Civilization #3: The Religious Imagination

For most of human history, we have been peaceful, egalitarian, and artistic. About 300,000 years ago, our species, Homo sapiens, was born in Africa. Then, 50,000 years ago, due to climate change, we started to spread around the world. Throughout most of our history, we have been hunter-gatherers. We don't know that much about our history; we can only guess. But based on the available archaeological evidence, we were, for most of the time:

• Peaceful: This does not mean we were not violent. There's lots of evidence of in-group conflict; for example, we have discovered people in burials with skull fractures. There has been violence, but there has been no evidence of organized warfare. That comes much later.
• Egalitarian: This means there was no difference in status and power between men and women. Men and women were considered equal. There was no hierarchy, meaning there were no people who were considered more wealthy than others. We know this because we could not find any evidence of hierarchy, such as larger houses or groups with special privileges. There were, however, individuals who might have had higher status, and we know this because they were buried more elaborately than other people. For example, shamans—their religious leaders—were accorded higher status than everyone else.
• Artistic: As we know, they were engaged in cave paintings and built monuments to celebrate and worship their religion. For them, art was about the expression and celebration of their religion.

For most of human history, we were peaceful, egalitarian, and artistic. We know that today we are not peaceful, not egalitarian, and not that artistic. So, what changed? A new group of people called the Yamnaya came into being, and they had a different religion that celebrated warfare, patriarchy, and wealth. Eventually, they spread all around Europe and Asia, conquered everyone, and created a new history of humanity.

I want to explain the evidence for why we think that for most of human history, we were peaceful, egalitarian, and artistic.

The Religion of Early Humans

We don't know what their religion was, but we suspect that it was animism and shamanism. Remember that animism is the belief that we all come from the mother goddess, from one source of life, including trees, animals, and humans. Every living being has a soul. The other thing is that the soul is permanent; you can never kill it. The body and the soul are different, so it doesn't really matter if you die because your soul will go somewhere else and maybe come back. Death was not a big deal.

The third thing is that there's a spirit world, or another world, which is more real than our world. Our world is just a physical manifestation of the spirit world, but what matters is the spirit world. And the last thing is that there's an order to the universe; we have a part to play. For example, we can kill animals to feed ourselves, but we must pay tribute to these animals before and after we kill them to maintain the harmony of the universe. This is what we believe the religion of early humans was, everywhere in the world, including in China and Europe.

This is Göbekli Tepe. You can see that this is a T-pillar, and it's meant to represent a human. Inside the T-pillar is an animal. Basically, the T-pillar represents the manifestation of the animal spirit in us. We believe that this was a religious festival they would have before they went hunting. The evidence for this is that at other sites, we found a lot of animal bones.

This religion goes back a long time.

This is a small figurine we found in a cave in Germany, and it dates back 40,000 years. Remember, 50,000 years ago we started to leave Africa and venture into Europe and around the world. This goes back to the dawn of humanity.

This is a flute that goes back to the same time. At the beginning of humanity, we were religious. We celebrated our religion through music, art, and shamanism. They believed that these dolls have religious qualities, just like their cave paintings, where they celebrated the mother goddess and the fact that life is a circle. After you kill the animals, their soul goes back into the spirit world, and then through proper tribute and worship, you can bring them back into this world.

How Do We Know?

If we cannot go back in time and observe their religion, how do we know what it was? The answer is we have a field of study called anthropology. Anthropology is the study of other cultures. If our theory is right, then we should be able to find other cultures that are still alive today that practice this religion. What we've discovered is that if you go to places in the jungle in South America, Africa, and Australia, they do practice this religion. Understanding their religion gives us tremendous insight into the thinking and religion of early humans, and that's what we will do today: truly understand what early humans thought and how they understood the world.

Evidence from Anthropology: The Wayfinders

The first passage we're going to look at is from a book called The Wayfinders by Wade Davis. This is a great book. Wade Davis is a Canadian anthropologist, and he spent a lot of time traveling around the world to explore and understand indigenous peoples—people who are native to the land and have been there for a long, long time. This is what he says about a tribe in the Amazon forest.

