What we discussed in Spiritual Realism: Part IV – The Core Philosophy 2 leads me to address where we are right now with the Creator’s Plan(s) for us as the human species here on Earth. This topic takes us back to/forward to the Planetary Ideology and Planetary Philosophy that preceded and, in a sense, gave birth to Spiritual Realism.
The Creator’s Plan(s)
For me, Pierre de Chardin, the Catholic theologian and paleontologist, has done the best job of describing the Creator’s Plan at the level of the emergence of life and human life on planet Earth.
Chardin describes evolution as the story of physical entities becoming more complexly integrated with correspondingly increased complexity and coherence of interior mental experience. Each advance in evolution also manifested as an advance in consciousness.
We know the story. Chemical chains become single-celled organisms with an ability to move with volition to accomplish survival purposes. And single-celled organisms agglomerate to become multi-celled organisms, with more complex interior realities (consciousnesses).
Multi-celled organisms evolved into the great plant and insect and animal kingdoms. However, when multi-celled plants, insects, and animals reproduce, they must return to the single celled state as a fertilized egg and then they rapidly recapitulate their whole evolutionary history, both along the physical and the mental dimensions.
Humanity: Along one arm of this multifaceted evolutionary trajectory, humanoids and, eventually, our species, homo sapiens, developed. With humans, a new level of physically integrated complexity and a new mental level of consciousness emerged so that human consciousness acquired the ability to become conscious of itself, not just the world around it. And human consciousness evolved symbolic language, enabling it to escape its time-bound state and think about things other than what is right here right now.
This evolution of human self-consciousness and symbolic consciousness made the relatively rapid (on the cosmic scale) evolution of human society and human culture possible. With the emergence of the human socio-cultural reality, the primacy of evolutionary direction shifted from the natural selection of physical entities each with a mental dimension, to the socio-cultural evolution of human society. People became able to use their mental dimensions to guide their own evolution.
The Noosphere: Chardin asserted that this process has led to the emergence of what he called the “noosphere.” The biosphere exists in between the lithosphere (the world of soil and stone) and the atmosphere and the biosphere gave birth to the noosphere, defined by the Miriam Webster dictionary as “the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution.”
The Internet can be seen as an augmentation and enhancement of the physical dimension of the noosphere. Some have suggested that Chardin’s concept of the noosphere was an anticipation of the Internet, through which the mental dimension of humanity can interact consciously throughout the Earth.
The Omega Point: Chardin goes on to suggest that the emergence of the noosphere is the prerequisite for a subsequent evolutionary leap that he calls the “Omega Point” when human consciousness as a whole develops a coherent self-conscious vantage point for the whole human species and the Earth itself, making a new kind of evolution possible.
At the Omega Point, all the many individual humans come into coherence with each other and develop an interior field of consciousness in a way that is quite analogous to the way our individual cells in our bodies cohere to form our individual human consciousnesses.
With the Omega Point, the human species grows up and becomes a responsible adult species, accomplishing the Planetary Transformation, whereby we humans increasingly come to live in harmonious, productive relations with each other and with the Earth, guided by what we can call a Planetary Consciousness.
Sounds good, right? Yet, when we look around, we find much of humanity moving in exactly the opposite direction. Our wars, our failure to respond effectively to climate change, our embrace of an economic system that is dominated by a relatively few oligarchs, leaving much of humanity in poverty or near poverty (hundreds of millions of children in the world live in extreme poverty) Now these oligarchs and their right wing allies control the governments of the United States, Russia, Italy, India, etc. and they are on the move in many other countries. At the same time China, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, among others, have authoritarian, repressive governments.
So, you may ask, how can humanity possibly begin to accomplish the Planetary Transformation called for in this Divine Plan, given the current state of the world, which seems to be moving in the opposite direction? How do we grow up and emerge out of our destructive adolescence to become an adult species with a Planetary Civilization that provides well-being for everyone in a healthy relationship with the Earth?
Planetary Consciousness
The attainment of Planetary Consciousness is the first step in the Planetary Transformation. So, let’s begin this exploration by looking more deeply at Planetary Consciousness.
As I have said, Planetary Consciousness means that individual humans come into coherence with each other and develop an interior field of consciousness as an integrated reality in a way that is quite analogous to the way our individual cells in our bodies coherer to form our individual human consciousnesses.
