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Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness

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the entire book is available on Duane Elgin's website as a free pdf file.

Duane Elgin has compiled a fairly complete and comprehensive outline of the evolution of human consciousness and the direction we are headed and therefore, the drastic and immediate changes humans need to make to insure survival of life on our beautiful, but vulnerable planet Earth. I'll borrow a simple, but profound Ancient Chinese Proverb Elgin included in his book: "Voluntary Simplicity" to emphasize the need for humans to realize the slippery slope to disaster we are on and the need to alter course:

"If we don't change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed"- Indeed!

Elgin doesn't just dwell on the negative without proffering ideas, means and ways to clean up our collective human act, rather, most all of his energy is poured into answers and ideas for human lifestyle changes that are sustainable and healthy. All of his publications are guidelines to sane, harmonious living. And this can be seen in another fine, eloquent book of his: "Promise Ahead".

"Awakening Earth" outlines the on-going poll seen at his website about what stage of maturation and consciousness is humanity at: "What Life Stage of the Human Family". There are four choices: Toddler, Teenager, Adult or Elder. The poll has maintained it's choice percentages for several years at about 74% for Teenager and about 21% for Toddler- not much left for the Adult or Elder category. After reading Elgin's books, one might be inclined to see him as one of the Elders.

The importance in Human Maturation was the focus of a very simple, eloquent, but potent book published in 1947 by H.A. Overstreet: "The Mature Mind" which became an international bestseller and I found it is as profound and timely as Elgin's important work.

Also paralleling Elgin's theme here is Thomas Berry's book "The Great Work', a profound message of the dire need for a human alteration of it's accepted norm for compatibility in a more humane and civilized world that acknowledges God's gift of Nature as the basis and guiding force in all of our transactions with life.

I was happy to have stumbled across this book. Inside its bindings lies a thoughtful look at where the evolution of our speciese has come from and where it is going. Spiritualy, physically, and Meta-fully. Worth reading for purly new ideas.

As Duane Elgin shares in his Acknowledgements "Awakening Earth" is a "life project". In fact, it is a revelation as he reveals at the end of the book in his second Appendix, "Meditative Origins of Dimensional Cosmology". Having completed Elgin's latest book, "The Living Universe", a few months ago, I picked it up again and my attention was drawn to a reference to "Awakening Earth", so I decided to read it instead and "Wow!" "Awakening Earth" is a profound gift from a very deep place.Though the book was finished in 1993, the revelations are totally alive and relevant for me now. Awakening Earth is an elegant, brilliant description of co-evolving, dimensional evolution, which I find deeply inspiring. The graphs that go with each stage are also revelatory, as are the many helpful graphs throughout the book.

Though I don't know anything about sacred geometry, I liked the idea of moving through geometric dimensions, personally and socially. The dimensions reveal an emergent, evolving, nested structure which allow for freedom to develop within necessary limits. As Elgin says, "The theory of dimensional evolution suggests that our primary task is to move through a series of expanding dimensional contexts that enable us to develop our capacity for self-referencing knowing, both personal and social." Pg. 309. And as he adds, "Evolution moves through a nested set of dimensions that are mutually interpenetrating yet noninterfering with one another." Clearly, as a species, we need, as Elgin says, ""A widely shared consensus about the specifics of an evolutionary cosmology for the species is still in the process of being discovered." Pg. 327 Personally, I love Elgin's vision of an evolutionary cosmology and believe he contributes to ever more broadly considered tapestry of evolving models, including Aurobindos, Spiral Dynamics, and Ken Wilber's.

The following was clarifying for me: "The goal of evolution is not to move from matter to consciousness; rather it is to integrate matter and consciousness into a coevolving spiral of mutual refinement that ultimately reveals the generative ground from which both continuously arise." Pg. 295 So simple and clear. And I like how Elgin keeps us integrating and engaged with the world, as in, "Our spiritual challenge is not to reach beyond this world; rather it is to come into dynamic alignment with the world as it is and thereby come into a living relationship with the divine Life-force." Pg. 289. Clearly the book comes out of a deep realization and revelation which in part becomes Elgin's guiding premise: The Universe is Alive! And evolving!! "Everywhere I looked, I saw an infusing radiance of immense intelligence, creativity, and love. I saw, and directly experienced, that everything, including "empty space," is visibly alive. Space was not simply the absence of form but the formless expression of infinite possibility." Pg. 332

I'm also look forward to the revised version of "Voluntary Simplicity" coming out in early 2010 as well as, hopefully, his online course. See [...]

