Jeff Meyerhoff's reply to this article

The great synthesis was bound to happen. There were at the end of the 20th century all kinds of signs that world consciousness was preparing for a major leap forward. In the aftermath of the second world war consciousness was searching for new directions.  In the West consciousness definitely was in a ferment and something great and extraordinary was bound to happen. There were signs that the great advancements made in physical science would sooner or later be paralleled by equal discoveries in the humaniora. Already before the world war there had been pioneers of the mind who hesitantly at first, but later on with more confidence drew out the first contours of a map that would lead mankind into a new future. Psychologists like the Italian

In the America's the psychologist and philosopher William James had already at the beginning of the century written his superb 'the Varieties of Religious Experience', giving us a very lucid and scientific account of the different psychological aspects of the religious experience. The developmental psychologist James Mark Baldwin had showed convincingly that human consciousness unfolds in different stages or levels as we grow older and that the human mind is pulled by evolutionary forces to encompass greater depth and meaning.

In the East there also had been signs of new developments in world consciousness. In India there was a sudden renaissance of Vedanta of unparalleled quality. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th spirituality again blossomed in India and produced flowers of extraordinary beauty.  This time their great achievements in consciousness would not remain confined within the borders of India but would  influence the growth of consciousness all over the world. Great sages and giants of mind and soul like Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Yogananda and Sri Aurobindo attracted in the twenties and thirties students from all over the world.  These students went back to their homeland spreading their newly acquired knowledge. New schools of knowledge and training, inspired by these great masters, were set up all over the Western world.

All these influences created the greatest revolution in world consciousness that ever happened in history. It was as stunning and as far reaching as the Enlightenment at the end of 18th century Europe had been (as later historians undoubtedly will analyse it). Perhaps we can give credit to its source by labeling it 'the Eastern Enlightenment', though, as we have seen, there were also developments in Western thought that pointed in the same direction. As far back as the 19th century there had been movements like the Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner or the Theosophical Movement of Blavatsky, Besant and Leadbeater that ripened the ground for the major changes to come.

But only after the second world war was this 'Eastern Enlightenment' to grow to its full intellectual hight. Inspired by Vedantists like Vivekananda coming from India and Zen masters like Suzuki coming from Japan, the young western intelligentsia grew interested in mysticism and began to search for  higher levels of consciousness.  In the fifties the young poets of the beat generation were greatly impressed by the wisdom and beauty of Eastern thought and (Eastern) mystical ideas soon began to infuse Western literature. Then at the end of the fifties the first scientific experiments were done with drugs that brought about altered states of consciousness and researchers like Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary and Walter Pahnke reported with impressive research data some extraordinary findings: all these researchers contended that there was more to human consciousness than ever was dreamt of and that this 'more' had something to do with religion.

But impressive as these researches were, they also had their drawbacks. They tended to bring mystical thought and mystical practices into disrepute, for people now thought these practices on a par with the use of drugs. If drugs and meditation could bring about the same effects in the mind, then meditation could be just as dangerous, so it was easily concluded. So the coupling of drugs with mysticism did some harm to a further spreading of 'the Eastern Enlightenment'.

But writers like Alan Watts, Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley e.a. always underscored the fact that the altered states of consciousness peaked at in the drug experiment could also be obtained by more healthy methods and that mystics had always striven to realize these states and make them permanent without any chemical means. So for the more serious scholar and student there remained something more to 'higher states of consciousness' than mere drug (ab)use. It seemed to be a natural possibility of the healthy human mind, as was documented in the massive literature about the subject. The Eastern Enlightenment aroused new interests in this massive world literature of mysticism and studies and publications about the subject were numerous in the last decades of the 20th century.

But something was still missing to convince the western academic establishment. The prevailing mode of thinking at the end of the second millennium at the universities was still the scientific reductionism of the forties and fifties, be it tempered by postmodern relativism. All philosophical problems were in the wake of Russell and Wittgenstein thought to be a problem of language. So one all too easily concluded that all philosophies described in different (i. e. different from the prevailing and established mode of thinking and writing) or unfamiliar language were not worth studying (though postmodern relativism paradoxically claimed to champion the more marginalized forms of thought). For academic standards the Eastern Enlightenment was too esoteric and shrouded in mystery. This was partly due to the unacademic tone  of most of the mystical and religious texts, being from another time and/or another culture, as they mostly were. They also described another type of knowledge (transrational knowledge). The average Western scientist and scholar had difficulty grasping this strange and idiosyncratic type of knowledge. It seemed to be so different. And being different it gave the impression of not being true.

