Thinking The Unthinkable: Are we really evolving in soul-life?

[Kaje977]

When reading Barfield's work, Steiner, etc., I find the general idea very convincing: consciousness is not in a fixed, static state, but is apparently evolving. Even materialists would probably not deny this, since Darwinian evolution (materialistic evolution) strongly implies that consciousness would sooner or later be affected by it. But here is something that troubles me:

Are we really evolving, i.e., not only our “reason” (or thinking), but also our “inner soul life” in humanity? Sure, we can look at history from a spiritual evolutionary perspective. And I would say that evolution has definitely taken place here, because we see that the Christ impulse has nourished many ethical principles (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). And yet one strange thing remains: the soul does not seem to be evolving at all, or only very slowly. How is it that despite all the progress we have made, despite the spiritual development we have supposedly undergone, despite the French Revolution (and the adoption of universal human rights), despite the two terrible world wars, etc., we still face more or less the same problems as we did thousands of years ago? We still have wars (for the same reasons, either “for the common good,” out of revenge, or "because XY treated us terribly", etc.), we still have suffering, we still have obvious evil in this world, we have pedophiles running amok underground, and despite all the protests, nothing seems to change. Worse still, with all the lessons supposedly learned from the horrors of World War II, we see exactly the same patterns of thinking reappearing in politically left-wing circles (only in a new form) and, of course, in some right-wing circles (also as revenge against left-wing authoritarian behavior). Likewise, the refugee crisis is neither new nor unique. The Roman Empire had to contend with similar problems, the “barbarians at the gates of Rome.” This is not meant to be anti-refugee rhetoric, but it is clear that different cultures will logically lead to conflicts in other cultures to a greater or lesser extent. But here one would say: Well, back then we didn't have a globalized infrastructure, hence cultural differences were very hard to get rid of. We see that doesn't make sense either looking at how connected we are nowadays.

If we look only at recent events, the heinous and cowardly murder and assassination of Charlie Kirk and the previous, equally cowardly murder and assassination of Melissa Hartman, we see that the supposed post-war US empire, from which the European and Western sphere has benefited so much and which has undoubtedly brought decades of peace and progress such as humanity has never seen before, is slowly but surely heading towards collapse. This is not just arbitrary “doom and gloom” or anything like that. It is a clear and undeniable fact for anyone who is not still clinging to the “America Great” narrative. There probably won't be a “bang” (although the similarities to World War I are eerily clear, it is possible that a single specific event could trigger chaos), but rather a slow decay which has been unfolding in the past decades (Just compare the streets in major American Cities with those in Asian cultures; 'Nuff said). But either way, the empire is breathing its last breaths, desperately trying to hold on to world power, but ultimately, as has always been the case with these empires, they will fall, and it will be a devastating catastrophe, probably triggering an even worse refugee crisis. But I just wonder: Will other cultures be so sincere and kind with us as we were with them when taking them in? You can be damn sure, that they will at least protect their identity, probably reject every refugee. We already see this happening. In contrast, China seems to be gaining more and more the upper hand and becoming the new superpower in this world.

And so I sit here and ponder once again whether we are really evolving or not. The lessons we supposedly learned seem to keep bringing us back to the old state of “never having learned anything.” We have more knowledge at our disposal than anyone else in history, right at our fingertips, just a click away. A person from the 19th century living in our world today would most likely think that we are literally living in the Garden of Eden; they would probably consider our technology magic. We are more globally connected than ever before, language barriers are diminishing, cultural boundaries are blurring, and we can no longer determine events solely from hearsay, but can research them independently using the internet, The European Union is a great role-example (although nowadays progressively terribly executed) of a possible future where we are no longer divided by countries, but united as "World Citizens"

