History
By: J G Bennett
SYNOPSIS (MJG)
Where it is not possible to include diagrams because of formatting, I have given the relevant page number for consultation in the original text.
pp. 3-16
Introduction
DU IV is devoted to the history of the human mind: history is the content of the mind – everything since the world began is in the mind, even if only a small part is discernable.
A connection between the mind and history is the present moment.
The present moment is the immediate experience of the actual and possible: what is experienced is, but what is not experienced, is not necessarily not present. The present moment is the one certainty of our experience. My present moment is different from another’s. The same can be said of mind and history: there are ‘separate’, ‘partial’, ‘collective’ and ‘other’ minds.
The past is a verbal fiction: we do not experience the past, except in states of higher consciousness. No meaning can be assigned to the ‘past’ without ‘mind’. Without mind, there would be no past: All events would be the same in an ‘Absolute World’. The mind is different: it cannot conceive of mindlessness; it projects itself into the entire content of its own experience. Historical reality is therefore difficult to see as substantially different from a simple sequence of events.
We sometimes think we can contemplate history without mind and mind without history; or that we can contemplate anything but the present moment.
All experience is in the present moment. We have to choose between solipsism (only my present moment is real) and coalescence (the present moments of separate selves can be united in a Greater present). The second one is adopted in the DU IV: our private experience is always ‘of’ the present moment but varying in extent, duration and content.
The problem with viewing history as a present moment is that normally – in Indo-European culture – it is seen as a linear sequence. Past and present, before and after, are then seen as having objective meaning outside of experience. The present moment is strong in Semitic languages, which have no intrinsic verbal forms for expressing time. Seeing time as objective reality has been cured by modern physics. According to experimental psychology, the present moment can be measured for different forms of experience, and it combines, dissociates, and changes with variations in mental states. The present moment contracts, expands, changes, divides and coalesces, whilst remaining unique. Actual experience is contained in the present moment.
The present moment can be a split second or centuries; a transient individual state of common experience. The common feature between them is the connection between the ‘present’ and ‘Will’. The uniqueness of the present moment does not imply ‘singularity’. The apparent contradiction of uniqueness and non-singularity of the present moment is because the property of the Will is not recognised in our usual modes of thought.
The Will determines the extent and character of the Present Moment: what is outside of the Will, is outside of the present moment. The present moment is perpetually being invaded, enriched, weakened, strengthened, by the influx and efflux of elements extraneous to the Will. Traces and memories from the past; expectations, fears and foresights of the future; patterns and forms from eternity; acts of separation and coalescence conditioned by hyparxis. These are experienced in the present moment, but come from outside it. One set of elements relates to time. We do not question successive changes or the distinction between traces and memories, and expectations. We do question that memory refers to experiences that ‘no longer exist’ and expectation to experience that ‘do not yet exist’.
If the present moment is enlarged, a memory becomes a present experience; an expectation can become a present experience – pre-cognition in phenomenology.
There is no absolute past or absolute future: enlargement and contradiction of the present moment may occur. Situations that are before and after for us, might be here and now for a greater Will.
The same applies to space. On one scale something can be distant, whilst here on another. Such modes of coalescence depend on acts of Will. They are transformations of extent and content of the present moment – brought about by shifts in interest and attention. This is an act of Will (whether conscious or unconscious). Someone with no will to be a citizen does not belong to the City.
The relationship between space and Will coalescence is not hard to accept. It is not so easy with time-like experience. Yet, past moments can be present. Our world is small because our Will is small. Development and evolution involve coalescence of Will – which enlarges the present moment. Coalescence of Will comes from exercise against disordering tendencies. Here, we meet Time (the disruptive influence that enters the present moment). When we succumb to its influence, we separate past and future. This disruption is weakness of our own Will; so, we treat time as an objective reality, linear sequence, independent of man.
In DU IV, we begin with the way the present moment seeks to preserve identity against disruptive influences: War with Time.
In the present moment there is state of change or flux: there are at least two kinds: causal and purposive (insignificant and significant change). The first is unrelated to Will that characterises the present moment; the second stems directly from acts of Will. The first is ‘happening’, the second is ‘history’: experience as given-totality and discrimination of direction and purpose transcending the immediate present.
Significance cannot be predicated of a situation that has no recognisable order. Significance is relative. There must therefore be more or less orderly situations. Through Systematics of History we can connect history with the present moment and the struggle between Order and Disorder (the War with Time).
Next, we examine the story of this earth and the evolution of life to the point where the organisation of sensitivity in the higher animals made possible the rising of Mind.
To understand the Universal Drama and its projections into the life of man, we need the concept of the present moment as the total situation accessible to the operations of a Will. Vol. II looked at Will and Relatedness (making the triad the characteristic system for the operations of the Will). Conclusions with respect to Self-hood and Individuality are not modified. However, we do need not to put the emphasis solely on the triadic property of relatedness.
Triad Will manifests in every structure as the principle whereby the structure is structured.
Tetrad The principle of order and directed activity.
Pentad The principle of significance (the present moment seeks to expand into the unpresent).
Hexad Will is the form of coalescence (historical process) – directed, purposive, structured.
Coalescence: the present moment realises its own pattern – a concerted and complex act of will.
This takes us to progress as transformation of the present moment from a state of lower order and organisation to a state of higher and more stable organisation. The difference between this view of progress and those commonly held is that it does not distinguish between subjective and objective order. The entire present moment subject to the sway of the will is the field of the ordering activity. Inner and outer are separable in theory but not in practice. History acquires an unique significance as the self-realisation of will. That which was fragmented can be restored by a process of coalescence. It brings together fragments of will and builds them into a complex, ordered structure. The history of mind shows how this operates. Understanding the Historical Process resolves the enigma of the Dramatic Universe – and gives an answer to the question of life on earth.
Time and Mind
Prolegomenon to History
The War with Time
The Present Moment
The present moment is all that there is: we live there. It is perpetual perishing: but also perpetual renewal.
We think of experience as a succession of moments; thus, past, present and future. It is convenient to think of ‘traces and memories’, ‘immediate mental objects’, and ‘expectations and hopes’. However, the first and third can also be ‘immediate mental objects’.
The present moment is not fixed in content or duration; thus, past, present and future do not apply. The present moment involves the relationship between whole and parts. The present can be the smallest content and duration, or the maximum duration of our attention. However, it might also be the entire century, or the field of action or event in which we are involved.
The extent and coherence of the present moment is also connected with the embrace of our awareness; the present moment for each of us is relative to the integrative power of our own will. In Subjective idealism, the present moment = nothing but the content of the mind. In objective materialism, mind = nothing but the content of the present moment. These do not contradict if we avoid importing concepts of past, present and future, here and now, there and elsewhere in interpretations of our experience.
The present moment contains ‘latent mental objects’; for example, the back of my head. Those objects whose existence is as certain for us as those we perceive or think with. But, not present to our direct, present awareness. The present moment has an indefinite boundary between the perceived and unperceived. It also has invariant forms; for example, the circle, the body. These are not immediate mental objects, nor latent. They enter experience only with a trace, a sensation, or expectation.
There are other patterns, which are not invariant. They do not change in the same way as the three main constituents. Patterns are related to traces and expectations – they link them together. So, the behaviour pattern of a person links the memory of mental objects associated with him to expectation of mental objects associated with him.
We associate with the present moment decisions or acts of will which we believe have the effect of changing its expectation-content. This is bound up with the duration and extent of the present moment. We need to be aware of more than one trace or memory and of more than one expectation: that is ‘being faced with a choice’.
These elements enter our experience and make up the present ; this convinces us that there is a more extensive field beyond the present moment and contains it.
There are constant exchanges between the present moment and the larger region which contains it.
This description comes from our immediate mental objects – it is wholly empirical. It makes no use of ideas and requires no verification or justification. It is not a matter of belief or demonstration. These become necessary when we begin to connect mental objects with decisions and actions, and take into account latent objects, forms, patterns, traces and expectations.
We need to sort out the contents of the present moment into classes:
See page 15/ 16
………………………………………………Patterns……………………………..
……………………………………………………………………….Decisions
Traces and memories………………..IMO………………Expectations and Hopes
…………..Commitments………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………..Forms……………………………………………….
The IMO is the Immediate Mental Object (here and now); the others are the six ‘outer’ elements. This is similar to:
……………………………………………..Active Eternity…………………………
……………………………………………………………Hyparxis as ableness-to-be
Past Time…………………………………PM…………………….Future Time
………..Hyparxis as Interaction………………………………………………..
………………………………………..Passive Eternity…………………………….
All our experience is what enters the present moment. It is an illusion to see the present moment as coming out of the future and going into the past; this is due to the wrong habit of treating the combination of ‘forms’ and ‘immediate mental objects’ as if they has a status independent of the experience of the present moment. So, we think of a chair as existing in time and space, not nothing apart from a moment of experience. The chair has its own present moment. It is what it is NOW – not other. It might share its present moment with another human mind, but not necessarily so.
We need to understand the way the present moment is constituted, and the way it reacts with larger regions, which contain it. However, this still leaves us with an entire content of experience to explain. Nevertheless, we have begun to understand the present moment.
Pp. 17-30
Order Against Disorder
The present moment is the point of unending conflict between order and disorder.
Time and entropy, disorder and increasing probability are linker together.
Order is created within the present; disorder invades from without. Order is here and now but under the threat of disordering influences.
Our task is to find guiding principles to recognise ‘traces’ that enter the present moment from the past: history. The present moment can be understood as large or small,
Life on earth – the Biosphere – is a very thin film of highly ordered material – a high order compared with most matter in the universe.
The energy exchanges between living and non-living matter result in a steady increase of entropy, or loss of order. This is largely made good by outpouring from the sun; the sun is losing energy by radiating high order energy. The increase of entropy of the sun is greater than the increase order of the earth.
Through photosynthetic reduction of carbon dioxide to carbohydrate and release of oxygen, order is kept more or less constant on the earth. Order maintained by life on earth is greater than that of relatively simple compounds (the result of photosynthesis.).
Life on earth needs to maintain a higher level of order than that of the energies and substances on which it feeds. Life is confronted with a two-fold problem: it can maintain order by drawing on the sun, but only on condition that it renews its own power of transformation:
1. The system Sun-Earth-Biosphere is undergoing changes with increase of entropy.
2. The system biosphere is undergoing changes without increase in entropy: the present moment of the Biosphere is contained in the present moment of the Solar System.
3. Order in the biosphere is higher than that of energies it receives from the sun and the raw materials of the earth’s crust.
4. Higher order cannot be postulated without the idea of an ordering action of life itself.
5. The level of order in the Biosphere within its own present is enormously improbable (odds are thousands of millions to one).
Therefore, the ordering power of life cannot be ascribed to simple chance.
See page 19
The concentration of Order
U—S.E.—B—M
U= The Universe: order increasing, decreasing, or stationary. Unknown.
S.E= Sun Earth: Order decreasing on all measurable levels. Biosphere included. Unknown.
B.=Biosphere: Order at least stationary. Biosphere still evolving. Order increasing.
M=Man: Order certainly increasing.
**The ratio order-disorder varies according the present moment and our focussed attention.
Life (human life in particular) is the struggle to increase order.
Order of orders: quantitative order, mental/ human order (intelligent order, creative order).
The higher the order of order, the less likely it is to arise by chance.
We need to distinguish between syntropic (order) and entropic (disorder) processes, and the balance between the two. There is an outward tendency in the present moment to lose order and an inward tendency to build it up.
The present moment is threatened by the disorder of time.
The present moment defends itself against this threat by the hyparchic creation of fresh order.
The powers of life, intelligence, and purpose are engaged in a perpetual struggle to preserve, build up and create order within the present moment.
There are contrary powers associated with Time, Entropy, Probability and Causality that struggle to break down order.
Time’s Arrow is NOT pouring away from the present moment to a less ordered state; rather, disorder is invading it. Order does not appear unless there is a high order to make it possible.
Separation and Reunion
The present moment is also the realm of Will. Where Total Will holds sway. Fluctuations, fragments – in duration and extent – are due to the impermanence and instability of Will.
The relationship of ‘contained in and contained by’ between present moments ins one of Being; its unifying principle is Will.
Separation of present moments is a limitation of Being.
Creation is partition and blending.
There is also the Spirit Reflux – Counter-Creation. All existence is flowing out from its source and seeking to return.
However, in the present moment, there is a process which is neither efflux nor reflux; one which establishes a Higher Order of the here and now. This is Coalescence.
Coalescence is a reunion of the fragmented Will; an enrichment of the separated Being. It is the nature of history.
Separation from the present moment occurs actively as the penetration of disorder that is in the form of successiveness in time, and passively, as the partition of existence that is in the form of distance in space.
There are two kinds of reunion: the power of hyparxis; the eternal pattern.
There are ways of overcoming separateness and disorder:
Memory: we extend the present moment by experiencing that which is not present in sensation This power is of the human organism and is of our self-hood.
**The present moment = that of which we are now aware + that which we can embrace as an act of Will.
Traces connect the present with the past (MG: Noesis and Noema for phenomenologists). Various ‘energies’ allow for interpretation, recognition, and interpretation. Enduring objects connect us with material energies. The mind connects us with mental objects.
We are here studying elements relevant to study of history.
The first point is the fate of Existence itself. It is subject to the creative act – blending and partition.
There is a state in which the progress of disorder is arrested: reversible processes. There is a balance: disturbing and restoring, order and disorder.
There is a close approximation of perpetuum mobile in nature, but it is never completely realised. The sun and planets move freely and exchange energies that are negligible compared to their masses.
The direction of planets could be just as easily described if time was reversed.
Day/ night, the tides, the seasons, the brain and body systems are examples of perpetuum mobile; they closely resemble the swinging of a pendulum. They are not perfectly reversible (because the body does grow old). However, they do renew life, and connect and stabilise experiences.
The way time enters our own lives, therefore, does not correspond to the abstract view of time. We are tied to the present moment of our material bodies: a balance of order and disorder which is not static, but dynamic, losing and gaining equally.
The Endurance of Material Objects
The persistence of enduring objects is another defence against disorder. They are so common that we tend to overlook them. In the physical sense, endurance is always the result of conservation combined with recurrence. Endurance bridges the stream of time. We cannot carry mental states, but we can carry bodies. Soul-stuff has no coherence; only when they become aware of their bodies do children become aware of time. Until the soul is organised and independent, it can only hold experiences with the help of the body. Important when contemplating the idea of souls as disembodied states of existence.
There are other order-preserving properties arising from combinations of four material energies: dispersed, directive, cohesive, and plastic.
Enduring objects also preserve records. Thus, they allow us to preserve the present moment and go beyond immediate mental objects into the past and future.
Life, Sensitivity and Selfhood
What about life resisting disorder? Life is a kind of war with time. Is this war with time an objective reality or a projection of man’s longing for permanence?
All life is renewal. It must be perpetually renewed. It must renew its order or disappear. All living organisms are in a perpetual state of renewal. From the simplest to the most complicated – and at every stage.
When renewal ceases, the present moment collapses and the element ceases to live.
Life is both more successful and totally different from inanimate objects in the battle with time. Rocks last millions of year, but cannot renew themselves.
Renewal
The success of the ways of war with time – endurance and renewal – is not measured simply in terms of duration, but by the prospect of winning the war. Material objects may last a million of years but they still wear out; life offers a totally different perspective. Renewal can go on forever.
The step from endurance to renewal is immense. Life can hold its own with disorder and separation. Whole species can perish but life continues. Life is enhanced by probability.
We have treated life as the middle element in the triad: Material, Vital and Cosmic. It is the instrument for the spiritualization of the Material Universe. Now, it has a role in the war of nature against time. It does not win. Life holds its renewal, but time continues to ‘bear its sons away’. Life lives in its present moment which must be renewed.
Sensitivity
Disorder has the last word; let’s call this the ‘first law of biology’.
Organic sensitivity is the first necessary condition of the arising and existence of life.
Sensitivity is here a combination of energies – the precursor of the mind.
Life has an aversion to disorder. Sensitivity allows for the distinguishing of order and disorder, living and inanimate.
Sensitivity is a critical property of Existence; it is impossible to reduce the phenomena of life and consciousness to motions and changes of inert matter. There are, however, non-living states of sensitivity. Sensitivity can be ascribed to hyle under the conditions of hyparxis. There are three states: actual or time-like; potential or eternity like; and sensitive or hyparchic.
There are twelve levels of energy; four of them – the vital – all have some degree sensitivity; the highest form is called ‘sensitive’ (E5). Sensitivity allows the Will to act independently. This comes from the coalescence of the three states of actuality, potentiality, and sensitivity that characterise the living organism.
Lower levels – the states are copresent, but do not coalescence to produce a self-renewing structure. Sensitivity is not predicated on Cosmic Energies, because they are not liable to the determining conditions, but to a more general law of Universal Order.
Sensitivity provides living organisms with an ‘awareness of presence’. This involves both duration and extension. We are aware of ourselves, ‘here and now’. Sensitivity is a formless mass in its native state. It is associated with ‘Automatic Energy’ (E6). It is linked to the body: Vital Energy (E7) and Constructive Energy (E8). Each has a will of its own which determines its present moment.
With the appearance of organised sensitivity, existence can participate directly in the war with time. Enduring objects cannot make themselves; they therefore cannot produce order. Organised sensitivity makes the will to live possible. Life then occupies a central part of the universe.
Selfhood
What is a ‘Self’ in terms of the war with time? Selves do not exist by self-renewal, enduring or sensitivity, but by a combination of these three with ‘self-assertion’ (associated with hyparxis).
Self-assertion has an enormous part in the war with time: it is different from self-preservation, which concerns only self-renewal.
Material objects, living beings, sensitive regions are all means for maintaining existence in time; but they are all passive contrivances. Selves are more than this: they are able to sustain and respond to an independent will. Neither plants, animals or objects can do this.
They are also on the lowest scale of Being; therefore having a key role in the struggle between order/ disorder. Selves are embodied or incarnated wills, and they are not able to liberate themselves from this condition without attaining a superior level of organisation. They are poised between the forces of order and disorder – the mid-point scale of Being.
We now pass from a prominence with disorder to order. The state of incarnation can be seen as the Present Moment balanced between order and disorder. This gives to the Self-hood perpetual perishing, a sense of impermanence. In the True Self there is an awareness of different levels of Eternity, and thus the reality of an unchanging Order that accompanies the present moment. The awakened self, centred on its own ‘I’ can be aware of the conflict of order and disorder, and engage in the war with time as a free agent. This is the Great Work.
Pp. 30-45
Influences Acting on the Present
We are used to thinking of the past as past, but this is really just an individual perspective. The present moment is not a fixed region, but fluctuates according to our state of consciousness. There is the possibility of a larger present moment including past, present and future.
The past exists now because it leaves traces. Past, present and future are all relative to a single point. So, the passage of time is only a reality for centres of experience – our selves.
We need to understand this from the perspective of six-dimensional geometry in order to understand the present moment in terms of force-fields and interactions.
We have the six laws of synchronicity (where the character of time and space differ from sense perception). To define the present moment.
The Law of Common Presence describes the character of the present moment as a finite region: special togetherness induces a common presence in the eternal patterns of a given region – which emerges as a recognizable quality shared by entities in the region. When this common presence is associated with sensitivity, it produces the experience of the finite region of the present moment. Common presence is associated with ableness-to-be – Will.
The activity within the whole suggests ‘inner togetherness’ and spatial distribution: extension and temporal duration. This outcome is a ‘hyparchic component. Such activity will communicate with other present moments – as traces, memories of the past. The strength of common presence (organisation) determines the extent to which it can resist disorder.
\The Law of Mutual Adjustment introduces the notion of pattern. In every region there is a space for mutual adjustment whereby regulative influences of different entities produce patterns.
Eternal patterns can remain in the present moment even after the entity has disappeared.
The pattern of an event can be stored as sensitivity in the virtual state.
So the traces of the past can remain and even reproduce themselves.
Some substances can attach themselves to material objects and preserves the past.
Veridical post-cognitional experiences are by no means rare in the form of virtual patterns.
The Laws of Synchronicity can be interpreted as saying:
1) The Present Moment is relative to a particular centre of experience.
2) There can be Greater Moments, which include and connect with lesser moments.
3) The Present Moment is a pattern of actual and latent experience.
4) The Latent experience of a pattern corresponds to states of sensitivity and consciousness.
5) There are different conditions of Order/ Disorder – Multiple Experience. We can be aware of these differences in a Present Moment.
6) A normal pattern in a Present Moment can be realized by Acts of Will.
7) The normal pattern is the maximum order compatible with the content of the Present Moment.
We can make use of a diagram and the property of Openness that characterises the Present Moment.
1) Open from here to not here: the surrounding regions of space.
2) Open to the determinate past (traces and memories): causal openness.
3) Open to various degrees of determination towards the future. This includes notions of Fate and Disorder.
4) Open to ordering influence of eternal forms.
5) Open to eternal patterns that are an organising influence.
6) Open to the Present Moment and its own living past.
7) Open to the Present Moment containing its own destiny.
We should need a seven-dimensional model to represent these as independent terms, but they can be grouped according to our determining conditions and the space term omitted as its contribution to the present moment is different from the rest. We can distinguish:
a) Causal or determinate influences on the present moment: Time
b) The influences of forms and values: Eternity
c) The influences of the Will (freedom) to choose within the present Moment: Hyparxis.
See page 34
Eternity Active
Pattern and Values Hyparxis
Predestined Future
Past——————-Causal Traces——————————-→O<———————Determinate Fate——————Future
Living Past
Hyparxis Forms
Eternity Passive
Influences Acting on the Present Moment
Hyparxis does not enter between time and eternity but is independent. The diagram is nevertheless useful to show significant points.
1) There is a fixed point where the past is fixed and the future is predetermined: the Present Moment. Time as ordinarily conceived. It is open to disordering influences (Time’s Arrow): it can only preserve order if everything else ceases to exist.
2) There is a point of non-actualised Hyle: just forms of objects and potential Hyle: potential/ Eternity. Nothing can be actual here. Thus, it is free from disordering influences. – Time. However, it can be devoid of action, so cannot change/increase order.
3) There is a region where matter is in a sensitive state: here there is freedom to create order – it is Hyparxis. Here, the will is perfectly free. With Hyparxis there are no boundaries to the Present Moment. – past and future are accessible.
4) There is an intermediate zone between Tme and Eternity. Here, there are varying degrees of order and organisation. Here, we find entities capable of resisting disintegration. Living organisms and enduring objects reside here. Order is maintained according to its degree of organisation. Matter is in one of its four states of Energy: (E12) Dispersed; (E11) Directed; (E10) Cohesive; (E9) Plastic. Here, resistance to disorder is in actual structure. There is no life here.
5) The second intermediate zone is between Tme and Hyparxis. This is the zone of Life. Matter is in one of the vital energy states: (E8) Constructive; (E7) Vital; (E6) Automatic; and (E5) Sensitive. Here, there are degrees of determination and relative freedom of action.
6) The third intermediate zone is between Eternity and Hyparxis. Here, only cosmic energies enter: (E4) Consciousness; (E3) Creativity; (E2) Unity; and (E1) Transcendence. Here, Foreordainment is possible: the Eternal Pattern, which the Present moment is called to realise. Where the zone touches the region of Hyparxis, there is the intervention of the Higher Cosmic Energies. Here, beings can fulfil their destiny. Here, Grace can enter. The Present Moment is contiguous with the hyparxis-eternity zone. But, minds and bodies cannot enter cosmic energies, only receive them. However, there is in minds a region, which includes an element of freedom.
The Dyadic character of perceptions makes understanding human experience even more complex.
Each determining condition therefore operates both as an open/ unrestricted and closed/ limited manner: active and passive conditions. For example, Time as past, present and future; Eternity, as form as limitation of potentialities; Pattern, as the opening of potentialities.
Harparxis is more difficult because it can only be associated with positive activity. The distinction is between Commitment (choice in the present moment) and the act of recreation or redemption (correction of mistakes).
There is a difference between Passive Time and Pre-selective Hyparxis. One is the determination, which enters the present moment (the past – maximum probability-> Certainty); the other is selective rather than determined past (free creativity -> transcendent energy E1).
The past can include ‘dead’ areas to the present moment ; others are ‘living’. The living past is not fixed any more than the living present, but in a state of transformation.
If we hold that there is only one kind of time, then the past is seen as static and unchanging. There is no place in determinate time for the past to change, let alone to be susceptible to being changed from the present.
We begin with varying combinations in the action of the Determining Conditions. Between Hyparxis and Time there is a zone of varying freedom of action, and the passive or pre-selective segment of this zone is the living past.
We cannot go beyond discriminate or polar knowledge without direct experience of the object known. An event is no longer within our experience, but it leaves traces and records.
It might seem odd to call phenomena ‘indeterminate’, but it is necessary to accept this. For example, with the French Revolution, there are in fact several revolutions because there are several experiences of it. In fact, it is a living mass of experience undergoing change. It is not fixed or frozen in the past. Rather, such an event lives in the hyparchic past. It lives and transforms. The present moment that contains the French Revolution has expanded. What we now have is closer to the predestined/ pre-selected event than contemporary experience. allowed AS THE PRESENT MOMENT EXPANDS, THE EVENT ITSELF TAKES SHAPE AND ITS TRUE NATURE BECOMES MORE AND MORE APPARENT.
Jung: ‘when ‘dying’, I had the experience of everything being sloughed away…painful…but something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced and done…I consisted of my own history’.
The past is therefore constantly changing in the Hyparxis-Time zone. It projects itself into different times and places and each projection is different. It is connected with other times and places by the pattern of its virtual sensitivity. So, we make contact with it.
It is hard to accept this if we remain bounded by an approached restricted by sense perception.
The Status of the Future
The future exists but in a different way from the present and past.
We expect events to occur: expectation is relative. They are based on our understanding of causality.
It is hard to picture existence as neither here and now, nor elsewhere and now, and yet in the unactualised future. That the future exists and therefore must have a different material content follows from our picture of Time and Hyparxis. This state of existence must be different from the present state. We can speak of the ‘might have been’: a conditional existence directed from the present to the past. We can also speak of ‘has-been’: the action of the future on the past. Here, the Eternity-Hyparxis zone contains existence as a pattern of reality that is really ‘there’ but not yet actualised in material terms.
Key point: the homogeneity of experience does not allow for some parts to exist and others not to exist. ALL THAT HAS EVER BEEN OR EVER WILL BE EXPERIENCED AND ALL THAT COULD HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED – ALL THAT IS POSSIBLE – EXISTS. Existence is the sum of all possibilities of Being according to law.
This is implicit in the Law of Order.
The apparent ‘non-existence’ of past and future is due to the limitation of our sense experience., that all that has existed or will exist is somehow visible.
Past, Present and Future are the three stages of existence. We have a short ‘presence’; but we also have longer moments which have their character and our own which contain the past and future.
The relativity of the present moment is different for each of the seven types of openness described above. If we confine the use of the word ‘actual’ to mean that with which we are connected by an ‘immediate mental object’, there are different degrees of non-actuality. Let us consider a few examples of non-actual connections with the present moment:
1) Tomorrow’s sunrise, though not actualised, is likely to be. It is practically Causally-Pre-determined.
2) The state of mind you will be in in 24 hours is both non-actual and unpredictable.
3) The child born of conception is non-actual. However, the eternal pattern preconditions the future in a non-causal way. This accompanies actualisation and does not precede it (the child is father to the man).
4) An event of decisive importance is to be enacted in a particular time and place. It may not happen or may fail in its purpose. IT BELONGS TO THE DESTINY OF THOSE WHO ARE TO TAKE PART IN IT. IF IT FAILS OR IF THEY MISUNDERSTAND WHAT IS REQUIRED OF THEM, THEY MISS THEIR DESTINY. Their lives continual to be actual, but they do not become real.
In these ways, the future is linked to the present. These are observations of the way the future exists. They are based on observations rather than being empirically testable.
However, we can ‘test’ the future:
For example, Precognition. Here, the subject passively sees the future. It is different from F.I.P (Future-Influencing-Present); here, later events can only be explained with reference to influence over them in the present.
Another case is Divination. This is intentional precognition or fortune-telling. Experience of divination provides evidence of the reality and relativity of future existence.
1) Divination procedures are almost all based on observing spatial patterns.
2) Divination usually requires a change of consciousness on the part of the medium.
3) Divination usually refers to the visible behaviour of objects and people.
4) Precognition and retrocognition are usually linked. In the latter case, the individual concerned recalls experience from another’s past.
5) Contacts between minds at different times do not seem to occur. This is striking as telepathy most certainly involves such contact in the present moment. Contact between bodies at different time also does not occur. Contact seems to occur between minds and bodies (precognition) or bodies and minds (divination).
The issue is how we receive images to the mind. These involve a jump from material energies (electrical impulses) to vital energies ( (automatic and sensitive). This jump is not in time and space but a ‘nul-interval’. This is allowed because of combinations of Space and Eternity with Time and Hyparxis. Similar combinations can be found in the mind. The mind is already in contact by way of creativity and consciousness with Universal energy that is not limited by Time and Space.
3 possible kinds of cognition:
1) Direct contact of material systems by nul-vectors allowing energy exchanges without movement: light signals transferred to the mind by sensitive energy.
2) Direct contact of the automatic and sensitive energies. Sympathetic and empathetic communication between minds and bodies – telepathy and precognition.
3) Contact by Universal energies of consciousness and creativity. This gives knowledge of the past and future because universal energy is not subject to the distinction of virtual, actual and conditional states. Action-at-a-distance is possible. This can appear spontaneously and unpredictably – we cannot trace the operation beyond the limit of the mind.
Consciousness can pick up energy patterns in a virtual state and it can form patterns with the help of influx of creative energy. This explains ‘thought-forms’; they are not ‘thoughts’ but ‘patterns’.
Most precognition does not include thoughts higher than the material world.
It seems that creative impulses received in the present moment may come from the future. Invention might be a momentary contact with the future. The same flash of genius may occur in more than one place more or less at the same time. Heightened awareness brings individuals into immediate contact with the future situation that they are about to create.
The future can influence the present in various ways:
Creative insight (though highest for man) may not be the highest possible. Similarly, purposes consciously entertained may be linked to the pattern of future moments; but there can be some kind of sensitive connection with the future that produces instinctive actions, as in animals. Within the region of possible connections, instinct, expectation, precognition, predestination and creativity all have a place, and can be accounted for in terms of the scheme. It turns on the notion of Coalescence of Present Moments.
Pp. 45-60
The notion of coalescence of the present moments comes from one aspect of our experience: that the embrace of the present moment is always changing – a new object enters the mind and coalesces with the existing content.. The encounter of minds is less obvious. The coalescence of two into one mind is most powerful in the sexual act. Coalescence can also include anything from the family of three generations to the entire human race over a million years. The issue is specifying the consciousness and will that makes them so. We can refer to the experience of the Great soul as its Present Moment, exercising a single individual Will.
We can use Present moment to speak of pre- and retro-cognition and of the future-influencing-present.
There are different degrees and kinds of coalescence: each of the seven directions is open to the Will that is strong enough in its union with Being and Function to respond to the invitation.
There is a difference between creative impulses and precognitions: the former depend on the ability of those who receive them to recognise this and act; the latter do not depend on present action.
The future can be a realm of creativity into which the soul can enter.
Why do excursions into the future occur so seldom?
All they need is a nul-vector of the same kind as the proper-time of light.
Firstly, it is probably not so rare as we think.
Secondly, messages from the future are received by the sensitive structure of the mind – the only receiving apparatus available to us.
Thirdly, man’s apparatus is probably directed towards not receiving messages from the future.
However, with training it is possible to gain control over the regions of space, time, eternity and hyparxis.
This is the power to expand the present moment. This training increases sensitivity to creative impulses from the hyparchic future. This presupposes the power to change the future.
This might seem complex but it is the minimum that accounts for all the elements of experience.
The central issue is how the present moment of one individual can be significant for the entire human race, and how the present moment of humanity can be significant for the universe.
Hyparxis and Time
The problem of Time is disorder – the present moment is threatened with progressive disorder, leaving no place for life. Disorder threatens from the future – it must therefore be changed. But we want more than to hold back the flood; we want to reclaim the present moment – not only to endure, but evolve.
We increase order in the present moment by the power to choose. This presupposes a higher order which allows us to choose: we do not increase total order, but that accessible to our intentional plan.
Order has increased in the last thousand years by the evolution of the biosphere.
We can form a picture of the present moment with a three-fold structure of transformations:
1. Predetermined or quasi-determined material transformations – future time and successive, predictable and subject to laws of causality and probability.
2. Predestined transformations within the zone of life – not predictable, they depend on an act of choice and decision.
3. A foreordained plan – the ultimate purpose of all existence and every separate existence. It enters into existence through conscious energy (E4). Only Creative energy can act according to it (E3). The act comes from the Personal Individuality – it concerns life-aims of the human person for the whole of creation.
The present moment is the scene of incessant transformation of energies. This requires direction and purpose. It becomes directing with mind and creative with soul.
The energies associated with the present moment of Self-hood in the embodied state are localised and condensed into a region of space. They must also be condensed in time. The highest energy to do this is sensitive energy (E5).
The sensitive energy which is left behind in past events concentrates in some and weakens in others.
Events that were overlooked at the time appear to contain a higher concentration of conscious energy than those that had immediate importance. The notion of an objectively transforming past can only be accepted if it is more convincing than a past that is non-existent.
We are eternity blind. The present moment appears as a ‘moment of time’ only so long as our experience is dominated by exchanges of energy. Timeless moments are sometimes of minimum energy exchange: respiration can stop, the pulse arrested. Profound changes in time perception are explained in terms of conscious energy (E4) – not subject to the flow of time.
There is another form of timelessness not connected with Will. Attention operates by timeless jumps; decision are taken timelessly. Soul-completion experience of Individuality is timeless.
Hyparchic moments: we know the past because of its traces in the present; we can forecast the temporal future. But we do not enter the temporal past and future because they lack the conditions for conscious experience.
Hyparchic moments: can be experienced by those whose consciousness is not limited by actualization. They are interconnected by freedom from the requirement of being actual. Hyparchic moments can be past and future. The Hyparchic past is concerned with ‘growing and changing past’. The Hyparchic future consists of non-actual but real events. They are not patterns of what might be, but in a state of creative activity that must be wholly virtual.
Only three cosmic energies are in the hyparchic future state: consciousness (E4), creativity (E3), Unitive (E2). It is the place of creativity. Here, the purpose of existence is given shape and substance prior to actualisation. The hyparchic future has a degree of freedom that the temporal future does not possess.
In Fate the pattern is fixed: a correspondence between two patterns; intention and actualisation.
If the human mind were an apparatus: it includes energies from automatism and consciousness. It receives impressions through the senses, and impulses from higher centres. There are three ‘operators’: 1) there are the selves of man (A); 2) the personal individuality (the Will attached to existential support)(B); 3) there is also the Universal Individuality(C). The selfhood is connected with immediate mental objects (aware of time passing and of a connected pattern in experience). The four selves exist on different levels of eternity (only one aware of the present moment). One is therefore dominant, the others latent. The mind is the locus of the selves; the conscious is the content of the immediate present moment. It is fragmentary according to the power of embrace of the Will. So, the Personal Individuality is associated with hyparxis – the Will to realize destiny. The four cosmic energies are needed so that harparxis and eternity are brought in direct contact. The selves are not ordinarily aware of their Individuality.
Universal Individuality is ‘beyond consciousness’. It therefore acts with and beyond the mind.
So long as there is an Individual Will but not a mind, there is no personal present moment. The Individuality is a pattern of possible relationships in the Greater Present Moment. The Self-hood is isolated from the Individuality in a present moment that appears to it to contain experience – in reality, it is small and of indeterminate extent.
The state of the completed soul is the hyparchic future. A completed soul is able to enter the hyparchic future because it is an Individualised Will. It brings its mind with it. This brings a new form of operation. Some souls combine mind with will, in the hyparchic future, to influence the present. A saint does this: he has conquered time for himself – exempt from successiveness and irreversibility. Consciousness and sensitivity are independently organised – thus, he is free to move in the direction of eternity, and becomes aware of the values as part of a preordained plan.
What is and is not possible in the hyparchic future?
It is not the present moment: it cannot act on a material agent. The influence on the human present of a mind in the hyparchic state must consist in pattern formation. It occurs in spontaneous uprisings of the mind, patterns of action not the result of previous thoughts. They come from Personal Individuality. With this, we do not conquer time; but it helps us they help us understand our personal destiny. The conquest of time requires effective action outside of the present moment.
The activity of a perfected soul in the hyparchic future can include the creation of patterns that will balance and so counteract the consequences of temporal actualization.
The hyparchic future has its own localisations. It is a region of patterns of events, not the events themselves. Patterns are created by the souls in the hyparchic future.
There is a pattern of destiny. It contains the destiny of mankind, races, societies, and individuals.
It is not fixed but in a process of being created.
There is feedback between large and small present moments: but takes place on the level of cosmic energies of consciousness, creativity and unity – thus, not observed by human the human mind. Thus, destiny is adapted by events.
The hyparchic future does not determine the present. Predetermination belongs to time alone.
Enlargements of the Present Moment that can be observed must lie with the Hyparchis-Time zone.
The hyparchic future seems to be alien to our experience, because we are restricted by the present moment. The same is true of the hyparchic past. However, it is untrue that hyparxis is a mysterious concept. There is a hyparchic experience in every present moment. It enables us to live and move within the present moment: its allows for a more extensive region of space, time, and eternity to be integrated here and now. The eternal element in the present moment is experienced in the separation of the mind from its objects – when sensitivity and consciousness are separated in the mind. This would only be a subjective trance without a hyparchic component to hold the elements together.
The present moment is therefore also the hyparchic present. If it were only temporal, it would vanish without duration. If is were only special, it would have not motion. If it were only eternal, it would be trance. There must be a hyparchic element for there to be the possibility of action. When it is strong we pass beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to action according to destiny.
The fully developed man has his own present moment, but he can enter other present moments and act in them. When the present moment opens in the direction of hyparxis, it gains duration, extent, and in the perception of Eternal forms and values .
Hyparxis is necessary for ordinary selves. It is not imperceptible. We have an intuition of presence in those whose hyparchic nature is strong. They live in the space that contains and surrounds their physical body.
The Greater Present
Ontology in philosophy has tended to be only concerned with an ill-defined instant or a timeless, ‘Eternity Now’. We need an ontology of all present moments, including past and future states.
Past, present and future all exist; but they do not all exist in our present moment. What exists for us is ‘our’ present moment – which is determined by our present state of being.
