Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the

mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...

or spirit, in analogy to

biological evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...

, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is differentiated from the "lower" or biological evolution.

Definition

An alternate term is "Higher Evolution." According to Piyasīlo, The concept of spiritual evolution is

teleological Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Applet ...

, in contrast to biological evolution.

Origins of the concept

Evolution

Hegel

Western esotericism

Theories of spiritual evolution are important in many

Occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...

and

Esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

teachings, which emphasise the progression and development of the individual either after death (

spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...

) or through successive

reincarnation Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the Philosophy, philosophical or Religion, religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new lifespan (disambiguation), lifespan in a different physical ...

s (

Theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...

Hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical and religious tradition rooted in the teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretism, syncretic figure combining elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. This system e ...

The great chain of being

The concept of the

Great Chain of Being The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, Human, humans, Animal, animals and Plant, plants to ...

was developed by

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

and

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

whose ideas were taken up and synthesised by Plotinus. Plotinus in turn heavily influenced

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

's theology, and from there

Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

and the Scholastics. The Great Chain of Being was an important theme in

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

and

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

thought, had an under-acknowledged influence on the shaping of the ideas of the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...

and played a large part in the worldview of 18th century Europe. And while essentially a static worldview, by the 18th and early 19th century it had been "temporalized" by the concept of the

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

ascending or progressing spiritually through the successive rungs or stages, and thus growing or evolving closer to

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. It also had at this time an impact on theories of biological evolution.

E. F. Schumacher Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-born British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dust ...

, author of ''Small is Beautiful'', has recently proposed a sort of simplified Great Chain of Being, based on the idea of four "

kingdoms Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchic state or realm ruled by a king or queen. ** A monarchic chiefdom, represented or governed by a king or queen. * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and me ...

" (mineral, vegetable, animal, human). Schumacher rejects modernist and scientific themes, his approach recalling the universalist orientation of writers like

Huston Smith Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, ''The World's R ...

, and likely contributing to Ken Wilber's "holonomic" hierarchy or "Great Nest of Being".

Spiritualism

Spiritualists reacted with uncertainty to the theories of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

in the late 19th and early 20th century. Broadly speaking, the concept of evolution fit the spiritualist thought of the progressive development of humanity. At the same time, however, a belief in the animal origins of man threatened the foundation of the immortality of the spirit, for if man had not been created, it was scarcely plausible that he would be specially endowed with a spirit. This led to spiritualists embracing spiritual evolution. In the 19th century, Anglo-American Spiritualist ideas emphasized the progression of the soul after death to higher states of existence, in contrast to

Spiritism Spiritism may refer to: Religion * Espiritismo, a Latin American and Caribbean belief that evolved and less evolved spirits can affect health, luck and other aspects of human life * Kardecist spiritism, a new religious movement established in ...

which admits to reincarnation. Spiritualism taught that after death, spirits progressed to new spheres of existence. According to this idea, evolution occurred in the spirit world “at a rate more rapid and under conditions more favorable to growth” than encountered on earth.Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914, 1988, p. 270 The

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and spiritualist

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...

(1823–1913) believed that qualitative novelties could arise through the process of spiritual evolution, in particular, the phenomena of life and mind. Wallace attributed these novelties to a

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

agency. Later in his life, Wallace was an advocate of spiritualism and believed in an immaterial origin for the higher mental faculties of humans. He believed that evolution suggested the universe had a purpose, and that certain aspects of living organisms are not explainable in terms of purely materialistic processes. In a 1909 magazine article entitled ''The World of Life'', which he later expanded into a book of the same name Wallace argued in his 1911 book ''World of life'' for a spiritual approach to evolution and described evolution as “creative power, directive mind and ultimate purpose”. Wallace believed

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

could not explain

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...

in the human being so suggested that non-material spiritual forces accounted for these. Wallace believed the spiritual nature of man could not have come about by natural selection alone, the origins of the spiritual nature must originate “in the unseen universe of spirit”.

