THE MUTUAL EVOLUTION OF EARTH AND HUMANITY

"Man is a stream whose source is hidden." Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reviewer may judge one book as compelling wisdom or another as fluff. In the case of Dankmar Bosse's extraordinary book The Mutual Evolution of Earth and Humanity, this reviewer, trained 'traditionally' as a geologist-paleontologist, sees Bosse's exposition as a highly unconventional view of planetary evolution. For those who are neither geologists or anthroposophists it may be helpful to outline and compare both "theories of the Earth" neutrally. The first comparative clue is in Bosse's subtitle: Sketch of a geology and paleontology of the living Earth. Traditionally geology and paleontology see Earth's evolution as a two-phase process, beginning with inorganic elements, minerals and rocks, followed by an as-yet-unexplained phase shift emergence of organic life. Bosse and other anthroposophists take the 'alternate' view that the Earth is an integrated, superordinate, living organism: thus, no need for an unexplained jump from rocks and minerals to life. Geologists know the interface between rocks and life is fuzzy, as in algae and microbes 'creating' limestone. This is not to mention the respectable Gaian view that planetary life is deeply integrated with supposedly 'inorganic' atmospheric, oceanic, hydrological, carbon, oxygen and other cycles. So Bosse promotes a believable holistic thesis. Instead of 'either-or' comparisons, perhaps these "world" views converge.

Bosse's compartmentalises his exposition, into conscientious scientific treatments of paleontological and geological evidence, contrasted with reviews and interpretations of various lectures by Rudolf Steiner, famous for his suprasensible spiritual vision, which Bosse says should not "be taken as generalized imaginations or plausible pictures of past conditions, but rather as detailed descriptions of the suprasensible side" which we can build up [with practice] "within us as imaginative sensitive mental pictures and test them against the physical-sensory side." Our understanding is helped by 100 pages of appendices which explore potentially difficult "special topics" from anthroposophical time concepts and scales, to the fundaments of anthroposophic (Goethean) scientific investigation, education and knowledge. Bosse's attempts to integrate Steiner's expositions on the co-evolution of Earth and humanity are illustrated, almost exclusively, by several dozen of Steiner's black-board drawings some originally used to illustrate talks he gave to the workers building the first Goetheanum in the 1920s. Interestingly, these audiences were neither anthroposophists and geologists. Steiner was not shy about educating all comers regarding his extraordinary insights into the nature of spiritual reality. [But were these potentially understandable to all without Steiner's scientific and spiritual gifts]? A geologist will likely find 'some' of Bosse's expositions interesting if not compelling at least where they are consistent with what a 19th century geologists called "the testimony of the rocks" – or we today simply call the geological evidence. In other areas they will likely be mystified, if not dismissive.

If the non-anthroposophist avoids getting hung up on precise definitions, and understands the physical, etheric, astral and spiritual as corresponding to interpenetrating mineral, plant [vegetative], animal [sentient] and human-spiritual process realms in both the sensory and supersensory (cognitive) world, the general arguments are straightforward. Was our world built from bottom up "as the analyzing mode of thought … [believes]…as if assembled from parts"? [Building blocks]. Or did it "start with the superordinate entirety" from which "it members itself and separates out aspects from itself"? This principle of top down separation, or 'membering' is in fact well known in geology as in the case of a mineral precipitating out of solution: evaporation first gives us limestone, then gypsum, then salt, with each new precipitate (member), changing what remains as an invisible reserve. "The further back we go…to the bacteria… the less an individual etheric body is incarnated… [as] … today in the metabolic processes of the lowest life forms in the formation of mineral substance." [Likewise, as magma chambers crystalise (separate) out, so the remaining melt changes]. "These substance processes …belong to a superordinate inter-relatedness." "Organisms have never formed themselves out of cells…[from bottom up]…the cell has first formed itself from the living" (as reproduction shows). [Organic molecules require cells to synthesize and organize them from top down]. The melt precedes the crystal. "The origin of the organism is spirit."

If, following Steiner and Bosse, we can see the whole Earth as a superordinate organism "it becomes possible to see the organism as a totality that members itself into cells or organs." Earth's geological and biological evolution did not build up into 'empty space,' or inert physical gas envelopes. "No science will be able to explain how life developed on the early Earth if it assumes… a dead sphere in which only chemical and physical processes took place". Rather the tangible physical manifestation (rocks, microbes, multicellular organisms) separated off as members from highly organized intangible realms – (etheric, astral and spiritual), so "the remainder could become finer and rise to a higher stage" repositories of future potential— Goethe's "development in the higher sense." So there is a simultaneous building up (evolution) and a breaking down (devolution): the former suprasensible, internal development, the latter an external manifestation in the physical world. As Bosse puts it, sense-oriented science traces the tangible physical forms back to their past, anthroposophy does the same with respect to intangible soul and spirit without the "slightest contradiction." So will mainstream geology (physical science) admit spiritual science, even if there is no contradiction with bedrock facts? [I think not, unless the mainstream is shown a demonstrable link between the sensible and suprasensible]. The sensible world reveals "ascending evolution." It is only the evolutionary process that is "vigorously argued over" asking perennially, "How does the soul-spiritual aspect relate to the physical body?" [I would venture: look at ontogeny. As the physical body manifests from cell to embryo, infant and adult physicality, so the intangible soul-spiritual faculty becomes finer in the higher sense. The same has recapitulated in a few millennia of socio-cultural, group soul evolution: our religion, ethics, morality].

