In the last 5 years, Ken Wilber has gone from an independent and successful storyteller of evolutionary spirituality - which he could have kept doing - to founding an organization to further expand on Wilber's vision, and hopefully to create new work and thought based out of that vision.

When I first heard that Wilber was creating an institute, I was glad to hear it.  Wilber had been the pundit expanding on his vision for over a quarter of a century.  It was great that there would be a larger labratory in which to test this vision in the real world, rather than just him telling his inspiring vision, and resting in the commercial book success of that, for the rest of his life (which he could have EASILY done.)

What the institute has been successful in doing in the last two years is - like Ken Wilber - providing a forum for the best storytellers and motivators in different areas of living, but grounded in spirituality- hence the integral.  So different experts, hawking their various products - from enlightenment, to relationship, to energy, to environment - are featured and produced, under the Integral Institute, as well as having their own thing going.

However, with the impending release of Integral University - really the next step - it seems to me that what has been successful for Wilber - mainly sythesizing lots of different points of theory and fact into his overall inspiring vision - is going to run into the next challenge.  Which is that good research is a commitment of good infrastructure, and good organization, and a commitment to NEUTRALITY.

In this sense, the commitment for a research organization is to "neutral" research.  This implies research fights, disagreements, and some generalized unpleasantness, when people disagree.  The role required to LEAD this, is NOT the role of pre-eminent philosopher-king-C.E.O, but more is the role of the University President.  And those roles are pretty separate, and pretty distinct.  I can't see any bodymind being able to encompass both roles, no matter how enlightened.

There have been criticisms about Ken Wilber by various bloggers, and I haven't really weighed in.   But I thought it was time to give my opinion, for what it is worth.

a. Ken Wilber in his work, generalizes, from a profound amount of sources, and he does a pretty good job.  However, there simply is TOO MUCH information to synthesize, for any genius, any polymath.  The days of the polymath are OVER.  (This is put really well by Alan Kazlev in an article titled "Specialized Knowledge".)

Ken Wilber has been able to avoid the challenges to his system, mainly because he is very successful commercially, which pretty much every philosopher is not - and my contention is that what most of Ken Wilber does is synthesizing philosophy,  Success for most theorists  has been with the support of a larger university.

Some of the recent criticism of Ken Wilber has been because of:

1. Errors in particular details - getting his generalizations of a particular subject area wrong.
2. Defensiveness in engaging with critics - for example, claiming that no one has understood his work.

Let's take 1. 

a. I have no doubt that Wilber has made errors - again, no matter how skilled a polymath genius he is, it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to be an expert in every field, or even to adequately cover the controversies in one field.  One can only take on as much as one can chew.
b. If you look at the history of philosophers - they have nearly ALWAYS made significant errors, when referencing other domains of knowledge, to either support or elucidate a point of their philosophy.  But the value of Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Heidegger, Habermas, Derrida, their philosophy's value has NEVER rested in whether these references to other domains of knowledge are right and wrong.  In a way, that is an impossible standard.

Let's take 2, defensiveness in engaging with critics:

a.  First off, when you get to the academic fields - guess what? - it is fundamental that you speak for your positions in an absolutely strong way, using every conceivable rhetorical device.  Academic fights get nasty, there is no doubt, as people put their LIVES into their work.  And like the old adage says, "old scientists don't change their views, they just die off".   So again, in this particular realm, there has to be a practical understanding that competing in the rational realm of ideas, is for the most part, a bloody business.
b.  Philosophers complaining that they aren't understood.  Um, yeah!  Again, this happens all the time.  One should read sometime the back and forth between Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida.  Knives were always ready to be displayed - at least until the common enemy of George Bush induced them to put down those knives....
c. Also, you find this a lot in some of the Buddhist debating.  It could get pretty tense there.

Look, again, this is part of the package deal.  Philosophers will defend their ideas to the death, using every rhetorical device imaginable.   The fact that Wilber meditates and has some genuine spiritual realizations, doesn't mean that this personal dynamic that has afflicted every other philsopher won't operate in Wilber's case.

So, what does this mean?  Well, Integral Institute is going to either:

a. Go the product route.  Research will focus around putting out better product, all couched in the terms of integral vision.  In this sense, Integral Institute will continue (or become) the "best" of the "self-improvement" market.  Like Tony Robbins, or Deepak Chopra, use their commercially produced products to derive whatever benefit you can, all operating under the vision of Ken Wilber.  This might be the most practical way to go, as it produces immediate financial benefits.
b. Go the research route.  Ken Wilber will cede the role of operating manager to the "university president", and become like a chairman of the board figure - but of course, still involved!  Then the university president can go ahead and commit to a true "research institute", that also releases products.   But this institute will then allow TRUE research to go forward, with disagreements in the research and theory between each other, and sometimes with the Chairman of the Board.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe any person can be the "leading theorist" of something, and then also operate as the objective judge of that theory.  I at least, would be FAR too bound up!