Is Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute a Cult?
Prompted by Jay Allen’s interesting exercise in arguing (against his own inclinations) that Ken Wilber is a cult leader, I just finished reading Elliott Benjamin’s scholarly essay assessing the presence or absence of cultish features in Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute.
Here’s the money quote. (I’m adding paragraph breaks and removing citations in order to improve readability.)
...I would say that there are definitely things to be cautious and observant about in Integral Institute, not the least of which is Ken Wilber’s strong ego and harsh criticisms of many of those who disagree with him.
However, in a similar manner to the conclusions I came to regarding both Conversations With God and Reiki, I will give both Ken Wilber and Integral Institute the benefit of the doubt and place this organization in Neutral territory regarding cult dangers vs. beneficial spiritual characteristics.
From my own experience, the new age spiritual organizations that I have described as having Mild cult dangers are EST, Eckankar, Gurdjieff, and Twelve Step Support Groups. I do feel confident that Ken Wilber and Integral Institute do not belong in this category, and certainly not in the Moderate cult danger classification in which I placed Avatar and Divine Light Mission, or in the High cult danger classification in which I placed Scientology and the Unification Church.
However, I most definitely do not think that Integral Institute belongs in the Favorable category in which I placed my experience with Neopaganism or the new age spiritual workshops I have done at Omega Retreat Center or Kripalu Yoga Center.
Interesting stuff.
As an aside, I wonder how Ayn Rand’s inner-circle “Collective” would have fared in the 1960s.
I imagine the Collective would have fared quite badly indeed when it came to sexual manipulation, internal control, knowledge claimed by leader, dogma, isolation, grimness, and hypocrisy.
But, hey. Welcome to humanity.
[...] This afternoon, after noticing a brief mention of Avatar by Benjamin Elliott — whose full story “On Avatar” is available on the web — I took the opportunity to do a bit more research. [...]
[...] Regarding Wilber, you are more than welcome to raise the question of whether he’s leading a cult. In fact, I’ve done so myself, in my posting “Is Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute a Cult?” [...]
Let me give you a few reasons Ken Wilber scores pretty neutral on my cult scale.
1. He doesn’t make proprietary claims of discovery or portray himself as the custodian of mystery school knowledge. In other words, he doesn’t hide his origins.
2. He has a whole bunch of acknowledged collaborators. I may not personally like Andrew Cohen, but I admire Ken for engaging in dialogue with him.
3. He publishes his stuff. There’s really no secrecy about anything. If you want to attend a paid seminar, you can, but as Elliot says, there’s no serious pressure to ascend to the next level of... whatever.
4. He listens and responds meaningfully. Ask him a question, you’ll get a credible answer. Thanks, Ken.
Compare that to the introverted PR pitch you got from Harry Palmer (aka the anonymous entity, SE Comm). Yes, that was Harry giving you his spiel. He likes to compliment himself in the third person. So did L. Ron Hubbard.