So the Eastern Enlightenment came to a standstill at the doors of the Western universities. Entrance was needed if the new Enlightenment were to gain firm ground. For Western culture would not consider anything valuable that was not given the fiat of academic science. So the situation seemed to have ended in deadlock.

But then a tall, very gifted guy from Nebraska, U.S., with a bald head came on the scene.  For years it seemed that he would pursue a career in the subject of his studies, biochemistry. But it all changed when he came into contact with books that were inspired by the Eastern Enlightenment. Convinced by their knowledge, truth and their deep wisdom, he took up the recommended spiritual practices and soon found out for himself that this age old wisdom was extremely valuable, not only for the happiness of the individual but for the welfare of mankind in general. With his keen intelligence he had a deep insight into the problems of Western culture and decided to do something about it. He pondered years about the stalemate situation between science and the Eastern Enlightenment and finally in a flash of genius he got it: 'until now', he thought, 'science and Western culture at large have refused to accept the deep truth of the perennial philosophy. But this is not a problem of truth, but it is a problem of the method and the language employed. So what needs to be done is to refrase the findings of mysticism in a method and language that is totally acceptable to Western scholarship. We have to connect these findings with modern Western psychology. That way we will be able to integrate both branches of knowledge. For they are both equally valuable.'

But what an enormous task!  For the wide range of his subject matter entailed going through literally tons of literature concerning mysticism, psychology, theology, philosophy and cultural studies from all over the world and from all ages. The Western scientific method forced him to make notes and references to all his consulted literature. Every argument or proposition he would make had to be backed up by evidence coming from other sources. So it meant reading and taking notes till his eyes dropped out. Sometimes he even slept for three hours a day. To remain free and independent he worked at restaurants in the evening for the scarce amount of money he needed to stay alive. For he only had one major drive in life: he wanted the Eastern Enlightenment to be accepted by the whole of Western culture. Somebody had to do it ........

While absorbing this enormous pile of books, it slowly became clear to him that two major currents in philosophical thinking about the metaphysical foundations of the world could be discerned: one tradition believed in a purposeful God (be it personal or impersonal) that had brought intelligence and planning into the universe and another one believed in blind evolution that nevertheless was some sort of an intelligent process because of the possibility for adaptation of all its participants to the environment. The East had always championed the idea of a God of creation and the Western (scientific) tradition was mainly evolutionistic. Instead of siding with one of these two traditions his intelligent intuition told him that both  were true in part.

the perennial philosophy

For he accepted the traditional outlook of the major world religions that saw reality as consisting of four overlapping layers or levels:

These layers encompass the total sum of reality, reaching from the grossest form of perceivable matter to the most subtle Spirit pervading all. They give not only a quantative description of the universe (there are rocks, there are thoughts, there are souls, there is Spirit etc.), but also a qualitative description of all that can be perceived, thought of and felt. For rising up from matter to Spirit quality increases: something that's got mind is better than mere matter, as something that has got soul besides mind and matter is better than mere mind and matter etc.

For Wilber this is a purposeful plan that governs creation. For everything in the universe tends to evolve to these levels of greater complexity, till ultimately the highest level of Spirit has been reached. In psychology this tendency can be studied the best because in human consciousness all four layers have come to realization, but also in the evolution of human culture can we notice its workings: cultures also evolve from prerational to rational to postrational forms of complexity. This is the plan behind it all, the telos working at the basic. This is what the ancient traditions called God: reality is shaped by Higher Intelligence.

