Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE NEW AGE 75

... when mythology has been properly interpreted as symbolic or intuitive prehistory, an epitome of events preceding the observation of reason, it may, and we believe it will, appear that over each of the racial transformations some kind of intelligence presided either in the form of a Great Man or Manu, or as a creative impulse within the development race itself . . .33

According to his reading of world development there had been a continuous process of change in human consciousness—from people initially leading a relatively instinctive form of life, ‘at one’ with the rest of nature in a state of collective unconsciousness; followed by a stage during which each person felt their sense of being as inextricably linked to their membership of a collectivity or group, whether a tribe, a caste, a clan or family; leading to the phase when individuals begin to experience the freedom and significance of the separate self, when they feel they have the power to control their own lives as individuals. For Mitrinovi¢, each successive stage of development was associated with, or carried by, a particular race. He likened the course of human development to

a series of racial stages of transformation . . . Each of the races in embryological succession may have been, so to speak, eugenically developed and bred under the tutelage of what mythology describes as Culture-heroes, race builders, Manus or what not. Or, again, these figures may represent movements, revolutions inspired by the common mind of developing mankind which seized upon this or that people of each succeeding race as the most promising ground for the development of the next racial stage.*4

The development in human consciousness, he claimed, had moved, geographically and racially, from East to West—from China and India, through the Middle East, Greece and Rome, to Europe and America.

Westward the course of consciousness takes its way; and it is probable that nobody would be found to deny that, in general, the unconscious is related with the East, while the conscious is the characteristic of the “progressive” West. Westwards, or in the direction of increasing consciousness, the tide of impulse appears to flow; and it is of the utmost importance that the fact should be recognised.

In the current phase of development, according to Mitrinovié, humanity faced a critical turning point. Each cycle or stage in the developmental spiral was characterised by a period of growth followed by one of decline. With the growth of western civilisation humanity had emerged from the collective unconscious stage, and individuals had developed a consciousness