The present moment is an intersection of seven regions and zones: they range from the existing and actualising world of worlds of Will and Value which are not subject to existence. When they meet, there is experience. Experience is that which is being actualised, namely content of the present moment with traces of past and expectations of the future. Within the personal moment, freedom is limited by the commitments of the past and the patterns of the future. This creates a tramline personal to the individual. However, one can abandon attachment to the present existence to enter a larger Present Moment.
The future exists but not in the present moment. It exists in our future: the not yet now. To say the future is in the future is to say nothing. We can say an event in the future is present in the future – though different from the here and now. The future is not actual, so not committed to being what it is until it is actualised.
Will does not exist; Individuality, a Pure Will, does not exist either. Individuality acts in the future. Individual Will has power over existence in the future; this is pattern creation – occurring in a present moment, including both ‘or’ present and ‘our’ future.
A usual way of thinking about Will is to regard it as a power directed from the present towards the future.
Man has no Will to act on the future. Will is exercised exclusively in the present moment and its operation is inseparable from such exercise. We can only act on the future if we can bring it within the present moment. We can do this in several ways.
1) The first and simplest is ‘selfhood’. It is contained in the present moment of finite duration, occupying a finite region of space, some separation in eternity, some hyparchic freedom. The selfhood can be aware of alternative possibilities within the present moment and can act to actualise some and reject others. The future is only influenced by a determinate connection. Serious choices are rare; trivial ones are not. Serious choices do not produce intended results through lack of power to calculate consequences or to see the future.
2) The Will is exercise by the ‘I’ of True Self. This is between vital and cosmic energies. The mind reaches to the future, the present moment includes the act and its consequences. This is a responsible will. ‘I’ = conscious energy. It stands apart from sensitivity. It can determine action outside the present moment of the lower selves . Separation of the ‘present’ and ‘future’ is overcome by an expansion of consciousness. Here, the Will is not directed towards the future. It is able to act along the direction of the hyparchic present and future. Timeless. Man can experience this but does not usually recognise it..
3) Will exercise by Personal Individuality, able to pass freely out of the present moment of the selfhood into the Greater Present. It does this by way of Consciousness and Creativity. Here, the act of the Will is in the future of the Selfhood. It works against Time and brings creative order to the present. This mode of willing is possible when the Individuality has entered into the Self-hood.
4) The Will proceeds from the Universal Individuality or Demiurgic Intelligence. Free from the limitations of Self-hood. In the zone connecting Eternity and Hyparxis. The action creates the pattern of events that still lie in the future of the Selfhood. Mode of willing is outside the limitation of n umber. An act of will in the hyparchic future may influence the present moment of thousand of selves.
By saying ‘future moment’, ‘hyparchic future’ or future we risk treating the future as if it were now; alongside our present moment. The future lies within the Greater Present Moment.. The direction of Pure time is inaccessible to the life energies and thus do not produce immediate mental objects. Absolute determination and absolute disorder are incompatible with any kind of mental structure..
We do not reach – we do approach the direction of pure time. This comes from two directions: from the zone time-eternity (gives us awareness of transience and the threat of disorder) and from time-hyparxis (awareness of recurrence and hence metric measurement).
If we had no perception of levels of existence, we would be involved in the probabilistic actualisation of maximum disorder – maximum degeneration. If we had no contact with the hyparchic ableness-to-be, our present moment would collapse into durationless instants. There would be no measurement, no awareness of succession, no observation.
The lesser present enters into the larger in a way as to preserve the distinction of past and future, whilst allowing them to exist for the experience that embraces them.
Diagram:
0 = human self (present moment embracing his capacity for immediate experience)
Present moment is now. O identifies the present with its material content, and observes the latter changes (the perishing present).
He thus treats the situation as if the only direction were that of pure time, and identifies all existence with inert matter obeying absolute laws of simple causality. Narrow causality is obsolete. It is no longer possible to link in terms of absolute time and absolute space as being the sole determining conditions. But, there is one unique direction for which the past, present and future are a succession of point-instants.
See page 60
Pp. 60-75
The section begins with a further explanation of the diagram:
P, N and F are Past, Now and Future Content.
The Present Moment of the Observer O is confined to the perceptions of the Self-hood.
GPM is the Greater Present Moment.
1. O is experience of now: there is material change but the laws of conservation and change apply.
2. When O interprets the material terms, he takes account of P as past and f as future. This defines successiveness/ irreversibility – time – PT-FT.
3. Every present moment is associated with Eternity and Hyparxis. O can sense, know and act because of non-vanishing in the regions of E and H.
4. Individuality is independent of Existence. It does not change with the change of content. It embraces past, present and future in the GPM.
5. Present moment marked by P: past N but does not cease to exist for the GPM. This is the ‘living past’. The present moment is subject to disorder and disintegration if it does not continue to evolve.
6. The present moment marked by F includes the ‘hyparchic future’ of N. Here the Individuality can create the pattern of events.: its Will needs to be integrated with corresponding level of Being. F must be a ‘living future’. It has time and Hyparchic elements.
7. Both P and F are outside the now of O, but not of the Individuality.
8. The future of the Self-hood must allow for the intervention by the Individuality – here and now.
The future can influence the present by an intentional act: through patterns of energy – the future content of N.
These include vital and material energies. This is associated with the Higher Individuality which creates destiny. Pre-existent pattern is not able to influence the present except through an intermediate state – a bridge between Will and Being. Creative energy.
An act – apart from Being but associated with it – the virtual and creative pattern transforms into a pattern that is eternal. This acts on the present moment to bring order and organisation- the present is changed.
The Will-pattern in the creative state.
It can modify consciousness.
It can be translated into the potential of the present moment.
If sensitivity and consciousness are separated the pattern is translated into the sensitive state – a mental image.
This shows how patterns of pre-existence modify the organisation of the present moment through the conscious state.
Within the three regions and intermediate zones, with regions of space, there are several distinct future regions of the Greater Present: determination to freedom, freedom to ordainment – accident, fate, destiny, the Cosmic Plan.
Predetermination
The wholly determined future: nothing new; perpetuum mobile; things remain the same – galaxies, etc. Large scale laws. Such events vary according to degree and completeness of their determination. (Predisposed).
Predestination
Having a destination or end-point lying in future time.
Freedom
A field of creativity: nothing predetermined. Free from commitments. The free future.
Free but with legitimate possibilities. Needed for recreation – potential in the unlimited state of Being.
Without this, the present moment would sink into chaos – lose meaning.
Create new possibilities.
Beyond the creation of patterns – it makes it possible to change the course of already committed events without violating natural laws.
Foreordainment
No tendency to disorder.
Patterns created without corresponding material structures.
Here, the only matter is Cosmic Energy.
Dominated by Transcendental Energy – connects Existence with infinite Being.. The acts of Will here are creative in the highest sense. Independent of pre-existing matter or form.
Plan of Creation. This is realised in History. Expansion of the Present Moment.
Here, purification and integration must go hand in hand if it is to achieve perfection.
The overcoming of disorder and separateness.
The Human race did not arise on the earth by predetermination or predestination alone – but by foreordainment – that man should evolve into a conscious, creative power able to bring order to the earth.
The Structure of History
History lies outside the present moment of the historian but within the larger Present Moment of the region he selects for his activity.
History of Europe is the last 3000 years; we cannot know what is past and what is to come since we are in the midst of a greater Present Moment which lacks traces and signals.
But, the Historian cannot be indifferent to expectations of the future – he derives traces and interpretation from them. He is not concerned with the determined past – known exactly by measurement and calculation but works in the zone that links determination and destiny.
The status of the past varies according to the content.
The historian is concerned with the living past.
The greater Present Moment associated with any centre must be living and transforming.
The scientist is concerned to find regularities in phenomena – general laws. This dictates his procedure: observation and experiment. Observations may falsify generalizations – a fresh cycle of scientific activity is then set in motion. Facts come into being – the scientific present moment. The volume and complexity of known facts is constantly growing Hypotheses are being refined and made more general in scope.
Scientific method might be understood as Expansive Repetition: of an unchanging objective world. But, it cannot predict what will be discovered.
The artist deals with experience in a different way. Patterns are here recognised because of their value. All that is irrelevant is eliminated. This brings order to the present moment. He is interested in the particular.
Here, the definite, immediate objective cannot be reached by hypothesis or generalisation, but by literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance and mime. This is the aesthetic present moment. When the work is completed, the artist turns to another experience and begins again. There is nothing beyond the end point of each particular work of art. It is never perfect: the present moment is richer beyond the content of the possibility of expression. There can, however, be a sense of success and fulfilment.
The work of art links past and present in a present moment of its own. It is Reiterated Concentration: renewed experience.
Neither science or art are historical; i.e. looking back in the past. The scientist looks to the future; the artist works in the present.
The artist creates by elimination.
The historian also eliminates. But, his aims and procedure are quite distinct. From those of the scientist and the artist. His aim is to strengthen the link between his own present moment and that of the region of experience he studies. He surveys traces left in the present moment. If he was confined to the Domain of Fact, he would find no living content. If he remains in the Domain of Value, he cannot touch traces.
When traces can be put together to form a present moment, the first kind is ‘happenings’, and the second is ‘events’.
Events is the content of history – each is a present moment within a greater present moment. The historian needs to know how the present moment is realised. This involves activity and order (tetrad), potentiality and significance (the pentad), recurrence and coalescence (the hexad), and structuring or completion (the heptad).
Without structure there would be no history.
Structure of the living present must take patterns and voluntary action into account. The historian is as much concerned with Eternity and Hyparxis as Time.
History is concerned with voluntary and responsible actions. There needs to be a rich leavan of conscious and creative action. The historian must apply criteria to eliminate the irrelevant traces of the past and discover the structure of events. The criteria come from the Domain of Value and material comes from the Domain of Fact. Maybe, in combining them, the historian does something to the past and the past does something to him. This Domain of Harmony transforms all who enter in…
The hard task is to see the working of history as a complete structure, in which all elements have their place.
Events
An event is a present moment associated with significant experiences that link with other moments.
It has an overriding unity: which makes it a coalescent structure or hexad.
Five stages in the study of an historical event.
1. The event as a set of knowable facts within a larger nexus of knowable facts. Factual material is put in an order with the help of premises or principles of historical interpretation. A logically consistent form is sought for.
2. The known traces of the event are grouped according to systematic principles. There are as many ‘principles of explanation’ as there are relevant systems. Dynamism: to be studied as a triad; Contradiction – to be studies as a Dyad; ordered activity – discernment of motivation and instrumentation. Process of significance – master nourishment and inner life. Coalescence of the event – the hexad. This is the construction of the event.
3. Event as partly human experience. Particular society – certain groups. The event is also a present moment. A social phenomenon. Also includes the non-human environment – one of the sources of the dynamism.
4. The event as an element of order within the greater Present Moment of human existence. Each event is a coalescence of Wills – gaining a unity that mere happening cannot achieve.
5. Event as present moment in its own right. Moment of Decision or Moment of Destiny. A fragment within a greater whole.
Bundles of activity do often have the characteristics of ‘an event’.
What do we mean by ‘past events’.
Let’s begin with the laws of synchronicity. The first law gives us a starting point: the togetherness of entities is a given region of space and time produces the experience of the present moment..
Every event is a present moment that can be entered by any mind whose consciousness is free to travel outside its own bodily presence.
This leads us again to definitions of Greater and Lesser Present Moments of selves and societies.
The present moment as the sphere of operation of a single Will needs to be extended and include the coalescence of Wills that make the event. We sometimes see a personal Will in the Man of Destiny who dominates the event.
The stronger the event, the more it lives and evolves, the more we see Will in it.
Zeitgeist.
Describing an event as a Present Moment does not compromise its significance. It is not a region of space-time, but an experience into which different influence penetrate. Some enter from space-time, but the historically significant come from hyparxis and eternity.
Our notions of experience need to be revised: we are used to seeing it as personal rather than collective. If an event comes from the ‘present moment’, we need to revise ‘present’ as a private experience. There is a ‘group present’: a collective reality, not experienced individually.
A Man of Destiny here may be able to seize the collective reality in which they all participate; the whole or timeless pattern.
A Higher Intelligence may see not only the duration of the event as a single moment but discern as a single structure all its parallel actualizations.
Why is an event a ‘fragment of reality’?
Events are not the sum of the actions of all participants, and all the material changes that occur. It is also not enough to bring in the personal experience and motives of the characters involved.
Nor is it just a ‘historical context’.
The more important is the ‘Integrity’ of the event itself.
Men are confined to their own present; but an event belongs to a larger whole. Events are not successive; they are intrinsic, nature, timeless.
An event is an unceasing flux. As it seems to go around in circles, it might seem as ‘eternal recurrence’.
The best way of looking at it is as the ‘hyparchic past’.
Human History – Its Range and Operations
So, we turn to the Greater Present Moment – the Theme of History.
Events are not history but the elements of the historical process.
We need a theory of historical structure in order to pass from knowledge of the particular events to an understanding of history.
Events concentrate interest on particulars. History expands significance into universals. The step from event to history requires a new set of relevancies connected with purpose or plan.
There are different histories: economic, social, political, religious,.
Also histories in special fields of human science: art, language, invention, science, etc.
We need criteria of relevance in order to bring all histories into one history. History regarded as a tetrad of activity involves motivations and instruments. Regarded as the completion of the present moment it has seven qualities or levels. To characterise it adequately we need four heptads:
Higher Motivational Heptad
Highest essence class – Universal Harmony.
Human essence class – Central Position
Vegetative life – Biosphere – base.
Goal…………………………….Essence Class
Supernatural History……………………Universal Harmony
Providential History……………………..Cosmic Individuality
History of Soul………………………………Demiurgic
History of Mind…………………………….Human
History of Human Societies and
Institutions…………………………………..Animal
History of Conflicts, Conquerors
And Achievements of Man…………….Germinal
History of Man’s Relationship with
The Biosphere and the Earth…………Plant
Lower Motivational Heptad
Begins with lowest essence class that enters human experience: crystalline essence – solid state of earth’s surface.
Essence Class…….Ground
Demiurgic………………………….Religious History
Human………………………………Cultural History
Animal………………………………Social History
Germinal……………………………Political History
Vegetable…………………………..Population History
Soil……………………………………Edaphic History
Crystalline…………………………Economic History
Operational Heptad
The instrumental terms of the tetrad.
We need to distinguish seven types of operation, by which the present moment undergoes changes and transformations: from actuality to creativity.
Monadic Operation………………….Action
Dyadic Operation…………………….Interaction
Triadic Operation……………………Formation
Tetradic Operation………………….Growth
Pentadic Operation…………………Development
Hexadic Operation………………….Transformation
Heptadic Operation…………………Creation
Directional Heptad
Here, we are at the instrumental term that fixes scope and character of the present moment. This is derived from the individuals, groups, and societies that participate in human history. There are nine levels from man to the biosphere. The two highest belong to the history of the biosphere as a whole, and fall outside the present moment of human society:
Scale of the Present Moment…….Directive Influences
All Human History……..The Plan of Human Existence
Great Cycles………………Stages of Human Evolution
Epoch…………………………………….Master Ideas
Civilisation…………………..Culture and Value Groups
Nation…………………Regions, Races, Linguistic Units
Family…………………………Clans and Localities
Man………………………………..Personal History
The Operations of History
Here, we consider the operational scheme.
The seven operational terms allow us to explain the various ways in which we act in the present moment. These range from pre-determined changes, transferred into the present from the temporal past, to free creative acts which are without antecedent causes.
The seven terms can be regarded as lying on a spectrum between the directions of time and hyparxis.
Action
Unconstrained motions – stationary actions – no change of either energy or entropy.
Simple actions are completely reversible.
There is no way of telling the direction of time. Positive and negative time are lost in the laws of motion.
Time is measurable because there are a lot of operations in nature which correspond to simple operations.
We discover cycles that are due to the existence in nature of close approximations to simple action.
Pp. 75-90
This section continues with the ‘Operations of History’.
Interaction
This includes non-reversible exchanges – thus subject to increased entropy. The changes in interaction are of one kind: transitions towards stable conditions – ageing and wearing out of what exists. Buddha: ‘Nothing cometh into existence but bears the seeds of its own dissolution’.
Interaction might also be a communication. Interaction makes sharing possible. Composite wholes: the sharing of two particles – requiring a hyparchic component of action.
Interaction provides the environmental elements in history. Climatic changes come from interaction.
Interaction includes actions dominated by successiveness and irreversibility of time. The eternal pattern is the condition that makes interaction possible.
Formation
Orderly action where there is a pattern. Enduring objects. This includes language, as opposed to just expression of feeling. Formation allows for the preservation of traces of the past. Thus, there is a distinction between passive modes of will-action to modes that allow for some intention.
Objects with recognizable forms are necessary for signals from the past to be received.
As for the ‘war with time’, formation is a first step towards ability to overcome successiveness and irreversibility. For example, the earth’s shell, which has allowed for life on it: a stable structure – ocean, rocks, animals, vegetables, etc.
These are the material of history – as interaction is the condition of history.
Growth
Directed activity.
Growth towards an end-point. Typical of living organisms. It is at the expense of diminution. Growth proceeds by drawing nourishment from the environment.
Local significance as opposed to background environment.
Growth implies selective operation – the limitation of time cannot be overcome without it. Selection implies rejection, implying decay. Selection must therefore lead to competition: the survival of the fittest.
Development
Growth through adaptation and response: open not fixed end point.
For example, the city-state, governed by constitution, or organism governed by a genetic pattern. There is no fixed end-point, but an activity, with unlimited variation.
Growth and development can operate together.
Growth: ableness to be; unification of simpler operations;
Development: realization of potentialities with a situation.
Development is more hyparchic that growth: needing greater ‘regulation’.
Development is dramatic, whilst growth is end-point driven.
Because of the hyparchic present, there may be failure, or partial/ total success.
Transformation
Co-operation between entities of different orders. Potentialities arise which were not present before. The conditions of temporal actualization may be resisted or even reversed. There is an increase in potential. A higher degree of organization and effectiveness.
Transformation is not just bringing two situations together: this would be simply stimulation.
Transformation is more than the growth stimulation or stimulated development. Transformation requires ‘cooperation’ – consciousness set free from sensitivity (an artist, or teacher).
The war with time ceases to be defensive with Transformation. Time enables a result. In transformation, the hyparchic past, present and future are brought together in a common field of action. The past and future are both alive!
Creation
The highest gradation of operation.
Here, the creative power is working in the hyparchic future to restore and hold the present moment to its predestined pattern.
The action of unconstrained free will in the present moment, yet directed towards it.
Within the Greater Present Moment that includes past and future, an interpenetration of activity is possible for the four cosmic energies that are not subject to the restrictive conditions of time and space.
A conscious response of the creative operation: to penetrate the visible world of human experience.
The Seven Levels of History
Here, we take the motivational terms in pairs; this gives seven tetrads, each with its own ‘ground’ and ‘goal’. The first pair gives us the history of man’s natural life: the opposition of vegetative and material forces. The highest show the purpose of human life as a combination of obligation to rule and to order. This is derived from the Demiurgic Essence and the hope of becoming united with supreme Reality.
1. Man and Nature
The immediate contact between man and his natural environment forms the basic activity of history.
The material world is represented by the essence classes, crystalline forms of the earth’s crust, and what man makes of them.
Man’s contact with nature has as its goal the preservation and transmission of life as represented by plant essence. This comes from the action of man on his environment – the use of tools distinguishes him from animals (2001!).
Vegetative Life
Action……………Man
The Material World
This is economic history, and the biggest statistical aggregate can signify the wholly determinate future.
Material objects belong to the hyponomic world and are passive in their relationships. Still, they have a place in the dynamism of human activity.
E9 – Plastic Energy – strength. Suppose security. Often, the medium of exchange of higher values in man’s existence.
This produces a certain kind of history.
Vegetative History is below level of sensitivity and dominated by E8 – Constructive and E7 – Vital – Energies.
At this level, man does not know himself as a historical being: no transmission of experience to connect the small present moment of the individual with the greater present moment.
Vegetation is living, self-renewing source of natural activities of man’s life on earth – food, shelter, clothing. Vegetative history has been significant for all periods of great climatic change and man’s development.
See page 80
Political History see page 81
Germinal Striving
Interaction………Families (Oligarchies)
The Soil
Here, the struggle for survival – between Germinal Striving and the Soil – gives rise to Political History.
This History lies between constructive and automatic levels: a history of conflict and relatedness.
Political history is connected with the soil and man’s need for food and shelter; also the need for change and evolution.
The history of man’s connection with the soil = Edaphic History. The fertility of the soil. Sometimes, population differences and the migration of people are decided on the basis of the soil fertility: climate, seasonal variation.
The fertility of the soil is a family concern. Attachment to the soil is a stabilizing factor in history; but joy of life is more important Men often do not see that enjoyment of life comes from the soil.
Joy is the highest of the natural values; it is the experience of the normal activity of life, derived from interaction with the environment. This enjoyment is both momentary and historical.
Political History has, as its goal, the creation of a politeas or state: members of a nation, mankind – to ensure material and spiritual (existential and essential) needs.
The balance is only ever briefly achieved since political history always fails to achieve its objectives. Failure often comes from the inability of psychostatic man to liberate himself from existential motives.
In the triad of existential history, the general rule is that the affirmative influence is concentrated in individuals or small groups and the receptive influence in the situation as a whole: the fluctuating states of the people and the general conditions of existence. In the long run, the state of the people proves to be the affirmation in existential history, and the land is the medium through which it acts. The third impulse is man’s destiny to achieve a social order founded on justice and spiritual values. Involution and Evolution are balanced: Psychostatic, Psychokinetic and Psychoteleios groups sustain and supply each others’ needs. This could be realised by humanity.
Social History See page 84
The Human History
Formation……………..Nation
The Vegetative Life
‘Birds of a feather flock together’.
Mutual Recognition: Acceptance; Organic Unification.
In the tetrad, the instrumental term ‘foundation’ indicates the basic operation, which is the association of people into coherent groups.
Vegetative History determines the ‘state of welfare’. It is constantly fluctuating and not equally distributed. Differences concern the availability and distribution of food and other necessities.
Vegetative History is the history of living conditions: potential is created and aims/ purposes awakened because these are different in different regions.
Man is dependent on his fellow men for his existence – and for the attainment of his essential destiny. In the tetrad that prescribes the form that social history should exemplify, the motivational terms are destiny and necessity; the instrumental terms are man’s knowledge of the existential world and his understanding of the essential values. The structure of society is based on three tetrads: Psychostatic; Psychokinetic and Psychoteleios leading to the historical development of humanity. The history of the labour movement is one example. Although it may have failed in its original aims, it will leave traces for centuries to come.
The Biosphere is the source of the connection between the social structures of man and the animal essence. The animal genera have developed the various characters that enter into the Divided Self of man and determine his social potential. Animals are the organisers of sensitive energy: E5. Here, life begins to become aware of itself. Similarly, social history stands at the point of experienced history: characteristic energies range from Vital E7 to Sensitive E5. Individual men can be conscious; but societies are automatic.
We can conceive of a human society with one mind. Here, man world be in harmony with the Biosphere. Man cannot occupy the place destined for him until his social organisation responds to his essential nature.
The History of Mind See page 87
Here, the goal is that Man should become Man: by the evolution of mind, man is slowly moving towards the realization of his essential pattern: thus, the history of mind. The ground from which man comes is germinal essence. Here, sensitivity is the precursor of an organised mind. Instrumental terms are Civilisation and Growth.
The Human Mind
Growth……………..Civilisation
The Germ of Mind
Civilisation is the directional term of the tetrad: greater cultural entities which share in a system of values and social structures.
Mind is both psychological and historical.
Let us now look from the present moment to mind for the central place of human experience. The history of mind is also the history of human culture. The visible history of the mind is seen in art, science, philosophy, and literature.
The two aspects of the history of mind are associated with the energies of Automatism E6 and Consciousness E4. The history of mind is the story of the building of a bridge that is to connect the world of Life with the world of Spirit. Only rarely do minds develop powers that connect the two. Mostly, men are unaware of these.
The History of Soul See page 89/ 90
The soul is the seat of the power of choice: mind transformed by creativity and integrated by a single will (Personal Individuality). Until this change is complete, the soul-stuff is fragmented into localisations each with its own will (therefore present moment). The history of the soul of man must therefore be the history of all mankind. Epoch is those greater present moments in which all mankind is united by a community of will and a creative activity directed towards similar purposes. The Master Idea is the unifying characteristic; that is a wilful focus of intelligence. At the moment, all we have is a diffuse direction of intent.
The evolution of the human soul consists in it acquiring the ability to understand and act as an integrated whole.
The motivational terms are organised sensitivity and creative responsibility.
The pattern of sensitivity is the ground from which both the personal soul of the individual and the Great Human Soul develop historically. This development is directed towards the attainment by the human race of the power of Creative Responsibility that is rare at the present time.
Soul History Tetrad
Creative Responsibility
Development or Realization of Destiny….The Epochal Will or Master Plan
Organised Sensitivity
Will is extremely important in this Tetrad. Functional History is left behind. The mind of man is the seat of his being, but it has no will of its own. It is composed of inner energies that the mind cannot perceive. It goes beyond Creative Energy: E3 . Soul history is invisible history.
Belief in soul connects man with human destiny. Without this, man is drawn to the material world. To deny the soul is to deny human destiny as a pattern created by a higher power.
There is evidence of the soul but, since it is manifest in behaviour it is seen as ‘of the mind’ . Mind is mistakingly seen as ‘the crown of man’s nature’, and people do not distinguish between the automatism of the nervous system, the sensitivity and consciousness of mind and the creative will that resides in the soul.
We can see that many of the greatest events of history conform to a general pattern. Such a pattern is only discernable in terms of process ‘on the right scale’, not in causal terms. We have a present epoch of 2-3000 years; characterised by an attitude or intention that influences all peoples in it. This intention influences all patterns: thought, attitudes, ideas, feelings, and values. These are the ‘signs of the times’. They are detectable as the consequences of a step in the development of the soul-stuff of mankind. It grows in the response to the Universal Will. The soul is so hidden in the mind that it cannot be discerned by men in the Psychostatic Groups or the lower levels of the Psychokinetic sub-groups. For undeveloped man, all experience is referred to the present moment only – his present moment! His content of mind! And, thus influenced by all levels of history. The soul-history is contagious with mind history and can be perceived by those whose consciousness is awakened.
Here are the seven histories from the natural to the supernatural. The history of mind is the link between the visible and the invisible.
Now Without
Past
Natural
Political
Social
Mind
Soul
Providential
Supernatural
Future
Now Within
Pp. 91-106
This section continues the discussion of ‘The History of Soul’ – the fifth history of mind. For the mind, history is the present moment, and known by traces, judged by its values and realized in action. The mind is the instrument of realization but only once it is transformed into a soul. It is not a self-directing instrument.
The rising, flourishing and transformation of cultures and the succession of epochs shows the projection of essential history into existential life. Behind this, is the invisible work of psychokinetic groups, and behind this the motivational influence of Guides and Prophets.
Soul-history is the limit of man’s power of action; and the channel of super-human history. The creative element is unrecognised on existential levels. Men on a higher level of being exercise an influence that is not recognised. The creative artist often proves to be more important in retrospect.
In all periods of history, there has been an awareness of the reality of the soul-nature of man, and of the need to find ways of accelerated transformation. There have always been psychokinetic societies – they redress the balance lost through the attractions of material objects and the forces of life.
Essential history is mostly unseen by the world. If seen, it is often called religion. It sometimes takes the form of a reaction against false theocracy. For example, Akbar (1556-1605). At the time, he was seen simply as a conqueror; now we see him as the instrument of creative history.
The reality of soul-history is demonstrated by the character of the present moment, not traces; spiritual life is unaccountable in terms of causes transmitted from the past. This is the Collective Soul of Humanity. The soul is present here and now – though little more than embryonic in development. It lives by creative action, which overcomes the disruptive power of the material world. We feel it working.
Soul history is a decisive element in the war against time. Most men do not see it; creative acts are seen as accidental or by chance. Psychokinetic men and women seek their own salvation as a way of serving humanity, but do not understand their link.
There is a distinction between the history of development (course of human evolution towards natural destiny) and the history of transformation (man transcends the limitations of destiny and enter superhuman states of being).
Providential History – Sixth History of the Mind
See page 93
This level is beyond man’s part in history: here, history is made possible. This is the hyparchic future – the zone which links the hyparchic future to the destiny of man. The tetrad:
………………………….Cosmic Individuality…………………………………..
Transformation………………………………………….The Great Cycles…….
………………………….Providential History…………………………………..
This is the history of man’s transformation: not from animal to true man, but from man alone and apart, to man united with the Cosmic Individuality. Great Cycles = Great Present Moments of the intervention of the Cosmic Individuality into destiny and evolution of mankind.
This is less destiny as pattern of man’s existence in the solar system as the foreordained state to which man is called. Man is pre-destined to be both a responsible agent of the cosmic purpose and a direct participant in creation. Not individual for the race but World Soul. Until this is matured and awakened, man will not understand the total significance of human life. Providential history is often left out of the account; although man does have evidence of his belief in superhuman powers from the very first awakenings: for examples, tombs, tablets, pyramids, inscriptions, temples. Doctrines evolved until merging into revealed religion about two thousand five hundred years ago: as in sandwiched between Nature and God. Such beliefs can be traced back at least twenty thousand years; although the modern world has almost entirely repudiated them. We call these the ‘Demiurges’: questioned by C18 rationalism; rejected by C19 positivism; set aside in C20 modernism. They are considered superstitions; the notion of Psychoteleios men capable of insight and powers beyond ordinary people is seen as belief in magic.
Providential History goes against modern trends of thought – foreign to philosophy and science, and modern theology which concentrates all religious significance in the relationship between God and Man.
The word Illumination can be used to designate the co-working of Unitive and Creative Energies.
Here, Light and Light-bearing Essences are familiar. But there is a tendency to confuse the operation of Illumination with its effect – the state of Illumination. Only the first sense is used. Demiurgic Powers have a role to transmit Illumination – and to supervise the action that produces history.
Illumination is the coalescence of Love and Creativity; Intelligence requires Creativity and Consciousness.
There is an element of Will which gives Intelligence and Illumination their operational power.
Demiurges are neither supernatural nor immaterial. They operate in the hyparchic future – not the present.
We have distinguished between the Universal and the Personal Individuality: the former is of World VI – pure-essence.
We can further distinguish between Universal Individuality as Will and its operations in intelligences.
Will combined with Intelligence is a mode of Being associated with a living body only. Will exercised through Intelligence can be effective in the conditions of the hyparchic future. Demiurgic power can be seen as a personal state of the Universal Individuality. Universal Individuality pervades all worlds – the source of finite self-hood. Universal Individuality exists within nature; Cosmic Individuality is beyond nature.
We must be careful with Universal Individuality to avoid ‘the error’ of Gnosticism: UI is not an emanation but a working or energia of Divine Presence. St Gregory Palamas (of the hesychast tradition) associated Divine Energies with the manifestation of the Power, the Love and the Providential guidance of God within Creation. Energies are natural in operation, though supernatural in origin. UI is Unity in Multiplicity of Demiurgic Intelligences and Powers.
There is a gap in current thought between the study of nature/ science and supernatural/theology. This is where destiny is adjusted to fate and fate to destiny; purpose to cause and cause to purpose. This is where the demiurgic powers work, but they need the cooperation of the Present Moment. Individual men act in different directions because they do not see the pattern of the future – and therefore act contrary to the common good. Humanity is a collective entity moving to an Integrated Identity. We do not see Reciprocal Maintenance as the pattern of our existence.
Providential History can be seen as the action whereby man enters into his true destiny as the soul of the Biosphere. He came from the Biosphere with mind; from mind came soul; and from soul came individuality.
Earlier, this action was guided by the Demiurgic Intelligences – but more and more responsibility was then devolved to man. But, the DIs still keep watch over the world.
Providence is often seen as the suppression of natural laws. However, we need to see it as Demiurgic Intelligences operating in the hyparchic future from which empty spaces in the present are discernable. Tensions are unaccountably released when there is an influx of creative energy acting directly upon the consciousness of all who respond to it. They bring about decisive changes.
Supernatural History – the seventh history of the mind. See page 97
The scheme logically requires us going beyond the existing world to the supernatural – the source of man’s arising. Even if we do not believe in a Creator.
This is the domain of theology rather than history. A theology that postulates a purpose in the Creation – and an ultimate meaning in history.
Historical theology requires not only a purpose in Creation – but uncertainty as its attainment. If the outcome was predetermined, there would be no history; only a single creative act. Non-theological history also breaks down because history is distinguished from mere happening by its significance. There can be no partial significance without Total Significance. Total Significance needs to transcend the existence it informs. This requires the acknowledgement of a spiritual power beyond existence – beyond nature: Supernatural History.
…………………………………….The Cosmic Harmony……………………………………..
Creation………………………………………………………………All Human Existence…..
……………………………………………Religion……………………………………………………
It is not necessary to particularise the supernatural: to distinguish between Personal God and Supra-personal Will. But, we must postulate a God towards which creation is directed. Humanity is involved in this Creation; Mankind is involved in History; thus, the realization of the Universal harmony.
The seventh level of the lower motivational heptad is designated by Religious History.
The tetrad is competed by Creation – the Present Moment of all mankind from first arising on earth to final withdrawal.
It is necessary to draw a distinction between ignorance and sin. Providential history is directed towards the correction of ignorance but not the redemption of mankind from sin. This would exceed the powers of the demiurges, requiring an intervention beyond Existence itself.
Our connection with that source is the Cosmic Individuality. Supernatural History concerns the means whereby the consequences of men’s involvement in the cosmic evil are redeemed. If this were not ever present, the human race would degenerate and lose contact with Individuality. Men only see it when made manifest – Revelations.
Supernatural History cannot be demonstrated in fact – nor inferred from Providential History. It is invisible history: apprehended only by theological virtues – Faith, Hope, Love. They are exercised only in E2 (Unitive Energy).
Supernatural History is contained in the zone connecting hyparxis and eternity, operating in Cosmic Energies.
The upper motivational term of the tetrad is the Transcendental Decree that establishes the harmony of the Creation, and its lower motivational term is the creative and religious urge latent in the human soul. These are energies E1 and E3. Divine Love.
Without Supernatural History, mankind would be defenceless against the evil forces that are involved in the existing world.
If there is sin, there must be redemption. This requires Supernatural History.
Next, we go back to the origins of life since the Biosphere and Man are indissolubly linked.
The History of Life on the Earth
The Start of History
The content of history lies outside the present moment. The Present Moment is non-historical.
We know the past by traces. Without traces of the past, there would be no history.
Until recently, history was expressed only in terms of ‘written accounts’ – everything else was ‘pre-history’. However, this is artificial; history is in rocks, oceans, etc.
To know history, we need to know traces of the past going back to the appearance of life.
However, we can only speak of ‘history of the earth’ broadly. The earth is a hypernomic entity – i.e. existence is of a higher order than life; although, it appears to actualise in time and space, this is only true from a human standpoint. We cannot imagine what time is in terms of planets, sun, etc.
We assign to the planets the term ‘sub-creation’. We can see the earth as a director rather than actor of the plan of history. This role needs to be played out on a higher level. Therefore, the earth needs to be treated as demiurgic intelligence – or as a support for such.
We might say that the entire period of preparation, emergence and development of life has been a ‘present moment’ for the earth.
What appears as a succession of events is really one total experience. There is an analogy between this planetary experience and that of our living body, with its millions of cells making up our one experience.
A single act of perception involves a complex and irreversible succession of impulses.
The region over which the present moment extends is a function of the degree of integration of the experiencing entity concerned.
The present moment of the earth is much more likely to be near its totality than it is for the ordinary man..
This view is strongly supported by the association of the novempotent plants with the 9th level of energy – Conscious Energy (E4).
The Earth is an intelligent being on the level above life itself. Intelligence is not subject to the determination of time in the same way as are the lower energies – therefore, the history of life on the earth works itself out in the earth’s present moment.
Although, in this way, history begins within the earth’s mind, and works itself out according to the determining conditions as they apply to life, this does not mean that history is started by the earth.
The intelligence of the earth links the operation of Consciousness (E4) and Creativity (E3) ; whereas, the sun spans Creativity (E3) and Unitive Energy (E2).
We have assigned ‘life creation’ to the sun.
This is a convenient way of distinguishing between life as foreordained on the earth and the forms of life predestined.
We can say: the appearance of life on the earth was foreordained by the Unitive Energy working in the sun; the pattern according to which life has developed was predestined by the Creative or Demiurgic activity of the earth.
There remains the predetermination of life upon the level of the material energies.
Creation as described in Genesis relates specifically to the earth, not the whole universe. This in turn requires a measure of delegated creativity as the Supreme Act whereby the universe was brought into existence with detailed working out of its consequences.
Delegated creativity implies the separation of agent and instrument without denying the instrument of some of the powers that are proper to the agent.
Thus, St. Gregory Palamas who treats the working of the divine power as a complex of energies such as love, goodness, etc. allows these energies to pass into creation which thus receives deification. Similarly, the creative and unitive energies, though properly referred to as Cosmic Individuality, nevertheless enter into the sun, and appear again in the Demiurgic Activity of the Earth and even of Man when he enters the Psychoteleios Order.
There must have been immense subordinate creative acts within the freedom with which existence was endowed by and from its source. If we reject this, God becomes a remote inaccessible Absolute and theism and atheism are rendered, for all practical purposes, identical doctrines.
The notions of determining conditions and energies lead to the conclusion that the Creative Will of the Sun is not a wholly independent power, but rather a mode of operation of the Universal Will.
When we say that life on earth is foreordained by the Creative Will of the Sun, we are not saying anything other than that the appearance of life on the earth is the result of an activity in which the Sun transmits the Unitive energy (E2) and the earth the creative energy (E3).
Pp. 106-121
Evolution and Predestination of Life
The history of life on this planet is quite a recent phenomenon; until the nineteenth century, the history of man was hardly studied – no significance given to present traces of past events. That changed with Darwin. New techniques were developed to study man’s past.
It is not possible to put forward a loto f facts; in some areas they are hardly known or are confused. Other areas are highly specialised.
All must make sense or nothing does – we can offer some guiding principles. Time – with its extension into hyparxis and eternity – offers a framework to place present and future facts.
Few question the version of events that made up the Biosphere. There are however disagreements. Phylogenesis is written in the rocks and the sea bed, but the mechanism is not established. Nevertheless, the genetic version of selective evolution is accepted by most.
Any event will occur if a large number of chances are offered to it.
Many philosophers and biologists assume the doctrine of ‘fortuitous arising’. To explore this, we need to consider the probability that a a prior explanation will work.
