Who is Ken Wilber?

“The twenty-first century literally has three choices: Aristotle, Nietzsche, or Ken Wilber.”
– Jack Crittenden Ph.D., Author of Beyond Individualism

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About Ken

Ken Wilber, a visionary thinker of inspired genius, is the developer of an integral “theory of everything” that embraces the truths of all the world’s great spiritual, scientific, and philosophical traditions. He is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages. Ken Wilber currently lives in Denver, Colorado, and is still active as a philosopher, author, and teacher, with all of his major publications still in print.

Often referred to as the"Einstein of consciousness studies", Ken Wilber is a preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development.

Ken Wilber is also the founder of the Integral Institute, which is the first organization fully dedicated to advancement and application of the Integral Approach in relation to contemporary global issues. It was formed in collaboration with over 200 scholars and experts, specializing in education, politics, business, medicine, psychology, spirituality, as well as, law and criminal justice.

In 2007 Wilber co-founded Integral Life, a social media-hub dedicated to sharing the integral vision with the world wide community, as well as documenting and catalyzing the progress of the integral movement.

Unique Footage: Watch Ken Wilber's Reading Of Grace and Grit

In this unforgettable 2.5-hour video, Ken Wilber reads select passages from his book Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber. This was the very first time that he has talked in-depth about her death in public since she passed away in 1989.

We will also send you the only email series in the world introducing you to Ken's remarkable life and legacy.

Watch Ken Wilber's Biography Series

Featuring over 14 hours of stunning high-definition video, this collection is your very best chance to get to know the life and work of Ken Wilber. Experience Ken like you never have before as he shares intimate details about his childhood, his college years, and his personal and spiritual life.

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Ken's Integral Theory

Ken is the originator of the world's first truly comprehensive or integrative philosophy, aptly named “Integral Theory”. As Wilber himself puts it: “I'd like to think of it as one of the first believable world philosophies” — something that is becoming increasingly necessary in order to navigate and thrive in today’s world.

Incorporating cultural studies, anthropology, systems theory, developmental psychology, biology, and spirituality, Integral Theory has been applied in fields as diverse as ecology, sustainability, psychotherapy, psychiatry, education, business, medicine, politics, sports, and art.

Wilber explains the need for an Integral Approach in the following way: in our current post-modern world, we possess an abundance of methodologies and practices belonging to a multitude of fields and knowledge traditions. What is utterly lacking however, is a coherent organization, and coordination of all these various practices, as well as their respective data-sets. What is needed is an approach that moves beyond this indiscriminate eclectic-pluralism, to an “Integral Methodological Pluralism” — driving toward a genuine “theory of everything” that helps to enrich and deepen every field through an understanding of exactly how and where each one fits in relation to all the others.

In short, the Integral Approach is the coherent organization, coordination, and harmonization of all of the relevant practices, methodologies, and experiences available to human beings. Through the Integral approach, we reveal the previously unseen possibilities for a better, more compassionate, and more sustainable future for all of us.

What is the Integral Approach?

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Free Email Course: Build Your Integral Life

We created 24 free lessons that can help you learn the Integrative Mindset needed to thrive in the rapidly-evolving world of the 21st century. Enter your email to start the course:

“I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.”

– Ken Wilber

Welcome to The Ken Show

In Zen Buddhism, the word kensho describes a sudden glimpse or insight into the nature of reality. At Integral Life, the “Ken Show” intends to offer you a very similar opportunity.

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Transforming Self, Society, and the Spaces Between Us

Transforming Self, Society, and the Spaces Between Us

In this enlightening episode of The Ken Show, hosts Ken Wilber and Corey deVos embark on a profound journey through the multifaceted realms of systems theory, communication, and social evolution. They dissect the nuanced perspectives of "inside" and "outside" views in systems, delve into the transformative power of communication paradigms throughout history, and critically examine the influence of social media on the overall emergence of integral consciousness.
Putting the “Art” in Artificial Intelligence