Applying the perspective of Spiritual Realism in relation to Planetary Consciousness, our human souls in the divine world connect with each other and with the soul of the Earth and the souls of all other beings that make up the Earth, forming an overarching consciousness that unifies us all and then reaches through from the divine realm to experience and act in relation to all four forms of consciousness in each of us, unifying us with the four forms of consciousness in the rest of humanity.
Planetary Consciousness creates a kind of binocular awareness. We come to be able to experience our individual lives as separate realities and, at the same time, at a higher level, the unity of all of us humans and all of the beings that make up the Earth and the Earth as a whole as its own unified reality.
Planetary Philosophy
When I first started thinking about and formulating Planetary Philosophy, I started out with Chardin’s philosophy and the concept of Planetary Consciousness. It just seemed clear to me, if you accept Chardin’s logic, that the next stage in our evolution was to move to Planetary Consciousness, the way our cells agglomerated and evolved our individual consciousnesses. It was time for the Earth to, itself, become an individual with its own consciousness and with humanity serving a role analogous to the role our brain cells and nervous systems serve with us individual humans.
(Some would say that this process is merely an acceptance and elaboration of the reality of the Spirit of the Earth – Mother Earth in traditional cultures; the Greek Goddess, Gaia; Bhudevi or Prithvi in the Hindu tradition, the Anima Mundi of the Perennial Philosophy.)
A Planetary Ideology
So, for the last 20 years or so, I have explored, worked with, and elaborated this idea. I began by formulating a Planetary Ideology.
The Earth is at a very unstable point in its evolution. In a systems theory context it will either evolve or devolve now. So, In order to survive, individual humans have to evolve to the next level of consciousness and connect to form the emergent Earth’s next level of organization and coherence. Let’s call that “Planetary Consciousness.”
To succeed, this Planetary Consciousness needs to be expressed in a straightforward unifying philosophy – a Planetary Ideology – with a set of simple, self-evident, powerful core principles (assumptions) that are so clear and so self-evident that it is virtually impossible for anyone to deny them.
And these principles need to provide clear guidance so that anyone and everyone can immediately understand whether an action contributes to evolution or devolution. What are these principles?
I answered my question be suggesting that there are three core principles: One Planet; One People; and One Purpose.
One Planet: Each of us human beings has a body that is made of the Earth. We are composed of the elements of the Earth. We are not something outside of the Earth. Our bones, our blood, our muscles, all of our cells are composed of portions of the Earth. These elements from the Earth are still part of the Earth even as they are composing our bodies. Hence, we are all aspects of One Planet. There is no place where it is possible to draw a line and say that is where I begin and the Earth stops – that is where the Earth begins and I stop.
Intellectually, we know this is true. According to relativity physics, we know that everything is connected and an action in any place affects every place, at least a little bit. Also, according to ecology, any action affects the whole ecology, at least a little bit. And, it is certainly clear that the Earth is one ecology.
So, we are a part of the Earth and the Earth is a part of us. What we experience is something that the Earth is experiencing. Our experience is the Earth experiencing other aspects of itself. Each of us lives a life that is one strand woven together to form the fabric made up of all of the strands of all of the lives of everything alive on Earth.
We cannot, we must not deny that everything that we do to the Earth we do to ourselves. Everything that everyone does to the Earth they do to us.
One People: Without question the fact that we are One People, has to be true, because we are all part of the one Earth. Since the body of each human being is made of the one Earth, we are all intimately linked together. But we are one people much more intimately than that.
We are one people because we come from common ancestors and, as members of the human species, we share 99.9% of our DNA – 99.9% of our genetic make-up unites us and only 00.1% divides us. At any moment any cell or any virus in the body of any human being could mutate to become a virulent disease that could become a pandemic that could potentially kill every other member of the human species. We experienced this threat with the COVID pandemic. In this sense, we live or die as One People.
The health and wellbeing of each individual in the human species profoundly affects the health and wellbeing of the whole species. The human species is going to survive as a whole – not just some dominant part of the species.
What we do to each other we do to us all, to the whole human species. We have the opportunity to create a wonderful reality here on Earth, but, in the end, we have to do it with and for us all.