Robert Broom Robert Broom Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African medical doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University ...

in his book ''The Coming of Man: Was it Accident or Design?'' (1933) claimed that "spiritual agencies" had guided

animals Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a ...

and

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

were too complex to have arisen by chance. According to Broom there were at least two different kinds of spiritual forces, and psychics are capable of seeing them. Broom claimed there was a plan and purpose in evolution and that the origin of

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

is the ultimate purpose behind evolution. According to Broom "Much of evolution looks as if it had been planned to result in man, and in other animals and plants to make the world a suitable place for him to dwell in. The Anglo-American position recalls (and is presumably inspired by) 18th century concepts regarding the temporalization of The Great Chain of Being. Spiritual evolution, rather than being a physical (or physico-spiritual) process is based on the idea of realms or stages through which the soul or spirit passes in a non-temporal, qualitative way. This is still an important part of some spiritualist ideas today, and is similar to some mainline (as opposed to

fundamentalist Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that are characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishin ...

) Protestant Christian beliefs, according to which after death the person goes to "summerland" (see Spirit world)

Theosophical conceptions

presents a more sophisticated and complex cosmology than Spiritualism, although coming out of the same general milieu. H. P. Blavatsky developed a highly original cosmology, according to which the human race (both collectively and through the succession of individual reincarnation and spiritual evolution) passes through a number of Root Races, beginning with the huge ethereal and mindless Polarian or First Root Race, through the Lemurian (3rd), Atlantean (4th) and our present "Aryan" 5th Race. This will give rise to a future, Post-Aryan 6th Root Race of highly spiritual and enlightened beings that will arise in

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

in the 28th century, and an even more sublime 7th Root Race, before ascending to totally superhuman and cosmic states of existence. Blavatsky's ideas were further developed by her successors, such as C.W. Leadbeater,

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

Alice Bailey Alice Ann Bailey (16 June 1880 – 15 December 1949) was a British and American writer. She wrote about 25 books on Theosophy and was one of the first writers to use the term New Age. She was born Alice La Trobe-Bateman, in Manchester, ...

, Benjamin Creme, and Victor Skumin each of whom went into huge detail in constructing baroque cycles of rounds, races, and sub-races. Skumin elaborated on the theosophical conceptions of spiritual evolution and proposed (1990) a classification of ''Homo spiritalis'' (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ''spiritual man''), the sixth root race, consisting of eight subraces: HS0 Anabiosis spiritalis, HS1 Scientella spiritalis, HS2 Aurora spiritalis, HS3 Ascensus spiritalis, HS4 Vocatus spiritalis, HS5 Illuminatio spiritalis, НS6 Creatio spiritalis, and HS7 Servitus spiritalis. According to Skumin: *''Anabiosis spiritalis'' is spirituality in the potential of unmanifest accumulations of personality, the charge of the fires of spiritual creation; *''Scientella spiritalis'' is the cordial presentiment of the presence and demands of the spirit, spiritualization of the fire of centers, glimpses of self-consciousness of a spiritual person; *''Aurora spiritalis'' is the imperative of the spirit, the action of the spiritual fire of the centers in the heart, the kindling of the fire of the spirit, the formation of the orientation of the personality to the spiritual improvement of life; *''Ascensus spiritalis'' is the dawn of spiritual aspirations, the action of the fire of the spirit in the heart, searching spiritual work, aspiration of self-consciousness to merge with the One Spirit; *''Vocatus spiritalis'' is the maturation of spiritual accumulations, the purposeful spiritual creation, self-awareness and realization of a person as a warrior of the spirit; *''IIluminatio spiritalis'' is the beginning of the fiery transmutation, the lighting of the achievement fire; revealing the identity of man - the earthly carrier of the Thoughts of the One Spirit; *''Creatio Spiritalis'' is the beginning of fiery creation, the action of the fire of achievement in the heart, the revealing self-consciousness of man as the earthly carrier of the Light of the One Spirit; *''Servitus Spiritalis'' is the carrying a consciously accepted duty-commission, the synthesis of spirituality in the clarity of knowledge of a ''fiery man''. Although including elements of the science of her day as well as both eastern and western esoteric thought, Blavatsky rejected the

Darwinian ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...

