true when it comes to the matter in our bodies, for at least one reading claims that each cell in the body can “know” its purpose.32 Surprisingly, he was in good company in making this assertion; Thomas Edison was quoted in an interview for Harper's Magazine as saying,
I do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousands of ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements, forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence? Atoms in harmonious and useful relation assume beautiful or interesting shapes and colors, or in certain forms, the atoms constitute animals of the lower order. Finally they combine in man, who represents the total intelligence of all the atoms.33
The idea that cells and even atoms can have a rudimentary form of “knowing” is commonly found in the theosophical literature of the early twentieth century. For example, Alice Bailey's 1922 publication, The Consciousness of the Atom, offers a comprehensive mapping of the development of consciousness, where beginning with the atom there is a rudimentary intelligence in the “selectivity” with which atoms are drawn to other atoms. With the combining of atoms to form a variety of minerals, a quality of “elasticity” is added to selectivity, she says. Then, with the vegetable kingdom, rudimentary sensation is added to the first two, while in the animal kingdom we find the further increment of instinct. It is in humans, she continues, that the rudimentary qualities of the lower kingdom reach more advanced form. The rudimentary elastic selectivity of the mineral kingdom manifest as intelligent activity in human beings; the sensation of the vegetable kingdom develops to emotion and ultimately love, and the instinct of the animal kingdom develops into full “mentality,” which manifests in the human species as “intelligent will.”34
This same incremental building toward intelligent will is described in the Cayce material, where it is clear that each cell has the full “life principle” (rudimentary consciousness) within it and that some form of selectivity or direction from the “One Spiritual Infinite Mind” is at work when cells combine to form a body.35 Eventually, the cells become “subservient” to the “will force” of the person whose body they comprise,36 with countless readings mentioning the impact that the consciousness of the individual has on the functioning of the cells within his or her body. With this will force or intelligent will, humanity rises to its highest evolutionary potential.
In one particularly fascinating reading, the Cayce source frames the “projection of psychic forces into material forces” in terms of purpose, calling plant or vegetable life a “one purpose life;” the animal kingdom a “two purpose life;” and human beings a “three purpose life.” It continues then “with the entrance into the spiritual, the fourfold or purpose life.” In this progressive addition of purpose upon purpose, we see intimations of consciousness increasing toward full expression of spirit in matter. “Hence the necessity of each living, as it were, upon the other.”37 Sri Aurobindo speaks similarly of a necessary ascent up through the life forms to the great potential for divinization now before the human race:
As the impulse toward Mind ranges from the more sensitive reactions of life in the metal and the plant up to its full organization in man, so in man himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation, if nothing more, of a higher and divine life.38
There is something all-encompassing here—a complex, integrated, and organic view of the way in which spirit's purposes are unfolded throughout the layers and levels of the manifest world. The foundational levels of spirit's expression in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms are as necessary to our spiritual awakening as anything else in our experience. Yet with us lies the supreme responsibility of bringing self-aware spirit into matter. Just to be born human means we are participating in the “three purpose life,” but “only again in the soul development, wherein man takes on that from the creative forces as supplied by creator, do we find the fourfold life as is manifested in man.”39 We, as an expression of soul development, have the distinctive potential to be the embodiment of the next purpose-level of spirit's infusion of matter. For this reason, Cayce calls man “…God's highest creation in the earth's plane…”40 In Bailey's words, “He [man] is the deity of his own little system; he is not only conscious, but he is self-conscious.”41
Self-Reflective Awareness: Evolutionary Breakthrough
It's not just that we are conscious, but that we can be aware of our consciousness; that is the crucial characteristic that puts human beings at the apex of the evolutionary ascent. That ascent, as we have been seeing, involves incremental increase in awareness rather than an all-or-nothing, conscious-or-not-conscious division. Anyone who has ever had a responsive pet or seen a documentary on animal intelligence will attest to the fact that animals are capable of both complex and sophisticated levels of thought and feeling. From elephants who mourn their dead to zoo gorillas who pick the locks of their cages and crows who've learned to use bread as fishing bait, the evidence is abundant that we are not the only ones who feel, think, reason, and problem-solve. Add to that the demonstrated language ability of primates and dolphins, and it would seem that very little that was once considered the sole domain of humans turns out to be uniquely ours. But even those whose close relationship with a loving pet has taught them the full depth of what animals can think and feel would probably agree that your dog or cat does not ponder such questions as “Where did everything come from?” or “What will happen to me when I die?” or “Is this fair?” To be conscious at all is a great evolutionary advance. We share that advancement with the higher forms of animal life. But to be able to reflect on your thoughts is an even higher attainment, one that took more than thirteen billion years to occur and is unique to humanity.
The consensus of evolutionary thought, from purely scientific perspectives, such as that of Carl Sagan when he speaks of “starstuff pondering the stars,” to the more spiritually oriented perspectives of those who see self-conscious awareness as a milestone in spiritual awakening, points to the pivotal significance of this attainment. The German philosopher Hegel zeroed in on the consciousness-elevating potential of reflective thought when he said, “It is thinking that turns the soul, with which the animals are also endowed, into spirit.”42 Similarly, Richard Bucke distinguishes “simple consciousness,” which we share with the more advanced animals, from the “self-consciousness” that is a significant step toward cosmic consciousness. As Bucke puts it, self-consciousness makes us not only conscious of trees, rocks, water, our own limbs and body, but allows us to be conscious of our self “as a distinct entity apart from all the rest of the universe.” “Further,” he goes on to say, “by means of self-consciousness man (who knows as the animal knows) becomes capable of treating his own mental states as objects of consciousness.”43 The theosophical school would concur: “The human level is the point where consciousness has become completely individualized and is capable of turning back upon itself and studying its own inner processes,” wrote L.W. Rogers.44
Evolutionary thinkers point to the Axial Age from 800 to 200 BCE as the time when this enormous breakthrough to self-reflective awareness dawned among the human race. This was a time of great spiritual awakening, where the spiritual traditions of China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece arose spontaneously. Figures like Plato, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Confucius, and the major Hebrew prophets were spokesmen of this awakening. Scholars believe that this period of great spiritual awakening was also the time when the ability to be aware of and contemplate our own inner state, including things like our motives, feelings, and thoughts first arose in humans. This reflective self-awareness was the breakthrough of a whole new level of consciousness, one that would make it possible one day for evolution to awaken to itself and which would pave the way for the next-higher development: conscious participation in evolution.
Heretofore, the mysterious impulse within the cosmological and biological worlds to evolve has been operating beneath the surface of awareness. A powerful drive within the very fabric of things has reached onward toward a proliferation of forms and the development of complexity. Now, with the coming of self-reflective consciousness within the human species, evolution has awakened