Blog — May, 2005

Oh, and all of Stripping the Gurus is now available online in HTML. Hadn't I mentioned that?

Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drug Viagra (more).

And I had thought it was only masturbating that was supposed to make you go blind!

There's just no happy medium, is there?

You have misunderstood what pedophilia is, both in its colloquial and its professional definitions.

First:

A good definition for pedophilia is as follows: "The use of a minor for sexual gratification by an adult. Sexual conduct between adult females and non-adult males is known to occur, but persons convicted of the crime of pedophilia are, with few exceptions, males. They constitute a third of all institutionalized sex criminals, one of the largest classifications. Approximately two-thirds of the victims of pedophilic acts are prepubescent and adolescent girls in about equal numbers. The act itself is seldom more than fondling. Sexual intercourse is rarely attempted, and actual penetration occurs only in about 2 percent of known cases" (Florence Rush, The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children, 251).

In terms of the professional definition:

Pedophilia, which is a psychological disorder, is a distinct sexual preference for pre-pubescent children. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 111-R), which is published by the American Psychological Association, supplies this definition of pedophilia: "recurrent, intense, sexual urges and sexual arousing fantasies of at least six months duration involving sexual activity with a pre-pubescent child" (DSM, V.3, 1987). Generally, this means the target of the fantasy will typically be less than 12 years old. Notice the definition does not require the person to actually engage in a sexual act. Pedophilia is a psychological disorder that does not require, and usually does not involve, a criminal act. The pedophile might keep his desires a secret. He may never go public or share his fantasies with anyone.

Further, if you think about the recent question as to whether Pete Townshend is a pedophile, there has never been any accusation, as far as I am aware, of him actually molesting children. Rather, the question has simply been whether he was visiting the relevant child porn site for his own pleasure.

Both by the professional and the colloquial definitions, then, it is sufficient for a grown man to be attracted to boys in order to be a "homoerotic pedophile." That is, "pedophile" is in no way synonymous with "child molester." Thus, the text I have used for my book cover in no way "seems to deliberately imply" that Ramakrishna had sex with his disciples.

I am not a lawyer, but: Note how Michael Jackson is not on trial for alleged pedophilia, as that itself is not a crime. (Jackson "is charged with molesting" a boy, not with merely being a pedophile.) Indeed, even if he were to openly admit to being sexually attracted to young boys, that itself would obviously never wind him up in prison (though it could be used against him in other contexts). Conversely, though, unless you really, truly believe that The Gloved One has been hanging around with all those young boys (and sharing his bed with them, by his own admission) without even being attracted to them, no public trial was ever needed to come to at least a personal conclusion as to whether or not he's a pedophile.

Narasingha Sil and I do not believe that Ramakrishna engaged in any "hanky-panky" with his (even adult) disciples; Kripal thinks he did. Either way, it is a psychological reality that the idea of "consenting adults" is hardly applicable to relationships between father-figure gurus and their regressing disciples. The reasons for that are covered in detail in both the Gurus and Prisoners chapter and the After the Ordeal one, in STG.

It was Sil himself who referred to Ramakrishna's attraction to "young men" as being "muted pedophilia," as I've directly quoted in STG. And he obviously couldn't have disagreed too much with my use of his research, or he wouldn't have endorsed STG, right? So I am not "making anything up" beyond that.

With or without Sil's conclusions, though, since the guru-disciple relationship is in many ways effectively a psychological parent-child relationship, it could be argued that any sex there also has a pedophilic aspect, even if the "children" involved were all legally adults. Further, anyone who's suckling an adult is explicitly viewing/treating that adult as a child. If there's any sexual attraction at all from the "parent" to the "child" in such a context, there's no escaping the obvious psychological pedophilic component, even if the suckled one was of legal age. I don't know whether that's where Sil got the "muted pedophilia" idea from, but if so, he's absolutely right. 'Cause if one grown man (a "she-male," in Ramakrishna's case) is having another grown man (his junior) pretend to be an infant, so that the first of them can pretend to be the mother to the second, and literally suckle the second, all that's missing is for one or the other of them to write in to Dan Savage's Savage Love column, to confirm the sexuality of that.

Ramakrishna, by the way, was "one of the truly great saints of nineteenth-century India." Uh-huh.

