A Brief History of Everything

Ken Wilber shows us that although we all take different roads in life, we share a common direction in our development and evolution. He brings together a vast number of theories and observations and organizes them into one theory. It is quite amazing! Wilber has written many books on this subject but this is the one I would recommend people to read first. If you'd like a shorter, more simplified but extremely well-organized / well-articulated book that covers this material, I strongly suggest "The Ever-transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It also discusses practical implications of these ideas that make you feel like you could have saved a lot of hassle and confusion if you read it eariler in your life. Both Wilber and Sato are clearly two of the most advanced thinkers of our time.

Ken Wilber has written many many books discussing his beef against what he calls "flatland", which is characteristic of the western civilization as well as the modern world in general. I believe that he makes his point most clearly in this book as well as "Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality". Although "Sex Ecology and Sprituality" is a scholarly masterpiece, this book is the easier to understand for the lay reader. If you are new to Wilber's "Comprehensive Everything" type books, I would suggest reading this book before reading his other ones. I think although many of us Wilber lovers struggle to fully understand and appreciate his vision, his books are a true joy to read. If you are interested in these topics, another book that is easy and enjoyable to read is "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. It is also a wonderful book on the subject-object differentiation (dual vs nondual)! Both books help remind us that although our world of objects is useful, the world of subjects is what makes it beautiful! Happy reading!

[For full review, see forthcoming, Torosyan, R. (2001). A system for everything: Book review of K. Wilber's Brief History of Everything. New Ideas in Psychology, 19 (3).] Wilber manages to create a sweeping system for everything in life. He describes our spiritual evolution, and our dominant conceptual concerns: East and West, ancient and modern, individual and collective, physical and metaphysical. Wilber writes in an accessible common-sense style. He deliberately avoids a typical scholarly tone. While not free of some pretense at a monolithic voice, his work promotes rich conceptions of self-reflexiveness, interconnection, spirituality and empathy. Wilber shows how the major theories of biological, psychological, cognitive and spiritual development describe different versions of how to find "the truth." At the outset, Wilber refers to Douglas Adams's best-selling cult novel Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. We desire final conclusions, just as Adams facetiously proposed the "answer that would completely explain 'God, life, the universe, and everything'" (p. xv). In the novel, that answer was "42," highlighting the absurdity of seeking such a final answer. Wilber's "answer," instead, is a framework for connecting evolutionary currents. At first, he uses a Socratic dialogue, beginning with "KW" for Wilber and "Q" for the questioner, be s/he reader, fan, or friend. Initially, this appears somewhat contrived. The text pretends to be an interview, when it is clearly the author's own highly controlled construction. Upon further reading, however, the stylistic device helps Wilber engage the reader in a dialogue. To Wilber, traditions of thought have usually been either "ascending" toward transcendental spirituality, or "descending" to the body, the senses, and sexuality (p. 11). The author suggests that humans must integrate dualities to survive as a species. In fact, we must not merely synthesize but accept the "nonduality" of ascending and descending, mind and body (p. 12). Wilber's first chapter presents a brief summary of the entire book in the voice of the questioner: Q: So we'll start with the story of the Big Bang itself, and then trace out the course of evolution from matter to life to mind. And then, with the emergence of mind, or human consciousness, we'll look at the five or six major epochs of human evolution itself. And all of this is set in the context of spirituality-of what spirituality means, of the various forms that it has historically taken, and the forms that it might take tomorrow. Sound right? KW: Yes, it's sort of a brief history of everything...based on what I call 'orienting generalizations' (p. 17)"Q" is obviously more highly informed than a first-time reader. Wilber uses Q less to ask questions than to help simplify points [the book summarizes the more complex content of Wilber's massive Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995)]. The "generalizations" he notes are Kohlberg's and Gilligan's moral stages. "Huma

This book was written as a summary of the work presented in Sex Ecology, Spirituality and was intended for a more popular audience. I recommend it as the best first Wilber book, as a relatively accessible introduction to his thought. That said, this is not a popular market "spirituality" book. There is a lot of meat here.I am among those who think Ken Wilber is one of the great thinkers of our time. His great contribution to world thought is as an integrator of a staggering breadth of philosophical thought, psychological research and accounts of mystical experience. He maintains that each of the wisdom traditions and methods of inquiry into human experience has at least some valid contribution to make. He then sets about the daunting task of finding the ground upon which they all can be said to agree and integrating them into a theoretical structure that can be used to understand how, though no single discipline can present the whole truth, all can deliver a piece of it. For example, it is not that neuroscience is right and mysticism is wrong or vice versa. They are both right but incomplete. There really are neurons that can be observed to behave in certain ways. But that is not, and cannot be, all there is to say about human experience. Wilber succeeds establishing an integral theory of consciousness that draws from the wisdom of all the traditions of inquiry to a greater extent than any other thinker I have read.I have read nine of Wilber's books so far, and I think this is the best one to start with, if you are interested in looking into his work. For those who have read some of his other work, this is a good, succinct overview of his system that can be a useful look at the forest when you get immersed into some of the more detailed material about the trees.

To me as a scientific minded person approaching spirituality but having a hard time integrating the two, this book was a landmark.Not only does the book give an excellent structure where all sorts of wisdom and knowledge may live side by side in a friendly manner, but on the personal level it helped me at least intellectually to unify various aspects of myself and my life.Lately I have read large amounts of buddhist texts, new as well as traditional. This book takes a wider perspective and helps me relate my spiritual understanding and experiences in framework where it can co-exist with everything else I know about biology, physics, psychology, etc.I recommend this book to everyone with an open mind that has the capacity to understand and grasp the subject and has any interest in science, psychology, philosophy, religion, history, feminism, biology. I have already one other book by Wilber in my book stack, and I'm sure I will at least buy and read a few more before I move on.