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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).

SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY FRANK VISSER

My Critical Essays
on Ken Wilber

A List of My Contributions

Frank Visser

Since 2002, and intensifying aroud 2006, I have published several essays on Integral World which are quite critical of Ken Wilber, both by myself and others. My stated aim in doing this has always been to stimulate a debate on the value of Wilber's proposals. Below is an overview of my essays that have been written in this spirit.

Some see this as a useless attempt at Wilber-bashing, but I would like to reiterate that, in publishing these essays, I am just hammering on the point that the Wilber debate – if there is such a thing at all – should be critical, public, free, reasonable, informed, well-referenced, transparent, accessible and open to anyone who has studied Wilber. Contrary to what I perceive as the current Wilber discourse.

2002

• Wilber and Metaphysics , April 2002

2003

• Post-metaphysics and beyond: The AQAL framework as Kosmic Compass, July 2003
• Reflections on "Subtle Energy", December 2003

2004

• Subtle bodies, higher worlds, January 2004
• Integralism and Perennialism, May 2004
• Reflections on "What is Integral?", May 2004  
• Perennialism, Postmodernism, Integralism, June 2004

2005

• The Mind-Body Problem: Helpful Hints from Integralism and Perennialism, August 2005

2006

• A Spectrum of Wilber Critics, February 2006
• Talking Back to Wilber: A Call for Validation, May 2006
• The Wild West Wilber Report: Looking Back on the Wyatt Earp Episode, July 2006
  • Games Pandits Play: A Reply to Ken Wilber's Raging Rant, June 2006
  • "Not So Fast, Cowboy": A Plea For Some Dispassion, June 2006 
  • For the Record: Final Comments to Wilber's Recent Blog Postings, July 2006 
• My Take on Wilber-5, August 2006
• Lord, Give Us Intgral, But Without the Hype: A Review of "Integral Spirituality", November 2006 
• Some Notes on Personalism, December 2006

2007

• A Brief History of Integral World: Ten Years of Integral Debate, May 2007
• If You Meet Wilber On the Road, Kill Him: On the Importance of Independent Integral Research, November 2007
• The Wilberian Evolution Report: A Collection of Debate Snippets, November 2007
• "What Good is Half a Wing?": The Wilberian Evolution Debate Continues, December 2007

2008

• Telling the Story As If It Were True, Review of "The Integral Vision", January 2008
• The Trouble with Ken Wilber: A Plea for a Change of Discourse, April 2008
• Assessing Integral Theory: Opportunities and Impediments, June 2008
• Frank Visser on Ken Wilber: A Video Interview by Randi Ceccine (Full Transcript), August 2008
• Perennialism Lite: Comments on "Integral Post-Metaphysics", August 2008

2009

• Ken Wilber's Mysterianism: How Not to Make a Case for Spiritual Evolution, February 2009
• Integral Design: Ken Wilber's Views on Evolution, May 2009

2010

• The 'Spirit of Evolution' Reconsidered: Relating Ken Wilber's view of Spiritual Evolution to the Current Evolution Debates, Integral Theory Conference Paper, August 2010
• Eros and Bacteria: Why Some Organisms Grow in Complexity, and Some Don't, November 2010
• 'From Dirt to Divinity': Ken Wilber's pre-Darwinian Understanding of Evolution, November 2010

2011

• Arguments from Ignorance, The "Frisky Dirt" Discussion So Far, February 2011
• Heavy Elements: Why Integral Physics is Lost in Space, September 2011
• Ken Wilber's "Creativism": God and the New Biology, October 2011
• Theories are Confessions: Reply to Salmon, December 2011

2012

• The 123 of Relationship to Ken Wilber, March 2012
• Some Paradoxes of Evolution, March 2012
• Integral Inflation, and Some Sobering Comments, July 2012
• Ideology and Inflation, The Shadow of the Integral Movement, November 2012

2013

• Explorations in Integral Speak Brief Comments on the "Spirit, Evolution, Shadow" video, March 2013
• Integral Theory and the "Big History" Approach, A Comparative Introduction, May 2013
• My Tribute to Ken Wilber, Anatomy of a Love-Hate Relationship, November 2013
• Tadpoles in Trouble, Ken Wilber on the Process of Regeneration, November 2013

2014

• For Crying Out Loud, Ken Wilber Repeats Vaporous Arguments about Evolution, February 2014
• The Wolf of Wilber Street, Integral Goes $uperhuman, February 2014
• Wilber and Laszlo, Two Authors of Evolutionary Fiction, April 2014
• Wilber or Truth? How to Get Rid of Your Wilber Complex, May 2014
• Eloquent Emptinesss, The Philosophy of WOW! and The End of Science, May 2014
• Entropy and Evolution, Ken Wilber's arguments for "an infinitely powerful force" behind evolution debunked, July 2014
• Is the Universe Really Winding Up?, August 2014
• Something Rather than Nothing, Where Wilber and Science Part Ways, September 2014
• Integral Theory and Cosmic Evolution, A Naturalistic Approach, December 2014