And yet, despite all the information and knowledge available to us, I have to admit that despite all the terrible things that happened in the 20th century, most people at that time were more respectful, more ethical, even more knowledgable (compared to surface knowledge and "TikTok-like attention span) and generally more disciplined (for better or worse). Nowadays, people in the Western world are so addicted to materialism (in terms of perception, ethics, and physicality) that it's scary. Disrespectful, passing by people literally dying on the street, a general "non-chalant" behavior and passivity while aggressors can run amok and kill innocents, such as the poor Ukrainian woman on that train. Now, one could say: Well, this is supposed to represent the “hero's journey,” i.e., the one who fights his way through these battles and ultimately prepares the new future state (Vulcan) within himself. But how often has that been done? And what is the point of all the suffering if, on the whole, humanity still ultimately learn nothing from it and fall back into suppoedly overcome states of soul-life? If nuclear war ever breaks out and all modern knowledge is wiped out, then we will have gained nothing. We would be back to square one. We would fall back into the conditions of pre-human rights, or worse, only “the law of the strongest” would apply again. If we continue to evolve, then so should our ethical existence, our spiritual, soul life. But that is not the case. The history of humanity shows that, historically, we have developed largely mentally (intellectually) and technically (physically). But morally (spiritually), we have developed only very sporadically, and very often we fall back into old problems and habits. If we were able to develop ourselves on this level as well, imagine how fruitfully humanity could develop. Then we would truly have “the Garden of Eden” on Earth.

And this is quite similar to the problems that other flourishing empires have struggled with in the past (although access to the luxuries we take for granted today was then limited to a small group of people, the nobility), including materialistic behavior and the typical seven deadly sins, including gluttony. Hedonism has always existed, and ironically, limited access to tempting goods meant that the “average person” behaved more ethically and sincerely than the elite. There are also studies of people who have lived abstemiously all their lives (tribes that have never or only minimally encountered the Western world), and as soon as they were confronted with, say, modern technology, they immediately fell victim to it, as if all their practices had been completely meaningless. I always remember the example of a tribe that got internet access and smartphones, and suddenly almost everyone, including the children, was dependent on and addicted to their new devices. So much so that they neglected their own needs. It was as if all the spiritual and ethical work had been pointless, because biologically speaking, we seem to fall prey to these conditions easily, even if we believe ourselves to be immune to them. So is it even possible to resist this? I know there are examples of people who are known for being strong-willed, but who knows what they do when no one is looking? Can we really resist our biological nature?

So what was the point of evolution, of making luxury accessible to almost everyone (in the Western world) instead of just the nobility? It seems to repeat itself over and over again, always the same problems, always the same senseless wars with many inconsistencies. The observation I am making here is that people are regressing, at least if it comes to soul-life. One could argue that it is like a “sieve” in which some do not make it and remain in their old state, while a few face up to their spiritual task. Is the latter the intention of evolution? Questions upon questions.

Maybe I just fundamentally misunderstand what evolution is about. I admit, as of now I understood "the evolution of consciousness" as a faith-given process, so basically the good ol' "Even if humanity as a whole doesn't actively do anything to spiritually evolve (even regressing), evolution will get us there eventually by causing events that will force us to spiritually evolve". But more and more I doubt this. If God, or "the highest supreme being", wants us to reach a higher spiritual state, wouldn't it be more feasible to cause certain events to lead us there, forcing us to spiritually evolve such that we can't even resist at all? If yes, such as the Christ impulse, then why doesn't it seem to bear fruit? It would only mean that God gives us a few breadcrumbs here and there, but ultimately He leaves us alone, even ready to risk our own extermination if we can't make it. But then again, what's the point? What's the point of even giving us breadcrumbs in the first place if the possibility is there that we all won't make it either way? Is it like: "Well, it's a choice. You do you" ? Is it possible that we can fall so low, that we can never attempt to spiritually evolve again and be forever stuck at an old stage of soul?

Maybe I can find some answers here. Ultimately, I made this post (to describe my motive), because it seems that I lose "faith," so I'm looking for an anchor here, something that shows me that this isn't all pointless, that my "Hero's Journey," will truly contribute something to humanity and not just to myself alone, because many spiritual teachings focus heavily on inner development. And yes, it is important, no doubt about that. Yes, I want to evolve, but I also want to give it back, I also want that it has a positive net impact on humanity, that my inner work truly helps humanity on a large scale.

[Kaje977]

If humanity keeps going the way it does now, we'll be representative of a hypothetical Tarot card called "The Unmade", the very opposite of "The World". The negative initiation ends here in total disintegration. Man has not become one with the cosmos, but has become a shell, fully merged with Ahriman, and turned into dust.



This is the worst possible outcome of all outcomes. What can we do to avoid this? If God really gives the responsibility solely on our hands, that means that we have to do far more than just what we are doing now. We would have to form a movement, spread the knowledge everywhere where it makes sense, likewise spreading the breadcrumbs and help others awaken. That would be the only possible solution.