And yes, it was Narenda, prior to taking monastic vows and becoming Vivekananda, who reluctantly visited the brothel in 1884. I have avoided using that name simply to avoid the confusion of two names for the same person, for the readers of STG. (I have followed exactly the same convention in every other chapter, as far as I can recall off the top of my head.) I have also explicitly stated there, only four paragraphs earlier, that it was in 1886 that he took monastic vows. So, anyone who wants to put two and two together can figure that order out without too much trouble.

So, of course, he's predictably wrong on every point. Yawn.

Oh, and in another insulting update, he informs me that my back-cover comments on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are "called advertising, not historical scholarship." Well, yes; no shit. The back cover of a book (or the front page at www.strippingthegurus.com) is advertising copy! D'uh!! ("Of course they brought forth juniper berries, they're juniper bushes." Jesus....)

Send in the (guru-admiring) clowns? They're already here....

Ooh, this is nice—Ken Wilber's defense of his misunderstandings of high-school-level evolution theory, from the Vomiting Confetti blog:

Folks, give me a break on this one. I have a Master's degree in biochemistry, and a Ph.D. minus thesis in biochemistry and biophysics, with specialization in the mechanism of the visual process. I did my thesis on the photoisomerization of rhodopsin in bovine rod outer segments. I know evolutionary theory inside out, including the works of Dawkins et al. The material of mine that is being quoted is extremely popularized and simplified material for a lay audience. Publicly, virtually all scientists subscribe to neo-Darwinian theory. Privately, real scientists—that is, those of us with graduate degrees in science who have professionally practiced it—don't believe hardly any of its crucial tenets. Instead of a religious preacher like Dawkins, start with something like Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. And then guess what? Neo-Darwinian theory can't explain shit. Deal with it.

The extensive problems with evolutionary theory as it now stands is exactly why 'creation science' has made huge inroads across the country, including standing up in court cases where scientific evidence is brought in on both sides. The problem is that creation scientists—who are almost entirely Christians—after having convincingly demonstrated that neo-Darwinian theory has loopholes large enough to drive several Hummers through—then try to prove that Jehovah is in one of the Hummers. But, of course, the fact that neo-Darwinian theory cannot explain the central aspects of evolution, does not mean that a specific type of God can. But they never would make the kind of headway they have unless neo-Darwinian theory is the piece of Swiss cheese that it is.

But all that this really proves, in my opinion, is that there is an Eros to the Kosmos, an Eros that scientific evolutionary theory as it is simply cannot explain. But overall integral theory doesn't hang on that particular issue. If physicalistic, materialistic, reductionistic forces turn out to give an adequate explanation to the extraordinary diversity of evolutionary unfolding, then fine, that is what we will include in integral theory. And if not, not. But so far, the "nots" have it by a staggeringly huge margin, and scientists when they are not bragging to the world, whisper this to themselves every single day of their lives. I know, I lived in that community for the better part of a decade. And it's truly fascinating, to say the least....

This is a great thread, from what I have seen of it, and I hope it continues. But please don't do so by claiming that I don't know evolutionary theory, because in that particular instance anyway, you are absolutely off your nut.

Well, no. First, none of the above alters the fact that Wilber has completely misrepresented the truth that half-wings do exist, and have been documented as existing since Darwin's own Origin of Species. That has nothing to do with any (excusable) popularizing of Wilber's theories on his own part. Rather, it's simply a gross and brutally dishonest misrepresentation of basic facts on his part, to suit his own slanted purposes. That is true independent of whether or not Wilber understands how evolution works. (He equally claims to have intentionally written a bad book, in his novel Boomeritis. Yeah, right.)

Since when, though, is one allowed to misrepresent such elementary facts as the above, even in popularizing one's ideas? What respected academic has ever done that?! Simplifying the Ph.D.-level complexities is one thing; misrepresenting high-school-level ideas (with no caveats whatsoever to that effect in the text!) is another issue entirely. (Plus, the points on which kw has fucked up are literally taught in high school. So who was he "dumbing down" those ideas for, if even high school students can understand them in their real nature?)

So, is Wilber then saying that, even while he was claiming that half-wings have "no adaptive value whatsoever," and that "you are dinner" should you evolve them, he still knew damned well that the very same half-wings do exist, and that they do confer an evolutionary advantage? Is he saying that he deliberately deceived people on that point? What the hell kind of game would that be?! Would you buy a used car from such an "impeccably honest" man?

Would you buy into a fantasy-based integral spirituality purveyed by such a slick salesman?