We take the notion of order-disorder. The Biosphere is in a very ordered state – compared, say, to rocks. Could this order have arisen accidentally?
If order is to exist, there must be a way of conserving it. Order tends to disorder, complex structures disintegrate. Therefore, the random arising of order is unlikely.
We can assume that past atmospheric and solar conditions favoured the synthesis of organic matter. So, it is assumed that the arising of life on earth was simply fortuitous. However, a different picture emerges if we examine more closely.
Without direction, chance/ random processes tend to level distinctions and structures. Fortuitous process postulates the formation of complex molecules – deoxyribonucleic acids – the elements of which normally disintegrate. If there are a thousand combinations to be made, the probability of this happening by chance is infinitesimal. There has to be an accumulation of order – not all of it comes from the same source. All order built up is vulnerable – the greater the order, the greater the likelihood of regress.
Perhaps only self-reproducing organisms are reproduced. The probability of continuation is therefore increased. However, the number of chances needed is still large.
Solar energy maintains both the order of human culture and the Biosphere. The order lost by sun-earth is partly gained by the Biosphere. The latter has in fact increased with time. Can this have occurred through random combinations?
If we consider changes in the structure of an array of atoms as a result of mutations capable of being transmitted, each step is: 1) an increase in order; 2) depends on previous steps.
At least a thousand million elements have been accumulated to produce the current biosphere. Such prodigious order is hard to grasp. Even the simplest living organism like a bacterium, requires hundreds of millions of atoms for its pattern of existence and reproduction. Such a pattern has to be produced exactly every time it divides.
It is hardly imaginable that such a living thing would come into existence without some organising or directing influence. There is a high degree of quantity and quality of order.
The more we learn about the way life works, the less plausible it is that it is undirected.
Here, we consider the complexity of a human being, the idea that they emerged by blind chance is extremely implausible.
We might however test the hypothesis that, even though improbable, it is conceivable. Looking at the necessary components of the earth’s atmosphere, the likelihood of one single molecule reproducing itself is about one in a hundred thousand million million. That is: improbable.
Of course, random events do occur, and structures break down.
If we look at ‘evolution’, the numbers are smaller: the odds still running into hundreds of millions.
The development of human culture by random processes and natural selection is therefore far-fetched. The notion of the fortuitous origin and evolution of life and human culture therefore needs to be rejected as contrary to the laws of probability and thermodynamics.
It is meaningless to say that the existence of the universe is ‘more likely than not’.
Inert matter is insensitive; life is sensitive. How did the latter emerge from the former?
Perhaps there is consciousness in inert matter? This is not feasible. We need a world picture that might not be certain, but at least offers something of the totality of our experience. We need to develop a world picture adequate to include all we know and our intuitions of truth.
The Plan and Pattern
Planets are improbable modes of existence.
If we placed ourselves in the middle of our galaxy, change our vision and time scale, we could examine its structure. We would see two hundred thousand million stars, prodigious intensities of energy, millions of galaxies, but no solid matter (they would be too small and dark to see).
What we see on one scale is unpredictable on another. We might even think planetary existence improbably.
But, ‘unexpectedness’ is a mark of the hyparchic future. So, we look for an unexpected and improbably plan.
We need to explain the earth’s ‘present moment’.
The earth is conscious AND creative; consciously embracing energies beyond the organised mind. It is a Higher Intelligence; so associated with the Demiurgic Powers.
The mind of the earth is in a process of evolution: implanting the pattern of life. This mind is a ‘greater present moment’. The history of life is being enacted within the ‘present moment’ of this Great Mind.
Before this happened, the earth slumbered – its creative powers being exercised by the sun.
Life appeared on the earth as a response to a plan that arose in the hyparchic future of the earth’s mind.
The plan did not appear in time but as an illumination (wow!). An act of the creative will of the sun. The operations of the will in the hyparchic state of non-potential virtuality have no powers to bring about their own realization in the present moment of time. They must take on the shape of an eternal pattern. This transformation of the solar act takes place in the mind of the earth. The virtual pattern is effectual only if it is associated with potential energy – passing into the eternity of the present moment.
There are two elements: 1) the illumination of the sun (affirmative – E3 – Creative Energy); 2) Intelligence of the Earth (Consciousness – E4).
What of the initiation of causal process within the present moment of time – life on earth? There are three possible explanations:
1) There must be value as well as fact – as we are dealing with history. This suggests contingency: the first in the scale of values – dispersed energy (E12). Action that has the character of ‘blind chance’, as postulated in mechanistic theories. But we must introduce another element: an organising force-field – that the energies of life remain latent and only enter step-by-step as suitable material bodies develop.
2) We need to invoke a very high action contrary to this – assuming that life is necessary for cosmic harmony, Divine Compassion enters into the material world in order for creation to triumph in the war with time. It is the illumination which brings about a mutual action of inert matter (subject to time) and the pattern of life (virtual in eternity). Love acts as the Immanent Divinity that unites the creativity of the sun with the Intelligence of the earth.
3) The action might also be seen in hierarchical terms: the Divine Compassion releases the power of Illumination to awaken the intelligence of the earth to provide itself with a mind that eventually arises in the Biosphere with the advent of man. Divine Compassion is here the highest operation in the existing world: the coalescence of Transcendent (E1) and Unitive (E2) energies with the Will of the Cosmic Individuality.
The Earth’s mind is the Hyparchic Future and issues as the potential pattern of Vital energies by which the evolution of the Biosphere is directed.
This can be expressed as a series of propositions:
1) Life on earth is the realization of a plan: its fulfilment is ordained out of time – past, present, future – by the Creative Will of the Sun( an operation of the Supreme Will).
2) The Will, operating in the hyparchic future of the earth conceives the plan of a self-reproducing mode of existence capable of sustaining sensitivity, and organising it to provide the earth with a mind that can be transformed into a soul. This plan needs to be progressively self-directing. Beings capable of acquiring a soul are central to this plan.
3) The earth, in a state of pure Intelligence, but without a mind, accepted the plan, and converted it into a pattern of life capable of evolving simple beings to become its own mind.
4) The three acts of will are in the hyparchic future of the sun and earth. There is no actualization and no matter event. They do not take place in Life’s present moment.
5) When the virtual pattern becomes a potential pattern a present moment appears – it begins to exist. This is at a point where critical conditions allow for something to become reality – An apocritical point. This point varies according to the earth’s Intelligence.
6) The actualization begins at the lowest level of earth’s energies, and works its way up through the essence classes. To begin, there is a high degree of consciousness (the earth), and low level of materiality (random motions). The actualization builds at intervening levels. In this way, the event passes into life.
This scheme accounts for the history of life, even if it appears a bit wild. It is neither theistic nor atheistic. It neither states that Life comes straight from the Supreme Being, nor does it deny them. It allows for the laws of nature. It is not invented, but a structure built up from principles of fundamental geometry set out in DU Vol 1. It allows for determination and causality from the material world, and allows for free choice and responsibility within the world of life. Such a scheme could not be constructed from classical notions of time and space. Here, there would be no room for Illumination as an initiating factor. Atheism is based on the contradictions between the idea of a supernatural will and the facts of nature. The idea of a ‘non-temporal’ will is seen as absurd. This position was asserted some hundred years ago. However, now, with modern physics, it is accepted that simple mechanical explanations are not sufficient.
The principle here is the only one which gives ‘total explanation’.
There must be a condition where the Will can operate without being involved in actualization in time and space: the hyparchic future.
So far, the hyparchic future has involved us in terms of creative activity. It is also a condition which reconciles conflicting elements in our experience. In the war with time, we saw traces of the past which do not seem to change in the present moment. There is a hyparchic past that is in a process of self-realization. We might see this in the structures and regularities of the present. But the present (which is disintegrative) does not provide us with the integrative principle. We need to look elsewhere. Up to now, the search for traces of the past has been seen to bet he past. This evokes causality: absolute, relative, statistical. The first implies known structures, the last implies randomness is ultimate.
We cannot derive a notion of progress from the past alone. So, we look to the future – hyparchic future – for a plan/ purpose. These latter do not have meaning unless projected into the future that exists. The hyparchic future is the region where transformations are independent of time and therefore reconcile causal and purposive accounts of one and the same situation.
We can begin the enquiry with a structure that includes purpose and plan (a sequence of actions that will transform a possible situation into an actual one).
A temporal process develops continuously under the influence of pre-existing causes. With an eternal pattern, there is a different level of actualization. When the process is fully subject to hyparchic conditions, it will be impregnated with periodic and cyclic features. When projected into time, this results in step-wise transitions. The property of step-wise of discontinuous progress must be operative in the history of the earth, if it is predominantly conditioned by an overall hyparchic plan. Traces of the past do show evidence of progress by stages. Though they can never be known from the traces of the past, they can be understood with regard to the hyparchic future.
The stages will be studied in time sequence. Nomenclature:
See page 120
Stage…………..Characteristics……Staring Date……..Duration
……………………………………………Millions of Year B.P……..
1.Amorphous……..Precrystaline Earth…4000………………1500
2. Azoic……….Crust, Ocean, Silt, Clay…2500………………..800
3. Hypozoic……Soil and sexless Algae……1700………………..600
4. Proterozoic…Sexed life…………………1100……………….500
5. Palaeozoicv…Plants and Invertebrates..600…………………376
6. Mesozoic……Vertebrates/Advanced Plants..230…………..170
7. Cain0zoic……Mammals and Birds………….60…………….58
8. Hyperzoic……Mind……………………………1……………
Stages 1-3 are speculative as to duration.
Stages 4-7 are recognised by geologists.
Pp. 121-135
The primitive Earth: Amorphous Stage
This is the first stage of the History of Life on the Earth.
For JGB, the solar system and our planets were formed between 3 and 4 thousand million years ago.
The earth material was once the same as the suns. Very high levels of potential energy must have been present when the earth was formed.
It is fairly certain that there were no materials in the crystalline state at first; just gases and fragments of solids. The earth was at the bottom of the essence class scale: Amorphous stage. Here, there is no pattern or quality: it is empty, void – this is what attracts the needed essence qualities.
The first two essence classes – dispersed energy and simples – cannot form pentads (thus, no reflux of the spirit, no arising of complex forms, without pattern-forming influence.). There is no response from the dyad existential component. The spirit of the earth was pure essence. Future existence was mere fragments. However, this was a crucial stage – the eternal pattern now projects itself into a spatially distribution that is recognizable in energy gradients.
There was greater material mobility, so random motion and heat. Stable conditions would not be formed for very long in such conditions. Simple substances did exist at this first stage of essence class but they were not segregated. Segregation into zones would be part of the second stage. These zones must appear if life is going to. The earth could have formed in a different way.; for example, with less water and atmosphere. Life then would not have existed as life is sensitive to temperature, etc.
We can say that life came about because of these conditions, or the conditions were made necessary so that life could come. It is remarkable that the earth formed in just the right way.
Concentric spheres or zones are formed at this stage of pre-history: the earth is permeated by four material energies. Where were they before life? Because scientists cannot understand how sensitivity and consciousness can be associated with inert matter, they assert that they can be in all matter – making themselves apparent when life forms. This is unsatisfactory. It does not take account of the transformation from atomic to organic state. The mechanism of integration must be made clear.
The mechanism whereby the plan of life creation was converted into the eternal pattern and then realised as a structure in time and space can be conceived as follows:
The Creative Energy (E3) penetrates into the pre-existent hyle field (hyle only comes into existence when all four determining conditions are present). It imprints a system of periodicities that correspond to a total plan to be realized. This is accomplished under the condition of hyparxis. The action of will on existence is direct – unmediated by existence. So, two aspects of earth’s nature: Life’s mother and Life’s prison. We can conceive of ‘living machines’ without a soul and ‘living spirits’ without transformation. That is wholly fact and value. The task is to make to account for individuals that are independent and can do what no machine or spirit could do on its own. The operation of the demiurgic intelligences associated with the earth can bring this about.
The next stage is the projection of the pre-existent pattern into the eternal state of hyle. As it is potential, it is independent of time, and can thus accompany life for thousands of millions of years. The pattern bears the stratification of existence: the stratification of levels in eternity projects itself into a stratification of zones in space.
Here, there was a separation between essential and existential components. The six lower energies belonged to the visible earth; the six higher energies to the unseen earth. The Domain of Harmony comes into realization as the vital energies begin to interact and build up structures capable of self renewal. From two hexads, we pass to the three familiar tetrads of Hypernomic or Material, Automatic or Vital and Hypernomic or Cosmic Existence. The Automatic world is that of the four energies: constructive, vital, automatic and sensitive.
The creative action of the Demiurgic Intelligences thus falls into four phases:
1. The transfer of the plan from the hyparhic future into the pre-existent material field.
2. The projection of the field as a pattern in Eternity. The formative and regulative pattern of the Biosphere.
3. The projection from eternity into space to produce the multispherical zone system of earth energies.
4. The initiation of the temporal process of the realization by the appearance of the first self-renewing forms of life.
And the four distinct elements:
1. The material basis of life.
2. The vital basis of life in the eternal pattern: Energies E8 to E5.
3. The sensitive structure of life that is present as an idea in Earth’s intelligence.
4. The soul structure – virtual and no part in actualization. The earth is not born with a soul. The intelligences of the Demiurgic powers transmit the Creative Plan that originates the sun.
We see the ‘unseen earth’ as essence: bearing the sensitive image of the pattern of life history. Gradually ‘essence’ acquires content that leads to birth and a maturing world-soul.
The Formation of the Earth Surface: Azoic Stage.
The first stage of life history lasted for hundreds of millions of years, until water and gases were liberated through the lava to form atmosphere and oceans. Crystalline essence appeared. The earth’s crust is some thirty miles thick; so took several hundred million years to form.
The crystallized essence possessed actualized pattern. A zone that produced enduring forms appeared – a precursor of things (the first weapon in the war against time). The andesitic layer might be seen like the skin of the earth: it is: protective, a regulator, an excretory organ; sensitive to energies.
Crystalline forms are rare in the universe: not more than one million millionth part of the mass of the universe is crystalline. A crystalline body endures and has actualised form, but it s not responsive – that is one of the conditions of life.
The Soil and the Sea: Transition to the Hypozoic
Life joins battle with time by the weapon of self-renewal. The first condition of self-renewal is exchange. Free exchange of energies and materials between bodies is needed for life. Crystalline rocks can provide such conditions with fresh waters.
The problem was solved in two different ways (but complementary).
On solid land, rocks were converted into clay and clay became soil. The ocean became saline.
On land, colloids, and in the ocean, ionized salts provided the media of exchange of incomparable versatility.
A thousand years ago, heavily charged and sluggish rivers carried silt and salts into the seas. Primeval continents were formed: the Hypozoic stage.
Soil was formed by salts dissolving and ionizing waters.
Soils can adapt and exchange materials and energies.
Air, earth and sea were being groomed.
Did this happen fortuitously?
According to our hypothesis, it was directed by the ‘eternal pattern’ of potential energies present in the earth’s mind.
This is different from the usual views: that the earth has been indifferent to life – solely governed by the laws of physics – with no plan or purpose. This view violates both the homogeneity of the natural order and common sense.
The Birth of Life: Hypozoic Stage
More than a thousand million years ago, life made its appearance; probably in the form of a chemical compound that had the power of self-renewal. Unexpectedness is a mark of renewal.
Inevitability is a mark of the eternal pattern.
The usual view is of ‘environmental indifference’. Having no parents, life appears on earth as a ‘lonely orphan’. Life becomes unrecognizable. This is the ‘funnel conception of history’. At first life is inexplicable; inert. The germ of life – self-synthesising nucleic acid – is the foundation for genetic reproduction.
Variability and natural selection come on the scene and organic evolution gets going. One life follows another. Lower forms are eliminated. The funnel gets smaller: invertebrates, chordata, mammals, primates, man. History begins: purpose, significance, consciousness, free-will.
This has to be the view if we deny any plan.
We need to be suspicious of any approach to evolution that sees one point as a culmination. Can we say that three billion year of earthly history had no direction or purpose? Rather than say history began with man, the entire history of life on earth needs to be seen as one great event. Significant and relevant to the Great Plan that originates beyond the earth itself. Every event contributes to the whole.
If the plan requires overcoming separateness, contributions should not be seen in terms of future results, but their place in the plan (outside of time itself). The Hyparchic future.
There is a distinction between the plan and the pattern – two doctrines of creation.
The common view is that either creation is the detailed fashioning by the creator of the entire universe and every part in it, or the launching of a process that, after inception, is governed by renewed Intervention – or Intervention of a high level (God as man).
Christian theologians who seek to reconcile Christian faith and mechanistic evolution prefer the second option.
The first option states in effect that the pattern of creation is foreordained; the second restricts the Divine Act to the creation of a plan.
We hold with both a Plan – in the hyparchic future; and also a Pattern – in the Eternal Potential Energy field. This seems the only way to account for the transition from material to vital structures required for the origination of life.
The complexification of inert structures leading to active surfaces and organic complexes is accounted for by the four material energies from heat (E12) to plastic energy (E9). Then, living matter, capable of self-reproduction. This requires constructive energy (E8). Here. The pattern is intelligently created on the level of material energies.
This requires the intervention of the Demiurgic Intelligences. A potential energy field is needed to catalyse a particular molecule.
The two operations are distinct: The Plan links the hyparchic to the eternal by the Will-Being creative act; the Pattern links the eternal to the temporal by the Being-Function creative act. The Demiurgic Intelligences thus become involved in Existence in order to accomplish their task of enablement (which is required to enable the non-living to acquire the organization needed for life.
So, a model to show the stages by which the Transcendental Will brings about the arising of life forms endowed with sensitivity goes like this: four ascending and four descending stages that meet at the level of sensitive energy (E5)
Ascending:
1. Transition from active surface to active structures. Constructive energy E8 is organised by coalescence with vital energy E7 – carrying the pattern of organic complexes to be constructed.
2. Active structures acquire the power of self-renewal – organised by automatic energy E6 – an actualised complex.
3. Self-renewing molecular complex acquires form and function by the organising influence of the sensitive energy E5 – carrying the pattern of the species to be actualised.
4. The sensitive energy is organised by the conscious intervention of the Demiurgic Intelligence.
Descending (here the Demiurgic Intelligences can act effectively)
1. Source of life is the creative operation decreed by world VI by the Universal Individuality. This is transferred from Transcendental Energy E1 not committed to any form of Existence and the Unitive Energy E2. An act of love. The Evocation of Living Forms.
2. The creative operation is transformed into the Foreordained Plan on the level of world XII by coalescence of the Unitive and the Creative Energies. An act of (virtual) Will.
3. The Foreordained Plan is transformed into an Eternal Pattern by coalescence of the Creative Energy E3 and Conscious Energy E4. Here, there is Intelligence – the Demiurgic Powers assume responsibility for the realization of the plan. The Grand Present Moment of earthly history is now set up as a potential pattern (not yet an actuality) – a creative influence of the earthly situation.
4. The creative influence is transformed into an organising pattern. Now a field of potential energies produced by the coalescence of the consciousness E4 and sensitive energies E5. The level is world XLVIII. Here, there is a distinction between the universal and the particular.
We have universal time (by which the cosmic scheme works out its grand pattern)and particular time (a single time of actualization).
The operation depends on the coalescence of consciousness and sensitivity effected by the Demiurgic Will. How did is bring about the formation of living matter as a particular point in time?
Even before self-renewal there must have been some kind of sensitivity. There is no sensitivity in the actual or the potential states of matter, but only in the third reconciling state. The conditions of hyparxis are imposed on all existence. Therefore, all existence must have some sensitivity. But there is a difference between sensitivity with and without organization.
Energy in the sensitive state under the influence of an eternal pattern allows for the properties of life to emerge..
So, to construct the great event that was the emergence of the first true living form on earth:
The secret rests with the properties of nitrogen that can reverse its role in chemical combination: electro-positive or negative. Nitrogen is now stable and only brought into an active state by ionisation. Before, this was not so, but, when the ocean was stabilised, the cloud curtain disappeared and a great part of carbon dioxide was dissolved in the water. The ocean may have been alkaline.
The veil of sky was drawn aside and the sun’s radiation poured down. The ionisphere would now enter into active electrical exchanges, no longer isolated by water vapour and CO2.
The sight and sound of this must have been astounding: the dawn of the Hypozoic era.
Nitrogen then became very active, entering into combinations: the threshold of self-renewal would then be approached in different ways.
The jump into self-renewal was very unlikely – and there must have been many millions of near misses.
If life had arisen from random, undirected chemical combinations, we would expect to find innumerable living forms unrelated to one another. Instead, we discover unity of structure. Despite differences in form and function between ascellular, subcellular, unicellular, and multi cellular plants and animals, they all share similar mechanisms. Immensely different complex structures were built up from a common pattern. We can only account for this situation in two ways:
1) to postulate a common causal origin; 2) to postulate a common purposive pattern.
If a self-reproducing form arose fortuitously, only one of these is possible – the one found in biology textbooks: one single self-reproducing molecule was produced initially -> a tiny being, and from this all life descended. A miracle!
The odds against this are great – even greater if it is seen as continuing. The hypothesis does not ring true.
Normally, life goes for safety in numbers; but in this case, we are asked to believe the opposite. The step would not happen just once.
So, how was a particular kind of chemical structure produced and how did it continue to be produced in large numbers all over the earth?
There is only one possible answer: all the forms must have been produced according to a pre-actual pattern.
This is an important conclusion: if it is correct, it provides decisive factual evidence in favour of the hypothesis here – of an organising potential pattern – the origins of life.
Pp. 135-150
The Organizing Patterns of Life: Work of Demiurgic Intelligence
So, far there has been postulation of an organising pattern for complex structures that have auto-synthesis/ self-renewal.
But what were the structures required for life?
Two needs: bodies for functions of life (nitrogen compounds – proteins); and supplies of energy for work (carbon compounds – carbohydrates and fats).
The answer to the problem of self-renewal can be found in amino-acid structures. These are so complex, we need to evoke the organising pattern to account for them. The separation of hydrogen and oxygen gives energy. To do this, high energy was needed in the right place at the right time – solar. But, stable compounds are needed. A complex and improbable compound of magnesium with nitrogen arose – which, with chlorophyll, brings about the ‘dance of elements’ in sunlight. This ends with carbohydrates and free oxygen. This supports life on earth. Chlorophyll is necessary for life; it is synthesised in leaves; it has to be combined with protein to give chloroplastin. It was not enough for it to come into existence; it also had to meet the right form of protein to preserve it. This was not an accident.
The remarkable structure is similar to the tetrad: four nitrogen atoms. It converts the energy of sunlight into chemical energy, and constructs the materials of which living bodies are made. It sets free oxygen, and maintains the composition of the atmosphere in the correct proportions for life.
See page 137
Again, the possibility of fortuitous arising is untenable. Some organising influence is at work: a special kind of intelligence. It is a brilliant manipulation of material forces.
We can imagine a high order intelligence, able to see what is required – resources, pattern – when it was needed. This is Demiurgic Essences. They are responsible for producing the potential patterns upon which life is constructed. Such directions require a deep insight into the properties of life existence.
Demiurgic Intelligences participate in the initiation of the processes of life.
Vegetation and the Cell: Transition to the Proterozoic
A stage was needed before life could develop its full powers and functions. Locomotion and the power to change the environment are conditions of the exercises of Will in the world.
There must be a way for appropriate energy to be released (E11 Directed Energy). This requires engines and sources of energy – vertebrates and invertebrates. Here, there is again pattern.
Before life, there was little combustible material and little oxygen.
In retrospect, we know that vegetation provided the material support required to enable Chlorophyll to work.
There is evidence of life in rocks two thousand million years ago – before the Hypozoic period.
Corycium Enigmaticum and the Cryptozoon belong to some 1,400, 000, 000 years ago.
This life was dependent on the appearance of the first living cell. A simple cell contains a hundred thousand million atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, along with special elements like iron, magnesium and sulphur. These are built into complex structures.
Cells stand at the threshold of independent existence.
There is a complex and dynamic boundary between inside and outside the cell. A cell could not therefore have come into existence by degree or accident.
Everything that happens in nature obeys the laws of nature. This means that innovations, unexpectedness, do not arise.
So, the organising principle has to be the Demiurgic Wisdom.
The problem in accounting for the cell is twofold: firstly, we have never found ‘non-cellular’ material; secondly, the property of within-ness.
Demiurgic Intelligences must have made use of properties of protein-carbohydrate complexes that biology and biochemistry have not yet discovered.
Next, we suppose that a living cell was not only provided with means of nutrition and reproduction, but also nucleic acid derivative that can synthesise chlorophyll and combine with protein. With Chloroplastin, we have the first plant. Algae – more than 18,000 species of it are identified. They are the principal hosts of chlorophyll and produce thousands of millions of tons of vegetable matter each year.
The humble algae conquered the earth and transformed its surface and atmosphere, accomplishing the most prodigious tasks in 2-3 hundred million years.
New rocks formed by calcium and magnesium.
The ocean floor stored the algae that floated down in the water.
The ocean bed rose and fell.
The great central continent split. The greater magnetic currents twisted. The axes of the earth were formed.
At first, reproduction was asexual. The cells simply grow one to another by taking in simple substances. There is no birth or death.
Algae have been around a long time – they have won their war against time. But, it is a static immortality – unconscious, insensitive, hardly automatic.
Sexual Reproduction and the Germ: Proterozoic Stage
The stability of Algaic life is shattered by the appearance of sexual reproduction: the redistribution of hereditary material. This is a move from reproduction by mitosis to reproduction by meiosis. Life forms then became responsible for their own progress. This took place millions of years ago.
Algae are structureless.
There must have been false starts, but once the step was made it was decisive.
Natural selection came from sex, not the other way around.
The protein complexes involved are of unimaginable ingenuity. It presupposes such a level of craftsmanship, that it is supposed it must have happened by chance.
We need to evoke the Demiurgic Intelligences as the organising principle of sex – that is offering a present moment pattern to the blue-green algae.
With sex, self-creative power entered life. With this, death also came. Birth, sex and death came into existence together.
There must have been a high mandate that preordained birth, sex and death, so that life might become conscious.** And, an independent will established.. We have to go at least as far as the creative will of the sun to find the origin of these elements.
The Creative Act of life on earth has been described as preordained by the Affirmative Will of the Sun and the Receptive Will of the Earth. This is the archetype of every sexual (MG: creative??) union on the earth. We find this understanding in fertility cults, Earth Mother, Sun Worship – all expressed in the language of the age. The current language is that of ‘Science’.
Sex, birth and death entered by the translation of the plan, decreed by the Will of the sun in the hyparchic future via the present pre-existent hyle (material) field into the eternal present of the earth.
Life had to learn to live: sex, birth and death could not arise until life was ready for them. These are technical and functional developments.
What is the sexual function?
We always find the same pattern of Will-plan, Being-Pattern, and Function-technique.
Sex appeared more than a thousand million years ago – simultaneously with unicellular animals and algae.
What appeared was the germinal essence that is common to all forms of life reproducing sexually.
The power of locomotion is also needed: the two gametes have to move towards each other to mate.
The first essence class germs are left by plants and animals of the Cambrian period: five hundred million years ago.
It is not necessary to give detail of meiosis, where two parents contribute to a new eternal pattern. It is likely that the most successful animals and plants were singled out for survival – natural selection.
But it is doubtful that this had much to do with progress. No life-form has survived as long as the blue-green algae.
Why should animals appear? Diversification is not progress.
Mammals are the most advanced animals, and vertebrates are more advanced than invertebrates.
Natural selection seems to weed out the functionally unfit. Progress needs to be understood more in terms of the transformation of Being and the reconstitution of Will.
There was a period of great convulsions at the end of the pre-Cambrian period – what we know of the Proterozoic stage is what is left on fossils because they had soft bodies.
All the great divisions of the invertebrates are present in traces from the Palaeozoic Stage. The most important are the Anthropoda: those with jaws, legs, claws, antennae. This is the form most ‘fit to survive’: they have respiratory systems, sensitivity, etc.
Why are less robust forms of life produced?
The role of germinal essences was to develop the functions of life and to leave being alone. The functions of germs are more varied than what went before, but they do not have even the basic mind. They are born and die. They have power of locomotion. The Biosphere needs them. They can communicate. Their sexual instincts are powerful.
Yet, there is still no organised sensitivity (E6). Sensitivity is not absent – life is sensitive – but it is not organised.
The picture we have of the germinal world is life without a mind. A life in search of a soul – attributed to the separation of the sexes. The creative powers entered into living forms and they were bound to go towards its source. This is the explanation of progress. The Plan is at work: its demiurgic agents are planning the next step.
The Organisation of Sensitivity: Palaeozoic Stage
With the Cambrian Epoch (600,000, 000 years ago), there is abundant evidence of plant and animal life. The predominant life forms here are the Trilobites (similar to Crustacea). Here, there were developed anthropods.
Life was preparing for ‘organised sensitivity’, and a new kind of body.
To interpret the next event (500, 000, 000 years ago), we need to visualise the Plan of the Creation of Life. It emerges from the hyparhic future to evoke the pattern of life. It is in the mind of the earth – a complex pattern. It is the actualisation of the work of evolution. The plan is for the earth to develop its own soul through the soul-stuff of mankind. This plan requires a lot of individual souls. The pattern of development is an organising field of potential energies which realise themselves in the present moment of time.
Sensitivity was an important step for the arising of minds. The next step was the Palaeozoic Stage.
Animal essence is not the mind that man has acquired. But it has one of the principal ingredients – organised sensitivity (coordination of perception and action through selective response). This is achieved through a nervous system (E5).
First we see nerve ganglia; then the Phylum of the Chordata. This is the central spinal cord.
We are before ‘unexpectedness’. The Demiurgic Intelligences were able to make use of the already actualised situation. So, it began with small fish-like creatures, to land animals. Some organised sensitivity appeared as soon as the nerve cord was developed. Then, the skeleton and skull developed. This has a great advantage over the segmented body – it supports the soft parts of the body. Therefore, vertebrates have more power and are more coordinated.
The chordata had three elements: interior skeleton; nervous system, and circulation of blood – that is man’s ‘three brains’.
The organisation of sensitivity must have been foreseen at that moment, when a new kind of creature began to swim in the Cambrian seas.
Once again the sense of a guiding pattern seems reasonable. Such intelligences would select the forms most likely to be able to undergo the necessary mutations and the right moment in terms of environmental conditions.
The idea of intelligent use of the natural situation is different from any ‘supernatural’ view of evolution.
As soon as vertebrate animals appeared, life began to take a hand in its own evolution: selective response, adaptation, diversification, survival.
Amphibia are a good example of this. The Devonian period lasted for 50-60, 000, 000 years. By the end of it, animals were present with true sensitivity in most parts of the world. The amphibia were true vertebrates with a three-chambered heart, co-ordinated functions, adaptive; for example, frogs. They were capable of independent behaviour. Although important anatomically and physiologically, their true significance was psychological – that is, they were sensitive.
This period was followed by moist climates in most parts of the world: the Carboniferous period. The oceans advanced, vegetation made spectacular steps to swamp forests. Concentrations of deposit were produced at this time.
Whilst the hard conditions of the Devonian period called for the power of adaptation, it was the luxurious Carboniferous period that permitted early animals to develop their powers and functions.
The abrupt ending of many life forms brought to an end the Palaeozoic era – its main achievement was the appearance of the chordata and the beginning of organised sensitivity. It came to an end when the surface of the earth underwent great changes – about 370, 000, 000 years ago
Pp. 151-164
The Organisation of the Earthly Symbiosis: Mezozoic Stage
The earth is not indifferent to the life it bears. Its material structure is an important element in the history of life. It undergoes deep and surface changes. There is a solid surface and a molten core. There are enormous energies – radioactive decay.
The outer shell rotates around the core. The poles change position. If over continents, poles form ice-caps; if over oceans the cold is dissipated – the climate is equable.
There existed two great land masses before the great wanderings of the poles – 500 and 250 million years ago.
The earth was originally about one eighth of its present volume.
In the 30, 000, 000 of the Permian these began to break up to form continents.
The poles then wandered into North Atlantic and South Pacific.
During the Carboniferous period, the continental areas were low and widely flooded by shallow seas. Great mountain ranges were formed during the Permian.
There was great destruction of life due to the harsh climatic conditions.
The tribolites disappeared.
Next, came the Mesozoic Stage which lasted 170, 000, 000 years – ending 60, 000, 000 years ago. This was a glorious period: mild climates, great mountains subsided, flat, marshy land.
Half of this period – Triassic and Jurassic – lay the foundations for the next period.
The pattern of life was ever present in the ‘mind’ of the earth. The earth created the exact appropriate conditions for the next stage.
The Cretaceous Period was favourable climatically. It was harmonious and coordinated.
At the end of the Jurassic period, there was mild orogenic activity. This raised the Alps and Himalayas and drained swamps. Insects reached their maximum development. Flowering plants became the dominant form of vegetable life. Dinosaurs dominated. Warm-blooded animals were beginning to flourish.
Mammals also found their food amongst the grasses and leaf-plants.
Was this blind natural selection or guided natural selection?
Was it random variability by gene mutations in natural selection by environmental conditions. I.e. no pattern! Breeding also acts in random but produces systematic changes. This can produce stable new species.
But this fails to explain progress as a concept. Writers such as Huxley and Dobzhansky evoke the notion of ‘inherent direction’ to account for this, but it is doubly unsatisfying because they neither explain themselves nor its zig-zag manner. But, it does at least avoid recourse to mystery.
Another objection is ecological: coordination and harmony in the development of the Biosphere. This might come about through chance mutations. The changes seen in fossils – over fifty million years – could be interpreted in this way. But, it does not account for the coordination of development between plants and insects. This coordination would be impossible in 10, 000, 000 years.
Natural selection as part of environmental conditions is an accepted fact. This eliminates weak strains and species ill-adapted to the environment. However, no system without intelligence could account for the totality.
The principle of blind, undirected evolution cannot account for progress or coordinated development. Both require directive intelligence.
So, what about the earth as the bearer of a pattern of life and demiurgic intelligence guiding the process?
Let’s imagine we are on earth one hundred million years ago.
There are endless vistas of marsh and upland – vegetation, flowers, shrubs, grasses, marsh plants, insects, swamps, dinosaurs. Harmony of life!
Beauty and fantasy.
But there are other onlookers – the Demiurgic Intelligences. Their body is made of consciousness – invisible to the eye. They produce potential energy that bring about mutations. They are saturated with the love of beauty.
They are not blind; they are mighty intelligences that survey the whole scene. But, they are not infallible. Their experience sometimes fails – lines of development die out. The DIs realise through actualising – so never perfectly accomplished.
So, we return to the Christian age. Have we seen a mirage or reality? Was it Intelligence or Blind chance? It depends on our prejudices.
But the earth of 100, 000, 000 ago was not a senseless dance of mutating genes, Somewhere, there was a germinal awareness. This is ‘organised sensitivity’ – it made a great leap forward in the Mesozoic period. The developing sensorium within life was to be the foundation of the mind within individual organisms. At last, there is a sense of the sensitive unity of the Biosphere. Gaia! Interrelations of plants, insects, arthropods. We see ecological sensitivity.
Ecology is the science of interrelations of plants, animals, and their environment.
In its ‘science of depth’ it embraces essence classes: crystals, soil, plants, germs, animals, and men. The visible manifestation of it is the ‘food web’.
The coordination of thousands of millions of organisms cannot be accounted for by causal mechanisms alone. There must be an integrative principle.
The Mesozoic period was one where life was developing sensitivity so organised that it could respond cooperatively to guiding patterns offered by the Demiurgic Intelligences.
The Refinement of Sensitivity: Cainozoic Stage
Our time scale makes another change as we reach the seventh stage of our journey – the Cainozoic or New Life Era. Another transition period. The Mesozoic Era ended with powerful disturbances in the earth’s crust – probably fresh migrations of the poles. The climate deteriorated – the oceans regressed. Life was submitted to a severe test. Many genera died out.
During the Cretaceous Period – the earth was free from seasonal changes – insects and arachnoida could live for years. Many insects developed strange skills. Others became extinct. The way was prepared for New Life.
One class of animals was successful at adapting to the new environment: mammals.
The harsh conditions put a high survival value on warm-blooded, fur-bearing animals, and genetic characters developed which favoured certain strains.
This happened again and again in the Phylogenetic sequence. If we accept a theory of predestination from a hyparchic future, there is no problem in seeing the survival of the great saurians in the Cretaceous period, and the natural selection of the marsupials and mammals.
The earliest mammals were egg-laying, breast-feeding little creatures. From them descended marsupials.
Early in the Cainzoic Era came fresh catastrophes that decimated life in the Northern hemisphere.
The continental drift set off Australia from Eurasian mainland.
This gives us evidence of how life develops when left to natural selection alone.
The marsupials underwent a series of mutations to produce a great range of life. However, there was nothing comparable in Asia or Africa.
The first placenta mammals appeared in Central Asia.
Half the Cainzoic Era up to the present had passed before conditions really favourable for mammalian development appeared.
This was the Miocene Period: exceptional mild climate – extensive tropical zone and immense areas of grassland and steppes. No polar ice caps.
Here, most mammals known today developed: bison, deer, sheep, gats, suids, giraffids, monkeys, apes.
If we look back seven million years from the present, the world is not so different as the one 7000 years ago. But, there are no mountain ranges and more shallow waters.
It was the golden age of mammals, although some of them – horse, elephant – had not yet developed their features.
The sabre-tooth tiger was a formidable creature.
Natural selection and genetic variability could not have resulted in the diversification of mammalian genera. Natural selection would have given uniformity.
The geographical distribution is the diversifying factor.
We need to seek beyond the operational and environmental factors for an explanation of the peculiar pattern of mammalian form and function.
There is still a wealth of life today, even after the destruction of many species.
A distinction between mammals and retiles is a form of sensitivity. Every mammalian genus is unique in its perceptions and feelings. There is no such uniqueness with reptiles and fishes. They are ‘cold-blooded’ – they have the same pattern of feelings. Mammals have greater uniqueness: they express a wide range of emotions – courage, timidity, gentleness, ferocity, curiosity, indifference, restless, patience, indolence, excitability, love of solitude, submissiveness, domination, perseverance, irritability, adaptability, conservatism,
This is no accident – not just a result of environmental influences – but a necessary part of the predestined plan of life on earth. With mammals and birds, life is more highly organised than in earlier forms of life.
We know that sensitive energy (E5) retains the imprint of experiences even when separated from the influence that arouses these experiences. Memory/ recall.
