We currently find ourselves living in the fourth substage of man’s evolution of consciousness. It is the crucible of creativity where we are learning the law of cause and effect. This substage represents the journey from learning how life works to the application of knowledge for the benefit of mankind. This is an era where combination is our pre-occupation. Whether in marriages, corporations, machines, or chemistry; ever-curious humanity combines himself and his resources seeking answers to his burning questions. He is constantly striving to leave these questions behind and have everything determined by law. These combinations undergo incessant activity and competition in order to determine these laws. Science and technology reign supreme, as the tools used to determine the laws of the material world. He is even less in need of his connection to the universe. He no longer needs to dance in prayer to the rain gods when satellites can beam down up-to-the-minute weather forecasts to a computer in his pocket, and yet, man was born of spirit and has an innate tendency to rely on something higher than himself. This creates a strange situation where modern man, having achieved the level of a scientifically technological superman has not evolved the spiritually philosophic maturity to handle his own creations. We currently are obsessed with designing more efficient ways to extinct ourselves. This is a distinct characteristic of modern man showing us that we are not only in substage four, but in fact, directly in the middle of it and in need of a grand change. Having felt the power our egos can obtain by use of science and technology we have swapped them for the gods of old and are on the verge of unlocking all the secrets of the universe, from the galactically vast, to the infinitesimally small. We have practically made a cult of computers and yet it is folly to worship a tool created from the mind of man, rather than the mind itself. Imagine worshipping the paint on the ceiling of the Cistine chapel rather than the god depicting by the painting. Man’s dedication to this premise has created threats to his survival that he MUST resolve. For having dominated and permeated the earth’s surface man has come to realize its finite space. The material world is not inexhaustible. Overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, and sectarian violence are only a few of the problems caused by a material obsessed world unaware of its own limits and boundaries. Having come so far from our initial connection to the earth, making a change back toward wholism and oneness seems daunting. And yet this very spatial limitation is the evolutionary pressure needed to force mankind to get creative and create DIFFERENT actions than he has in the past. For at our very core, we are, were and always will be a survival oriented creature. With nowhere else for man to outwardly expand due to limited space, his curious mind will naturally begin to explore the only frontier left, himself. He will turn inward and begin to discover limitless space and infinite time. Even now, in the avante guarde of his scientific and technological explorations, man is being re-oriented toward spirit almost in spite of himself. Quantum physicists are breaking matter down to such a small level that the data they are gathering is unexplainable without concluding that the universe is ultimately made of energy and all life is interconnected. The internet is creating a global consciousness and allowing the common man to see his commonality with all cultures and religions. Progressive religions are excepting the idea of evolutionary process and the law of attraction and entanglement. This added aspect of spirit is only logical at this stage because combination + karma = cause and effect. Having gained vast knowledge of how the universe works, and rediscovering the truth of his connection to his earth mother and all its creatures, man transitions from personal responsibility to cosmic responsibility. This is the key to reversing the entropy shown by the downward slope of the left side of our arc. To paraphrase Barbara Marx Hubbard, in her book, Conscious Evolution, if an alien came to earth and saw two people playing chess his first task would be to learn the rules of the game (substage four) and next begin perfecting the game (substage five). By changing our core philosophy from one of competition and personal gain, to one of cooperation and conscience man will no longer be working against the creative life force and will have the wins of the universe at his back for exponentially more rapid evolution of consciousness.