The 3 Progressive Phases of Human Freedom
The 3 Progressive Phases of Human Freedom
Let's ask the questions together "what is human freedom?" and "how do we develop it within ourselves, and in society?"
What is human freedom?
These four simple words contain multitudes, and point toward one of the most elusive mysteries in human history: to answer this question properly, we would need to have a true, complete and objective understanding of the human being itself. What are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life?
Such an understanding would naturally have to extend not to one isolated period of human evolution, nor to what is purely physical about us, but to the entire trajectory of the human being - in both its material and spiritual progressions - through all of time and space.
Since I do not consider myself qualified to speak from such a thorough understanding, I will consistently draw inspiration from people I consider wiser than myself, while inviting you to join me on my own personal path of practical spiritual development, which - like most of us - has its origins in pain.
My own journey into a life of unfolding freedom took me, first, into the subterranean depths of the human organism: the body. Mine, specifically; later, into the bodies of my private practice clients.
Every day throughout my teens and twenties I awoke to find myself, yet again, living inside a body that felt like a torture chamber. I used to wonder every night, in naive ignorance of the co-creative powers I possessed, if tomorrow I would finally wake up and be rid of the torment; as if some unseen force was going to sweep in at any moment and deliver me into freedom. My only prayer back then was for peace, not realizing that it was my very wise body expressing what my conscious soul and spirit could not: in order to survive the unbearable soul pains (traumas) of childhood, I had silenced the depths of my own nature.
Banished to underworlds where their natural impulses for creative self expression were sufficiently fettered to keep me “safe,” my spirit was crying out, painfully, against its crippling confinement.
“It is so very painful not to be your true Self!” my body screamed.
One thing I’ve learned from working with thousands of people in pain seeking freedom is that most of us want two things above all:
To be - to live as - our true Self.
To be seen by the people in our lives; to be loved for who we truly are.
All too often, these two things appear to be in direct conflict; this conflict causes a painful torment inside.
The first (to be our true Self) has to do with personal integrity.
Whether or not I admit it to myself, I always know when I’m living a lie, a delusion or a fantasy; when I’m manipulating others to “get” love or attention or validation because I’m afraid (perhaps justifiably so) that I won’t be embraced for expressing who I truly am; when I play the role of “good girl” or unflappable stoic for social approval or to avoid feelings like helplessness and humiliation; when I violate my own boundaries, or my conscience (on any matter); this knowing is felt in my body, and expresses itself in all manner of chronic pains and dis-ease conditions if I persist in living a fractured existence.
It’s utterly exhausting and unhealthy to suppress our true nature.
The second leads us towards a maxim of freedom:
We can only “see” other people to the degree we’ve seen ourselves. To “see” in this way is to behold, with true spiritual vision. If we feel unseen by the people in our lives, it’s usually not because they are malicious or committed to hurting us; it’s because they haven’t (yet) summoned the courage to see themselves, and therefore they cannot - as a matter of spiritual law - see us. Imagine, for a moment, that people ignorant of their own potentially malevolent nature were allowed to truly see others in their totality; this vision would allow them unfettered access to every imaginable vulnerability and weakness in the other.
While it is true that we sense each other’s totality and sometimes exploit what we sense, this is all happening largely subconsciously; and, I would argue that unconscious malevolence, or “missing the mark,” is not the same as “evil” - which I define as doing something we know is immoral with full knowledge of the detrimental impact of our actions. Not seeing each other (yet), not seeing ourselves (fully), and often “missing the mark” is part and parcel of the progressive development of human freedom.
These two human priorities - the unstoppable longing to live as our true Self, and the wish to be seen (loved) by other human beings for who we truly are - hold the keys to understanding what human freedom is; and what stands in its way (which represents our curriculum).
My private practice gave me a front row seat to human nature: physiology, psychology, trauma, fears and dreams, relationship dynamics, money and survival issues, environmental toxicity…everything showed up in my office. I consistently experienced how the psyche (soul) animates, tempts, torments and provokes us through the physical body. When it comes to taming the wild and fearsome nature of the human organism, I have repeatedly seen - for myself and my clients - that it is always a matter of invoking and living into a higher power than that of the soul (Psyche), which is swept up constantly by all kinds of temptations; the seed of freedom is contained in the human spirit, which alone has the power to lifts us out of our own darker nature.
After several hundred cases of chronic debilitating physical pain, including my own, that disappeared when the individual inhabiting that body began expressing their true nature and were met with love…I knew this pattern was not random; it is common to us all.
Chronic pain is, in my experience, often rooted in chronic self censorship, suppression of our true nature and the self betrayal required to trade authenticity for a false sense of belonging (or “safety”).
This pattern, which revealed itself in my private practice, matches a passage I first read in my twenties while browsing my dad’s vast library:
“A moral misunderstanding, a clash, is impossible between human beings who are morally free. Only the morally unfree who follow their natural instincts or the accepted commands of duty come into conflict with their neighbors if these do not obey the same commands as themselves. To live, in love towards one’s actions, and to let live, in the understanding of the foreign will, is the fundamental maxim of free human beings.”
