Twelve Conditions of Consciousness

Spiritual beings develop at the highest level along the threads corresponding with the outstreaming of the three Logoi, and can be grouped in three categories with regards to the characteristics of the Condition of Consciousness (CoC) that they display.

The first seven correspond to the process that Mankind or humanity develops along the seven planetary stages of our solar system. However, when asking what happens then, or how a solar system like our current comes into being, we need to consider the higher stages. These higher stages have the characteristic of the logos: sacrifice of one's own being substance out of pure spiritual love. This at the same time is an act of creation of something higher.

For Man as for other spiritual beings the CoC is a representative indicator for the type of conscious awareness. The corresponding environment or world is denoted with terminology of planes (originating from theosophy).

Aspects

With CoC4 is made reference to what Rudolf Steiner called the 'human stage', see Condition of Consciousness level 4 on Schema FMC00.048 below (which is the waking consciousness stage for humanity on the current Earth stage of evolution), that one find represented in red on FMC00.077A.
humanity on Earth
- For the current human being on Earth, the feeling of shame and feeling of fear represent physiological symptoms or expressions of respectively Old Moon consciousness (which is still present) and the new Future Jupiter consciousness (1908-01-16-GA266, see topic page Fear).
- the current contemporary consciousness in our Current Postatlantean epoch is described on Waking consciousness
- through initiation systems such as IIH, Man can follow along a fast track the development of future states of creative consciousness (see eg Franz Bardon's third book KTQ)
'CoC-ladder (or 'ladder of conditions of consciousness') is a term used to denote the fact that Schema FMC00.048 is not fixed, but growing through the continuous evolution of creation by the three Logoi and the Cosmic fractal.
- for a shorthand explanation, see the continuous evolution or CoC-stitching principles with Schema FMC00.568 and Schema FMC00.067A/B on creation by the three Logoi, resulting in what is depicted with Schema FMC00.564 on Creation of solar system. Another way this is symbolized is by IAO, eg the circle on Schema FMC00.329 is the dynamic that represents the logoic stitching which extends the ladder and complexity of creation.
planetary spirit
- concept and principle explanation: see 1904-11-09-GA089 and Schema FMC00.187 and variants on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension
- at a certain point the planet becomes a sun
- as related to the human being:
  - in the violet indigo mental aura (or Man's higher triad) of the adept .. "the rose-red is that which is actually creative, that where the I in the creative forces begins to rework the world in a spiritual way, and where the adept begins to become a real planetary spirit. (1904-01-19-GA090A and Schema FMC00.569 on Human aura)
zodiac
- "a spirit so great that it builds a solar system is not to be found in the sun but at the outermost edge of the system .. this solid is the I of the solar system in question" (1904-01-19-GA090A)
- see references on Schema FMC00.076 on Creation of solar system

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.048 gives a reference table for the evolution of Man along the different states of Conditions of Consciousness (CoC).

Schema FMC00.077A shows how the various spiritual hierarchies 'rise up' along the CoC ladder per planetary stage of evolution. The nature of how each hierarchy goes through a given CoC is totally different though, depending on the constitution of that planetary stage. See also: Creation of solar system.

.

Schema FMC00.570 connects three levels of viewing evolution: at the level of planetary stage of evolution to Condition of Consciousness for the spiritual hierarchy of humanity, how this develops on the fourth planetary stage Earth, and how we can follow this evolution for the human being.

The high level cosmic principles such as Mahat (Schema FMC00.568) and the principle of creation by the three logoi (Schema FMC00.067A and Schema FMC00.067B) are connected to the development of Man's bodily principles and how this can be followed with clairvoyant spiritual vision in the aura of the human being (Schema FMC00.569).

Note this is an ambitious schema and this first implementation of the idea may be suboptimal. However it will make sense and come more to life when studying seven lectures together, as presented on Schema FMC00.570A.

Lecture coverage and references

In most references only the seven first types of consciousness are discussed. The main reference lecture is 1905-08-12-GA091.

1904-01-19-GA090A

edited machine translation, SWCC.

And now something about what is really meant by so-called inanimate nature: even the higher spirits have an I.
If a spirit is so great that it builds a solar system, then it is not to be found in the sun, but at the outermost edge of the system.
The solar system is thus apparently an inanimate one, because it has already put the I outside. If we could get to the edge of the solar system, we would find the I there.
This is the esoteric reason for the blueness of the sky! Space appears blue because it represents nothing other than the black shell outside!
And outside this black shell the spirit appears through the different shells in different colored regions! So when you look at it, it must appear to you as if you were looking at a black surface through a glass that is illuminated, because it appears blue to you. For example, the center of a flame also appears blue. Where the flame is blue is a dark space; nothing is burning there. This is easy to see in a candle flame, but in reality it is black. Every flame is bright.
The blue of the sky is really to be addressed as a 'solid', as Genesis says; this is to be understood as literally as possible, just as outside the I is the general spirit.
Nothing in the world is without spirit; there is only spirit that has not yet become the I; within is the spirit with which the I has already filled itself. The I is the boundary between the spirit from outside and the spirit that lives within the person. This solid is the I of the solar system in question.
Genesis is an inspired book; it is not something devised by Man. As long as the mental had not yet entered the human mind, it was inspired from outside. And we call the externally inspired books the content of the Primordial Revelations. These therefore all agree with each other when we see through the cover that people have drawn over them. We can go to the Indian books or to the traditions of the decadent tribes in America: they agree because they have been received as revelations. This is something that is not only known to occultists, but has obviously always been recognized. Herder also saw through it. The nineteenth century, which was mainly concerned with criticism, measured these things according to human opinions. The correct point of view towards these books is the one from which can be said: If we do not understand these books, the book need not be absurd, but we ourselves can be absurd.