Putting the “Art” in Artificial Intelligence

What is art, at its most fundamental level? This is one of those perennial questions that we have been asking and re-asking at every stage of the human journey, from the first cave drawings all the way to the emergence of sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms like MidJourney that are once again blurring the lines between art, beauty, and perspective and forcing us to find new ways to answer this timeless question. Watch as Ken and Corey take a fun and fascinating look at the intersection between art, semiotics, and technology.
The Momentous Leap to Integral Consciousness

The Momentous Leap to Integral Consciousness

Ken Wilber and Corey deVos explore some of the unique challenges that come with the transition to Integral stages of development — “the momentous leap” as it is often called. Watch as Ken and Corey try to bring a little bit more light to this particular path of transformation, and maybe leave a few signposts for fellow travelers along the way.
No Boundary: Ken Wilber Goes Back to High School

No Boundary: Ken Wilber Goes Back to High School

Ken speaks with high school students to discuss his 1979 classic, No Boundary. What follows is a lively and deeply insightful exploration of integral spirituality, Ken’s personal practice, and the path of awakening that leads us to nondual realization.
In Pursuit of Wholeness: Making Room for Everything

In Pursuit of Wholeness: Making Room for Everything

This notion of holons — the idea that the universe is fundamentally made of whole/parts within whole/parts within whole/parts, turtles all the way up and turtles all the way down — this isn’t just important in a theoretical or philosophical sense. Understanding holons also helps us make better sense of the world that we live in, and our inner worlds as well. And it helps guide our own growing up, waking up, and cleaning up process.
Integral Critical Theory: The 8 Zones of Racism

Integral Critical Theory: The 8 Zones of Racism

Ken and Corey continue their discussion of the 8 critical zones of integral metatheory, and apply them to the ongoing cultural conversation taking place around race, racism, and other kinds of bigotry that we continue to see in the world. This discussion is a great opportunity to not only learn more about these 8 primordial perspectives that are available to us, but also to see how they can be applied to social and cultural challenges and “wicked problems” such as these.
From the Big Bang to the Eight Primordial Perspectives

From the Big Bang to the Eight Primordial Perspectives

Ken Wilber offers a stunning introduction to the major components of Integral theory and practice — a guided tour that takes us from the very first forms to emerge in the universe, all the way to the eight primordial perspectives that all of our knowledge is constructed from.
Integrating Power

Integrating Power

Ken and Corey take an in-depth look at the multiple kinds of power we find in all four quadrants — interior and exterior power, individual and collective power — as they are expressed up and down the spiral of development.
The Science of Subtle Energy

The Science of Subtle Energy

In this episode of The Ken Show we take a look at Ken's "Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energy”, which offers an elegant summary of how these energies might be accounted for by integral metatheory and integrated with our scientific understanding of the universe.

Ken Wilber's Books & Essays

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages. You can find a full list here.

Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995)

A Theory Of Everything (2000)

No Boundary (1979)

Revolutionary Social Transformation

Revolutionary Social Transformation

This never-before published essay by Ken Wilber delves into the intricate dynamics of societal evolution, emphasizing the interplay between technological advancements, cultural worldviews, and governance systems.
Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energy

Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energy

Common to many traditions is the idea that, in addition to a spectrum of consciousness, there is also a spectrum of gross, to subtle, to causal forms of mass-energy. But what exactly is subtle energy? How does it work, where does it come from, and how does it fit into our scientific understanding of the physical universe? This excerpt suggests a coherent and comprehensive theory of the many approaches to subtle energies, their origin, their nature, and their development.
An Integral Age at the Leading Edge

An Integral Age at the Leading Edge

This is the excerpt that started it all — an extraordinary 200-page introduction to Ken Wilber’s updated integral map, kicking off a stunning new evolution in his meta-theoretical work (often refered to as his “post-metaphysical” or “Wilber V” phase). Excerpted from the still-unpublished followup to Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, in this free ebook you will be introduced to some of the key ideas that emerged from this new phase of integral thinking.
Who Ate Captain Cook? Integral Historiography  in a Postmodern Age

