“One of the things I’m wrestling with at the moment is hierarchy in spirituality, and the idea of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’.”

So the philosopher Jules Evans begins a long text from the other day… He writes about the developmental idea in general, and in new age in particular. It’s mostly about Ken Wilber. A nuanced review of this giant.

https://julesevans.medium.com/ken-wilber-and-spiritual-hierarchy-5e163226d270

My retention of the text is, above all, two things. I have more respect for Wilber. He has nevertheless done a horse job developing his model, with a large amount of psychology.

Firstly, I am reminded of how tired I am of the very concept of spiritual evolution. That the human mind is probably not equipped to be able to do such models. Whether they are correct or not.

Against this, one might argue that even if people are at different levels, are differently developed spiritually (via reincarnation, etc.), it does not have to be any idealizing/derogatory with it. In the “best worlds”, it doesn’t have to be that way. That it feeds, for example, one’s narcissism, which Evans talks about. (Or even a sense of less value. But that’s probably quite rare, I’ve never come across IT in new-day contexts? 😉 )

Theoretically, it could be separate things, yes. But in practice? I don’t think it’s a matter of will, I think. That is why I write ‘equipped’, i.e. that it has to do with one’s constitution itself. By analogy, you do not have the conditions to lift a stone weighing 1 ton, or resist strong radioactive radiation, e.g. Even if you wish you could, or think you should be able to. Or at worst, imagine that you can, if you can’t… (I’m sure there’s another one who can do it, in depth. But they’re rare, that’s how I see it anyway.)