ABSTRACT
So far we have studied five phases in the development of experience. Now we have enough material to explore the order of human history. Mythical histories always begin with creation. At the moment of creation, everything comes into being completely and perfectly. Later religions added an epochal turning point, anchored in the lifetime of their prophets and teachers. The traditional paradigm thus portrayed a linear, sacred history, located inside an instant cosmos. This portrait remained authoritative until the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, modern science replaced the instant cosmos with an evolutionary world located in an infinite and ever-changing universe. This revolution was an enormous challenge for the understanding of history. In the twentieth century, new approaches emerged: Spengler and Toynbee replaced the singular world history with a multitude of regional histories. Jaspers and Voegelin reunited the fragmented strands through the idea of a single axis age that served as a universal turning point in the history of humankind. However, these new approaches do not stand up to empirical evaluation. As the results so far show, there is not just one turning point but five of them. These five turns will eventually expand to a total of nine. Although they rarely run parallel, they always follow the same sequence. This sequence begins with the discovery of conscious perception and it usually ends with the dimensions of consciousness and unconsciousness. The individual transformations always take place in four phases: from incubation via articulation to methodological elaboration and institution building. Instead of a single axis age, the result is a sequence of nine experiential turns that unfold in different regions of the world at different historical rhythms. Thus the bottom line is: the order of history arises from the history of experience.
