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Sex, Ecology, & Spirituality
By Ken Wilber
Introduction
BOOK ONE
1
The Web of Life
2
The Pattern That Connects
3
Individual and Social
4
A View from Within
5
The Emergence of Human Nature
6
Magic, Mythic, and Beyond
7
The Further Reaches of Human Nature
8
The Depths of the Divine
BOOK TWO
9
The Way Up Is the Way Down
10
This-Worldly, Otherworldly
11
Brave New World
12
The Collapse of the Kosmos
13
The Dominance of the Descenders
14
The Unpacking of God
References
Credits
Introduction
IT is FLAT - OUT strange that something— that anything —is happening at all. There was
nothing, then a Big Bang, then here we all are. This is extremely weird.
To Schelling's burning question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?," there
have always been two general answers. The first might be called the philosophy of
"oops." The universe just occurs, there is nothing behind it, it's all ultimately accidental
or random, it just is, it just happens—oops! The philosophy of oops, no matter how
sophisticated and adult it may on occasion appear—its modern nam es and numbers are
legion, from positivism to scientific materialism, from linguistic analysis to historical
materialism, from naturalism to empiricism—always comes down to the same basic
answer, namely, "Don't ask."
The question itself (Why is anything at all happening? Why am I here?)—the question
itself is said to be confused, pathological, nonsensical, or infantile. To stop asking such
silly or confused questions is, they all maintain, the mark of maturity, the sign of
growing up in this cosmos.
I don't think so. I think the "answer" these "modern and mature" disciplines give—
namely, oops! (and therefore, "Don't ask!")—is about as infantile a response as the
human condition could possibly offer.
The other broad answer that has been tendered is that something else is going on:
behind the happenstance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or
intelligence. There are, of course, many varieties of this "Deeper Order": the Tao, God,
Geist, Maat, Archetypal Forms, Reason, Li, Mahamaya, Brahman, Rigpa. And although
these different varieties of the Deeper Order certainly disagree with each other at many
points, they all agree on this: the universe is not what it appears. Something else is
going on, something quite other than oops. . . .
This book is about all of that "something other than oops." It is about a possible
Deeper Order. It is about evolution, and about religion, and, in a sense, about
everything in between. It is a brief history of cosmos, bios, psyche, theos—a tale told by
an idiot, it goes without saying, but a tale that, precisely in signifying Nothing, signifies
the All, and there is the sound and the fury.
This is a book about holons—about wholes that are parts of other wholes, indefinitely.
Whole atoms are parts of molecules; whole molecules are parts of cells; whole cells are
parts of organisms, and so on. Each whole is simultaneously a part, a whole/part, a
holon. And reality is composed, not of things nor processes nor wholes nor parts, but of
whole/ parts, of holons. We will be looking at holons in the cosmos, in the bios, in the
psyche, and in theos; and at the evolutionary thread that connects them all, unfolds
them all, embraces them all, endlessly.
The first chapters deal with holons in the physical cosmos (matter) and in the
biosphere (life). This is the general area of the natural and ecological sciences, the life
sciences, the systems sciences, and we will explore each of them carefully. This is
particularly important, given not only the ecological crisis now descending on this planet
with a vengeance, but also the large number of movements, from deep ecology to
ecofeminism, that have arisen in an attempt to find spirituality and ecology connected,
not divorced; and we will look at the meaning of all of that.
The middle chapters explore the emergence of the mind or the psyche or the
noosphere, and at the holons that compose the psyche itself (the mind is composed of
units that have meaning only in contexts: wholes that are parts of other wholes,
endlessly). These psychic holons, like all holons, emerged and evolved—in time and
history—and we will look briefly at the historical evolution of the mind and
consciousness, and at how these psychic holons relate to the holons in the cosmos and
in the bios.
The last chapters deal with theos, with the Divine Domain, with a Deeper Order, and
how it might indeed be related to the cosmos, the biosphere, and the noosphere. And
here, I think, some surprises await us.
This book is the first of three volumes (the series itself is simply called Kosmos, or The
Kosmos Trilogy; brief summaries of the other two volumes are given throughout this
book). Many of the questions raised in this volume are more carefully examined in the
other two; and, in any event, this volume stands more as a broad overview and
introduction, rather than a finished conclusion.
As such, the book is built upon what I would call orienting generalizations. For
example, in the sphere of moral development, not everybody agrees with the details of
Lawrence Kohlberg's seven moral stages, nor with the details of Carol Gilligan's
reworking of Kohlberg's scheme. But there is general and ample agreement that human
moral development goes through at least three broad stages: the human at birth is not
yet socialized into any sort of moral system (it is "preconventional"); the human then
learns, from itself and from others, a general moral scheme that represents the basic
values of the society it is raised in (it becomes "conventional"); and with even further
growth, the individual may come to reflect on its society and thus gain some modest
distance from it and gain a capacity to criticize or reform it (the individual is to some
degree ' 'postconventional").
Thus, although the actual details and the precise meanings of that developmental
sequence are still hotly debated, everybody pretty much agrees that something like
those three broad stages do indeed occur, and occur universally. These are orienting
generalizations: they show us, with a great deal of agreement, where the important
forests are located, even if we can't agree on how many trees they contain.