In the beginning, before the creation of the seasons, before the ancestral mother, Romi Kumu, Woman Shaman, opened her womb, before her blood and breast milk gave rise to the rivers and her ribs to the mountain ridges of the world, there was only chaos in the universe. Spirits and demons known as the He preyed on their own kindred, bred without thought, committed incest without consequence, devoured their own young. Romi Kumu responded by destroying the world with fire and floods. Then, just as a mother turns over a warm slab of manioc bread on the griddle, she turned the incinerated and charred world upside down, creating a flat and empty template from which life could emerge once again. As Woman Shaman, she then gave birth to a new world: land, water, forest, and animals.

This is what we call a creation myth, and every single civilization, every single people, has one.

Why do you need a creation myth?

It explains how the world formed, but it does something much more important than that. It explains who we are and where we come from. That's what all creation myths do. But what else is this myth doing that is very important for us? For society to function, you need rules and laws. What this creation myth is doing—what all creation myths do—is explaining the legal structure of your society and why you can't do certain things. For example, you can't commit incest. You can't eat your young people. Why? Because that's what evil people do. This creation myth is explaining the legal system and the rules, and why we have them. We have these rules because those actions are evil; they represent the evil spirit.

You will also notice that this creation myth is very sophisticated and elaborate.

This is a visualization of their understanding of creation, and as you can understand, it's very complicated. Why is it complicated? One thing you will learn is that what's really important is for you to believe that your religion is correct—just as correct as science. What makes people believe your religion is correct? You have to accomplish three things:

1. Grandness: It is huge and vast. As you can see, this is a vast religion, a vast cosmology of how things started.
2. Completeness: The idea of completeness is that everything you see in the world must be explained in this cosmology. This is explaining to you how everything started and where everything comes from.
3. Unity: There's a beginning and there's an end.

This is something that we will learn as we explore other religions, including Judaism and Christianity. For a religion to be powerful and authoritative, you need these three ideas: grandness, completeness, and unity.

The Spirit World and the Role of the Shaman

Let's continue.

Thus for the people living today in the forests of the Pirá-Paraná, the entire natural world is saturated with meaning and cosmological significance. Every rock and waterfall embodies a story. Plants and animals are but distinct physical manifestations of the same essential spiritual essence. At the same time, everything is more than it appears, for the visible world is only one level of perception. Behind every tangible form—tangible means concrete, physical—every plant and animal, is a shadow dimension, a place invisible to ordinary people but visible to the shaman. This is the realm of the He spirits, a world of deified ancestors, where rocks and rivers are alive, plants and animals are human beings, sap and blood the bodily fluids of the primordial river of the Anaconda. Hidden in cataracts, behind the physical veil of waterfalls, in the very center of stones, are the great malocas of the He spirits, where everything is beautiful: the shining feathers, the coca, the calabash of tobacco powder, which is in itself the skull and brain of the sun.

What can we say about their religion that would be surprising to you? First of all, it's very imaginative. They have a vivid imagination. The other thing is that it's extremely sophisticated and complex. One major prejudice that we might have about these people is, "Well, they don't drive cars, they don't have cell phones, therefore they must be stupid." But clearly, from our understanding of their religious beliefs, they're actually extremely imaginative and extremely sophisticated.

This is their shamans in religious practice. What stands out about this picture? There's a lot of thought put into what they wear. Their clothing, the way they dress, suggests that this is a very sophisticated religion. It's not like they just put on anything; it seems they put a lot of care and thought into what they wear.

You can also see there's some organization and order to it. The elder stands in the middle, and you can see the symmetry. It's clear that they are doing a religious ceremony, and this ceremony requires their bodies to be a certain way in relation to each other. It requires them to dress a certain way and to say certain things. Clearly, they are in prayer of some sort. We call this the idea of ritual. Ritual is just the expression of religion in everyday practice. In other words, their lives are extremely ritualized, meaning what they do every second has a religious meaning and significance.