But the Western scientific outlook must also be given its credits. For this God, this intelligent teleological plan behind it all, is working in an evolutionary manner. Perhaps not with rigid and fixed steps but more like a morfogenetic field of 'gentle persuasion'. The great basic plan of the four levels is always followed but it is followed sometimes by 'trial and error' means or in a meandering way, with backfalls and sudden skipping. So we could symbolically say that God is testing all the time if something will work this way or another, but always according to the great lines of rising up from dust to Spirit.

all levels, all quadrants

For experience, intuition and scientific research tell us that there is not only exteriority, but also interiority to all that exists in the universe. Even the smallest particles of matter have a willful tendency. The complexity of this interiority increases on a par with the complexity of the exteriority.  So in the animal world we'll find a greater interior depth than in amoebae. If we turn within, into our own consciousness, we will find thoughts, symbols, images, archetypes, feelings, will, abstraction etc. There deep down in our consciousness can we study the whole interiority of the kosmos at first hand. Because we are made of the same stuff the whole universe is made of.  There in the non-material inside of us can we find the four levels at work in ourselves. If we study with care and diligence we will see that the scope of our life is expanding from dust to Spirit.

So for a thorough scientific outlook on the world and on consciousness it is very important to take all sides of the coin into account. The mistake science is making in our Western culture right now is precisely this: she only gives credit to the outside of things, the individual It and the collective It. She  has the conviction the inside cannot be studied and measured. And so we lose sight of the interiority of the world and accordingly everything in our life and in our culture loses meaning.  For only with our inside and in our inside can the world be valued. Now to overcome this great cultural crisis we are in right now (which Wilber has dubbed 'Flatland') we have to change to an 'all quadrant' approach.

Every entity (a holon) in the kosmos must be studied according to four aspects, called 'the four quadrants' : in itself it has an individual inner world of subjectivity (1), ranging from prehension, irritability and sensation to the highest modes of non-dual awareness. This individual inner world is located in an objective outer world of matter (2), the body,  When we are talking about human consciousness it is closely connected to the brain. Higher forms of consciousness (higher levels of evolution) have a correlation with higher developed parts of the brain: our early instincts are located in the reptile brain, our emotions in the limbic system and our thinking in the neocortex, hierarchical parts of the brain that have developed in time on top of each other. This individual entity cannot live on its own but is also located in a social environment, the collective outer world of social networks and institutions (3), ranging from small ecosystems and groups and families to nation states and world states. This collective outer world, the social world, is just like the individual outer world the result of an inner evolution: the cultural evolution in the collective interior of a society, ranging from archaic/magic/mythic to transrational forms of culture. So 1 (UpperLeft) shapes 2 (UpperRight) and 4 (DownLeft) shapes 3 (DownRight).

If we take a close look at the four quadrants we can see that they in fact form a map of 'the Big Three': the Beauty, the Good and the Truth. For the individual inner world (1) is the world of aesthetics (the Beauty), the collective inner world (4) is the world of morals (the Good) and the individual and collective outer world taken together (2+3) present the world of science (the Truth).

A description of the world which leaves any quadrant out of the picture will always be inadequate. Instead we always have to look for an 'all levels, all quadrant' approach, which means that we have to study a holon in its development (as it evolves from matter to Spirit), in its outer and its inner world  and not isolated , but always as situated in a context within contexts.

 
postmodern criticism

Recently the philosopher Jeff Meyerhoff wrote a critical book about Wilber. Perhaps it's worthwhile to discuss his critique at length and tentatively counter Wilber's views.  That way we can both get a good grip on Wilber's philosophy and also dive deep into the heart of the main subject of this site, mysticism. For Meyerhoff is not only attacking Wilber as a philosopher building a great system of thought but also as a mystic.

1. orienting generalizations

Wilber wants to bring different branches of knowledge together in an integral and critical embrace. For in every field of knowledge there is surely something of value, contributing to the overall knowledge of mankind. The truth is there, but it is often partial. If we can bring all these partial truths together, maybe we can work out a great synthesis that can give us a wide view on life and kosmos.  In order to do so he uses the 'already-agreed-upon-knowledge' of the academia. But Meyerhoff, as the true relativistic philosopher he is, contends that there is no such thing as 'already-agreed-upon-knowledge' but that knowledge at the academia is in 'an ungoing debate'. Wilber disturbs this debate by picking out at random some debatable knowledge that can forcibly be fitted in into his scheme of things.

