The (Turbid) Ebb and Flow of Human Consciousness

In a rather remarkable essay called ‘The Son of God and the Son of Man', Owen Barfield distinguishes two ways in which a man may be said to be the Son of God, or the Son of Man. The first is expressed in pre-Christian myths, in dreams, in man’s unconscious being and in his body. It may also be called the Eastern Way, and derives from humanity’s natural inheritance through Adam from God. In this sense, man may be called the Son of God.

The other way consists in a human being’s free, conscious, reasoned acts and thoughts of kindness and love. It may be called the Western Way, since the West has always striven towards more consciousness, more deliberation, more control – whereas the East is generally inclined to dim the feeble spark of consciousness before it has fully arisen. The Western Way may be associated with the historical figure of Jesus Christ, who, perhaps for this reason, preferred to dub himself the Son of Man rather than the Son of God.

Now Barfield’s essential point is this: if we are to move forward on the Western Way, it is crucial that we regain a sense of the natural, unconscious gift we have simply by virtue of being humans, by being Sons of God. Without this realization, there is no meaning to words like freedom, love and kindness. Cut loose from the consciousness of our ultimate descent from God, we are caught in the Existentialist trap; without the strength and dignity that are our birthright, the burden of responsibility weighs us down.

Writing in the 1970s, Barfield suggests that the general turn towards the East, that was such a prominent feature of the hippie movement, was motivated at least in part by a dim recognition of this fact. For him however, this can never be the ultimate direction of Western consciousness; reconnecting with the sources of our conscious life is only worthwhile insofar as it provides us with the strength, confidence and faith to resume the (Christian) path to freedom and conscious love – to become the Sons of Man as well as the Sons of God.

The progress of consciousness is not to be conceived as a steady march onwards, ever further into an ever brighter future. Instead, it may be likened to a sea that ebbs and flows, steadily gaining on the land. In the same way, both individually and historically, we can feel the progress of consciousness ‘begin, and cease, and then again begin’. Hence the way forward may be found by retracing our steps. To use Barfield’s own words from his fairy-tale The Rose on the Ash-heap: ‘Oh traveller through the Zodiac, pass further on – by turning back’.

Barfield's essay 'The Son of God and the Son of Man' was published in The Rediscovery of Meaning (1977).