[1] While the concept has ancient roots, practices, and techniques, it has been significantly developed as a central notion in contemporary popular spirituality, including the New Age movement.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was one of the founding figures of German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant.
[2][note 1][clarification needed] According to Michael Whiteman, Fichte's philosophical system "is a remarkable western formulation of eastern mystical teachings (of which he seems to have had no direct knowledge).
"[11] For Schleiermacher, the lower self-consciousness is "the animal part of mankind", which includes basic sensations such as hunger, thirst, pain and pleasure, as well as basic drives and pleasures, and higher self-consciousness is, in the words of theologian Dawn DeVries, "the part of the human being that is capable of transcending animal instincts",[8] and the "point of contact with God".
[8] The relation between the lower and the higher consciousness is akin to "Paul's struggle of the spirit to overcome the flesh",[8] or the distinction between the natural and the spiritual side of human beings.
[9] The idea of a "wider self walled in by the habits of ego-consciousness"[12] and the search for a "higher consciousness" was manifested in 19th century movements such as Theosophy,[12] New Thought,[12] Christian Science,[12] and Transcendentalism.
[15] Higher self is a term associated with multiple belief systems, but its basic premise describes an eternal, omniscient, conscious, and intelligent being, who is one's real self.
[18] Aleister Crowley, founder of Thelema, referred to the higher consciousness or self as Harpocrates, which he identified as a name for the Holy Guardian Angel.
[19] In his early writings, Crowley states that the Holy Guardian Angel is the "silent self", the equivalent of the Genius of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Ātman of Hinduism, and the Daimon of the ancient Greeks.
This is not necessarily a tenet of Christianity, but the conviction that a regular person can be attuned to reach the same level of spirituality as did the historical Jesus.