My point is that if we take these types of largely-agreed -upon orienting generalizations
from the various branches of knowledge (from physics to biology to psychology to
theology), and if we string these orienting generalizations together, we will arrive at
some astonishing and often profound conclusions, conclusions that, as extraordinary as
they might be, nonetheless embody nothing more than our already-agreed-upon
knowledge. The beads of knowledge are already accepted: it is only necessary to
provide the thread to string them together into a necklace.
These three volumes are one attempt to string together such a necklace; whether it
succeeds or not remains to be seen. But if nothing else, I think it is at least a good
example of how this type of work can be done in today's postmodern world. In working
with broad orienting generalizations, the trilogy delivers up a broad orienting map of the
place of men and women in relation to Universe, Life, and Spirit, the details of which we
can all fill in as we like, but the broad outlines of which really have an awful lot of
supporting evidence, culled from the orienting generalizations, simple but sturdy, from
the various branches of human knowledge.
Nonetheless, this broad orienting map is nowhere near fixed and final. In addition to
being composed of broad orienting generalizations, I would say this is a book of a
thousand hypotheses. I will be telling the story as if it were simply the case (because
telling it that way makes for much better reading), but not a sentence that follows is not
open to confirmation or rejection by a community of the adequate. I suppose many
readers will insist on calling what I am doing "metaphysics," but if "metaphysics" means
thought without evidence, there is not a metaphysical sentence in this entire book.
Because this book (or this trilogy) offers a broad orienting map of men and women's
place in the larger Kosmos (of matter, life, mind, and spirit), it naturally touches on a
great number of topics that have recently become "hot," from the ecological crisis to
feminism, from the meaning of modernity and postmodernity to the nature of
"liberation" in relation to sex, gender, race, class, creed; to the nature of techno-
economic developments and their relation to various worldviews; to the various spiritual
and wisdom traditions the world over that have offered telling suggestions as to our
place in a larger scheme of things.
How can we become more fully human and at the same time be saved from the fate
of being merely human? Where is Spirit in this God-forsaken, Goddess-forsaken world of
modernity? Why are we destroying Gaia in the very attempt to improve our own
condition? Why are so many attempts at salvation suicidal? How do we actually fit into
this larger Kosmos? How are we whole individuals who are also parts of something
Larger?
In other words, since human beings, like absolutely everything else in the Kosmos, are
holons, what does that mean? How do we fit into that which is forever moving beyond
us? Does liberation mean being whole ourselves, or being a part of something Larger—
or something else altogether? If history is a nightmare from which I am trying to
awaken, then what exactly is it that I am supposed to awaken to ?
And, most important, can we not stare into that vast and stunning Kosmos and
respond with something more mature than oops?
From those who have already read this book in manuscript come two suggestions for
the reader:
First, skip the endnotes on the first reading, and save them for (and if) a second look.
This book was intentionally written on two levels: the main text, which makes every
attempt to be as accessible as possible, and the notes (a small book in themselves),
meant for serious students. But in both cases, the notes are, for the most part, best
reserved for a second
reading, as they greatly disrupt the narrative flow. (Alternatively, some have simply
read the notes by themselves, as a type of appendix, just for the information, which is
fine.)
Second, read the book a sentence at a time. People who try to skip around get
competely lost. But pretty much everybody reports that if you simply read each
sentence, the text will carry you along nicely, and any problems encountered are usually
cleared up down the road. This is a long book, obviously, but apparently it comes in
nice, small, bite-sized chunks, and its readers all seem to have a great good time—a bite
at a time.
It is often said that in today's modern and postmodern world, the forces of darkness
are upon us. But I think not; in the Dark and the Deep there are truths that can always
heal. It is not the forces of darkness but of shallowness that everywhere threaten the
true, and the good, and the beautiful, and that ironically announce themselves as deep
and profound. It is an exuberant and fearless shallowness that everywhere is the
modern danger, the modern threat, and that everywhere nonetheless calls to us as
savior.
We might have lost the Light and the Height; but more frightening, we have lost the
Mystery and the Deep, the Emptiness and the Abyss, and lost it in a world dedicated to
surfaces and shadows, exteriors and shells, whose prophets lovingly exhort us to dive
into the shallow end of the pool head first.
"History," said Emerson, "is an impertinence and an injury if it be anything more than
a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming." What follows, then, is a
cheerful parable of your being and your becoming, an apologue of that Emptiness which
forever issues forth, unfolding and enfolding, evolving and involving, creating worlds
and dissolving them, with each and every breath you take. This is a chronicle of what
you have done, a tale of what you have seen, a measure of what we all might yet
become.
BOOK ONE
What is it that has called you so suddenly out of nothingness to enjoy for a brief
while a spectacle which remains quite indifferent to you? The conditions for yo ur
existence are as old as the rocks. For thousands of years men have striven and
suffered and begotten and women have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago,
perhaps, another man — or woman — sat on this spot; like you he gazed with awe and
yearning in his heart at the dying of the glaciers. Like you he was begotten of man
and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was
it not you yourself? What is this Self of yours?
— ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER
1
The Web of Life
So the world, grounded in a timeless movement by the Soul which suffuses it with
intelligence, becomes a living and blessed being.
— PLOTINUS
IT ' S A STRANGE WORLD . It seems that around fifteen billion years ago there was,
precisely, absolute nothingness, and then within less than a nanosecond the material
universe blew into existence.

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