Spiritual evolution

Spiritual evolution can refer to several things. Sometimes it is contrasted with biological evolution, as in a "higher evolution" of the spiritual part of humans or beings in general. But it can also be a philosophical and esoteric idea that biological evolution is driven by spiritual or metaphysical forces; such views are found in many occult and New Age writings. Although these ideas are either pseudoscience or simply outside the realm of science, their supporters don't necessarily reject evolution in scientific terms, nor the age of the Earth. The view of the history of the Earth, and especially that of life on it, may however still differ a lot from scientific explanations with the ideas of spiritual forces shaping what happens in the material world.
In various spiritual belief systems, life ultimately evolves from biological life to a non-physical life. Souls may or may not move across forms of biological life as the souls mature, and may or may not be driving changes in the forms of biological life available. There may or may not exist various higher and lower planes of existence which evolution is supposed to progress across, and where higher beings influence affairs in lower planes.
==History==
There have been numerous confused writers who have maintained that biological evolution operates not only on a physical, but also on some imaginary "spiritual level". They usually describe evolution as a "directed process" and that nature has purposiveness. Those who advocate spiritual evolution are not always theistic, as some do not postulate that a deity is the prime mover of the evolutionary process. Instead, those who advocate spiritual evolution usually speak of "forces" or "purposes" directing the evolutionary process or working the ongoing processes of the universe.
According to Thomas Kuhn, many early scientists were unhappy with Darwin's ideas about natural selection as it removed any element of purpose or teleology in evolution:
 
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some scientists and philosophers added mechanisms of spiritual or vitalistic forces in evolution to retain an element of purpose and teleology in evolution.
==Supporters==
Alfred Russel Wallace and the biologist St. George Jackson Mivart were two early scientists to invoke supernatural factors in evolution. Regarding their ideas, Thomas Henry Huxley wrote:
Later writers, such as (The Phenomenon of Man, 1955) and (The Life Divine, 1977), describe evolution as progression from inanimate matter to a future state of Divine consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin refers to this as the and Sri Aurobindo as the 
Modern authors who have advocated occult or spiritual evolution include Carl Johan CallemanCarl Johan Calleman The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life Bear & Company, 2009 ISBN 1591431042 , Ole TherkelsenOle Therkelsen Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design: A New Theory of Evolution Världsbild Förlag, 2010 ISBN 9185132853 and David Wilcock.David Wilcock The Source Field Investigations: The Hidden Science and Lost Civilizations Behind the 2012 Prophecies Dutton Adult; 1st Edition edition, 2011 ISBN 0525952047
==Occult evolution==
Helena Blavatsky , the founder of modern Theosophy; Rudolf Steiner , the founder of Anthroposophy; , the founder of the Fourth Way, and the founder of a modern Gnosis movement, were deeply involved in the study and teachings of the occult. Their works borrowed ideas from Gnosticism, Hinduism, Kabbalah, Neoplatonism and Mysticism and attempted to merge their ideas with the sciences. Most of these occult writers advocated the view that evolution is driven by purposeful spiritual forces and rejected the Darwinian view of evolution, which they equated with materialism. In their views, biological evolution is a smaller part of a larger evolution.
Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching considers planets alive, too, and teaches that they evolve from moons, to rocky planets, to gas giants, to stars. Those who live on a planet such as Earth are very small in relation to all of that, and if their being is not substantial enough, they are merely the playthings of the planets, a little like molecules in a body. In the case of Earth, the people of Earth are supposedly "food for the Moon", and most do not survive death beyond a brief existence as fuel for its growth. Gurdjieff claimed to be helping people develop souls so that they could survive death, possibly reincarnate, and maybe even develop into a higher form of life eventually.
Occult evolution theories evolve along with the larger cultic milieu and will likely never fall out of fashion as long as teachings of spiritual development exist. Such ideas of an evolution of souls or consciousnesses have various shapes and flavors, from fearful teachings that the world is a prison which needs to be broken out of to survive and/or prosper, to hopeful teachings that all is slowly and inevitably moving towards exalted highs of living wisdom. Gurdjieff's teaching, and teachings with a gnostic flavor, tend to fall into the fearful category. New Age and later conspirituality teachings can be oriented either way. The Ra Material or Law of One by Don Elkins et al is a more hopeful yet also millennialist New Age teaching with a more complex structure,The Ra Material: An Ancient Astronaut Speaks by Don Elkins et al. (1984) The Donning Company. ISBN 089865260X. and one which so-called masters like David Wilcock and Laura Knight-Jadczyk have in turn later based much on.
==Higher evolution==
The concept of higher evolution separates the spiritual development of a "higher consciousness" from the "lower evolution" processes of biological evolution, though the two may be viewed as analogous. The two may even proceed in some interlinked fashion. This idea is common in mysticism, and found in Theosophy and other Western esoteric teachings. While the term is modern and Western, it's related to the ideas in Buddhism and Hinduism of karma and dharma.
While "lower evolution" shapes physical form, higher evolution strives towards a transcendence of physical form. This may be viewed more literally, and commonly it is in occult teachings, overlapping with ideas of occult evolution. It may also more loosely refer to a psychological, mental, or "spiritual practice" process that brings a sense of inner change but does not literally move a person beyond the limits of the physical body.
==Reception==
Most scientists maintain that unguided evolution explains the biological evolutionary process; thus, the idea that some immaterial force is guiding evolution is a metaphysical viewpoint considered to be pseudoscience by the scientific community.
Christian creationists reject spiritual and occult evolution as being the "neo-pagan ultimate enemy of the Biblical Christian faith".The Ultimate Evolutionist Model: Evolution by Purposive "Forces" by Ellen Myers
Ideas of higher evolution range from being all about psychology and cultural development, in which case they may sometimes dovetail with secular humanist aspirations and be viewed by the latter as having their hearts in the right place, to being the envisioned ideals of mystical monks with which the public is little concerned, to being part and parcel of occult teachings or examples of New Age woo.
==See also==
*Anima Mundi
*Vedic creationism, for similar "living things devolving from pure spirit" nuttery
*Unguided evolution for what's actually going on.
==External links==
*Conscious Evolution
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Esotericism
Category:Evolution
Category:New Age