SHAMANISM, EVOLUTION and the GREAT CHAIN OF BEING

In a recent Facebook post, I was suggesting that Evolution as a purely scientific phenomenon is not compatible with a worldview that sees life as having sacred origins. Which includes shamanic cultures, and probably every society that has ever existed. Except our one!

I think there is also a mythological problem with Evolution. Evolution as a myth is an inversion of the medieval myth of the Great Chain of Being, which saw God at the top, then down through the angels, fallen angels, humans, animals, plants and minerals. Humans were unique in being composed of both spirit and matter (which is seen as inanimate).

So right away in medieval times we have the problem of humans looking down on the rest of creation. From a shamanic point of view, everything has consciousness, including matter. And humans are not 'better' than other life forms. In fact, humans are known in Native American cultures as the 'new-born ones', because they are the only animal that does not know who it is! Other life forms - and rocks etc - are seen as having their own experience and viewpoint, that we can learn from.

Then we come to modern times, and we flip the Great Chain of Being over, so that instead of going from God downwards, we go from 'inert' matter upwards until, at the top, at the pinnacle of life, we find humans. This Evolutionary model flatters our self-importance even more. I would argue it represents in some ways a degeneration of the medieval model, because it has done away with the sacred origins of life and it has left us, idiots that we are, with not even God to look up to.

The Evolutionary model doesn't have to flatter our self importance. It easily does the opposite. Take the fact that we share 50% of our genes  with bananas! This is quite profound. Evolution has always, in a sense, brought us closer to the natural world in this way. And for many of us, I am sure it does. 

But how many of us? Only the other day, I saw a physics professor arguing that 'of course' humans are superior to animals. In the same way, quantum physics is over 100 years old. It shows that reality is at bottom non-rational and deeply intertwined with the observer. It says, according to more than one professor, that consciousness is primary, materiality secondary. But how much of this subtle world view has filtered through to the mainstream? Like the medieval church, science deals in simple certainties, and the more subtle view is for the minority, the 'heretics'! Collectively we are addicted to simple certainties and self-importance.

I think it is important that we can critique the idea of Evolution. It can be difficult to do so, because it has acquired the status of absolute truth in our society, to the extent that people can react by thinking you are some kind of anti-science fundamentalist (I speak from experience!) if you do question it.

We have lived with absolute truths for 1000 years now, firstly with Medieval Christianity, and now with Science. Of course, neither of them are fundamentalist in their essential nature. But fundamentalism - the idea that there is only one story in town - is a way of controlling large societies (and of controlling ourselves) through dealing in simple certainties. And on a popular level, Science does that no less than the Medieval Church did.

If I hope to achieve anything with this piece, it is this: the ability to see Evolution as one Creation Myth among many, that does not belong to a special category called 'fact', while the rest are mere stories. If anything, I would want to place Evolution as a Myth in special measures, until it can find a way of re-incorporating the sacred origins of life, and do something about humanity's self-important place in its scheme.

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