A dialogue on Ken Wilber’s contribution to transpersonal psychology
John Rowan, Michael Daniels, David Fontana, Malcolm Walley
Transpersonal Psychology Review 2009 DOI: 10.53841/bpstran.2009.13.2.5 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Transcript of a conference dialogue Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | The paper provides a verbatim account of a scholarly dialogue on Ken Wilber's work, capturing the participants' presentations, attempts at reconciliation, and open discussion. It notes that the final summary was incomplete due to recording failure and includes a postscript on the origins of Wilber's levels of consciousness. |
Abstract
This is an edited, verbatim transcription of a three-hour dialogue on the work of Ken Wilber between John Rowan and Michael Daniels, mediated by David Fontana and chaired by Malcolm Walley. The dialogue was held at the 11th British Psychological Society Transpersonal Psychology Section Conference at Cober Hill, Scarborough, on 15 September 2007. Nothing has been added, apart from reference details, some syntactic and explanatory inclusions (indicated with square brackets) and footnotes. To aid clarity, coherence, and ease of reading, some colloquial wording has been excised and some unintelligible or incidental discussion has been omitted (indicated by ‘…’ in the transcript). The formal structure for the dialogue was agreed by the participants in advance and comprised: (1) introductory presentations by John Rowan and Michael Daniels, followed by; (2) an attempt at reconciliation by David Fontana; (3) responses by all three speakers; (4) further responses; (5) an open discussion; and (6) a summary of key issues by David Fontana. Unfortunately the final 15 minutes of the dialogue did not record successfully, so that David Fontana’s summary ends somewhat abruptly. The paper ends with a postscript on the origins of Wilber’s system of levels of consciousness.