"It's only got 50,000 miles/lifetimes on it. Just driven to (imagined) enlightenment and back by an old, bald yogi. The noise from the transmission? Oh, that's just a 'popularization' of its features, to appeal to the layman."

Caveat emptor. For, if that deception is actually deliberate ... on what other points do you think kw might have been utilizing exactly the same "skillful means," to get you to agree with him? That is, what of his other claims can you afford to trust, if he's (apparently) admitted to having deliberately deceived you on that point?

"Popularization" does not mean fucking with the basic, high-school-level scientific facts! If Wilber's actually deliberately done that, that's arguably worse than if he simply hadn't understood the ideas in the first place!

Further, note that Wilber misrepresents David Bohm's ideas every bit as much as he does for Darwinian evolution. Presumably he thinks that he knows Bohmian physics "inside out," too, what with his near-Ph.D. in biophysics. He doesn't. Not even close. (You want proof? Good! Thought you'd never ask! So here's my appendix on Wilber vs. Bohm, from STG. Read it, and—if you still think Wilber's ideas have been properly researched, ever—weep. Wail and gnash, baby. Find yourself a Wall in Jerusalem, and let it all out. You'll feel better afterwards. Because as painful as it can be to find out that you've been deceived by people you trusted, it's actually also quite liberating, when you get used to it.)

And he's quoting Michael Behe in support of his ideas, to the point of actually recommending Behe's work? Oh, Jesus.

While I would not wish to counter Wilber's embarrassingly unsound "argument from authority" only with equally facile arguments from other (skeptical) authorities, two seconds of research (on "Behe Darwin") at csicop.org nevertheless discloses:

Intelligent Design has been a wholesale failure, as both science and strategy. None of its scientific claims, especially the work of the main theorists William Dembski and Michael Behe, have stood up under scientific scrutiny. None of their claims is [sic] published in scientific journals. Numerous books and articles refute their positions in great detail. Not only have their arguments been shown to be flawed, but in several instances, the factual claims on which they rest have been proven false (Stenger, 2004).

If you take Behe seriously, please further read Edis' paper, and Pigliucci's critique of Intelligent Design theory and Neocreationism. From the latter:

To be sure, there are several cases in which biologists do not know enough about the fundamental constituents of the cell to be able to hypothesize or demonstrate their gradual evolution. But this is rather an argument from ignorance, not positive evidence of irreducible complexity. William Paley advanced exactly the same argument to claim that it is impossible to explain the appearance of the eye by natural means. Yet, today biologists know of several examples of intermediate forms of the eye, and there is evidence that this structure evolved several times independently during the history of life on Earth.

Nice example; and ironic, too, given Wilber's own research with cows' eyes, and his consistent use of the same type of sophomoric "arguments from ignorance" to find room for his own half-baked transpersonal notions and naïve acceptance of parapsychological claims, within real science.

You want more? Here. Or this, from The New Yorker.

And kw's claim that integral theorizers will abide by physical science if it can "explain everything" is extremely disingenuous: He will do no such thing, ever. For, his "theories" have been shot through with koshas (i.e., subtle bodies), auras, subtle energies, chakras and the like from the start. That is, he has made his living, from the beginning, theorizing on the basis of completely unvetted and unsound data, and continues to do so to the present day. That's certainly one way to waste a life, but it's also a good recipe to have all of your grand "theories" come crashing down, as their data items are discredited, one by one. If you listen very carefully, you can hear that happening to kw's half-baked integral notions right now, in his daft inclusion of the ideas of Gary Schwartz, Hiroshi Motoyama, Rupert Sheldrake and Hiroshi Motoyama, in his own work.

So what we have here from Wilber is, as usual, no documented facts, no relevant details, just his "Einsteinian" authority, his rampant hyperbole, and a laughable appeal to other discredited "thinkers" to back up his own claims to expertise. Beautiful! "Folks" (as kw would colloquially say), it doesn't get any more competent than that in transpersonal/integral studies! (And note: both Huston Smith and James Fadiman endorsed my own first [credulous, disowned] book, giving it far greater praise than they gave to Wilber's early work. How's that for authority?! That book would have been a great hoax, a la Sokal and Bricmont, if only I had meant it as such.)

