The Evolution of Consciousness Through Music

How can music help us uncover our highest potential? This article explores this question through the  lens of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  Largely misrepresented, recent studies suggest that Maslow’s highest human value was not self-actualisation (an expression of personal potential and ego) but self-actualisation, an experience beyond the ego through peak experience and communion with others. Music contributes to these higher goals by offering access to higher states, such  as ‘flow’ described by Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi. Musical flow states offer a way participate in higher human ideals, moving beyond selfishness, egotism, and conformity to contribute to the evolution of human potential, health, and development.