Who Ate Captain Cook? Integral Historiography in a Postmodern Age

In this fascinating sidebar to Ken Wilber's book Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free, Ken offers a summary of integral historiography, revealing a far more comprehensive way to integrate multiple schools of historiography and to deepen our enactment of both the facts and most salient interpretations of the historical record.
Integral Politics: Its Essential Ingredients

Integral Politics: Its Essential Ingredients

Ken Wilber offers a summary of his integral political model, exploring the “major and minor scales” that inform and influence our major political orientations while suggesting a revolutionary path toward a far more integrated approach to politics and governance.
The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center

The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center

Ken Wilber explores the many sorts of reactions people had to the tragedy of 9/11, and offers a theoretical framework within which a genuinely Integral approach to politics and governance might emerge.

Get Full Access to Integral Life Deep Dive Library

This library is a collection of eBooks and essays that help you better understand the biggest, most complex issues of the 21st century.

The collection includes Integral Politics, Who Ate Captain Cook, The Many Ways We Touch by Ken Wilber, The Great Release by Robb Smith, and a dozen more books.

Full Spectrum Mindfulness

Ken Wilber's flagship teaching, Full Spectrum Mindfulness is a groundbreaking new web course that combines Western approaches to Growing Up with Eastern methods of Waking Up, giving you what you need to dramatically deepen your awareness and skill by awakening the eight major levels of evolution alive in you right now.

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Tribute to Ken Wilber

Watch as we honor Ken’s extraordinary life and legacy, paying tribute to all the incredible work Ken has done over the decades to put so many pieces of our human puzzle together into a radically new vision of life, the universe, and everything. Includes appearances by Alex Grey, Lana Wachowski, Tony Robbins, Kermit the Frog, and many others.

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Ken Wilber's Archive

Five Reasons You’re Not Enlightened (And Five Ways to See That You Always Already Are!)

Five Reasons You’re Not Enlightened (And Five Ways to See That You Always Already Are!)

Here we explore five simple shifts of perspective to help you recognize your own already-enlightened condition, right here and right now — five different interpretations of nondual consciousness at the heart of some of history's greatest spiritual traditions.
From the Big Bang to the Big Three: The Evolution of the 3 Faces of Spirit

From the Big Bang to the Big Three: The Evolution of the 3 Faces of Spirit

Ken Wilber takes us on a blistering guided tour through the evolution of the universe, describing how each of the "three faces of Spirit" has evolved from the Big Bang to this present moment.
A Brief History of Integral: The Story So Far

A Brief History of Integral: The Story So Far

Ken Wilber chronicles the emergence of integral consciousness and culture in recent decades. Ken describes this emergence as the latest in a historic series of transformations stretching all the way back to the birth of humanity, bringing humanity through several distinct stages of consciousness — namely archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, and integral stages.
From Stardust to Supermind

From Stardust to Supermind

Ken Wilber offers a substantive and far-reaching Q&A with some of his students — some of the "best and most difficult questions" that he'd received in quite a long time.
The Spectrum of Political Thought

The Spectrum of Political Thought

More than ever, the world is in need of a new political vision — one that fully honors the brilliant multi-perspectival mechanics of modern democracy, allowing various forms of political thought to inform and influence our decision making, while avoiding the paralysis of ideological gridlock that has become the new norm for American governance.
Taking the Long View: Immortality and the Technological Singularity

Taking the Long View: Immortality and the Technological Singularity

Anti-aging and longevity research reports, in addition to predicting lifespans beyond 200 years within just a few decades, also report no theoretical reasons preventing extensions into the thousands of years a few decades after that. What if you lived for another few hundred or thousand years? Would you bear witness to the end of disease, the coming of an integral age, the creation trans-human cyborgs, the end of poverty, the enlightenment of the planet — or maybe even flying cars...?
Tipping Points and the Eye of Contemplation

Tipping Points and the Eye of Contemplation

Ken Wilber explores the profound changes that occur when a newly-evolved set of visions, views, and values reaches a cultural tipping point and begin to saturate the rest of society. He then turns his attention to the question of how we come to know Spirit, and how that 'knowing' differs from other forms of knowledge.
The Economics of Being Integral