But Wilber actually wants to take these differences into account (he considers perspectivism and contextualism the greatest contributions of postmodernism to philosophy) but these differences, although they are to be accounted for, are only at the surface of reality. When we go deeper into reality, when we evolve to higher levels of being and knowing, unity increases. Climbing up from matter to Spirit we will find more unity in kosmos. It's no small wonder that a philosophy that has not evolved higher than mind and whose scientific presumptions are still mainly reductionistic only sees differences. But these differences, that at a rational level seem logically to contradict one another, can be integrated and united at a transrational level.

The great problem with relativism is the exact position of truth within its own thought system, a system whose possibility to exist must paradoxically be denied if we follow its own basic presumptions. For if we accept the existence of a truthful system (such as relativism), we have a fortiori accepted the existence of truth.  For then relativism is more true than any other system of thought.  But truth is categorically denied by the system. So therefore it seems to deny its own existence.

But integral perspectivism is not denying the existence of truth, but sees that truth increases at every higher stance we take.  Meyerhoff cites the example of Nelson Goodman of the sun's motion. The statements 'the sun moves through the sky' and 'the sun is stationary' seem from a differing perspective both to be true.  How is this possible? They seem to contradict one another. A cannot be B. But we will see that from a higher point of view B can be just as true as A. There is a stance possible from where these contradictions can be integrated into a more higher truth: from our low earth bound stance the sun seems to move through the sky, but when we climb up with our thoughts to the stance of the sun itself, which is centered in the middle of our galaxy, then we are bound to conclude that 'the sun is stationary'.  But if we climb still further up to higher levels of reality, then we will see that our galaxy itself is revolving and that from this highest vantage point both statements are true: a stationary sun is moving through the sky.

When we only study the right hand quadrants of reality, all we will get is a heap of data, but we will not be able to construct any theory out of it, for the simple facts and data do not give us any meaning.

But this is precisely the point Wilber is making. For a holon is from the perspective of its junior holon 'better' (all the time), but from the perspective of its senior holon is it 'worse' (all the time): a molecule is always better than a mere atom, but from the perspective of a whole organism is it seen as worse, formop is better than conop, but worse than postformal froms of consciousness etc. The value and meaning a holon has at a particular place and time are always relative: they depend on the level of evolution the holon has evolved to and on the perspectival stance the interpreting subject has taken. That is the great contribution of perspectivism to the debate. Never can meaning and value be fixed at a certain absolute point, but they seem to be hermeneutically dependent.

2. the validity of Wilber's system

How does one know that a system such as Wilber's has any validity? How can one discern the truth from the lies? Wilber himself has written about these epistemological difficulties and has described some guidelines we must follow if we want to gain trust in our knowledge. The first thing we have to do is to follow conscientiously the injunctions and prescribed methods for acquiring knowledge that are traditionally accepted as valid in a certain branch of study. Secondly, using these injunctions, we have to look for ourselves if we want to acquire the new knowledge. Thirdly we have to go back to the community of fellow investigators, who also have followed the same injunctions and also have looked for them selves. With them we have to discuss the findings, to see if we can come to some intersubjective agreement about the newly acquired knowledge.

The difficulty with Wilber's system is that most of its basic propositions (the perennial philosophy, the existence of (higher) structures, states, modes and developmental lines in consciousness, the spiritual evolution of the kosmos, the four quadrants, the notion of spiritual depth etc.) only seem to have validity if we have experienced (or at least are open to the notion of) the existence of higher transrational levels of consciousness. But the problem is that these transrational levels of consciousness are only experienced by 0,1 percent of the world population or even less.  The problem is even worsened by the fact that different levels of consciousness tend to misunderstand each other and sometimes are even hostile to one another (a child at conop stage of development cannot understand the fact that a tall glass of water contains the same amount of water as a smaller but broader glass: the child is sometimes even hostile to the one who tells otherwise). This is the hostility Wilber sometimes shows in his attacks on some New Age adepts who suffer from the pre/trans fallacy.  It is also the (sometimes malignant) hostility Meyerhoff shows for systems like Wilber's, because a person at the highest levels of rationality will show the greatest aversion to transrational levels because his struggle is with these levels and not with, say, the magical levels of development.

