“Consciousness is not a natural, inherent property of a person. It is a cultural acquisition. This is absolutely critical because it means that it is absurd to look for the birth of consciousness in scientific terms, in genetic terms, in materialist terms. Human culture reveals the “archeology” or “genealogy” of consciousness. And this also means that if we can enormously improve human culture, we can thereby enormously improve human consciousness and untap much higher powers. We are not limited by our physical bodies. Our consciousness can evolve simply through better human culture. It can, by the same logic, also devolve, via bad human culture. Consciousness, and its quality, are all to play for.”