Wilber (2000a) postulates nine levels of development of consciousness. Each time the self steps up to a new level of consciousness, it first identifies with the level, then it disidentifies with the level, and through disidentification, it is able to transcend and integrate the contents of that level as it moves to the next higher level. If it fails to differentiate, it remains fixed or arrested at the level. If it fails to integrate, then pathologies occur. Pathologies associated with each failure are listed in the chart in Appendix E.

This is the sensori-motor stage of development, the first stage the child attempts through Piaget’s process of grasp and thrust. It represents the physical self. If self fails to differentiate, it cannot tell where self stops and the outer world begins. This results in psychosis and is believed to be the basis of schizophrenia and severe affective disorders. It creates severe reality distortion, and the individual fails to establish even physical boundaries of the self. It is thus a critical stage of consciousness development (Wilber, 2000a).

This represents the creation of the emotional boundary of the self, and the child awakens to his emotional separateness. If there is failure at this stage, the individual does not establish boundaries of the emotional states of consciousness. It represents a narcissistic state, because the child is unable to differentiate the emotional states of others from his own emotional state. If differentiation fails, the adult may either end up as highly narcissistic, or he may suffer from borderline personality disorders where there are no emotional boundaries to the self (Wilber, 2000a). Essentially, the self will have no emotional boundaries. Co-dependent behavior may also be a result of failure to fully differentiate.

This represents the birth of the conceptual self. The self is no longer exclusively identified with emotions. The emotions become a part of the content of identity, and self identifies with thoughts, the mental self or linguistic energies. Failure at this stage results in all forms of neurosis. Self can now repress emotions (because emotions are now the content of identity) and thus at this stage, emotions are shoved into unacknowledged and unaware places of the psyche (the unconscious) (Wilber, 2000a).

This is the birth of the role self, and coincides with Piaget’s concrete operations. This represents a shift from self to an inclusion of others in one’s field of importance. Wilber calls this a shift from preconventional or egocentric, to conventional or sociocentric consciousness, or modes of awareness, and it is highly conformist. However, it only includes my group or tribe, not tribes who are different from me and mine. It also shows up as being ethnocentric (one’s own ethnic group). Problems in consciousness are usually due to distortions in thinking. Pathology results in what Wilber calls script distortions, script referring to thoughts, roles, and rules that are imposed by one’s group (2000a).

A greater decentering (less focus on self) occurs at this stage. Now an individual sees through the confines of group thinking and group rules of right and wrong. The individual begins to question rules and roles, and he develops a true global view and appreciation of differences. This represents a movement to a world-centric view where one sees the many possible differences and groups in the world. Once an individual has moved to this world-centric view, he cannot return to prior stages (egocentric or sociocentric). Thus "Spirit has, for the first time in evolution, looked through your eyes and [has] seen a global world, a world that is decentered from the me and mine, a world that demands care and concern and compassion and conviction" (Wilber, 2000a, p. 171).

This is the vision-logic stage, represented as the highly integrated personality, the centaur. The centaur is integrated in self, body-mind, and in service to others (Fowler’s stage 5). It is considered an existential level, and problems faced have to do with existential questions. Everything becomes relative, which throws the individual into a tailspin – how does one choose? Paralysis of will and judgment can result. The centaur is on the brink of letting the finite or ego self die. The observing self or Higher Self has made its full appearance. The Witness experiences both mind and body and has evolved beyond identification with both. The Witness has always been there, but it took this level of development to allow it to fully emerge.

This is the psychic stage and it is the first level of the transpersonal domain. It brings about a deep awareness that the Self is not confined to the ego. The psychic self begins to experience states of transcendent identification with nature and feels no separation between self and the world. The ego seems to dissolve into a feeling of oneness or identification with objects in the world. Subjective and objective experience begins to lose its dual meaning. This is not psychosis, but rather a sense of union. Identity has been decentered and expanded even further. Movement into this level of expansion has been made possible by the full development of a world-centric viewpoint (Wilber, 2000a).

This is the subtle realm and represents a deeper union with the Deity, not just nature or objects in the world (Wilber, 2000a). Fulcrum 7 represented the first shift from gross-oriented reality of the physical or nature oriented world. This shift in fulcrum 8 represents a subtler shift, which includes interior luminous experiences with sounds, lights, archetypal forms and patterns, and expansive states of love and compassion. This is deity mysticism or union with God, the Divine. The individual looks into the face of the Divine.

When one pursues the Witness back to its source, one encounters emptiness. It is like deep dreamless sleep where no thoughts arise, but in consciousness, this state is experienced as utter fullness or "drenched in the fullness of Being, so full that no manifestation can even begin to contain it" (Wilber, 2000a, p. 199). The identity or content of consciousness is completely dropped. This is a state of complete disidentification and unity.

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