This is probably the reason Meyerhoff does not want to follow the injunctions of mysticism. I bet he is very interested in these transrational stadias of consciousness development (as a thinker he is bound to be and it also shows from his profound knowledge of Wilber's work) but his hostility prevents him from following the mystical path.  

While the mystic's relevant community may agree that the mystic did experience the Absolute, other communities who also deal with reality -philosophers let say- may not agree. Wilber would say they haven't followed the injunctions and had the apperception, but they would have questions about the injunctions and their effects on the apperception. The community of philosophers have a different mode of investigating reality and so have different criteria they apply. They would use the criteria of rational consistency, logic and evidence. What if the two communities disagree? Who decides?

The answer must be: the community that has the highest expertise. And which has a greater understanding of mystical knowledge than the community of mystics themselves? They also use the criteria of rational consistency, logic and evidence but they add something more to it: personal experience. They invite everyone to obtain this mystical knowledge at first hand and find it out for him/herself. But a scientist can not get evidence without investigation. So yes, we have to follow the injunctions of the mystic community. It's the same with philosophy. If I want to be accepted and taken seriously within the community of philosophers I have to follow their injunctions, read philosophy and follow a certain method of thinking. And if I haven't done so I have no right to affirm or deny the worth and truth of philosophical investigation. Then it would be better to stay aside and to admit that I have not the expertise to say anything about the subject.

But Meyerhoff is I think right in pointing to a slight uneasiness in the work of Wilber. For he is trying to validate transrational knowledge (which ultimately is knowledge of revelation) with rational means and methods. Perhaps there will always be a certain incongruence between these two types of knowledge.

If he insists on trying to validate a mystically infused, but rationally argued vision of the Kosmos, he will be subject to the criteria used in rational argumentation and that his vision's validity will be undermined.

Transrational knowledge is just as it is: transrational and transverbal, which unfortunately entails that ratio and words become at a certain point inadequate means to describe and communicate this kind of knowledge. But the tone of Wilber's writing is the tone of scientific rationality. So he seems to address people at the higher levels of rational development and uses their methods and means. This was a deliberate choice, because Wilber wanted to open up the doors of the academia for the New Enlightenment. But it places people at a rational stage in an awkward situation because it confronts them with something that they do not (as yet) grasp. And it is not always nice to be given the impression that 'you are as yet not smart enough to get it'. Wilber himself was also well aware of this uneasiness for in the Introduction of A Theory of Everything he wrote: 'nothing that can be said in this book will convince you that a [theory of everything] is possible, unless you already have a touch of [transpersonal insight] coloring your cognitive palette'.

But we must never forget that spiritual insights and attainments also have mental 'repercussions': the  former rationality of the preceding level is greatly enhanced and expanded by these insights. One of the features of this spiritually enhanced rationality is its capacity for seeing more the unity behind the diversity and for describing and arguing this unity. I think Wilber's mind gives us an example of this 'enhanced rationality': it gives us lucidly and convincingly rational glimpses of this unity. But his method has one great disadvantage: he can only use words and words are a poor mean as spiritual insight is concerned.  Fortunately the intuition of our minds and hearts also help us to determine if something is true or false. Not only the limited capacities of our rationality.

3. the theory of consciousness development

We must never forget that Wilber's  developmental scheme of consciousness unfolding is an idealization of a person's interior growth.  Wilber himself has on numerous occasions described the pitfalls psychological development can fall into. A person's growth can at every level of development become fixed, stagnated or suffer from pathologies or (temporary) regressions. His theory is misrepresented if we assume that every person  is bound to progress through all levels in sequence. This is not the case and there is numerous scientific evidence showing people not to have evolved to higher levels, be it postconventional or post-postconventional levels of consciousness in the Kohlberg scheme of moral development or transrational levels in epistemological development. The latter are seldom reached by most individuals in the world today. So what Wilber describes seems to be the ideal development of a healthy, intelligent person in healthy circumstances.

But, though the process of development can be thwarted in many ways and there is always discrepancy between the metaphysical ideal of development and its actual occurrence, I would not go as far as Howard Gardner et al. (1990) who say "the symbolic waves are a psychologist's convention (and invention)". I more agree with Wilber that (especially the higher) levels of development are more like evolutionary tendencies of morfogenesis. There is a 'gentle evolutionary persuasion' to follow the blueprint but it will probably still last some time (if it ever happens) before every person on earth will develop all these hidden potentials.

