Evolution, or the phenomenon of growth and change, operates on three planes of diminishing grandeur. The basic and most dramatic level is the inorganic evolution that occurs throughout the universe over time periods of thousands of millions of years. The mechanisms of this type of evolutionary process are physical and chemical interactions.

The second plane is the process of biological evolution specific to planet Earth. Conventional Darwinian evolutionary theory argues that in the struggle for life, as species continually increase their populations beyond the ability of the surrounding environment to support them, only the fittest individual representatives of those species survive. Chance genetic variations occur quite naturally which sometimes give individuals an advantage in the struggle for existence. Those individuals with the advantage survive longer, and propagate in larger numbers, and in this way the beneficial variations increase more rapidly than the less well adapted variations. As a result of this process a species will evolve over hundreds of thousands of years to be better adapted to the conditions of life on Earth.

Humans commonly assume that because they have developed the ability to manipulate their environments, almost at will, they have become the fittest of all species to survive. They tend to look on themselves as having turned natural selection on its head by adapting the environment to themselves, rather than vice versa. They see themselves as not only the fittest but the best and the highest of Earth-bound species. When pressed to answer what is meant by highest it is common to point to intelligence and consciousness, particularly the consciousness of self. Associated with this common belief is another which sees the human species as the end, the goal, of biological evolution. This brings us to a speculation about a third plane of evolution — the human or psycho/social phase. Jacob’s Ladder is a description of this third type of evolutionary process.

Let us assume that the momentum of biological evolution towards the modern human species petered out about 30,000-50,000 years ago. The differences between people that have been apparent since this time are due to an entirely new evolutionary phenomenon. We are now involved in a process of evolving consciousness/identity, which manifests collectively as an evolution of culture. The essential nature of this psycho-social phase of evolution is the refinement of human consciousness by movement through a spectrum of psychic energy.

To illustrate what is meant by a spectrum of energy it might be useful to review the scientifically observable spectrum of electro-magnetic energy (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Spectrum of Electro-Magnetic Energy

The electro-magnetic spectrum is a range of wavelengths from long to short. A variety of phenomena can be detected at different wavelengths. A very narrow band of electro-magnetic energy is visible to human eyesight as light. Within this range human eyes tend to break up what is actually a continuous variation of wavelength into seven distinct colours.

Psychic energy is similar to electro-magnetic energy in that it manifests as a spectrum. Humans also deal with psychic energy in the same way as they deal with visible light by breaking up a continuous variation of wavelength into useable segments.

The psycho/social evolutionary process requires a continual adjustment and re-adjustment of human identity in order to move it through the Spectrum. This is achieved by tuning soul/identity out of the frequency of lower wavelengths and tuning it into the frequency of higher wavelengths. This process can be likened to tuning a radio or television set.

Figure 2 Jacob's Ladder/Spectrum of Identity

Figure 2 illustrates both an individual's soul/identity and a collective mind threaded on the Spectrum of psychic energy. A discussion about the processes of evolving consciousness requires constant reference back and forth between the individual and the collective experience. The essential choice for individuals who have sufficient insight is whether to make a personal evolutionary bid or, alternatively, whether to serve the prevailing collective mind/culture as one of its functioning units. It is difficult to do both.

A collective mind can be likened to a living organism with a composite identity that is greater than the sum of its cellular parts. In relation to a collective mind an individual mind is a bit like a single body-cell. Each individual body-cell might have its own separate life and death but the totality of body-cells working together make up a living organism on a much grander scale. As individual body-cells die they are replaced and this allows the larger ‘collective’ life-form to live its own life with a certain independence from the micro-lives and deaths of individual body-cells.

A collective mind is therefore a kind of monster slowly lumbering up the Spectrum of psychic energy. This monster requires all its participating individual minds to function together as a ‘culture’ to maintain its existence. To achieve this all the individual minds have to be tuned to the same wavelength. The monster moves as a result of all the individual minds moving together.

As it moves onto higher wavelengths the monster becomes progressively more civilised. The individual participating minds, in turn, share in the progressive enlightenment. But the pace of collective evolution is very slow. If an individual wants to push on alone, higher up the Spectrum, in advance of the collective mind, and experience life on a higher frequency, that person must expect to become alienated from the common identity of human society.