The Rise and Fall of Ken Wilber
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Ken Wilber is the smartest man you’ve never heard of. He’s a philosopher and mystic whose work attempts to integrate all fields of study into one single model or framework of understanding.
When I say, “all fields of study,” I mean that literally. Wilber believes that every field of knowledge contains at least one aspect of truth, no matter how small, and that reconciling disparate disciplines is a matter of integrating what’s right about them rather than discounting them for being partially wrong. As Wilber often puts it: “No one is smart enough to be wrong 100% of the time,” and therefore we should focus on what’s right and leave out the rest.
Neurobiology, Jungian archetypes, horticultural societies, hermeneutics, Hegelian dialectics, systems theory, Zen koans, post-structuralism, Vedantan Hinduism, capitalist economic systems, transpersonal states of consciousness, neo-Platonic forms—the list goes on and on—all explained and fit together neatly in one map of reality, what he semi-ironically calls, “A Theory of Everything.” Above all, he manages to explain it all in lucid and brilliant prose. You literally feel yourself getting smarter as you read him.
An intellectual prodigy as a child, Wilber was a Doctoral student at Duke University in …
