Consciouness Explained Better

Consciousness Explained Better is a clear explanation of consciousness in its many facets and forms. The book offers the first thoroughgoing exploration of consciousness grounded in Ken Wilber’s understanding of its many aspects and developmental structures, all of which combine to create the kaleidoscopic yet lucid experience that is the essence of each of the moments of our lives. In this book, consciousness is explored from many points of view: its historical evolution, its growth in the individual, its mystical dimensions, and the meaning of enlightenment. 


“Allan Combs has written the finest book on consciousness in modern times, bar none. I give it my very highest recommendation.”

—Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision 


“It is the synthesis of Combs's decades of study and experience condensed into a single volume, and his recognition that the study of consciousness has reached an evolutionary moment of choice.”

—The Noetic Post, Institute of Noetic Sciences


"Consciousness Explained Better is a unique contribution. This compact volume represents thousands of years of humanity’s struggle to understand consciousness from a wide variety of perspectives. It is an up-to-date digest of the search in bite-sized chapters. Allan Combs has managed to encapsulate and synthesize vast bodies of thought and research without dilution. He has made even the most mind-twisting arguments and questions comprehensible, and he has brought forward scholarship and rigorous inquiry in language that speaks to the heart as well as the head. This book satisfies with its comprehensiveness yet intrigues with all that still remains enigmatic. It brings forward the yearning, the brilliance, the awe, and the outrageous audacity of our search to understand conscious. It reminds us that, in a world where much of our lives on a mundane basis has been reduced to the trivial, the logistical, and the manageable, everything about that world and about ourselves is still completely beyond our grasp. We still live and move in the Great Mystery."

--From the Foreword by Jenny Wade, author of Changes of Mind and Transcendent Sex 


“Using a friendly and engaging writing style, Dr. Allan Combs's book Consciousness Explained Better examines the most advanced thinking to date on the compelling subject of human consciousness. Professor Combs' own profound understanding of the field results in a clarity of focus that takes us to the heart of the matter. Moreover, as a prominent thinker within the integral philosophy movement, he writes with deep knowledge and abiding authority on the newly emerging "way of seeing" known as integral consciousness. I highly recommend this important book.“ —Steve McIntosh, author of Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution 


“Allan Combs brings new firepower to consciousness studies, joining Ken Wilber and others who are integrating contemporary research in neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and other fields with the lore of the sacred traditions. This book is like Luke Skywalker's torpedo headed straight into the Death Star of reductive materialism.” —Michael Murphy, founder of the Esalen Institute, and author of The Future of the Body.