Symbols, reality, and context

These are just some thoughts emerging from my research into cognitive archaeology.

Culture is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and that culture is based on the use of symbols. Symbols only have meaning in the context of a shared reality: symbol (X) = thing (Y) in (Z) context. The word (a symbol) “cow” has no meaning to someone who has never seen one, nor to someone who has not previously assigned “that thing” the value of “cow”; they must understand that  (X) = cow. The phonetic sound which is “cow” in English also has different meanings in other languages so it only works if the (Z) context = (English speakers who know what a cow is).

We also assign different types and levels of value to various things; the easiest example being gold and silver. What gives these metals value and what makes something a cow? There are things rarer than gold and we could just as easily call small furry creatures that squeak a cow, and in India some still view cows as sacred animals. The symbols, their value, and the context in which they make sense are completely invented and for all intents and purposes arbitrarily so. Yet they become what archeologist Colin Renfrew calls “institutional facts”. They become a reality, even though they are not. This objectively unreal reality is, however, what human culture is built on and it is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is, therefore, in fact very real and it is a linking of the internal universe of the human being with the external physical universe. Furthermore, it took these invented institutional facts to create the “individual”. To create “me” and “you”, “this” and “that”, “us” and “them”. These symbols separated the earth and the sky as well as the light and the dark. The universe was brought into existence through arbitrary symbols being accepted by a group of individuals. A human said “light” and there was light.

How do symbols become real? How do things inherit intrinsic value? If the symbols and value assigned to things are arbitrary, how could the nation of Spain colonize the Americas and enslave Natives and Africans in order to extract silver from dangerous mines after they had already annihilated the Inca and Aztec cultures in pursuit of their gold? That is pretty brutal stuff to do just for arbitrary symbolic values!

Is it really just collective experiences that can be identified, labeled, and incorporated into the collective reality of a culture? The same would hold true then for spiritual experiences. If there is not an experience (X) that everyone understands, then it cannot be represented by symbol (Y) and incorporated into context (Z). There must be something there to assign a value to. Ergo, the concept “spiritual” exists because it was experienced enough to be assigned value with a symbol. We can then extend this to the those things which populate the spiritual realm and the various experiences of this realm. Something has to exist to be labeled.

Some things to think about:

Does the spiritual only exist and operate when its value is recognized and its symbols are known?

What has value; the thing, the symbol, the context, or something else?

What would we dream about if there were no symbols with inherent value?

What value does ANYTHING have without symbols and ascribed values within cultural contexts?

Does any value exist outside of symbolic contexts?

Primordial waters and sacred spaces pt. 2

Mercea Eliade’s Myth of the Eternal Return brings a different perception to some common Pagan concepts and I believe makes more sense out of some ancient and modern practices.    

As was mentioned in the last post, Eliade’s focus is on the concept of creation and how that manifested in the mythologies and ritual practices of the “archaic” peoples as he calls them. It might even be more accurate to say that his observations of the ritual practices of the archaic peoples led him to an understanding of the prominent role their view of creation played in their beliefs and practices.    

So prominent was creation in their beliefs that many, if not most, ritual activities were intended to bring participants into sync with the ongoing process of creation or to pay homage to that process in some way. Viewed this way, certain ancient beliefs and ritual activities make more sense than the usual interpretations we have grown accustomed to from academics or those practitioners of later religions. Among these are seasonal rites and the creating of sacred space in the form of temples and the sacred designation of natural spaces like groves and springs.    

Traditionally the explanation for participation by the ancients in such rites as seasonal festivals has been to say that the people involved believed they were insuring the seasonal cycles would continue to occur. An example would be rites occurring around the winter solstice being performed in order to insure that the sun would return. Eliade’s evidence demonstrates this is incorrect. He suggests that the rites were instead intended to put individuals and communities in sync with that rhythm of rebirth that was occurring. They, according to Eliade, were not audacious enough to believe that they could “control” the sun or that by their activities they would “convince” the Gods to bring the warm season back. They were not so ignorant that they did not realize the cycles of the seasons would happen regardless of what they did. The tens of thousands of years of observing nature that I mentioned in the “Sapient Paradox” post was not all for nothing.    

What they did observe was that compared to humans and their activities, “nature” seemed to move in a surer, deliberate, and more predictable manner in regards to time. The celebration of a seasonal rites was recognition of this reality and an attempt to recalibrate individuals to be more in sync with this natural flow of time which is the never-ending process of creation itself. As humans we live in creation but are not, unless we make the effort, in sync with the unfolding of creation itself. Eliade suggests that the many creation stories throughout the world which talk of humans suffering some fall from grace, whether it be the garden of Eden in the Middle East or the various stories of humans disappointing or irritating the Gods in other myths, are not necessarily intended to suggest that we are “fallen” but is rather a recognition that humans live in a daily sphere that is removed from sacred time. A modern phrase is “we are not in tune with nature.”    