If Wilber wants to make wild-eyed claims about the "failures" of Darwinian evolution in courtroom contexts and otherwise, he needs to do way more than simply throw out a smoke-screen of unsubstantiated claims (plus one book title). No one should feel obliged to take seriously such assertions from kw in particular anyway, given his documented penchant for misrepresentation and pure fabrication (cf. Wilber vs. Bohm). What we have above from kw, I believe, is simply a predictable load of sound and fury, told by a true integral idiot—who wouldn't know real science if it bit him on the nose—signifying precisely nothing.

For three decades Wilber has gotten away with doing that—i.e., with tossing out laundry lists of names of authorities whose writings purportedly give support to his notions, apparently confident that no one will actually go back to the source materials to verify his (frequently false) claims for that support. In other contexts, even just colloquial ones, that would be seen for the "bullshit artistry" which it truly is. And certainly, in no other field could one ever rise to the status of an "Einstein" on such (half-)wings of outright nonsense. Only in humanistic/transpersonal/integral studies (okay, in all applications of postmodernism, too)....

And why did it take Wilber nearly a decade to give any response at all (however inadequate and authoritarian, as the above most certainly is) to what is effectively just more of David Lane's critique of his misunderstandings of basic evolution, from 1996? Did he think that devastating critique was just going to go away? (And note: Lane actually endorsed Wilber's [1983] A Sociable God, saying that it was "not only destined to become a classic, but also adds further testimony to the fact that Wilber may singlehandedly alter the course of future research in consciousness." That is, Lane—like myself—began as an admirer of Wilber, but just kept thinking and researching. And that's all that anyone actually needs to do, to extricate himself from Wilber's slanted version of the integral world.)

And, "don't believe hardly any of its crucial tenets"? Oh dear ... children talk and write like that. The editing process is so important, isn't it? "Samuel Bercholz, where art thou? Why hast thou forsaken the Christ-like, enlightened Kensho, in his time of need?"

Wilber's comparing of neo-Darwinism to a "Swiss cheese" is very nice, too, considering that I used exactly the same analogy, explicitly, to describe kw's own simplistic notions, near the end of the Norman Einstein chapter in STG, in the midst of documenting a full 90 typeset pages of his inexcusable blunders. So he's either read that chapter (and learned nothing from it), or is still blissfully unaware of it.

So, should I feel flattered at that borrowing, or ignored?

I dunno.

And a "Ph.D. minus thesis"? Hey, I myself have a "B.Sci., minus degree," where I non-graduated with a "gold medal, minus anything tangible," in both electrical engineering and physics. That, plus $1.75, will get you a cup of coffee. In Toronto, and probably in cosmopolitan, cutting-edge Boulder, too.

It's Wilber's own inexcusably sloppy research and daft theorizings that are "Swiss cheese," and which "can't explain shit." (Again with the anal fixation, though, from kw. What is it with that man's subconscious?) Real science can "explain shit" quite nicely, thank you.

All you need to do is to read kw's books carefully—albeit with much more care than he ever brought to writing them—and compare their contents with the original source materials (e.g., Darwin, Bohm, Aurobindo, Jung, Graves/SD) which he claims support his view. Simply do that, and Wilber's addled notions consistently self-destruct.

Whadda maroon.

None of this, again, has anything to do with simple popularizations of integral theories, were those to be done with proper forthrightness. It's just an appeal to basic intellectual honesty and minimal academic competence. Other fields of knowledge have that. That is what makes them worth spending time understanding.

So Kenny: Take a long-overdue lesson from Richard Feynman, in his insightful critique of the "cargo cult science" which your life's work falls squarely into, and will ever be mired in:

[T]here is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another....

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.

Kenny, you may have garnered some "temporary fame and excitement," in a field populated by admirers who simply don't know any better; but "the truth will come out."

"Deal with it."

(Oh, and stop pretending to be a "compassionate, tolerant bodhisattva," too, Kensho. You're not fooling anyone with that "pretend-sagely" public face.)

P.S. For a real chuckle, check out kw's endorsements of Rudolf Steiner's work. And then find that Laughing/Wailing Wall....)

(Update 5/30/2005): I've posted an edited version of this, with a few new points, on the thread which started it all, at Induhgral Nekkid.

(Update 7/15/2005): From James Randi's Commentary:

[I]n 2002, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) passed a resolution declaring "intelligent design" to be a "philosophical or theological concept," not a statement obtained through the examination of hard evidence, and that it should not be taught in science classes. That's 120,000 men and women of science, honored and respected internationally, who have the experience, the knowledge, and the training to be able to understand and authoritatively declare on such matters.

So which "real scientists," exactly, are the ones which Wilber thinks are siding with him?

