Gerald Heard: toward a new future for mankind

Only rarely can a philosopher be called visionary. Most philosophers try to analyse the past or try to build systems of thought, but Gerald Heard was indeed a truly visionary philosopher: in the back of his mind he was always preoccupied with the future of mankind. His vision of the future was not utopian or full of fancy, but was Heard with Aldeous Huxley

envisaged by an accurate analysis of the history of human culture. Looking at the cultural history of our race and looking at our own psychological development, he came to the conclusion that they developed along similar lines of evolutionary growth. For him ontogeny (the inner state of our individual being) followed the same evolutionary blueprint as phylogeny (the development of cultural consciousness in our human race).

The five Ages of Man

1. pre-individual, coconscious man

Just as the embryo in the womb follows in a short period of nine months the whole development of our animal history of vertebrate development, from fish-like to reptilian to vertebrate, so after birth we recapitulate in the course of our life the whole cultural history of our human race, from the earliest prehistoric times till our present day. So in the first 3 years of infanthood our consciousness is pre-individual (co-conscious), just like it was in prehistoric times (as for instance in the pre-Greek Minoan civilizations). These are for the first civilizations as well as for the infant the years of the Great Mother. There is a peaceful symbiosis between all members in the community. The predominant mode of thinking and feeling is female, with the ease of luxury and the comfort of a not too exciting life near the fire place.

2. proto-individual, heroic man

But as primitive cultures in our world of today that still live at this stage of development show: co-conscious cultures tend to become stagnant and lacking in initiative. The old and weary with their conservative outlook have the ruling power. They depreciate every cultural and social novelty and hold back all change. In the end these culture die of self-complacency and utter boredom. There are no new ideas welcomed to foster new development. All creativity is nipped in the bud. So in the course of time youngsters rose up who revolted against this boring system, who sailed out for new horizons and new adventures. Thence became the birth of the proto-individual, which is culturally known as the Heroic Age (in the West proximately from 1500-700 BC), as its mores and way of life are recorded by Homer and the Epic Poets. Childhood is a carbon copy of this phase in history. There is now daring and there are great exploits. The Hero wants to free himself of the Mother. The female life with it's snugish cosiness is despicable for Heroic man. He wants esteem and conquest. He wants to be admired in the eyes of his fellow man. 'Always strive to be better'.

3. mid-individual, ascetic man

But after this nor-adrenaline infused phase of rage and revolt, the mental faculties become for the first time predominant in consciousness, both in history as in the development of the child towards adolescence. The feelings of fear and shame now slowly develop Heard with Isherwood (second left) and Huxley (second right)

Heard with Isherwood (second left) and Huxley (second right)

into agonizing feelings of self-guilt as the adrenaline hits inwards instead of outwards. Out of guilt for his individualistic defiance of the cosmic order he now repents. He wants to forget about his shameful individuality, either by suicide or by complying to a high set of morals or a strict rule of ideology. Now begins the Age of Tragedy, that victimization of the Hero. Consciousness now becomes an Aeschylos, trying to show us that we are all part of a higher but nevertheless blind order.

The fight now turns inward, against our own emotions. The mental plane now wants to assert its dominance over the lower realms of the body. Just as ruthlessly as the hero before on his conquests and spurred on by the self-blaming stings of guilt, the mental now tries to chain the underlying subconscious drives and emotions. Such a guilt culture and such a guilt stricken adolescent seize on any ideology, on any slogan or on any religious dogma that can free him of the guilt of being an individual. This is the age of the phalanx, that military murder machine that can only exist because of the willingness of its constituents to sacrifice themselves.

This is the age of ascetic man, that heautontimoroumenos flagellant. This is the age of the great mythological world religions that were the only institutions that could offer absolution and penance for the gloom of self-hate. These guilt cultures in the West lasted roughly from 700 BC till 1500 AD. It was the adolescence of man. Only the soldier in the ranks or to the monk in his self denying monastery could obtain redemption from this inner turmoil. For man had not yet matured.

4. total-individual, humanic man

Finally the ego of man matures into first maturity. Fear, shame and guilt are overcome by rationally objectifying the preter-(or sub-)consciousness, even to the extent that the emotions are not considered to be a part of the self. For only rationality and detached logical analysis are now considered to be the only features of consciousness. This stage in the development of consciousness is in many respects an improvement upon former stages, in as far as anxiety is reduced and more freedom for the individual from suffocating bonds of the collective is gained. When there is no guilt anymore, there is no reason to subordinate.