Refinement began early and resulted in the slow disengagement of sensitivity from earthly substratum. With vertebrate animals, the organisation of sensitivity was highly developed, but no differentiation was possible. With mammals and birds, sensitive energy began to acquire a range of characteristics. The process is analogous to the diffraction of white light by grating.
Retention of images is very weak compared with their reception. The fixation of characteristics in free sensitive energy – that is sensitivity not associated with a self – takes a long time. This required millions of generations.
Primates were probably evolved before the end of the Mesozoic Era.
In man alone, the many subjective characteristics observable in all genera of mammals and birds are combined with characters.
All warm-blooded animals are linked to organised sensitivity. This is adaptive and stable. Animals feel in a way that reptiles do not.
The pattern of sensitivity common to mammals and birds is derived from a common structure.
The theory of demiurgic intelligences and the hyparchic future can be carried a stage further. In the age of mammals, we see the first clear indication of the intention to secure cooperation of life in its own evolution. It is said that here, life, for the first time, cooperates in a process hitherto blind and purposeless.
Our view is different: it ascribes both a purpose and a plan for realization to the entire history of the earth.
The conscious direction of the process is, initially, wholly exterior to the present moment – it is in the hyparchic future. Step by step, it enters the present – the present moment expands. The organisation of sensitivity was an immense step towards the transfer of responsibility into the present. Its refinement was the last stage before the appearance of man on earth.
Here, the Demiurgic Essences are more intimately involved with the present.
Mammals are more than a collection of individuals – they are concentrations of mind-stuff.
The mind is made intelligent by the penetration of the Demiurgic Power – thereafter used as an instrument of action.
The Demiurgic Intelligences can therefore be ‘embodied’ in animal genera – even if below the level of consciousness.
The Golden Age of mammals was a great Present Moment of 12 million years.
It came out of the past because of causal mechanisms; but also arose from the hyparchic future by way of a plan.
The gradual appearance of the Demiurgic Powers into the present by a series of astonishing innovations has been the path of progress. The eighth stage we are about to study was the beginning of a new cycle.
Pp. 165-181
The Advent of Mind
The Hyperzoic Era
In Vol. 1 existence was divided into: Hyponomic, Autonomic and Hypernomic. Life lies with the second.
Also, three tetrads of energies: Material, Vital, and Cosmic.
Consciousness (E4) is the coarsest of the four cosmic energies.
Sensitivity (E5) is the finest energy of life: separation, organization, refinement of sensitivity all fall within autonomic.
If we add Consciousness, we enter the Hypernomic realm.
So, the era when consciousness appears is named the Hyperzoic Era.
From now on, the emphasis is on mind leading to soul.
Through the human mind, the Biosphere acquires the faculty of reflection.
We are in the midst of the Hyperzoic Era, so we cannot study its entirety. There are concepts to help:
1. The concepts of the hyparchic plan and eternal patterns.
2. The notion of demiurgic intelligences working in the hyparchic future.
3. Traces of earthly life for the last millions of years.
4. An estimate of time-scales from our knowledge of the past.
5. The knowledge that sensitivity developed by differentiation, and refinement in the Cainzoic age.
6. Man and his nature as they can be studied in the present.
7. The course of historical events.
With these, we construct the history of the present era.
We begin with the problem of time scales. In the last century, history has meant History of Progress.
More recently, we have the idea of Accelerated Progress. There is accelerated progress in many fields.
Each era, since the earth began, was shorter than the previous one.
Each stage is a creative act; each representing an equal evolutionary increment. E3 energy.
On the whole, the 8-term scale seems to fit the data and has the decisive advantage of agreeing with the general accepted views of geo-chronologists.
See page 168
From a series of equations, JGB proposes:
1. An real acceleration of progress has always characterised the development of life on earth.
2. Progress cannot be assessed objectively for times near to the present moment because the subjective exponent will falsify evaluation.
3. The advent of mankind on the earth can be identified with the beginning of the eighth Era about 1,5000,000 years before the present.
4. The history of man on earth is likely to develop at an accelerated pace according to the laws expressed.
5. After making due allowance for the subjective exponent, we should expect the completion of the eighth Era within the next half-million years and perhaps very much sooner.
The Cycles in Human History
We must distinguish between cycles and stages. The latter is the working out of the plan of life on earth. They do not have equal periods, and are not cyclic.
Every living creature has a rhythmical structure: pulsates, breaths, sleeps, wakes; we have seasons and years. They remain more or less constant. True also of men and women: they progress and yet retain the rhythms of life.
This helps us to reconcile three views of history: the progressive, the static, and the cyclic. Each is true for one aspect of life.
We have no evidence beyond five thousand years ago and so have to make a guess. All the rhythms of life are connected with the rhythms of the earth – the sun and moon. Also the astronomical rhythms are reflected in the cycles of activity of the human race.
The pattern of life of mankind is analogous to a single man. Some processes continue day and night. Others have diurnal rhythms or longer cycles.
Assumptions:
1. The Hyperzoic Era will be the total duration of mankind: 2,500,000 years (max.), 1,500,000 (min.)
2. The human era will be divided into as many ‘Great Years’ as the life of individual man is divided into small years: about 80.
3. The human era will be divided into ten ages each lasting 200, 000 years.
4. There will be 80 cycles corresponding to the year. These have 25,000 years periodicity – approximating the period of the precession of the equinoxes – 26, 000 years. Great Cycles.
5. Minor cycles correspond to the lunar month of 28 days. This is almost 0ne thousandth of 80 years: 2000 years for the human era. This is an epoch.
6. Sub-cycles equivalent to the diurnal cycle of the individual life would last about 65 years. This corresponds to no discernable periodicity. But, there are certainly interlocking periods of local activity.
7. No cycle is related to the realization of the pattern of the human era. This latter is likely to follow the law of acceleration. This agrees with human experience which shows that the transformation of self-hood into individuality starts slowly.
This is the construction of a scheme in which the human era is one of the major stages of the realization of life on the earth.
It gives a picture of life on earth as a whole. It must be successful in terms of usefulness in interpreting history.
The basic assumption that the Eighth Era is a period of transition from sensitivity to consciousness. The destiny of man is to become an Intelligent entity.
We now take up the story at the end of the golden age of mammals.
The Start of the Hyperzoic Era
The period we are about to enter was formerly called the Quaternary or Recent period by Geologists. Pleistocene – life nearest our own – period.
So, we have three names: Quaternary (material world), Pleistocene (world of life) and Hyperzoic (the coming of man).
The Cainozoic Era ended with the Pliocene. Preceded by crustal perturbations. Mountains raised.
It is hard to imagine the earth two billion years ago. The earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.
Animal life suffered during this time of catastrophe. Climatic change occurred.
Glaciation was hugely important.
The migration of the poles is now seen as a normal state of affairs.
The Arctic Ocean of one or two million years ago was certainly different from what it is today. It is likely that it acted as a reservoir which received warm water from the Atlantic more abundantly than the current Gulf stream.
In due course, the glaciers melted.
It seems likely that the Ice Ages were produced by complex action to which many factors contributed.
The Hyperzoic Era was one of the most disturbed periods in the history of the earth: we happen to be living in a very quiet period and find it hard to imagine that our ancestors lived in conditions we would find impossible.
Chronology of the Human Era
The traces we have of the Hyperzoic Era come from four main sources: geological, climatic, organic and cultural. Radioactive and fossil dating.
We need to know about major climatic changes which influenced the stages of man’s evolution; to know the duration of major climatic conditions – but this is hard to do.
Estimates are that the Pleistocene (Hyperzoic Period) have varied from 300,000 to 2,000, 000 years.
Radiocarbon testing does not reach beyond 30,000 years.
Traces of climatic changes are possible – eg. Through pollen.
Also, the sea bed sediment gives indication of climatic changes.
Glacier traces are confused since there are two types of scratching.
Investigations also show that mean annual temperatures have been falling since 60, 000, 000 years.
There were probably seven oscillations between cold and warm and back which can be grouped as the four ice ages:
• Wurm (Glaciation)
• Eem (Warm interglacial)
• Riss Complex (Glaciation with warm period)
• Holstein (Warm interglacial)
• Elster Complex (Glaciation with warm period)
• Cromerian (Warm interglacial)
• Kedischem Complex (Periods of warm and cold).
In the lower latitudes there is clear evidence of pluvials roughly contemporary with European and American glaciations.
Land evidence cannot establish a reliable chronology.
But, sea bed investigations have not been carried out before 1948 in terms of deep core analyses.
The results of oceanic studies confirm the generally held belief that there has been four main glaciations.
The final Wurm glaciation was one of the most severe in its impact. It lasted from 75,000 to 45,000 BP interrupted by temporary retreats.
The most intense cold came I the late Wurm period.
Phase………………………………Years BP
Gunz Ice Age…………………….1,500000-1,380,000 years
Intergalactic (Cromerian)…..1, 380, 000-1,200,000
Mindel Ice Age……………………1,200,000-1,060,000
Intergalactical……………………..1,060,000-420,000
Riss Ice Age………………………….420,000-?
Intergalactical (Eem)……………ca. 100,000
Early Wurm………………………….75,000-45,000
Gottwrig Interstadial…………….45,000-35,000
Main Wurm…………………………..35,000-28,000
Paudorf Interstadial……………….28,000 -26,000
Late Wurm…………………………….26,000-12,000
Allerod Oscillation………………….12,000-11,000
No scheme is satisfactory. This is a compromise and broad chronology.
With the end of Wurm, we reach the historical period. Traces are now left. We can build up a picture of human affairs since 11,000 years.
This is the physical background against which we can construct a picture of the time and manner of man’s appearance on the earth, and the subsequent development of the mind.
Pp.181-194
The First Men
The arrival of men on earth was a gradual process, beginning slowly and increasing in pace.
The order of Primates appeared with the Prosimians at the beginning of the Cainzoic Era.
The suborder of Anthropoidea – apes, monkeys and man – began to evolve about 50 million years ago.
The Golden Age of Mammals was 30 million years ago. These were sensitive, and curiosity and adaptiveness played a part.
At the end of the Oligocene times – 25,000,000 years ago, most prosimians had disappeared.
By early Miocene times, several groups of hominoids were represented in Africa, including true pongids.
Mind Evolution
The four stages of the evolution of the Hyperzoic Era are stages in the development of mind. Not morphological development – here there is much controversy.
However, we cannot separate the development of the mind from the development of man’s physical body.
Because we argue that the development of man came from an intervention of the demiurgic intelligences, we have to take account of Conscious (E4) and Creative energy (E3). These act independently of genetically conditioned life.
Not yet (at the time!) a coherent picture of the evolution of man. Throughout this evolution, there has always arisen great creative steps – some of which persist into the present. A creative step is not limited to a single form of life but a totality – and the personal individualities of the earth.
Specific forms do mark transitions.
New strains of hominid appear.
Creative energy produces results at all levels.
Dating the Transition to Man
It was thought that man appeared at the beginning of the first glacial period, but a new chronology has upset this. New dating techniques show that man appeared about a quarter of a million years earlier. So, the ice age was not the causal agent.
Man and Pre-man
The first genuine hominid skull was found in South Africa – that of a Man-Ape. It was not for another twenty years that they were regarded as ancestors of men.
The australopithecines were erect. But, had small brains. They ate meat and were 3-4 feet tall.
A second group – Paranthropus – were larger..
Remains were found in five places. They were more human and named “Homo habilis’.
Although some kinds of primitive men were very different, they were contemporaneous.
Human remains from early Middle Pleistocene have been found in Java and China.
No picture is yet possible (at the time of writing).
JGB posits four main groups in the development of human organization: Homo erectus, sapiens, sapiens sapiens, and Australopithecus.
Group 1: Australopithecus
These were probably the ‘field of action’ for the arising of ‘true’ men. The group was large; their brain capacity was about half of that of modern men; they were fully erect; used sticks, weapons, tools. But, they did not possess speech. 3, 500, 000 years ago.
Group 2: Homo erectus
These are primitive types of men – homo habilis/ Meganthropus.
Pekin man possessed early tools. He hunted and killed. Progress in tool-making was made.
One fossil is known from this period in Europe.
This is a complex group and represents the first ‘true men’ – and able to communicate in speech. 1, 000, 000 years ago.
Group III: Homo sapiens
There is a lot of remains from this type: Wurm glaciation period. They possess cultural traditions: for example, ritual burial of the dead.
Neanderthalensis is the best-known of this homo sapiens group.
Found as early as the Mindel-Riss interglacial period.
They were normally short and large boned; long, low skulls, sloping foreheads, brow bridges, pointed faces.
Brain capacity large, or even larger, than modern man. They dwelt in caves.
They preferred warmer climes: southern Europe, Middle East, North Africa.
In Europe, they were more of an isolated population. They adapted to the cold. Bodies grew squat and powerful. Deep chests, short necks, broad hands and feet, longer and more globular back. They were short.
Homo sapiens arrived in the Far East as well. Low skulls, small chins, heavy brows.
After the Eemian interglacial more traces accumulate of a variety of human beings nearer to modern man. This is about 120, 000 years ago.
Group IV: Homo sapiens sapiens
The origin of creative man – Homo sapiens sapiens – is still unknown (at the time of writing).
He may have arisen as a single independent line, or he descended from an earlier period.
About 35,000 to 40, 000 years ago, men physically like ourselves appeared and spread rapidly throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.
The Origins of Man
Generally, it is felt that the emergence of human origins took place by happy accident. A chance mutation. But the doctrine of evolution by blind chance is problematic in explaining the genesis of human kind. Man is a being who not only entertains purposes but acts in order to realize them. How are we to account for this?
Teilhard de Chardin postulates a ‘critical stage of complexification’ – here, biological purposiveness makes an appearance. It shows itself above a certain level. This is akin to blind chance.
But, we have seen purpose and plan in the earlier stages; and the emergence and organization and refinement of sensitivity.
The phylogenetic sequence is something as follows:
Up to the Australopithecus, the development of primates is not unlike other orders.
But, with Primates, there is a progressive differentiation of sensitivity and a high degree of refinement.
Hominization began to develop independently of the great anthropoid apes as far back as the Miocene – 20 million years ago. This did not happen just by chance mutation and natural selection. The development was not environmental.
What was the step from apes to man?
First, probably, the freeing of hands – erect posture.
Next, use of tools and weapons.
Third, communication by language. The last is probably most decisive.
Are we to believe that early men began to communicate by noises by chance?
Recognition of speech does not come from sensitivity alone. It requires consciousness.
Let us say: “Man learned to speak because he had a mind.”
‘No mind – no speech’.
Mind is the combination of sensitivity (E5) and consciousness (E4). This makes subjective experience possible. This, together with automatisms, is necessary for speech.
All creatures do ‘communicate’ with each other. But, with men, they store impressions and reproduce them by a structured combinations of sound. No animal communicates in this way, or can be taught to.
No speech, no mind; no mind, no man.
The evidence of the conscious guidance by Demiurgic Intelligence suggests that intention was to bring consciousness into life. We see sensitivity in life at the same time – organising and being refined for future events.
Automatisms are also significant for the formation of a human being.
The three parts of Consciousness (E4), Sensitivity (E5), and Automatism (E6) converge towards Mind – Man.
Man today differs from animals – he has a mind.
A very great and decisive step was made at some time – when man first became man.
We can retain the idea that consciousness is the ingredient of mind, and distinguishes man from animals.
We can suppose that conscious energy is attracted by sensitive energy as it attains organization. Therefore, mind evolves as does the body.
But, there are a lot of examples where birds and animals are indeed highly organised and sensitive, but do not possess mind.
We also can show that consciousness does not attract sensitivity. We cannot make ourselves conscious, or keep ourselves conscious by an act of sensitivity alone.
Consciousness is a cosmic not a vital energy. Consciousness can only be concentrated by a higher energy of creativity (E3).
Sometimes, it is said that mind from non-mind emerged as a result of the use of tools. Mental imagery is also viewed as significant here.
But, the mind of man is a totally different instrument from the sensorium of the ape. Proved many times by workers in animal psychology.
Mental images are different from sense perceptions.
The human child forms mental images from an early age, but animals never do.
Pp. 194-210
The Coming of Man
Man was destined for ‘manhood’ before he became man. Teilhard de Chardin writes that he has done this by avoiding anatomical mechanisation: converting limbs into tools – paws, beaks, tusks, pincers. Each ends in a blind specialisation.
Man, having arrived at tetrapod stayed there without further reduction of versatility. But this is confused; man is said to have done things before he existed. This is the vice of hypostaization – taking man ‘out of time’. This is a result of writers’ adoption of ‘blind chance’.
To repute teleology, one must use teleological forms of speech. There is a fear amongst many writers to admit to supernatural agency in ‘scientific’ activity.
Legitimate scientific faith requires us to accept disconcerting discoveries which, eventually, take their place in a full world view. It is not unscientific to admit that traces of the past cannot be discussed without the faith in a ‘guiding intelligence’. Indeed, it is right and proper to go further and generalise this intelligence; as we have done this with the ‘Demiurgic Intelligences’. This hypothesis does little more than make explicit notions of ‘tendency’ and ‘directiveness’ – implicit in current thinking about evolution..
So, to go ahead with the ‘Demiurgic Intelligences’ and ‘Pattern Plan’ as the origin of man – everything fits beautifully into place. The advent of mind was foreseen from the start: this is evolution. It required developed sensitivity, which eventually became fine enough for mammals to appear.
10-15 million years ago, the choice of the mind vehicle had to be made. It did require cessation of anatomical specialisation, but there was ‘intelligence’ before mind. Having made the choice of mind, future humans had to be protected from further specialisation. This was the work of Demiurgic Intelligences. They could enter living organisms after 4000, 000, 000 years. Thus, the sensitivity of the hominid could receive direction from higher consciousness..
The first step was towards tools – the inspiration of the Demiurgic Intelligences (MG: one thinks of 2001!). The missing link in Darwin’s ‘’Descent of Man’. Tool-using hominids appeared before earliest human artefacts. This is in accord with the supposition that mind was at first confined to small numbers of selected varieties. Tool-using preceded mind: by using tools, sensitivity is developed and organised in a special way – for the formation of mental images. There is recognition of natural objects – and transformations; not conscious recognition of necessity for the development of new and better instruments.
There must have been a stage where conscious intelligence waited for a vehicle. What does the step from animal to man require essentially?
(MG: I am thinking of Julian Jaynes’ ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’).
The Nature of Mind
Mind is a field of experience and action. Deliberation and Intention in the mind. Mind is field of experience of the present moment, memory, application of the future, the seat of Selfhood.
We are committed to the materiality of the mind – it is made of the same stuff as everything else, but in finer states of energy. Mind stuff is everywhere but only becomes mind when it is organised and composed in a particular way.
There is the idea that the mind evolved in the same way as the body, but no attention has been paid to the organisation this requires.
For De Chardin, Noosphere is not mind but the consequence of mind. But this misses the whole point. What is Mind or Nous – how was it organised to give form and experience different from animals?
Mind is one of the great discontinuities of the Natural Order; the other is the transition from inert matter to living forms. The appearance of mind is as significant as the appearance of life. The importance of this is obscured by the notion that one form emerges out of previous forms..
The elements of mind were present before mental structures of man. For example, sensitivity developed in the Cainozoic Era and produced a pool of differentiation and refined sensitive energy (E5) with the quality of forming the human mind. Consciousness was also present (E4). Not localised in living beings, but as a field of universal energy (concentrated in the Demiurgic Intelligences – without organisation).
Mind has properties not found elsewhere. This is not to say it is ‘outside of the evolutionary process’ but it is a major point of discontinuity, reached and transcended by steps and jumps.
Mind requires a coalescence into organised structures of the energies of life: E4 to E5. This was necessary for personal minds, Selfhood, and the Biosphere.
In pre-mental stages, attributes of mind were resent in combinations of sensitive and automatic energies.
What about automatism within life?
Every animal uses automatic energy (E6) to coordinate its functional activity. In the process it acquires a certain structuring; for example, animal instinct – patterns of activity transmitted by hereditary, not reducible to physico-chemical mechanisms. (MG: I am thinking of morphogenesis). Patterns were certainly there in hominids, but the development of hands required a high degree of organisation of automatism – this refinement passes beyond the limitations of fixed instinctive behaviour to acquire skills by practice.
What about Consciousness (E4)?
This belongs to the Tetrad of Cosmic Energies.
Much of our life proceeds without the participation of consciousness..
Consciousness is something over and above the pattern of life is key to our problem.
The problem of mind is a problem of psychology. Psychology begins and ends with mind.
Mind can understand mind. We cannot recognise it through bodily behaviour. We can tell if a man is sensitive or not, but not whether he is conscious or not.
These observations apply to all men and all cultures.
The distinction between sensitivity and consciousness is an objective aspect of existence – independent of time and space. It occurs when man became man. Mind therefore cannot have come into existence by the processes of life alone.
The difference between man and an animal is not in the organism but in the mind of man. It consists in the presence of conscious energy (E4) associated with sensitivity (E5).
How did consciousness enter?
It did not come from the Autonomic World, but the Hypernomic World. The Demiurgic Intelligences.
We can predict an injection of consciousness into premental sensitivity – a kind of ‘possession’ by Demiurgic Intelligence – where a pre-human could think in a human manner.
Once the contact was made, men with true minds could begin to breed and transmit the mental structure by heredity.
What about the genesis of personal minds?
The Demiurgic Intelligences saw that the Predetermined Moment for mind was approaching. A suitable pool of refined and differentiated sensitive energy had been produced during the Golden Age of mammals.
Under the influence of Demiurgic Intelligences they developed the necessary automatisms, skills, behaviour patterns, etc. This produced the rudimentary organisation of sensitivity ready for the impact of consciousness.
Universal Individuality
No less a Will can be the master of Creative Energy (E3) – two stages removed from Transcendental Energy (E1).
Universal Individuality does not transform but maintains Cosmic Harmony through the instruments of the Demiurgic Powers.
Here, we have two conflicting requirements: thinking beings able to act within the natural order are needed to assume responsibility for the evolution of life; and intelligent beings are needed who are capable of attaining Individuality and thereby transmitting the Plan of Creation from the hyparchic future to the present.
These are distinct. Mind can develop without a soul, and a soul can develop without a mind.
Looking at the spiritualisation of Fact and the Realization of Value, we can distinguish two series of essences: one static and one dynamic. One culminates in the Cosmic Harmony (the perfection of mind); the other in the Ultimate Realization (perfection of the Soul).
Mind therefore has a two-fold cosmic significance: it is the self-ordering principle within existence by reason of its place between sensitivity and consciousness. This makes for a two-fold awareness of what is and what might be responsible action.
Mind is also lined to creativity (E3) and automatism (E6).
Creativity makes soul-formation possible – hence union with the Individuality (which exercises its Will in creative action).
Automatism makes the power of presence possible.
The ordering activity of mind enters at an earlier stage of evolution – we find it present for a long time period before man began to acquire soul powers.
What about Personal Individuality in the absence of soul?
Today, we have the soul-stuff in us from conception.
The minds of early men were like that of ‘thinking animals’. Incapable of transforming into souls.
Personal Individuality could only be in the hyparchic future.
Individuality therefore remained with the Universal Individuality. But did exert a creative influence upon the mind.
This may be the idea of souls in paradise waiting to be born.
There was a long wait for the mind to have the right conditions for soul-making.
For this to happen, we needed children who were born with minds that were conscious but not yet creative. The latter required the fusion of conscious and sensitive energies.
No change at first, but only over thousands of generations: the same use of tools, the same curiosity, but now these became the instruments of the human mind.
However, great organic changes were necessary for communication.
The pool of sensitivity was also converted into the Mind-Stuff Pool, as the source of all human minds and souls. A slow process!!
Humans had not long-past accumulated experience. The Mind-Stuff-Pool was almost all animal sensitivity with uncontaminated conscious energy and automatic energies. Minds formed from such would be very limited. They would not be able to look back or foresee the future.
Minds and bodies were also entirely ‘animal’. No separation of consciousness and sensitivity. Primitive men’s experience was therefore not unlike animals.
A state of ecstasy: when there is no conflict in Selfhood, consciousness produces a state of enhanced well-being. A disassociation of sensitivity. An ecstasy of communion with nature when the Self empties itself of Self-hood and consciousness comes into direct contact with life. Such experiences are not sensitive but conscious. When sensitivity is not loaded with the content of self-hood, the joy of life is awakened.
Men were empty child-like minds but capable of conscious experience.
For maybe half a million years this situation existed (MG: Jaynes again) before the Mind-Stuff Pool became charged with human experience – a period of no suffering – a time of receptivity which has left men with vague longings of a Golden Age.
There were also predatory and libidinous elements; therefore, some strife between men and races.
The characteristics of wolf, tiger, rat and rabbit must have impregnated man’s minds.
This is not ‘original sin’ because men draw their sensitivity from a common pool.. But, a sharp differentiation was drawn between men and their cousins.
Did the Demiurgic Intelligences withdraw from the scene?
Unlikely. They were needed to avert disasters.
Consciousness was only transferred to man by slow degrees.
Before, we said a common pool of sensitivity was needed for mind. Here, we say that this sensitivity was used for the creation of men’s minds. Also, the Mind-Stuff-Pool. All are needed and are one and the same thing.
The Mind-Stuff Pool is destined to become the Soul-Stuff Pool by the infusion of Creative Energy.
How is the human soul related to the Biosphere?
Do we believe that human mind-pool is isolated from the sensitive energy pool of the animal world?
It seems that once sensitivity has been blended with consciousness, it does not return to the same state as before.
Reservoirs of Energy are in a state of potentiality – they will therefore be in the dimension of eternity. These are probably on different levels:
^
Levels………F………..Free Conscious Energy
Of ……………E………..Human Soul-Stuff Pool
Existence….D……….General Pool of Animal Sensitivity
In………….….C………..Automatic Functional Pool
Eternity……B………..Vital Processes
…………………A……….Physico-Chemical Organisation
>>>>Lines of Actualisation in Space-Time>>>>>>>
The animal nature f man is associated with level D; draws on sensitivity from this level.
The mind of man – Selfhood – is associated with level E – draws and returns its substance from human pool.
Free Conscious Energy suggests that Demiurgic Intelligences work on this level and inject consciousness into level E as is required.
Level E is empty at first but gradually acquires content with the death of human beings having minds composed of the three energies.
In the diagram, the Creative Energy (E3) is not represented. This enters not from eternity but the hyparchic future – associated with the Demiurgic Intelligences.
As long as Will remains uncontaminated by Conscious Acceptance of the lower states of existence, it must return to its source – the Universal Individuality in the state of the hyparchic future. The Will thus precedes man – leaving him to fulfill his destiny.
At this stage, man had no access t the Creative Energy – no individual will.
Man had no ‘I’. Work consisted in joining will with existence in complete human beings.
A long period of time was needed for further journey. The Mind-Stuff pool had to be established without contamination of separate human selves. Then, men could develop their personalities. And, a personal soul quest.
The Demiurgic Intelligences had to work without the support of conscious cooperation of men. This is the nature of primitives.
All is proceeding according to a plan. Life did not arrive by accident, not a vital urge or tendency of complexification. It came to make a contribution to the Universal purpose. This was the assumption of the Biosphere of responsibility for its realization. Conscious being was a necessary stage in this – capable of free action based on understanding.
The entire process was not predetermined, but it did require help. Nevertheless, the Foreordained, Predestined and Predetermined have each played their part.
The Awakening of Mind
The Four Ages of Mind
This chapter covers one million and a half years. It was written in 1965, when the topic was in a state of flux. It is an attempt to trace the History of Mind.
JGB distinguishes four Ages of Mind – from its conception and birth to present moment.
The Infancy of Mind
Two parts: first Lower Pleistocene and Upper Villafranchen.
LP: the period when Australopithecus lived. Group I
Homo habilis fashioned the first ‘pebble tools’.
The second Infancy of Mind period was the Middle Pleistocene. Warm interglacial of Mindel. Followed by severe glaciation.
Transitional types of Group I and II: Tools still primitive, but some were fixed – handaxes. Evolved from Africa. Little standard forms.
Homo erectus.
Pekin man seems not to have developed tool-making beyond a haphazard stage..
Other cultures were more developed. More specialised.
Some became daring hunters.
But, there is a lack of evidence of inventiveness or enterprise.
The Childhood of Mind
Upper Pleitocene began with glaciation of Riss to the final withdraw of glaciers. Extremes of heat and cold, damp and drought, highs and lows of sea levels, crustal movements – mountains.
The animal kingdom was severely shaken. Older species died out. New ones replaced them. Man began to grow through threat and hardship.
The Childhood of Mind corresponded to much of this period. But, it ended between the first two glaciations of the Wurm.
Group III men: Homo sapiens. Man began to concern himself with questions of life, death and beyond.
The Adolescence of Mind
Later part of the Upper Pleistocene: Gottweig Interstadial to the withdrawal of the glaciers: 45,000 to 11,000 years ago.
Group IV – Homo sapiens sapiens. Modern man: dreaded hunter on earth, skilled craftsman, painter, sculptor.
The Maturing of Mind
Fourth age of mind is ‘recent’. It has lasted 11,000 years so far. May still only be beginning. This is short compared to the previous hundreds of thousands of years.
Let’s not forget the Law of Accelerated Progress: do not look at the clock when seeking to understand the mind.
This age leads us to the modern world. The face of the earth has changed little since it began.
The history of later times is a recognisable, coherent whole, inasmuch as men settled on the land and became cattle breeders and farmers. They built cities and left intentional traces.
In the work of man from the Neolithic period onwards, we recognise people like ourselves – with the same interests more or less. Values, abilities, and weaknesses.
Not to say there has been no progress. There have in fact been astonishing progress in many fields; equally strong stagnation in others.
It forms an integral whole with our modern world.
It therefore needs to be separated from the first three periods and treated in another chapter.
Pp. 210-226
The Infancy of Mind
It is necessary to look back and forward, and apply the concepts to the Genesis of Mind. Man’s potential for Individualisation must be entered along a path of Hominization.
When man’s mind was being formed, there must have been a plan – an Intelligence. This acted up to the point where mind could direct itself.
An act of Will must have been present to plant the notion of Individualisation. (MG: 2001: Space Odyssey again!!).
The first is Creativity (E3) – Demiurgic Intelligence.
The second is Universal Individuality (E2) – Unitive Energy – Universal Love.
We can use our own intelligence to reconstruct the advent of mind: knowing that it was ordered by Higher Intelligences.
The Demiurgic Intelligences would have foreseen the Ice Ages: and made the decisive step of thousands of generations. These events would be an opportunity. The mind-bearing hominids needed to be well-established before severe conditions began.
This seems like a long time to plan for a man, but it is not so for Higher Intelligences – they take a longer view.
Men have had their minds open to the immensity of the visible universe but have closed their minds to the immensity of the invisible. The notion of ‘Angelic powers’ is now disregarded.
Scientists try to base their explanations on ‘laws’ but are faced with the irreducible reality of consciousness. Consciousness is based on a relationship to time, which is totally unique. There must be Intelligences whose present moments transcend our own – that take half-a-million years to accomplish, but yet are also capable of acting on our own.
The conscious genesis of mind.
We have followed the process whereby the Demiurgic Intelligences brought mind (through consciousness) to Homo habilis. The Universal Individuality endowed each mind with latent Individuality.
There is a point where there is the need of a pool of ‘blended substances’ to make minds.
Mind can be both constructive and destructive. The new born mind was dependent on the Demiurgic Intelligences – like a baby to a nurse/ mother. Mind was so dangerous to its first possessors that it could not be left alone. Like a child’s mind in an adult body. Consciousness associated with disorganised sensitivity is potentially disastrous. An Australopithecus with consciousness and sensitivity only to the point of using tools and weapons could be uncontrollable – in fear and rage. This could threaten racial extinction.
Mind required diversified sensitivity: changes in diet from vegetable to germinal sources – and thus transition from animal to human essence.
This transition is primarily one of significance and potentiality: thus a pentad is needed. Mind is not just construction and activity – it is an instrument of integration that connects past, present and future, human-non-human, and different levels of existence. Man can, through mind, remember, recognise, anticipate, know himself and world, and to respond to influences.
Five Modes of Significance of Mind:
……………………………Cosmic Significance
……………….Biospheric Influence
Personal Significance
………………Practical Significance
…………………………..Vital Significance
Vital Significance (E7) – Vitality. Food and transformation. Man-Germinal connection. Life force.
Practical Significance (E6) – Automatism. Man the maker. Skills. Behaviour patterns. Bodily patterns. Embodied Demiurgic Intelligences.
Personal Significance (E5) – Sensitivity. Potential person. Pre-personal state. Sexual selection. Self-hood.
Biosphere Significance (E4) – Consciousness. To rule life on earth. Action of DI in minds.
Cosmic Significance (E3) – Creativity. Man as potential soul. Universal Individuality contact. Pre-ordained destiny.
See page 212
These are the characteristics of essence class.
Bottom: essence link to food and eater (Man needs to free himself from anthropoid ancestors). Change disturbs animal sensitivity, but makes him capable to responding to conscious influences: curiosity, self-assertiveness, sexual diversification, selection – loss of specialised sense perceptions, and replacement with complex reflex structure are precursors of the human self-hood.
The transition from animal sensitivity to human mind seems to have been fostered by the inclusion of animal marrow in diet. Man then became a hunter to increase this supply. He also ate fish – unlike before.
Early men knew they needed a mixed diet – that there was a link between diet and psychology. How did they know this? The Demiurgic Hypothesis. Millions of years make a human body; hundreds of thousands of years to make a human mind.
Early men had little skill, and little self-control – unlike animals.
Patience was need: to move them away from animal behaviour as part of consciousness – to channel it into skills that would help them get a food supply.
There are several centres of experimentation: three discovered – Africa, Indonesia and China. In each case, was a hominid group at the beginning. They learnt to use stones as tools and cutting edges. They developed the human hand.
Sexual selection is used to breed in a pattern to enhance an upright stance, efficiency of hand and eye. This progress was more psychological than anatomical.
Once the mind began, the worst part of the task followed. Once sensitivity was organised, it could no longer be brought under the direct control of the Demiurgic powers. Man became a mind capable of being taught – communication was thus necessary.
There were also unchanged hominids. This was Demiurgic Possession: Creative Energy (E3) and Consciousness (E4) entered the sensitivity of new-born babies and pretended to be men. The light of consciousness allowed them to recognise one another – but they would not be discernable from anatomical characters.
Three distinct processes:
1) Development of the mind and the creation of a pool of mind-stuff (half-a-million years).
2) Training is skills and behaviours patterns.
3) Anatomical – breeding.
These processes must have been directed and developed directly. They occurred very rapidly.
Sexual selection occurred under a long-forgotten process – plausibly under the direction of the demiurgic intelligences.
The development of mind could come from an action within animal sensitivity – calling for the power of telepathic projection.
Demiurgic possession thus needs to be understood as bridge towards communication by speech.
Speech is the key to the use of mind.
Homo erectus were probably able to speak. Thus, the use of fire and an increasing variety of diet. These arts and behaviours were taught by the Demiurgic Guides.
The genesis of mind was possibly the conception of humanity. But, speech was the ‘birth’ of mankind. It is the mark of the operative mind.
Could man have learnt to speak unaided?
Ability and learning are both needed for speech.
All human communities have some form of speech. Apes have all the necessary muscles, etc. but still cannot be taught to speak.
The human structure is well-adapted to produce a variety of sounds. This was certainly the result not the cause of speech.
There are a hundred thousand million cells in the human brain, all connected in a communication network.
The distinguishing feature of the human speech is that it can make connections beyond the limits of the here and now. Reflexion!
Sensitivity gives present awareness; consciousness connects present and non-present.
Animals do have a ‘language’ – to communicate by sound. But, man can extend the present by mental images of past and future. Of distant and existing objects. This requires contact with the human environment. All that is human comes from man.
The nature of mind is that it could not have been developed without guidance. This guidance is often not recognised by children or adults. Its instrument is imitation. Imitation without mind does not produce human powers evident in tool making.
Mind entered into man rather than mind grew in man.
The Demiurgic Intelligences perhaps entered into some children’s minds and began to make sounds to make meaning. So, ‘looking beyond the present moment’ would have slowly dawned on some of them. Slowly ‘natural’ parents were able to show their children how to act.
It must have taken a long time, as there were few human perceptions to begin with. No sense of past and future to begin with.
We can be confident that Homo erectus could only transmit skills acquired in childhood. Tool making remained static for thousands of generations – human mind had not acquired creativity at this stage. This would not have been so if men were capable of conceptual thought. This, aided by speech, leads to progress.
We have at least 40,000 generations from earliest men to later Palaeolithic cultures; every so many generations, an exceptional individual would appear and this would change things.
At the outset, men had a ‘self-less mind’. Nearly all actions would be indistinguishable from instinctive animal behaviour. But, slowly, mind was developing structure; parents would teach children.
They learned – not though creativity but by what was taught to them.
Their teachers were able to think in terms of a hundred thousand years.
Only with difficulty can we grasp the notion of a directed process that lasts a hundred times longer than the entire historical period.
Everything has to be taught; speech is the gateway to learning.
The Childhood of Mind sees men accumulate and transmit experiences through language and symbolisms.
The Hiatus in Development
The Demiurgic Intelligences maintained their care of the human infant of the human race throughout the Lower Pleistocene and into the Interglacial periods. Climatic conditions forced migration for those who could move.
Perhaps only a few of the earliest men survived, but this only happened through intelligent guidance.
There is a question about the development of the Homo erectus, given that many anatomical requirements were present. One or other of the animal phyla can show functional powers not inferior to Homo erectus, but they do not develop, and the latter did. But, why did they remain static for so long?
Firstly, hominization was possibly not complete. Mutation was required.
There was skill but little progress: tools show them to be the product of human minds with consciousness and sensitivity.
Homo erectus proclaims himself a ‘true man’. So, why so little progress in hundreds of thousands of years? Let us consider the stages which man covered:
1. Hominoid stock selected for organisation of sensitivity – characteristics of man. Development of biped habit. Increasing use of fore-paws. Australopithecus – 3-4 million years BP.
2. Australopithicus endowed with consciousness. Appearance of true men – one and quarter to one and three quarter years BP. Leads to Homo erectus.
3. Homo erectus produces many sub-species and varieties. Constructs tools and basic speech. Development of sapiens with full cranial capacity –
150, 000 – 180, 000 years BP.
4. The appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens with individual creativity.
37, 000 – 42, 000 years BP.
5. Homo sapiens sapiens develop social consciousness, agriculture, settlements, and complex language structure. 11, 000 years BP.
6. ‘Modern man’ – 2,000 years BP
Six points on a scale from apemen to modern man. This gives us a logarithmic curve.
There are several conclusive reasons why the development of man cannot be compared to that of the elephants, horses and other mammals.