A giant dominatrix teddy bear wearing a leather mask and brandishing hand-cuffs has been banned from sober Zurich's street display of man-sized model bears, the project's artistic director said Tuesday. (more)

And you thought Toronto was weird, just cause of all the styrofoam moose that used to be cluttering up the city, not one of which was painted up as a dominatrix, I might add....

Oh yeah, that new Paris Hilton commercial for Carl Jr.'s has a whole lot to do with hamburgers! (Or maybe with Bentleys? Or a new automobile soap? Or the importance of water conservation?) They should get Janet Jackson to do their next one. "Rip and tear, Bruno! Rip and tear!"

Not that I'm complaining; but isn't it at least ironic that Carl's sister chain is Hardee's?

As the boys from Python once said, in their "have a poet in every home" sketch: "I'll just have a quick look at your Thomas Hardy, then."

In my inbox this morning:

You are hereby invited to join the Yahoo group fun-women which features topless and nude photos of female students of the American Buddhist Tantric master Rama/Dr. Frederick Lenz. Many of Rama's students went on to study with Adi Da after Rama's death.

Well, the suicidal Lenz was more of a con artist than a "Tantric master." (If you're going to argue that there's no difference between those, you're preachin' to the choir.) And Da's a total idiot.

Plus, they've only got one photo up so far....

Interesting article on David Bowie's forays into spirituality/magick: http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/bowie.htm.

To each his own....

By now Minsky was pacing restlessly around the room, crunching sugar cubes and smoking a cigarette every half hour. Like everyone I met at MIT, Minsky loves gadgets. As the winter afternoon got later and darker, the living room light kept turning itself off after seven minutes and had to be revived with a shout or a handclap.

Yup. Technology doesn't really even need to make your life easier, so long as it's got those blinking lights....

Interestingly, later in the very same book, in discussing the effect of advertising revenues on newspaper objectivity, and contrasting that with government sponsorship, Brand avers:

One big pressure, however principled and well-intentioned, is stultifying always.

Had Brand intelligently applied the same principle to his spiritual journey, he would have wasted far less time with the gurus (Shunryu Suzuki and his successor, Richard Baker) at the SFZC. 'Cause the essence of the guru-disciple relationship is to have "one big pressure" molding the behaviors of the followers. And that is indeed "stultifying always" to truth, individuality and innovation.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown stands next to an oil painting titled "Untitled 1982" by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that was recovered after a trucker surrendered, and was charged in the theft of the painting valued at more than $1.5 million.

Basquiat, a darling of art critics who was praised for his strong use of color and the social commentary in his work, died in 1988 at age 27 of a heroin overdose.

Received a wad of unsolicited foolishness a while back from an opinionated, Wilber-admiring, stuck-in-teaching-mode Buddhist tharpa, and I think it's time I shared it.

First, he politely accused me of being "being reductionistic and way too black and white" in my view of gurus and their folly. (He had, he claimed, "spent many years looking closely into the guru phenomonon, with a skeptical mind" ... if not astride a "dark silver steed," WTF?)

I wrote back and said that we'd have to "agree to disagree" about accepting any claimed parapsychological phenomena (e.g., subtle bodies, astral travelling) without properly executed proof of it, and that as far as I could tell, there was no "baby" to be saved from our world's fairy-tale based religions (as they all are), only "bathwater."

Then, the holy and compassionate tharpa responded by telling me that I was on an "extremist crusade." He also suggested (as far as I could discern from his frustratingly ambiguous writing) that the reason why I've spent so much time cataloging the problems with our world's guru-figures had only to do with me being unable to see my own psychological shadow. (Social workers and police post listings of sex offenders for exactly the same reasons, right? Just because of their own psychological shadows? Or is there possibly more to it than that?)

If the world already has too many people on "extremist crusades," doesn't it also have way too many who buy into one or another set of fairy-tale beliefs—including the dangerous fantasy that the traditional guru-disciple relationship has ever worked, at any time and place (it hasn't)—and who then cannot resist psycho-babbling all over anyone who "can't see things as clearly as they do"? And God forbid that, through all that, they should even be able to keep their unprovoked insults to themselves, in the midst of their "bodhisattvic holiness."

(You don't even have to take my word and research for the problems with the guru-position. By now even someone as consistently clueless on the subject as Ken Wilber himself has begun to figure it out. For, he "stresses that even the most enlightened gurus 'have feet of clay—all, no exceptions'"—John Horgan, Rational Mysticism. So I guess I'm not the only one who's on an "extremist crusade" then, huh? Or what does "all, no exceptions" mean to you?)

