INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST 
http://www.integralworld.net

Newsletter Nr. 806
Amsterdam, November 12th, 2019


‘PRECISELY NOTHING NEW OR UNUSUAL’ - Ken Wilber on Darwin's Lasting Contribution - FRANK VISSER

It is always fun and instructive to look up Ken Wilber's stray comments about Charles Darwin, in which he tries to situate his own "theory" of evolution vis-a-vis the scientific understanding of evolution. In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), his most academic work to date, we find a couple of these statements. To put these in context: Wilber's view of evolution is inspired by the German Idealists (Schelling, Hegel) and their descendants (Bergson, Whitehead). It is not restricted to the biosphere but is cosmic in nature. Compared to this grand vision, Darwin's contribution is pictured as merely providing "evidence for a conception that in the main [was] already known in advance." Wilber emphasizes that the notion of evolution was already known long before Darwin. Charles Darwin should be seen as having simply supplied "empirical evidence for a scheme already known and accepted", namely: evolution is driven by Spirit or Eros.

Read more:
http://www.integralworld.net/visser152.html


THE SKEPTICAL YOGI - Part Two: Mystic Amulets and Bilocations - DAVID LANE

'My heart leaped with joy to find my secret prayer granted by the omniscient guru. Shortly before your birth, he had told me you would follow his path. Later, my son, your vision of the Great Light was known to me and your sister Roma, as from the next room we observed you motionless on the bed. Your little face was illuminated; your voice rang with iron resolve as you spoke of going to the Himalayas in quest of the Divine. In these ways, dear son, I came to know that your road lies far from worldly ambitions. The most singular event in my life brought further confirmation--an event which now impels my deathbed message. It was an interview with a sage in the Punjab. While our family was living in Lahore, one morning the servant came precipitantly into my room.

Read more:
http://www.integralworld.net/lane171.html