It is to the realm of the He spirits that the shaman goes in ritual. The shaman is responsible for entering the world of the demons and negotiating and communicating with them. That's his role; that's why he has his power and authority.

Contrary to popular lore in the West, the shaman of the Barasana never uses or manipulates medicinal plants. His duty and sacred task is to move in the timeless realm of the He, embrace the primordial powers, and harness and restore the energy of all creation. He is like a modern engineer who enters the depths of a nuclear reactor to renew the entire cosmic order.

If plants are dying outside, what does this mean? Bad things are happening because the spirits are unhappy. Therefore, you must go into the spirit world, understand why the spirits are unhappy, and fix it. That's the role of the shaman. What this is saying is that our world doesn't matter. Our world is insignificant. What matters is the spirit world because the spirit world is what controls everything.

Among the Barasana, such renewal is a fundamental obligation of the living. In practice this implies that the Barasana see the earth as potent, the forest as being alive with spiritual beings and incestuous powers. To live off the land is to embrace both its creative and destructive potential. Human beings, plants, and animals share the same cosmic origin, and in a profound sense are seen as essentially identical, responsive to the same principles, obligated by the same duties, responsible for the collective well-being of creation. There is no separation between nature and culture. Without the forest and the rivers, humans would perish. Without people, the natural world would have no order or meaning. All would be chaos. The same norms that drive social behavior also define the manner in which human beings interact with the wild, the plants and animals, the multiple phenomena of the natural world: lightning and thunder, the sun and the moon, the scent of a blossom, the sour odor of death.

Everything is connected with each other. We're all equals. This is what we call animism.

The Ritual of the Hunt

If we are the same as animals and plants, what allows us, what gives us permission, to kill other animals? This passage explains it.

When men go to the forest to hunt or fish, it is never a trivial passage. The shaman must travel in trance to negotiate with the masters of the animals, forging a mystical contract with the spirit guardians, an exchange based always on reciprocity. The Barasana compare it to marriage, for hunting, too, is a form of courtship in which one seeks the blessings of a greater authority for the honor of taking into one’s family a precious being. Meat is not the right of a hunter but a gift from the spirit world. To kill without permission is to risk death by a spirit guardian, be it in the form of a jaguar, an anaconda, tapir, or harpy eagle.

This is something that we discussed with the cave paintings. Why did they spend so much time painting these animals? It's because they're trying to pay tribute to the animals. If I kill you, I must thank you for taking your meat to replenish myself, but I also must ask for your forgiveness. Otherwise, the animal's soul may seek vengeance. This is the essence of the religion. If we hunt, we must first pay tribute. That's what explains Çatalhöyük: the bull and the people. Before they go hunting, they must pay tribute to all the animals.

As the ritual begins, time collapses. The shaman needs to communicate with the animals in the spirit world. To do that, he changes from fish to animal to human being and back again, transcending every form, becoming pure energy, flowing among every dimension of reality—past and present, here and there, mythic and mundane. As you can see, before the hunt, the ritual is extremely elaborate, sophisticated, and complex. Its main purpose is to celebrate the unity of life and to ask for permission and forgiveness as the hunters go kill the animals.

The shamans will change into animals to better communicate with them, and this explains all the cave paintings and how, 40,000 years ago, they were creating dolls of shamans dressed as animals. Because for them, this is what is true.

Insights from the Pygmies of Africa

Now let's move to Africa. We were in South America, and they're still there today. If you want to go visit that tribe, you can do so. In Africa, there's a group of people called the Pygmies. There's a very famous book by a British anthropologist by the name of Colin Turnbull, and he discusses how the Pygmies practice their religious beliefs. At the very center of their religion is something called the molimo, which is a trumpet-like instrument. The molimo allows them to communicate with the forest; it allows them to communicate with the spirit world, and that's how they resolve every issue. The molimo also captures the sound and spirit of the forest.