The Economics of Being Integral

The economics of being integral is a good news and bad news situation. Even possessing an interest in this work seems to correlate with development that's moving toward increasingly integral waves awareness, resulting in the capacity to see more, feel more, care more, and love more — a capacity for an awareness that is simply greater and more encompassing.
Death, Rebirth, and Meditation

Death, Rebirth, and Meditation

Some type of reincarnation doctrine is found in virtually every mystical religious tradition the world over. Even Christianity accepted it until around the fourth century CE, when, for largely political reasons, it was made anathema. Many Christian mystics today now accept the idea. As the Christian theologian John Hick pointed out in his important work Death and Eternal Life, the consensus of the world religions, including Christianity, is that some sort of reincarnation occurs.
The Integralist’s Guide to Understanding Art

The Integralist’s Guide to Understanding Art

How should we go about finding meaning in art? Should we ask the artist herself, or is everything we need to understand a piece of art already contained in the artwork itself? Does meaning exist only in the observer, thereby varying from viewer to viewer? Or is the meaning of art determined by the circumstances surrounding the artist? Listen as Ken Wilber describes each of these major schools of interpretation, how they originated, and how they all fit together into a more cohesive vision of art and aesthetics.
The Shadow Vignettes: A Tale of Reintegration in Six Parts

The Shadow Vignettes: A Tale of Reintegration in Six Parts

Ken Wilber offers what's got to be one of his most hilarious teachings to date. His focus is on shadow, but this time he adopts a more practice-oriented perspective, offering examples of shadow at each of six levels of development—featuring conversations with a stripper, a monster, a man burning in eternal flame, a radiant being, an oil tanker, and Gaia. As for what these conversations entail, you'll just have to experience them yourself....
The Feeling of Eros

The Feeling of Eros

Ken Wilber offers a 30 minute guided process that will put you in direct touch with Eros — and in so doing, you'll likely encounter the simple mistake of ascribing it source to some object outside yourself. By relaxing the contraction around your heart, you'll experience an unbounded expansion of care, in a simple moment of non-seeking presence.
Why God Needs Your Spiritual Intelligence

Why God Needs Your Spiritual Intelligence

Ken Wilber outlines two required steps for bringing religion and spirituality into greater accord. He's guided by a vision of a fully functional and healthy religion—one which institutionalizes a care and concern for spiritual intelligence that grows in two directions: waking-up and growing-up.
The Seeker’s Guide to Self-Deception

The Seeker’s Guide to Self-Deception

Ken Wilber discusses the many kinds of self, the nature of identity and enlightenment, and the spectrum of deceit that keeps us from knowing who we really are.
Perls of Wisdom: Introflection, Retroflection, and Other Games People Play

Perls of Wisdom: Introflection, Retroflection, and Other Games People Play

Ken Wilber offers insight into the high-level features of two major therapeutic approaches, the role that a defense called "retroflection" plays in the process of projection, and some of the ways in which we can objectify the role-based psychological games we play while interacting with each other.
Avatar: The Many Levels of Pandora

Avatar: The Many Levels of Pandora

Ken Wilber is the Olo'eyktan of the AQ'AL clan. He is the teller of many tales, all of which can be accessed at your local Tree of Souls. Here he offers a long-awaited review of James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster, Avatar! (Warning: spoilers...!)
Love and Evolution

Love and Evolution

In order to uncover love's future, we need to explore love's past. So Ken Wilber looks all the way back to the Big Bang, retracing love's role throughout the history of evolution. Rather than just a mere human emotion, love is cast as a central driving force in the Kosmos—the force of Eros itself, pushing all of us along our inevitable return to Spirit.
Divine Pride and the Integral Movement

Divine Pride and the Integral Movement

"Divine Pride" is a simple recognition of our holy heritage, and an acknowledgement of the tremendous responsibility that comes along with this recognition. This is not the braggadocio of a new age narcissist — it is a pride stripped of all arrogance, tempered by humility, and held with unwavering devotion to an intelligence infinitely greater than our own.
Full Enlightenment — Now What?

Full Enlightenment — Now What?

