I know. Hanukkah passed. But the season of darkness hasn’t. Now that you aren’t distracted by dreidels, light eight candles anyway. For the Light.

You heard of Hegel. The German idealist (1770-1831). Whose writing is so dense even philosophers have trouble understanding him. Whose name is associated with the “dialectic”. (Go ahead. Say it. dīəˈlektik. It’s fun.) How can Hanukkah help us interpret Hegel?

If we think of each night of Hanukkah as a stage of consciousness in our spiritual evolution, we can make sense of Hegel’s thought and celebrate Hanukkah in its fullness. On the 8th and last night of Hanukkah, we see —reflected through each — the glow of Spirit/Mind’s evolution and finally get what Hegel’s dialectic is about.

Hegel’s discovery of the dialectic is to history what Watson-Crick-Franklins’ discovery of the double-helix is to science. DNA is the code for our biological evolution, but the dialectic drives our personal, social and cultural evolution. Interestingly, both form the shape of a spiral.

How does it work? Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. OR, identity, difference, identity-and-difference as a new identity. When opposing, dualistic perceptions (thesis and antithesis) come into conflict, parts of each are preserved and negated, or synthesized, into something new, the next thesis.

This continuous, recapitulating spiral of “transcending and including” what came before allows for the growth of consciousness. Hegel tapped into the evolutionary method of the universe, marching us forward in history, from one stage to another. Each contains a different set of values. Each produces a clash of views propelling us to a new stage.

I’ll spare you Hegel’s abstruse description of the stages. Instead, here’s one according to Steve McIntosh, minus the tensions that give rise to subsequent stages. It’s based on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirt/Mind and the work of integral philosophers who came after him.

As you light each candle, read its description below. (Menorah not required.)

The 1st candle represents neonatal survival, awareness as Archaic Consciousness.
The 2nd candle stands for Tribal Consciousness lighting loyalty to family and ancestors.
The 3rd candle honors Warrior Consciousness, the fire to express power, to develop ego.
The 4th candle is for Traditional Consciousness, the shift from an ego- to an ethnocentric morality; a shared belief system that values law & order and honesty.
The 5th candle acknowledges Modern Consciousness, the age of enlightenment, of reason and science, freedom and democracy; progress.
The 6th candle celebrates Post-Modern Consciousness, a world-centric morality featuring responsibility to all others. 
The 7th candle, Integral or Interspiritual Consciousness, integrates all ways to be spiritual, harmonizes science and religion, and links personal with social evolution.
The 8th candle, Post-Integral Consciousness, continues the gradual perfection of humanity through goodness, truth, and beauty.

Gaze into the light. Breathe deeply. Take in the idea of the growth of consciousness.

Hegel’s discovery lets us apply it to our times. No where do we need this more than in the way we use or don’t use religion. Even the rabbis of old shifted the holiday’s focus away from extreme tribal nationalism, warrior mentality and military victory to its traditional form as rededication to ethnic identity. Modernism embraces atheism and tolerates Hanukkah as the miracle of a little cruse of oil that burned for eight days. Postmodern Hanukkah explores universal themes of light.   

By lighting the way of our spiritual evolution from one candle to the next, we can use a holiday to honor the old stories and create new ones. Stories relevant to our times and beyond. Perhaps today the miracle is not so much what the light stands for as much as who is gathering to stand for it and why.

Cautionary Notes:

1. We go through stages of consciousness individually, culturally, and socially. Be careful not to use them to describe people.
   
2. While stages unfold in a progression, no stage is better than another; each is uniquely necessary for resolving the issues of its time, allowing for further growth.
3. The stages are not deterministic. They describe a pattern. And continue after eight.
4. Appreciation for Hegel’s philosophy, and through it, our selves and our universe, may increase with the consumption of latkas.

Feel free to celebrate consciousness with the candles of Christmas or the candles of Kwanza. Or just candles. Send a comment if this blog brings clarity to your holiday experience OR to your understanding of Hegel.