IMHO, Frederic W. H. Myers should be ranked among the most important occult theorists of the 19th century, yet he is almost forgotten today, and does not figure (to the best of my knowledge) in any history of occultism and esotericism.
Myers developed the very important insight that every adult human has not one self, but multiple selves that work (for most people) somewhat in harmony with one another during a person's lifetime, and that these selves function best in a person's life when they are not wholly integrated with one another.
The same insight was developed at the same time by Charles Godfrey Leland. I don't known whether Leland and Myers had read one another's seminal works, or whether each man came up with more or less the same insight independently of the other. Certainly each elaborated it in a different direction from the other. Leland ended up with a theory that posited (among other things) the existence of alternate minor selves of the opposite gender from the gender of the person's own physical body.
Both men have had a huge influence on my own occult / esoteric theory and practice.
Re: Evolution - progress
Myers developed the very important insight that every adult human has not one self, but multiple selves that work (for most people) somewhat in harmony with one another during a person's lifetime, and that these selves function best in a person's life when they are not wholly integrated with one another.
The same insight was developed at the same time by Charles Godfrey Leland. I don't known whether Leland and Myers had read one another's seminal works, or whether each man came up with more or less the same insight independently of the other. Certainly each elaborated it in a different direction from the other. Leland ended up with a theory that posited (among other things) the existence of alternate minor selves of the opposite gender from the gender of the person's own physical body.
Both men have had a huge influence on my own occult / esoteric theory and practice.