One of the coolest things about Wilber is his commitment to making sense of a situation, allowing his intuition, unconscious processes and gut instincts to work on a problem and eventually bring forth a creative response. Think of the twenty-three year old kid trying to synthesize western psychology and eastern spirituality in Spectrum of Consciousness. Or the Big Bald Guy sequestered in a room for three years, with charts and maps all over the floor, wondering how they all fit together (Sex, Ecology, Spirituality). This is what made him a hero of mine, and to this day his words are often infused with a sense of wonder, mystery and power that inspire me to grab life by the balls. We all probably have experienced the difference between a connected, embodied, integrated type of thinking and writing, and the more strained, contracted, neurotic attempts to patch up any sense of uncertainty, paradox or contradiction with a slick veneer of conceptual gimmickry. “Evidence” and the methods of science can be twisted to fit any agenda, consciously or unconsciously. We have all seen logic and reason co-opted by pathological currents in individuals and societies. All this is to say, if the centaur stage and beyond is to be characterized as “mind and body are both experiences of an integrated self,” then our “second tier” insights ought to invoke a feeling in us, a sense of something greater than ourselves, they should stir us in our depths, arouse our intuitive faculties. Wilber, at his best, does just this (for me, anyway). Where the theory leaves me cold — that’s where I do my digging.
I love the way Alan Watts used to handle criticism. Instead of taking up arms or further convoluting the situation, he would just laugh and say, “You mustn’t take what I say that seriously. I always exaggerate — for effect. I’m not so much making an argument as trying to invoke and inspire a sense of wonder, a state of consciousness.” I often wish Wilber would loosen up a little, hold his theories with a lighter touch. But then again, he’s already given us all quite a gift. It’s up to each of us to find our own authentic voice.