It is especially in these four ancient civilizations that one finds the rise of the "
Axial Period" between 800 and 200 B.C.E.
m is the period number equal to the integer of z/[[lambda].sub.h], and [[lambda].sub.h] is the
axial period length;
Long chapters on Greece, China, and India in their
axial period of transformation are rich and densely illustrated with classic texts.
We are living through a period of seismic change on a scale unseen since the
Axial period (between 800 and 200BC) when concepts of God, from India to Greece, from China to the Fertile Crescent, were undergoing huge and radical changes.
Cousins argues that this second
axial period is "communal, global, ecological and cosmic." It is not merely a shift from first axial consciousness, but rather "an advancement in the whole evolutionary process," one that "encourages dialogue, community and relationship with a growing awareness that each person is something of the whole." Like the theologian- paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, Cousins sees the evolutionary development leading toward "the convergence of centers of consciousness" (qtd.
as the 'Axial Age,' and the work of Ewert Cousins, who contends we are in the throes of a Second
Axial Period, Lanzetta moves to describe the emerging global spiritual landscape of today.
In the first millennium B.C.E., human cultures clearly experienced an
Axial Period in a striking transformation of human consciousness.
The
Axial period of the last 2,500 years has largely repressed intuitive and universal traditions for the sake of managed and heady, traditions.
Disputers of the Tao is a history of Chinese philosophy in the so-called
Axial Period (c.800-200 BC; the period of classical Greek and Indian philosophy), during which time China evolved the characteristic ways of thought that sustained both its empire and its culture for over 2,000 years.
The great move toward extreme dualism in all four ancient civilizations happened during the
Axial Period (800-200 B.C.E.), when humanity began to make the distinction between "this material world" and the "heavenly, spiritual world" and increasingly decided that our human goal was to distance ourselves as much as possible from things below (matter, body) and to strive toward things above (spiritual).
Ewert Cousins has identified this new period of consciousness as a "second
axial period." The first
axial period produced individual, self-reflective consciousness; the second is characterized by global consciousness.
Karl Jaspers dated that he called "the
Axial Period" from 800 B.C.E.