In mastering the material, we have lost touch with the spiritual-
In the past each individual was concerned only about their own development. This was perfectly normal; in fact it was a necessary phase of human evolution and as such was planned by cosmic intelligence. Just as a child has to begin by growing and becoming strong, humanity—which was still a child—had to grow and build up its strength, and it was helped in this by its ‘elder brothers’, those highly evolved souls and spirits who incarnated in order to help it.

And now mankind has reached adulthood… Ah, but I can see that you are wondering what I mean when I say that mankind has become adult. Well, look at a child: to begin with it is their physical life that manifests itself and grows strong as they eat and drink and exercise their limbs.

The spirit has taken over our astral and mental bodies to give us mastery over matter
Then, little by little, the spirit begins to descend into them, awakening first their astral body and then their mental body, and by the time they are twenty-one we can say that all their essential faculties are developed. Emotionally and intellectually they possess all the tools they need and can begin to use them to their fullest extent.

The process by which the spirit gradually descends to the physical plane has also taken place in mankind as a whole. This is why we can say that mankind has now reached adulthood. If modern man possesses such extraordinary powers in the realms of thought and feeling, it is because the spirit has taken possession of their astral and mental bodies, and in so doing it has penetrated so deeply into matter that it is almost buried.

But gradually we have cut ourselves off from the invisible worlds
Thanks to the spirit, humans have become more and more capable of handling matter, but at the same time they have lost touch with the subtle worlds. In the remote past, when the spirit had not penetrated their physical body to any great extent, human beings were in closer touch with the spirits, the entities of the invisible world, the souls of the dead.

Of course, they were not very clever when it came to handling matter, and if they now have such great skill on that level it is because they have gradually cut themselves off from all the other forms of life that inhabit the universe—so much so in fact that, because they are invisible, they no longer believe in their existence.

Inability to develop our spiritual faculties could spell our ultimate destruction
What is needed now is a return to the spiritual world. It was necessary for mankind to attain its present intellectual development, but to continue in the same direction without a simultaneous development of its spiritual faculties would spell its ultimate destruction. In fact this has already occurred more than once. The annals of spiritual science—which will soon be discovered—contain records of several human races that have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Complete Works Vol. 26, A New Dawn: Society and Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science