1905-08-11-GA091

makes the relationship between these Conditions of Consciousness and the spiritual hierarchies, and 1905-08-13-GA091 with how consciousness in Man is related with the I and nervous system and the ether body.

1907-12-28-GA101

describes the pattern by which Man develops his CoC and the symbol of the caduceus

1909-06-27-GA112

the extract below connects CoC=4 and CoC=8 levels, as shown on Schema FMC00.077A. See also topic page on Sacrifice.

When we look back to the Old Saturn stage we may say that this body was composed solely of human beings. There was no animal, no vegetable, no mineral kingdom on that body. The whole Old Saturn sphere was nothing but human forms in embryonic state — much as a blackberry consists of a number of single little berries. And all the beings who belonged to Old Saturn surrounded this sphere and acted upon it from the environing space.
And now let us ask whence that power came which provided the first beginning of the human physical body on Old Saturn. In a certain sense we may say that it came from two sides.
1/ In the first place, high spiritual beings bearing the name of ‘Thrones’, in the sense of Christian esotericism, poured out their substance and consummated a great sacrifice on Old Saturn. Human thought, even human seership, hardly dare presume to peer into the sublime evolution through which the Thrones must have passed before they were able to sacrifice a part of themselves to form the first beginning of the human physical body. Let us try to understand a little what is meant by such a sacrifice.
When we consider the being best known to us today, Man, we say: Man, as he is, demands certain things of the world and gives certain things to the world. Goethe has summed this up in the words: ‘Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between giving and taking.’
Man derives more than physical sustenance from the outer world; his intellect, too, must draw nourishment from it. Thus he provides for his growth and obtains what he requires for his own development. On the other hand, he develops the capacity to requite what he receives, with matured ideas, feelings, and finally with love. By taking from the world on one side and giving back on the other, his abilities are increasingly heightened; he becomes a reasonable and intellectual human being; he can develop ideas which can be offered up for the common welfare of humanity. He develops feelings and emotions which become transmuted into love; and when he brings these feelings and emotions as an offering to his fellow human beings, the life of the latter becomes quickened thereby. We need only recall the quickening effect of love. Whoever is really able to pour forth love on his fellow creatures can quicken, comfort, and elevate them by his love alone.
Man has therefore the ability to sacrifice something. But to whatever heights our capacity for sacrifice may rise, our power is meagre when compared with that of the Thrones. Evolution, however, consists in the acquisition of an increasing capacity for sacrifice, until a being is finally capable of offering up his own substance and being; indeed, of feeling it to be his highest bliss when he gives forth what he has developed as his own substance. Such sublime beings do indeed exist, who rise to a higher level of existence by offering up their own substance. The materialist will of course here again say: ‘If beings are so advanced that they can sacrifice their own substance, how can they rise to a higher stage? If they offer up themselves, there is nothing left of them!’ Thus the materialist, for he cannot understand that there is a spiritual existence, and that a being is preserved even if he gives forth all that he has gradually taken to himself.
On Old Saturn the Thrones had reached a stage at which they could pour out the substance which they had acquired in the course of their foregoing evolution. Through this act they rose to a higher stage of evolution. That which issued from the Thrones, as the thread which the spider spins from its body to weave its web, was the groundwork for the formation of the physical human body.
2/ Then came other beings, not so high in rank as the Thrones, whom we call archai, in the sense of Christian esotericism. The archai now took in hand, as it were, the substance that issued from the Thrones. The collaboration of these two hierarchies produced the first beginning of the physical human body, which was as then elaborated through long periods of time.
Then, as we said yesterday, there ensued universal night or cosmic Devachan which was followed by the second incarnation of the Earth as ‘Old Sun’. The human beings again came forth and other spiritual beings appeared on the scene. These were the archangels, in the sense of Christian esotericism, and the Spirits of Wisdom. These now were most concerned in further developing what reappeared as the physical human body. It was now the turn of the Spirits of Wisdom to sacrifice their substance, and what we know as the etheric body flowed from them into the human physical body. The etheric body was elaborated by the archai together with the archangels, and as a result Man developed to a being of the value of a plant. We may say that on Old Saturn, Man had the value and the existence of a mineral, inasmuch as he had no more than a physical body, as our minerals today. On Old Sun, Man rose to the level of a plant, for he possessed both physical and etheric bodies. An event now took place the idea of which must occupy a foremost place in our minds if we wish to understand evolution in its entirety.

Discussion

Most of anthroposophy and spiritual science focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the first seven states, and deliberately keeps anything beyond out of scope of communication. The higher five were covered in selected early lectures in the period 1903-1905, as they were part of the eastern Theosophy brought by H.P. Blavatsky and elucidated by Rudolf Steiner.