Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness
A stimulating, though not elegantly expressed, vision of the  evolution of the cosmos--and of our role in its future.  California social-scientist Elgin (Voluntary Simplicity,  1981- -not reviewed) draws on ancient spiritual traditions and  modern scientific insights to form a picture of where we're going  in the universe. The present, he argues, is crucial, since  advances in technology and communications suggest a new expansion  of human consciousness even as ecological problems cast doubt on  any ``sustainable future.'' Elgin discerns three decisive stages  in the development of consciousness: the era of hunter-gatherers,  beginning roughly 35,000 years ago and marked by limited self-  reflection; the era of agrarian-based civilizations, beginning  about 10,000 years ago; and our own scientific-industrial era,  begun in the 1700's. He contends that now we're entering a new  era, one in which mass communications make possible the beginning  of a global consciousness, as well as hoped-for reconciliations  among ourselves and between us and our planet. Looking forward,  Elgin projects three further stages: ``bonding,'' in which  community and viable future can be built; ``surpassing,'' which  will foster free creativity; and ``maturity,'' a wisdom-culture  of enlightenment and cosmic consciousness. The author claims that  his thinking isn't New Age, since he envisages a process  involving matter as well as consciousness--a process he terms  ``co-evolution.'' Elgin's stress on human responsibility avoids  the determinism of many evolutionary views, and his suggestions  that the ideal world government will resemble that dictated in  the US constitution, and that ultimate reality is ``democratic,''  will please patriots. But Elgin's final vision is of  consciousness being freed from matter, and his concept of an  eternal ``Meta-universe'' seems to align him with the Taoists or  pre-Socratic Greeks. Moreover, it's difficult to see how personal  individuation has a place in his view of the fully evolved  consciousness.  An ambitious and provocative call to greater awareness,  marred by sometimes tortuous turns of expression and thought. --Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.