Esoteric Evolution - 1

The Seven Phases of Consciousness Development

Ancient wisdom: Everything comes forth from the Logos, Brahma

Rudolf Steiner

Everything comes forth from the one Unity

The Creators of earth and humanity

The purpose of the creation of the human being

The spiritual world also develops

The way from deep unconsciousness to spiritual all-consciousness

Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

Questions like these are not only important for human beings today, they were so already in ancient times. One of the Hermetic scriptures, the Corpus Hermeticum, tells of a conversation of the great initiate Hermes Trismegistus with his pupil Asclepius.

Asclepius had asked him about the origin of all things: Where does everything come from? Hermes tells him that everything that exists comes forth from the One. The One is the Logos, divine consciousness, the divine Spirit. The entire cosmos with all that is in it, heaven, earth, nature, and humanity, comes forth from the One. And because everything comes from the One, says Hermes, everything also bears in it the germ of consciousness. "Whether you are conscious of it or not, Asclepius, you bear it all in you. God is present in everything."

Astonished, Asclepius then asks: "Is God also present in matter?" Hermes answers: "He surely is. What else would matter be other than a chaotic mass if it would not receive radiance? And if it is worked on by radiance, where does that then come from?

You will remember me telling you, Asclepius, that this radiance consists of parts of the body of God, as it were. For by whom else would all beings be awakened to life? By whom are the immortal made immortal? By whom is the changeable indeed changed, whether it is matter, or a body, or a substance? It is all, my dear, radiation from God, you should know. The radiation in matter is materiality. And the radiation in bodies is corporeality. And the radiation in substance is substantiality, and that is God, the All."

I happened to come across the above passage from the Corpus Hermeticum shortly after I had written the article that has the title The Basis of Evolution is Consciousness, Spirit. I was struck by the fact that the great Hermes spoke about this universally valid truth already thousands of years ago—the truth that everything we see around us, including the world of matter, in essence originates from divine consciousness.

It is a universal truth that scientists who are open to the spiritual are only discovering in our time. In western esoteric tradition this consciousness, or these spiritual forces, are called "the Logos" or "the Divine Sun Spirit." In oriental tradition, for example in Hinduism, the name of this high Godhead is Brahma.

It is therefore for good reason that Professor Amit Goswami and Deepak Chopra, scientists in search of renewal, suggest that we consult the ancient wisdom contained in esoteric tradition. Deep insight and great wisdom regarding evolution, the development of humanity and the earth, and the purpose of life, existed for thousands of years before materialistic thinking became dominant in the past couple of hundred years.

Hermes was initiated in occult knowledge as it was taught in the old Egyptian mysteries. Through this initiation he had direct access to high spiritual beings in the spiritual world, who gave him insight into the secrets of existence. Hermes possessed exceptionally lofty knowledge and wisdom. For that reason he was called Trismegistus, Thrice Greatest. Through all centuries he has inspired people, great spirits in the areas of philosophy, science, the arts, and mysticism with his insights and wisdom.

Although in its core, universal truth or ancient wisdom about life and the purpose of human existence always stays the same, it has to be formulated ever anew. That is because it has to be adapted to the type of consciousness and level of development possessed by human beings at the time. One of the spiritual teachers who expressed ancient wisdom in a new way through his own insight and knowledge was Rudolf Steiner.

Rudolf Steiner lived from 1861 to 1925. He studied mathematics and philosophy, and became a doctor of philosophy in Rostock, Germany in 1891. Besides being a natural scientist, he was also a spiritual scientist and clairvoyant. A profound spiritual experience led him in 1900 to developing a science of the spirit full time. Initially he called this spiritual science "Theosophy," but later "Anthroposophy," the science of the human being. As spiritual investigator he connected with ancient wisdom. However, he did not speak about the insights he thus obtained until he had first investigated them himself and had found them to be correct.

For just like Mrs. Blavatsky and Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf Steiner also had access to sources of wisdom in the spiritual world. He connected the insights he thus obtained with the appearance of the Logos, the Christ, on earth and the changes this great event brought about in the evolution of the earth and humanity.

That is why Rudolf Steiner is unique. In the course of his life he spoke and wrote about many different subjects out of spiritual insight he had himself obtained.

