In two previous posts, this and this (which I suggest you to read carefully), I argued that the metaphysics of Ken Wilber is in tension with number of things agreed by most people (including some of Wilber's readers), namely:
1)With the possibility of survival of consciousness (specially in an unembodied form, like suggested by the best cases of NDEs) and the afterlife.
2)With the existence of abstract objets (like numbers or propositions), provided they're not just subjective and useful concepts in our minds.
3)With the theory of the Big Bang, which implies the absolute origin of matter, energy and space-time (i.e. the absolute origin and coming into being of nature itself).
4)With the existence of God.
Just for the record: My main and underlying argument in both posts is NOT that Wilber's metaphysics is false (although I think it is), but that they're in tension with the existence, or possible existence, of at least the 4 categories of beings, events or phenomena mentioned above.
Why is that important? Because Wilber's ideas are shared by a lot of "New Age" fans and students (specially those with certain intellectual interests) and such people also tend to share all or some of the above 4 beliefs, at least implicitly.
Therefore, if I'm right in my critique of Wilber, people who holds one of the above 4 beliefs have to either abandon them, or reject Wilber's metaphysics.
In my opinion, Wilber's metaphysics can be useful to understand the evolution of material systems, but not to understand the origin of matter/nature itself, let alone spiritual problems. His view is highly similar to emergent materialism, with the difference that Wilber uses a spiritualistic terminology (e.g. "consciousness") and a kind of Hegelian mindset.
Ultimately, Wilber's system seems to imply the same kind of impersonalistic worldview (=a worldview based ultimately and fundamentally on non-personal forces, processes or entities) than materialism or scientific naturalism, which is at variance with the objective existence (as part of the fabric of reality) of basic and intrinsic person-relative/person-dependent features like rationality, intentionality, free will, moral responsability, etc.
In impersonalistic worldviews, "persons" (if they exist at all) are later by-products of more fundamental, non-personal forces, entities, events or processes (e.g. subatomic particles, fields of forces, the law of entropy or gravity, natural selection, "universal consciousness" or "cosmic energy", and so forth). In some New Age doctrines, person-relative properties are "reified" (=assumed to be individual things and not properties of things), like "love" (without lover), or "intelligence" (without a person who exercises it) and other abstract "energies" which being impersonal behave as persons... so, these people can say "the universe is intelligent", or "the universe is love" or "the universe cares of you", without realizing that they are positing person-dependent features to non-personal realities.
Impersonalistic worldviews, at the bottom, tend to ultimately nullify, limit and undermine the distinctive features of persons on behalf of (supposedly) most important, fundamental and senior impersonal forces and processes (think about the "dissolution of the self" so common in the Eastern and New Age literature... a dissolution which, if true, will ultimately destroy any sense of rationality, free will, personal agency, moral responsability, etc. since the existence of a individual free and rational "self" is a necessary condition of these person-relative features. Not surprinsingly, many of these impersonalistic worldviews say that things like "good and evil are mere illusions based upon dualistic thinking" or "there is not justice nor injustice in the creation but only love..." which obviously is the negation of the objective existence of a rational, moral and just realm in which we are ultimately accountable for our free decisions and deeds, specially if our conscious, spiritual and moral life extends beyond this physical existence).
A given worldview is either personal or non-personal, that is, rooted ultimately in a person or persons, or in non-personal forces. This is why the most plausible cadidates are theism (personal worldview) or scientific naturalism (impersonal worldview based on natural science).
Postulating a spiritual dimesion fit well with theism, since God is a spiritual being. But a spiritual dimension of souls and finite conscious beings don't fit well in a worldview which is impersonalistic, like naturalism. (This is why naturalists are critical and debunkers of spiritual matters).
Monistic metaphysics (like Wilber's) don't escape from this. Either, such unitary principle is a person or not. If it is a person, then everything that exists is a expression of such person (and some version of theism seems implied) and person-dependent features find a secure place in that worldview. If not, and the root of reality is a non-personal principle or entitiy ("undifferentiate consciousness", "cosmic energy", "loving universe", the quantum vacuum, "abstract intelligence", numbers, etc.), then "persons" seem to be secondary by-products, contingent, more or less accidental, non-fundamental realities, and person-dependent features have not a fundamental place in it, only a secondary and temporal one.
Wilber's view uses a person-dependent language (e.g. "The Spirit"), but in examination such principle seems to be a non-personal energy or entity. Such Spirit far from being "free", is subject to a bunch of metaphysical laws which imply a continuous progression of developmental process through the material world and eventually evolving to personal minds.
For the reasons explained in my two posts on Wilber, I find his metaphysics at variance with phenomena which fit better with theism.
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