1. There was no separation of forest-living and steppe-living species of Homo. North and South hemisphere men were similar.
2. No indication of selective action before, during or after the first or second glaciation.
3. There were men of highly developed anatomy before intermediate Neanderthal man appeared.
4. Natural selection would not operate on men in the same way as horses and elephants.
5. The mind of man has always been a disturbing element in his response to environmental pressure and opportunities.
How can a mind that was furnished with eyes and hands and speech not make more of its opportunities without mutating into a new species.
The problem is not anatomical but psychological.
We can suggest some possible explanations why the human mind was prolonged beyond what was required for normal development.
1. The Demiurgic Intelligences saw the future course of the Ice Ages and held back men’s development for better conditions.
2. The mind-stuff pool took so long to form that the transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens had to be delayed. Unlikely as the process would conform to the needs of the species.
3. The humanised sensitive energy produced by early man was required for some purpose other than human development.
4. There was malevolent intervention by an Intelligence hostile to the plan and purpose of man’s evolution.
5. The period of stagnation is a figment of imagination. The time was normal.
There is not the attempt to decide which is correct. Later, the book will deal with the problem of evil and sin. It may then be necessary to return to the period of the ‘infancy of the mind’ and the ‘age of innocence’.
Let us end this section with this thought: when consciousness first blended with human sensitivity it must have produced a condition of euphoria that would require careful supervision by the Demiurgic Intelligences. If this was there at the outset, there is no reason why it should be withdrawn during the ‘infancy of the mind’.
Pp. 226-240
The Childhood of Mind
Began during Upper Pleistocene and with the Riss glaciation.
Interesting because man begins to move again.. Homo sapiens have been given more prominence than other types, really because of their proximity.
Neanderthal is a group III type: Middle Palaeolithic. Their flint tools have been discovered. Stone axes have been discovered. They chewed skin to soften them.
There must have been a division of labour: we surmise this by the discovery of men who were clearly important, as they were looked after and buried when they died.
The fact that Homo sapiens and erectus buried their dead suggests some belief in afterlife. Sanctuaries have been discovered.
In one culture, bears were both honoured and slaughtered.
Homo sapiens nevertheless had a distinct lack of artistic feeling. So, how did they develop their beliefs and rituals?
It is because it is the Childhood of the Human Mind, where the Demiurgic Intelligences were transferring responsibility to man himself. This inner regard did not include creativity.
Man had to expand his sense of the present moment before moving forward. It was necessary to develop memory. H.erectus could not think of the past but Neanderthal could: think of traditions – form cults.
Magic and quasi-religious practices were ways of developing the mind.
You cannot develop memory by imitation; the mind has to work for itself.
Man can only be understood as the possessor of mind; psychology must therefore be the principal instrument of interpretation. How is the mind constructed?
Instrumental material is sensitive energy (E5) – the highest energy associated with life. In its undifferentiated form it enters all life. In animals it begins to be organised; in mammals it is differentiated and specialised. This gives subjective attributes – but mind only arrives with consciousness.
Mental image formation requires inner objectification brought about by the separation of consciousness and sensitivity. We then ‘see’ forms and sounds in the mind. Memories become objects – distinct from ourselves.
We can produce mental images by the exercise of creative will, but this is not common – even with modern man and woman. It can come from emotional stimulus: the division between feel and think.
The new step forward made a heavy demand on the brain of men. It needs to store mental imagery and memories that gradually change the Mind-Stuff Pool – the Collective Unconscious (Jung). The Demiurgic Intelligences probably engineered large brain being for this task. Originally, they could only communicate with men through the mind and body: they entered newly created minds and taught them how to work. New means had to be found to accomplish the task – impressing new ideas. This is why Magic was needed. Magic is the earliest cultural agent in human life. It is impossible to think of it arising by chance; it needed intentional acts. Magic appeared before modern man; clear evidence that some higher intelligence intervened. Magic must have accompanied man during his march to Individuality. Magic is a necessary means for action.
The Demiurgic Intelligences must have taken possession of selected youths – demonstrated magical powers to them (predicting weather, movements of herds) so that they could gain ascendency over the tribe. This still exists in the Shamans of Siberia.: all the past is reflected somewhere in the present. Shamans believe they can be possessed by a Great Spirit, becoming their mouthpiece. The form remains and is widely misunderstood.
The first magicians were authentic wonder-workers. They were like men around them, but conscious of their Demiurgic nature.
When the Demiurgic Intelligences entered men, whose minds were not complete Self-hood, the result was to form a complete man.
The Demiurgic Magicians possessed perceptions, knowledge and understanding that gave them ascendency over the tribes.
Pentad of Complete Man
………………………………………………….Cosmic Individuality
………………………….Demiurgic Nature
Human Self/ Mind
………………………….Animal Nature
…………………………………………………..Germinal Level of Existence
See page 233
Rituals would be seen as providing the necessary conditions for access to magical protection. Men’s mind were thus inclined to new subjective experiences. This included runes and incantations.
In this way, the psychic qualities of sensation, feeling, and thought would be developed in the mind. Sensitive energy would be impregnated with new experiences little by little. Simple ‘mind-stuff’ would lead to simple ‘self-stuff’.
Still, creative power was lacking. Groups undertook migrations and formed settlements in N. Africa, Asia, and Europe: Neanderthal’s new powers had time to develop – less than 35,000 years before the present.
This remarkable subspecies – sapient but not creative, courageous but not enterprising – then disappeared. Why did men who could feel and remember fail to create? Their emotional development had outstripped their capacity for the creation of mental images.
To summarise: man acquired powers of sensation, feeling and thought; he was able to remember and recall past events; look forward to the future. He had a sense of past and future – unlike any other living being. Hope and fear therefore gained significance.
The Adolescence of Mind
The next stage brings man into possession of the human situation but not the earth.
The new species is Homo sapiens sapiens (mind possession/ memory possession/creativity).
This development was once and for all and has not changed since. The new men even looked like men of today: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid and Capoid.
The new cultures are distinguishable by having knife-like blades of flint, bone obsidians.
The new men with their blade and burin tradition entered Europe about 35,000 years ago. They seem to have been slight with narrow heads/ small foreheads.
3000 years later another people brought the true Aurignacian culture (traceable to Middle East). They were clever and artistic as well as being great hunters. They made decorations, drawings, paintings,
Another species – the Gravetian – were adapted to the Main Wurm glaciation. They resembled the West European Chatelperronians.
Finally, in the last glacial period, the finest flowering of the Upper Palaeolithic began with the Magdalenians. These hunters were assisted by long distance weapons and hunted bison, mammoth, wild horses, fish and cattle.
Fur hoods and robes were worn. They had needles to make clothes; they also had jewellery, lamps.
The outburst in the visual arts was amazing. Carvings have been found; there must have been models as well.
Within 20,000 years men accomplished more than the previous 800, 000.
What does this tell us about the history of the mind?
How and where did it all begin?
It is said that the origins of homo sapiens sapiens is obscure. But, when he did appear, he was already divided into racial types of modern man.
There is a view of invaders sweeping across Europe from Asia; but these must have been quite small groups. They were hunters, travelling large distances. They supplanted the Neanderthals who were less developed.
Did the Demiurgic Intelligences take a hand in these movements?
Palaeolithic art had magico-religious functions. Life was dependent on hunting, animals and spears and the like. Some magic was aimed at bringing about a kill, other was to increase herd fertility. The artists were inspired by reverence and communion with nature and with beasts.
With the Gravettian, the art seems to represent procreation and fertility, rather than real men and women.
Hunting magic seems to have been supplemented by fertility magic.
Men had obviously become aware of the importance of mating: sexual selection had become a major factor in his social life. The magicians must have decided this. These were the Demiurgic Intelligences in disguise.
Pp. 241-256
Fertility rites arose from the awareness of mating and sexual selection; this must have been because of a decision from the ‘magicians’ (Demiurgic Intelligences in disguise). Being around the Neanderthal, they were able to produce new races with defined physical and psychological characteristics. Such changes cannot be understood in terms of time alone; we also need to understand consciousness and the hyparchic future, without which they could not begin. Selfhood was established.
We need to account for how men gained independent activity – this was not simply an anatomical differentiation.
This is a significant moment – equivalent to puberty when the creative power of sex goes from virtuality to actuality. This connects the human self to a source of energy that transcends the life of the organism – connected to the cosmic processes of transformation of energies. There are still anatomical modifications.
Homo sapiens sapiens are different physically but more different in terms of creative powers.
We might speculate that Demiurgic and Human natures coalesced in order that they might gain creativity and Selfhood. This required transformation of three levels: body, psychology and spiritual. The first achieved by breeding; the second by magic; and the third by blending natures. The union of demiurgic powers and women. This is spoken of in the bible: Genesis (Chapter 6, vv. 1-4): ‘And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be numbered a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of man and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were old men of renown’.
When the demiurgic powers mated with humans, an essentially new race came about: true men with a higher nature, able to respond to Individual Will that had long so remained latent.. This meant that men could now attain Personal Individuality and a Soul. They had independent development in different centres, unlike the Neanderthals. Various experiments must have occurred so that a new sub-species could emerge.
Once established, this sub-species would not develop from natural selection, but by interbreeding of superior abilities.
Within 2,500 years, they would establish the old race. Homo sapiens abruptly disappeared.
As soon as man acquired a Self he had the potential and dangers of Selfhood. He would not be directed simply by the consent of his Will. Until then, men were directed from without; now direction came from their own directions. Such direction is through consciousness. The demiurgic powers directed through consciousness. There was danger: the power of memory mixed with rudimentary speech, as directed by the Demiurgic Powers, led to the practice of ritual magic. Thought and feeling were segregated: simple imitation was superseded by the practice of recurrent experience. Myth became possible as life became based on images; for example, evidence of burials and the bear cult. During the gestation of the mind, consciousness acted as a means to developing the rudimentary powers of the mind (directed by demiurgic powers). Man did not have Creative Energy (E3) – the Demiurges did. Creativeness allows for consciousness in purposive action. With creativity, man can control his own mind, be influenced by perceptions, mental images, thought forms. They enter through the gateway of conscious experience. Before, it was from behind the veil of consciousness; now it was what could be grasped by their own minds. Therefore, the Adolescence of the Mind. But further transformation was needed.
Four Regions of Transformation
Here, we complete our picture of the first creative men.
The stage we talk about took place through the sexual selection of approximately two hundred generations – 3,000 – 4,000 years. There are traces of Homo sapiens sapiens in Europe, Africa, South-west Asia. The transition was made in four distinct regions (centres): East Africa, Western Europe; South-west Asia and the Far East. This required new powers.
The cycle of 12K years between 25K and 37K years BP is the Implanting of Creativity in Man.
Cycles remain constant but events move more rapidly. This was even more apparent in terms of the workings of the mind.
Europe
The period from 34K to 20K years BP was the prelude for a specialised development in Europe (Chatelperronian and True/ Middle Aurignacian)..
18K to 12K years BP: Magdalenian Culture in SW Europe – artistic creativity and technical ingenuity.
Creativity took different forms elsewhere.
Training groups developed around the magicians – to develop new powers. They were part of a larger community of transformation – the remains of which have only been found in the Dordogne area in France.
The whole region of Europe was an integrated whole, who shared a common creative centre rather than specific techniques. Almost a centre of pilgrimage for new creative groups.
South-West Asia
Not clear, as little excavation until now; no centre comparable to the Dordogne. Limited art. Various Upper Palaeolithic cultures developed out of blade-and-burin traditions.
Africa
Difficult to unravel events here.
Two chief cultures evolved during the period of drought: Fauresmith – a hand-axe tradition; Sangoan – techniques for cutting trees and scrub.
These lasted 40K BP.
A culture known as Lupemban developed out of the Sangoan in the Congo.
The Fauresmith evolved into a culture known as the Proto-Stillbay: 25K BP
These were associated with an early blade-and-burin culture.
In South-West Asia, the blade and burin culture known as the Dabba was founded in Cyrenaica – 38K BP
The Far East
Little is known about the Far East. There is not much evidence beyond Sinanthropus and the crude chopper-chopping tools used in Choukoutien.
However, there are traces of creative man in North China and South Mongolia.
An area around Eastern Siberia, known as the Baikal, shows the same mixture of old and new techniques – with strong Gravettian influence.
Malta was late: 12K BP – there is influence here with rich ornaments.
Creative Man
What of the criteria for progress?
Firstly, we might consider it the use and manufacture of tools
Art and social customs are also indications of the development of mind.
But, art, industry and burial customs are not sufficient criteria of progress.
With the Creative mind, man can practice worship and try to understand the world. The first enters our present moment of history as the great myths and spiritual beliefs of the past; the second, comes down to us through the languages that we speak and think with – which enable us to reflect on the world.
Human society began to acquire a two-level structure: Psychostatic and Psychoteleios orders. The middle – Psychokinetic could not yet appear..
This two level structure consisted in men directly connected with the Demiurgic Intelligences on the one hand, and men connected only with speech and action of the other.
Conscious and unconscious of the Demiurgic powers.
This is confirmed in the outpouring of creative activity in the period 25K – 15K BP – High Stone Age.
We are impressed by the achievements of this age: between two levels of life simultaneously present. On the one hand, we find surpassing genius in the guidance of human progress in the introduction of new techniques; as against this, the primitive conditions of ordinary existence as shown in cave settlements of Western Europe, and the primitive dwellings in Asia. We find brilliant cave paintings not far from evidence of primitive savagery. We must conclude that the cave paintings were carried out by groups living along side primitive tribes.
Often such paintings are one on top of others – over many centuries.
This is not single transmission, but the work of creative minds, organised to preserve their continuity.
Precautions were taken to deny access to the profane. These were centres of initiations for cults. For example, Lascaux and Altamira, where deer are depicted with antlers at various stages of development – showing signs of earlier drawings.
These are interpreted as personal symbols, representing stages of development attained by members of the creative group, owing allegiance to an ideal.
Fertility cultures were shared by common existential people, and were the link between them and creative groups.
Most creative groups would be small and interconnecting. From these, a whole activity was directed by initiation into the magical operations – while food gathering was carried out by those with little understanding of the change that had come over them.
The ascendency of the magicians and their associates was complete.
Creativity entered into all who had contact with the Demiurgic Intelligences. However, it remained latent unless evoked by special training, which only the magicians knew how to impart. These were the Guides of mankind.
There were two main concerns: First, the mental stability of the general population had to be assured; Second, new creative powers had to be fostered. This emerged from the ‘training groups’ around the magicians.
Untrained creativity does not produce good work; it manifests best in play – when engaged in a positive activity we call untrained creativity dilettantism or amaturism. At worst, there are visions of grandeur, seeking personal satisfaction.
These dangers do not only threaten minds untrained.
Powerful, creative minds can do harm to themselves.
Diversification would have been a result: life once dominated by food, sex, and self-preservation was complicated by new impulses – intellectual curiosity and the need to understand, the urge to express, to fulfil oneself, the desire for power, possessions, new relationships.
Creativity complicates life by its nature. There would have been failures, and successes that went wrong. The affairs of the earliest human societies must have created serious problems.
There must have been synchronicity of advance amongst many regions. The Epoch.
The Will of man could now act in the present moment. The presentation to his consciousness of his destiny to become responsible for the governance of the whole earth. To present to the human mind the theme of human destiny (a mind laden with traces of a million years of animal existence).
But, man was creative: what he could not understand could yet enter his awareness by a direct communication with intelligence. The Guides were responsible for the delicate regulation of man’s awakening.
Man was not yet connected with the source of love directly – an understanding of himself as in direct union with that source.
Between him and the Cosmic Individuality came the link of the Universal Will, operating through the demiurgic intelligences.
An act occurred which was to become disastrous and irrevocable – the entry of Egoism!
The Creative Mind
The Problem of Evil
Any account of man must consider the problem of evil. – no-one can escape evil
will.
Evil is not simply the malfunctioning of the human organism or being anti-social.
To deny evil is to reject human responsibility; it is not that responsibility is only subjectively real – objectively an illusion.
Man has free will: he can construct an act that is evil both subjectively and objectively. Without evil, goodness has no meaning: many writers do not acknowledge this.
Evil must be concerned with the origin, not in a metaphysical sense of seeking a rationale account of evil in a world created by a good god, but in a historical sense of showing when and how the transition was made from animal innocence.
Animals are free from evil.
Evil does not arise through a mutation of genes – Will is not carried in chromosomes.
Man developed through his material substratum; Will came from a Source outside time and place.
Evil has not accompanied man from the hypozoic world of blue-green algae. Nor can we say that the Universal Individuality endowed Australopithecus with an eye – a mixed will.
Let us not go back to the Age of Innocence, when man followed his animal passions. However, this period lasted too long. Did something go wrong?
So far, we think of the Demiurgic Intelligences as impeccable – infallible.
The realisation of full potentialities is impossible because the existential world is limited by conditions. Indeed, the demiurgic essences are human in their nature.
The Demiurgic Intelligences are not exempt from error. Perhaps there were errors – inevitable when history penetrates into consciousness. Maybe not enough allowance was made for the exuberance of consciousness as it entered Austraopithecine sensitivity..
Maybe the retardation of human development was imposed by an order higher than the destiny of man. Maybe the delay produced an imbalance of mindstuff. Maybe consciousness was too embedded in sensitivity to elicit responsible actions from homo sapiens sapiens when creativity arrived. This may be why man is attached to sense experience; to see the material world as substantial and consciousness as a shadow. But, this does not account for Evil Will.
If we accept that Will comes from Will, we cannot expect evil to come from Man alone – thus is comes from outside him.
Jung drew attention to ancient myths for the interpretation of human experience. Myths are not just fanciful inventions., but express deep realities – so deep that they hold good for men in the future, present and past. But Jung argues against myth having historical significance – even though we know that many myths are rooted in historical foundations.
Do we take seriously the notion of men’s propensities towards evil as the intervention of hostile/ superior intelligence: Satan the Tempter of Adam.
The source of evil is an intelligence – limited and not divine, but of a far higher order than man – with powers higher than the human race.
Maybe it is possible to fit the demiurgic intelligences into this picture and ascribe the ‘Fall of Man’ to the jealousy of the powers that were charged with endowing him with creativity. How and when could sin have entered man? There is only one moment: when the Will of man was made effectual by contact with creative energy. Only at that point does man become responsible – therefore capable of evil. Evil could not come later – this would require creative but sinless men – with a will free from evil dispositions. They could only have fallen into sin by a cruel and unmerited intervention – that would have been gratuitous since such men would not have been in need of help for which such a price might have been exacted. One objection to the doctrine of original sin – both moral and psychological – is that it cannot be seen to be in accordance with Divine Justice.
Pp. 256-270
The evolution account of human development implies stages; at each stage there is a transfer of responsibility into the creatures destined for homonisation – and to man himself. Will is set free; it could not be free at the start for it required a mind for its powers to be exercised.
Will is linked to the mind through Creative Energy (E3). Creative energy could not be acquired through genetic mutation – could not come from the tree of life.
The Demiurgic Intelligences had to impart Creativity to Man. Why would they do this? A disobedient DI? The answer is the nature of the Demiurgic Intelligence. Now, referring to the essence classes:
…………………………………………………………Cosmic Harmony/ Transcendence
…………………………………Cosmic Individuality/ Love
Demiurgic Creativity
…………………………………..Human Consciousness
……………………………………………………………Animal Kingdom Sensitivity
See page 256
The central characteristic of the Demiurgic nature is Creativity. Creativity requires spontaneity requires freedom.
The Demiurgic Nature is not just a vehicle for the expression of the Divine Will, but creativity with immense freedom of action.
That freedom is conditioned by Foreordainment – the total requirement of the Plan and Purpose. There are always an infinite number of possibilities for its realisation. Working in the hyparchic future, the Demiurgic Intelligence can interfere with the patterns of destiny but not the plan of Creation.
To return to the issue of sin and evil: Sin is an act of wilful disobedience to an obligation of which we are conscious. Awareness of obligation is key!
From the start, the Will of Man was linked through the Universal Individuality with the Cosmic Individuality – that is Christ. Once having Intelligence, he can not be wholly unaware of his Ultimate Destiny – to be reunited with the Source. Evil is to accept that he could become an independent creator in his own right.
It was with sexual intercourse that the Demiurgic Intelligences linked with man and shared creative energy, to conquer nature! His Will also remained connected with the Cosmic Individuality by a Supernatural Bond.
Man’s mind is his own: with it, he is expected to work creatively and consciously.
The mind, awakened by its power – but weakened by objects of sense – began to believe that it was Master of the world. This suggestion was made by a disobedient Demiurgic Intelligence. Man chose the Path of Egoism: weakness, false estimation. No-one can deny egoism – but people must test for themselves whether it is really sinful or simply socially undesirable.
What were the consequences of evil?
The combination of Creativity and Consciousness produces a mind-stuff structure known as Self-hood. The response of men to the idea of human destiny would bring the idea of Ego or Individuality to the Mind.
Obligation versus independence. Those that commit to the former pass, after death, into a state called the hyparchic future.
All were affected: each new generation were tainted with egoistic impulses – this acquiring the characteristics they have today.
All this is conducive with Dramatic Universe conclusions. Hazard is inherent in the Drama of existence. It is a world that is neither predetermined, nor an arbitrary chaos. It is above all Dramatic – interesting and creative.
When hazard entered the human mind-stuff it became a part of soul-stuff. Men became selves – selves became souls. As souls were predetermined, so must have been hazard.
Foreordainment and Predestination are different forms of future reality for man.
Man was not Foreordained to Egoism – he was free to choose. It set him in a direction of conflict that could only be resolved by attaining Individuality.
This is the historical aspect of the human situation. The Universal Drama needs to be understood as historical. Same for the Human Drama.
We must return to try to decipher the last Glaciation period: 11,000 years ago.
Withdrawal and Language-Creation
The human situation was under threat; those who had acted under the disobedient magicians were in the dominant position.. Those faithful to the task had to withdraw.
10,500 – 8, 000 BC : Second Great Cycle of Human Creativity. Here, the real progressive work became separated from human activity. The Inteligences were working for the hyparchic future not technical advance. There seemed to be a conservatism or lack of progress. Man’s creative energy was channelled to preparing for the future of the human mind.
Early art, technology, seafaring, etc. could have developed without much advance in conceptual thought. Technology and art represent a development of sensory-motor not the intellectual centre. Speech/ language was of key importance.
Conceptual language includes basic notions of process, space, time, categories of differentiation, etc. By giving something a name, we can think about it.
Early man would have had few notions of past and future, scale, levels of activity – and no language to express these things. Language was a ‘present’ event. When this stopped, it became ‘superfluous’. Reflection could only occur once men developed the apparatus to do so – language. This is Intelligence working ‘ahead of man’ – in the hyparchic future. This was done by the Demiurgic Powers. The purpose for this is the regulation of the Biosphere and is still being worked out; although this has overtaken an understanding of God and the Great Plan as the higher aim of Man. This is also the opposition between the static and dynamic lines of human development: the understanding of nature is static; the understanding of God and the Cosmic Individuality is dynamic.
Language was therefore also the beginning of Reflection. With it arose the great notions of God and the Spiritual world; first given in images evoked by direct experience rather than ideas or concepts. Rather of the invisible powers in all the seen and did. These images were refined but the principle remained the same: the ultimate inspiration in human life. Before these, men could respond freely
The two factors of response and understanding were the means whereby man entered actively into his assumption of responsibility. At the time of the Wurm glaciation, amongst the responsive creative groups who withdrew from the general sphere of human activity in each of the four main independent regions were the pioneers and guardians of the future of the human mind.
The Magdalenian Culture of SW Europe lasted about 5,000 years and then declined. Others developed the Azilian microlithic culture which was fully established 8,000 BC. Creativity then seems to have dried up.
There was greater change in Central and Eastern Africa.
2-3000 years is not that long for the creation and establishment of a great root language or a new set of notions. Right environmental conditions were needed to stimulate human initiative – and provide the perceptions to invest the new beliefs with substantial form.
We believe that the ‘loyal groups’ obeyed the directions of the true guides, and went from Western Europe far north into the arctic circle.
There is little information on the groups of the Centres of Africa, and the near and far East. The loyal groups withdrew to pursue their aims undisturbed by the psychostatic societies of men led by egoistic though creative minds.
The Andean centre of culture is left out of the account. It withdrew and did not return.
The epoch of Withdrawal and Concentration lasted from 10,500 to 8000 years BC. After that the four cultures diffused and intermingled with each other.
We need evidence from four primary cultural traditions to reconstruct the situation during the Epoch of Withdrawal.
The Great Mother
The near and middle refers to the time of the ‘Great Mother’: she was the fount of life, the originator of arts. Cybele of the Phrygians; Innana of the Summerians; the Great Mother of the Cretians (Gea, Rhea); Ishtar of the Semites. This is the middle Eastern centre of transformation. These are the earliest traces of permanent settlements – origins of culture. It is also the birthplace of religion. Matriarchical religions survive to this day.
The great Mother cult takes us at least back 5000 years before the present by inscriptions and temples. It was already ancient when the Creation Hymn of the Sumerians was composed – 6000 years ago.
The Phrygian myth reveals its origins: the Great Mother Cybele accepts human consorts. In their union with her, they die as men and are raised as demi-gods. This is analogous to when the Demiurgic Intelligences mated with human women to produce homo sapiens sapiens. Their mark was so powerful it persisted for thousands of years. Myth is not unusual: we can see human experience in their eternal elements, action complementary to temporal achievements.
It is not exclusive to SW Asia; we also find it in N American Indians, Polynesia, Africa. There are differences: American Indians do not see themselves as descended from the Great Mother, but the Great Spirit. In the far East and Africa, the female goddesses are consorts of the gods.
To begin with the Great Mother was really an expression of the female principle – fertility cults.
What exists in terms of the birth of creativity must have arisen somewhere. It must have come from a powerful event – to impress on men’s minds. People that were used to miraculous birth would take to agriculture when shown what to do. The Great Mother myth can be seen as an expression of the hope for a good harvest.
Agriculture began in the Near and Middle East – first human settlements therefore belong to this area.
The Great Mother myth remained from its inception to the start of the historical period. Some time after 8000BC, the first settlements show signs of agriculture and stock breeding in SW Asia.
Various cultures developed out of blade-and-burin industries. The best known of these Mesolithic forms are to be found in the Natufian of Palestine. They partly fished and hunted, but, as they also possessed flint sickles, must have also reaped corn. In Jericho, they developed a true farming economy. They built shrines, wattle huts, and founded settlements (from 9800 years before the present.
These developed into large Neolithic town.
In South Anatolia, techniques were improved to produce surplus food, and thus leisure.
In Catal Huyuk, the first Mediterranean civilisation was created. This spread to the Aegean. A small culture in Late Neolithic stage was found in Hacilar. There seems to have been links between Syria and farther East and the Hacilar culture, and between the latter and late Neolithic cultures and early metal using cultures (the Balkans and Greece). Cyprus possessed a full Neolithic culture as early as 5500 BC.
All the farming communities practiced some form of Mother Goddess culture. Emblems of fertility were present: phalli, etc. Hunting, war, politics, commerce were essentially masculine activities. Agriculture, spinning and weaving, making pottery were predominantly feminine. The female principle predominated amongst Neolithic cultures, and the women were powerful.
The Mother Goddess – the Great Earth Mother – was supreme.
In Catal Huyuk and Hacilar, the mother cult possessed power and depth. A quarter of the town was reserved for sacred and residential buildings – richly decorated shrines. These shrines represented the whole of life and death.
The mother goddess represented the continuation of life and fecundity – of men and animals. With the spread of agriculture, the idea of the analogy between burial and growth of the seed and man’s death, burial and rebirth arose. Megalithic and Gallery tombs were often dark and subterranean – with carvings of heads and breasts.
Further East, the Mother Goddess was present in Neolithic settlements.
The Great Mother no longer appears in later times. The death and resurrection of the seasons, portrayed as the death of the ‘king’, shows the influence of other traditions; for example, in Sumaria and Babylonia – from Nin-tu the wise and inexhaustible source of life to Tiamat, the primal, undifferentiated being dismembered by the great gods. Nevertheless, the Great Mother is often rivalled by a son-lover, ‘who begot her own rebirth’.
There was great technological advance from 8000BC. Before that time, communities conscious of creativity had withdrawn from active contact. This brought a new understanding of the Mother principle to many groups in SW Asia. There was little progress in language beyond words connected with new crafts.
It is probable that language was ostensive: linking sound to gesture to show what was meant. This would suffice for the Mother cult to be taught and practised. This would be unsuitable for abstract ideas.
Man understood the universal community of life through the Great Mother, finding a home in comparative mildness of SW Asia after the desiccation of present areas of desert.
The Great Spirit
In the far East, new creative men were taught to regard Creativity as the Great Spiritual Power.
The greatest written expression of this power is Tao, from which came Yang and Yin – male and female principles; that is the Three – diversity of nature.
The notion of the Great Spirit is present in ancient Chinese culture. It is also found – in debased forms – in Oceania, Polynesia, South-East Asia, India, Central Asia ; Mana the unseen spirit power, the secret of magicians, the moving force in all living and non-living nature: a spirit power that cannot be overcome by man’s will.
Shamanism must have existed with the Demiurgic magicians of the transformation. The Shaman is possessed by the Spiritual Power that enable him to prophecy, to direct lives of people and to work wonders.
The beliefs of the Far East must have had a different origin than the Great Mother of the Near East. The effect on the lives of people was consequently also different. In the Far East, the emphasis was on the mystical communion with nature; in the Near East, it was upon practical life.
New techniques certainly lagged behind in the region: did the transformation of the Homo sapiens sapiens not take place, so that animistic beliefs were relics of hunting magic of the Neanderthals? Maybe yes for the Southern regions of the Far East. Things were different in North China and South Mongolia: here progress was also relatively slow and people continued to live as hunters and food-gatherers long after agriculture had developed elsewhere.
The significance of these observations is suggested by the continued practice of magic long after it had ceased in the West. Magicians still operate successfully in the forests of Mongolia, Siberia and Tibet. The emphasis upon the Creative Energy as such, rather than upon its transforming influence in the human mind, would be bound to lead to beliefs in its universal presence and so to animism and shamanism.
Was this all that the Far Eastern centre of transformation could achieve? Probably, the positive contribution is in the establishment of traditions connected with ceremonial magic as a precursor to ritualistic practices – preparing the way for sacramental religion.
Belief in the Great Spirit does not look back to the past – as with the Great Mother doctrines – but concentrates on the present. This is why the higher manifestations of spirituality in the Far East are chiefly directed to the liberation of consciousness in the eternal present of Nirvana.
The Creative Centre of the Far East developed techniques connected with consciousness and magic. They also developed new linguistic forms. In the agglutinative and polysynthetic languages of Central and South-east Asia and Polynesia we have evidence of a common cultural centre of diffusion existing in the remote past. These language are psychologically suited to people who feel their bond of union in a common affinity with the Great Spirit. They are so ancient, that common roots of words are not common: as in the case of Chinese and Mongolian and Tartar. Yet, there is always a non-individualised character that allows notions to be built up without the distraction of noun, verb, and adjective to which it is accustomed.
This advanced language must have originated by design of the creative centre.
Pp. 270-286
The Creator God
The African Centre withdrew more than the other three: we do not know much about it. But, reconstructing from the later stage: northern latitudes were dwarfed by melting glaciers; similar to the end of the monsoon – rain to blistering sunshine.
The sun would have been hailed as the creative power – and formed religious dispositions.
The region of Libya would have been ideal but was, at this time, too much in contact with Eastern Mediterranean. NE African – this gave the best conditions: undisturbed people, almost invisible.
Those who did not follow the guides were not left without creativity, but had to follow it in a relatively stationary society; for example, the Lumpemban people in Central Africa.
It is not that Africa was without Spiritual guidance – for sure, the magicians had contact with the Demiurgic powers. But there are profound differences between these and the Asiatic Shaman. The former could kill and bring to life, make presence felt at a distance – they represented the succession of chiefs. The Asiatic Shaman did not represent permanent power.
The moral order was based on reward and punishment – very different from the Great Spirit beliefs.
In the creative centre, sun-worship, creator-worship and king-worship developed together. The creator god had supreme authority.
An immense contribution was made from Africa – mainly through Egypt.
Although farming appeared in SW Asia 7000BC, it did not begin in Egypt until 3000 years later.
In upper Egypt, there were three successive cultures – all Neolithic and distinctively African: the earliest, encampments of Tasa; the Badarian; and the Amratian. Stock was the same in Badrarian times as proto-Hamtic and Busmanoid.
By the end of the 4th millennium BC, a hybrid population developed which was Egyptian and spoke Hamitic.
Dynastic Egypt: the symbols of the supreme gods Re, Horus, and Ptah show the formulation of notions unexpressed in the previous millennia dominated by totemism..
Horus was the sky-god – celestial spirit.
Ptah was supreme intellect.
Re was the sun god – creative power.
Later Aker represented past and future – the intersection of eternity and time.
Creator-god representations found expression in Atum, who created the universe for himself; Horus – king worship. The image of the sun was central to this.
Evidence of 4000 years BC suggests that the Creator-god was present 4000 years previously. He remained the supreme authority.
The Hamito-Semitic language system also was created. Areas such as N Africa, Libya, Syria, Iraq and SW Asia used kindred languages.
The new high language was first the prerogative of the few. The Creator-god was not as widely transmitted as the bi- and tri—literal language system. It could not have arisen from practical demands. Many peoples would have had no need of language more than terminology to deal with events. The deities had expressions of intuitions of fundamental modes of operation, which work throughout the universe. The ambiguities and contradictions are expressed by the priests: God is one, but many in his workings.
The Egyptians, and after them the Hebrew and Arabs, claimed that their language was divine in origin. This came from creativity; a combination of two consonantal breaks in a sequence of vowels. Later, a trilateral structure was developed- this led to a mode of thought that contributed to the progress of the human soul..
The Saviour God
The loyal groups of Europe who moved northwards 12000 or 13000 years ago. Glaciation was still extensive. But, one route was open and attractive –the area of the Gulf stream.
Did men of high culture live on the shores of the Arctic Ocean? If we rely on the hymn of Rig Veda and the scriptures of the Aryan people who came to India from the North about 3500 years ago, the answer would seem to be yes.
In the literature, there is reference to a night and day of six months – to the sky turning like a wheel, to a procession of thirty dawns, and to sky in flames. The author must have lived in Arctic regions.
Sacrificial and sacred fire is important in Indo-European tradition. Ushas – the Goddess of the dawn – is one example.
Evidence of Favourable Climates and Habitation
Evidence from Indian and Persona hymns is confirmed by the Celts and Nordic people.
It is possible that movements of the ocean bed about 12,000 years ago increased the flow of warm water and encouraged pilgrims to travel. Also, evidence from Northern Siberia, where forests penetrated north at the end of the Ice Ages.
At the end of the Allerod – about 8900 BC – Finland, Norway, and Siberia were free from ice. So, human survival was possible from about 12,000 years ago.
As ice receded, reindeer-hunters occupied North German, Denmark, Scandinavia and the East Baltic. The occupied the north in summer and retreated in winter.
It is known that Upper Palaeolithic stock did live in the Arctic during the warm Boreal phase.
The Arctic group had withdrawn from the cultural activity of the rest of Europe, and certainly from Asia.
The Creative Work
The people of the Arctic centre were the Aryans. There is no Aryan race but there is an Aryan culture: a fixed pattern of human though, language, and beliefs.
They began somewhere in the Siberian shores – areas of volcanic activity produce zones of favourable conditions (mild winters and hot summers). Favourable to leisure, Intelligence guidance.
The central theme of Sanskrit songs is the hazardous and dramatic universe.
What about the Indo-European Language? It originated from the Arctic region. We can assume that the people who composed the Zend hymns had been influenced by the Northern Source. Conditions were ideal for the creation of complex analytical language structure., and magic allowed for the spreading of language.
2500 years and a hundred generations is necessary to transform language in an existing culture.
There is no example of a language having been created – the development of a language required not just a long time span but the capacity for consecutive far-sighted endeavour.
The Guides could not have known what later men could know, but they could see what men have lost the power to see.
The languages descended from the original Aryan are with us today, and spoken by 40 % of the earth’s population.
To picture the lives of cultural ancestors on the shores of the Arctic sea. Very fertile summers and long, dark winters.
Language must have been entirely pragmatic – such language would not be converted into new form capable of expressing abstract ideas. To introduce new forms of language, a motive powerful enough to attract and hold attention was needed.
Many philologists think that language and myths were developed together. This is true of indo-European family.
This has poignancy when we consider escape from evil powers that have taken homes. Good and evil became connected with night and day.
The theme of the war of the Bright and Dark powers was sung in hymns and enacted in ritual, designed to associate man with the Saviour God. A new language was created – a sacred language. Gradually, this language became familiar. The community turned to ritual practices: Guides were replaced by priests. Old language went out of use. Meanwhile the climate changed. The glaciers melted, but the Arctic ocean was freezing over.
Waters rose around the continents. Wind systems changed.
This was the time men learned to think..
The Epoch of Diffusion
After the retreat of the glaciers, the world seems to have been taken by wanderlust.
From the Four Centres, men came with gifts of language and insights into the secrets of nature and the creation. Education was underway.
The work was fraught with hazard. New techniques and ideas were transmitted.
At first only in the minds of men, but, over thousands of years, they would penetrate into social and technical activity of people.
Authority was the prerogative of the magicians.
Cohesion was achieved by sex and heritage – common ritual.
The next step took 6000 years.
Social organization limited technical advances.
The Epoch of Diffusion was not just a time of transmission through contacts but an intentional action of education. This was its essential nature corresponding to the existential movements initiated by environment and edaphic forces.
There was a link forming between the Guides and the responsive men.
The redistribution of peoples influenced by the four centres was organised. Each went in different directions.
What follows is the successive waves of migration.
Pp. 286-300
The Great Mother Culture
The near East entered the Neolithic phase more than 9000 years ago.
Their non-structural language was sufficient for their agricultural communities.
The Great Mother Culture expanded slowly because it tied people to the land.
The soil became exhausted, so agriculture spread. Towns grew where there was agriculture, which encouraged further expansion.
The Great Mother Culture spread into three areas:
Europe
Anatolia and SE Europe.
Early farming cultures in Bulgaria, N and Central Greece. From Aegean and Syria, farming spread to Mediterranean.
Danubian Neolithic Culture to Hungary, N Germany, and Galicia and Belgium.
Western Neolithic Culture began in Spain, Southern France and Italy. Then went up the Rhone valley and up the Atlantic coast to France and Britain.
