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Chapter 4 - States and Stages
Contributor: Ken Wilber 
Accounting for both states and stages of consciousness provides us with an extraordinarily precise view of human development. Such a view incorporates both the ancient human practice of developing through deepening states of consciousness, and the insights of modern psychology, which points out the types of contexts through which humans understand their experiences.
Accounting for both states and stages of consciousness provides us with an extraordinarily precise view of human development. Such a view incorporates both the ancient human practice of developing through deepening states of consciousness, and the insights of modern psychology, which points out the types of contexts through which humans understand their experiences.
States of consciousness have been with us for the whole of human history. Every human, every night, journeys from the gross, waking state, to the subtle, dream state, to the causal, deep sleep state. For millennia, the religious traditions have sought to push wakefulness into these deepening states. They are often first experienced as a peak state; later, with practice, these deepening states can be stably experienced, so that one’s very sense of identity shifts from ego (gross) to soul (subtle) to Self (causal) to suchness (nondual, or the union of all states).
By contract, stages of consciousness first became clearly visible through the contributions of the modern West. The German Idealists were the first to begin to see stages clearly, starting with Immanuel Kant’s elucidation of a priori (knowledge which is based not experience but on the forms of all experience) structures, followed by Hegel’s reasoning that these structures must evolve, and Fichte’s call for a genealogy of consciousness. James Mark Baldwin was the first to provide such a genealogy, and the many developmental models we have today can be traced back to his initial breakthrough.
It is important to understand that humans journey through states and stages of consciousness in a relatively independent manner. The Wilber-Combs Lattice illustrates this dynamic, which becomes apparent from an Integral altitude. Individuals necessarily interpret any state experience from the stage of consciousness they are at. One is never outside one’s context; no matter what sort of experience one has, their altitude is the lens through which they will understand the experience.
The exact form of the W-C Lattice will depend on the stage conception we make use of and the number of states we allow for. For example, if we use Jean Gebser’s worldviews (archaic/magic/mythic/rational/pluralistic/integral) and allow for four states of consciousness (gross/subtle/causal/nondual), it becomes apparent that there are 24 distinct types of spiritual experiences. In other words, four broad categories of spiritual experience can be interpreted from six different worldviews.
The W-C Lattice illustrates not only the types of spiritual experience that humans can have; it is also a map of the human journey. Every human starts at “square 1”; stabilized in the gross, waking state, holding an archaic worldview. As they develop, they inhabit increasingly high levels of development (magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral) and stabilize increasingly high states of consciousness (subtle/causal/nondual). Thus, the W-C Lattice can helps us to see both the contexts in which we have our experiences, and our life’s journey, which leads us to fullness and freedom--through a deepening of both our context (stages) and experience (states).
Ken introduces the extraordinary concept of structure-stages and state-stages. The world's religious traditions have for milennia ushered us through deepening states of consciousness, but these states are ever interpreted from a stage....
As both a student and a teacher of meditation, Meg Salter asks Ken about ways of languaging stages of spiritual development in orange, green, and post-green terms, so as to skilfully learn and teach the practice.
Pelle Billing poses a number of questions about states. How long can a state last? Does the attainment of a state allow access to skills normally associated with a higher stage, or simply the use of skills associated with the present stage, in a more inspired manner? Can one achieve a new stage, then regress to a previous stage in times of stress?
Tim Melody poses a question about peak and plateau state experiences. Specifically, can a state occur that is associated only with a particular line of development?
Martin Linde asks about the "Darth Vadar move," by which one of an exceptionally high level of development uses that level for purposes deemed to be "wrong." Has there ever been a case of one who has stabilized the nondual state-stage, then used that realization for a clearly wrong end? If so, what would be the cause, and what would be the cure?
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