[AshvinP]

When reading Barfield's work, Steiner, etc., I find the general idea very convincing: consciousness is not in a fixed, static state, but is apparently evolving. Even materialists would probably not deny this, since Darwinian evolution (materialistic evolution) strongly implies that consciousness would sooner or later be affected by it. But here is something that troubles me:

...

Hi Kaje,

Thanks for sharing an interesting perspective on this evolutionary question. Here are a few general thoughts and perhaps others will share theirs as well.

I think it's important that we first note how, especially in our time, the evolutionary process is not linear or uniform. There are many rhythms of evolution that are superimposed and occurring simultaneously. There are ascending and descending movements across various scales from the individual soul to the souls of the nations, epochs, species, and Earth, which are nested within each other and cross-modulating each other. In that sense, it makes little sense to even speak of "we" or "humanity" as something uniform that is evolving. It is true that these divergent streams should gradually synchronize and become something more uniform, in terms of the shared fully human ideal toward which they strive, but there are many stages of development that must be traversed before that harmony manifests more fully. The intuitive steering toward the archetypal ideal form can twist and deviate in many ways.

That is why the initiates like Steiner have spoken of the rise and fall of civilizations across the epochs (for example, how the 'West' is falling and the Slavic-Russian stream will rise in the 6th epoch), the diverging streams of humanity, the culmination of our present epochal cycle in the "War of All Against All', and so on. I think you are intuiting many of the same dynamics that such initiates could perceive in a more refined and integrated form. Most people don't like to hear about such things, let alone contemplate them deeply, but the spiritual scientific path cannot ignore these realities. Before we see them happening at the larger scales, we will experience the divergence happening in our own daily lives as our spiritual interests no longer coincide with our old friends, family members, etc. The ways other people think, feel, and act can start to feel quite abhorrent, precisely because we have become sensitive to those same tendencies within ourselves and we have a sense of where they will be leading us if we continue along the same trajectory. The potential trajectories are not pretty, to say the least.

The Christ events give us a condensed historical image of all that the individual human soul will need to traverse over many lifetimes, assuming the soul answers the invitation to self-knowledge and to develop more creative responsibility within the experiential flow. As mentioned, this will unfold at different 'rates' for different souls, especially in the earliest post-Christ phases that we are still in. When we try to see things from this wider perspective, the non-linear patterns of the evolutionary process become clearer and various historical events can be made better sense of, both the spiritual victories (like declaration of universal rights) and the atrocities you mentioned. That doesn't mean we will understand all the details of why this or that occurred, but at least we start to intuitively sense the 'fractal grid' in which such events are embedded, how they result from so far unresolved 'elastic tensions' that have been created from previous deeds along the scale spectrum. Then we have a better sense for why things rarely move in linear progression upward and why many imbalances are spawned that will certainly look like stagnation, regression, and so on.

In a certain sense, many human souls today are stretched tightly between the ascending and descending currents. This situation can manifest in very low lows and very high highs, so to speak. Sometimes the lowest lows for some souls also inspire the highest highs for others. A typical example is how some souls may have risked everything to help the souls being placed into concentration camps. That is not meant as some kind of apologetic for 'God's ways', but simply as an example of the polarizations that are manifesting in recent times. The potential for inner development is at its highest, which necessarily means that potential can be abused (mainly by being ignored) and lead to the most tragic outcomes. The trickiest aspect is that, just as the modern initiatory path provides the opportunity for a positive feedback spiral of inner development, souls that fail to discover this opportunity can easily get caught in a negative feedback spiral of mechanization. The more I have contemplated such a possibility, the more varied ways I can see it manifesting across cultures and outlooks. Some such spirals will unfortunately continue out of their inner momentum until a new 'balance point' is reached, and it's hard to say how dire things will become. The 'unmade' shell seems to be a distinct possibility for some souls who continue finding excuses to avoid experiencing their innermost core that weaves together mental pictures about reality.

If God, or "the highest supreme being", wants us to reach a higher spiritual state, wouldn't it be more feasible to cause certain events to lead us there, forcing us to spiritually evolve such that we can't even resist at all?