One of the themes he investigated extensively is the spiritual background of evolution, the development of the cosmos, humanity, and the earth. These chapters on esoteric evolution relate in outline the insights and views Rudolf Steiner had about this. It will therefore be possible to put his insights side by side with the ideas about evolution of the Darwinists and those of "Intelligent Design" in order to make comparisons. As you, Reader, will see, the insights of Rudolf Steiner are so encompassing that even opposing views such as Darwinism and Intelligent Design can find a place in them.

Just as for Hermes Trismegistus, it was Rudolf Steiner's view that all that exists, including the world of matter, came forth from the Logos, the Word, divine thoughts and consciousness. This means that the world and all it contains is of divine-spiritual origin. Divine-spiritual creative beings brought everything we now know, step by step, down to the material, to appearance and expression in a process of creation that lasted for eons.

Human beings too came forth from divine consciousness. Before they were created, they formed, as spiritual beings, part of the unity in the spiritual world. At that time human beings did not yet exist, let alone as separate individualities. Later human beings then existed only as spiritual beings, and as such they formed, before the beginning of the creation, one whole with the world of thoughts, of consciousness of the One, the Divine. This means that they lived in the undivided Unity of the divine, but were not conscious of themselves. not self-aware and free, therefore, such as we are today. Human self-awareness only arose on earth, in the world of matter.

But in those primordial times before the creation, the earth and the world of matter did not yet exist. All that would later come into being as the creation, as earth, human beings, nature, plants, animals, and the solar system, was in that primeval beginning still part of the One, the All, the All-encompassing, as Hermes Trismegistus said, and therefore not yet separated from each other. Hence the words of esoteric Christianity: "All that exists has come forth from the Unity, the One." It is important to remember that.

Then, says anthroposophical spiritual science or esoteric Christianity, in the divine world—the highest regions of the spiritual world—the "plan" grows to let a part of the spiritual beings from the spiritual world take a path of development outside the divine Unity.

In the Bible that plan is described in the book of Genesis, when God says: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." It is interesting that the words used here are plural, "let us" and "after our likeness." It does not say "let me" and "after my likeness."

Rudolf Steiner explains this formulation in the plural by saying that here speaks the highest Godhead, the Triune God: God the Father; God the Son or the Logos, the Word; and God the Holy Spirit. Together they form, as Trinity, the primeval beginning as well as the basis of the creation.

The words that were spoken, however, also mean that the Triune God performs this creative work in cooperation with high divine-spiritual beings, who at one time themselves came forth from the Godhead or Trinity. These high creative beings are called spiritual Hierarchies, or simply "the Hierarchies." These are unimaginably lofty angelic beings who, in certain groupings and on certain (hierarchical) levels of development, are implementers and in so doing co-creators in this process. In my article The Angelic Hierarchies as Creators of Humanity and the Earth, I have written about these high, creative spiritual beings.^[1] In the coming chapters you will meet them again.

What was the purpose of the divine world in creating the human being? In simple words - but there is of course much more to it - the purpose of the creation of the human being is that a group of spiritual beings outside the unity of the spiritual world become aware of themselves as free spiritual beings. In other words, that they become free, autonomous, and self-aware individuals in which divine wisdom and love come to expression in a unique, individual way.

Becoming a free and autonomous individual encompasses the first half of the process of becoming human on earth. In the second half, out of this self-awareness and by actively working on themselves, human beings are step by step to bring their divine core to development, and with it wisdom and love. By going on this path, they unfold in themselves the creative forces of the spirit. Those spiritual forces are the same creative forces that at one time in the far distant past brought forth from the spiritual world the creation as we now know it.

In summary, the foregoing means that human beings, from unconscious and unfree beings, via a process of becoming human on earth, ultimately become free and self-aware co-creators in the divine spiritual world. And in that quality, they will become part of the creative heavenly hierarchies.

What a perspective!

A world of difference with the view that human beings happened by accident and that their existence makes no sense and has no meaning whatsoever, as the Darwinists and evolutionary biologists think.

Since this development process of human beings as spiritual beings takes place outside the unity and protection of the divine world - but does remain connected with it - much more is happening. One extremely important aspect of this is that this process of becoming human also has great influence on the divine spiritual world itself. For because it lets a part of its spiritual beings go on a path of development as human beings on earth, by its creative work on the human being the spiritual world raises itself also to a higher spiritual level.