idea that man evolved from apes, and most subsequent esotericists followed this lead. Darwinism, with its explanation of evolution through material factors like

and random mutation, does not sit well with many spiritual evolutionists, for whom evolution is initiated or guided by metaphysical principles or is tending towards a final spiritual or divine state. It is believed by Theosophists that humans are evolving ''spiritually'' through a series of esoteric initiations and in the future humans will become esoteric masters themselves as their

s gradually rise upward through the spiritual hierarchy over the course of eons as they reincarnate. Despite this, recent Theosophists and Anthroposophists have tried to incorporate the facts of geology and paleontology into their cosmology and spiritual evolution (in Anthroposophy Hermann Poppelbaum is a particularly creative thinker in this regard). Some have attempted to equate

Lemuria Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the dis ...

with

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

land, for example. Today all these ideas have little influence outside their specialised followings, but for a time Theosophical concepts were immensely influential. Theosophy-like teachings also continue today in a group of religions based on Theosophy called the Ascended Master Teachings.

Rosicrucians

Rosicrucian Rosicrucianism () is a spirituality, spiritual and cultural movement that arose in early modern Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts announcing to the world a new Western esotericism, esoteric order. Rosicruc ...

s view the world as a training school, which posits that while mistakes are made in life, humans often learn more from mistakes than successes. Suffering is considered as merely the result of error, and the impact of suffering on the

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

causes humans to be active along other lines which are found to be

good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil. The specific meaning and etymology of the term and its ...

, in

harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

with

nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

. Humans are seen as spirits attending the school of life for the purpose of unfolding latent spiritual power, developing themselves from ''impotence'' to

omnipotence Omnipotence is the property of possessing maximal power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as ...

(related also to development from innocence into

virtue A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be morality, moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is Value (ethics), valued as an Telos, end purpos ...

), reaching the stage of creative gods at the end of mankind's present evolution: ''Great Day of Manifestation''. In esoteric spirituality epigenesis it is the idea that since the

was given to the human being, it is the original creative impulse which has been the cause of all of mankind's development. According to this approach, humans build upon that which has already been created, but add new elements because of the activity of the spirit. Humans have the capacity, therefore, to become creative intelligences— creators. For a human to fulfill this promise, his training should allow for the exercise of originality, which distinguishes creation from

imitation Imitation (from Latin ''imitatio'', "a copying, imitation") is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of learning that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our cu ...

. When epigenesis becomes inactive, in the individual or even in a race, evolution ceases and degeneration commences.

Neo-Vedanta

According to Gosling,

Swami Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda () (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindus, Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was a major figu ...

based most of his cosmological and biological ideas on

Samkhya Samkhya or Sankhya (; ) is a dualistic orthodox school of Hindu philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, '' Puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit) and '' Prakṛti'' (nature or matter, including the human mind a ...

. Influenced by western thought and esotericism, Vivekananda and

Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian Modern yoga gurus, yogi, maharishi, and Indian nationalist. He also edited the newspaper Bande Mataram (publication), ''Bande Mataram''. Aurobindo st ...

developed a view on

in which an

involution Involution may refer to: Mathematics * Involution (mathematics), a function that is its own inverse * Involution algebra, a *-algebra: a type of algebraic structure * Involute, a construction in the differential geometry of curves * Exponentiati ...

of the Divine into matter takes place, and the person has to evolve over multiple lives until the Divine gains recognition of its true nature and liberation is attained.

is one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy; proto-Samkhya ideas can be found in the Upanishads, Jainism, and Buddhism. Samkhya posits two ontological entities, ''Purusha'' (witness-consciousness) and ''prakriti'' ('nature'), which includes mind, congnition, and the perceived objects). According to Samkhya, when ''purusha'' comes into proximity with ''prakriti'' it disturbs the equilibrium of ''prakriti''. As a result, a number of successive essences called ''

tattva According to various Indian schools of philosophy, ''tattvas'' () are the elements or aspects of reality that constitute human experience. In some traditions, they are conceived as an aspect of the Indian deities. Although the number of ''tat ...

s'' evolve from ''prakriti''. The most subtle tattwas emerge first, then progressively grosser ones, each in a particular order, and finally the elements and the organs of sense. Adherents of samkhya-

Yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

adhere to the release of purusha from ''prakriti'', and the return of ''prakriti'' to the unmanifest condition.

and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin both describe a progression from inanimate matter to a future state of Divine consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin refers to this as the Omega Point, and Sri Aurobindo as the Supermind. Teilhard, who was a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

Paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

who played an important role in the discovery of

Peking Man Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'', originally "''Sinanthropus pekinensis''") is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited what is now northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. Its fossils have been found in a cave some southw ...