I think we can simply contemplate what reality would have to be like for such a thing to be possible. Why even decry the mechanization of humanity if we would happily submit to a 'spiritual algorithm' that is implemented from above and forces us to 'evolve'? Can we even call that evolution? There is certainly a need for faith and submission to the Divine Will within the evolutionary process, insofar as these soul forces become a catalyst to higher self-knowledge which, in turn, inspires more faithful submission to the Will, and so on. It is only through such a balanced, rhythmic process that the human soul remains free and evolves into a creatively responsible being, rather than an excessively materialized or spiritualized automaton. And what other choice is there? Everything else is a choice to become choiceless, a resignation to existing as a puppet pulled by unknown strings. It could turn out, and I think there are plenty of inner reasons to believe it will turn out, that becoming a more creatively responsible individual will also harmonize with what's best for all other individuals and their development. Yet this is not something we can prove to ourselves beforehand - it can only be lived out and the proof emerges as the fruits of inner experience, the ever-expanding insights into how our destinies are intimately entangled.

[Federica]

Maybe I can find some answers here. Ultimately, I made this post (to describe my motive), because it seems that I lose "faith," so I'm looking for an anchor here, something that shows me that this isn't all pointless, that my "Hero's Journey," will truly contribute something to humanity and not just to myself alone, because many spiritual teachings focus heavily on inner development. And yes, it is important, no doubt about that. Yes, I want to evolve, but I also want to give it back, I also want that it has a positive net impact on humanity, that my inner work truly helps humanity on a large scale.

About this particular thought, I wanted to ask: don't you think that the efforts of inner development don't contribute something only to oneself, but always to others as well, since inner development is never pursued in soul isolation? Not to minimize the value of action-based net impact in society, but working with inner progress, one can be confident that the work will reverberate and affect the soul world, and ultimately the world at large, even if one doesn't see how and when, and even if it may be nothing large scale. Reciprocally, our efforts can also be seen as part of the direct or indirect fruit of other beings' contribution, to the extent that there's a harmonious connection in 'interbeing'. Perhaps the particular way in which we form our will and intention, in outer or inner activity, bears the qualities of those other perspectives and intentions too.

[Cleric]

Are we really evolving, i.e., not only our “reason” (or thinking), but also our “inner soul life” in humanity? Sure, we can look at history from a spiritual evolutionary perspective. And I would say that evolution has definitely taken place here, because we see that the Christ impulse has nourished many ethical principles (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). And yet one strange thing remains: the soul does not seem to be evolving at all, or only very slowly. How is it that despite all the progress we have made, despite the spiritual development we have supposedly undergone, despite the French Revolution (and the adoption of universal human rights), despite the two terrible world wars, etc., we still face more or less the same problems as we did thousands of years ago? We still have wars (for the same reasons, either “for the common good,” out of revenge, or "because XY treated us terribly", etc.), we still have suffering, we still have obvious evil in this world, we have pedophiles running amok underground, and despite all the protests, nothing seems to change. Worse still, with all the lessons supposedly learned from the horrors of World War II, we see exactly the same patterns of thinking reappearing in politically left-wing circles (only in a new form) and, of course, in some right-wing circles (also as revenge against left-wing authoritarian behavior). Likewise, the refugee crisis is neither new nor unique. The Roman Empire had to contend with similar problems, the “barbarians at the gates of Rome.” This is not meant to be anti-refugee rhetoric, but it is clear that different cultures will logically lead to conflicts in other cultures to a greater or lesser extent. But here one would say: Well, back then we didn't have a globalized infrastructure, hence cultural differences were very hard to get rid of. We see that doesn't make sense either looking at how connected we are nowadays.

To add one more point. Above, you try to measure soul evolution primarily through the fact that human beings haven’t learned the value of peace, mutual help, and so on. In other words, egoism (at different scales – individual, national, racial, etc.) still seems to be the main ruler.

If we measure things by this yardstick, we may imagine that, had the human souls been properly evolved, by now they would have to be living a peaceful life on Earth, with only moderate use of technology, without long hours of work that drain our energy, but with more time for meditation, prayer, and so on. Such a vision, however, secretly takes for granted that the Earthly realm is what it is. It is a mineral sandbox created by higher powers, and then souls are thrown in there to make their experiments and learn. The souls are deemed evolved if they can live in the sandbox without tearing each other apart.

Such a view is almost universal in all religious and spiritual movements we find today (not that they all believe that peace can ever be established on Earth, but they all see it as a sandbox). There are few who consider that we are co-creators of the Earthly matrix, but as a whole, they remain so general that in the end, there’s not much difference from the others. As a result, we live with the impression that there’s ‘this’ world, which is more or less formed and distinct, and soul evolution concerns our skills to operate within the sandbox. Anything more than that is expected in the ‘other’ world (either after death or in some far future time).

