History as a Mirror of Consciousness

When I first began my study of history in high school it consisted of memorizing facts and dates as told to our class by the teacher. We were not encouraged to think much about what we were being taught. We memorized; we regurgitated. It wasn’t until I began to read books outside of the curriculum that I began to realize that there were striking differences relating to the interpretation of history. And then I wondered, “Which version of the historical narrative was accurate?”

When I started college, I was amazed at the varying stories told by the variety of scholars in history. Why hadn’t I heard these versions of history, I wondered. And then I came across an adage that changed my perspective. “Study the historian before you study the history.”

This point was made very clear in a very controversial film that aired on national TV in 1968 titled “Of Black America: Lost. Stolen or Strayed.” The documentary basically explored the contributions of African Americans to American life and highlighted the systemic exclusion of those contributions from mainstream history. That groundbreaking film left a lasting impression and perhaps precipitated my lifelong study of history.

Why does this matter to you?

It means that my interpretation of history is unique. Very few spiritual writers are historians. And few historians write spiritually.

Even so… Why study history if what we seek is spiritual awakening?

Because in that history are patterns that reflect the awareness and consciousness of society. With a discerning eye, the ebb and flow of a growing spiritual human consciousness can be observed.

Over the years I gradually realized that history was teaching me something I had never expected. It was not merely revealing what people had done. It was revealing how they saw the world. Every civilization leaves behind more than monuments and documents. It leaves behind evidence of its consciousness.

For example, in the early 18th century, religious reformers left the confines and rigid enforcement of religious systems in Europe to found a “city on the hill” in the Americas. It helped lay the foundation for one of history's first modern nations in which people of many religious traditions could coexist under constitutional protection. It ushered in the idea of the separation of powers and a secular state unincumbered by religious doctrines and rigid religious enforcement long experienced in Europe. It incorporated the concept of the separation of church and state. It also introduced the ideas of inalienable rights for its citizens.

But despite these lofty goals, slavery and Indian removal were also a part of the early American identity. Why? Because the level of consciousness could only produce what was possible at that level of spiritual awareness.

Over time, what I learned to do is to read history through the lens of consciousness—a unique way to examine the world’s histories.

Continue the journey...
— uMdali Light

This perspective resonates with the themes explored in Dualistic Consciousness, where the structure of human awareness becomes the lens through which history is understood.

It also complements the reflections in History Does Not Move in Circles, which examines the directional nature of human development.