“Over the years I have been fascinated by the prehistoric murals that adorn the caves I have visited in many parts of the world. I have been struck by the absence of images of warriors or warfare in the paintings.
Steve Taylor explains this absence. He maintains that the worldwide myths of a Golden Age or an original paradise have a factual, archaeological basis. There was a specific point in pre-history when things “went wrong” – that is, when warfare, patriarchy, social inequality and similar developments became widespread. Until that time, human societies were generally peaceful and egalitarian, and individuals experienced a sense of psychological well-being and connection to the cosmos..
The transformation began about 4000 BCE , due to dramatic changes in climate in central Asia and the Middle East. These changes made survival more difficult and produced a sharpened sense of individuality among the areas’ inhabitants. Taylor refers to this as the Ego Explosion, maintaining that this is the fundamental difference between the descendants of these peoples (such as modern Europeans and Americans) and the remaining indigenous groups such as the Australian Aborigines and the Native Americans. He sees this sharpened sense of ego as the root cause of war, male domination and social oppression, as well as other traits such as theistic religion. He makes the case that rather than showing a continual progression (as some historians would like to believe), in many ways human history is marked by a degeneration.” ~ Dr. Stanley Kripper, Saybrook Graduate School, California
“Happiness is a subjective state, and it’s impossible to be sure whether anyone experiences it or not. But it seems likely that early human beings, and the native peoples who have survived until recent times, had a more unified and peaceful kind of psyche than us, and lived in a state of relative contentment. Many anthropologists have been struck by the apparent serenity and contentment of native peoples. Elman R. Service says of the Copper Eskimos of northern Canada, for example: “The Eskimo display a buoyant light-heartedness, a good-humoured optimism, which has delighted foreigners who have lived with them.” The English anthropologist Colin Turnbull spent three years living with the Pygmies of central Africa in the 1950s, and characterises them as a strikingly carefree and good-humoured people, free of the psychological malaise that affects “civilised” peoples. To them, he writes, life was “a wonderful thing full of joy and happiness and free of care.” Similarly, Jean Liedloff, author of The Continuum Concept , describes the Tauripan Indians of South America as “the happiest people I had seen anywhere…
Another major characteristic of prehistoric and indigenous peoples’ experience of the world was their intense perception of their surroundings. They seem to have had a sense that natural things were alive and sentient, and pervaded with a spiritual force. Different peoples with no connection to each other had different names for this spiritual force. In the Americas, the Hopi called it maasauu, the Lakota called it wakan-tanka, and the Pawnee called it tirawa. The Ainu of Japan called it ramut (translated as “spirit-energy”), while indigenous peoples in parts of New Guinea called it imunu (translated as “universal soul”). In Africa, the Nuer called it kwoth and the Mbuti called it pepo. These concepts are strikingly similar to the universal spirit-force that spiritual and mystical traditions speak of — for example, the concept of brahman in the Indian Upanishads. This spiritual force was also part of the reason for indigenous peoples’ respectful attitude toward nature and their dismay at European peoples’ exploitative attitude toward it. In addition to feeling a sense of kinship with the natural world, they felt it was spiritually alive and therefore sacred…
But at a certain point a giant transformation seems to have occurred. A giant can of psychological worms seems to have opened within the human mind… There seems to be a fundamental kind of restlessness inside us, which makes it impossible – or at least extremely difficult – for us to do nothing, or to be in any situation where there isn’t something external there for us to focus our attention on. Some 350 years ago the French philosopher and mathematician Pascal wrote that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” Nowadays, of course, staying in our rooms isn’t so much of a problem for us, as long as we have television sets, computers or radios to give our attention to…”
~ Steve Taylor, Ph.D, born 1967, is a British author and lecturer in psychology who has written several books on psychology and spirituality. He is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University. Taylor's main interest is in transpersonal psychology, which investigates higher states of consciousness and 'awakening' experiences. Taylor has a master's degree (with distinction) in Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology and a PhD in Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University. Taylor's book The Fall was described in The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies as "one of the most notable books of the first years of this century". Taylor has been included in the list of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living people", published by Watkins Books, "Mind, Body, Spirit magazine", for the last six years. His book 'The Calm Center' is a book of reflections and meditations, published by Eckhart Tolle Editions, with a foreword by Eckhart Tolle.
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