We can resolve this only through real inner knowledge, true experience of the way we’re placed within the flow of reality. The Earthly realm assumes its peculiar nature due to the strong polarization between the forms of existence through which we rhythmically alternate. In the disincarnate state, we are not yet fully differentiated; our first-person mandalic experience is launched on a trip through the frequency bands of inner space. We instinctively live in the big picture of reality, but lack any grip and resolution. As we reach for that so-needed grip (i.e., self-consciousness), we are led back into the detailed mineral spectrum, where the physical standing-waves provide us with the kernel of stability around which our mandalic experience can coalesce and organize. However, this spectrum has become like a hall of mirrors, where everything reflects in everything, and we lose consciousness of the big picture.

If we understand things in such an expanded way, it becomes clearer why the vision of a peaceful and quiet life misses something fundamental. We must try to understand that the Earthly realm appears as a distinct sandbox because of the out-of-phase relations along the depth axis. It is these same out-of-phase relations that leave the spirit with a myopic perspective. It is impossible to have the sensory view of a busy city and feel everything as a holistic system – simply because it is not. To a great extent, it is a cacophony. One must either surrender and dissolve in the noise or try to isolate islands of relative coherence that are still capable of reflecting self-consciousness. It is from within these myopic mandalic islands, who are not attuned to the vertical gradient, that the wars issue.

I hope we can spot the contradiction here. We want peace, yet we imagine that the Earthly realm will still look and feel as it does. But this leads to circularity. The Earthly realm looks and feels as it does because it is experienced from within the prism of locally-organized mandalic islands. And the clash of islands issues correspondingly. Thus, true peace can only take place if the soul’s life expands along the gradient, such that the local mandala is experienced within the Cosmic contextuality. This, however, also transforms radically the way we experience reality. Now, along the depth axis of our inner life, we become co-creative with the condensation of the frames of existence.

Of course, even if we understand the above, we can say, “But there’s no evidence of such soul evolution either. There are hardly souls who strive to expand consciousness within the spiritual strata of reality while still entombed in the bodily environment.” While this seems to be so, the ‘water level’ has been steadily rising, so to speak. However, this doesn’t mean that everything manifests in the best way possible. What has been changing in the past few millennia is the gradual emancipation of the “I”. Today, even the average man can feel things like marriage, religion, gender, etc., as mere facades of the naked ego. Yes, there’s still strong reliance on tradition, but even the fact that today people fight to preserve, say, the institution of marriage, shows that the latter is something that has already become largely external to the soul.

This, however, doesn’t mean that this emancipation automatically leads to spiritual progress. In fact, for many, it leads to the ill-understood concept of freedom, where the ego sees the World as the arena for satisfying its dreams and desires, completely unencumbered by traditional and religious dogmas and taboos.

As such, we live in a critical epoch where the “I” is at the brink of beginning the bridging of the consciousness of the two worlds, yet there’s still a great amount of desires that are dependent on the experience of the Earthly realm as rendered through the local mandala islands. The soul forces that cling to these desires unconsciously fight against any possible bridging of consciousness. And this holds even for something like the RCC, as we attempted to explore in the conversations with Rodriel. The RCC is deeply dependent on the sense of existence as rendered through the Earthly prisms. As such, its task of bringing peace to the whole world is impossible, because it, by its own forces, fights against the only thing that can bring harmony along the contextual strata. It’s like saying, “We want to preserve the local sensory consciousness, even though its myopic nature provides the best breeding den for egoism (even if egoism only because of myopic ignorance). But we’ll try to balance that by coaxing the whole world into the Christian dogma, how they should behave, how they should care for each other, and so on.”

Not only that, but according to Initiatic science, these two tendencies will persist. Those attached to the locally-bound experience will form a sub-human stream of beings, who will regress more and more into the animalistic, and their redemption will be possible in the future. The ascending stream will be those who not simply strive for peace in the Earthly sandbox, but who are willing to sacrifice the locally-bound perspective, and live together with the life of the Cosmos, along its full depth.

