Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber by Reynolds Brad

Author:Reynolds, Brad [Reynolds, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paragon House
Published: 2012-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

Pre/Trans Stage Confusion, Figure 5

Wilber closes by cautioning: “Since the general form of unwinding a ptf is to go from a bipole . . . to a tripole . . . it is important to remember that not ­every bipole conceals a ptf in need of teasing apart. Certain fundamental bipoles, such as yin/yang, heaven/earth, light/dark, left/right, active/passive, rest/motion, one/many, good/evil—whatever else they may be, they are not examples of ptf-bipoles. They are dualities inherent in maya; they are transcended not by teasing one of the poles apart, but by uniting, integrating, and transcending both, equally, in the Tao.” On a personal note, Wilber explains that he is quite aware of the care needed to be taken to avoid the pre/trans fallacy, especially since he too “once embraced those fallacies with enthusiasm . . . and, as Husserl observed at the turn of the century, one is most vehement against those errors that one recently held oneself.” Instead, as he concludes, “a true marriage of science and religion” will demand that any “truly comprehensive paradigm . . . shall take the true from both and discard the false from both, or we shall continue to try to integrate the muddled half truths of each.”

Chapter 8. “Legitimacy, Authenticity, and Authority in the New Religions” is a summary of many of the principal topics in A Sociable God, and it later appeared as “The Spectrum Model,” Wilber’s contribution to Spiritual Choices (edited with Dick Anthony and Bruce Ecker, 1987). To properly evaluate the new religious movements of the Western (especially American) society, Wilber’s thesis uses a developmental-structural approach, such as proposed by the spectrum of consciousness, to create a “believable scale or criteria for differentiating the more valid ‘religious movements’ from the less valid or even harmful.”

Wilber’s model includes at least three general realms or general structure-stages of development: 1) the prerational (subconscious); 2) the rational (self-conscious); and 3) the transrational (superconscious), which are further subdivided into seven corresponding worldviews: Archaic, Magic, Mythic, Rational, Psychic, Subtle, Causal, and Ultimate or “Spirit in the highest sense, not as Big Person but as the ‘Ground of Being.’” By using this template and methodology, Wilber points out that it’s necessary to be vigilant about the pre/trans fallacy (see previous chapter) so that neither the “transrational is reduced to the prerational (e.g., Freud), or the prerational is elevated to the transrational (e.g., Jung).” (See Figure 6: “The Pre/Trans Fallacy.”)

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