Rudolph Steiner, Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist, envisioned human evolution as following an arc from unconscious divine connection toward increasing materialism and separation, then back toward spiritual reunification on a conscious level.
In antiquity, early humans lived in instinctive harmony with natural cosmic rhythms and forces. There was an innate sense of oneness with the spirit realm. Ancient religions and rituals expressed this primal mysticism. We can see this today with the rise and commercialization of things re-connected to the universe, nature, and things that run in parallel with the earth, stars, and cosmic history.
But as intellectual reasoning developed, humans became and still are more focused on mastering the physical world. Concrete senses took precedence over intuition. Science and technology continue to flourish, yet this continues to severe our feeling of belonging to the divine whole.
"Humanity's path of development does not lead downward into matter; rather it leads upward from matter into the spirit. The present-day, conscious experience of the spirit, however, can only arise because it has been preceded by the contrary experience of matter." -Rudolph Steiner
The height of materialism and separation is the present age, where greed, self motivated actions, mechanization obsessed with parts over wholes and heartless capitalism dominate. However, for Steiner, this is a necessary phase that will propel our conscious rediscovery of spirit. And this helps to return hope to a society that desperately needs to grow up in many ways.
After alienation reaches its limit, humanity will begin to reincorporate the lost sacred dimensions into life on a conscious level. This will require spiritual science - a path of inner development to activate higher faculties like imagination, inspiration, and intuition, or often described and the re-integration of the sacred feminine principle into society where then we can merge the best of objective truth with balanced inner development, where a marriage of love and wisdom can bloom.
By taking evolution into our own hands through consciously transforming our inner being, humanity returns to recognizing its embeddedness in the cosmic whole. This completes the arc back to spirit on a mature level.
Material progress lays the foundation, but conscious awareness of our divine spiritual nature beckons as the next phase. What was instinctive in the past becomes an active reunification. This ascension to higher consciousness is the essential path of human becoming.
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