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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

The Wyatt Earp Episode

Part 1: Ken Wilber's Meltdown and the Death of Integral Discourse

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Nearly twenty years after its publication, Ken Wilber's 2006 blog post “What We Are, That We See (Part I)” remains one of the most revealing moments in the history of the Integral movement. Written in response to critics—many of them publishing on this very website—the piece combined moments of insight with uncharacteristic hostility, effectively silencing open dialogue for years to come. In the essay below, Frank Visser revisits this “Wyatt Earp” episode as both a psychological and intellectual turning point: the moment when Wilber's public persona fractured under the strain of criticism, and Integral Theory turned inward. This reflection continues Integral World's mission to document not only the promise but also the pitfalls of the Integral adventure.

When Ken Wilber published his 2006 blog post “What We Are, That We See—Part I: Response to Some Recent Criticism in a Wild West Fashion”[1], he no doubt intended it as a cathartic clearing of the air. Instead, it became one of the most infamous documents in the history of integral thought—a spectacle of wounded pride, rhetorical aggression, and spiritual self-justification.

What could have been a sober, point-by-point defense of his work degenerated into a profanity-laced rant that dismissed nearly all criticism as “first-tier nonsense.” The post marked a turning point—not only in Wilber's public persona, but in the credibility of the entire Integral project he had spent three decades building.

Below I will revisit this episode, unpack its arguments and tone, and assess what it reveals about the deeper psychology and sociology of the Integral movement.

1. The Setting: A “Wild West” of Critique

The mid-2000s were a turbulent time for Ken Wilber. The Integral Institute had been launched amid high expectations, with promises of an “Integral University,” global networks of practitioners, and a renaissance of transdisciplinary thought. But alongside the excitement came mounting criticism—much of it published on Integral World, which had by then become the principal outlet for independent analysis of Wilber's work.

Scholars such as Mark Edwards, Jeff Meyerhoff, and myself had raised detailed questions about the scientific and philosophical claims underlying Wilber's model. We pointed out internal contradictions, misuses of scientific terminology, and the quasi-religious tone of his evolutionary metaphors.

Rather than engaging these critiques directly, Wilber took to his blog with what he called a “Wyatt Earp” response—as if he were the lone sheriff in a lawless town, cleaning up after “lunatic and cacophonous” critics. What followed stunned even his admirers.

2. The Rant Heard Round the Integral World

The piece opens with an assertion that the “study of growth, morphogenesis, and evolution in general” is flourishing, and that critics who say developmental studies are in disarray are simply ignorant. That claim might have opened a legitimate discussion about the state of the field. But within a few paragraphs, the tone shifts dramatically.

Wilber lashes out at critics as “morons,” “belly-draggers,” and “no-nut old Turks.” He instructs them to “suck my dick” and imagines “ripping their eyes out and pissing in their eye-sockets.” He positions himself as the “Wyatt Earp” of the integral frontier, riding past the corpses of his critics with contemptuous ease.

This was not irony, parody, or performance art. It was a genuine outburst of anger—and perhaps despair—from a thinker who felt besieged and misunderstood. Yet it was presented with a veneer of cosmic confidence: Wilber claimed that he had already integrated most valid criticisms and had moved on to higher things.

The combination of grandiosity and vitriol was breathtaking. For many observers, it confirmed the very charge critics had been making for years: that Wilber's integral framework had become self-referential, cultic, and impervious to critique.

3. The Main Claims and Their Logic

Stripped of the rhetoric, Wilber's main claims in “What We Are, That We See” can be summarized as follows:

• Developmental studies are thriving, and Wilber's AQAL framework simply integrates their results.
• Critics misunderstand his method, because they lack the “altitude” to see it.
• He has already incorporated whatever valid critiques existed, especially in his shift from “Wilber-4” to “Wilber-5.”
• Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) safeguards his work against charges of reductionism.
• His critics are motivated by resentment or by being “left behind” spiritually or institutionally.
• The Integral movement has hundreds of scholars worldwide and therefore does not need to worry about “outsider” criticism.

Each of these claims could have been developed into a serious discussion. Instead, Wilber treated them as self-evident, propped up by mockery and authority. The result was a rhetorical inversion: the more he asserted his intellectual supremacy, the less convincing it became.

4. Argument by Altitude

Central to Wilber's defense was the idea that most of his critics simply lacked the developmental capacity to grasp his work. The argument runs like this: just as a child cannot understand adult reasoning, a “first-tier” thinker cannot comprehend “second-tier” or “integral” insights. Therefore, criticisms from lower levels are “neither true nor false, but empty.”