I hope all this gives a hint about the peculiar situation in human history, and why certain tensions are likely to increase even more, as these two tendencies become more and more polarized. As Federica noted, by having an ideal of our own and working toward the development of one stream, we already contribute something to the whole. But I guess the takeaway is that peace and harmony can only come as a result of a fully conscious growth of the human being within the spiritual depth of reality, and not only by upgrading the human-animals with better morality that can turn the Earthly sandbox into a mineral heaven.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

There is the famous line from Matthew's gospel: "May are called, but few are chosen." The descent of the 'I' is a "narrow gate" (Matthew 7:14), leading many astray and a few to the spiritual world (at least within the context of a single generation). One shouldn't entirely discount the generalized socio-cultural gains that the descent of the 'I' brings to humanity. To the extent that the 'I'-ness itself becomes increasingly woven into culture, this widens the opportunities for individual 'I' realization. But at the level of the individual, the potential for error is obviously enormous. How many people will use their 'I' capacities to develop the consciousness soul in any given generation? Likely very few. And the consciousness soul is the key to the narrow gate to the upper spiritual members. Through the Christ Impulse, the 'I' will continue to drive a wedge (a double-edged sword) through human evolution, forcing those who spurn the opportunity into increasingly intractable situations while widening the avenue toward the spirit for those who have passed through the gate.

[Kaje977]

I think it's important that we first note how, especially in our time, the evolutionary process is not linear or uniform. There are many rhythms of evolution that are superimposed and occurring simultaneously. There are ascending and descending movements across various scales from the individual soul to the souls of the nations, epochs, species, and Earth, which are nested within each other and cross-modulating each other. In that sense, it makes little sense to even speak of "we" or "humanity" as something uniform that is evolving. It is true that these divergent streams should gradually synchronize and become something more uniform, in terms of the shared fully human ideal toward which they strive, but there are many stages of development that must be traversed before that harmony manifests more fully. The intuitive steering toward the archetypal ideal form can twist and deviate in many ways.

Hello, Ashvin.

So, if I understood correctly (Is Scott still around, by the way?), Barfield postulates a history that is dynamic (not linear or uniform) in its movement and teleological in its direction. It is dynamic because its structure is dialectical: a thesis (Original Participation) gives way to a necessary antithesis (Idolatry), which in turn is destined to be resolved in a higher synthesis (Final Participation). So, basically an U-shaped journey through alienation and back to a higher form of unity, which is, I agree, a non-linear process. At the same time, the model is teleological, and therefore has a "linear" vector, because it is directional and non-repeating. It is aimed at a specific end-state and is driven forward by a pivotal, central event that ensures it cannot fold back upon itself. Did I get that correctly?

So, visually speaking, neither a straight line nor a closed circle can adequately represent this vision that Barfield had in mind. The most fitting image for the shape of consciousness in Barfield's work that I can think of is that of an upward spiral: a path that combines the rhythm of cyclical return with the forward momentum of linear progression. Correct?

[AshvinP]

I think it's important that we first note how, especially in our time, the evolutionary process is not linear or uniform. There are many rhythms of evolution that are superimposed and occurring simultaneously. There are ascending and descending movements across various scales from the individual soul to the souls of the nations, epochs, species, and Earth, which are nested within each other and cross-modulating each other. In that sense, it makes little sense to even speak of "we" or "humanity" as something uniform that is evolving. It is true that these divergent streams should gradually synchronize and become something more uniform, in terms of the shared fully human ideal toward which they strive, but there are many stages of development that must be traversed before that harmony manifests more fully. The intuitive steering toward the archetypal ideal form can twist and deviate in many ways.

Hello, Ashvin.

So, if I understood correctly (Is Scott still around, by the way?), Barfield postulates a history that is dynamic (not linear or uniform) in its movement and teleological in its direction. It is dynamic because its structure is dialectical: a thesis (Original Participation) gives way to a necessary antithesis (Idolatry), which in turn is destined to be resolved in a higher synthesis (Final Participation). So, basically an U-shaped journey through alienation and back to a higher form of unity, which is, I agree, a non-linear process. At the same time, the model is teleological, and therefore has a "linear" vector, because it is directional and non-repeating. It is aimed at a specific end-state and is driven forward by a pivotal, central event that ensures it cannot fold back upon itself. Did I get that correctly?

So, visually speaking, neither a straight line nor a closed circle can adequately represent this vision that Barfield had in mind. The most fitting image for the shape of consciousness in Barfield's work that I can think of is that of an upward spiral: a path that combines the rhythm of cyclical return with the forward momentum of linear progression. Correct?