Mother Goddess figures have been found in Windmill Hill in Britain – 5000 years from the present.
But no evidence of ritual with early Neolithic people; but later in Megalithic tombs and circular sanctuaries.
Such Megalithic architecture is found from East Mediterranean to Scandinavia and Orkney and Shetland. Perhaps this was spread by seaward ‘missionaries’.
Funerary cults may have come from ancestor worship.
There was also the ‘cult of the axe’ – a masculine symbol.
Iran and India
Neolithic economy spread very early in Persia: SE corner of the Caspian. Arts were then taken each side of the desert to Baluchistan. Farming villages developed.
Hill villages were developed 3000 year BC. From here, pioneering groups went down to the plain to found the great civilisations of the Indus Valley.
North Africa
The Mother Goddess cult was taken from SW Asia to Libya and Egypt by colonists.
The pattern of diffusion is discernable from 5th millennium BC.
The Great Mother Image spread leading to art and set customs.
The Great Spirit Culture
The people who were influenced by the Great Spirit centre lived mainly on hunting moving herds. They took the boldest and most extensive migrations.
In 3000 years, the Great Spirit Culture had spread over a third of the land surface of Earth. The main movements:
America
During the last phases of the Ice Age, one or more groups passed from Siberia and SE Asia to Alaska.
It must have been a broad plain with good grazing – thus attracted by animals.
Two routes were used: Pacific and Arctic coasts.
The Paudorf Interstadial was the most probably time of migration.
The Palaeolithic hunters followed the Mackenzie River into northern plains, up the Missouri, and to the Pacific east side, to the Rio Grande.
Others went to the rockies and spread south.
The two converged in Central America before entry into South America where they developed great civilisations in the Andes.
The two branches are known as Palaeo-western and Palaeo-eastern.
The Palaeo-eastern were essentially big game hunters: mammouth and bison – spear throwers.
They reached the valley of Mexico about 10000BC years BC. Similar to red Indians.
The Palaeo-western were rather vegetable food-gatherers. They were inventive: for example, basketry by 9000 BC; flour milling by stone by 7000 BC.
We find the Great Spirit Culture in the sacred dances of the Pueblo, and the thought of the Cheyanne and Shamanism.
The great civilisations of the south remain a mystery.
We find a hint of the Great Spirit tradition in Viracocha – lord instructor of the world. Sun-worship.
Also, the culture of the Eskimo: from Greenland to NE Siberia. Here, a man’s status is assessed by the number of people he can support.
The language is polysynthetic but involves many inflexions.
The Pacific
The South and East people moved into Burma and India, Southern China and Indonesia, Polynesia and the Pacific Ocean.
They arose in SE Asia.
They were originally Caucasoid, but amalgamated with a Mongoloid strain.
This was complicated with an Oceanic Negro strain, associated with Australoids.
By the second millennium BC, the Chinese were essentially Mongoloid.
Great movements across thousands of miles of ocean suggest a high degree of cultural development.
The Polynesian and Melanesian languages are rich in terms of the relationship.
There is a sense of a beneficial spiritual power in all things. There is a sense of cosmic joy.
Western Asia and Scandinavia
This is a third movement in an area now covered by the Gobi Desert.
Most of Asia was influenced by the Shamanist culture.
Finnish and Scandinavian cultures appears to have a double derivation from the Hyperborean and Far Eastern sources..
The Great Spirit Culture thus girdled the whole Earth.
The Creator God Culture
Assuming that the African centre was in Abyssinia, it is possible that only a northerly route was directed by the Guides. They understood the purposes of the Creator God.
Guides would have been amongst the founders of Egypt and encouraged homogeneity.
Ancient Egyptian was one form of hamatic.
The influence of Guides in Libya spread throughout the whole of North Africa and the Sahara.
The influence can also be seen more eastwards: where Semitic-Hamatic languages including Arabic can be found.
The Guides also extended to Somaliland – southwards to Kenya and Lake Victoria.
It is questionable as to whether or not the Abyssinian centre influenced the forest people of the Central and West.
Bantu language and peoples seem to have originated in the Nigeria-Cameroon region, and came to be spoken in the Congo Basin and Angola.
According to their traditions, men from the West brought the Sun-God and Sun-king worship to the Andes.
The Saviour God Culture
Apart from the linguistic and intellectual achievements of the Arctic centre, the peoples influenced by the Hyperborean notions may be credited with the highest skills in the domestication of animals.
Northern and Central Europe
The Maglemosian hunters and fisherman of North Europe and Russia were culturally linked with South Russia – and were ancestral to the early Indo-European speaking ‘battle-axe’ cultures between the North sea and the Volga.
They were Aryan tribes, and must have had their culture diffuse among them from the Arctic centre.
Southern Europe
Nomadic herdsmen came SW of the Urals, assign north of Caspian sea. They gave rise to the Southern Indo-European cultures from central France to Greece.
Western and Central Asia
Another stream entered the Central Asian plateau – through the Ob and Yenisei river valleys – and blended with people from the Far east.
They moved south again in the dry period – 7000-6000 BC.
They influenced the Oxus-Jaxartes region of the Turkman – and filtered into Iran and Afghanistan.
The Hyperborean World
While the Great Mother people were spreading south of the Caspian sea, the Indo-Europeans were moving to the north with the Hyperborean culture. They were living separately, but we enter a time of confluence, culminating in the seizure of power in Anatolia and northern Iraq, Persia and India.
Where the Hyperborean influence spread, we find notions of a hazardous universe.
The Celts, Norse and Iranians all possessed visions of the end of the world.
Also, all of them have the notion of a maleficent power threatening to break loose from its bonds and bring destruction to the world.
Images in ancient memories often suggest an Arctic home, where the heat of volcanic action clashes.
We find the theme of the Saviour-God Odin (Norse) who sacrifices himself upon the world tree Yggdrasill – ‘myself given to myself’.
The Beginning of the Great Tradition
We have tried to combine linguistic and ethnological scholarship with the basic thesis of the four centres of transformation.
These changes needed Leadership.
All known migrations were conducted by resolute leaders. They were not mass movements; still, the pattern of the modern world emerged.
Demiurgic Intelligence must have played a decisive part.
We need to recognise these things in order to understand the Great Work – creative, intelligent activity by which the Foreordained Plan of life upon earth is executed.
The Great work began about 35000 years ago, with the entry of creative energy into the human mind – through the Demiurgic Intelligences and Guides.
The Creation of language – the first Epoch of the Great Cycle – enabled a new class of men to form – Psychokinetic men, developed by their own endeavours. These were the first Priests and magicians. Leaders – morally, socially, and technically. The first self-made servants of the Great Work.
The transmission of secret rites and linguistic formulae depended on memory.
The sanctity of language assured transmission over vast areas. Gradually, instead of listening and receiving, people began to speak new languages.
At the period of the beginning of the present – say 7000 years ago – we wonder at what had been achieved: three radically different linguistic structures; the domestication of plants and animals; penetration across the globe.
High intelligences were in action.
This is the start of the Great Tradition.
The Exoteric Epoch
The price to be paid for the diffusion of the four great cultures amongst mankind was a tremendous increase in the complexity of social life.
Migrations and advances brought new stresses with them.
Authority was transferred to men not connected in consciousness with the Psychoteleios Guides.
The main Idea of the grand period was ‘Exteriorization’ of the Great Work.
A Middle Class appeared – without initiation,
The stage left coincided with the post-glacial climatic optimum which lasted until 5000 BC, turning into a dry climate with violent dust storms and the spread of deserts in central Asia and the Sahara.
Linguistic analysis shows that, before writing began, there was an interaction between the inflected Aryan languages, the trilateral or Africa-SW Asian group, the agglutinate of Great Spirit family and the gestural or Neolithic languages. There is then limited interchange and similar roots.
Each tradition had to contribute.
The notion of the sun as Creator, sun King, King as God came from some African Centre.
Old Indo-European myths are without such concepts.
The central theme for the Vedas is the tremendous struggle with the powers of darkness, in which man plays his part.
‘He who surveys it in the Highest Heaven
He alone knows – and even He may not know!’
‘Sole torch taking captive all lands every day
As one beholding them that walk therein;
He makes the seasons by months
Heat when he desires, Cold when he desires.
He makes the limbs to languish when he unfolds them
Every land is in rejoicing
At his rising every day, in order to praise him’
Let us set down what we can reconstruct of the beliefs of the four groups before the beginning of history.
Great Mother Culture
Man originally came from woman without a father. Man’s role in procreation is little understood. Children belong to the Mother clan. The Great Mother is also the Breast of Nature from which all life is nurtured. The special place of woman in agriculture gives her pre-eminence in the home. The culture is essentially practical. Closely knit and conservative society. The first householders.
Mother as Supreme God or Spirit.
Later, she has a consort. The Virgin Spirit impregnated by the Life Force – this brings plants and animals to the Earth, and Men.
Great Spirit Culture
No personal gods – either male or female.
It is everywhere the same.
In Tao it is more sophisticated – producing everything. But, not a Creator.
The spiritualization of matter is the coming of life.
Nothing is made because everything already is!
There are no Hyperborean problems nor Triumphant Sun God.
The spirit is omnipresent – but it works from within.
It does not reign in majesty.
There is a need to secure this spirit for oneself.
The Shamans and Guides have this knowledge – are the link with community and the Great Spirit.
They are men chosen as a vehicle for the spirit. They have nothing in themselves. Yet, they are feared and followed.
It produces tightly knit communities united by a common spiritual action.
This made the migrations possible. Also, the fixed social structures of the Far east.
Social Order.
The Cult of Ancestors and the sacredness of the family.
Death is seen in terms of the perpetual renewal that the spirit gives.
Pp. 300-315
Creator God Culture
Southern folk are confident that the Creator God is immortal and omnipotent (unlike Hyperborean anxiety) and able to endow earthly counterparts with the same..
Man is also destined to be immortal – attained from the King. – the Sun-God . Sun is the creator and his role is enacted by the representatives on earth.. Authority is always vertical, from higher to lower.
It may seem we are overlooking the polytheism of the Egyptians, but this has been discarded by Egyptologists. Their gods are in fact various natural and moral qualities manifested in the world. Manifestation has an important place – creative power.
This is opposite to Far Eastern belief: that the Great Spirit never manifests.
The creator god culture turns on the obligation to manifest. That is, Divine Kingship – the need to build structures and create imposing works of art.
Saviour God Culture
Existence here is a problem: of human existence, but also the insecurity of the gods as influence on receptive minds of the Indo-European culture.
We do not see existence as dramatic in any of the three traditions. People of the North were the first to grasp the notion of sin and evil. This comes from an acute need for salvation.
Indo-European people were seekers. They sought security in the south with the sun. When this was not offered to them, they turned to themselves for transformation. We can only guess at their state at this period. But the importance of the Hyperborean language and culture must be recognised – though transmitted to several different races. Seeing the importance of creativity, they have hastened the development of the human mind.
The Progress of the Epoch
This account of the four great cultures serves as an introduction of their impact on the Exoteric Epoch 7500 years ago.
The four great cultures were in the plan of the Great Work. – under conditions to produce maximum differentiation of beliefs, and specialization of language.
Each culture has a value in its own right. China, the Great Spirit Culture; the American and Polynesians produced variants not perceived by those who saw them.
Egypt was the first line of culture of history.
African produced great skills, but they were debased by invaders.
Nordic and Germanic cultures failed to give the fruits of their Drama of Existence.
The Great Mother Culture survived in the Mediterranean before a catastrophe.
These are the cultures of the ‘pure’ form.
Hybrid forms are of greater interest. Mutual impact came in SW Asia; this became the birthplace of civilisation and the great religions.
Human population was beginning; small loose communities formed. Different cultures came into contact.: different techniques and beliefs.
Intentional diffusion had to be achieved, so groups had to be kept apart.
The rise of Neolithic settlements, herdsmen, and hunters was balanced by an intermediate group with special responsibility.
Until then, men were of two kinds: Guides and Helpers destined for individualization, and ordinary people destined to return to the Soul-stuff pool.
New forms depended on cultural traditions.
The exoteric priesthood arose, acting as representatives of the sacred guides.
The paths of transmission – from Psychostatic to Psychoteleios groups – were brought into being. Men assumed responsibility for many areas. Chalcolithic phase accelerated – showing intelligence and initiative.
Men of the middle group assumed responsibility. Social organisation was necessary; sharing; techniques.
Events in different parts of the world remains obscure. Bering Straits – impassable; Americas developing independently; travel in Africa impossible; Asia almost uninhabitable.
But the river valleys were becoming inhabitable.
Construction began in defined regions.: Upper and Lower Egypt and Sumer; Norway and Denmark.
SW Asia shows great cultural continuity.
Region of fertile crescent from Egypt to the Persian was the scene of tremendous construction – laying the foundations of our present culture. Irrigation (probably first produced in the steps of Iran) was a key feature, so crops could be grown.
The step towards urban civilisation was planned. Europe was suitable for agriculture and urbanisation – but not for 1000 years. Exchange of goods, practical arts, need for order.
This was part of the plan to transfer responsibility to the human mind.
4th millennium advances were astonishing: the behaviour of the stars, planets, calendars; the potter’s wheel; use of oxen, plough, etc. A money economy. Systems of weights and measures. Commerce expanded.
The biggest innovation was writing. To begin with, there were two kind of representation: symbolic (records and ideas of culture) and indicative (records of concrete events). They came together by the end of the Epoch.
The Sumer alphabet was phonetic. Later people spoke Semitic tongues. Elamites also took this over. Languages then influenced each other.
Chinese and Hindu settlements also developed writing.
The Great Mother Culture was suited to the phonetic system of the Sumerians.
But there was simplification in the root languages.
Subtlety in spoken language was lost with the arrival of written language.
In the Nile valley, the powers of Upper and Lower Egypt had formed. Indus and Yellow River valleys were settled. Advanced cultures in Iran and Syria. The Mediterranean area was dominated by the Great Mother Cultures.
End of megalith builders around 3000 BC.
Expanding Danubians were threatened by Westerners. Trade connected Asia Minor with Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad with India.
In the central region, nomadic tribes carried out the trade of emergent civilisations. Specialist in new arts moved far and wide.
The progress of the Exoteric Epoch are now the heritage of mankind.
Man was exposed to material forces. The pursuit of wealth now came to dominate men’s minds.
The latent egoism of the human soul-stuff found an instrument of self-expression. A major factor in subsequent history.
Evil was unleashed. Jealousy, hatreds, disobedience, selfish disregard for the needs and suffering of others. But the potential for harm came with social organisation.
There is a greater incidence of implements of war. Protection became important.
Egypt was in conflict with Mesopotamia.
Class-oppression originated in the exoteric priesthood. The Middle group, having been given authority, established the relation of power of master and slave to preserve social coherence.
The fruit at the end was exploitation and weakening of the chain of transmission necessary for psychokinetic life.
The way of ‘initiation’ became hidden until the stage of ‘revelation’.
The Hemitheandric Epoch
The Guides did not withdraw responsibility but increased it. They presented to men the picture of men like themselves in appearance but nevertheless superhuman, godlike.
They were not gods, or divine, but were destined to achieve Individuality. We give them the name Hemitheandros: half-god, half-man. In Egypt, the Hemitheandros was almost identified with the Sun-God Re.
In the regions influenced by the Aryans, he was the Hero who associates with higher powers. In the Great Mother tradition, he was the son of the Great Mother.
The Hemitheandros were believed to have discovered the secrets of immortality, and could enable others to enjoy it.
Generally, he was not a priest; although sacramental in character. The Nile flood depended on his actions. He took over the fertility cult that belonged to an earlier epoch and transformed it into an act of service or kinship that assured the return of the seasons.
The new image entered into human society towards the end of the 4th Millennium. The rise of Kingship would be the work of the Guides and Initiates. This is human love for power amongst the few.
But they were not ordinary tyrants, but lawgivers, healers, sages, and symbols of ideal theocratic society. They were not ordinary men. There are many accounts of their historical achievements: Brhadartha, Ikshvaku, Manu, Menes, Imhotep. The kings of Sumeria were concerned with the dispensation of human justice.
Behind these steps, we see the guidance of the Demiurgic Intelligences. The Great Work always operates within the natural order framework. The Hemitheandros was not a capricious autocrat, but primarily a wise ruler who could do what no one else could do.
Two objectives can be seen behind the decision to launch the Hemitheandros. First, to create an authority that would regulate activity in exoteric society: including a governing class. Administrators, reflecting sacred power of the Hemitheandros. They mitigated conflict. Written codes were drafted in some places.
Second, the formation of notions about man and his destiny to prepare for a more responsible participation in the great work.
Immortality was a factor of decisive influence; it was promised to those who linked their lives to the hero – a superior afterlife. We find it in China, Egypt, Sumeria, India.
A sanction was given to the moral order and to theocratic institutions. This was important for the great work, as it awoke people to the notion of action that might conflict with their egoism. Until that time, there was lack of initiative and obedience of Guides and helpers. For the Hemitheandros period, men depended on a visible man: link with immortality and guarantor of social order.
The passion of the heroic search of Gilgamesh is a reflection of awakening of human reason and real immortality. A sense of the bond between men and gods arose.
The failure of the heroes was a preparation for the notion of the God of Salvation. This was the epoch of an awakening of an exoteric religious sense.
Divination was also important in this epoch. Omen (Sumeria and Babylonia), Astrology (China). An understanding of synchronous patterns.
The magicians guiding the human population brought the modern races of man into being by the genetic control of mating. The belief that mating is a secret science persisted. This was an important influence on human development.
Candidates for psychokinetic admission were chosen at birth according to the characteristics of their parents, etc.
Whilst the priesthood took care of complex rules and hepatoscopy, patterns of the conception of children was confined to counsellors and initiates. This depended on the power of their finer perceptions. The human mind probably developed finer perceptions then than now.
Powers or group of powers are sometimes developed ahead of others – sometimes needed at a particular time or period. They then fall into abeyance, and then others develop – thus, a zig-zag pattern in the human mind.
The point of the special training was to select special people for a special job in hand: men with highly developed mental powers for setting up the social structures which were to maintain life for four millennia: that is, Civilisations – city-states, empires (including shipbuilding, navigation, metallurgy, etc..)
Intercourse between remote areas proceeded regularly. There were experiments in social organisation: Communism in Egypt 9th – 11th dynasties; theocratic monarchy in Lagash.
Respect for human life was almost completely lacking in the Hemitheandric period. High virtues and low regard for human life (eg. The Homeric poems).
The Hemitheandric Epoch was marked by another great flowering of science and technology. Astronomy and Mathematics (Babylonian). Medical practice, and arithmetic geometry (Egypt).
Megaliths date from 3000 BC. The accuracy of the pyramids is amazing: 1 in 4000. Also the social organisation needed to do this.
Yet we still do not fully appreciate the achievements of the epoch. The Egyptians and Babylonians laid the foundations of the modern scientific tradition which reached Europe 3000 years later from the Greeks and Arabs. There was no sense that man could find out about the structure of his world from his mind and senses.
Chaldean speculation belongs to the next epoch. Theoria did not exist yet. When it came from Ionian philosophers, they drew on cosmological notions of Babylon and Egypt.
The Hemitheandric Epoch appears as a single phase of technical achievement from our own perspective. It was a cycle of transformation. At the end, men looked back towards the first great thinkers and their traditions. The separation of exoteric society from esoteric groups was almost complete. The myth of the ‘ancients’ who knew the true science was created and carried into Europe. This led people to something they had to create for themselves.
The penetration of creative activity into the middle order of society during the epoch has left traces in works of art. These are more abundant and higher in skill and variety. Until then, art was mainly esoteric and magical. But, in the Hemitheandric period, it became a means of expressing the value system of cultures.
Karnak is to this day the world’s masterpiece of majestic building.
The refinement of the goldsmiths and jewellers’ arts as executed in Mesopotamia goes back to the third millennium. By the start of the second, it had spread to Crete and the Far East. The skill of weavers and designers was so great, that the women’s costumes of the ladies of the 18th Dynasty (Minoan Crete) can be called the best-dressed in history.
It is necessary to turn from the general survey of characteristics of the Epoch to the general pattern of events.
By the third millennium BC, the whole of Eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the Great Mother tradition, and colonists were entering into Europe.
In the Far East, the Great Spirit tradition was concentrated in the emerging Chinese nation on the banks of the tributaries of the Huang Ho. At this time, the Polynesian and Melanesian travellers were embarking into the Pacific. In North America, the Indians were entering their ‘Archaic period’ – with the articulation of a complex tribal structure.
The middle third of the period appears to have been a time of troubles – discontinuity in the dynasties of Egypt, for example, conflict between northern and southern China, and wars of Sargon of Akkad. By 2000 BC, Crete had risen to a dominant position.
Pp. 316-329
By 1700 BC Sumaria is controlled by the non-Semitic power of the Kassite dynasty. Egypt in times of trouble.
Crete (a very advanced culture – bronze, fast-dying, loadstone navigation) was destroyed in the second millennium BC by volcanic eruptions near Santorini – Atlantis.
These events are significance of men’s mind maturation.
Two events were developing:
Egypt/ Crete – Sun-God and Great Mother cultures.
Babylon/ Lagash – Saviour-God and Great-Spirit.
These were reconciled in Christianity.
Crete was the centre of Great Mother worship. But they were a cruel power.
Destruction put an end to them and thus restored Great Mother culture.
The Children of Israel. They came from Mesopotania and spent centuries in Egypt.
They came from Great Spirit culture, but adopted Sun-God culture in Egypt.
They rejected the Great Mother cult.
Are we to regard the destruction of Cretan culture as miraculous intervention?
Santorini eruption was part of the ‘Pre-determined future’ – and could have been seen by ‘seeing’ men.
Moses was a prophet of psychoteleios society, and thus could pull off coups.
Power throughout the world was changing.
Mountain tribes and pastoral people began to gather strength.
Indo-Europeans had a big impact.
The Aryan invasion took place at the same time as the exodus from Egypt. There was a fusion of cultures.
Mitani Kingdom arose out of infiltration of the same cultural groups. They took symbols of the horse and sun.
By 1200BC Thraco-Phrygean tribes entered into Asia-Minor.
The Indo-European infiltration was most significant in Iran. Iranians assumed power amongst dispersed states of the Iranian plateau. This lead to the Persian Empire.
We see the decay of the Hemitheandric ideal everywhere.
Eygpt/ Mesopotamia were losing their coherence and power.
The end of the Bronze Age in the Near East was a dark period. The last Pharoah, Rameses III (1198-1166 BC) wasted the strength of Egypt in wars.
Babylon went through a decline, even though art and science were practised in the old ways.
The great Chinese civilization of the east was poisoned. It was diverse and stable – confident in Spirit Power and the family.
The seizure of power by the barbarian Chous marked the disintegration of the old social and cultural harmony.
The collapse was accelerated by the arrival of new agricultural techniques from the Yangste valley.
Exoteric history lost its coherence.
Commerce was only motivated by the search for gain.
Guided exchange was replaced by collisions due to political force.
Contact with the priesthood was weak and it lost its influence.
The Iron Age marked a huge change: developments from Spain to China.
Man was awakened to a destiny beyond his present life, with war, misery, and deported populations.
Attempts were made to restore man’s relationship to Divine Power through prophets, sages who sought to restore the true relationship between the three levels of society
The early Hebrew culture shows allegorical presentations of the secrets of human destiny – of beauty and aptness.
The heroic epoch ended, but there was nothing to show where/how a new start might be made.
In India, the sacred sites by which the Varnas were able to experience the creative mind had degenerated into empty ritualism.
Babylon had yielded its authority to Nineveh.
The prophets of captivity addressed themselves to Israel.
The exoteric levels of society had let slip the thread linking them to spiritual groups of the esoteric level.
By7th century BC, the divorce of the mind of man from his soul was almost complete.
All man was in captivity.
The significant events were not of political history or technical achievements.
The enforced transportation of whole populations under the Assyrians and the spread of colonization in the Mediterranean brought about a mutual impact of cultures in which the future patterns were realized.
Men were ready for a new understanding of human responsibility, but it did not come easy.
Chapter 48
Mind and Love
The Great Work
Time is an important aspect of how time is measured. The task to be accomplished has its own time – for which acceleration has no meaning. The goal is in the hyparchic future. The event is in the hyparchic present and reverberates within total harmony? These are united in the Master Idea of the epoch. In the early stages, awareness of the Plan for life on earth was confined to Demiurgic Intelligences. We see an unveiling of history as we approach our present time. From one epoch to the next, each master idea is more understandable to us.
The Mind of Man grows towards maturity. Each phase has only a definite duration. All transformation takes place within the present moment.
Man is not alone on the earthly stage. The pattern of history is created by intelligences beyond our own. Man has the role to understand his role. It is by human understanding that the Higher Intelligences can be effective. He provides the way for the pattern to be achieved. But it is by commitment to the event that the Timeless present is established. Man’s commitment does not vanish. The taint of egoism is in our acts of commitment, and thus remains in history. That is why, we shall see, the Redemption of man included an action in the hyparchic past..
Every cycle holds a promise. There is always failure – the Master idea is misunderstood and distorted.
Man learns responsibility by living through it. He is accompanied by in the hyparchic future by intelligences.
Each task must contribute to the Great Work – the creative activity by which the evolution of life is helped towards its Plan. The goal appears as destiny – the form of the future.
How did the intelligences see it at the end of the Hemitheandric Epoch?
The slow evolution of life towards mind. – itself dependent on the Demiurgic Intelligences.
Responsibility is passing from these to man.
Much that seems odd in human life can be explained in terms of men being needed to accompany tasks, measured not in years, but millennia. They need to have consciousness and creativity, to construct an ideal human society they also need Unitive Energy (E2).
Creativity can be transmitted by Demiurgic Power because it is inherent in Demiurgic Nature. Love may operate in Demiurgic Essence, but not as an inherent attribute. The necessity of impartial love has increased through human history, and its transmission is wonderful. Without it, the foreordained plan could not be realized. Love allows man to subordinate his personal creativity to the service of a higher purpose.
There was a fusion of Cosmic Individuality and the human soul was normally possible, allowing for the infusion of Unitive Energy (E2). This transforms the whole race. But, normality did not apply because of the taint of egoism.
All men share in egoism because they participate in the soul-stuff pool: already thousands of generations of them by the end Hemitheandric Epoch. The atavistic taint is not abstract but a substantial condition.
All existence is material. Matter is a form of energy – hyle, and can be in one of three states – actual, potential, virtual. The existence of mind is thus drawn from a vast reservoir of energies –in a state of virtuality. The energies are complex and include Vital Energy (E7) and Creative Energy (E3) – the region between living and cosmic states of hyle.
The soul-stuff pool is not homogeneous. It varies according to past experience, but it is affected by egoism.
But Personal Individuality is not touched by it. But the Will depends on the mind to exercise powers associated with the body. Man’s will is not free and egoism intervenes even when the mind wants to put it aside. The Great work must take this into account.
The task of the Great Work is to enable humanity to be the creative agent of the Cosmos.
During this period, the Great task was to assure the evolutionary progress of the human mind. And to liberate the soul-stuff pool from egoism.
The first task was ordained by the Demiurgic Intelligences and associated with the Solar System. The second task was necessary because some of them did not do their job. This because they are tempted to depart from the plan; as conscious they are aware of the imperfection of the world, and do not see its total significance or rightness.
These powers and weaknesses appear in men whose Demiurgic Natures have been awakened: the two lower groups of Psychoteleios Humanity.
These are created to aid the Great Work, to cooperate with the Demiurgic Intelligences, and receive direction from higher Psychoteleios groups – prophets and messengers. They are in direct communication with the hyparchic future. Men and women of the psychostatic group are seldom involved in the great work. They are not recognised since they can only be seen by people that can perceive. They might be magicians, soothsayers, heroes, rulers, prophets, and priests. They are usually regarded as mythical.
Because men are creative, there have always been men who can discern the hyparchic future and man’s destiny, and they have intervened to advance the goals of mankind.
We shall use the term Hidden Directors for those aware of the purposes pursued in the evolution of mankind. There must be a structure by which Hidden Guides cooperate and transmit their influence. The Hidden Directorate. They need to help mankind to develop both individually and socially, so that they can assume responsibility for destiny and fulfilment of their mission of earth.
The Great Work must be directed by Intelligences whose timescale is 1000s and 10,000s years. So, the Directorate can see ahead and make plans that will take a long time to mature.
But they cannot interfere with natural laws.
Modern man knows little about energies beyond the material tetrad. So, even natural laws might appear to him as supernatural.
The Directorate would be a centre for the transformation and concentration of energies.
The Great Work is also not perceived as such by any external marks. They must be inferred by events .
We might dismiss the hypothesis of hidden intelligence if there was no evidence of it! But there is evidence of foresight, purpose, and coordinated action. Therefore, we must conclude that there are Great minds at work.
It is not easy to identify the work of Demiurgic Intelligence in contemporary history. The humanistic revolt has been so strong that people now accept providence is not possible. The refusal to accept Hidden Direction comes from the recent epoch – with its sense of human greatness. There is a sense that man does not need Hidden Direction. His mastery of the earth is a liberation from superstitious ideas.
But there is direction only for the assumption of man’s responsibility for destiny on earth. During the Hemitheandric Epoch, progress was made towards the externalization of the Psychokinetic group so that specialists were transferred to the generality of mankind. Scientists, technicians.
Hidden groups withdrew, which meant significant change.
The Megalanthropic Master Idea
There was great uncertainty and confusion.
With the Hemitheandric Epoch, there was a sense of interaction in human life; by the intervention of the Hero or Demigod humanity had been drawn into a complex social structure. The four cultures had met and merged. There was then great variety of practices and beliefs. Discourse between people was easier.
Economic and technical progress were in contrast with political and social degeneration.
There were many political histories in far East, India, Central and South-west Asia, Egypt and Mediterranean.
Also disintegration in South and Central America. Some were quite short – China. The thirst for conquest was common.
Such was the consequence of confronting mankind with the doctrine of the Superman.
Is it a failure that heroes failed to be heroes? No, man was not ready to grasp the idea of supernatural reality – that is individual but not yet self. The Hemitheandric doctrine was a step towards religion – it prepared men to approach ideas that even today would be too subtle for the logical mind.
Two major influences entered after this period: Megalantropy (human greatness) – the master idea of the new epoch – and Divine Love (manifested through Cosmic Individuality) – the counterpart of events 25000 years ago with the taint of egoism.
These two actions were part of the Great Plan and foreseen many thousands of years earlier by those who read the hyparchic future.
Now, it seems that man has responded better to Megalanthropy than Divine Love. We might therefore accept one and deny the other. The progress of the mind appears to have outstripped the soul. It will take many thousands of generations for a change in the condition of the human soul-stuff.
Megalanthropy is not incompatible with the Great Work. It can be looked at in two ways: existential (man’s actuality – Mind) and essential (his higher nature, and potential for transformation – Soul).
The third way of looking at human greatness is in terms of Individual Will: the merging of mind and soul.
The first is humanism (domain of fact), the second is religion (domain of value), and the third is Synergism (domain of harmony)– that man is destined to cooperate in the Cosmic plan.
Humanism is interested in time, religion in eternity, and synergism in hyparxis.
Humanism and religion appeared at the beginning of the Megalanthopic epoch – developing side by side for 2500 years. Synergism was proclaimed in regions as far apart as Mexico and Persia, but not understood – ‘only kings could cooperate with the gods’.
Pp. 329-345
The Birth of Religion
Religion is a revolt against Hemitheandry – socially. By 7 century BC, men had grown sick of Divine rulers, priests – the supernatural world. Religions develop in a world where people are avid for assurance in own significance.
By the 6th century, social and cultural conditions had become favourable. Unrest gave way to new activity. Particularly noticeable in south-west Asia, the centre of the new traditions. There is evidence of the new Hidden Directorate preparing men’s minds.
Communication between previously separated communities is necessary; the Assyrians opened channels of commercial and cultural exchange between East and West. Their empire had collapsed by the end of the seventh century BC. New histories emerged in the next four hundred years. Human history was becoming quieter.
The core of the oikoumene was dominated for two hundred years by the Persian empire. This and the rise of Greece were the two great events of the west. – here we see rulers for the first time making the Hemithenadric claim. The Great king was the protector of religion, not its head.
The transfer from Heroic to Humanistic Age was made simultaneously in most parts. New voices were heard 6th century BC – they spoke of the sanctity of the human individual. We need to understand this in terms of the Great Work.
Individualization was open to all, but an obstacle had to be removed. This was achieved only with selective individuals in the past, now it was open to all. So, the new voices were voices of Revelation. But, knowledge alone does not remove egoism. So, revelation was supplemented with redemption. Man had to be prepared: the five centuries before the coming of Christ. With this, there would have been no response to the Cosmic Individuality.
Things were prepared thousands of years earlier, but each of the four centuries made a distinct contribution to the preparation. Then, the first public utterance of the word was heard almost simultaneously.
The idea of God that emerges is that of Cosmic action from an ineffable source. The sun: man cannot look at it directly.
Creation – the Great Mother.
The two actions are: the spirit (the great spirit) and the word (the saviour/ Dying God).
The four terms are combined in the Unity of the Tetrad: Cosmic Action – Idea of God. The Hidden Directorate must have knew of this – the ‘Opening Chord’ of the Revelation – accompanied by messengers, prophets, who pronounced on the four basic notions:
The Great Mother
Associated with the mysteries of Greece., Syria, Egypt
Made its contribution much later. We would include Pythagoras (560-480 BC) in the Great Mother culture. Union with the Great Mother.
The Great Spirit
Lao Tzu and Confucius.
Teaching of spirit Tao – source and end of all. Social responsibility of those possessing Jen – goodness
Gautama Buddha was the best known in India. Kapila was earlier. Was the first exponent of the triad. Mahavira Jain and Makkali were both reformers who were influenced by Great Spirit notions.
The Creator God
The Egyptian Hemithenadric Sun-God had been taken over by Horus and played little part in the new dispensation. But one supreme god is beautifully expressed in passages from the prophets. ‘I am Jahweh and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I doeth all these things’.
But there was also hope in the human person. The Creator God was no longer personified in the Sun-King – but now as Supreme Being – the Father of all men’.
The Saviour God
This was Zoraster or Zarathushtra.
Zoraster made the addition of Vohu Manah – or the Good Mind. The first statement of the Logos or Word-God associated with wisdom. By which God overcomes the evil spirit Angra Mainyu. This developed in the doctrine of the Saviour. Man has failed God by sinning and therefore needs redemption. Man is needed in the struggle which cannot be won without his help. This is at variance with the Creator-God and Great Spirit doctrine – and was the precursor of the Christian doctrine.
A new religion was founded in Mexico by the Zapotec Prophet – it attaches primary importance to cycles of 260 years, each which ends with the world in peril of destruction. Here, too, man is obliged to help God in the struggle over evil.
Zoraster claimed that all men should take part in the Great Work. This work is not just here and now or in the future, but ‘beyond time’. This can be seen as the ‘hyparchic future’.
The Drama of Revelation
These ideas spread across the world and changed its course. Men had no rights before then. Justice was given and withheld by those who placed themselves between men and God. With the new dispensation, justice became a right., and now could not be entirely withheld.
Personal destiny also changed. Men previously longed for immortality but only found it with Hero and Priests – action not to be performed himself. But the new message was, ‘work out your own salvation’.
Who were the men who appeared to change the world?
Some were just prophets whilst others were messengers of the Universal Individuality, who bore the message of the hyparchic future. The main message was the ‘value of the human person’. This idea of the perfectability of man was new. This is the master idea of the Megalanthropic Epoch. Working out this idea brought the modern world. It is the foundation of religions, our societies and politics.
Tradition says that more than one messenger met, but usually with the idea of one triumphing over another. The paradox is that the Great Work was affirmed by all, yet each claimed exclusive validity. Is this compatible with the notion of a truly Great being – a messenger whose will is united in then Universal Individuality.
Here, we take account of the Human Mind. It is amazingly powerful, but it works by selecting a small part in order to form its present moment. Not even the most powerful mind can see it all. Above and beyond the mind are the energies of love and creativity. The great prophets entered the spiritual realm with higher faculties. The mind and tongue cannot utter the world beyond.
The tragedy of Hamlet is to see too much and to lose the power to act. The prophets saw this but rejected all that did not concern their message. That included anything formulated in words not their own.
The communicating of the Message is a vital part of the Great Work. We might compare the great Sages, Prophets, Messengers of the 6th century to actors whose task it is to present a dramatic episode to the public. They say their own part, but this might conflict with others.
The very nature of Drama is the experience of Hazard, and hazard arises out of separation. But the unity of the drama is preserved. The drama was no less than the birth of religion – the bond between men and god. Before, there was a link but not a bond. The message was that there was indeed a bond and it was personal.
We look at the best-known example of this hidden work in the history of the Israelites. Before the captivity of Babylon, the people of Israel were more or less loyal to Jahweh their God and their own prophets, in whom they were to believe uniquely. Their only idea of sin was in the disobedience to the commandments – so no concept of salvation. Jahweh could forgive or punish. Religion remains Hemitheandric. Jahweh is pictured as the son of righteousness. Jews in captivity were brought into contact with the Hyperborean culture and the teaching of Zoraster. The prophets of the Captivity and especially Ezekiel are aware of the need for a redemptive act.. Man has a part to play in the Divine Plan. The Jews drained the spiritual content of the Zorastrian/ Hyperborean culture.
So, there is the amazing story of Adam and Eve, and the promise of Redemption. The Israelites expect redemption after this – and the redeemer. He is born of a virgin. He was born of a virgin in line with the Great Mother cult, and entered the Christian tradition, not through the Jews but by way of the Phrygians in Antioch.
The future was thus seen and prepared for: the work of the Hidden Directorate.
This account runs counter to the ‘casual interpretation of history’. It also conflicts with the ‘providential’ interpretation that postulates a supernatural intervention. No-one likes the idea of a ‘Hidden Directorate’ – it is an affront to our sense of human dignity. Yet, if we look at the marvellous coordination of the events that brought the Israelites into contact with each of the four great cultures in turn, one can scarcely avoid the conclusion that they were indeed chosen people; perhaps because they were strong minded enough to stand up to the tremendous strains and stresses of being the crucible in which the four cultures were fused.
The history of the Greeks, Persians, Phrygians, Indians and Chinese were not less extraordinary; for example, how Buddhism became a world religion through the conversion of two powerful monarchs – the grandson of Chandragupta, King Asoka (270 BC) and the Greek King, Menander of Sagala (180 BC). This enables missionaries to convey much needed concepts of man and his nature to all parts of Asia just a century before the time of Christ.
The hypothesis of the Hidden Directorate begins to appear more plausible the more events are looked at from a total perspective.
