A Brief History of Everything

by WILBER, KEN

• ISBN13: 9781570627408
• ISBN10: 1570627401
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2001-02-06
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

A Brief History of Everythingis an altogether friendly and accessible account of men and women's place in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit, written by an author of whomNew York Timesreporter Tony Schwartz says: "No one has described the path to wisdom better than Ken Wilber." Wilber examines the course of evolution as the unfolding manifestation of Spirit, from matter to life to mind, including the higher stages of spiritual development where Spirit becomes conscious of itself. In each of these domains, there are recurring patterns, and by looking closely at them, we can learn much about the predicament of our world-and the direction we must take if "global transformation" is to become a reality. Wilber offers a series of striking and original views on many topics of current interest and controversy, including the gender wars, modern liberation movements, multiculturalism, ecology and environmental ethics, and the conflict between this-worldly and otherworldly approaches to spirituality. The result is an extraordinary and exhilarating ride through the Kosmos in the company of one of the great thinkers of our time.

Author Biography

Ken Wilber is the developer of an integral "theory of everything" that embraces the truths of all the world's great psychological, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual traditions. He founded the Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying issues of science and society, in 2000. Wilber is the author of twenty books.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Tony Schwartz
Preface to the Second Edition	xv
A Note to the Reader	xix
Introduction	1	(12)
Part One: Spirit-in-Action	13	(110)
The Pattern That Connects	15	(13)
The Kosmos	16	(1)
Twenty Tenets: The Patterns That Connect	17	(2)
Agency and Communion	19	(1)
Transcendence and Dissolution	19	(2)
Four Drives of All Holons	21	(1)
Creative Emergence	21	(3)
Holarchy	24	(2)
The Way of All Embrace	26	(2)
The Secret Impulse	28	(12)
Higher and Lower	28	(2)
Depth and Span	30	(3)
Kosmic Consciousness	33	(3)
The Spectrum of Consciousness	36	(4)
All Too Human	40	(12)
Foraging	41	(2)
Horticultural	43	(2)
Agrarian	45	(3)
Industrial	48	(4)
The Great Postmodern Revolution	52	(11)
The Postmodern Watershed	52	(4)
Two Paths in Postmodernity	56	(2)
On the Edge of Tomorrow	58	(2)
Transcendence and Repression	60	(3)
The Four Corners of the Kosmos	63	(13)
The Four Quadrants	64	(4)
Intentional and Behavioral	68	(2)
Cultural and Social	70	(2)
An Example	72	(2)
The Shape of Things to Come	74	(2)
The Two Hands of God	76	(20)
Mind and Brain	77	(2)
The Left- and Right-Hand Paths	79	(1)
The Monological Gaze: The Key to the Right-Hand Paths	79	(2)
Interpretation: The Key to the Left-Hand Paths	81	(2)
What Does That Dream Mean?	83	(3)
Social Science versus Cultural Understanding	86	(1)
Hermeneutics	87	(2)
All Interpretation Is Context-Bound	89	(1)
Nonhuman Interpretation	90	(1)
Spiritual Interpretation	91	(5)
Attuned to the Kosmos	96	(14)
Propositional Truth	97	(1)
Truthfulness	98	(4)
Justness	102	(2)
Functional Fit	104	(4)
Conclusion: The Four Faces of Spirit	108	(2)
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful	110	(13)
The Big Three	110	(3)