Even though we are in a different part of the world and the Pygmies have different religious beliefs than the people of the Amazon, what you will discover is that it is essentially the same religion. The same idea that we are part of nature and that our job is to help nature maintain balance and harmony.

A Different Worldview: Man as Part of Nature

What I want to do now is compare and contrast the way we think today and how they thought before. Let's explore how our minds are different from their minds. Our mind is what we consider modern, and their mind is what we consider pre-modern.

I had no idea of how far we had come, or in what direction, but I knew we had left the camp far behind. It was the first time I had known a group of Pygmies to be so silent. Normally, unless hunting, they are deliberately noisy. But now, just at the time that leopards would be prowling about in search of food, they seemed unwilling to disturb the forest or the animals it concealed. Just the opposite, in fact. It was as if they were a part of the silence and the darkness of the forest itself, and were only fearful lest any sound might betray their presence to some person or thing not of the forest. They stood there, quiet and still, and it struck me with a sudden shock that not one of them carried a spear or bow and arrow. As they peered into the dusk and cocked their heads, first on this side, then on that, satisfying themselves that we were really alone, it seemed that they felt themselves so much a part of the forest, and of all the living things in it, that they had no need to fear anything except that which was not of the forest. One of them said to me later, "When we are the children of the forest, what need have we to be afraid of it? We are only afraid of that which is outside the forest."

What's the first major difference between the British anthropologist and how they think? The word that tells us he doesn't really understand these people is shock. He's surprised by their behavior. Why is he surprised? What confuses him is that they are not armed. Why does that surprise him? He thinks nature is dangerous because there are leopards and predators. They don't think nature is dangerous.

The first major difference is this: our minds think that we are separate from nature. Man versus nature. But they think they are part of nature.

Why do we fear nature? If I put you in a forest, you're afraid. Why? You're afraid of the unknown. Why would the unknown make you afraid? We are obsessed with control. We have to control everything. We want to know something because we want to control it. We like animals in the zoo; we do not like animals in the forest. We can control animals in the zoo; we cannot control animals in the forest.

Why aren't they afraid of nature? We want to control nature, but they trust nature. They don't have to control nature because they trust it. They believe the leopards know them, and they know the leopards. That's the first major difference between our world and their world. We've been taught that nature is our enemy or is outside us, whereas they believe that they are part of nature.

The Ultimate Crime: Disrespecting the Collective Belief

This is about their religious practice. They have a meal together, and then they sing or use the molimo to make noises.

Everyone ate his fill as and when he pleased... I was told, however, that everyone had to eat, just as no adult male was allowed to sleep, but to sing, while the molimo singing was in progress. Apparently one of the greatest crimes that a Pygmy can commit, if not the greatest, is to be found asleep when the molimo is singing... He showed how they used to search for a sleeping man, a spear under each arm, and how if they found one they would spear him in the stomach and kill him, completely and forever. I was told that then his body would be buried under the kamolu [a great fire], and nobody would be allowed to mention his death, even to remark on his absence. The women would be told that the molimo itself, the great animal of the forest, had carried off one of their number. But like the men, they would ask no questions, and would never again mention the missing man.

In this world, the greatest crime you can commit is not to kill someone but to sleep during the religious ceremony. Why is that the case?

A classroom happens when everyone is participating in it. That's what makes a classroom alive. If you're sleeping, you're telling me it's not a classroom, it's not real, this discussion is pointless. That's what's happening here. The molimo singing, the ritual, is meant for everyone to recognize that the religion is real—it's more real than reality. But if you're sleeping, you're saying, "No, guys, this doesn't matter. What we're doing does not matter."

Therefore, you're not committing violence on one person; you're committing violence on the community. You're committing violence on the religion. You're insulting the forest. You're insulting the god. That's the worst crime because this religion is only possible if everyone believes that it is true. If you're sleeping, it means you don't think it's true. Therefore, you are rejecting the community, and you might endanger the community because you're insulting the forest.

For most of human history, people took their religion extremely seriously—so seriously that they thought it was more real than reality. As long as everyone believes in it, it's true. But if someone doesn't believe in it, then we have to kill that person, because if he doesn't believe in it, it might cause our religion to die.

