Quote

Part I: Introduction
When I left Integral Institute, there was a real lack of any kind of public critical examination, professional and personal, about Ken Wilber by people who had been in his so-called inner ring. This fact has grown into the reason for this essay, so allow me to sketch relevant background. As many know, for 16 months I was associated with a startup company founded by Ken Wilber, called Integral Institute. I was asked, directly by Wilber during one of my visits to Boulder in the summer of 2003 (as part of the artist collective the "IS of Art"), and after I had submitted an essay to him for consideration, to be in charge of what he was calling the "art domain" of this university he wanted to start, called Integral University. I was honored and accepted; I was also surprised, because it all happened out of the blue and I didn't think Wilber was all the familiar with my work. It turns out (it was revealed to me later) that in fact he was familiar with it, beyond that one paper. It also turned out that what I thought was a think-tank was, in reality, a company, which went on to produce products for the marketplace like any company would. Those products include self-help DVDs, for-pay websites promising exclusive access to him, as well as expensive seminars and experiential workshops. Essentially, the whole thing is to sell Wilber as well as his model, even if advertised otherwise.

My association was largely before those products were released to the market (save for the integralnaked.org website and a couple of early seminars), and those many months were spent writing philosophy, as well as researching in order to write. It was my impression that the fundamental purpose of I-I was as a think-tank (like such think-tanks as the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, etc.) and this excited me so I gave it my full attention and effort. Hannah, my wife, can attest to my ridiculously long hours spent. This period was definitely the most-focused writing period of my life. I treated my association with I-I it as my own self-directed PhD program, in art philosophy/aesthetics particularly, and broadly, in the Humanities. Given the environment of others involved with Wilber's university project (many good souls), I rather enjoyed things, at least for a while. I had a good time of it in discussion with many people, not the least of which was Matt Rentschler, a very good soul, and also asked by Ken to be heavily involved with the art domain. Rentschler, 19 years old at the time, was fluent in all of Wilber's then-collected works. But in truth he was even less qualified to be in a position of authority on aesthetic philosophy than I was (I did posses a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, as well as experience as a composer-in-training). Sadly, this created friction over time; from the beginning, I realized my own inexperience in the field, which in part accounted for all my hours of research and writing, to actually earn my position and earn the right to be part of a think-tank; the frustration was that I was alone in this, when it came to art.

It was my understanding, though this was never once clarifed, that "art domain" was equivalent to "art college". Thus my position was something akin to, at minimum, lead scholar, and more likely, something like a dean of a college, if you extend 'domain' to mean 'college' (which to me seemed at least a workable way of looking at things).

But, I can't stress enough, nothing was ever clarified, and if anything ever approached being clarified about what exactly we were doing, it quickly evaporated. It was rather a mess, and Wilber's neurotic (with regular fits of anger), often absent, leadership style was in my view largely to blame, as well as the entire quixotic affair. I've written about the mess before, and how in my estimation, the integral university project was infected severely with philosophical groupthink, due to undisputed reverence for Wilber, near universal agreement about the validity of his speculations, and little to no actual debate where disagreements on first principles were given fair scrutiny. But that is just my opinion, and that of course includes me to some extent.

Anyway, after 16 months, a couple hundred of hours of conference calls, hundreds of emails, a turbulent attempt to donate video footage to Wilber's integralnaked.org website (a donation that my wife and I eventually rescinded), and a whole lot of stuff that would bore the pants off of any decent person, I decided to resign. I left, and I took all my work with me.

After rounds of angry insults from him directed at, first, myself and then my wife (I maintain I never once reciprocated in any way; I was always respectful to him, as is to be expected), Wilber laughably attempted to claim co-ownership of my papers, and thus meaning I would have to ask permission to use them. From him!

I consulted with a lawyer, and that was settled quickly, via a strongly worded letter from my lawyer detailing the basics of applicable copyright law in this country. Perhaps the scholars still in Wilber's circle must sign contracts now, because of what transpired with me. I don't know.

I do know that all was settled, completely in my favor.

That it left a bad taste in my already-bad-tasting mouth is probably self-evident. It also further cemented by belief that Wilber is prone to the hyberbole that substitutes hubristic, rhetorical flourish for real knowledge, in this case, of common law. And if he is that ignorant about common law, all the while feigning knowledge of it, what else is he in practice ignorant of?

Looking back on it, the reason I got involved with his work, not to mention the "university" project, was my hope that it held a fresh take on the Humanities