In history this phase began in the renaissance and culminated in Modernity's victory over irrationality, that rightly honored Enlightenment. There were counter-attacks against this growing individuality of man, as for instance the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, who tried to put man back in the ascetic way of life, but in the end it was the humanic man that prevailed. The Age of Science could begin.

But this high level of all powerful rationality is also, as Heard shows, a contraction of consciousness and not a widening.

Still pursuing objectivity, however, he could not recognize that this preterconscious was part of himself and that it was the link between him and the past, his tradition and his fellows: between him and all life. (....) Therefore, detachment is an impossibility. Man cannot now regard his life with cold curiosity; he must realize that he and life are one. (the Five Ages of Man p. 64)

So the self-sufficient individual, who relies only on the data provided by his senses, who tries to dominate the world with the power drive of his rationality, is not the end line of all development, just as much as man in first maturity is not the end goal of human life. There is still a second maturity to come.

5. post-individual, leptoid man

For the total-individual of mental dominance is not a full grown man yet. He has not as yet attained the level of total psychological health that will be ensured when consciousness finally breaks down the confinements of individual isolation. Heard strongly believed that man and his culture will develop into this post-individual phase Gerald Heard

and that a new type of man will emerge in the near future. He called it 'leptoid man': man will in the future 'take the leap' into (perhaps it would be better to translate 'lepsis' with 'seizes hold of') a much wider consciousness, wherein all aspects of the psyche will be integrated and nothing will remain repressed or alienated. This leptoid man will be a man of highly evolved spirituality, as Heard has argued in his books and the numerous articles he wrote for the Vedanta Society.

Heard pointed to the findings of biology and paleontology that underscored this visionary view of mankind. Often he refers to the principle of 'neoteny' that tries to explain the fact that man remains for considerable time more young in his development than other primates do. And indeed a neotenic extension of youth is clearly striking in our modern day culture. People remain young for considerable time, even stretching out into first maturity nowadays. Biology tries to explain this evolutionary tendency by arguing that man has evolved beyond the mere biological into the informatological. Consciousness has developed to such an extent that man has by now grown into a 'teachable beast'. More and more man relies for his growth and well-being upon information and learning. So evolution has extended his youthful teachability beyond the limits of childhood and adolescence.

For Heard this neotenic tendency gives us reason to be hopeful about the future. For as in the course of history the hormonal economy of our body changed from nor-adrenaline to a more peaceful and more cautious stimulant, so shall our whole consciousness in the end be changed and be improved upon by this neotenically extended teachability. We will learn. And we will learn what is best for us and what makes us really happy.

Heard wanted us to put this abstract theory about the nature of evolution and consciousness to a practical test, as he himself did in the course of his life. For he was convinced that the nature of consciousness was characterized by an extremely wide openness and that evolution was trying to realize this openness as our own true ground of being. So with this our knowledge we have to give evolution a push, if we want to reach for our final destiny. We have to comply with this innate tendency of our being. We have to consciously strive for this openness. For this is what God and nature wants us to be.

Heard was well aware of this innate tendency, in the beginning perhaps by mere intuition, but later in life very consciously. He never became a specialized scientist, but he always aimed at fusing integrations between different fields of knowledge. For him Gerald with Aldeous Huxley

the leptoid man would be a homo universalis that would be able to put all the pieces of the jig-saw of endless variety into one coherent and meaningful puzzle. He remained a very curious man all his life. His memory of books and learning was inexhaustible. He approached everything in life with wonder, momentum and seriousness. He believed that this loving curiosity would also be the main characteristic of the future leptoid man.

This striving for openness and curiosity eventually brought him to Vedanta and meditation. For he knew that consciousness had to be investigated by turning within and by taking a look. For it was all already given, there, inwardly. Philosophy and science were only helpful to the extent that they contributed in creating an atmosphere of openness. But the main task of the individual was to assist evolution. According to Heard every individual was a stepping-stone towards the realization of the leptoid man. So out of love, out of concern, but also out of genius he believed that every individual should become a mystic.

Arnhem, April 2004