Within the field of developmental psychology there has been controversy about the question if development takes place 'from within' or 'from without'. If we are to conclude that development takes place 'from without' (by way of altering biological and social/cultural circumstances), then age is indeed 'an empty variable'.  Meyerhoff quotes the Harvard psychologist Sheldon White who says:

 (...) any high school senior can tell you that age doesn't cause anything. Age is a dimension in which things happen -biological variables, environmental variables. Those are the causes. When you say that such-and-such happened with age, you say almost nothing.

This extreme point of view affords another example of blatant neglect of the Four Quadrants. For here we detect once again a scrupulosity to take the interior side of a holon into account: an interiority that ripens with ages is denied, there is only a blank tabula rasa that is totally and willy-nilly subjected to factors from the outside to mold its form. This is a great misrepresentation of research data, experience and intuition. If we accept Wilber's view on the importance of taking all Four Quads into account, then we have to conclude that it is not an or/or but an and/and: there is a development from within that is aided, structured and given its impetus by outside factors. The causes of development are both from the inside and from the outside.

What makes psychologists like White and philosophers like Meyerhoff uneasy about such a thing as interior psychological development is that terms like value and hierarchy seem to present themselves when we interpret what happens to the psyche when it develops. But it cannot escape us that with every major milestone (fulcrum) of growth in the psyche the quality of consciousness increases.  Let's make this clear by surveying  some major milestones of development in a person's life:

(1 yrs.) One of the first things a first year baby learns is to separate his own little self from his environment. He learns the difference between his body and his environment by biting successively his blankets and the extremities of his body. The first action hurts not, but the second one can give you a hell of a pain (even without teeth). This biting gives the little baby the feeling that 'body-things' somehow belong to the self but 'non-body-things' do not. Having learned this the consciousness of the little infant has become better, because it is quite essential for its survival and continuation to know the difference between the self and a possibly dangerous and threatening outside. This is the most essential and basic differentiation that has to occur.  If this little baby would be able to communicate his newly acquired knowledge to his fellow baby's in the nursery room, who have not as yet acquired these essentials of babyhood, he would somehow acquire a certain leadership in the room. They would appoint him to be the baby in charge.

(1-3 yrs.) In the first three years of his life the little infant learns to understand his primal emotions. He learns how signals of hunger, thirst or loneliness are received by the outside world and how to use these signals for his life support. The first images are formed in mental consciousness. He recognizes the mother, the nipple, the cradle; more and more images are formed as he grows older. All newly formed images make his consciousness better equipped for life.  The images and symbols he learns are the most fundamental for his life support.  Images and symbols that correspond the most accurately with the desired objects have leadership in consciousness over images that are more remote to these objects.

(3-7 yrs.) With the development of language at this age the first concepts are formed in the mind. With language the capacity for abstraction is greatly enhanced, but the mind is still mainly representational. Its function to operate upon the words and images is still rudimentary developed, but now, with the help of language, communication works so much better. The first occurrence of language and its underlying logical script is such a success at all fronts in consciousness, that from now on language acquires leadership over emotions, images and symbols. Language will make the way for the mental to occur.

(8-12 yrs.) The first operations of the mental upon consciousness start to appear, but these operations are still very concrete (conop) and still closely connected to the outside world. Formal operations upon thinking and consciousness are still very rudimentary. At this stage the consciousness of the child learns to form rules in order to form classes and see more the connections of things in the outside world. That way unity is more perceived, insight won and trust gained.  Now for the first time the child learns substantially to take the role of another person and is now better able to judge the impact of his behavior on others. Children at this level with the best developed mental capacities acquire leadership over their peers.