, presented a teleological view of planetary and cosmic evolution, according to which the formation of atoms, molecules and inanimate matter is followed by the development of the

biosphere The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to mat ...

and organic evolution, then the appearance of man and the

noosphere The noosphere (alternate spelling noösphere) is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new s ...

as the total envelope of human thought. According to Teilhard evolution does not cease here but continues on to its culmination and unification in the Omega Point, which he identifies with

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

New Age

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

thought is strongly syncretic. A common theme is the evolution or the transcendence of the human or collective planetary consciousness in a higher state or higher "vibratory" (a metaphor taken from

G. I. Gurdjieff George Ivanovich Gurdjieff ( – 29 October 1949) was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and movements teacher. Born in the Russian Empire, he briefly became a citizen of the First Republic of Armenia after its formation in 19 ...

) level. David Spangler's communications speak of a "New Heaven and a new Earth", while Christopher Hills refers (perhaps influenced by Sri Aurobindo) to the divinization of man. '' Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' narrated the idea of evolution in a fascinating fashion. James Redfield in his novel '' The Celestine Prophecy'' suggested that through experiencing a series of personal spiritual insights, humanity is becoming aware of the connection between our evolution and the Divine. More recently in his book ''God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution'' (2002) co-written with Michael Murphy, he claims that humanity is on the verge of undergoing a change in

. It is also known as the path of Ascension.

Stage theory

The idea of a spiritual evolution finds contemporary expression in a number of

stage theories Stage, stages, or staging may refer to: Arts and media Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly Brit ...

, inspired by Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, and Piaget, among others. In these models, human development, both individual and collectively, is conceptualized as going through a number of structural stages, from the primitive psychophysical genesis to the full-grown rational, cognitive and moral abilities, and beyond to transpersonal stages in which unconscious drives are fully recognized and integrated, and the sense of a separate identity is loosened or abandoned.

Jean Gebser

Spiral dynamics

An interpretation of social and psychological development that could also be considered a theory of spiritual evolution is

spiral dynamics Spiral Dynamics is a model of developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the fiel ...

, based on the work of Clare W. Graves. Spiral Dynamics posits a series of stages through which human's cultural development progresses – from a survival-based hunter-gatherer stage to a magical-tribal-agrarian stage to a city-building-invading stage to a mythic-religious-empire stage to a rational-scientific-capitalist stage to a green-holistic-inclusive stage and then ascending to a second tier where all the previous stages are contemplated and integrated and a third transpersonal tier where a spiritual unity or Omega point is eventually reached, which all the other stages are struggling to embody. He feels that individuals in each of the meme-plexes/stages can ascend to the peak of consciousness – these being the prophets, visionaries and leaders of any region/age.

Ken Wilber

More recently the concept of spiritual evolution has been given a sort of respectability it has not had since the early 19th century through the work of the integral theorist

Ken Wilber Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949) is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience. Starting publishing ...

, in whose writings both the cosmological and the personal dimensions are described. In this integral philosophy (inspired in part by the works of Plotinus, Hegel, Sri Aurobindo, Eric Jantsch, and many others) reality is said to consist of several realms or stages, including more than one of the following: the physical, the vital, the psychic, (after the Greek ''psyche'', "soul"), the causal (referring to "that which causes, or gives rise to, the manifest world"), and the ultimate (or non-dual), through which the individual progressively evolves. Although this schema is derived in large part from

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...

, Wilber argues (and uses many tables of diagrams to show) that these same levels of being are common to all wisdom teachings. Described simplistically, Wilber sees humans developing through several stages, including magic, mythic, pluralistic, and

holistic Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

mentalities. But he also sees cultures as developing through these stages. And, much like Hegel, he sees this development of individuals and cultures ''as'' the evolution of existence itself. Wilber has also teamed up with Don Beck to integrate Spiral Dynamics into his own Integral philosophy, and vice versa.