higher consciousness

noun

a supposed mode of cognition beyond human self-awareness

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Meanings

nounhigher consciousness (plural higher consciousnesses)

plural higher consciousnesses

  1. cognitive theorya supposed mode of cognition beyond human self-awareness

    But that the self-consciousness may be the modification of a higher form of being, perhaps of a higher consciousness, and this again of a yet higher, and so on in an infinite regressus

    1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, chapter 12, in Biographia Literaria
  2. the notion of historical progress in the evolution of the human mind
  3. New Agea concept of mystical transcendence of human consciousness, especially in Hinduism-inspired New Age philosophy, Yoga and psychedelic drugs subculture

Origin

In 19th century philosophy, used by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (died 1831, höheres Bewußtsein), Petr Yakovlevich Chaadayev (died 1856, высшее сознание; literally, "highest consciousness"). The New Age sense appears in ca. 1970 in the publications of Sri Aurobindo and others (The psychology of the unfoldment of higher consciousness (title), Swami Omkarananda, Divine Light Zentrum, 1970).

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Cite this entry
APA

higher consciousness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/higher%20consciousness

MLA

“higher consciousness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/higher%20consciousness. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “higher consciousness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/higher%20consciousness.

Source: higher consciousness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.