This shows the power of religion. Once we have the religious imagination, we can create things that are, for us, more real than reality. That's the second thing that's different about us. For most of human history, we were spiritual. We believed the world of the spirits, our soul, exists. Today, the word we use is materialistic. The idea of materialism is this: if we cannot see it, it's not real. God can't be real because we can't find it. The soul can't be real because we can't measure it. Imagination can't be real because we don't know where it comes from. Obviously, this idea of materialism is wrong. How can you say the imagination doesn't exist? But unfortunately, we have structured our society around this idea. All science teaches you this: if it's real, you can measure it, you can see it, you can feel it. But for most of human history, we didn't believe that. We thought there is a spiritual world, and that matters just as much as reality. In fact, it probably matters more.

"Pretending" vs. Reality

For a month I sat every evening at the kamolu, listening, watching. If I still had little idea of what was going on, at least I felt that air of importance and expectancy. Every evening when the women shut themselves up, pretending that they were afraid to see the animal of the forest; every evening when the men gathered around the fire, pretending they thought that the women thought that the drainpipes were animals; every evening when the trumpet drainpipes imitated leopards and elephants and buffaloes; every evening when all this make-believe was going on, I felt that something very real and very great was going on beneath it, something that everyone else took for granted and about which only I was ignorant.

Clearly, he does not understand these people. What word tells us he doesn't understand them at all? The word that shows there's a chasm, a huge difference between the Pygmies and us, is pretending. He uses it over and over again. We think they're playing. What do they think? They think it's all true. For them, their religion is more true than this world. That's the power of the human imagination. You can imagine a world, and as long as many of you are imagining it together, it's more true, more powerful, more real than this world. That's the power of religion, what we call the religious imagination.

We've been taught that if you can't see it, it must be pretending, it must be make-believe. But for most of human history, for most people, this is not playing. This is not pretending. It's true. It's real. It's what allows us to be close to God. God is real; this world we live in is not real.

Maintaining Cosmic Harmony

Let's look at the last paragraph.

He went on to tell me that the Pygmies call the molimo whenever things seem to be going wrong. "It may be that the hunting is bad," he said, "or that someone is ill, or, as now, that someone has died. These are not good things, and we like things to be good. So we call out the molimo and it makes them good, as they should be... Normally everything goes well in our world, in our forest. But at night, when we are sleeping, sometimes things go wrong, because we are not awake to stop them from going wrong. Army ants invade the camp; leopards may come in and steal a hunting dog, or even a child. If we were awake these things would not happen. So when something big goes wrong, like illness or bad hunting or death, it must be because the forest is sleeping and not looking after its children. So what do we do? We wake it up. We wake it up by singing to it, and we do this because we want it to awaken happy. Then everything will be well and good again. So when our world is going well, then also we sing to the forest because we want it to share our happiness."

This is very similar to the shaman going into the spirit world when things are bad. Things are bad because the spirits are unhappy. This is almost the same religion. Maybe the details are different, but the idea is the same: we're all interconnected—animals, plants, humans, all the same. This is not the real world; the spirit world, the forest, they're the real world. For us to maintain our health, our happiness, and our safety, we must always communicate with this other world and make sure they're happy.

Because of this belief, it means we shouldn't go to war with other people, because that causes mayhem and chaos in the spirit world. Our job is to maintain harmony and balance in this world. We're caretakers. It means we should not be in conflict with each other. We should be egalitarian, equal, because we're all from the same mother goddess, the same forest, the same Woman Shaman. It means we have to be artistic because we have to celebrate and worship the spirit world.

For most of human history, we were like this. And even today, in a lot of cultures around the world, they're still like this. So now the question is, what changed? Why do we have war? Why do we have hierarchy? Why do we have patriarchy? Why are men superior to women? Why do some rich people have all the power? This clearly goes against this religion. What I will show you is the beginning of a new religion and how this new religion that worships wealth, power, and war conquered everyone.