Recognition of structure always depends of seeing things on the right scale. We cannot see the body from a single bone or organ, or symphony from an instrument. So, both duration and size must be right if we are to see the structure of history. The birth of history was not a single note, nor a moment in time, but a long symphonic utterance – its structure can only be grasped in its eternal and hyparchic entirety.
The essential character of a religion is about a personal relationship between the individual human soul and a Divine person. This was unknown in earlier periods. It is a necessary stage towards Human Individuality, but can only be understood in the perspective of the hyparchic future where human destiny is prepared. Personality is a mode of existence that must be transcended. It is a state of relatedness that emerges from the dyad and leads to activity. When man began to understand the universal, religion appeared. This is personal and associated with significance of the human person that characterised the Megalanthropic Epoch. Man in this sate worships a personal God. But, this turns into self-worship of a human person.
To understand the problem of evil and sin, and its resolution in history, we turn to ‘The Time of Christ’.
The Time of Christ
This section discusses the suggestion that the Cosmic Individuality is the Logos, or Word of God, the Son of the Father incarnated as Jesus Christ.
We have seen three ways to understand the Master Word of the Megalanthropic Epoch: humanist, religious and synergic. Perceived irreconcilability between humanist and religious views is due to rigidity of both. This stops when we place them in their historical context: the evolution of humanity necessitated by the sinful taint of the Soul-Stuff Pool.
The Cosmic Individuality alone can redeem Existence from the consequences of sin. This is the sacrifice of Being through involvement in existence, and is not restricted to any time or place. But, there are local concentrations of sinfulness. Sinfulness is nevertheless spread across the cosmos. The ‘fall of man’ is simply a concentration of sinfulness, not a penetration into a sinless state. Once it began, it would increase.
A redemptive act was needed – directed at man, not existence generally – by a ‘non-sinful’ agent.: that is, the Incarnation and Redemptive sacrifice of the Son of God – a unique event in history.. Still, the earth is not unique, but just one instance of the Drama of Existence.
We need to see the Incarnation as reasonable in the light of the three thousand million years of history before Christ and the two thousand years after. We cannot see it just as a ‘religious’ issue, as this word itself is quite modern.
Christians have a problem explaining the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Redemptive death and resurrection/ ascent into heaven of Jesus Christ, faced with modern science. They therefore rely on a ‘sanctifying Grace of Christ’, working in the individual soul and the beauty of the Christian ethic. This is to avoid the historical enigma. But, they then lose the essential content of the Christian faith.
If Christ is in spirit only, we lose the faith of the Apostles (that the son of God was made flesh), and the dual nature of Christ. If we cannot accept that Jesus was both Man and God, we either abandon reason, or the right to call ourselves Christians. We need to solve the issue in terms of synergic doctrine: that man was destined to cooperate in his own creation.
The humanistic interpretation calls for things that can be verified by sense data/ experiments. Christian doctrine fails this. Thus, it is seen as a mere episode in man’s progress. In so doing, it loses the very instrument of its own evolution, and is confronted with the dilemma of cause and purpose. There can be no sin if we simply deny the Creative purpose, or any aim other than man. Sin is here a psychological disturbance. Yet humanists do speak of sin and of a ‘higher law’ that must be obeyed. Sin is so part of being human that, even when rejected as illusory, it remains as a part of our behaviour. The inescapable character of sin makes the Christian doctrine of atonement a necessity.
The humanist dilemma is that progress is now clearly not inevitable. The Marxist view discounts a society of perfection; the Darwinist doctrine breaks down when the unfit can be eliminated. Man must assume responsibility for his own transformation. But what does this mean? And, how? He has to make progress towards something he does not know, but only can be known by him.
The fallacy of aesthetic humanism is by no means appreciated. There is a sense of the blind leading the blind. Many therefore go back to Christianity to see what the Doctrine of Divine Providence has to offer. This would be stronger if the anachronism of Christian teaching could be seen as unnecessary to the essential Gospel. But, we must not water it down, or deny it. It needs to be re-examined in the light of the theory of Consciously Guided Evolution. It is necessary to study both the origins of Christianity and the problem of Christology (the only –begotten Son of God was incarnate as Jesus Christ and died for man’s salvation).
This touches the ‘will of God’ and ‘the person of Jesus.
No man accepts unquestionably the link between man and God. Many have views different from the synergic hypothesis: that man exists to work for a High Purpose, in co-operation with Wisdom and love far greater than his own. We ask of the bearing of these on the origins of Christianity.
There are two errors to avoid: false hypostatization and naïve anthropomorphism.
The first denies a personal God but refers to ‘Nature’ or ‘Time’ or ‘Life’ as if they are all powerful, omnipresent Beings with most of the attributes that a theist would subscribe to God. Many try to create a world without a God, but then use a principle which is in effect a ‘non-human intelligence’: for example, the Vital Urge, Creative Evolution, or Entelechy, which are no longer fashionable, but words like ‘orthogenesis’, ‘trends’, ‘tendencies’ take their place. Each needs a person to entertain it. If we deny directedness, then we need to resign ourselves to anarchy, and refuse intelligence anywhere. So, false hypostatization – to assert a principle as impersonal but then to treat it as a person – is the cause of alienation of science from religion.
Naïve anthropomorphism describes nature and actions of Deity in human terms, whilst ascribing to God attributes such as infinity, omniscience and omnipotence – not associated to man. This does not arise for Islamic philosophers since Allah is otherwise by definition. Yet, because person is often attributed to selfhood, the Qur’an attributes face, eyes, hands, and mental processes to Allah.
The significance of Jesus is so only if it is not interpreted in anthropomorphic terms. The Father of Jesus is Will: ‘I speak not for myself: but the Father, that dwelleth in me, he does his works’. ‘If a man love me, he will hear my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him’. This is the transformation of the Will, not as human deification but by fusion of Being.
Every man has a Personal Individuality, every man born on earth has a Body-Mind complex. The two are only compatible if mind is transformed into soul – Selfhood into Individuality.
The need for transformation comes partly from the atavistic taint of sin: but even if man were sinless, he would still be subject to the limitation of existence and perfect union of Will and Being would be impossible. If, however, the Will is not personal but that of the Cosmic Individuality the situation is totally different. The Incarnation of the Cosmic Individuality is possible only in an already perfected body-mind and therefore transformation is unnecessary. The very incompatibility of God-head and Man-hood precludes any process of change.
The supreme affirmative Will is beyond all determination and such terms as ‘present’ and ‘absent’ have no kind of meaning as applied to it. The same is true of all Cosmic Impulses – World III is outside of history, and thus free from limitation of existence.
Therefore, for the Cosmic Individuality to enter existence, Supreme Will must individualise. The son does enter existence to redeem it, but not historically. The historical Incarnation is necessitated only by the special circumstances of man’s sinfulness.
There is a distinction between: the Unbegotten Cosmic Impulse, the Begotten Son of God, and the Incarnated Christ.
When man awoke to the value of the human person, this was the consequence of original sin. Man could not escape from the temptation because of the rebel Demiurgic Will. Human mind-stuff became soul-stuff, and thus impregnated with Self-hood – thus tainted. This is a state of Being – thus, a tetrad. It could not change its own nature except by ceasing to exist. The doctrine of existence being suffering can be linked to Buddhism and Stoic philosophy. The time was therefore ripe for an intervention.
12-13000 years had passed since the last major action that had inaugurated the Four Cultures. A new Dispensation was expected. The Hidden Directorate would have known that what was being prepared was beyond knowing. Not even the highest form of creative energy could restore to humanity the essence nature that had been forfeited.
It could not be understood because it lay in the Realm of Impossibility outside of existence. A new power was at work in the empty spaces of existence: Unitive Energy (E2) – the Power of Love concentrated within a living man. The Unitive energy is not concentrated by the Demiurgic Power and did not enter the human soul-stuff together with creativity. Love entered the soul-stuff of humanity with the Incarnation. That is not to say there was no love before Christ, since the Incarnation was Hyparchic – thus felt throughout history. But, its significance did not penetrate the human mind until Christ. This can also be found in Buddhists texts: first century Buddhists texts emphasise ideas of causality and redemption but not compassion and redemption. True also of early Hebrew scriptures – which ascribe love to men not God.
Pp. 345-359
The concentration of love is not the same as the Incarnation, nor would it be effectual without Redemptive Sacrifice.
It is therefore necessary to distinguish between preparitry activity (the work of the Hidden Directorate) and the Incarnation (Act of Will whereby the Cosmic Individual entered existence).
The preparitry work can be seen to be necessary from historical traces. Hence, the focus on the ‘event’ as a fulfilment of prophesy. The messiah, the ‘perfected man’, can be seen both in Jewish texts and Socrates. These themes can be traced back to the Four Cultures.
These did not emerge fortuitously, but bear signs of ‘higher intelligence’.
Fields of action were SW Asia, NE Africa, SE Europe – combination of Saviour God tradition and the Hyperborean Culture.
Man’s attitude to time also had to be changed: from one of no expectation of a better future, to the notion of a ‘new world’. This was an ‘Exoteric Event’.
But, Messiah as God was unthinkable. So, they could not accept him when he came.
The Incarnation was not a special problem for the Greeks., nor ‘dying God’ unfamiliar in Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
The Virgin birth was foreshadowed in the Great Mother Culture – and fixed the literal truths of the Incarnation of God as man in the minds of Eastern Christianity.
The Great Spirit Culture predisposed men’s minds to accept the gifts of the Holy Spirit..
The elements were therefore present but did not coalesce until ‘the Event’.
This coalescence required the working of the Unitive Energy. This was the working of the second Mesoteric field of action. This leaves no historical traces. But, it is assumed that Jesus had contact with the Hidden Directorate.
At this time, men began to connect love with God and the Divine purpose.
Unitive energy brought about the coalescence of incompatible doctrines.
The third field of action was entered with the Annunciation and the dialogue between Mary and Gabriel. This was the esoteric element that runs through the gospel story.
The temporal future and the hyparchic future are different modes of transcending the present moment: hence the dichotomy of the saying ‘the Kingdom is at hand’ and the actual historical events. Jesus is concerned with the hyparchic future.
The Annunciation refers to the hyparchic present. – connecting the Event with the Past and the Future.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not to be interpreted as implying the soul of Mary was pure or non-human, but that it was drawn from the hyparchic past – before original sin. The Immaculate Conception therefore connects with the first human soul as the Annunciation connects with the final purpose of the creation of man.
There is one act of Will that is unrestricted by the condition of temporal succession. In time, it is complex, uncertain and dramatic. In hyparxis, it is single and complete – mankind must be redeemed.
When the act is transferred into time, misunderstanding is inevitable. This is why Jesus says he must go into the future and prepare a place for them. This makes sense from a hyparchic point of view, but not a temporal one.
His kingdom is not ‘of this world’. So where is it?
The Kingdom of God was not to materialise in time and space. It is action!
It is a creative future which acts o the present moment.
To interpret the Christian doctrine in terms of the four determining conditions is the only way to reconcile it with experience.
The three domains of the event – Exoteric (Functional – what is happening), Mesoteric (Transformational – Being – to whom), and Esoteric (Volitional – Will- how it is happening) – correspond to the three orders of society. Here, Unitive Energy linked the social in mutual love. The Acts of the Apostles.
The Incarnation was accompanied by a high concentration of Unitive Energy.
The parables make sense in terms of the hyparchic Present and Future. With the Crucifixation, Jesus leaves the temporal and re-enters the Hyparchic state. The descent into hell only makes more sense in terms of Hyparchic past that can be changed. We should even regard it as necessary that the Redemptive Act should include an intervention in the past as well as the present and future.
In the Exoteric domain, the Resurrection of Jesus was the decisive factor in establishing faith. Jesus appeared to women and the disciples but not to the world at large. Can this be reconciled with our account?
The gospels agree on several points:
1) The women saw him first but did not recognise him;
2) The disciples did not recognise him until he showed a gesture;
3) The presence of the material body impressed the disciples above all else;
4) Now saw him but those that loved him;
5) He ascended into heaven and was not seen again..
This needs to be accepted by Christians but is denied by non-believers as being possible. But, the literal interpretation can be retained and strengthened.
The Resurrection take place in the Hyparchic Present shaped by Jesus and thus united with him in love. The hyparchic present varies in extent and duration according to the degree of integration of the Beings present. Since his was greater than the disciples and women, his comings and going would not be understood by them. They perceived him to the extent that he chose they would. The presence was substantial, the body physical, in place and time. But, only those able to see the Hyparchic depth could participate. The final transition into hyparchic future would seem like a movement in space.
The concept of the Hyparchic Present and Future therefore shows itself to have great integrative power with respect to the Resurrection.
The Pentecost is to be understood as the influx of Unitive Energy.. This transformed the disciples into men of love, authority and power. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God.
St Paul and St John had to proclaim the deeper significance of the Mission of Jesus – the Redemption of Mankind.
They brought the elements of the Christian faith to Syrian and Grecian traditions – the supreme doctrine of the Incarnation.
The hope of salvation was broadened and deepened to include the souls of mankind – the soul-stuff pool (ie. The destination of selves not integrated with their own Personal Individuality).
Now to view the three centuries up to the adoption of Christianity as the State religion of the Roman Empire.
The Missing Elements
It is said that Christianity teaches us that we are saved, by what means, and to live a life of salvation. But, not how!? Salvation is by faith, we are taught, faith works are not ordinary.
Christianity is the religion of love – but we are not taught how to love.
The Christian church has therefore looked for help from outside since it began: Judaism for past, Rome for institutions, Greece for ethic, Arabs for metaphysics, Persians for spiritual techniques. But never an adequate anthropology – teachings about man and his nature are inadequate. A false psychology: that man must account for his actions, but he can do no thing of himself.
Christianity is a wonderful attempt to express man and God. But there has been overemphasis on the second person of the Trinity – the fatherhood of God is therefore treated lightly which results in a distressing anthropomorphism. The theology of the Holy Spirit is also inadequate – the ‘how’ of Christian life.
This crept in because the link between Church and Hidden Directorate was broken at the time of Constantine the Great. Practical knowledge was therefore lost: knowledge that was available in Buddhism, and Zoraster. In a word, practical knowledge of the Holy Spirit – was available in the Great Spirit Culture worlds. Religion of the East is stronger in anthropology and psychology. The link was also broken at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.
At the time of the diaspora, the Synoptic Gospels were already being prepared – to construct a certain image of Jesus, that allowed Christianity to establish itself. Christianity had to be brought by stages, as it was beyond man’s comprehension.
When Christ was resurrected, only a small group of people knew what was happening. They saw the Hyparchic future – they were in a different state of existence. The Resurrection and the Ascension were evidence of the Kingdom of God. . But, there were no modes of thought, language, symbolism by which it could be grasped.
Only those close to Jesus knew who he was, and where he had gone. They knew reality beyond existence, they bore witness to what they saw and heard, not to what transcended sight and hearing and understanding.
This confronted those who knew that a picture of Jesus was needed that the world could take hold of. That image was by necessity both anthropomorphic and eschatological. The ‘Second Coming’ was to be the Son of man at a future time. Those who had seen, knew he had already come in the hyparchic future. They saw – martyrdom was therefore possible. They gave substance to the image of Christ.
If you had direct experience, you cared less how it had come. So, psychological questions were ignored: what in man can know the truth? How is it to be awakened? For them, this happened by direct contact – they did not see how future generations would need different means.
Early Buddhists had techniques; Christians did not.
But, the need for transformation was not forgotten. The Desert fathers developed techniques in North Africa and Syria. The Hidden Directorate were involved influencing men inspired by the Holy Spirit. St Benedict (AD 480-547 AD) was directly conscious of the hyparchic future, and the immediate presence of God. St Gregory (AD 540-604) also advanced this, but the techniques evolved were not psychologically adequate.
In the Far East, Buddlism was lost in metaphysical speculation, with techniques that had lost their transforming power.. Then a new dispensation arrived that gave rise to Zen Buddhism:
‘A special transmission outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing at the soul of man;
Seeing into one’s own nature and the attainment of Buddhahood’.
The opposing forces of zealous Chrsitianity and rigid Zoroastrianism were reconciled by Mani, a Persian from Babylon.
The Hidden Directorate were withdrawing at this time, the world was in confusion. Man’s understanding and responsibility were being tested.
Islam arose in the seventh century. This great event was hardly acknowledged by the surrounding world – Christian, Mithraic, Zorostrian, Buddhist, and Verdic – even after the Prophet had returned to Mecca (AD 630).
It is often said that there is no mystery in Islam, but there are no Islamic documents older than 100 years after the death of the Prophet – teaching could have been tampered with. The accounts are political in cast and depict Muhammad as an astute politician, as well as being religious. The subsequent spread of Islam became an Arab war of conquest quite contrary to the Qur’an – when it conquered Persia and was taken captive by the Persian mystical genius..
Muhammad’s first mystical experience was on Mount Hira around AD 610 – 580 years after Jesus began to teach and twice the time since the Buddha’s enlightenment. At first he was frightened but finally taught that God is One and he alone should be worshipped. He had trances, and converted only a handful of men to begin with. The entire Qur’an was revealed in the way over a 20 year period. After repeated failures, he finally became the recognised chief power in Northern Arabia around AD 632.
How did a world religion emerge from such events?
The exoteric situation is plain to see: Muhammad had a skill for choosing companions – Ali, Omar, Abu Bakr, Othman – who had skills which perfectly suited their roles.
They continued the traditions of social reform: an Islamic society is free from sects, classes and races..
Muhammad is an example of the Perfect Individual for his followers – someone who surrendered to the Will of God. His religion is close to the Creator God Tradition. He adjusted himself to both Judaism and Christianity, and the Great Mother Culture.
It was inspired to redress the balance between the four essential elements of religion:
…………………………The Father and Source of All
The Holy Spirit………………………………….The Cosmic Individuality
……………………………The Mother Principle
This had been distorted by Christianity with its almost exclusive emphasis in the seventh century upon the role of Christ and the insistence upon the equality of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Islam was probably the completion of the Era of the Revelation that had been begun 1200 years earlier by Zoroaster.
The significance of this period centres on the energy of love. Just as creativity had entered 35000 years earlier to raise mind to soul, so now the intervention of the Cosmic Individuality brought human soul-stuff in direct contact with the power of love – Unitive Energy (E2). However, rather than diminishing the ego, it allowed for love of man for himself.
By the 8th century, the moment of Revelation was complete. Mankind looked beyond the Present Moment, and saw salvation and destiny in a wider context. A great centre of Islamic culture radiated across the world – Europe, North and East Africa, India, the Far East, Central Asia, all brought into trading and cultural relations. Europe and the East were linked.
With responsibilities comes opportunities: a new dynamic faith appeared at their boundaries; one with an unusual power to assimilate and transform cultures. So, Islam exercised a powerful influence on Christianity. This brought new life to its philosophy, psychology and theology. Indeed, European science and industry owe a lot to Arab culture.
Islamic science, art and spirituality from Bagdad and Spain also drew much from Jewish and Christian sources. A fruitful engagement between Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Here, we might detect the action characteristics of the Hidden Directorate. There must have been a centre not far from the place where Zoroaster gave mankind religion as we know it today. This is the ancient Chorasmia. This little known centre was certainly a meeting place of the four traditions.
It is now necessary to trace the course of events after the withdrawal of the Higher Spiritualising Influence.
Pp. 360-376
Mind and Soul
The Rise of Humanism
This section looks at two actions of 2500 years ago: firstly, direct contact between Unitive Energy and Humanity through the incarnation of the Cosmic Individuality; secondly, the impact of the Master idea of the Megalanthropic Epoch proclaiming the unique significance of the human person.
According to the virtual pattern of the human evolution, as predestined by the hyaprchic future, the two actions should have developed harmoniously to serve the Great Work: the creative Unity of Function, Being and Will. We should not be disheartened that the penetration of Unitive Energy takes longer than the development of the Human Mind.. The hazard is the tint of sin in the soul-stuff pool and the immaturity of human mind. Man is unready for the task; we might therefore expect the intervention of the Hidden Directorate to redress the balance between fate and destiny.
Man has also acted creatively without being connected with true destiny. Cultures have also interpenetrated; and events have increased.
We look at the activity of the mind, as this is the primary characteristic of man. We also need to look at the development of the soul. Mind and soul are often seen as different, but they converge on the significance of existence on earth.
We have looked at the end of the Age of Revelation of the Working of Divine Love: 7th century Christian era. However, it is necessary to return to the beginning of the Megalanthropic Epoch to consider Humanism. In the 6th Century BC, the four cultures had not yet merged soas to lose their character. The Great Spirit and Great Mother Culture were the most remote from the notion of a personal god, concerned in man’s welfare; so these regions might be understood as being influenced by the Megalanthropic Master idea more than the doctrine of redemption. This is true in China and Eastern Mediterranean – where there is nascent humanism; for example, Confucius. Here, there is little room for a personal god.
Humanism is any theory that exalts the mind rather than the soul. Humanism is the seat of our conscious experience: it is empirical, and confident in the delivery of the senses. Man in terms of opportunities; strength in the material world. These tendencies can be traced to Greek philosophy and political theory. The humanistic trend is also recognisable in China. India too. Men’s minds turned from conquest to trade from the new Epoch.
Humanism established itself as an independent stream within the current of human progress from the fourth century. Its birth in the west can be identified with the Periclean age of Athens: 462-428 BC. Similarly in China. The religious tradition was maintained in South-west Asia and Persia. This was the preparation of the coming of Christ.
The new Humanism realised that it could speculate on the nature of reality and the destiny of man – so do without traditional wisdom. The exhiliration of the power of the mind was shared in many places. Mind was worshipped. When mind and soul are confused – Aristotle – mind appears the highest principle of man’s nature. The weakness of humanism is not just disregarding man’s continuing dependence on Intelligence, but also the taint of sin. Humanism admits man’s immaturity while regarding him as important. So, division arose between those who turned to the Megalanthropic Idea and those aware of the reality of human sin.
Gnosticism arose at the same time, which looks for reality outside of the senses, beyond the mind. Gnosticism fails to appreciate the significance of the evolutionary progress and the connection between sensation, mind and soul. It distorts by the faulty creative power of the mind (MG: Bennett is wrong here).
The Hidden Directorate injects ideas into the mind of Psychokinetic Specialists, which are then transmitted into the prevailing mental atmosphere for human progress. New ideas cast their influence – results vary according understanding – will – Therefore, there can be exaggeration, distortion, and contrary manifestations originating from a stimulus. For example, the messianic expectations of the Jews in the centuries surrounding Christ. The human mind-stuff had to be prepared for the Redeemer. Without this, it would not have penetrated into human consciousness. The idea was misunderstood by the Jews but it still resulted in the necessary state. The Dying God idea was also produced elsewhere by the Great Mother culture.
We need to posit a source from which the seminal notions could be injected into human-mind-stuff at the right time and place. The idea of the hyparchic future is needed in some form of language. Various myths have therefore received many different interpretations.
Humanism is an important part of the evolution of the Mind. It is ascribed to the intentional action of the Hidden Directorate. Yet, it can also be seen as the main obstacle to recognition of man’s true place in the Great work. Humanism may be the ‘denying factor’ in the soul-creation of mankind.
The Stage of Confusion
By 700 AD the Megalanthropic Epoch had run half its course. Humanism was feeble whilst religion had acquired fictitious ascendency. This corresponds to the midpoint of the Enneagram; where only two processes are operative, there is the maximum divergence from the original direction. Looked at in humanism, European terms, 600-900 AD deserves the name of the Dark Ages given to it by classical historians.
This was also the period of humanistic values in Islam, Hinduism and the religions of China. Baghdad was the scene of cultural explosions: art, science, literature, commerce. It was also the place for the rise of Sufism.
If Religion and Humanism were respectively the affirming and receptive impulses, a third stream emerged. This third impulse was to come from the Great Work. There were three distinct phases:
1st Phase: 550 BC – announcement of Master idea: mind-stuff stream.
2nd Phase: 0-630 AD – Incarnation and Rise of Islam. Revelation of Divine Love. The Great Cycle is required.
3rd Phase: The Great Work – the development of non-egotistic responsibility in man. AD 1000. This is more a ‘Reconciling Impulse’.
This third action is mainly directed towards the completion of the undertaking initiated by the first. We can then test the hypothesis of the Hidden Directorate.
The Dark Ages were marked by disruption of existing institutions – Byzantine and Persian Empires – by hordes coming from desert regions. Cultures of East African were destroyed by Arab invaders. Visible links with the Hemitheandric Epoch were destroyed and the vestige of the hero king destroyed. This destruction made possible the achievements of the second millennium.
There was also an action that emanated from the central region of the Oikoumene: the Hidden Directorate was originally located in Bactria on banks of Oxus, where Zoraster established the first religion. Bakdi was the nerve centre of trade with China. India and Central and South-west Asia. It had well-established Eastern Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Hindu communities, as well as official Islamic religion and the popular cults of shamans.
Commercial trade made for the mixing of Buddhist and Muslim pilgrims, showing spiritual activity.
We shall see that the course of human history has been affected by a Source believed to have existed from earliest times in Central Asia, but not located. Egypt was also important, but practical wisdom was concentrated and preserved in central Asia.
The New Influences: AD 1000-1500
We can connect Sufism with Persia and Turkistan, even though it is improbable that there was a psychokinetic society in Islam.
There is a similar problem with the origins of Zen Buddhism and the Tantric schools of North India and Tibet. Authorities say that Zen did not originate in China, although it probably arrived from there by trade routes with Balkh. It arrived from the South-west.
These movements have two chief features: they offer no new dogma but accept the religion of the communities of which they are a part; secondly, they are concerned with psychological techniques for awakening the consciousness of the True Self. These features reached the west through monasticism: ‘hesychast’ and ‘palamite’ exercises after St Gregory Palamas.
These features establish a chain of personal responsibility: personal but there is a need for a spiritual director. There were probably several centres of wisdom, linked by peripatetic counsellors and direct conscious experience.
Special powers were attributed to wise men: Lamaists in Tibet; Muslim Sufis; Eastern Christians. Balkh was one such centre: the meeting place of Great Spirit (Shamanist) and Saviour God (Zorastrian) cultures. Later bringing together Eastern Christians, Jews, Lamaists, Buddhists, Muslims. Mobility was remarkable.
Between 874 and 999 AD Samanid ruled on both sides of the Oxus and had contact with China, India and Central Asia. Many contributions to science were made. Translations of their work were made and spread as far as England and Italy. There was a combination of creative genius and access. Scholars from all over travelled to Balkh. The Masters of Wisdom had their schools here. This was so until the Mongol invasion of 1220. The Masters preserved the structure of society during this devastating time. Some stayed there; others emigrated to India, Turkey, Tibet and China. Behind the great names there were also the secret Masters. They remained active until the 15th century and the fall of Constantinople and the Mongul conquest of India. Their work was through the creative power of ideas and the unitive power of love. They also established the principle of Group Activity.
Historians of European cultures do acknowledge the influence of Eastern sources on art, science and learning in the middle ages. Sources were identified as Greek, Jewish, Islam, and the Crusades. Influence is often placed on knowing rather than doing; so a definite tradition is seldom recognised. Doing requires a group and society to transmit; knowing simply requires a book.
Looking at the years 600 – 1600 AD it is clear that more than transmission of knowledge was involved. Man’s relationship to the natural order was not changed by the renaissance or classical culture. When Roger Bacon (AD 1214 – 1292) tried to awaken contemporaries to the practical significance of traditional wisdom, his words fell on deaf ears. This was not confined to Europe. The Vedic heritage was looked after in the same way; similarly, the Carolingians. No stable society emerged in China after the great persecution of AD 843. New exchanges with the west became possible after the Tartar invasions of C13. But no evidence of understanding the creative mind. There remained a sense of men’s impotence in the face of nature, and consequent dependence on higher protective powers.
The evolution of the human mind is therefore conditioned by the historical cycle. The right time and place is needed. The Hidden Directorate is never in a hurry.
The Birth of the Modern World
For a long time, it was felt that the main factors for the transformations between 1450 and 1550 was the revival of Greek learning, but this would only account for the Italian Renaissance – not Asia, and India.
In every case, the change was in the direction of increased confidence in man’s ability to solve problems – linked to a belief in higher wisdom.
In Europe, such higher wisdom can be traced back to Pythagoras and Zoraster, as well as Hermes Trimegistus and Orpheus.
We are concerned with action not learning. To take the example of the Italian Renaissance: The Platonic Academy of 1450 was only Platonic in name. The real interest was in the Platonic Ideal. The impulse which launched the Medici came from Pletho. He spent years in Bursa at the School of Wisdom – advisory to the Osmanli Sultans. We have a direct link with Sufi émigrés from Balkh and the centre of Bokhara. As we move through the C17 we see the idea that man is stronger than nature growing. This can be seen in the art of building. Some of the best buildings of the last 3000 years were built in C 14 and C15: Imperial Mausoleum of Nanking, Taj-i-Mahal, Mosque of Suleiman, Alhambra, St Peter of Rome.
In all arts: painting, literature, architecture, science, medicine, social and political economy, the great civilisations of C17 were equal in creativity and accomplishment.
The Era of European Pre-eminence
We need an explanation for the collapse of other cultures and the progress of European cultures. European conditions were less promising than in other regions. So, Europe was selected for a special role and provided with instruments for fulfilling it – the intervention of the Hidden Directorate, who injected the seminal ideas to orientate technology, science and socio-political organsation. They appeared as traditional wisdom, expressed in symbolism. For example, the symbolism of Art, Literature and Science from the C14 to C18: the great artists, syncretism and beliefs of philosophers, practical decisions of politicians, ballet, fashion in architecture, imagery of poets, astronomy, medicine, chemistry, science, religion. This is true of England and the rest of Europe, and might also include the Ottoman Empire, India, and China. The Moghuls failed because they could not produce a succession of rulers fit to exercise absolute power. This was true in Europe but it found its way out of the situation with the establishment of the Three Estates.
Parliamentary Government as a result of the Civil War was the key to transformation in England. This war was closely associated with men connected traditional wisdom: John Milton, Samuel Hartlib, John Dury and Comenius.
The effects of the Civil War in England upon Europe were only partially disguised by the triumphs of the Grand Monarque Louis XIV. He was the last of the absolute monarchs and provided the conditions for the next great development of men’s minds. The stability that had been maintained by the Christian Church had been compromised by the Crusades, the Thirty Years War and religious schism.
Despite distortions and deviations – chaotic strivings of European rulers for power, and the prejudice, poverty, and disease of the common people – there is evidence of a clear pattern. The influence of the hidden source upon writers, artists, scientists and politicians can be dismissed as superstitious aberrations. Those who see blind chance as primary in the rise of the modern world, do not see the human situation in its totality. Learning was happening as well in China as in Europe, and was producing men as learned as Newton, Lavoisier, Linnaeus, Faraday and Darwin.
Other factors for Europe were the influx of gold from America and Asia, the decentralization of Government and the unity of culture and religion. But none of these distinguish Europe from other regions.
The key difference is the mental atmosphere created by the belief in the principle of sufficient reason and Natural Laws. We take these for granted but, even in the C20, they have only reached half of the human race. Moreover, these ideas which have transformed the entire situation are – now in the C20 – less universal than supposed 100-250 years ago.
In fact, notions of structure and system are taking the place of the belief in laws and principle of sufficient reason.
Pp. 376-390
The Age of Science
The notions of universal law and reason come from the idea that man has control over his nature and destiny; although this did not exist in the time of the ancients. Hidden Wisdom became man’s discovery of himself during the change from sixteenth to seventeenth century. Men only saw this long after it occurred.
This Time Reversal is an aspect of the Hyparchic Future: the Hidden Directorate. The idea of the secret of nature was implanted in man at the beginning of the seventeenth century, together with the notion of man’s supremacy in the natural order. This accounts for the facts: Asia and Africa, China, where thinkers were devoted to practical affairs – non-mystical notions which did not allow for the step from random search to scientific method. Whilst in Europe, with mystical, magical and occult notions, religious controversy and political experiments developed science, technology, democratic government, and industrial production.
Religious faith protected Europe from the excesses of materialism; which might have occurred in the Far East if religion had not lost its spiritual significance.
We see belief in natural law and expansion side-by-side with progress. They could lead to disaster without the sense of man’s dependence upon Love of God.
The wisdom that encouraged the European mind to look for universal laws also brought power and fulfilment. This eventually led to a lost of confidence as men discovered laws and a certain mental attitude.
The assertion of the self-sufficiency of human reason was an error. The Enlightenment was the break with traditional Great Wisdom. The leaders were hostile to superstition – Christian or not.
Expansion and Progress was eventually linked to the evolution of the human mind. The view of human destiny also led to ‘natural rights’ eg. Rousseau’s Social Contract.
The industrial revolution came into this in England in mid-eighteenth century. New inequalities were produced but the idea of Natural Laws and Natural Expansion remained. Progress also led to Hegel – inevitability of progress – and Marx – man’s ultimate conquest of nature.
The intellectual landscape of the period looks alien to us now: conflict between authority and reason – confidence in the past, and confidence in the future. Both are the product of misplaced megalanthropy. Man was endowed with creative powers 35000 years ago – he proclaimed the Lord of Creation. He showed himself to be an extraordinary being through the power of his mind. But he has overestimated his powers in recent centuries. A potential destiny is confused with a present reality. Human nature can be glorified and deified. The mistake is not absolute but relative.
Mind is highest in the natural order but lowest beyond that. He borrows from Creativity.
The modern economy rose from the influx of gold from the Americas and Orient; men then set about pillaging the world.
The Industrial revolution turned through the energy of British coal. Trade by sea power. This might seem causal but we then overlook science and technology.
Since the sixteenth century, the modern world has grown on the economic element. Man has sought freedom from dependence.
With the rise of science and the industrial revolution, social reform also advanced.
There was a time of great opposition between belief in the greatness of man as he is in his psychostatic and unregenerate state and the realization of man’s potential for transformation (hence dependence on spiritual action that he is powerless to initiate). A new epoch was heralded.
The Sources of Modern Science
………………Co-operation……………………………….
Search for modern……Search for…..
Improved techniques……….universal laws
……………………………….Economic Drives……………………………..
The Paths of the Soul
The Great Work is not only associated with the mind but total evolution of humanity towards the unity of Function, Being and Will.
The Hidden Directorate must have seen the failure of soul-progress to keep up with mind-progress.
This recalls the distinction between the Path of Objective Morality and the Path of Accelerated Transformation. This has existed since Creative Energy (E3) entered human mind-stuff.
Objective Morality is the primary requirement of human soul-stuff. Against Egoism. The law that killeth and the spirit that quickeneth – St Paul – is abrogated for those saved in Christ: that is the transformation of human soul-stuff by contact with Unitive Energy or Love of God. This enters the whole of mankind. But, to benefit from it, we must enter the Present Moment in which it is operative. This is the purpose of Objective Morality: to appear to fail but to be operative for higher energies to reach human soul-stuff. Its custodians are the ‘chosen people’. Organised religion took over the responsibility previously carried out by the Divine Rulers. Humanistic Objective Reality was not proposed until the C19 by Auguste Comte..
The path of Objective reality leads into the Psychokinetic Group where selves are transformed into souls. But it does not bring forth men and women capable of communication with the Hidden Directorate. This must be maintained; by the paths of accelerated transformation.
Up to the middle ages there was an outpouring of knowledge from these ways near Balkh. To follow its course…..
Asia Minor and Spain were the principal centres of diffusion of traditional wisdom for the West. Bokhara in Turkestan – Sufi spirituality; North and South India – and China and Japan.
To restrict the enquiry to SW Asia and Europe….
The Divine Comedy by Dante is a rare manifestation of the traditional wisdom. Georgios Gemistos. Italian painters of the fifteenth century. With the schools of art, literature and learning, there was also the Franciscan Order as a link with the Great Work. St Francis made two visits to Muslim countries and was a Psychteleiotic man. Movements from Italy went to German and the Netherlands. These movements were primarily spiritual and practical: Meister Eckhart, Cornelius Agrippa, Jacob Boehme, Spinoza.
From these names it is difficult to convey true sense of activity and actual events. It is not just ideas and techniques but concentration of energies.
The four ‘Cosmic’ energies – Conscious (E4), Creative (E3), Unitive (E2) and Transcendent (E1) are taken to be omnipresent – they pervade the whole of existence, not just a single present moment. Conscious and Creative energy can be concentrated in individuals and groups, but the two others – Divine Love and the Power of God – are beyond the reach of individual will. We cannot discuss the supreme energy by which the Being of the Universe is sustained – that is the Transcendental Energy (E1) – because it is the instrument of the Divinely Foreordained Cosmic Purpose – that we can know only in its operations as Universal Law. This energy is also the vehicle of the logos. Islam here offers a bridge to the doctrine of Incarnation. The Unitive Energy is brought into a concentrated action with the human soul-stuff through the Incarnation and the Passion of Jesus-Christ – the Cosmic Individuality. Thus, three great actions possible for mankind in the sphere of Cosmic Energies:
1. The Action of Divine Love for the perfecting of the soul and its union with the Cosmic Individuality;
2. The Action of the Creative Energy for the completion of the soul and its union with the Universal Individuality;
3. The Action of Conscious Energy for the awakening of the soul and its union with the Personal Individuality.
We see each as actions sought in the Path of Accelerated Transformation. We see them in alchemical and theosophical symbolism of the Renaissance.
What these traces in art, literature, architecture, and modern science show is that men understood the need to transform and concentrate energies for the Great Work. This is one reason for the contemplative life of monastic communities – the Transfer of Merits, where energy of the community is available for the redemption of souls.
The path of Accelerated Transformation was most strongly emphasised in Spain: St John of the Cross, St Teresa of Avila.
Until the seventeenth century, we can see the progress of mind and soul going hand in hand – they came from the same source and flowed in the same channels. After, there was a parting of the ways: men associated with the Hidden Directorate guided England to parliamentary democracy and the end of the monarchy. There was also an explosion of creativity that – with two centuries – Asia, Africa and America were left behind. Belief in Divine Providence gave way to belief in Natural Law. There was also the decline of religion: Christendom, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist.
But the Path of Accelerated Learning remained open for those who knew where to seek: in England – Law, Germany – Swedenborg. Also, other hidden groups.
One symptom of the age was to equate soul with mind and to ignore the responsibility of the self-hood of man. The Industrial Revolution, Slave Trade, and decline of the Objective Morality were a consequence of this mistake.
Religious people thought all men had souls and were assured of immortality. Non-religious people were content to accept man as he is and build natural powers of the mind – the psychostatic attitude to human destiny took possession of people.
