After I dropped off the book I just finished reading, I stopped at the “New Books Just In” section of the library just to see if there might be something that looked interesting. Some new legal mystery with a kick-ass female protagonist maybe.
Hmm. A just-published novel by Ken Wilber. Ken Wilber. Wasn’t he that transpersonal psychology guy? Back in the 70s? I always thought he spelled his name Wilbur. I look at the photo and blurb about Ken Wilber on the back cover. The photo is of a young man wearing a Smilie button. The blurb says:
Ken Wilber, who turned 23 when this book was published, received his degreee from MIT in computer science and artificial life. [emphasis mine, and that should have clued me in right there.] He lives in Denver Colorado with his finace, Chloe Walters, and their dog, Isaac……
I go back to novel’s Table of Contents, which includes chapter headings such as:
Omega_Doom@FutureWorld.Org
And_It_Is_Us@FuckMe.com
Subvert_Transgress_Deconstruct@FuckYou.com
The_Conquest_of_Paradise@MythsAreUs.net
OK, so this must be a different Ken Wilbur…er…Wilber…. I go back and read the blurb on the inside of the front cover.
Ken Wilber’s latest book is a daring departure from his previous wiritings…combines brilliant scholarship with tongue-incheek storytelling…. he expounded in more conventional terms in his recent “A Theory of Everything.“
I scan through the first few chapters and see references to Lasch’s “The Culture of Narcissism” and Stern’s “Me: the Naracissitic American.” I also see references to big tits and memes, cognitive malfunction and postmodernism, to sexdrugsand….
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! That doesn’t sound like the Ken Wilbur I used to know. That sounds like…..gulp…..
I take the book home so that I can figure out the Wilbur dilemma and further think about the connection between Wilbur/er and…..gulp….that other guy.
A Google search ultimately proves that Ken Wilbur is Ken Wilber. I can’t find any indiction of why his name is spelled two different ways, but when I compared a current photo of him with the 23 year-old guy on the book’s back flyleaf — yup, it’s the same guy. So, the old geezer is pretending to be a 23 year old geek writer. Uh oh.
That’s when enlightenment stikes.
Rage Boy is Ken Wilbur/er’s Evil Twin, his Dark Side. the other side of his coin. I mean just look them:

Rage Boy: long hair, down-turned eyes, bushy eyebrows, tight closed mouth, angular face, a look to intimidate if not scare you off completely.
Ken Wilbur/er: bald, turned-up eyes, normal eyebrows, open smiling mouth, softly curved face, an open and inviting expression.
And now the dark Rage Boy side has taken over the enlightened Ken Wilbur side and the result is “BOOMERITIS: A Novel That Will Set You Free.”
Oh where will it all end!