Product Description

Suppose we took everything that all the various world cultures have to tell us about human potential—about psychological, spiritual, and social growth—and identified the basic patterns that connect these pieces of knowledge. What if we attempted to create an all-inclusive map that touches the most important factors from all of the world's great traditions?

Ken Wilber's Integral Vision provides such a map. Using all the known systems and models of human growth—from the ancient sages to the latest breakthroughs in cognitive science—it distills their major components into five simple elements, and, moreover, ones that readers can verify in their own experience right now.

In any field of interest, such as business, law, science, psychology, health, art, or everyday living and learning—the Integral Vision ensures that we are utilizing the full range of resources for the situation, leading to a greater likelihood of success and fulfillment. With easily understood explanations, exercises, and familiar examples, The Integral Vision shows how we can accelerate growth and development to higher, wider, deeper ways of being, embodied in self, shared in community, and connected to the planet, which can literally help with everything from spiritual enlightenment to business success to personal relationships.

Pages 10–11 

Pages 12–13 

Pages 16–17 

Pages 18–19

Pages 108–109 

Pages 160–161

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24419 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-14
• Released on: 2007-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Philosopher, psychologist and mystic Wilber (A Brief History of Everything) delivers on the subtitle's far-reaching promise. In a scant 200+ pages chock-full of handsome illustrations and spare, Zen-like diagrams and tables, he forges ahead on his established path, posing, What if we attempted to find the critically essential keys to human growth, based on the sum total of human knowledge now open to us? His answer is a kind of meta-structure of human experience and, more importantly, human potential. His Integral Map, or Integral Operating System (IOS), of quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types is drawn from developmental psychology, worldviews, multiple intelligences, gender studies, the nature of consciousness, etc. If this sounds heady and extremely ambitious, it is. Wilber asserts that the IOS approach to life permits all fields of endeavor at last to speak with one another in a common language. Clearly, however, spirituality dominates much of his thought. Not for the faint of brain, Wilber's work is still accessible and at times surprisingly practical. Some language spirals up majestically, recalling great Eastern texts. Reminiscent in spirit and watershed import of Ram Dass's Be Here Now, Wilber's work may well become a popular classic for explorers on the frontiers of humanity. (Aug. 14)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year 2007.

"Philosopher, psychologist, and mystic Wilber delivers on the subtitle's far-reaching promise. . . . Chock full of handsome illustrations and spare, Zen-like diagrams and tables, Wilber's work here is still accessible and at times surprisingly practical. Some language spirals up majestically, recalling great Eastern texts. Reminiscent in spirit and watershed import of Ram Dass's Be Here Now, Wilber may well have created a popular classic for explorers on the frontiers of humanity."—Publishers Weekly

"[Wilber's] heady multidimensional approach is deciphered in this spiffy full-color paperback filled with pop culture graphics, tables, and charts. If you are interested in consciousness, complexity, maps, multiple intelligences, and more, here is a comprehensive philosophy that puts it all together."—Spirituality and Health

About the Author
Ken Wilber is the author of over twenty books. He is the founder of Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying integral theory and practice, with outreach through local and online communities such as Integral Naked, Integral Education Network, Integral Training, and Integral Spiritual Center.

Customer Reviews

A clear and simple introduction
This is a fantastic introduction to Integral Theory. The design of the book is such that those with no background in Integral Theory can grasp the essence of the theory and it's applications.
An informative, graphically funky, pocket sized book that may well change the way you look at the world.

Flawed but useful intro to Wilber
Ken Wilber is a genius at synthesizing vast amounts of knowledge and human experience and thought and pulling them together into a single, coherent system. Everyone should know his work. The problem is, he sucks at trying to talk about it to normal people. Every time I read one of these attempts, I have to cringe as I imagine "wilber virgins" reading it. His most successful attempt so far I would have to say is "The Marriage of Sense and Soul", which doesn't go as far as this book (it's a much older work) but is MUCH easier to digest.

In this book Wilber tries so hard to be accessible he seems to be forcing a mickey mouse face on top of a buckminster fuller dome. I would steer people who want an "introduction" to Wilber away from this book and toward "A Theory Of Everything". Or do some pushups and take on Sex Ecology Spirituality if you've got the guts (I haven't yet). The thing is... given what Wilber has managed to do -- which is enormous and ground breaking in its scale and depth -- one can hardly expect him to re-learn how to talk to normal everyday idiots. But in my opinion, this book is damaged by its author's voice, which veers unevenly between being cute (ie. accessible) cursory (giving a shallow version of his ideas) and confusing (leaping into the deep end). The 'stoned kid with photoshop' graphics are mostly gratuitous and are there to break up text rather than add a layer of meaning or illustrate anything. The net effect is to preach to converts and not reach a new public, which was obviously his intent. I also think the structure of this book is flawed, getting too "spiritual/new age" too early. You have to start from what people can accept easily and build slowly from there, and he fails to do this, leaping too soon into material only a full fledged, bead wearing, incense burning, mantra chanting eco-putz would appreciate.

Sounds True put out a nice box set of disks of Wilber interviews that is a great way to familiarize yourself with Wilber, although it would help a lot if you read "Theory of Everything" at the same time. It's called Kosmic Consciousness. Also log on to youtube and search his name, there's lots of stuff there. You can also go to his site "integralnaked.com" but it suffers from a lot of the same myopia as this book, ie. annoying to the outsider. I mean come on. Couldn't they call it something other than Naked? I don't need to see Ken naked, thank you very much.

needs more images of levels
This book is a good intro for people not into really working too hard at reading up. It is a good overview but needs more images of all the levels. This aspect is sorely lacking.