What does Chris Bache say about Evolution Of The Species Mind?
What Bache calls the “species-mind” is a real, unified field of human consciousness that learns from us, informs us, and can evolve rapidly under stress.
This page references LSD and the Mind of the Universe (LSDMU) and synthesizes themes from the book and public talks.
“From Sheldrake’s perspective, the collective psyche, or species-mind, influences its individual members… [and] also receives and integrates the learning of its members.”
— LSDMU ch.7 §10 ¶5
Bache’s starting point is a field model: humanity shares a species-mind that both shapes and is shaped by us (see ch.7 §10 ¶5). He then extends it:
“I see the species-mind as lying between two systems of consciousness… open ‘from below’ to the individual psyches… [and] open ‘from above’ to more inclusive fields of consciousness.”
— LSDMU ch.7 §10 ¶6
This defines the mechanism—bidirectional openness—and explains why insights sometimes feel “infused from above.” When ego-boundaries thin in deep practice:
“We can dissolve into the human species-mind so deeply that the beginnings and endings of our personal life become insignificant… When the ‘small-self’ opens to the ‘species-self’…”
— LSDMU ch.9 §0 ¶9
What, then, is evolving? Not only individuals, but the organism-scale field:
“I experienced the evolution of our species as the systematic growth of a single organism… a single unified field.”
— LSDMU ch.9 §1 ¶26
Under ecological and civilizational strain this field can tip:
“Driven into a nonlinear… state… the species-mind [exhibits] rapidly accelerated change, heightened creativity, and higher self-organization.”
— LSDMU ch.9 §3 ¶2
A few of Bache’s visions hint at the horizon—an earth-grown humanity transparent to Creative Intelligence:
“An entire species… a fully conscious Soul… feet firmly planted on the Earth but now transparent to the Creative Intelligence…”
— LSDMU ch.8 §1 ¶49
Field dynamics supply the “how” of rapid shifts:
“If we understand nonlinear systems… when [the collective] is thrown into far-from-equilibrium conditions, things can happen fast; there can be jumps.”
01:20:05 — Waking Up in the Classroom (2014-11-10) • 01:20:05
LSDMU ch.7 §10 ¶5
In these respects, my view of the collective unconscious has been influenced by Rupert Sheldrake and his work on morphic fields and formative causation, which I have found to be deeply congruent with my psychedelic experience. From Sheldrake’s perspective, the collective psyche, or species-mind, influences its individual members, as Jung suggests. But Sheldrake goes further than Jung in proposing that the collective psyche also receives and integrates the learning of its members. Sheldrake envisions a complex feedback loop operating between the species-mind and individuals that allows the species-mind to learn as its members learn. Collective learning progresses more slowly than individual learning, but when the species-mind eventually grasps a truth, the resulting shift ripples through the entire species resulting in faster learning curves.
LSDMU ch.7 §10 ¶6
Going one step beyond Sheldrake, I see the species-mind as lying between two systems of consciousness. I believe it is open “from below” to the individual psyches of its members, as Sheldrake suggests, but I also see it as open “from above” to more inclusive fields of consciousness. It not only learns from its individual members, it is also informed by more encompassing levels of consciousness, as suggested by the sessions reported in this chapter. This throws new light on the problem of creativity, which is a problem that Sheldrake has acknowledged his theory cannot solve. As many highly creative people have reported, deep creativity is often experienced as an infusion from above, and I suspect that something like this takes place higher up the Great Chain of Being as well.
LSDMU ch.9 §0 ¶9
I know it sounds arrogant to speak on such a scale, but I must if I am to describe the visions that repeatedly came through my sessions. Ego-death destroys the existential isolation and constant self-referencing that organizes our ordinary experience of the world. When the partitions of personal consciousness are surrendered, our experience spontaneously opens to the larger rhythms of life that we are part of. One portion of these rhythms is the collective psyche of our species. At the subtle level of consciousness, we can dissolve into the human species-mind so deeply that the beginnings and endings of our personal life become insignificant. When the “small-self” opens to the “species-self” this completely, it is only natural that insights into humanity’s larger developmental trajectory sometimes emerge in our awareness. We would be surprised if this did not happen.
LSDMU ch.9 §1 ¶26
From this perspective, I experienced the evolution of our species as the systematic growth of a single organism, a unified being that all of us were part of. The subtlety of the cooperation of the parts with the whole was extraordinary. Nothing in our theological or philosophical systems does justice to the facts. To experience the incredible diversity of our species as a single unified field made many events clearer. New patterns sprang into view, and the patterns made transparent sense.
LSDMU ch.9 §3 ¶2
- That the species-mind is a unified psychic field,
- That this field will be driven into a nonlinear or “far-fromequilibrium” state by the extreme suffering generated by the
global ecological crisis, and- That in this hyperaroused state, the species-mind will exhibit some of the same nonlinear capacities that scientists have
observed in physical systems when they are driven into the nonlinear state, namely, the capacity for rapidly accelerated
change, heightened creativity, and higher self-organization.
LSDMU ch.8 §1 ¶49
…In such a universe, how could life not eventually produce fully awakened Souls on Earth? Not just a few here and there, but everyone everywhere. An entire species that through its hard labor has given birth to its next self-expression—a fully conscious Soul, green to its roots, feet firmly planted on the Earth but now transparent to the Creative Intelligence that everywhere presses in upon it.
I don’t know. We know about emergence; things happen in jumps, we hit tipping points… If we understand nonlinear systems, and hypothesize the human collective unconscious as such a system, then when it’s thrown into far-from-equilibrium conditions, things can happen fast; there can be jumps.
01:20:05 — Chris Bache, Waking Up in the Classroom – Lessons from 30 Years of Teaching (2014-11-10) • 01:20:05…how humanity is designed for accelerated evolution… a deeper structure in the collective psyche accumulates and stores [incarnational] information… Periodically, that deeper structure pivots—what I call a shift in the plate tectonics of the collective psyche.
00:40:34 — 73 Trips: Inside the Psychedelic Universe (2023-11-06) • 00:40:34Later… I was dissolved into the species—Chris Bache dissolved into the human family… and experienced… a death-and-rebirth process impacting the entire human family.
00:40:15 — LSD & the Mind of the Universe (What Is Going OM) (2023-08-17) • 00:40:15…we were entering a time of intense purification… lifting the conditioning of the past to make us more receptive to… an infusion of divine energy… a tremendous sense of rebirth coming.
01:10:55 — Reach Truth Podcast (2022-08-30) • 01:10:55…what we consider private isn’t private; everything is wired into a collective network.
00:42:36 — The Evidence for Reincarnation (2024-11-16) • 00:42:36
The book anchors species-mind as a unified, bidirectionally open field; the transcripts reinforce nonlinear field dynamics (tipping, pivots) and first-person dissolutions into the species. Together they explain both what the species-mind is and how it can evolve quickly under crisis.
Cite as: Bache Archive — Educational Docs Edition (2025). Based on the works of Christopher M. Bache, including LSD and the Mind of the Universe (2019) and public talks (2009–2025).
Excerpts from LSD and the Mind of the Universe are reproduced here under the fair use doctrine for educational and scholarly purposes. They support study, research, and public understanding of Christopher M. Bache’s work on consciousness and spiritual evolution. All quotations remain the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders.