The Future of Psychology
We have met the Messiah and he is us
A Review of Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology by Tom Averna
Ken Wilber sets the bar in his groundbreaking work Integral Psychology. In this book Wilber briefly explains the history and
future of psychology. He breaks it down into three periods: premodern, modern and postmodern and very ably demonstrates the
strengths and weaknesses of each and then presents his synthesis of the three projecting it as the future of psychology. Not too
surprising, he sees the path of new psychology as one that is integrative of the best of all three and equally unsurprising is that
his prediction is also the very model presented and used by Kabbalists for hundreds of years or longer.
As Wilber puts it:
But the major aim of this book is to help start a discussion, not finish it; to act as a beginning, not an end….and thus spur others
to jump into the adventure….and otherwise carrying the enterprise forward with their own good lights. (Wilber xii)
Wilber begins the adventure by explaining his idea of what the great problem with psychology is and in his explanation that is
trying to take an extremely rich and multifaceted gem known as consciousness and cutting it into much smaller, less rich pieces.
Wilber would then attempt to play the alchemist turning the now leadened pieces back into the original precious stone. The
premodern investigators broke off the first piece. I have already spent some time with this on my last paper, but once again to
get to the future, we need to take the path of the past. This is the foundation according to Wilber that came to be known as the
Great Nest of Being and is the beginning place of all models of psychology. For the last three thousand years or so perennial
philosophers have been in nearly unanimous agreement as to the general levels of the great nest. (6) Those basic levels are Body,
Mind and Spirit. The disagreements arise over how those may be subdivided. Wilber points out that this Nest is not static and
therein is the problem when one tries to analyze it. He calls it a developmental space in which human potential can unfold. (27)
Navigating this space is the Self. Wilber demonstrates that we have at least two parts to our Self, the observed and observing
self. Each of these has a constant function and a developing stream, as Wilber puts it, the self as navigator is a juggling act of all
the elements that it will encounter on its extraordinary journey from sub-conscious to self-conscious to super conscious. (37) It
is this that creates the complexity of the evolving Self. According to Wilber, we tend to move through levels of consciousness in
multi-varied stages. We make the best attempt to become competent at that level and then we let it go or integrate it as we move
to the next level. At each level our outlook and our world changes. Wilber also connects those levels with Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs. Wilber also quotes psychologist Clare Graves who initially expressed this view when he said,
Briefly what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiraling
process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order systems as man’s existential problems change. Each
successive stage, wave or level of existence is a state through which people pass on their way to other states of being. (40)
Graves outlined these levels as “waves of existence” and look somewhat like pictures of auras around the human body. Each
wave is a different color and were it truly represented the lines between the waves would be represented by a continual admixing
of one color into the next blurring the transtitions. The first six levels are subsistence oriented (again think of Maslow) and
encompasses “first tier thinking.” From there the consciousness shifts in a revolutionary way to the higher “second tier
thinking.” Briefly the first six “subsistence levels” are:
1. Beige: Archaic-Instinctual .1% adult 0% power
2. Purple: Magical-Animistic 10% 1%
3. Red: Power Gods 20% 5%
4. Blue: Conformist Rule 40% 30%
5. Orange: Scientific Achievement 30% 50%
6. Green: The Sensitive Self 10% 15%
Second Tier
7. Yellow: Integrative 1% 5%
8. Turquoise: Holistic .1%
It is the second tier that Wilber sees as the now “leading edge of collective human evolution.” (52) And it is here that Wilber sees
the great splitting of the precious gem of consciousness. Premodernity allowed for the Second Tier of consciousness even if it
was only viewed as the magical and mythical, but the modernists deny it altogether in the field of psychology. The spiritual
dimension, it was solemnly announced, was nothing but a wish-fulfillment of infantile needs (Freud), an opaque ideology for
oppressing the masses (arx), or a projection of human potentials (Fuerbach). (55) It is this main rupture between the modern
and premodern which needs to be transformed according to Wilber.
So if modernism took away the spirituality, why do we need to count it at all? Wilber addresses this beautifully by pointing out
that Modernity offered us the differentiation of cultural values spheres. In the past because art, morals and culture were fused
together, none could really advance. A scientist might be burned as a heretic, and artist would be seen as the spawn of evil and
morality would be strictly governed by a small handful. Thus this differentiation was in part responsible for the rise of liberal
democracy, the end of slavery, the growth of feminism, and the staggering advances in the medical sciences. (61) The problem
with this pendulum swing is that it went too far. Not only do the Modernists differentiate, but they also dissociated, fragmented
and alienated one another. Science then replaced religion as the dominant social force and Spirituality became to the modern day
Torquemadas was science and free thinking was to the Spanish inquisitor.
