfactory but needs improvement” was the teacher hating you.

I post on here for my own reasons. You are so lost in your own emotions it would be a waste of time to explain it to you.

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For those who are not currently unbalanced by an existential crisis - it’s like this.

Lots of people seem to believe they are 2nd Tier when they are not. They are not even a healthy Green and have all these things they’ve hidden from themselves. They believe they have good intentions but are imposters.

When someone like me does not follow their concept of how they think I should behave - they lash out in aggression. They flip - flop from love, light and peace to aggression, insults and pettiness.

Let’s talk about “trolling” for a while. It’s impossible to troll a person with even a remotely healthy standing in Green or Teal. It’s only possible to Troll a person who is psychologically unbalanced and lacking.

But this isn’t even trolling - it’s just standing my ground and not BEING trolled. Integral has some things it still needs to work out and I’m going to say that. The rest is just attempts to distract from that.

The longer this discussion continues with Kelly descending into insults and saying I hate Integral just because I say it isn’t perfect - the more it is on display for the entire community to see just how lacking Integral Theory is in resolving disagreement. The more it is on display just how much ugliness there is hidden right under the surface for 20 plus years. The more obvious it is that there can be no progress in Integral when so many in the community simply can’t accept they are not perfect and ad Hominem anyone who points that out. This was a lacking in Ken and it is a lacking in this community. This doesn’t mean I hate anyone - it just means I observe you are not perfect. What kind of unhealthy community can function if it descends into harsh words and hurt feelings anytime someone points out it isn’t perfect?

Yes, yes … Kelly isn’t the first one to do this. He isn’t the first one to attempt to say there is something wrong with me because I find a problem with someone’s theory - then try to use that as a reason to “go dark” and become the exact thing they are accusing me of being.

kelly isn’t the first and he won’t be the last. But the fact that this happens so often and I am the only one willing (that I know of) to take the heat of doing this says more about the Integral Community and Integral Theory than it says about me. It has faults and skeletons that it refuses to look at. It has closeted despots and petty tyrants. These people with 20+ years in Integral saying I Hate anything because I point this out while they are doing what I am describing it as it is occurring - this is exactly what people need to see.

There is no risk to me for doing this and something to gain. If nothing else Corey also peruses these discussions I believe. I trust that he, for example, doesn’t think I hate him. I trust that he is capable of seeing that I see a legitimate problem that is acted out several times the same way. Point out a problem - be accused of all kinds of made up things. it happens only in the worst organizations. The worst companies, the worst HOA’s, the worst nonprofits and the worst Political organizations. Unfortunately this is common in a wide range of organizations but equally fortunate is that I have a wide range of experiences standing my ground to this in business, government, HOA’s nonprofit organizations and so on.

Sure, Corey could ban me and let the problem hide and fester to come out again later. Ultimately, he decides not to.