The French Revolution and Napoleonic wars hardly interrupted the progress of science and industry.
Men continued to profess religion and to believe in God and the soul. But, this had not brought men to the realization of the power of love and the love between God and man. Humanism is a sign of this failure. There was also the expectation of great change – another failure. Prophets of the end of the world appeared between 1815 and 1845: the Old World – the Megalanthropic Epoch was dying – a new epoch was being born.
The Synergic Epoch
The change can be detected in the seven year period – 1844 to 1851. There was no sudden occurrence. Inertia binds psychostatic people to the conditions of their existence. But new influence can be recognised in 1848. A new Master idea was born: Synergy – structural cooperation – from the mid-nineteenth century. This represents a large integration in which parts of the whole surrender some of their independent existence in order to partake in a higher gradation of being; for example, husband and wife.
The explosion of the French Revolution demonstrated the inability of people to live by structural cooperation.
Since then, the idea has found various forms of expression: Universal Evolution, Unity of Life, theory of relativity, rejection of Absolutism, belief in cooperation, the need for large-scale organization, and the transition from emphasis upon man’s individual greatness to collective identity.
The Synergic Epoch is a stage in the evolution of mankind marked by a new kind of cooperation between levels – new forms of communication, organization. In future, the responsibility for human destiny would be a matter of cooperation between the Orders of Society rather than the intervention by the Hidden Directorate.
The Megalanthropic Master Idea had lent itself to absolutionist doctrines in politics, philosophy, religion and natural science. The new Master Idea tends to encourage the synthetic search for structure rather than for analysis of situations in terms of things and laws. Belief in Natural Law gives place to structural unity of the Universe, Life and Matter. The Megalanthropic quest for the Absolute led to contradictions and absurdities in thought – to monarchy, dictatorship and revolution in society. This gave way to a new period of enhanced powers of communications, etc.
This synergic impulse began to be felt in the middle of the nineteenth century. The inertia of old ideas made it difficult to see what was happening. The doctrine of the absolute continued into the twentieth century. Religions could no longer be sustained in the face of the progress of science; although absolutionist claims continued to be made by religious groups and sects. The idea of an ideal social order diminished, but the idea of relative and transient benefits did not come in spite of evidence by historical research.
The Master idea did not take root by the intentional action on the part of the rulers or the ruled, scientists/ philosophers, reformers and religious people. Many of these resisted this, or so misunderstood it to produce opposite results.
A movement of failure was in the Middle East – one associated with the Hidden Directorate. Now known as the Bahai Faith. Another was the Indian Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1828.
In Europe, a contemporary of Hung, the Bab and Ramakrishna preached to an unresponsive world the doctrine of existential relativity and the necessity of hazard – Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). His significance lies not so much in his break with Megalanthropic notions of art, ethics and religion as his insistence upon human responsibility as a necessity and yet impossible contribution to the ‘Stages of Life’s Way’. He rejected Hegalism, and saw that man is obliged to accept responsibility for which he is not fitted. Existentialism was more in keeping with twentieth century modes of thought than 1840s.
This brings us to the Communist Manifesto of 1848 – which turned out to be a programme – statement of the Communist League funded in 1847. This was a reaction to the Industrial revolution and a rejection of the attitudes of the Megalanthropic Epoch. But it was also an expression of a new form of thought – synergic.. This was the responsibility of man for his own future and the stages of realization of the communist society. This corresponds to the conditions of human progress towards a new epoch. Its ideas have been accepted in the modern world, even though revolutionary materialism has lost ground.
The synergic trend leads to the recognition of organization and structure as elements of reality. It makes itself felt in the growing sense of human responsibility. This developed incredibly from 1844-51. The latter was the great Hyde Park Exhibition year. Here, Britain threw open to the world its new technologies, discoveries and industries. The Royal Institution (1801) accelerated progress in science and technology. The London Mechanics Institution (1832) was formed, the Government School of Mines and of Science Applied to Arts, laboratories, and specialist societies. The new spirit was strong in Germany – the chemical centre in Gressen. The Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in France. Switzerland and Scandinavia were not far behind. The century was transformed from megalanthropic isolation to synergic cooperation; thanks to men like Davy, Faraday, Liebig, and Pasteur. The men of genius – Cavendish and Lavoisier – of the eighteenth century gave way to the activity of organised teams or schools. The resulting transformation was the principal factor in the immense acceleration of scientific progress since 1850.
In industry and commerce, the private manufacture or trader was losing ground to the limited company. The Age of Adventure gave way to the Age of Management. With these came the assumption of organised responsibility by the state which, in previous ages, had been provided by individuals and guilds.
Pp. 391-405
New basic concepts were arising: Evolution, Relativity and Probability – arising at the change of an epoch.
The change of climate was not just science and technology – but also Art. There were periods of decadence and renewal but most can be seen as a search for the absolute.
The synergic epoch began to influence painting in the second half of the nineteenth century. The impressionists broke away from romantic and classical art and showed unity of art and artist. This plus the idea that the artist, the art and the spectator can be brought into unity is a key idea of the twentieth century. The opposite was true of the Megalanthropic attitude. In art, music and writing there is the same breakaway from the artist as virtuoso and the search for a shared experience with spectator.
The work is in the Intellect – here consciousness and creativity coalesce to produce the pattern of the zeitgeist of the moment – this is where artistic inspiration draws its pattern.
There are other examples: Spiritualism – the belief in communication between the living and the dead. Modern spiritualism dates from 1848. This along with psychic research, and parapsychology are synergic in character – to be able to unite all men. New powers have arisen: overcoming limits of space and time, communicating with the future. Transformation of being is needed to understand how men can/ must communicate between minds.
Structural cooperation changes our understanding of the Present Moment. In the New Epoch the Synergic Ideal offers a different idea of religion. The synergic epoch has also transformed our notion of time. We have now to think in terms of thousands of millions of years. Time is no longer an independent entity – but an integral part of the framework of existence inseparable from space, energy, and fields of force. This is partly why spiritualism gave men a greater sense of permanence. Another way of escape was the Doctrine of Universal Progress – that the race offered permanence. These are new stirrings of the human spirit and a preparation for the human mind to further develop.
The Present
The seven years of the Synergic age is conventional: 1844-1851. There was no ‘end of age’ predicted in previous half century. The history of nineteenth century saw the domination of Europe over the rest of the world. This was not less on the material social and cultural levels. European science was dominating. It was seen that science was supplanting religion. Vast powers were seen to be released. This opened opportunities for many – what was once only for the few. Men began to believe in science without a clear view of faith.
The First World War shattered this dream. The war was an internecine suicide. 8 million people died – many of them young. This showed the immaturity of the human mind. The second world war destroyed the last vestiges of the illusion that men’s minds could assume responsibility for his destiny.
A new world has been created – one different from that envisaged in the nineteenth century: one of vast communication, speed and transport. We now see our dependence on a series of complex highly organised societies – these can only exist by surrendering many claims of personal identity.
Change has also been evident in religious life. In the nineteenth century, intolerance, sectarianism, and isolationism were outstanding vices of all religious communities in the world. This came from a misinterpretation of the Master Idea of the Megalanthropic Epoch. An egocentric attitude was encouraged. Egoism manifests differently in different periods: in Megalanthropic Epoch, egoism became intellectual and showed arrogance of being ‘in the right’.
This is giving way to genuine understanding. Intolerance is less violent.
Many religions are yet to see the transformations in the world. Some firm beliefs in anthropology and theology will have to be abandoned. True religion will begin to be manifest.
There have been erroneous attempts in interpreting human experience: like the conflict between religion and science – the divide between man and God. Religion has made God in the image of man and science has made man in the image of God.
The nineteenth century expectation that a simplistic mechanistic explanation of all phenomena of nature were, on the collapsed under the impact of new discoveries: electricity as atomic, electrons as minute compared to atoms, relativity, Planck’s quantum hypothesis.
What is true in physics is so in biology, where an uncanny complexity of structure has been demonstrated. We have concluded that Intelligent Direction was needed in the origin of life. This is so because we see comprehensiveness and coherence in human inventions. This is not attributable to blind chance.
In Psychology we see a further revolution against Megalanthropic illusions: like the undermining of the idea of the independent human personality: the idea of the unconscious, etc. Anthropological notions which had existed since the Greek schools had to be abandoned: that man is responsible for his actions. A more spiritual interpretation was given by Gurdjieff as man as ‘asleep’ or ‘mechanical’ – but capable of waking up.
The idea that man is not a simple being with a unique, undivided will, conscious, has only recently made itself known. This has affected the treatment of criminals, and maladjusted people. People can be influenced through their unconscious.
The Greeks had the notion of every human psyche as a unique, unalterable entity – given a theory of the soul. There is a need for structural cooperation both within man’s own nature and also social organisations. Anthropology of the past separated men from nature. The true situation is expressed in the Reflux of the Spirit. But man regards himself entitled to exploit, destroy, disfigure the planet. A sense of Biosphereic Responsibility must then wait for another Epoch.
Synergy implies co-working within levels and interpenetration of different levels. There is little cooperation between different groups at the present time.: economic, edaphic, vegetative.
Interpenetration of histories has been in progress since the middle of the nineteenth century. There were sharp divisions before between economy and agriculture, social and political, science and philosophy and religion. Man had little idea of his own history: that he has existed on earth for a million years or more. This discovery should have given him a sense of oneness with nature, but he does not even feel his fellow men. Different ones have predicted advances in the human race, his evolution, etc. But few have seen the central problem of egoism and its hold on the Self-hood of man.
Information Theory will reconcile scientists and philosophers to the belief in the Demiurgic Intelligences. Man has reached the end of his illusion that he alone in the world of Intellect. There is a need for structural cooperation with the Higher Intelligences. But first we have to admit to their existence. Scientists need to do this: to admit the reality of the Great Work with the existence of intelligences higher than human.
Such a surrender of man’s pretensions will not easily be made. Man’s inability to control events is becoming obvious – and a strong tendency towards unjustified pessimism as to the future of the human race.
This pessimism is strongly expressed in modern art and literature. Everywhere in the twentieth century, the Megalanthropic image was shattered: Sartre, Kafka, Dali, Picasso, Stravinsky, Schonberg, Webern.
Mankind is looking to find new forms of expression/ new modes of action. The Technological and Managerial Revolution is creating a new society – that is unable to speak for itself, so finds clichés from the past.
Things would be serious if solutions were dependent on human agencies. There is rather the need for a new intervention from the Demiurgic Intelligences under the Direction of the Cosmic Individuality.
Despite two world wars, the H-Bomb and communal suffering, the brotherly love coming from this suffering did not last longer than one year into peace – such was the resurgence in egoism. There were tensions between the USA and USSR and in the Far East. From 1950 – 52, both the USA and USSR prepared for atomic war.
Nevertheless, the world was led back to peace over the next 15 years.
How did this change come about? Not by men’s own abilities but through intervention of the Hidden Directorate aided by the Demiurgic Intelligences. There is synergic action in all aspects of human life: for example, the oeumenical movement in Christendom and rapprochement between Christian and Non-Christian religions. This must be the working of Divine Grace.
There is a war between Synergic and Disruptive forces. This is a war of Time and Hyparxis as antagonists, between demiurgic intelligences and those holding men back. The battleground is in human soul-stuff itself. 30-40, 000 years have passed since human mind-stuff was endowed with creativity to become soul-stuff. We thus now stand at the conjunction of two transitions: the change of epoch that began in the middle of the nineteenth century; and the start of the second half of the Great Cycle that began 12500 years ago with the Epoch of Withdrawal Language Creation. This is a most significant moment.
The Next Age of Mind
Visible History
The Present Moment of mankind has now acquired a coherence at levels which were hitherto divided. It is a Present Moment beyond the grasp of a single human mind. So, the human situation is ‘out of control’. This is not recognised by everyone; so, we have to consider the visible levels of history with special reference to the question of man’s ability to direct the course of events.
From a material and economic point of view, man has never had more power; we have an excess of techniques, material energies, new discoveries, means of communication, etc. Man should therefore be free of problems of natural history. Yet, economically, there is a crisis, which grows from decade to decade: the gap between the West and East. Countries in Africa continue to lose ground compared to ‘Western nations’. India and China (no longer true!!!!)
Other economic problems are not insoluble: currencies, control of cycles, raw materials, energy, labour. But the imbalance propagates itself. This is not to say that economic problems are without solution: industrial nations could refuse material advances until all are at the same level, or educational resources made available to all. But no one believes this will happen. Few would share their surplus, or deny themselves the fruits of their labours. So, the problems rest on immaturity and egocentric impulse. True of nations and individuals..
To look at man’s connection with the soil – political history – we find another explosion. The soil has been overworked. Fertile areas become barren. Fresh water is short at world level. There is deforestation. This will get worst even though something is being done to reverse it. It comes from man’s demand for more and more food.
Pp. 406-419
The third level of history is the explosion of the world’s population: due to double by the end of the C20. This implies a range of problems: food, education, social organisation, space.
This is an aspect that human beings can not bring under control: although there is a big difference in the use and effectiveness of contraceptive between the advanced and backward nations.
Because of conditions, a large number of men and women have survived who would not normally have done so. No-one, however, would dream of suggesting that there should be selective breeding.
The germinal essence corresponds to the goal of political history: the struggle for domination and survival. This is the mind of man. Political history is that of heroes, leaders, dynasties and oligarchies, the history of war, conquest and subjugation, migrations. But, it is also self-realization through mind rather than soul.
Political history has been regional until the last century: only penetrating to regions that were available to the likes of Genghis Khan, the Arabs and the English.
Now regional history is fused with world history. Political histories have been intensified by communications, industrial and commercial techniques, new weapons of destruction, and shortage of land and water.
The germinal essence enters man’s mind to give force to the Reactional Self (desires and aversions). From this man turns his human egoism into bellicosity. These tendencies remain in the soul-stuff pool. When in isolation, these tendencies were neutralised by local conflicts. However, more advanced cultures have produced more prolonged states of war.
New communications, and the pressure of economic, edaphic and population stresses act on individuals. There were two world wars in the C20 and the political situation gets ever more complex.
Social organisation growth is perhaps even more remarkable. According to essence class scheme, this corresponds to the animal level. Structural cooperation is playing a decisive part in the transition from Megalanthropic individualist to ‘organisation-man’.
Organisations grow larger and larger in every field of human activity. Smaller organisations cannot hold their own against larger ones. Governments and International Agencies grow and acquire more power. This would be in keeping with Synergic Spirit if man were in control. After a certain size, organisations either break down or become an independent entity. No longer controlled but controlling. Men become the slave of organisations; a remarkable thing since they are amongst the most creative and effective in making decisions.
In former times, man’s ability to control events was taken for granted. Now, it is no longer possible to ignore a situation that affects everyone and everything.
Next, is the characteristic human history of the mind. This is the history of culture and of transmission from generation to generation.
This is scientific research in our time. Manpower absorbed by science outstrips the supply. The output of scientific work doubles every few years. It is neither controlled or controllable. No-one can see where science leads. The pace of acceleration was not predictable.. So, there is an explosion with no control.
There are other explosions: education, for example, expands everywhere, and the amount that needs to be taught is increasing out of proportion.
Mass communication is a more sinister cultural explosion: books, newspapers, radio, television – the main instrument of government, commerce and entertainment. The explosion is uncontrollable. The world population grows more suggestible; those who control it find it useful and profitable.
Psychological strain is related to this. People require stimulation, sedation and strong treatments. More people need psychiatric treatment. Drugs are turned to.
This explosive tendency can be connected to the idea of the New Epoch. Soul-history. The Demiurgic Essence is the instrument of Cosmic Order. It endows men with creativity when it enters human nature – to act for the biosphere. This has produced men of creative ability in the past. Activities have been destructive or beneficial, according to the forces of spirituality or egoism.
In the New Epoch, the demiurgic force has led to the domination of the Biosphere.
Man can use, change and destroy the earth and does so. He has become ruler of the earth. But does not know how to use his power. There is a lack of responsibility. Man has installed himself upon a demiurgic throne – issuing orders to command nature.
Man’s pride expands in all directions, and humanity expands at the present moment. There is thirst for power. Man becomes more obsessed with domination of the earth and life on it. It is labelled human progress.
A First Assessment
The Present Moment of humanity invites pessimism. If then present trends continue, there will be an impossible situation. But, it is believed that common sense will prevail. Such are the triumphs of science that the voices of despair are quailed.
We need to look at the data to make a first assessment.
Explosions are of two kinds: one comes from a sudden release of pressure; the other from a chain reaction from small beginnings. The first is not necessarily destructive: for example the combustion engine. If human explosions are of this kind, they might be brought under control; for example, population size.
The same is not so for cultural explosions. Man will not abandon the search into the secrets of nature. Man will continue to lust for power and continue to conquer new fields. The cultural explosion is a chain reaction. New discoveries set up yet more. There is the need for self-restraint, but little sign of it because there is a thirst to use science which uses up the reserves of earth’s elements..
There will be advances in human mind-stuff – mass communications. Chemical substances will change behaviour of individuals and communities.
Assessment in terms of man as he is: we have seen the structure of the self-hood, and the condition of the soul-stuff pool. We cannot expect that egoism will be eradicated. Sooner or later, the growing power that man has over nature will pass to unscrupulous men.
Power seldom associates with virtue.
No tyranny has lasted long, and the danger is mostly from well-meaning people who seek to control others in the name of good. Human progress could be brought to a standstill by an activity conceived to do good – but predicated on qualities that man does not possess. This is not idle speculation – we have organisations that do not work because people do not work them.
The threat to human history might then not all be visible but cannot be met upon levels of visible history. Man needs to exercise self-control and sacrifice, but these are not necessarily easily manifest – except by a few men and women. These need to enter the psychokinetic group.
The Evidence for a Hidden Influence
A central theme here has been that we need to postulate a higher intelligence for the evolution of life.
The problem of evolution turns upon the concept of order. Order is the best criterion of level: biological evolution is an increase in order in biosphere; human evolution is increase in order of mind; order in human society – man, the state, human affairs. Order enters from without. Randomness becomes ordered only if there is a source of order available to feed order in.. This is true for material, vital and cosmic systems. Withiness does not lead to an increase in order. There must therefore be a source of order outside human society: that is, Intelligence of the Hidden Directorate. The action of the latter cannot be overt, open to all. It must come from an organising pattern on a higher level in Eternity – this pattern works in the realm of mind where consciousness opens the way to innovation and freedom. It works by being recognised, and thus requires an Evolution of Mind to lift it out of cognizable and explicable events. Not every mind contributes to order; some see it, and contribute, but are not able to articulate it. It will, however, be apparent in their actions.
We test these conclusions in terms of the hypothesis of Intelligent Guidance. They should be applicable upon all levels in which the mind of man is directly involved.
First, in terms of economic history, money could control economic progress. Some think there is a conspiracy of financiers, but economics tend to relieve tensions (!). There is then a benign influence at work. Maybe this is a non-human Demiurgic or higher wisdom – not the Hidden Directorate. The world seems to be moving to order from being out of control.
Some beneficient power seems to be limiting damage on earth; for example, the deforestation in Africa.
In terms of population explosion, some unseen influence seems to inhibit a large proportion of undesirable matings.
We might think that the growth of large organisations might have attracted egotistical and dangerous men. However, the opposite has occurred. Generally, though, there is work for the good from government and big business – influenced by some Hidden Directorate.
Science is almost out of control. If we can discern some purpose, or progress, therefore, it is because there is some intelligence agency. For example, the discovery of atomic energy helped avoid a Third World War.
The progress of science has not been a random matter due to accidental idiosyncracies of scientists but by intelligence guidance. So, the right discoveries are made at the right time. Maybe a higher intelligence is directing the entire process of the human race: as well as directing some to this and away from that.
We are talking about ‘invisible history’ – why does influence remain unseen?
The answer lies in the difference between predetermination, predestination, and foreordainment. Only transformations of the material energies give perceptible changes. All that can be perceived is behaviour. Such changes are never wholly predetermined for there are uncertainties on all levels – these can be increasingly creative and free. Taking an opportunity is more than a predetermined future.
Only those unseen who take their opportunities in the right way can adjust the course of history to the hazard of disorder, threats of malevolent powers, etc. The Zone of Destiny is that part of the Present Moment in which there can be intervention from the Hyparchic Future.
The Hidden Directorate is in touch with a region where the Foreordained Plan of human life is constantly taking shape. Those who serve this channel of transmission can only work in the Zone of Destiny. If they were seen, they would be like everyone else – helpless to bring about significant change. Indeed, changes at the material level can only increase disorder. The only effective intervention is one that touches minds, not the material natures of men.
There are two ways of intervention: one is overt behaviour of those who inwardly are awakened to the signals that reach from higher levels. The second is direct action on the mind that is accidently tuned to the right wavelength.
For example, we see inspired actions from someone who does not see it themselves. Or, where ideas have spread throughout human thinking without anyone knowing where they came from – or their purpose. There are probably more men and women in the world acting as channels of transmission for the hyparchic future than they or others are aware of. We cannot demonstrate this, since we only have what has already entered into material transformation. We do have one example: the situation of mankind. Great forces have been released. Yet man remains weak, egotistic, self-indulgent, and quarrelsome. It might be that forces will be released which devastate the world. The probability of breakdown is greater than progress towards higher order synergic integration. There must then be an unseen influence from the beginning of history.
The Present Need
Men need minds and souls capable of responding to the enabling influences that are constantly flowing into the Present Moment from the Hyparchic Future.
Two elements of the triad are established: the affirming impulse that is the predestined pattern of history, the receptive impulse that is humanity in its present moment. The third reconciling impulse is then the Great Work. This latter is weak since it require certain types of people, of whom there are not enough in the present stage of human evolution. If there were enough from the Psychokinetic Group, they would be specialists who would enter all branches of human activities. The tetrad of activity in the Biosphere would be established, and the Psychoteleios Group would act as a human channel of communication with the Hyparchic Future.
However, presently, only a small proportion of people are drawn to the psychokinetic stream. So much needs to be devoted to their training, that little remains for the Present Moment. Our future is within a larger present moment.
For those who concentrate on the visible world, the idea of needing ‘awakened’ men and women is meaningless. They think they are awake. Promptings and guidance are seen as chance combinations. When things go wrong, they become pessimistic because they do not see redemption. Our concern is not those who deny the idea of a Hidden Directorate, but those who at least accept their possibility.
They have to understand the notion of the Great work as acting from within rather than without. Second, all turns upon transmission. Only those able to work with cosmic energies and receive signals can respond to the guidance of the Hidden Directorate. Other receive guidance indirectly: the difference between upper and lower parts of the Psychokinetic Group – the difference between mind-action and soul-action. Mind-action is not verbal as it cannot serve for the creative act to be done here and now at the moment of opportunity or opening. The sensitive mind receives its guidance directly – from another mind! The harmonised soul is guided by the patterns of destiny. It does not a stage of perception and decision.
People must be found and transformed both in mind and soul. There might be psychokinetic transformation, but these are only preparing Candidates. Others operate in modern societal organisations, unrecognised even by those who respond to their influence. Other are concerned with soul-transformation that allows the vehicle of Universal Individuality.
The actions required range from educational procedures, social betterment and the preservation of peace to the hidden workings of the Hidden Directorate These were conducted in isolation in the past. However, in the Synergic Epoch, there is more organised cooperation: the need of the Present Moment.
But, the Hidden Directorate still cannot come into the open. Every kind of action depends on conditions. Freedom and creativity are impossible in the conditions of material existence and predetermined changes. The transmission of the highest cosmic energies requires more than a sensitive mind: it needs souls strong enough to be the instrument of the Universal Will.
The creative energy will play a greater part as these things are better understood, and prepare the way for direct contact with the Unitive Energy – Divine Love!
Pp. 419-435
A Further Assessment
The history of the mind takes shape if we see it in terms of the evolution of man towards responsibility for his destiny and the Biosphere. This direction needed a creative impulse at the beginning and pattern. It might have come to grief because of the tainting of the soul-stuff with sin and egoism, but the Cosmic Individuality intervened. There has been intervention – the Demiurgic Intelligences and men with souls.
Now to assess the future. There are four elements:
1. The trends of history and the search by man for a solution to his problems in visible history alone.
2. The master idea of the synergic epoch which is drawing men towards organised cooperation in every field.
3. The stage of the Great Cycle of 25,000 years that began 12,000-13,000 years ago with the transition to the modern world.
4. The destiny of man and his place in the war with time. The Present Moment – predestined and foreordained future.
To sum up and examine them again:
In the past epoch, man has developed his intellectual powers but neglected his inner and outer perception. Emotion too. The value of man has been over emphasised – the Megalanthropic Fallacy. Modern education further extends these trends. We have an intellectual culture; although art, literature and social intercourse revolt against it somewhat. Individualism is giving way to the cult of organisation. Intellectual skills will not be regarded as better than manual skills in the future – it is difficult to see what will take the place of mind-worship.
New powers – emotional and intuitive – are awakening. They are necessary for the visible and invisible progress of man. These skills are quite rare but needed by organisations. They can be developed under certain conditions. We also need men who can communicate with higher powers and tune in to waves or vibrations of cosmic energy.
These new powers will appear more as time goes by. Also, the way to acquire them. Man plays a lot because he does not know how to use creative energy. At the moment, man stimulates his material and reactional self, whereas he could be using his creative powers. New social structures are needed for this.
When the creative energy is used properly, many problems solve themselves – for example, population problems as only the most gifted children will be procreated.
But, Man must change his egotistical attitude.
What about the Great Cycle and man’s relationship to the Cosmic Individuality?
Neither man or the Demiurgic Intelligences can overcome egoism. Man was set free from the consequences of the atavistic taint, by the Incarnation of the Cosmic Individuality, by the death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of redemption was to conquer egoism. It must be accomplished in the soul of man – he must be responsible.
Man needs help to do this.
He cannot redeem himself, but he can be redeemed through the love of God.
Man must accept the reality of redemption.
This has taken almost 2000 years to be clear. The Megalanthropic Epoch prevented it being understood earlier. It is easier to believe God was incarnated to offer man the gift of eternal life than to admit that man himself is incapable of accepting it.
But, the Present Moment must continue: the creative power has flowed in many channels – schisms, sects, creeds, churches, societies. This is the result of egoism. New powers are at work in the Synergic Epoch – dialogues and movements between religions.
There has been a widespread repudiation of belief in Providence as a result of man’s inability to accept the Christian gospel – that is, of Supernatural power working within nature. We have passed from the deification of the human individual to the apotheosis of Greater Society. Fewer people today believe in the Great Work, or take seriously the assertion that human destiny is influenced by Higher Wisdom. This is the chief obstacle to accepting the need to search for a total meaning in the existence of man on earth. The explanation is to be found in the great time-scale upon which the evolution of the human soul is to be measured. The Great Present Moment of awakening and maturing of the human soul must embrace more than one of the great cycles, which began 37,000 years ago. We are at the midpoint; we therefore need to look forward to another 12,000 years for the cycle to complete. The transformation of the human soul takes a long time. Of course, there have been intense short periods – like the life of Christ. We are faced with a similar dramatic moment. Let’s use the four elements to describe this:
We are in the midst of Parousia: the second coming of Christ promised by the redeemer. Its form is Unitive Energy (E2) – an act of will of the Cosmic Individuality. It is universal and omnipresent if not always associated with Will.
When it is so associated, it is Personified: the Love of God, which is the Holy Spirit, has always been present – its operations never stop. The son of God in heaven (that is in the Hyparchic Future) never ceases to redeem mankind. The Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – never fail to redeem the promise to ‘come and dwell with him’ who is united with them in Love. There is a profound change in the Present Moment when the Word of God, the Cosmic Individuality, enters into the Unitive Energy and so returns to the existing world.. It is distinct from the Incarnation because it remains within the region of the Cosmic Energies – Transcendent, Unitive, Creative and Conscious. Here, the Cosmic Individuality intervenes in human destiny. This is different from the Incarnation of the past. ‘Come again in glory’ describes it – the Cosmic Energies are the Glorious Energies.
Until this act, the situation of mankind remained as it had always been: liberation from egoism was assured, but the ability to do this was lacking with most.
Why have men been unable to offer gifts given to them? Few know the truth, few see it. Accepting faith defined by others does not produce the required contact nor open the channel through which Unitive Energy can flow. Additional help was needed when it became clear that man could not be saved without it.
Unitive energy gives man the possibility of unity with Christ: the perfecting of the individuality. However, the soul must be free from egoism. A purifying or purgative action is necessary: contact between the selfhood of man and the will of the Cosmic Individuality. Unitive energy is everywhere, so the contact can be made in numerous ways. Thousands experience this transformation, but its purity and completeness depends on their own nature. Some misuse the energy. Others undergo private change. Some feel called to a special mission. Some go mad and believe they are the messiah. Some are changed in character but not understanding. Such is the power of the influx of energy.
It requires regulation. The Hidden Directorate must do this. So, a two-fold action:
The first is direct and supernatural: the working of Love and Power to enable mankind to evolve.
The second is indirect and natural – the Great Work that has guided humanity from the beginning. Destiny and Divine Providence have entered into an action that is changing mankind, but many do not see it.
Evolution is not however assured – communications remain a problem. Man must accomplish something within the limitations of his own self-hood. What was prevented by egoism can now be accomplished. Many perceive but do not understand. So, they respond imperfectly. An obstacle is attachment to external forms of belief, worship and organization.
Here, we have used a different language: Cosmic Individuality instead of Logos or Son of God; Unitive Energy/ Cosmic Love rather than Holy Spirit; Cosmic reconciling impulse as the source of our intuitions of Deity. This, in order to avoid positive/ negative associations. Great changes in our understanding of the Supernatural order will come. It is the beginning of a New World. Man finds it difficult to accept his helplessness at all levels above bodily organism. Only when he admits this can he become a channel for the transmission of the energies that will enable human evolution to take a step towards true responsibility.
Acts of Will
Without will there would be no history – just a determinate sequence of changes in the world without a present moment. There is a Supreme Will, thus a Total History – the Drama of the Universe. We are involved in this act of will. This is the Present Act for the Totality: the remote past or constant present according to interpreting our experience. Long ago and now can be the same thing: the Master Idea of the Synergic Epoch is changing our way of thinking.
This also applies to Supernatural History that man has understood in different ways from age to age. In the Megalanthropic Epoch, anthropomorphic images of the Supreme Creator suggested themselves. The Cosmic Individuality was described in the Christian Creed as the son-of-god – with the Father. This is understood as God as an existing Being who engendered the son as a person – united in a single Godhead. The Trinity is seen as three people in one Being. As men emerged from the influence of the Megalanthropic Master Idea, the anthropomorphic conceptions of deity began to look wrong.
In the present period, old modes of thought are outdated, but new ones are not fully operative. The new Synergic Master idea is understood as indicating that human cooperation will allow men to dispense with guidance and help.. So, the Present Moment is threatened by atheistic and humanistic doctrines.
The new will-action results in confusion. Supernatural history can be seen in the Union in Love of Man’s creative will with the supreme will. This is possible because of Unitive Energy (E2). It is an act of will. The creature annihilates its own separate claim upon existence to find it need not exist; for the Will to which it has given itself can equip it with all it needs of both Being and Function.
There is no union of Being but of Will alone. Deified man becomes God as identity with Will not Being.
God cannot exist in the same way that we exist. Existence is limitation; whilst the creator cannot be part of the creation. God is one; there is an intimate relationship between God and the soul of man.
The universe, by its very existence, is involved in evil. The soul has taken on the universal taint. By the incarnation and redemption, man can go beyond the limitation of existence.. This means that the Cosmic Individuality can be identified with the Divine Logos (Jesus). Redemption must be seen as being present throughout the universe: the Cosmic Present Moment, informed by the Will of God.
The Nicene requires belief in:
1. One God, Father and Maker of all things visible and invisible.
2. One Lord Jesus Christ, son and Father.
3. The incarnation of men.
4. The crucifixion, Death and Resurrection, Ascension, Return.
5. One Holy Ghost.
6. One Holy Catholic Church.
Christ as the ‘word of God’ came before Christ as ‘son of God’.
The relationship between son and the father is not that of creator and creature, but as begotten.
It is best to take God the Father as the Supreme Creative Will and God the Son as the Individualised Cosmic Will – the same will but distinct. The Holy Spirit needs to be understood as the Universal Individuality.
We associated the Holy Spirit with Unitive Energy (E2) – the third person of the Holy Trinity. But, Unitive Energy exists – so is only an ‘instrument’ of Will. No natural will can encompass the highest cosmic energies. So, we identify the third person of the Christian Trinity with the Universal Individuality – the ‘Lord and Giver of Life’.
Universal Individuality proceeds from the Father (Supreme Will) and the Son (Word of God – Cosmic Individuality).
All are one Will and free from limitation..
God as Will creates the Dramatic Situation inherent in the very existence of the Universe, redeems it of its failures and restores to the fulfilling of task.
The human nature of Christ is by no means less significant than his Divine Nature. As the perfect man, he is the exemplar of perfection. Without stopping to be man he shows it is possible to conquer death with death. It would be meaningless if he was just a man. Jesus was a humble man. His voiding of his Godhead made it possible for him to perform two operations: that of redemption and exemplification. The first is possible out of time and space – eternally: He is God. The second is possible historically: He is Man!
No-one else did it; but saints are called to it.
Throughout the Historical event, the Will of God remains transcendental, unique, ineffable. Even in the Incarnation, it is not made manifest.
The three Beings are Characteristic Operations of the One Will.
This interpretation should be acceptable to Islamic Theology. One Will can combine the three-fold property of oneness, otherness, and immanence.
The real opposition between Islam and Christianity come from misunderstanding the nature of man himself. The significance of nature as the seat of the created and yet also of free will is lacking in Islam, but found in Christianity in the role of Mary, who accepted the working of the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation.
Mary fulfils her will by an act of will. There is no suggestion of consent in the Qur’an. Islamic theologians therefore disregard the receptive element without whose consent the Divine Purpose could not be fulfilled. Nature is passive for Islam but active for Christianity. It therefore leads to extreme predestinarianism.
Muhammad submitted to the Divine Command. So, there is a parallel between Mary and Muhammad: both were channels or vehicles through which the Divine Operations were made manifest.
However, it would be inconsistent to equate Muhammad with Jesus. Mohammad bases his claim upon his perfect submission to the Will of God.; whilst Jesus claims to be the very Incarnation of that Will. Jesus is therefore the Will or Logos of God.
Islam does affirm that God be understood as One, as Will and as Essence.
Despite these differences there is concurrence on the religious experience towards awareness of the Power and Love of God within the human soul.
Differences would disappear if we considered Divine Nature in terms of Will.
But, we also need to come to terms with the Will that operates in Creation. This is common to Mary, Muhammad, Abraham, and Buddhism. This requires belief that man has a central will but not a central being or self. There is also an act of will by which man can pass beyond the limitations of existence. This is the abandonment of the craving of existence.
Religious dogmas – seen in terms of Being and Function – as incompatible, can be seen as stating the same truths about will.
There is even a reconciliation between religion and dialectical materialism if understood in terms of will. The latter postulates a cosmic affirmation of progress by thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and human freedom to respond to and cooperate in the process, or reject, or oppose it. This conflict of revolution and counter-revolution would have no sense without an understanding of them as acts of will.
Humanism is nothing without the power of choice. Behaviourism reduces everything to mechanistic interpretation, otherwise.
All religions are not one: there is a difference between theism and atheism.
Different doctrines see Acts of Will in different ways. The present work sees the Dramatic Character of the universe as a result of failure, evil, and sin. Christian faith also recognises these, and so would best express the Supernatural Redemption of the world, as well as the needs and obligations of mankind.
Man is about to enter the experience of the Present Moment in the Synergic Epoch. This requires the surrender of all separateness. So, the Christian Church must surrender its claims to the exclusive possession of truth. Fuller revelation confers neither moral superiority nor authority. The Christian must surrender the notion of being of a chosen people, to allow for a nobler vision of the true Universal Church. This is the act of will we are called upon to make. On the side of God, the Holy Spirit allows this by love; on the side of nature, it is the quality of Mary and Muhammad that allows us to surrender self-will.
These Acts of Will would not avail if the Present Moment was not ripe.
A supernatural action is now taking place. It comes beyond nature. It is the presence of the Cosmic Individuality – Christ – transforming the human situation. All are called to the act of will which will allow human soul-stuff to be impregnated with Unitive Energy. The Love of God. Many are not aware of destiny that leads forward. Untransformed man lives in the small present moment of his subjectivity and cannot see what is required of him. The psychokinetic order is open to all, but only so many can become aware of their own experience – of the true character of an event. They serve the Great Work consciously, but they depend on the insights of psychoteleios men. They are channels between experience and the Hyparchic future. They transmit knowledge and the power of action.
Few outside of the Hidden Directorate are aware of the situation. But, more and more needs to be known. The Parousia or Manifestation of the Cosmic Individuality can now be revealed. How does it manifest itself?
The notion of the Millennium has been apparent in the Christian imagination since apostolic times. It once stood for the early end of the Age and the coming of Christ. Then it became a humanistic paradise in the Megalanthropic Epoch – created for man’s own power. Now it is associated with obscure sects predicting the end of the world.
None of these corresponds to the picture of Human Destiny in the Dramatic Universe as described here.
We can also see it as a change in the timescale of human experience. Major events will soon take decades rather than centuries. A generation as a unit of experience will no longer be practical. The unit of the Present Moment must change to restore the sense of stability and integrity that is threatened by the explosion of progress. Men will think in millennia and no longer see their lives as important. Life span may lengthen. This will change the sense of the present moment. The Millennium will be experienced as a Present Moment – as a whole experience. This will call for powers presently latent. These will have to be developed under conditions of the Psychokinetic Group of Society.
Only then will the Great Work come into the open and be manifested as the Word of God. The same self-denial as Jesus will be seen as needed in the new epoch: Self-effacement as merit; ambition and acclaim as the character of a defective mind.
Self-effacement is a condition of man’s entry into the promise of the new epoch. The changes are so profound that they will not come about by natural evolution or by the work of the Psychokinetci Order. It needs an intervention from beyond the natural order.
The universe is the scene of a prodigious Drama. It is interesting! We men are involved in it – we are not alone, we cannot be!
Higher intelligences are involved in our destiny, as we should be in the humblest forms of life. There is a bond of love between the visible and the invisible as we accept our mutual dependence. This dependence is not to be understood within the Present Moment of our mental activity. The contradictions and absurdities of life as it presents itself to our experience can never be reconciled within the narrow limits of space and time. That is why we present man and his Destiny as consisting in the extension of our framework in the dimensions of Eternity and Hyparxis and in the central theme of this volume: Intelligent Guidance of History.
Amen!