Wilber’s simple solution involves taking the four quadrants used by all modern systems to represent the interior and exterior of
an individual and translate it from a static system to a dynamic system. To modern science everything becomes an “it.” Wilber
adds an “I” and a “We.” To the modernist the quadrants would be represented as follows:
Upper Left: Interior Individual Intentional Governed by emotional functions.
Upper Right: Exterior Individual Behavioral Governed by body functions
Lower Left: Interior Collective Cultural Governed by external influences
Lower Right: Exterior Collective Social Governed by external structures
In the new model, we retain the four quadrants but they become more personal and dynamic. Wilber states: In the simplest
terms, an integral therapy would therefore attempt to address as many facets of the quadrants as is pragmatically feasible…. The
idea is to simultaneously exercise all the major capacities and dimensions of the human bodymind – physical, emotional, mental,
social, cultural, spiritual. (113)
Upper Left: Individual Intentional Subjective
Emotional – (Example Therapies: spiritual breath, tantric sexuality, etc)
Mental – (Example Therapies: coaching, shadow work, visualization, affirmation)
Spiritual – (Example Therapies: psychic, shamanic, contemplative prayer, self-inquiry formal spiritual traditions)
Upper Right: Individual Behavioral Objective
Physical – (Example Therapies: diet, nutrition, exercises)
Neurological – (Example Therapies – pharmacological, brain/mind machines)
Lower Left: Cultural Intersubjective
Relationships – (Example Therapies: decentering self, focus on other)
Community Service – (Example Therapies: volunteer work)
Morals – (Example Therapies: practice compassion, charity, love)
Lower Right: Social Interobjective
Systems – (Example Therapies: exercising responsibilities to Gaia, nature, biosphere, and geopolitical infrastructures at all levels)
Institutional – (Example Therapies: exercising educational, political, and civic duties to family, town, state, nation, world)
Again quoting Wilber, The general idea of integral practice is clear enough: Exercise body, mind, soul, and spirit in self, culture,
and nature….Pick a practice from each category, or as many categories as pragmatically possible, and practice them
concurrently. (114)
Another important point that Wilber makes is that Spiritual Practice requires practice. Therefore don’t just think differently,
practice diligently. (136) The key then to Integration is not just to change your thinking and change your life, but also to change
your actions. This is where I believe the leading proponent of this type of Spiritual and Psychological Integration falters terribly.
The New Thought movement has put so much of this together in their teachings since the late 1800’s, but they have yet to really
integrate the Practicing part, which requires the emergence of a new paradigm of the “Village.” We must help one another not
only with platitudes, but with physical, emotional, spiritual and personal support. Wilber doesn’t really address this issue and
therein is where I find a lack in his presentation. This is also where the strength of Kabbalah could be if integrated as part of the
new Psychology.
I will briefly, for the sake of actually completing this writing, allude to two works that present relative information on this
subject. One is from Leonora Leet entitled The Kabbalah of the Soul: The transformative Psychology and Practices of Jewish
Mysticism. And the other is by Sheldon Z Kramer, PhD, The Hidden Faces of the Soul. The tree of Life, which is the central
symbol of Kabbalah, already demonstrated the idea of the four quadrants as laid out by Wilber. The Tree does this in the form
of three triads of Sefirot and a fourth Sefira representing the Social or lower right quadrant. Here’s one way it would break
down:
Upper Left Quadrant Top Triad (Keter, Binah, Chokmah) Individual-Intentional
Upper Right Quadrant 2nd Triad (Gevurah, Tiferet, Chesed) Individual-Behavioral
Lower Left 3rd Triad (Hod, Yesod, Netzach) Cultural
Lower Right Malkut Social
Again for the sake of space and brevity, let me summarize by saying that the concept of the individual in Kabbalah has always
been a blend of the physical with the spiritual. The individual has always been seen as a powerful creation with the goal of
advancing through the levels of consciousness to achieving what Wilber point out as the Second Tier of consciousness. There
has always been the concept in Kabbalah that the individual is assisted in this endeavour at each level of Body, Mind, and Spirit
represented by the triads and that we are more than the sum of our parts. What I want to spend a little more time is the area that
Wilber says has been missing from the postmodern model. That area is that actions are equally important to thought. This has
always been represented to the mystical Jew as Tikkun Olam, the healing of the world. It has always been clear that our job was
not to just change our thinking, but to also change our actions to represent a holistic world-view. The idea of Monasticism has
never been a Jewish concept. Even the Essenes saw themselves as actively pursuing a New World. The ideas of charity or
giving has always been a central tenet of Judaism, and let us remember that the Golden Rule came from Judaism. So with the
notion of Kabbalistic Psychology we have already a model of the future as envisioned by Wilber. It remains to us to bring that
model to the forefront and make it accessible to all. That is the future of Psychology if psychology is ever going to be a viable
aid to consciousness building in the ongoing evolution of Humanity.
|
|