In Zen Buddhism, the Ten Ox Herding Pictures is a series of short poems and images intended to illustrate the various stages of enlightenment. The very last image of the series is often called the "return to the marketplace," as it represents the final stage of enlightened living when the individual returns society with open hands and an open heart, seeking to spread the clarity of ever-present consciousness with as much of the world as possible.
Religulous: The Baby and the Bathwater

Religulous: The Baby and the Bathwater

When we face religious fundamentalism with scientific fundamentalism and dismiss religion altogether, we are also dismissing history's greatest source of liberation, compassion, and transcendence — the powerfully transformative practices and interpretations of spiritual reality that form the esoteric core of all the world's religious traditions, East and West. Listen as Ken Wilber explores what Bill Maher (and the rest of the "New Atheist" crowd) are missing in this otherwise provocative and entertaining film.
States, Stages, and the Three Kinds of Self

States, Stages, and the Three Kinds of Self

Ken Wilber discusses the three kinds of self: the False Self (the broken or illusory self image), the Actual Self (the "authentic" or healthily-integrated self at any particular stage of development), and the Real Self (the timeless Self behind and beyond all manifestation).
The Dangers of “One Person, One Vote”

The Dangers of “One Person, One Vote”

Democracy is inherently a world-centric system of governance, and "one person, one vote" an ideal way to enact the democratic process. But if the majority of the voters have not themselves achieved a world-centric level of consciousness, it begins to fall apart pretty quickly.
Lucid Dreaming and the Causal Body

Lucid Dreaming and the Causal Body

Here a seminar participant describes a recent state experience he had, in which he was suspended in the empty, limitless release of the [glossary_parse]causal body[/glossary_parse], and watched his own thoughts and intentions crystallize right before his eyes. The tone of the experience was somewhat similar to lucid dreaming, during which we can actually witness ourselves manifesting our dreamscape in the moment, so he asks Ken whether there is any relationship between these sorts of experiences as they manifest in the causal body and in the subtle body.
Video Games and the Future of Interactive Entertainment

Video Games and the Future of Interactive Entertainment

Ken Wilber and Moses Silbiger discuss the artistic, educational, and transformational potential within the medium of video games, and how they can act as "trojan horses" of human development.
Integral Trans-Partisan Politics

Integral Trans-Partisan Politics

We do not live in two Americas, but in a single America composed of at least four or five different sets of values, all crammed together into a two-party political system that is becoming increasingly incapable of representing these wildly different perspectives. Many are beginning to recognize this systemic inadequacy and are searching for a genuinely integrative “Third Way” politics.
The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications

The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications

Gaspar Segafredo, the Editor-in-Chief of Argentinean cultural magazine Myriades 1, interviews Ken Wilber on the origins of the Integral approach, how it applies to important real life issues, the dangers of post-modernity, and the mechanics of growth and development.
The Key to Integral Sustainability

The Key to Integral Sustainability

Integral philosopher Ken Wilber discusses some of the obstacles the world faces in bringing any sort of real change to our current ecological crisis.
Integral Education Reform

Integral Education Reform

To begin the dialogue on how to create healthy, wise human beings capable of development, we need a map of that child's potential. The AQAL model is just such a map. It is a comprehensive index of all the things that can go well or poorly in child development. Yet many challenges lie ahead. In this video, Ken Wilber, discusses those challenges. If you work in the field of education, or are merely interested in it, Ken can help you understand what you're up against.
To the Best of Our Knowledge: Science, Spirituality, and the Future of Technology

To the Best of Our Knowledge: Science, Spirituality, and the Future of Technology

In his first interview for NPR in over 20 years, Ken Wilber offers one of the finest, most sweeping introductions to his work he has ever recorded, presenting a profound new way to integrate science, spirituality, and technology — along with every other facet of the single ever-expanding gem of human knowledge.
Does Quantum Physics Prove God?

Does Quantum Physics Prove God?

This conversation sheds clarity on a very confused notion in the area of spirituality today—namely, the "tao of physics" and all its variations, as exemplified by the recent film What the Bleep. So what relationship, if any, does God actually have with quantum physics?
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