One Purpose: According to Systems Theory, when a system in a steady state of equilibrium takes in too much new content – new forces, new elements, new relationships – it goes into a state of disequilibrium, which is unstable. At that point, the system has to evolve and transform to a new, higher form of organization or else devolve into a new, lower form of organization.
The Earth is a system. The human species is a sub-system of the Earth. The system of the Earth and the sub-system of the human species have entered a state of profound disequilibrium. We see the instability caused by and causing this disequilibrium wherever we look – climate change; habitat destruction and species die-off; failing and failed states; wars and the threat of larger wars, and poverty, hunger, and disease. Half of us, over 3 billion of us, live each day on less than it costs for a cup of coffee and very many children die each day because they are so poor.
It is the responsibility of each individual human alive right now to be part of the solution or else he or she is part of the problem. We need a new and better system for the human species and the Earth, a system that yields:
- Peace among people and peace with the Earth.
- Health and wellbeing for all people on a healthy planet.
- An opportunity for each person to live a satisfying and creative life and make a contribution to the whole.
We need a Planetary Transformation to evolve to a higher level of organization or the Earth is going to devolve to a lower level of organization as a planet, which may take it outside of the narrow tolerances required for human life, if it comes to that. And millions of us are working for just such a transformation.
Once I formulated the Three Principles of a Planetary Ideology as a way to understand and foster Planetary Consciousness, I went on to elaborate the underlying Planetary Philosophy in many different directions, looking at consciousness, history, science, and the movements for Planetary Transformation. Then I explored Panpsychism, the philosophy that everything in the universe has a consciousness dimension. And, finally, I have been formulating Spiritual Realism as the ultimate philosophical (and spiritual) context within which Planetary Consciousness, Planetary Philosophy, and the Planetary Ideology exist.
Planetary Consciousness in the Context of Spiritual Realism
Now we have come full circle to show that, according to the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism, the emergence of Planetary Consciousness leading to a Planetary Transformation is the next stage in the Creator’s Plan for us humans and the reason the group of us who are riding the current wave through the space/time continuum came to incarnate now.
Our job now is to attain Planetary Consciousness and make the Planetary Transformation. So, how do we do this? And, how can Spiritual Realism provide some guidance for us in this task?
I understand that the Planetary Ideology provides an intellectual formulation of Planetary Consciousness that can orient and guide our minds, but Planetary Consciousness is also a spiritual experience. We can come to experience the spiritual reality of Planetary Consciousness using our spiritual senses producing visions of the Earth, transformed by a unified humanity guided by Planetary Consciousness.
Planetary Consciousness is an emotional experience evoking strong feelings in our hearts and love for each other and for our planetary homeland as well as great sadness at what humans have done to our home during our self-destructive adolescence. This emotional experience of Planetary Consciousness can lead to a firm resolve to make the transformation that is needed and right the wrongs we have committed.
We can also experience Planetary Consciousness through our physical senses when we see the Earth from space, when we go to the places of great beauty and inspiration that beckon to us, when we witness the environmental destruction in places we have defiled, and when we join with our compatriots in building examples of the Planetary Transformation that we need.
And finally, as Souls reaching through into our waking reality as that which receives all our experiences and initiates all of our actions, we can recognize that the manifestation of Planetary Consciousness comes to us now as our mission from the Creator.
Each of our experiences of Planetary Consciousness shares in the unified participation of this emerging field of consciousness, this emerging morphic field that whispers to us in the dead of the night and urges us on to understand more deeply and act more effectively in the light of day. And yet, also, each of us brings our own diverse perspectives to this emerging reality. We each have a unique contribution to make to the emergence of Planetary Consciousness to make it supple and strong and effective and, ultimately, invincible.
The Planetary Ideology Can Be For Everyone
Planetary Consciousness does not presuppose any particular philosophy, or religion, or economic system. I have evolved Spiritual Realism as a spiritual and philosophical context for Planetary Consciousness and the Planetary Transformation to help me frame and understand their significance and their power. I think Spiritual Realism has a lot to offer in this respect and I recommend it for your consideration. However it is not necessary.
Planetary Consciousness and the Three Principles of the Planetary Ideology can be embraced by anyone and everyone. The Three Principles are simply true. They cannot be denied.
And yet, acceptance of them has the possibility of changing everything leading to a way of being that:
- Values the Earth as not only our home but also that out of which we are made.
- Empathizes with humanity and each individual human as our inherent community to which we are irrevocably tied.
