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Integral Spirituality
A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World
Ken Wilber
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Integral Spirituality
A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World
A Note to the Reader
Introduction
Chapter 1. Integral Methodological Pluralism
Chapter 2. Stages of Consciousness
Chapter 3. States of Consciousness
Chapter 4. States and Stages
Chapter 5. Boomeritis Buddhism
Chapter 6. The Shadow and the Disowned Self
Chapter 7. A Miracle Called “We”
Chapter 8. The World of the Terribly Obvious
Chapter 9. The Conveyor Belt
Chapter 10. Integral Life Practice
Appendix I. From the Great Chain of Being to Postmodernism in 3 Easy Steps
Appendix II. Integral Post-Metaphysics
Appendix III. The Myth of the Given Lives On….
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A Note to the Reader
In the past two decades, a radically new theoretical Framework for organizing the world
and activities in it has started to achieve prominence and widespread recognition. Known as the
Integral Approach, it has been used in everything from business to medicine, psychology to law,
politics to sustainability, art to education. Because the Integral Framework claims to be
comprehensive or inclusive, each discipline using it has been able to reorganize itself in more
comprehensive, effective, efficient, and inclusive ways. The Integral Approach itself does not
add any content to these disciplines, it simply shows them the areas of their own approaches that
are less than integral or less than comprehensive, and this acts as a guide for reorganizing the
disciplines in ways that are proving to be, in some cases, nothing less than revolutionary.
What if the Integral Approach were applied to spirituality ? That is the topic of this
book.
The very nature of this topic is so serious, so somber, and the ramifications so
monumental in reach and scope, that I didn’t want the tone of this book itself to suffocate in
seriousness. I therefore chose a tenor that in some cases might appear to have gone too far in the
other direction, toward lightness and even frivolity. But I think this is the only way to proceed
with a topic that involves nothing less than ultimate concern about issues such as God and spirit,
redemption and release, sin and salvation, illusion and waking up. Lightness of touch is the wiser
tone, and luminosity a grace.
One of the main difficulties in presenting the Integral Approach is that you have to
explain it before you can apply it. So I have included, as a type of Prologue or Prelude, a 40-page
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overview called “Introduction: The Integral Approach.” Those of you familiar with the Integral
Approach can of course skim through this or skip it altogether.
After the Integral Approach is briefly introduced and explained, it is applied to
spirituality. I won’t give a summary of the conclusions this book reaches, but simply point out
that it addresses perhaps 4 or 5 of the most pressing issues facing spirituality—such as applying
spirituality in everyday life, proof of Spirit’s existence, stages of spiritual development, the role
of meditation or contemplation, Eastern and Western approaches to religion—and their relation to
currents in the modern and postmodern world. The result is what amounts to a manifesto for an
Integral Spirituality.
I do believe that an integral approach to spirituality discovers a role for religion in the
modern and postmodern world that has been overlooked entirely, and this radically new role for
religion not only works, it holds a very real type of salvation for humanity on the whole. Exactly
what this role is will be explained as the discussion unfolds.
There are several footnotes in the book, and, for those who would like to go into these
issues in more depth, on the kenwilber.com and Shambhala.com websites, you will find hundreds
of pages of endnotes. Throughout this book you will also notice mention of “Excerpts A-G.”
These are excerpts from volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy (vol. 1 of which was Sex, Ecology,
Spirituality ). These excerpts are also posted on the kenwilber.com and Shambhala.com sites.
In the following pages, when writing about the Integral Approach, I often use the
pronoun “we” instead of “I.” This “we” refers to the colleagues at Integral Institute, and I use
“we” in describing this work because it really is a joint effort of hundreds of individuals who are
immediately involved as staff at Integral Institute (and tens of thousands who are members of I-I),
dedicated to bringing a more integral approach to all walks of life. Several times throughout this
book you will be invited to join us ( www.integralinstitute.org ) if you would like to help with this
extraordinary adventure.
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It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new man, it’s a new woman. The new human is
integral, and so is the spirituality.
K. W.
Denver, Colorado
Fall, 2005

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