This is an elegant way to avoid argument. By defining dissent as a symptom of lower consciousness, Wilber rendered his theory immune to falsification. The critic can only protest from below.

Such reasoning, however, is epistemologically circular. The very developmental ladder that Wilber uses to rank his critics is itself under dispute. To claim that only those at a higher stage can appreciate the ladder's validity is to assume what must be proven.

In practice, the altitude move functions as a hermeneutic shield: it protects the system from disconfirmation by translating critique into evidence of the critic's inadequacy. As many observers have noted, this is the hallmark of a closed system, not an open inquiry.

5. The Psychology of Defensiveness

Wilber's outburst was more than a rhetorical misstep; it was a psychological event. After years of being hailed as “the Einstein of consciousness studies,” he was now facing pointed empirical and philosophical scrutiny. Integral World had become a mirror in which he saw not disciples but dissenters.

The blog post suggests a man oscillating between omnipotence and wounded pride. He alternates between claiming vast academic support (“over a thousand scholars worldwide”) and deriding his critics as marginal. He apologizes to Frank Visser for feeling “left out,” while simultaneously accusing him of “fake fire.”

This pattern—of alternating embrace and attack—recurs throughout Wilber's later work. It reveals the tension between his self-image as an inclusive integrator and his instinct to dismiss contradiction as lower-level noise.

Seen through a psychological lens, the Wyatt Earp episode marks the moment when Wilber's shadow—the aggression long sublimated in spiritual rhetoric—burst into the open.

6. The Collapse of Dialogue

Before 2006, many critics still hoped for dialogue. There was genuine admiration for Wilber's early brilliance and a wish to see his ideas evolve with the times. After “What We Are, That We See,” that hope largely evaporated.

The post's contemptuous tone signaled that serious debate was over. Integral Institute closed ranks; critics were labeled “pre-integral” or “green-level.” Within months, Wilber's online presence became more controlled, and discussion forums that had once hosted lively debate grew quieter or disappeared.

From that point on, Integral World and Integral Institute inhabited parallel universes: one empirical and critical, the other devotional and mythic. The split was complete.

7. What Remains of the Arguments

To be fair, not all of Wilber's points were baseless. His reminder that developmental psychology remains an active field is true. His emphasis on methodological pluralism is conceptually interesting, as is his insistence that knowledge must integrate both interiors and exteriors.

But none of these points required the rhetorical meltdown that accompanied them. Nor did they justify the blanket dismissal of critics who, in many cases, had spent years engaging his work with patience and respect.

The tragedy is that Wilber's genuine insights were overshadowed by his defensive posture. Instead of strengthening the integral movement, “What We Are, That We See” hastened its intellectual isolation.

8. A Mirror for the Movement

The Wyatt Earp episode was not just about Wilber's personality; it reflected deeper structural issues within the integral community. When a movement revolves around a single visionary, criticism easily becomes heresy. The leader's tone sets the culture. When Wilber mocked and pathologized dissent, his followers learned to do the same.

The result was a discourse climate in which flattery replaced feedback, and bold claims went untested. The promise of a truly integral dialogue—one that could bridge science, philosophy, and spirituality—dissolved into self-congratulation.

In that sense, the Wyatt Earp rant was prophetic. It revealed the limits of the very consciousness it claimed to transcend.

9. Lessons from a Black Period

Nearly twenty years later, “What We Are, That We See” remains a cautionary tale. It shows what happens when a thinker confuses critique with attack, and when a spiritual movement confuses hierarchy with insight.

The episode reminds us that intellectual integrity requires vulnerability—the willingness to be wrong, to be corrected, to evolve not just in theory but in practice.

Wilber's mistake was not that he defended himself, but that he did so from a pedestal that excluded all others. The “Wyatt Earp” posture was the opposite of integration: it was segregation by altitude.

For the Integral movement, this was its black period—the moment it ceased to be a dialogue and became a monologue.

10. Epilogue: The Lost Opportunity

Had Wilber responded to his critics with scholarly rigor rather than bravado, the story might have been different. A serious engagement with evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and philosophy of science could have matured Integral Theory into a credible framework. Instead, the 2006 rant froze the movement in time—a relic of spiritual hubris and rhetorical excess.

The irony is that Wilber's stated aim—to include everything—was undermined by his inability to include criticism.

In that sense, “What We Are, That We See” is not merely an embarrassing blog post; it is a document of psychological and cultural importance. It marks the moment when Integral Theory, once full of promise, turned inward and began to devour itself.

NOTES

[1] Ken Wilber, "What We Are, That We See, Part I: Response to Some Recent Criticism in a Wild West Fashion", www.kenwilber.com, June 08, 2006 (offline). Archived.