- Recognizes that climate change and species extinction and global poverty and failed states and rampant wars require us to create a new system for how people live on the Earth.
The Planetary Transformation and Morphic Theory
All of humanity is already linked together in that we are all riding on the same wave moving through the space/time continuum. We share the same present. From that perspective, our problem becomes simpler. We just need for more and more of the us participating in this wave of a shared present to acquire Planetary Consciousness and accept that we are headed for a Planetary Transformation as called for in the Divine Plan (or else we are headed for failure as a species).
As we have discussed, our Souls have the missions of Personal Transformation by: 1) waking up as Souls while our bodies are awake, acquiring Higher Selves with the ability to experience and act consciously and effectively through our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual vehicles; and 2) joining with the other members of our teams of cooperating Souls to build examples of the Planetary Transformation.
According to morphic theory, when we make progress in our Personal Transformations, manifesting the missions of our Souls, we strengthen our morphic fields. When we build examples of Planetary Consciousness and the Planetary Transformation and when we link those examples together, we strengthen the morphic field of Planetary Consciousness and the Planetary Transformation, which, in turn, makes further progress toward the Planetary Transformation more and more likely.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are one way to define what constitutes an example of Planetary Transformation and there are a very large number of examples of the Planetary Transformation manifesting some, most, or even all of the SDGs. These examples already constitute a nascent Movement for Planetary Transformation with millions of participants and thousands of projects guided by various formulations of a Planetary Ideology.
The stronger the morphic field of the Planetary Transformation, the more powerful its morphic resonance becomes, which leads to more and more effective manifestations of it in physical world. We can even undertake rituals with the intention of strengthening morphic field of the Planetary Transformation (like the Planetary Dance).
The Tipping Point for the Planetary Transformation
Eventually we can get to a tipping point for the Planetary Transformation. Morphic theory suggests how tipping points work. When a powerful enough morphic field emerges, anchored in enough actual examples in the physical world, the Planetary Transformation can take off and generate substantial positive momentum.
One of the implications of the Spiritual Realism theory of time is that the future Planetary Transformation that we want already exists as one (or maybe some) of the potentialities that exist in the future. We are inevitably headed for one potential future or another. The more we believe in and envision and, maybe pray for and maybe ritually enact, the alternative future of the Planetary Transformation we need and want, the more powerful its morphic resonance becomes and the more likely its full manifestation becomes.
Strengthening our conscious connections between the examples of the Planetary Transformation we are building and the alternative future of the Planetary Transformation we desire can add additional morphic resonance to the whole process.
And, according to the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism, it is our Souls that do the experiencing and acting for us in the Spiritual and Physical Worlds and our Souls come from the Creator. To the degree that each of us opens to our connection with the Creator, we will attain a deeper understanding of the Divine Plan for Planetary Transformation and of our individual roles in accomplishing it.
Note
Over the years, I have developed a Planetary Consciousness/Planetary Transformation practice to strengthen my own experience of it, to listen to its song more deeply, and my contribution to it. My practice has a spiritual dimension, a mental dimension, an emotional dimension, a physical dimension, a ritual dimension, a community dimension, and a work dimension.
In subsequent essays, I will share some of the different aspects of this practice, some different ways to understand where we are in the process of Planetary Transformation, given the current political and economic realities here on Earth. As we emerge from our current reality, we will need a powerful ideology to guide us and the Three Principles of the Planetary Ideology presented here can be such an ideology. (More about this in an upcoming essay.)
However, if you agree with the wisdom of recognizing that Planetary Consciousness is the stage humanity is entering and that we need to/must make the Planetary Transformation, what’s most important is for you to develop your own unique Planetary Consciousness practices and to deepen your own experience and strengthen your own contributions to Planetary Transformation.
Many of us have already done or are already doing this and, I believe, the perspective presented here can help us join together more powerfully and act more effectively. May all of us find our unique places in this story and make our unique contributions to the realization of our best possible future. We have a lot of work to do together.
(Subsequent essays elaborating the Philosophy of Spiritual Realism will present my take on the Spiritual World and the Mental World. Then I will be going on to explore strategies for guiding the Planetary Transformation, but, if you want to get an early look at that thinking, you can access the two essays I have already produced: Planetary Philosophy and Toward a Planetary Revolution.)