Rudolf Steiner, from his book The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis for a Modern World Conception
*adapted by me to read “human beings” instead of the original, which reads “men.”
Rudolf Steiner is an inspiring spirit behind my current work in the world, including The Kinetix Academy and The Human Freedom Project. You’ll see a lot of his quotes around here.
Human freedom contains a paradox:
My freedom depends upon cultivating self knowledge, so that I can actualize my true spiritual potential; at the same time, I can’t know who I am without bumping up against something not me.
We gain self knowledge by grappling with everything that is not, essentially, us.
This is why, here at The Human Freedom Project (on the upcoming podcast, and in these weekly writings), we will be exploring the 5 primary constraints that help us develop freedom.
I’ve included the body as the first, last and primary constraint because it is obvious to most of us: we are not our body. Since we inhabit this “foreign will” (the body) every day while we’re alive, and since it is through the body’s nervous system that we are susceptible to temptations, autosuggestion and psychological manipulation, I believe this is the most important constraint to understand. From a foundation of this knowledge (of the human organism) we will have sufficient objectivity in our thinking to grapple with the other constraints; without this knowledge, we are vulnerable to everything from addictions and chronic pain to social and government coercion.
If my freedom also depends on listening to, and acting upon, the voice of conscience that exists within me, then my freedom depends on feelings like the pangs of guilt or regret; and those feelings only arise within me because of “the foreign will” - whether that foreign will is my very own body, another person, an animal, a banking institution (or the IRS!), a tree, or a river…
Have you ever done something to your body, only to feel guilty afterwards? Of course you have.
Why?
It’s your body, after all.
Why did you feel guilty?
This presents us with a riddle about the nature of the human being. You felt guilty (like I have, too many times to count) because you were aware that your actions incurred detrimental consequences to yourself. Hmm…this would imply that there are two of you battling for dominance inside: the one who is capable of perpetrating a crime, and the one who suffers it.
We will come back to this in the future, but for now I’ll remind you of a well loved Cherokee parable:
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.
One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is good. It is love, reverence, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
The question is: if there are two wolves inside of us, and our freedom depends on which one we feed…then who or what are we, if we are not the wolves?
We all have the potential for good; and evil. Without the potential for evil (which helps us know what is good and beautiful and true), there could be no development of freedom. This is, in part, how each of us also plays the role of “foreign will” to the people in our lives. We transgress and trespass against each other all the time, with our thoughts, feelings and deeds.
Paradoxically, human freedom is an entirely individual act, but one that is meaningless outside the context of relationships, social life and everything that human beings have created (from governments to poisons to money).
The 3 Progressive Phases of Human Freedom
Rudolf Steiner lays out a very helpful framework for thinking about human freedom through the lens of three observable developmental phases that are present not only in our own individual lives, but (in accordance with the laws of fractals or “as above, so below”) in the progressive march of human evolution in its entirety; they mirror each other just as the whole human world reflects back to us the sum of unique individuals.
Keep in mind while you read the following that these phases interpenetrate and overlap; they are not static; instead, they continue to develop individually and in relationship to each other.
Phase 1: What Nature Gives Us (Natural Law)
Nature gives us a body to live inside on planet earth. Through evolving human biology, genetics and epigenetics, to the ways in which our organism interacts with the sun, moon and planets (to name just a few important players), Nature brings us one powerful step forward in our development. Included in what nature gives us are the laws of physics, physiology, ecology, quantum biology and everything that happens inside our body (like impulses, desires, fears, passions).
This phase corresponds with the developmental stage in an individual human life from conception through approximately age 7.
During this phase, we exist in a state of near total hypnosis, absorbing our external environment like sponges while acting out our urges and impulses without self control or self consciousness. This is the birthplace of all nervous system patterns: memorized patterns of behavior, from walking and talking to suppression of our true nature in the face of abuse or neglect.
Phase 2: What Social Life Gives Us (Social Law)
“Quit crying or I’ll send you to your room.”
“Skip class again and you’ll get expelled from school.”
“Driver’s license and registration please.”
Family doctrine is passed down to us as “do’s” and “don’ts”. We learn what “good” and “bad” behavior is according to family law; we come to understand, often painfully, what will garner reward and praise, and what will get us punished or neglected.
Then, there are the spoken and unspoken social laws of society that we begin learning in school.
We take what nature gave us into this next phase.
With our untamed impulses and urges, including aggression and anger, timidity and tantrums, sexual desires and the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response of the nervous system, social life becomes a trigger zone for the psychological land mines germinating within each of us as a result of phase one. Children develop, instinctually, their own social hierarchies in school, while teachers enforce yet another strata of social law that itself has been placed within the vast matrix of culture. Culture, of course, changes dramatically through the ages.