(12-21 yrs.) In adolescence the mind evolves still further. At this stage formal operations on his own consciousness become more and more a possibility for the learning child. He learns to reflect about his own thinking. Everything he encounters in life and learning has to be given its place and he develops means to connect different forms of knowledge. The first broad maps are drawn and theories succeed one another as life goes on. With reason and the rise of the mental a wide horizon of possibilities starts to come into view. Life becomes so much better now. There is more understanding of the world and its inhabitants. The mental can explain the sense and the meaning behind the seemingly fragmented and senseless world. Its results are so satisfying that it quickly acquires leadership in consciousness. People with highly evolved mental capacities are chosen as high rankers in a hierarchy.

It is argued by most developmental psychologists that for most people the development of their consciousness stops at this fulcrum. Only a few intelligent persons are able to grow to farther domains of the mind and reach the level of vision-logic with its world centric morality.  And even fewer still develop transrational forms of consciousness.  Though this seems to be the case, I want to point to the fact that in every one's life at least something changes after midlife. Though these changes may not be transrational in the strict sense of the word, still there often occur slight changes in emotionality and rationality that can tentatively be designated as 'spiritual', though a person may not be aware of it and may even deny the spiritual origin of these changes.  I refer to qualities like mildness, openness, selfishness, helpfulness, care, wisdom etc. that seem to develop in most (or at least in many) people as they grow older. That these changes are not only the result of a learning process but also seem to be developmentally anchored in our psychological make up, can be deduced from the fact that the 'midlife crisis' in most cases spontaneously occurs without being triggered by outside circumstances.

But to return to our present argumentation: if we review the italicized words in the recent paragraphs,  we have to conclude that at each fulcrum the quality of consciousness has increased considerably over the former and that the newly evolved forms of consciousness have gained leadership over their inferior ones. This has not to come as a surprise because by studying the interior world of consciousness we have entered the realm of value, meaning and hierarchy.

What Meyerhoff bothers the most is the idealization within Wilber's developmental scheme:

Depending on the endpoint of development chosen, the behaviors that lead toward that endpoint will be deemed natural, healthy or normal and those that don't, will be deemed unnatural, retarded or pathological. (.....) He is constantly extracting from nature a picture of life that is ever upward and onward, and tries to validate it as somehow being nature's own tendency.

1. - entelecheia: according to Aristotle all living things have a natural tendency to become. This becoming is not something at random or haphazard, but it has some sort of a metaphysical plan built into it (Aristotle refers in this respect to a kind of architectural plan). All living things work, according to this plan, up to an end that is somehow engraved in their ontological make up. They have a purpose ( a telos) in their being. An acorn wants to become an oak tree. It is her will to become so.
2. - arete : this telos or metaphysical plan is not aimed at becoming anything whatsoever, but it always strives for the best quality possible. So an acorn wants not only to be just any acorn but she wants to be an acorn of the highest quality and she will under the right climatological and ecological conditions grow out into such a healthy full grown oak. Only outside conditions (overpopulation within the forest, detrimental ecological circumstances etc.) can thwart her in becoming so. Aristotle is following his teacher Plato in stating that we all have an idea of what this arete is. We know by seeing and handling a horse what his innate quality is: strong, good running,  harmonious proportions etc. All life's endeavors are aimed at realizing this arete.
   

So here again we find, on closer examination, within the interiority of things: values and qualities, that somehow are part of the things themselves and have to be taken into account if we want to understand them in the best way possible.

But it must also be said that once the telos of life is reached for an individual being, deterioration starts and death lurks around every corner. And sometimes even the telos cannot be reached at all, due to all sorts of reasons and circumstances, as we saw. Meyerhoff is right, I think, in stating that these  more tragic  aspects of life (also forming a part of the telos) are neglected within the core system of Wilber, although in more personal books like Grace and Grit  and One Taste he shows not being blind to them. 

4. vision-logic
 
In the transitional phase between the personal and the transpersonal stadias of development, consciousness for the first time acquires the capacity to stand aloof from its own thinking and operate upon its own rationality, without a strong and obdurate identification with one-sided thoughts. From this distal vantage point it can clearly see that thinking is dynamic and full of possibilities. It now seems to grasp the possibility of different perspectives and tries to include them in a more integral embrace. Many opinions  a person can possibly express about a certain matter are understood and taken into account. What seems worthwhile in these different perspectives is retained and what seems untrue or all too personal is dismissed.  Meyerhoff seems to question the quality of this new kind of consciousness:

Every time I read or hear a true mystic -the names you can find on this site and I can name you many more- my heart leaps up with joy and I get tears in my eyes. Why? Because I recognize myself in the words and I see that the loneliness and separtion of the personal is just an illusion. Every time I hear mystical words or see mystical representations, I am amazed: 'My God, so it is with me!' The words, feelings and thoughts I read or hear are completely identical with the way I experience the mystical states. There is no difference between Wilber's experience of mystical states and mine or any's. Because a true mystical experience comes from the transpersonal realm of Objectivity, where we are fundamentally One.

