The Atman Project (Paperback)

Wilber shows that, at each stage, the seeds of failure inhere in the nature of the stage itself and that the human resolves this by raising itself one level higher thereby integrating the problematic elements of the current stage. However, the new stage has an essentially similar, flawed structure and so the process goes on and on until the project is completed and the human achieves total integration i.e. he does, in fact, become God.

Ken regards the process as having an outward swing, which is the ground covered by Western psychology and an inward swing, which is the ground covered by Eastern religion. The achievement of this book is to make a sensible whole out of the two. In the course of this Ken lays out his own ideas about the nature of developmental failure and argues strongly and persuasively that the desires seen in some people for further self-integration by such techniques as mediation are not, in general, desires to regress to earlier, more satisfying, states as many psychologists believe, but are the engines of further developmental progress.

After we have been taken along this somewhat controversial route the position is rounded out by describing what happened *before* we were born. I don't mean what happened to us in the womb, I mean he describes the developmental nature of the interlife(!) and he does this by reference to the Tibetan book of the Dead(!) OK, by now you have the idea, we are talking here about the BIG, big picture, the biggest there is, and inevitably, it is open to dispute.

In its favour the book is *seriously* well referenced, tightly argued and presents a very elegant argument. Against it is that some evidence that bears heavily on the more tenuous areas appears to me to have been ignored in order to make the case. For example, we are told that the Tibetan Book of the Dead says that, at death, irrespective of the stage a soul has achieved while on earth, the Atman project is momentarily completed in the interlife. But the (immature?) soul cannot sustain the integration and so a series of descents is made until physical birth recurs. This is an accurate reading of the TBOTD sure enough, but this admittedly ancient and well-respected work is not in accord with the evidence we get from certain modern-day seers and that which has been revealed by access to the superconcious under hypnosis. This leaves us (as always, groan) in a position where we choose our evidence, and we choose our world-view as a result.

Some reviewers have said Ken is repetitive, and I have to reluctantly agree with that. Repetition is, to some extent, inevitable in this book because he is describing a repetitive process, but he does make this worse by occasionally saying the same thing several times, all in close proximity. It is not a major failing but you do sometimes have the feeling you are being clubbed over the head with his points.

But I should not leave you on a negative. This book is a seriously good piece of work dealing concisely with a very difficult matter; a matter which to some of us is of the utmost importance i.e. it makes sense of the apparent contradictions between Western psychology and religion i.e. ego enhancement and ego dissolution. If this area matters to you then I strongly recommend it. For my own part, this was my first book by Wilber and I will read more, mainly to see if my perception that certain evidence is ignored under his worldview is incorrect.