This phase corresponds to what develops in the individual human being from approximately age 7 to age 14, when we begin to sense ourselves as individuals, but do not yet possess full self consciousness. To tame the unruly, undisciplined nature of human immaturity, adults shape the laws that govern our emerging social behavior.
The landscape of cultural and social law at some point morphs into the laws of governments, politics, legal courts, militias and the modern laws of economics.
Developmentally, we learn what duty to family is first; then, to a community or tribe; and finally to our country, or nation state.
Today, it is obvious that we have arrived at a new phase, with countless millions of people questioning where their duty really lies; though this has obviously existed as a human impulse for thousands of years, more and more people are willing to risk alienating family members and tribes (of friends, peers, colleagues); and we’re willing to face potential legal punishment for violating the laws of government.
Why?
Within each of us exists a germinating seed of possibility, and its time has come: the free human spirit struggles through constraints towards its fullest expression of development and a new form of moral law: self governance.
The third and final phase of freedom is making itself felt all over the world, even though the other phases are still very much alive and will likely persist for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Phase 3: What The Free Human Spirit Gives Us (Spiritual Law)
As I’m certain you know from lived experience (whether from your own recollection, or because you’re a parent), our teenage years are all about discovering who we are outside the context of family; and later, to some extent, outside the context of previously formed social bonds. We try on personalities as often as hairstyles in our attempts at individuating.
This phase occurs in an individual human life between (approximately) age 14 and age 21.
Modern neuroscience tells us that automatic neuroplasticity stops around this age, with our memorized patterns of behaviors fully automated; after this time, it is up to us to activate - consciously - our growth and freedom. If we do not, we remain as we are: creatures of Natural and social law.
Neuroscience confirms the unfolding developmental phases of human freedom in one lifetime, mirrored in its historical progress as a whole through the ages.
The emerging human “I” - or free spirit - manifests itself from within a foundation rooted in previous phases, often experienced in the early stages of this phase as oppressive constraints to fight against. Individuation often takes shape in its immature infancy as rebellion.
Remember, however, there are two polarizing aspects to Steiner’s maxim of freedom:
Can we:
1) live in love towards our actions, and
2) let live, in understanding of the foreign will?
This third and final phase is about self actualization. It’s about meeting what nature and our own soul provides for us as necessary curricula with reverence, responsibility and the emerging discipline of moral will. It’s about freedom of thought, creative self expression, and sourcing authority from within, rather than looking for outside authorities to obey.
The ability to act in alignment with one’s conscience while understanding the will of the other…that is true freedom.
Viktor Frankl is a living testament to this brand of freedom. Despite every justifiable reason to become hateful, enraged or lost in self victimization after his imprisonment and torture in Auschwitz, he found within himself a moral code that afforded him a dignified existence, even while he suffered the worst horrors and indignities imaginable. Extending this same dignity to his persecutors - as fallible human beings no more or less prone to the temptations of sin than himself - he emerged from Auschwitz to offer the world a new healing impulse: logotherapy, where the search for meaning can lift even the most tortured souls amongst us out of the depths of horror into the light of true freedom.
Joan of Arc, a symbol of consciousness and courage since the 1400’s, understood the will of the foreign armies that she was inspired, by her own moral conscience, to confront; instead of fighting against them, she fought for a spiritual cause she believed to be true and beautiful and good. Though she was captured, tortured and burned at the stake, she died a free human being.
Freedom, in its truest essence, is not what most of us think it is today, where it is so often conflated with political rights; or, with deliverance from tyrannical governments.
Terrifying to most of us, to develop this freedom we have to extricate ourselves from the grips of the spirits of self pity, greed, judgment, lust, hate, vengeance and the like, choosing instead to live by a moral code that comes to us from the Invisible beyond and speaks to us as the wise voice of Conscience.
It also means we must grant others this very same freedom, though their Conscience may dictate something foreign from our own. In the end, however, when free human beings meet, they recognize each other as such; and a moral clash is impossible.
To quote Rudolf Steiner once again:
The human being remains in his incomplete state unless he takes hold of the material for transformation within him and transforms himself through his own power. Nature makes of man merely a natural being; society makes of him a law-abiding being; only he himself can make of himself a free man. Nature releases him from her fetters at a definite stage in his development; society carries this development a stage further; he alone can give himself the final polish.
Concluding thoughts:
I recommend reading Philosophy of Freedom, where Steiner refutes every claim that this ideal of human freedom is impractical or would result in social chaos as each human being does what he or she wills, with no regard for the consequences. We remain bound by the laws of both Nature and society while we grapple with ourselves sufficiently on the way to manifesting the highest possible expression of human freedom.
A golden thread can be found in the three phases: we reman unfree so long as we give in to the impulses and urges that Nature gives us; neither are we free if we simply obey the commands given to us by our fellow human beings in the form of family, social and political law; we are only truly free when we wrest ourselves from the unconscious fetters of these initial phases of development, taking from them what is good and true and beautiful and adding to it what our own individual conscience wills, thereby ennobling humanity as a whole.
Please share your thoughts below!
With love,
Elisha