But how is it then possible that mystics can have disagreements or even polemics with one another, like Shankara, who fought out heavy battles with the Buddhists or with his more theistically-minded Hindu collegues? To find an answer to this question one needs to realize that also the transpersonal realm has, just as the personal, different stages of dvelopment. Wilber describes these different levels as psychic, subtle, causal and non-dual. Just like the different levels of personal development, these levels can have frictions with one another and fights over intellectual dominance.  Non-dual formless mysticism has a different view of the Ultimate than theistic mysticism, though a true non-dualist can understand and appreciate a more theistic view on Ultimate Reality just as well as his own formless outlook. In good development he has transcended and also integrated  the lower levels. It would be pathological if a non-dualist went to war with a theistic mystic, but this has never happened in history. No more wars in mysticism. The debate is purely philosophical and good sport, because the non-dualist knows that the path of the theistic can bring the same results. But still he is convinced that his own formless outlook is a better description of Ultimate Reality. According to Wilber he is right, because he represents a higher spiritual development.


6.  the constructivist critique on mysticism

Postmodern constructivism believes that there is no such thing as immediate knowledge, but that every type of knowledge is in the end a human construction, mediated by the typical features of our language, the cultural setting we live in and the structural conceptualizations our mind works with. It denies the possibily of an immediate insight into 'the way things are', because there is no world out there that is pre-given. Both the subject and the object of experience are at the same time contextualized.  So there are only different perspectives of different subjects.  There is no meta-narrative that can claim to give the final description of 'the way things are'. Our mind is never able to position itself on Mount Olympos and look at all that is been given 'sub specie aeternitatis'. Never can knowledge be completely objective.

The constructivist Steven Katz in his Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (1978) launches this attack on mysticism, by stating that all experience (and all language used to convey that experience) arise from social-cultural contexts. This also shows in mysticism, as Meyerhoff summarizes Katz' critique:

Ken Wilber Born in 1949 in Oklahoma City, Ken Wilber completed highschool in Lincoln, Nebraska, and started medicine at Duke University. However, during his first year he lost all interest in pursuing a career in science, and started to read in psychology and philosophy, both West and East. He went back to Nebraska to study biochemistry, but after a few years dropped out of the academic world (with a major in biochemistry) to devote all his time to studying his own curriculum and writing books. With sixteen books on spirituality and science, and translations in twenty countries, Wilber is now the most translated academic author in the United States. He is seen as an important representative of transpersonal psychology, which emerged in the sixties from humanistic psychology, and which concerns itself explicitly with spirituality. For the fundamental and pioneering nature of his insights, he has been called "the Einstein of consciousness". His debut The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977) established his reputation as an original thinker, who seeks to integrate Western and Eastern psychology. No Boundary (1979), which summarizes this work, is one of his most popular books. His core works The Atman Project (1980) and Up from Eden (1981) cover the territories of developmental psychology and cultural history respectively. In his recent work, especially the voluminous Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), he has criticized not only Western culture, but also counter-cultural movements such as the New Age. In his opinion, none of these approach the depth and detailed nature of the "perennial philosophy", the conception of reality that lies at the heart of all major religions, and which forms the background of all his writings. This fundamental work has been summarized too, in A Brief History of Everything (1996). In his most personal work up till now, Grace and Grit (1991), Wilber gives a moving account of his relationship with his second wife, Treya, who died of cancer in 1989. In a more recent book One Taste, a personal journal of the year 1997, he offers insights in his way of life and his spiritual experiences. He lives in Denver, Colorado. In 2000 he founded the Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying issues of science and society in an integral way. © Frank Visser http://www.worldofkenwilber.com

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