This books presents a history of humankind, implicity based on textbook Darwinian evolution, and attempts to project trends into the future. Though the book was published in 1993 many of the ideas about more advanced phases, or dimensions, of human society (such as green/alternative energy) are still right on and only beginning to be touched by the inhabitants of earth. However, there are two major flaws with this thesis.

The author uses the torus as his ultimate 'sacred geometry' that human society is aiming at. But if you study Plato or others in sacred geometry there is an explicit progression of the elements through various geometric forms knowns as the Platonic solids. These basic shapes are rooted in the core of sacred geometry. To ignore them and jump to the torus as the basic form is sloppy. And even the transitional phases of the forms presented in the book leading to the torus as the last stage in the book make no sense. (They look like a zit forming and popping like a volcano.) So here is the danger in forming a thesis on a combination of ideas which are not rooted in the widely accepted and clearly evident discplines that they are borrowed from. The author could have spent his time talking about what makes an earth phase society, water phase, fire phase (bronze age through beginning of industrial revolution), air phase (industrial revolution especially electricity/electronics), and onto ether phase.

Besides not being rooted in accepted sacred geometry the author makes a fatal flaw in assuming that the previous archaic era was something that we 'progressed' out of. This is the standard archeological line of progress and that we are much better off than the sniviling cave men shivering in the cold. This view, though widely accepted, denies two important probabilities. The first is that there have probably been many advanced civilizations on this planet in the past. The topic of Forbidden Archeology has troves of examples that cannot be explained that are hush-hushed away. The entire probabability of large planetary cyclic ages is denied by both conventionality archeology and implicitly by this book.

The other main problem with this thesis is the assumption that something in the 'archaic' past of humanity was not good enough and had to be progressed beyond. There is evidence that 3000 years ago the Aboriginie of Austrialia had a brief period of toolmaking and abandoned it Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime (Inner Traditions). You can also tune into Terrence McKenna The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History. There is ample evidence that the human being is wired to live close to the land and that our 'progress' away from the earth is merely a delusional form of de-evolution.

The author builds on the premis that the archaic, hunter-gather, farming, and other phases each had fulfilled their purpose and are obsolete. This leads you potentially to a compassionate spiritual Star Trek (free energy) utopia in the book. However, as nice as these ideas are, without recognizing the need for a close relationship to the earth the ideas are spurious at best. Living green and recycling is one thing. Living on the land is another.

From my experiences I am convinced that we cannot achieve peace or real advancement into a future real civilization unless we start from a solid basis in our relationship to the earth. So it's difficult for me to see so many of the right and helpful concepts in the book (marriage of spirit and matter, caring for the earth, etc.) and still have to conclude that:

- The book is too long
- The geometric model used in the book is meaningless
- The assumption of linear progress is unsupportable
- Though informative the book is not visionary, does not draw you in, does not inspire
- Each point is not succinct enough to be used as a visualization tool for self and planetary transformation

And this last bit, about inspiring first self and then planetary transformation is a daunting task and very few books get it right. This book also did not convey it clearly enough Global Shift: How A New Worldview Is Transforming Humanity (New Harbinger/Noetic Books). But a simpler book like this one does The Gate of Paradise, Secrets of Andean Shamanism

Still, if you have not read the classics like Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives or Future Shock then this book is wide-ranging enough to expose you to most of the important topics, even if it's foundations and assumptions are off.

At the least read chapter 12 'Coevolution and the Meta-Universe'. Had the book placed this section first, doubled or tripled it's length, and then used that orientation for the rest of the text it would have been a very different read.