Therefore, the continual process of creation and the cycles of death and rebirth that perpetuate it were considered the “real” or “true” measure of time and human time is temporal, artificial, or a complete illusion as seen in the Hindu concept of maya. The seasonal celebrations and their accompanying rituals were all about recognizing and transcending the temporal, artificial, or illusory nature of everyday human existence in order to experience the reality of the eternal unfolding of creation.    

All of this ties into the creation or designation of sacred spaces as well. Joseph Campbell made points on several occasions that coincide with Eliade’s description of sacred time and mundane time, but also specifically supports what Eliade says about sacred space. Both of them point out that the idea of a temple, cathedral, or church is to create space that alters the orientation of our senses away from the mundane world. Stained glass, incense, idols and artwork are to tell your senses that you are now entering a different space where eternity is the dominant concept. Sticking with Eliade’s themes, this sacred space is intended to take the individual out of mundane time and put them into the space where true time is perpetually unfolding in the form of creation. The primary distinction being that the time unfolding outside of the sacred space is temporal or less than real compared to the time unfolding within the sacred space. In this way everything is linked back to the nature of creation being an eternally unfolding process that we can choose to take part in or not.    

This function of sacred space has been recognized by some within monotheistic religions who take a more mystical approach to their religion and the Catholic Church wittingly or not has preserved this function of sacred space with their churches and cathedrals. Many Protestant denominations have actively worked against this by rightly accusing the Catholic Church of perpetuating Pagan practices with everything from the use of symbolism in the building of cathedrals to the use of idols (statues of saints, Jesus, Mary, etc.), incense, robes, and the list goes on. All of these are elements intended to alter the human senses and conscience in order to orient it more toward the eternal. Protestant denominations often denounce the senses and are freaked out by “spooky” things like conscience and so criticize these things rightly as being Pagan in origin.    

I believe, quite obviously, these are not exclusive property of Paganism; however, it is the monotheistic traditions that set themselves in opposition to nature and those who recognize it as sacred. Thus it was not until the advent of monotheism that there was a distinction between right and wrong religions. As historian R. A. Fletcher in The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, (New York: H. Holt and Co, 1998) and other scholars have pointed out, this notion of one “true” god or a “right and wrong” way to recognize eternity and celebrate it was always hard for Pagans to conceive. This was why sacred groves and temples were destroyed in the conversion process, because Pagans did not see how continuing their practices of visiting sacred spaces and recognizing sacred time (seasonal festivals) conflicted with believing in the Christian god. How could a god be averse to such things as celebrating reality?    

As for the designation of natural features of the environment like groves, springs, and lakes etc. as sacred, it is just recognition of the eternal unfolding of creation in nature itself. Instead of needing to create the sacred space it has already been done for us. Certain natural places are recognized to have a particularly strong impact on the senses and conscience, thus altering our perceptions in a way that puts us in tune with creation. Some would argue this is the best way to experience it because it is nature itself and not an artificially created structure. Some experience all of nature as being the manifestation of eternal time and do not need to designate this place or that as sacred, for it is all sacred.    

Perhaps the words of William Blake sum this post up best:    

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.    

   

    

 

   

 

  

  

 

 

 

Primordial waters and sacred spaces pt. 1

Mercea Eliade (1907-1986), professor, historian of religion, and philosopher, gives interesting insight into the origins of using water in rituals of transformation the purpose of sacred space. In his book The Myth of Eternal Return (New York: Pantheon Books, 1954). Eliade emphasizes the view of creation and the role it played in what he calls the “archaic” cultures. By archaic he was generally referring to pre Judeo-Christian and therefore Pagan cultures of the ancient world.

By the early Neolithic (c. 10,000-8,000 BCE) the Mediterranean world, and even beyond, left evidence of the first definable widespread religious devotion. The evidence, which was conclusive before Eliade’s and has only continued to mount since, are statues, figurines, altars, and bas-reliefs of what some scholars have nicknamed the “Great Goddess.” Since this was still an era before th invention of writing, we have to wait for the first creation myths to be written down in order to have descriptions of the way this “Great Goddess” was viewed. Eliade and many other scholars have noted that she first appears as the primordial chaos from which all things were created, including the gods themselves. She is the thing that existed before all things, from which all things were born. Even in the version of the Mesopotamian creation myth found in the Bible, “God” is moving over the face of the chaotic deep.