Again, a tremendous perspective!

Esoteric Christianity, Anthroposophy, shows that everything that exists, human beings, nature beings, angels, the divine, the cosmos, yes, all that lives, is in a constant process of change and development. When you let that sink in, such a thought is almost too great to encompass. Yet it has to be said because it is important to create a counterweight to the ever-stronger materialistic views about human beings, which make them ever smaller and pull them ever more into the sub-human, the world of dead technology, where they may perish. It is good to realize that there also exists a completely different view about human beings and their purpose on earth.

When in the far distant future we human beings have brought the divine spirit that lives in us to development to great heights, we will form a new group of spiritual beings in the ranks of the spiritual hierarchies. We will then become the tenth hierarchy of spiritual beings, after the angels. This means that we will be creative beings who perform spiritual work and tasks in a completely different way than the existing angelic hierarchies - work and tasks that are not possible for the older hierarchies.

In this way we human beings, by our process of becoming human, add new possibilities to the divine spiritual world.

1.deep trance consciousness

7.self-aware creative all-consciousness

2.deep sleep consciousness

6.self-aware life-creating consciousness

3.dream-like image consciousness

5.self-aware image consciousness

4.clear day consciousness self-awareness

What does the way of the human being from the spiritual world to the earth and to self-awareness look like? Rudolf Steiner described that way from different points of view. He showed that the way also continues after the earthly phase.

In esoteric Christianity or Anthroposophy "development" is identical to the development of consciousness. The one does not exist without the other. The path of development of human beings can therefore also be described as a process to ever increasing consciousness - a process in which step by step a new layer in human consciousness opens up. This is possible because deep in human beings lives the divine source of infinite consciousness, although to themselves this is still largely unconscious.

Where does human beings' way to higher consciousness and existence begin? It begins in a state of deep unconsciousness in the first phases of the creation, and progresses to a state of consciousness in which human beings, out of active self-awareness and the power of their inner spirit, themselves become creatively active at a high level.

As they become creatively active - we will see later what form it takes - they become co-creators of the great Work of the divine spiritual world.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that from the beginning of the creation to a preliminary endpoint, human beings go through seven different phases or levels of consciousness. The diagram below shows those seven phases of consciousness and their sequence:

It shows how the development of human consciousness progresses step by step. What the diagram does not show is that this development of consciousness runs parallel to the planetary development of the earth. What does that mean?

In our time we are living on earth. In the diagram that is phase 4. The earth is thus the fourth level of consciousness we humans have reached. In this phase we develop clear day-consciousness and our self-awareness or I-consciousness. Self-awareness is the realization, the knowledge and the experience that I am an I, an individual human being, a personality with my own consciousness.

Even though we are now living in the fourth phase of development, we still have deep trance consciousness, deep sleep consciousness, and dream-like image consciousness in us too. They form our unconscious, the unconscious part of our inner being or our personality.

After the earth phase, when we develop self-awareness or, in other words, our personality, we rise in consciousness - and therefore also in our humanness - step by step to higher levels of consciousness. From our current earthly consciousness, the three higher states of consciousness - which are already present in us in seed form - represent our higher consciousness: self-aware image consciousness, self-aware life-creating consciousness, and self-aware creative all-consciousness. Together these are also called aspects of our higher spiritual Self, or supra-personal consciousness, or the supra-conscious.^[2]

One of the characteristics of higher consciousness is that our inner spirit then works in us in a higher manner. This means that we will then not only understand more and possess much more wisdom, but that we will also emanate a giving power of love. How can we do that? It occurs because deep in us lives the will, the impulse to develop ourselves personally and spiritually. In other words, we want to become who we are in our deepest being.

[1] See my website www.margaretevandenbrink.nl/index_uk.php?m=&p=190: The Angelic Hierarchies as Creators of Humanity and the Earth.

[2] Rudolf Steiner, An Esoteric Cosmology, CW 94, lecture of June 10, 1906.

On my website www.margaretevandenbrink.nl/index_uk.php?m=&p=113 (The 7 Phases) and in my book Transforming People and Organizations. The seven steps of spiritual development, is described how the concept of the seven phases of consciousness can be recognized and practiced in daily life on the level of the individual, in relationships and in organizations.