The development of every human expresses purposeful order in the growth and maturation of the physical/energy, emotional, mental and spiritual capacities which go to make up one unified body-soul. Likewise, and even though at times we struggle to see and fully comprehend it, the great unfoldment and maturity process being worked out by humanity as a whole is both purposeful in the extreme and exhibits the same developmental stages.

We see, during the period between 800 and 300 BCE, commonly referred to now as the Axial Age (a term coined by Karl Jaspers) a great burgeoning of self-consciousness and a move from mythic awareness to the capacity to reason. Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers of the time stress both divine will and purpose and free human choice. Sixth century prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphasise the necessity for each individual to now take responsibility for him or herself rather than having it, as it had been to this point, invested in the family or tribe as a whole. There are moves to understand the soul, along with a powerful knowing by the prophets, that true relation arises not merely out of physical obedience to laws like ‘kill not’, but out of deep realignment and an opening of the heart in genuine love.

Over the past two thousand years, through the Age of Pisces, these earlier prophetic knowings have struggled to work their way out into mass consciousness. And the great teachers and visionaries of Pisces have added their own profoundly significant knowings about what it means to be truly human.

It becomes evident that in every stage of the human journey there are perhaps five categories of individuals: