A Brief History of Everything (Taschenbuch)

Not only does the book give an excellent structure where all sorts of wisdom and knowledge may live side by side in a friendly manner, but on the personal level it helped me at least intellectually to unify various aspects of myself and my life.

Lately I have read large amounts of buddhist texts, new as well as traditional. This book takes a wider perspective and helps me relate my spiritual understanding and experiences in framework where it can co-exist with everything else I know about biology, physics, psychology, etc.

I recommend this book to everyone with an open mind that has the capacity to understand and grasp the subject and has any interest in science, psychology, philosophy, religion, history, feminism, biology.

I have already one other book by Wilber in my book stack, and I'm sure I will at least buy and read a few more before I move on.

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Critique: Wilber sounds more like a preacher or a sage than a fellow seeker of the truth. He sees the scientific method as reductionism, and has a quarrel with the concept that logic (or philosophy) can explain everything. All this while he makes extensive use of logic and science where it fits his argument.

His theory of everything boils down to a somewhat unique blend of mysticism, or spirituality, and reasoning, through which he attempts to convey his holistic and all-encompassing view of God, Creation, and how Man fits in that picture. He rejects the Christian belief of a one-and-only God, consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Instead, he is happy to include all of the above, as well as Buddha, Dharma & Shranga, and who else you want to include as part of the same holistic view, culminating in the eastern belief that Man is part of the Kosmos, which is part of God. (Emptiness = Creation & One = All.)

In particular he finds fault with the "flatland" view of the new science, or Systems Theory, based on the recent discoveries regarding chaos and complexity, and how interrelated systems behave in an unpredictable environment. In his mind, these web-of-life theories differs from his interpretation in that it does not account for the concepts of absolute meaning, beauty, virtue and value. But, perhaps because they could be perceived as are rather closely related to his holistic view, they draw considerable criticism from him ( page 129).

In total, he expects (a-la Lobsang Rampa, "The Third Eye") the reader to throw out his preconceived ideas about the relevance of science and religion, without absolute proof, and without supernatural revelation, in exchange for another mother-of-all theory.

The well trained scientist will classify Wilber's ideas in kind with perpetual motion. The sincere Christian will consider him dangerous, in his ability to distort the truth. The average individual might have a harder time to separate fact from fiction.

On a positive note - Wilber does attempt to address some serious deficiencies in our view of reality. In some of his attempts he can even be described as brilliant, though his ability to synthesize meaning from cutting edge issues.

The problem is - its just another theory. And by diverting his considerable talent into the realms of mysticism, without the tools of science and logic he forgoes the opportunity to use his talents in furthering real understanding. He might have done better if he had finished his studies at university.

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Strengths

1.The author's audacity in pursuing of what he calls "integral studies". In our fragmented world of clashing Weltanschauungen Wilber tirelessly searches for a unitary vision, the "marriage of East and West". More-he tries to accomplish the task fathering an entirely new linguistic coordinate system, dispensing with ( and, simultaneously, assimilating ) older, culturally/religiously conditioned vocabulary in an attempt of the comparativist synthesis. A laudable endeavor. 2.His critique of Jungian/Depth psychology and its central tenets, with archetypes being frequently misinterpreted as Platonic ideas/forms and the Collective Unconscious mixed up with Supramental states of, say, Sri Aurobindo's description of Reality. Washburn's criticism of Wilber's supposed misreading of the role of archetypes, in my opinion, doesn't hold water. 3.Wilber's penetrating and frequently funny dissection of contemporary pop-spirituality & other New Age fads ( pathetic Gaia cults which are nothing more than Rousseau in feminist clothing rehashed for the late 20.th century spiritual cosmetics, irrational & dogmatic idolizing of the imagined paradisiacal life in foraging cultures,..)

Weaknesses

1.With all due respect, Wilber is quite innocent re science, especially physics. His references ( for instance, on Pythagoras' theorem, but also his musings on Quantum Mechanics in other books ) could only put off a professional physicist or a mathematician as an amateurish dabblings of a presumptuous ignoramus ( the contempt Gauss had harbored for Hegel's philosophizing of mathematics springs to mind immediately ). 2.Wilber's central worldview is the non-dualist vision of Reality ( essentially, it is Ch'an/Zen, Tibetan Mahamudra or Trika Shaivism refurbished ), combined with Hegel's evolving Spirit. Yet, the two are hardly reconcilable. You either got: a) the manifest Reality as Illusion ( Advaita Vedanta, Zen,..) which doesn't warrant "perfection" or "evolution". The world just *is*, without any mythological, let alone rational, explanation or answer to the Leibniz's ultimate question " Why is there anything, instead of nothing ?" b) the manifest Reality as actualization of potential, "hidden" state of the Absolute, radiating/emanating into evolving & ever perfecting forms ( a tad optimistic view on evolution ). In sum, the manifest ( in various levels of manifestation ) Kosmos serves the purpose of enriching & "glorifying" the omnipresent Spirit ( Erigena, Hegel, also Meher Baba in his wilder speculations ). An important subvariant ( Rumi, Neotheosophy ) claims that not only Spirit evolves, but essential human souls ( ruh, pneuma, jivatman ) who are the chief protagonists of "evolutionary enterprise".) Therefore, I would say that marriage of Shankara's Advaita and Hegel's objective idealism is doomed from the outset. 3.All this inflated verbal jazz is not the substitute for genuine originality. I haven't found true creative spirit & seminal ideas, just the old wine in new ( bells and whistles ) bottles. 4.The last verdict: Wilber's predisposition for non-dual visions of Reality in the vein of Advaita Vedanta or Zen blinds him to the richness and profundity of, also "spiritual", but more nuanced and "diversified" doctrines a la Hermetic, Rosicrucian, Lurianic Kabbalistic or more "digestable" contemporary revelations like Seth or truly radical & practical, but lucid and all-encompassing transpersonal psychologies like Assagioli's psychosynthesis. Marriage of East & West turned out to be no more than a dissemination of distilled & modernized corpus of intelectually elitist, but esentially marginal non-dual spiritual doctrines of East and Southeast Asia.

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