For the ancient Pagan cultures creation was/is a continuing process, not something that happened way back then. As such many ritual activities were disigned around puting individuals in sync with that continuing creation, even if only for a moment. The use of water in ritual as a transforming element predates Christian “baptism” by thousands of years. According to Eliade, however, its original function was not necessarily that of “cleansing” as it is often viewed in both Pagan and Abrahamic (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) religions. The intent was to symbolically put the person being submerged or doused temporarily in the primordial undifferentiated (shapeless, formless etc.) state that existed before creation. In this respect the person is created anew, or we might say reborn.

In my next post I will look at how this manifests in the concept of sacred spaces, whether temples, groves, or circles.

The Sapient Paradox

The “Sapient Paradox” is an issue that perplexes scholars of prehistory like Colin Renfrew in the book Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. It is based first on the likely fact that 70,000 to 100,000 years ago our species emerged in Africa. Not some pre-human hominid but anatomically and “cognitively” humans. That means that for around 100,000+ years human evolution has been primarily cultural not physical. The paradox is that while these humans had the same brain capability as us, minus our schooling, it took over 40,000 years to develop the cultural capacity to create the Chauvet cave paintings, 60,000 to 90,000 years to discover agriculture, and almost 100,000 years to develop civilization. That is a loooong time! The Roman Empire dissipated only a little over 1500 years ago. Writing has only been around for a little over 5000 years. What were these cognitively capable humans doing that it took that long to develop the rudimentary elements of “high” culture, but in 5,000 years we learn to write, make wheels, fly, and travel to the moon in a space ship?

How many humans with the intellectual capability of an Einstein or the creative abilities of a da Vinci sat around bon fires in those tens of thousands of years?

What does this mean about those fantastic stories that comprise the first creation and other myths? Remember, complex mythological stories with psychological and spiritual allegories embedded in them do not just happen one day. These are the work of generations of insightful people.

At what point did someone realize Descartes famous phrase “cogito ergo sum,” I am thinking therefore I am? Or has that sense of awe and wonder been around since the beginning only to become repressed by things like monotheism?

Does it make you wonder about anything else?

Chauvet Cave Art

Paganism and Egocentric Spirituality

Jordan Paper, an academic who has focused primarily on comparative religion topics over the years, makes the following insider’s observation about Native American and “shamanic” traditions in general, in a fascinating little book called The Deities are Many: A Polytheistic Theology:

Modern Western individualism is not the primary mode of existence in other cultures. To carry out activities for oneself, especially to do so with the aid of spirits, is the only evil perceived in the cultures being discussed . . . . [T]hose understood so to act are considered an extremely dangerous threat to the community and are likely to be killed. These are egalitarian societies in which prestige comes from giving possessions away rather than accumulating them. Hence, anyone perceived as being far better off than others in the community is liable to be suspected of evil sorcery, sometimes called in these communities, “witchcraft.”

If Paper’s observations are correct and we add in any or all the following assumptions, this leads to some interesting philosophical considerations for modern Paganism. I am not advocating the following assumptions, but using them as points of reference:

1. Assumption number one: This “egalitarian” societal structure that Paper is speaking of greatly resembles the Neolithic “pre-warrior culture invasion” societies that Wicca and other modern traditions aspire to emulate or feel a spiritual kinship with. Even if there is no hard and direct documented link to this distant past (see Hutton, Triumph of the Moon), notions of it being an idyllic past where women were more revered and/or war and oppression were almost unheard of still abound in Pagan circles.
2. Assumption number two: These ancient pre-invasion societies would have been sustained by similar notions of all for one and one for all as described by Paper. That is all magical activity was conducted only for the purposes of the group or others in the group. Magic benefitting the individual would be considered evil.
3. Assumption number three: The fact that covens, and even less tightly knit Pagan social groupings, have persistent organizational problems or often blow apart  because of rampant egoism, is a result of the presence of a spirit of “Western individualism.” Thus the saying, “Organizing Pagans is like trying to herd cats.”

While I have at least a dozen different questions and opinions on this subject swirling in my mind, I want to solicit other views instead of advocate and I do not want to burden the initial post with too many questions:

• Are any or all of my three mentioned assumptions reasonable? If not, where do you disagree?
• If the above assumptions are true, what does that say about the fact that most Pagans seem be solitary and very much into sustaining “themselves” through magical and other practices?
• Is individualism actually a fundamental and crucial/positive element of Paganism as it is understood in the West?
• Is Paganism, or should it be, a catalyst of egalitarianism that promotes or insists upon a non egocentric spirituality whereby one is encouraged to focus more on others and the group before considering one’s self?
• Is there a difference between the way professed Wiccans and other Pagans approach this issue?