The Five Ages of Humanity – Hidden Gems

When editing The Five Ages of Humanity, I read through the manuscript five or six times. Each time, I paused in several places to focus on what initially seemed an oblique comment, almost a hasty afterthought. But upon further reflection, Gerald invariably presented a profoundly deep idea, however terse or cryptic. Cases in point:

“It is an experience in which the field of consciousness is always at high pitch and kept at the highest level of the psychophysical frontier. … when this has become regular and easy, the consciousness, its center of gravity already above the physical nexus and fulcrum, will have achieved its physical experience and service. Then by a voluntary act it can lift itself free to function as a field that is no longer dependent on an entropic structure, on an organism that is subject to decay” (p. 254).

“After some years of such hygienic exercise, [a person] might be able to understand how to detach this essential noncorporeal field, freeing it increasingly from its entropic system. This would lead to an awareness that (like the tree with the leaf) all the essential essence in the outer vehicle has been resumed into its original volatile condition. Then with an act of intentional initiative the consciousness principle could discard the unwanted residue” (p. 283).

While these excerpts are taken out of context, they are nonetheless related concepts that demonstrate a single idea.  In simple, non-Geraldspeak terms, Heard is referring to a conscious act of emancipating one’s consciousness from one’s physical body. He is clearly implying the moment of death. However, this does not rule out intentionally initiating the process of separating consciousness from the body while alive, which would typically but not categorically result in physical death.

There is a Tibetan Buddhist practice known as Phowa, which facilitates such a separation at the moment of physical death. There are rare accounts of practitioners who are said to have achieved this state of liberation while living, and who then returned to their body afterward, such as the Hindu saint Ramakrishna. However, a number of Japanese Buddhist monks engaged in the practice of sokushinbutsu, whereby they volitionally sought higher stages of enlightenment by inducing death of the physical body, a practice outlawed in 1879. In any event, Gerald unmistakably referred to a liberation apart from one’s physical body while also hinting at the continuation of consciousness in a post-corporeal state.

Gerald Heard’s 1940s writings

During this whirlwind decade in Gerald’s life, he established, spiritually directed, then dissolved his Trabuco College experiment. He was known to meditate six hours a day. Yet, his writing output proceeded virtually nonstop, at a dizzying pace.  Along with publishing a jaw-dropping 18 books, he wrote 20 articles for the Hindu journal Vedanta in the West, three stories for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, one story for Harper’s Magazine, made contributions to various religious periodicals, and submitted reviews for The New York Times. If one counted the original two-pamphlet publication of Training for the Life of the Spirit, his book total would be 19.  And if the British and American versions of The Great Fog were added separately, as each book contains different short-story configurations, we might stretch the count to 20 books.  In addition, he was lecturing as well!

John Roger Barrie