As a rule of thumb, members of any religion who think they're being "skeptical," but who remain in the overgrown cult, aren't being skeptical at all. 'Cause as soon as you really start deeply questioning not merely the mythologies but the authoritarianism and the reality of the interior states, it all falls apart.

Of course, no tharpa could ever admit that to himself, as to do so would undercut his own high place in the world, and cause the respect he's worked his adult life to attain to immediately evaporate. And if there's one thing such "experts" crave, it's to be respectfully listened to, regardless of how little they may have to say that's actually worth hearing.

And so it goes with these spiritual teachers who cannot stop teaching to anyone who can be coerced or cornered into being a student to their "wisdom," even when those "students" (such as myself, involuntarily) are merely being polite in listening. I had to deal with exactly the same dynamic in SRF; it's all, as they say back on the farm, "same shit, different pile." But then, what should one have expected from a believer who publicly laments "[o]ur culture's disregard for the reality of unseen beings and dimensions," and yet who still considers himself to be able to take a "skeptical" view of gurus and their claims?!

If not believing that leprechauns and other "unseen beings and dimensions" are real makes me "reductionistic," so be it. No more of taking that deluded garbage seriously for me, thanks.

I swore I'd never do this again. But here goes:

Q: I question your conclusion [in Stripping the Gurus] that Wilber's theory is "refuted."

A: My conclusion was not intended to be that Wilber's four-quadrant integral theory was refuted, as such. Rather, it was simply that the same standards should be applied to Wilber's ideas as he applies to other people's work. I have offered much stronger arguments against Wilber's addled notions than he ever presented against Bohm; yet he daftly thinks he's refuted Bohm's Nobel-caliber work. Until he's responded to my (and David Lane's earlier) critique, then, his half-baked theories should be taken less seriously than he himself takes Bohm's brilliant ideas. (Even if he could respond to either of those critiques—which he can't—there's still a very good reason why philosopher Robert Carroll referred to significant elements of kw's integral theory as being constituted of "simplistic teleological vitalism." That's how real philosophers view Wilber. It ain't pretty, is it?)

Q: Wilber's ideas—to the best of my knowledge—do not depend on his personality.

A: (i) What personality? (ii) The "swallowing whole" acceptance by his peers and admirers of the various grossly misrepresented, dishonest and bumbling aspects of his theories certainly does depend strongly on his authoritarian character, and on his revered position in consciousness studies. If he were rightly seen to be less "holy" than he presents himself as being (e.g., in Reynolds' fawning hagiography), the glaring problems not merely with his endorsements of Da and Cohen but with his transpersonal/integral model, might have been recognized much sooner.

Q: I don't always trust in causality or in the imperious linearity of time or in the stark flatness of reality. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Do you?

A: For my own part, I would consider causality and the linearity of time to be inestimably more worthy of trust than any claimed experiences of their transcendence by our world's meditators.

Can you imagine writing a whole book like this? Puke!

Falcarius utahensis	Jabberwock

Coincidence?

There is a difference between, as it were, negligence, which is random in its effects, i.e. if you are a sloppy or bad [source of information], the mistakes you make will be all over the place. They will not actually support any particular point of view.... On the other hand, if all the mistakes are in the same direction in the support of a particular thesis, then I do not think that is mere negligence. I think that is a deliberate manipulation and deception.

The above statement was made by (circle one):

1. philosopher Christian de Quincey, in his JCS critique of the bumbling Ken Wilber's in-print nastiness and de-emphasis on intersubjectivity
2. historian Richard Evans, against the errors of Nazi apologist David Irving
3. skeptic Martin Gardner, criticizing the archeological missteps of the 35,000-year-old entity Ramtha, as ostensibly channeled by J. Z. Knight
4. me, in critiquing Ken Wilber's gross and indefensible misrepresentations of evolutionary biology, Bohmian physics, Jungian psychology and Spiral Dynamics®, with those being always twisted exactly so as to suit his own skewed worldview, and presented as if they were researched fact rather than his own egregious fabrications

Answer: b.

Interestingly, I once worked the night shift at a press-clippings place where the authoritarian, German-accented supervisor was the spitting image of kw, down to the frames on his glasses.

We used to call him "Colonel Klink."

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