In his first book for a major corporate publisher, philosopher-psychologist-mystic Ken Wilber--who has created a unified theory of consciousness, incorporating Eastern and Western approaches--has a single goal in mind: to integrate the realms of science and religion, which are typically viewed as antagonists. Science arrogantly dismisses all claims of religion, spirituality, mysticism, etc. as superstitious nonsense. Religion, meanwhile, responds to the attack by disregarding science and claiming that its holy books have a monopoly on truth. Into this fray steps Wilber, who wants to bring the two together on their own terms. "If this integration can be done without 'cheating'--that is, without stretching and deforming religion or science to a point where they do not recognize themselves--then this will be an integration that both parties can genuinely embrace. Such a synthesis would unite the best of premodern wisdom with the brightest of modern knowledge, bringing together truth and meaning in a way that has thus far eluded the modern mind."

In the first part of the book, "The Problem", Wilber brings in the concept of the Great Chain (or Nest) of Being. Though the religions of the world vary as widely as possible on their surfaces, all of them are in basic agreement that existence is made up of several levels, each of which transcends yet includes the previous level(s). The basic chain, from bottom to top, is typically comprised of matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Some traditions have condensed this to three levels, while others have expanded it to seven or more, but they are all saying essentially the same thing.

Since all religions are creations of the premodern world while science is a child of the modern, Wilber also looks at exactly what modernity is. Drawing on the work of many scholars, he concludes that the defining essence of modernity is that it allowed the differentiation of the three value spheres of art, morals, and science (or the Beautiful, the Good, and the True; I, We, and It). In premodern times, these spheres were fused so tightly that they could not even be considered separate. The modern world--which essentially began with the Enlightenment--differentiated these three spheres, allowing individuals to pursue each one free from the pressures exerted by the others. Science could pursue objective truths about the world, art could look for beauty, and morals could try to decide what is right and wrong from an ethical standpoint.

Wilber points out both the good and bad aspects of modernity. The bad aspects basically come from the fact that the three value spheres not only differentiated but eventually dissociated. Science then became dominant, imperialistically declaring that the other two spheres had nothing of value to offer. This led to what has been called "the disenchantment of the world," "the wasteland" of modernity, and a monotonous flatland (one of Wilber's phrases) where beauty, spirit, nature, meaning, and the validity of all interior awareness have been stamped out by scientism, capitalism, and materialism.

But Wilber is quick to show that, despite what the critics of the modern world have to say, the Enlightenment and the subsequent modern world do have many wonderful characteristics absent in the premodern world: "the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice, regardless of race, class, creed or gender; modern medicine, physics, biology, and chemistry; the end of slavery; the rise of feminism; and the universal rights of humankind."

Having pointed out the Great Nest of Being that underlies all religions and the differentiated value spheres--including science--that define the modern world, Wilber writes: "Thus, in order to integrate religion and science, we need to integrate the Great Chain with the differentiations of modernity."

He proceeds to do just that. Along the way, he stops to look at previous attempts at integration, showing what they got right and what they got wrong. Romanticism was on the right track in that it wanted to integrate the value spheres, but by looking backwards into the premodern world for salvation, it was actually trying to return to a time before the spheres were even differentiated. By looking ahead to a time when humanity would evolve into an integrated worldview, the Idealists were headed in the right direction, but they couldn't offer any systematic way to bring about this integration. Postmodernism--while pointing out the importance of interpretation and context when looking for meaning--went too far and attempted to undermine everything by saying that there is no objective reality at all, "thus, all truth reduced to interpretive whim."

In the final part of the book--"A Reconciliation"--Wilber demonstrates how the three value spheres can be applied to each level of the Great Nest of Being: "the art, morals, and science of the sensory realm; the art, morals, and science of the mental realm; the art, morals, and science of the soul realm; and the art, morals, and science of the spirit realm."

He also makes an interesting case that science and religion are more similar than they realize, if only they would admit it. Science already deals with non-physical, "interior" realms, particularly in the fields of logic and mathematics (just consider imaginary numbers and the square root of negative one). Religion--or, to be more exact, the true mysticism that lies at the core of religions underneath all the dogma and mythology--is quite empirical in its instructions for achieving altered states, becoming enlightened, merging with the Godhead, and so on.