The Good News: Differentiation of the Big Three	113	(2)
The Bad News: Dissociation of the Big Three	115	(4)
The Task of Postmodernity: Integration of the Big Three	119	(1)
The Spiritual Big Three	120	(3)
Part Two: The Further Reaches of Spirit-in-Action	123	(96)
The Evolution of Consciousness	125	(18)
Higher Stages of Development	126	(2)
Ladder, Climber, View	128	(1)
Basic Levels: The Ladder	129	(1)
The Self: The Climber	130	(1)
A Fulcrum	131	(1)
New Worlds Emerge: Changing Views	132	(3)
Pathology	135	(2)
States and Stages	137	(1)
Flatland Religion	138	(2)
Freud and Buddha	140	(3)
On the Way to Global: Part 1	143	(21)
The Primary Matrix	144	(1)
Birth Trauma	145	(1)
The False Self	146	(1)
Fulcrum-1: The Hatching of the Physical Self	147	(1)
Fulcrum-2: The Birth of the Emotional Self	148	(5)
Fulcrum-3: The Birth of the Conceptual Self	153	(1)
Every Neurosis Is an Ecological Crisis	154	(2)
Early Worldviews: Archaic, Magic, Mythic	156	(2)
Fulcrum-4: The Birth of the Role Self	158	(1)
Paradigm Shifts	159	(1)
Satanic Abuse and UFOs	160	(4)
On the Way to Global: Part 2	164	(15)
Evolution versus Egocentrism	164	(1)
Fulcrum-4 (Continued): Life's Social Scripts	165	(4)
Fulcrum-5: The Worldcentric or Mature Ego	169	(2)
Diversity and Multiculturalism	171	(2)
Fulcrum-6: The Bodymind Integration of the Centaur	173	(2)
Aperspectival Madness	175	(1)
On the Brink of the Transpersonal	176	(3)
Realms of the Superconscious: Part 1	179	(19)
Where the Mind Leaves Off	179	(2)
The Transpersonal Stages	181	(2)
Fulcrum-7: The Psychic	183	(3)
Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism	186	(2)
The Enneagram and the Basic Skeleton	188	(3)
Fulcrum-8: The Subtle	191	(2)
Jung and the Archetypes	193	(5)
Realms of the Superconscious: Part 2	198	(21)
Fulcrum-9: The Causal	199	(6)
The Nondual	205	(5)
The Immediacy of Pure Presence	210	(3)
Enlightenment	213	(6)
Part Three: Beyond Flatland	219	(94)
Ascending and Descending	221	(15)
A Brief Summary	221	(3)
The Great Holarchy	224	(3)
This-Worldly versus Otherworldly	227	(4)
Wisdom and Compassion	231	(1)
God and Goddess	232	(1)
Two Different Gods	233	(2)
The Descended Grid	235	(1)
The Collapse of the Kosmos	236	(19)
The Dignity of Modernity	237	(3)
The Disaster of Modernity	240	(1)
Instrumental Rationality: A World of Its	241	(3)
The Fundamental Enlightenment Paradigm	244	(1)
No Spirit, No Mind, Only Nature	245	(5)
The Voice of the Industrial Grid	250	(5)
The Ego and the Eco	255	(18)
Ego versus Eco	255	(1)
The Flatland Twins	256	(2)
The Ego's Truth	258	(1)
The Ego's Problem	259	(1)
The Ego and Repression	260	(1)
The Re-enchantment of the World	261	(1)
Back to Nature	262	(1)
The Eco and Regression	263	(2)
Paradise Lost	265	(4)
The Way Back Machine	269	(1)
The Great Battle of Modernity: Fichte versus Spinoza	270	(3)
The Dominance of the Descenders	273	(13)
Evolution: The Great Holarchy Unfolds in Time	274	(2)
Evolution: Spirit-in-Action	276	(2)
Glimmers of the Nondual	278	(1)
Always Already	279	(1)
The Fading of the Vision	280	(2)
The Dominance of the Descenders	282	(1)
The Internet	283	(2)
The Religion of Gaia	285	(1)
An Integral Vision	286	(27)
The Writing on the Wall	286	(2)
The Superman Self	288	(3)
The Great-Web Gaia Self	291	(2)
Beyond the Postmodern Mind	293	(3)
World Transformation and the Culture Gap	296	(4)
Environmental Ethics: Holonic Ecology	300	(6)
The Basic Moral Intuition	306	(1)
An Integral Vision	307	(6)
Appendix: The Twenty Tenets	313