FUT UREDEVELOPMENT ANDINITIATION 415
evolution. We may know the states of consciousness and
their concomitant powers attained by the candidate as he
passes through successive great Initiations provided we
know what those future states and powers will be for
humanity in general. Some hints have been given and more
may be logically deduced by an application of the Law of
Correspondences, to give a fairly rounded picture of the
evolution in store for all of us, and the magnitude of the
great steps in Initiation. To do this it may help us to glance
back over the steps by which the consciousness of man has
been evolved through the various Periods.
We remember that during the Saturn Period the
unconsciousness of man was similar to that of the dense
body when plunged into the deepest trance condition; this
was succeeded, in the Sun period, by a dreamless-sleep
consciousness. In the Moon Period the first glimmering of
waking showed itself in inward pictures of outward things.
The entire consciousness consisted of such inward
representations of external objects, colors, or sounds. At last,
in the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch, this picture-
consciousness gave way to the present full waking-
consciousness, in which objects could be observed outside,
clearly and distinctly outlined in space. When this objective-
consciousness was attained, man became aware of an
outside world and for the first time thoroughly realized the
difference between “self” and “others.” He then realized his
separateness and thenceforth the “I” consciousness, Egoism,
became paramount. As previous to that time there had been
no thoughts nor ideas dealing with an outside world, there
had consequently been no memory of events.
The change from the internal picture consciousness to
the objective-self-consciousness was effected by a very slow