Rudolf Laban and the seven planes of consciousness: Sensory-somatic portals to spirit

Abstract

This article explores an unpublished and so far unarticulated aspect of Rudolf Laban’s spiritual thinking which focuses specifically on a diagrammatic sketch drawing by Laban found in the Rudolf Laban Archive at the University of Surrey. In this sketch Laban depicts planes of consciousness and movements of the material and subtle sensory bodies as they relate to his notions of Space, Effort and consciousness, mirroring Rudolf Steiner’s ‘ladder’ of spiritual consciousness. The article further discusses (using this sketch as a stimulus) Laban’s interest in the unconscious, ‘unseen’ aspects of embodiment and his Rosicrucian thinking alongside Steiner’s acknowledgment of the importance of the body as the site of, and portal to, spiritual knowledge and the processual nature of material and subtle existence which has movement at its heart.