stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

172 STRIPPING THE GURUS
ously and reasonably asserted de Quincey’s tendencies toward passive-aggressive
behavior (in his writings), and reliance on pop psychology
in his character analysis of Wilber’s “nasty tone.”
And there the matter has rested.
Until now.
It is not my purpose here to attempt to evaluate those authors’
respective criticisms of one another. Life is too short for that.
Rather, I would simply like to note several allegations which de
Quincey has made regarding the “behind the scenes” aspects of the
relevant processes. Those may then give one pause when considering
the overall health of the consciousness studies field. In particular,
they may cast some doubt on the aspects of that field which
closely surround Wilber and his followers, shaping as that proximity
does the allowed discussions around them.
In commenting on how Wilber may have obtained pre-publication
knowledge of the detailed contents of his original submitted
paper, de Quincey (2001) has suggested:
[Wilber’s] friend Keith Thompson, evidently, had passed
along a series of private and confidential email exchanges
between Thompson and me. I had included Thompson in the
group of prepublication reviewers, and had lengthy online
conversations with him—particularly about I-I [i.e., intersubjectivity].
However, I explicitly prefaced our exchanges
with a request that the contents of our conversations be kept
confidential, and should not be shared. Thompson agreed,
and said he would honor my request.
Not only did he “approach” Wilber and “warn” him of
“severe distortions,” Thompson used the content of my
emails to write a critique of my Wilber critique, which he
sent off to JCS, suggesting that either his paper be published
as a Wilber review instead of mine, or perhaps alongside
mine. Not surprisingly, the JCS editor saw right through the
ruse. Thompson took this underhand action without informing
me, clearly breaching a confidential agreement between
us. Very unprofessional. A clear case of “Wilber police” mentality.
(Thompson, and his friend and Wilber acolyte Sean
Hargens, later tried a similar tactic to suppress publication
of another article on Wilber I’d written for IONS Review!)
Any devoted disciple would, of course, have behaved in the
same way, in defending his guru-figure’s “honor.” That is, dissent-