Hi Kaje,

Yes, the upward spiral is a fitting image for the process. It has been used on the forum before to illustrate how the cyclical feeling of evolution held by our ancestors was transformed through the pivotal Christ event into the feeling for a continually integrating process. It's not that the underlying evolutionary process fundamentally changed, but the intellectual soul's conscious stance within it became something quite new. This new stance afforded a new opportunity for the soul to freely participate in shaping the flow of evolution, whereas before this shaping would happen instinctively and felt to be a matter of necessity, i.e., the soul was simply a conduit for Divine impulses which acted like forces of instinct rather than lucid ideas and impulses of conscience.




Now the state ending the arc of a characteristic rhythm in the life of thinking, feeling, and willing, individually and collectively, feels to be something distinct from the state of its beginning. The tension between thesis and antithesis resolves into a higher-order synthesis. This nonlinear spiraling dynamic can be most concretely explored in our imaginative life as we steer through intuitive meaning and condense that meaning into verbal or pictorial symbols, as a way of stabilizing the meaning and gaining feedback on how to steer further. That can be quite clearly experienced as a process of integrating new intuitive orientation to and knowledge of the lawful experiential flow. We have used the example of the Mandelbrot set before, which I incorporated into a recent essay:

We can contemplate the Mandelbrot set to get a better feel for this rhythmic process in our imaginative life and thereby improve our conscious orientation. The set is a fairly simple calculation that we can theoretically perform in our imagination; however, we would need to do it for every point in the complex plane and mark the result (whether the iterated value stays bounded or flies to infinity). The first image of the set looked something like this:



Mandelbrot wrote a program that calculated a rough grid of points and used the printer to type a symbol or space depending on the result. That resulted in a map of what his imaginative process could have been if he had calculated each point in his mind. The moment his eyes saw that image, his inner activity could steer through the domain of mathematical intuition in slightly different ways, and correspondingly different thoughts began condensing against the newly imploded patterns. The imploded map of printed thoughts acted as a seed point from which his inner activity could steer into new intuitions of the lawfulness within mathematical experiential space. These are imaginative degrees of freedom which may have otherwise never been integrated; the insights would likely not have emerged from a stepwise progression of mental calculations. This same principle applies to all the thought-maps humanity has progressively inscribed into the imploded World state over the millennia, whether in oral tradition, stone inscriptions, papyrus, printing, digital signals, or otherwise. They are all potential seeds from which our intuition of the scale spectrum and its lawful dynamics can grow.

Of course, this example is only meant to highlight what we are continually doing in our imaginative process when navigating and contemplating the experiential flow. The more we are able to concentrate within this rhythmic imaginative process, the more we come to feel like our imaginative life is a narrow aperture of the wider evolutionary process. Because our interests are so narrowed by our sensory-based soul conditioning, we generally feel like this imaginative life is something personal to us, where we weave in personal thoughts that try to model reality 'out there', which is felt to be something orthogonal. But through imaginative concentration, we can start to intuit how the characteristic dynamics of our imaginative life are shared with more collective transformations of the phenomenal spectrum involving souls of family members, nations, particular epochs of development, and so on. Our imaginative domain is felt more like a fractal projection of the total World process, by which we gain a foothold to creatively work back into some aspects of that process (beginning with constraints of our soul life).

When we start to feel out the nonlinear rhythms of our feelings and impulses, which provide the intuitive context in which our imaginative life unfolds, we feel our aperture growing in even more attunement to the wider evolutionary process. We come into contact with the common constraints that steer more collective transformations of the World state. For example, most of us on a spiritual path lead a mostly introspective life. That is a necessary quality to remain comfortable without constant outer stimulation and get in touch with our deeper essence. Yet it can also become too one-sided and unhealthy. Just as the one-sided extrovert tries to spread his personally conceived ideas over others by expressing them at every chance and speaking over others, the one-sided introvert selfishly hoards his ideas and guards his inner life from being shaped by the ideas of others through dialogue. We can gradually strive to bring these one-sided aspects into a more harmonious balance by working directly into the shared soul curvatures along which such tendencies take shape.