The problem with traditional geological thinking, according to Bosse, is uniformitarianism, which he politely does "not mean to belittle." But the idea that physical 'inorganic' processes like erosion and sedimentation have not changed over eons is logically inconsistent if Earth evolution is an integrated organic process: change is fundamental. Actually geologists discern changes in atmospheric composition, sedimentation and other rock forming processes: they just interpret them differently . As Bosse notes, some of these have been identified as "problem" areas, and are generally most acute the further the geologist goes back in time. Uniformitarianism, taught to every geology student, is OK in the short term: waves and currents make ripples in sand, but if we go back far enough in time to where the air and water sphere were an unseparated colloidal medium, as Bosse (and Steiner) claim is consistent with geological evidence, the processes would be interpreted differently. Today, paleontologists [I'm one] suffer a slight identity crisis, not knowing if they belong in geology or biology departments! Why? Because of the artificial distinction between the inorganic (rocks) and organic (life) in Earth History, which neatly disappears with the superordinate Earth model. Truly a conceptual revolution if understood and accepted! [I would go further: traditionally modern science first discovered and codified the physical and chemical world and its laws, before getting to grips with the biological and psychological: in short the human mind in a very real sense "precipitated" or "separated" physics, chemistry, biology and psychology as concrete disciplines and "bodies of work" into the realm of conscious knowledge, from the top down. Is that not organically consistent]?

The perennial tangible-intangible riddle at the heart of our search for reality was neatly expressed by Teilhard de Chardin when he suggested that we are not human beings having spiritual experiences, but rather spiritual beings having human experiences. [Few are those like Steiner, who simultaneously know both facets of being directly]. The authors of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts expressed something similar when they said we fell in love with our experience of the sensory world and forgot our spiritual roots [a momentous shift in consciousness, which has something of the anthroposophical 'coming into being' flavor of the tangible-physical separating from the intangible]. However, the limitations of credibility, understandability, and testability, in the conventional sense, of Bosse's exposition, on such momentous subjects as Earth moonseparation, is unlikely to appeal to mainstream geological community. On understandability, anthroposophy sees the evolution much like a multi-branched plant in which each leaf is an incomplete precursor of the fully formed flower (which completes a cycle). Likewise, as the fish, dinosaurs, lower and higher mammals "separated out" or came into being, the later evolutionary stages or potentials held back and refined their "organization" in the invisible superordinate realm. In this sense, the superordinate biosphere was continuously organizing, complexifying and refining towards a progressive (teleological or purposeful) goal. [Something most lie to believe]. The human being is the latest incarnation, the latest flowering, but if Steiner and Teilhard are correct the refinements continue, and more refined beings (Omega beings) are out there in the spiritual realm. Bosse says we should not regard this ongoing "held back" superordinate organization as "generalized imaginations or plausible pictures of past conditions."

Nevertheless, imagine we must, as he attempts to explain the rock layers from core and mantle to crust (and life forms) as physical manifestations of precipitations of mineral, plant and animal from the life-air-water envelope or wellspring. He even reminds us that these precipitations proceeded 'top down' from the periphery inwards, giving each Earthly tangible manifestation a new physical (mineral, plant/ etheric and animal / astral) inwardness, reflected by increased inwardness in the intangible, undifferentiated realm of potentiality. It is perhaps not surprising that such views find parallels in many spiritual traditions, inaccessible to, but not necessarily contradictory to conventional science. Lastly such considerations, raise controversial questions of human exceptionalism. But here anthroposophy is perhaps ambivalent, as is some mainstream cosmology including consciousness studies. Is human self awareness inherently arrogant, seeing itself as the pinnacle of creation, or is it simply an incompletely self-aware 'organ' within a far greater superordinate biosphere / noosphere: the means [first step] by which the universe becomes self-aware? [Again not an 'either-or' proposition].

I would not recommend this book to most mainstream geologists. Even though they might find some parts intriguing, I suspect most would rebel. For one thing, despite beautiful illustrations, and many thought-provoking ideas, it is dense and difficult, in places, if not misleading. [I resorted to much consultation with anthroposophical friends, whose reactions were also ambivalent]. What I present here is what I understand with some confidence, and find plausible. Limitations of space save me from criticisms of nuances and notions I may not grasp. Bosse knows his geology, but I leave it to the judgement of the individual to evaluate how Bosse integrates the more arcane of Steiner's Earth-evolution pronouncements with the geological evidence. May you be 'grounded' and at one with the Earth.