2015

• "Truth or Wilber?", Frank Visser's 20 min presentation for the Critics Section of IEC 2014, February 2015
• Duplicating Darwin: Ken Wilber's and David Loye's Misreading of Neo-Darwinism, February 2015
• Demystifying Evolution, How do Creationism, Darwinism and Integralism Compare?, March 2015
• 'In Eros We Trust', Reflections on Integral Religiosity, April 2015
• Wilber vs. Coyne, On The Conflict Between Science and Religion and the (Im)possibility of a Resolution, June 2015
• Questioning the Entire Edifice, The Integral World Contributions of David Lane, July 2015
• The Two Greatest Experiments of Life, Metabolism and Morphology, August 2015
• Integral Overstretch, Some reflections on "Integral in Action with Ken Wilber", October 2015

2016

• "Equilibrium is Death", Energy, Entropy, Evolution and the Paradox of Life's Complexity, February 2016
• "Science Has No Answer", Ken Wilber's Mistaken Strategy of Belittling Science, April 2016
• Eros as Skyhook, Ken Wilber Meets Daniel Dennett, April 2016
• Big History and Integral Theory, Bill Bryson Meets Ken Wilber, July 2016

2017

• A Self-Help Guide for Democrats, Review of Ken Wilber's "Trump and a Post-Truth World", February 2017
• Reflections on The Religion of Tomorrow:
  • Part I: The involution/evolution cosmology, Ken Wilber holds on to an outdated scheme of existence, May 2017
  • Part II: From Atom to Atman, Ken Wilber's Religious View of Evolution, May 2017
  • Part III: A more adequate spectrum of colors?, A Comparison of color terminology in chakra-psychology, Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, May 2017
  • Part IV: What's It Like to Be a Super-Nova?, Ken Wilber's Cosmic Approach to the Mind-Body Problem, May 2017
  • Part V: Rational Reasons to Believe in Spirit?, Evaluating Ken Wilber's Case for a Spiritual Worldview, June 2017
  • Part VI: Is Darwin Realy 'On Our Side'?, Ken Wilber's Misreading of Neo-Darwinism, June 2017
  • Part VII: Climbing the Stairway to Heaven, Ken Wilber's Mystical Religion of the Future, June 2017
• "Eros in the Kosmos", Mechanism, Metaphor or Something Else?, September 2017
• Why Ken Wilber Doesn't Get the Cosmic Energy Economy, September 2017
• Ken Wilber on Trial, Buddhist Organization Sues Ken Wilber for Fraud and Other Charges, October 2017
• "I Would Not Bet Against Eros..., Ken Wilber's General Theory of Evolution: Cosmological, Biological and Cultural, November 2017
• Why Self-Organization is Not a Cosmic Drive, Ken Wilber Fails to Understand the Basics of Evolution, December 2017

2018

• "Yeah, but he got the colors wrong", A Suggestion for Improving the Integral Color Scheme, May 2018
• The "Loopholes" of Neo-Darwinian Theory, Why Ken Wilber's Desperate Attempts to Refute Darwinism Fail Miserably, July 2018
• with David Lane, On Beating a Dead Horse, The Scientific Challenge to Ken Wilber and Why it Matters, July 2018
• The Integral Zeppelin, An Open Letter to Ken Wilber, August 2018
• Why We Need a Secular Integral, September 2018
• The Joy of Being Called "Extremely Conventional", Responding to a Wilberian Put-Down, October 2018
• “An Absolutely Obvious Look at How Evolution Actually Operates”, Wilber and Whitehead on the emergence of novelty, October 2018
• Is Stuart Kauffman Really Ken Wilber's Ally?, October 2018
• Ken Wilber's Natural Theology: On 'Enchanted Evolutionary Perspectives' and 'Mysterious Incalculable Forces', December 2018
• Demystifying Emergence, A Comparison of Harold Morowitz and Ken Wilber, December 2018

2019

• Ken Wilber's Creationism, The Invisible Supernatural Hand of Eros, March 2019
• From Hydrogen to Humanity, What Really Happened in Between?, March 2019
• Ken Wilber on the Power behind Evolution, Casting Doubt on the Contributions of Neo-Darwinism Is a Dishonest Creationist Strategy, April 2018
• Accepting the Radicality of Darwin, The Religious Orthodoxy of Ken Wilber, May 2019
• "Entire populations simply show up", Ken Wilber on Emergence and Speciation, May 2019
• Conveyor Belt or Escalator Going Down, What Drives the Cosmos at the Deepest Level?, May 2019
• Strawman or Steelman?, The Wilberian Evolution Controversy, June 2019
• Does Every Outside Have an Inside?, Ken Wilber's Strained Relationship to Science, July 2019
• Looking Closer at Ilya Prigogine, And at how Ken Wilber Co-Opts his Work for his Own Agenda, August 2019
• Ken Wilber and Modern Vedic Evolutionism, September 2019
• 'The modern theory of evolution is catastrophically incomplete!', Ken Wilber's Emotive Dealings with Evolutionary Theory, September 2019
• Ken Wilber and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, September 2019
• Interview by David Lane, A Sad Tale of The Pandit's New Clothes, Celebrating Frank Visser's 150th Essay, September 2019
• "No Way in Hell", Ken Wilber on the Naturalistic Approach to Evolution, October 2019
• 'Precisely nothing new or unusual', Ken Wilber on Darwin's Lasting Contribution, November 2019

2020

• Ken Wilber's Problematic Relationship to Science, submitted to Integral Review (under review), January 2020, will be reposted on Integral World upon publication.
• "It is Part of this Miracle of Emergence", Ken Wilber Argues for his Mysterianism, January 2020