Love and the Evolution of Consciousness

This profound book is inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner and the less well-known Valentin Tomberg, the anonymous author of the seminal Meditations on the Tarot, which I read at the recommendation of Bede Griffiths. It is a map for the development of selfless love through a process of inner transformation and purification, which also represents redirection of human interest from the self-centred to the community centre. As a psycho-spiritual text, it engages fully with the shadow, here called the double, using the terminology of Steiner and incorporating his two aspects of evil characterised by Lucifer and Ahriman representing respectively the opposing forces of egotism, then hardness of heart and materialism. In this general context, the role of evil is to bring good to development. Following chapters on these aspects and their transformation, there is a long discussion of the karmic double web of destiny involving thinking, feeling and willing, then a key chapter on, and forgiveness. There are helpful charts (e.g. pp. 158-9) enabling readers to understand the process more deeply. As Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee observes, the shadow teaches us the lesson of humility: 'having experienced the depths of our own darkness we can never judge another person, nor can we be frightened by the darkness.' The appendices discuss the 10 Commandments of Moses, the eightfold path of the Buddha and the nine Beatitudes of Christ, as well as quoting the Golden Rule in different traditions. The last appendix is the most important: a meditation course for inner development involving a weekly cycle over a number of months as a way of really internalising heart thinking and undertaking the metamorphosis of the will through the path of love. This is the fruit of a lifetime of thought and practice that should be widely read.