In a sense, we are striving towards integrated states which were also experienced by our ancestors, retracing the stages of the evolutionary process, but now we maintain our sense of individual participation, yet not as a lone ego, but as an organic member of a symphonic whole (final participation) which becomes increasingly conscious of the ideal states toward which we are simultaneously steering and being attracted.

PS - We have reason to believe that Scott has crossed the threshold.

[Kaje977]

PS - We have reason to believe that Scott has crossed the threshold.

Oh no That would be a signficant and saddening loss if it turns out to be true. I just took a look into his profile page, it seems he was last online in July 2024. I want to be more optimistic and believe that maybe he just left the community behind for reasons unknown.

It has been used on the forum before to illustrate how the cyclical feeling of evolution held by our ancestors was transformed through the pivotal Christ event into the feeling for a continually integrating process. It's not that the underlying evolutionary process fundamentally changed, but the intellectual soul's conscious stance within it became something quite new. This new stance afforded a new opportunity for the soul to freely participate in shaping the flow of evolution, whereas before this shaping would happen instinctively and felt to be a matter of necessity, i.e., the soul was simply a conduit for Divine impulses which acted like forces of instinct rather than lucid ideas and impulses of conscience.

I see, that makes a lot of sense to me. What this seems to imply is, that it is our own responsibility now to take evolution in our hands now, basically. The way how things were previously do remind me dimly of old traditions such as paganism and shamanism. I can see why some critics felt offended by Barfield, especially those who still live and experience those older traditions deeply, or at least, to a close degree.

Interestingly, this has been on my mind for a while:
In many other fields, people try to get closer to the truth, constantly evolving and expanding old insights on a higher level with new ones. But it often seems to be the case in spiritual circles that any criticism of older spiritual systems regarding the state of consciousness is seen as a problem. It reminds me a little of a regulars' table with people who make cups out of porous clay because it is an old tradition and (surely) it engages a lot of discussion and speculation, each debating in what kind of arrangements of that porous clay will make it a little more stable, surely a few better methods than the others, but the clay ultimately is in itself porous regardless and will break apart sooner or later. And then someone, with a novel idea, comes along who brings new insights to the table and shows: This is better, this makes the cups actually robust, strong and more tangible by not some novel technique of working with the clay, but instead making the clay in an entirely different, new way (from the ground-up), and maybe we should make these cups this way in the future if we don't want them to constantly break apart. But that's too much. It would deem all the arrangements of the porous clay and the experiential investment into these older traditions moot, and threatens the rigidity they deeply rooted in. And then you get booed and accused of moral attacks and personal attacks except that in this example the person didn't even attack their upholding of an old tradition and culture per se, but the continous propagation of such an old system. Because as a form of art or as an expression or a personal way to live, I wouldn't see an issue of it. But as soon as it is being propagated to newcomers who are yet unaffected by these traditions, while no longer suitable for modern stage of consciousness, it does become quite problematic.

All tradition and culture aside (I do not condemn that at all), if there is something that obviously contributes more to evolution and is even more suitable at modern times, why propagate old traditions? I can see why people would practice them still, as a form of identity or even as a form of art. But the real issue to me is the propagation of these out-of-date traditions, as if this is the way to go, ignoring all the historical advancements our consciousness made. What do you think? Is my perception too radical? Some criticized that Barfield's quite similar view stems from a deep-rooted Christian fundamentalism, in which all older traditions are inferior. But I don't think that this was Barfield's intention and even if it was, I don't think one should cling too much on that detail, but look at the general idea that Barfield conveyed. It's not even about "Church Christianity", but about something more profound, something that has very less to do with dogmatic Christianity that we know from the Middle Ages or the crusades.

[AshvinP]

PS - We have reason to believe that Scott has crossed the threshold.

Oh no That would be a signficant and saddening loss if it turns out to be true. I just took a look into his profile page, it seems he was last online in July 2024. I want to be more optimistic and believe that maybe he just left the community behind for reasons unknown.

It is a sad loss indeed. I'm not sure his age, but I have a sense that he was over 65-70+ (not based on anything concrete), and with his exploration of spiritual science, I feel that he was more or less prepared for the crossing. Also because, and I don't imagine he would mind me sharing, I received an email (in Oct 2024) saying Scott's Google account was canceled due to 3 months of inactivity and he had set it up so that I should be notified when this happened. The email also gave me access to download the contents of his computer hard drive, with all his various work and personal files. So that's why I am pretty confident it was in anticipation of crossing.