The purpose of this brief treatise is to present a concept of social organization that might serve as the architecture for the future world society, namely, luxocracy.   Humanity is in the process of evolving toward global society and identity based on global citizenship, yet none of the existing or traditional forms of social organization are suited to encompass fully this new reality.   Not only is humanity evolving as a whole, but also individual humans are experiencing an expansion of consciousness on a scale unprecedented in previous historical periods.   A critical mass, the dimensions of which are only beginning to be visible, is building in size and momentum.   What is needed at this juncture are new languages to encompass emerging possibilities.

Luxocracy means “rule by Light.”   Light in this instance refers to the Inner Light of the Higher Self, the God Within described by mystics and others across cultures and across the centuries.   As more and more people recognize the Inner Light, structures of governance as we know them today will become unnecessary.

Luxocracy represents the higher octave of many of the better known systems of social organization in discourse today.   Like democracy, luxocracy is egalitarian; unlike democracy, luxocracy rests on a foundation of spirituality.   Like anarchy, luxocracy eschews formal, hierarchical structures of governance; unlike anarchy, luxocracy is thoroughly benevolent and nonviolent.   Like theocracy, luxocracy is spiritualized and spiritually centered; unlike theocracy, luxocracy rests on internal, personal notions of spirituality rather than on external, organized religion.   While, in today’s world, these systems of social organization seem mutually contradictory and in conflict, another perspective is that a dynamic synthesis is process, the ultimate upshot of which is luxocracy.   In other words, the conflicts between these perspectives today will ultimately help people to understand and be drawn towards luxocracy.

In today’s world, many people look toward politics for liberation.   Politics are assumed to be the answer to human misery, strife, and injustice.   Yet, the limitations of this strategy are rendered invisible by belief systems that, at best, separate the material world from the spiritual realm or, at worst, negate the spiritual realm altogether.   The political is earthbound.   If politics are not undergirded by a sense of the spiritual, they are a dead end.   This equally true of politics on the right and politics on the left.   Politics as they are understood and enacted today are incapable of delivering humanity to its own potentiality. Yet, outside politics, this potentiality is gaining expression and momentum in the larger global society among people from all walks of life who are awakening to the power and reality of their own spirituality as well as the spirituality of the world around them.

Debates – and wars – over which political system would be better are nullified by the reality that only a political system that is informed by spiritual considerations would be significantly better.   One important caveat, however: spirituality is not to be confused with religion.   Religions exist to deliver people to spiritual knowledge and its application, although they have historically been compromised by the interference of politics.   Thus, religions themselves are no more related to luxocracy than politics.   While religious expression and participation is a matter of choice that would be supported within a luxocratic system, religion itself could not serve as the basis for luxocracy.   Similarly, while awareness of multiple religious traditions and teachings could facilitate the consciousness necessary to enact luxocracy on a global scale, these traditions and teachings alone would not be enough to make luxocracy feasible.   It is only the universal recognition of innate human divinity and the immanent spiritual nature of the lifespace in which humans exist – above and beyond all religions – that would make luxocracy possible.

The two things most facilitative of luxocracy coming into being are education and health.   True education fosters the discovery and development of the Inner Light, while the promotion of true health provides its necessary physical substrate.   “Mentem sanam in corpore sano.”   A society that centered around education and health would necessarily evoke luxocracy as a form of social organization once a certain level of universality was attained with regard to these conditions.   As a Baha’i proverb states, “Regard man as a mine rich in jewels of inestimable value.   Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess.”  

Luxocracy takes as fundamental that all persons are unique manifestations of the One.   As such, each person’s Inner Light guides the manifestation of that uniqueness across the span of a lifetime.   The optimal purpose of society is to foster, facilitate, nurture, protect, and coordinate the expression of every person’s Inner Light simultaneously.   In the past, various structures of governance have used the principle of the commons to try to maximize the number of people who can experience such self-expression and development.   The principle of the commons, through its goal of maximization, assumed implicitly that the good could not be optimized for all persons.   Luxocracy, on the other hand, assumes that this right of optimal wellbeing has now been extended to all and has become universal and categorical.   Thus, the principle of the commons has now been transcended to encompass everyone, as luxocracy rests upon the broader concept of commonweal.

Humanity is shifting into a new age.   This new age represents an evolutionary shift in the human being as well as human society.   In the words of Stefanski Ryszard and others, the human being, currently known as homo sapiens sapiens or “very wise man,” is moving towards homo illuminatus – the illumined or enlightened human.   The difference between wisdom and illumination is complete and unequivocal recognition of the Inner Light and its relationship to spiritual realities that go far beyond Earth.   Luxocracy is simply the willingness, or even just the tendency, to organize human society around such knowledge.   As we evolve, so must our social structures.