Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Introduction to Volume III | Contents | Bibliography
The collapse of "civilization," and the emergence in its place of "post-civilization," unfolded with greater turmoil, strife, and chaos than was imagined by even the most pessimistic forecasters during the final phase of its anticipation. During the time leading into this almost literally "Earth-shifting" transition there was widespread denial and willful ignorance of the "signs of the times." Yet among those with their eyes open, it had for long in advance been abundantly clear that humanity could not prolong their habitual way of life on planet Earth very far into their immediate future. How that way of life would come to an end, however, and the way of life that would replace it, could hardly have been imagined by even the most imaginative few, before they had actually been through it, and found themselves still alive in a world utterly transformed.
With very few exceptions, the "civilized" population of the Earth had been pitifully naïve about how their "civilization" had always worked – quite similar to the well-bread, well-educated children of their criminal father, who knew nothing, and complacently cared less, about how their privileged, prosaic lifestyle was actually supported and achieved.
The human population of the Earth at the dawn of the so-called "Common Era," or "Anno Domine" among Christians, stood at 250 million souls. By the year 1000 of that era, since named the "Dark Age," it had doubled, to 500 million. By 1800 it had doubled yet again, to one billion (1,000,000,000). By 1930 it had doubled again to two billion; by 1974 it had doubled again to four billion; hit six billion in 1999, with a doubling rate at 40-year intervals or less.1
Concurrent with this accelerating population doubling – and contributing to it and making it possible – was the discovery of "fossil fuels" – geologically impounded sunlight from much earlier eras: coal round about the year 1100, and oil starting between 1850 and 1860. These previously unutilized energy sources had the effect of "liberating" humans (for a time) from having to live within the constraints established by the rate at which sunlight – which had always been the root energy source for all biological activity on the planet – falls upon the Earth.
Humans were no longer constrained to live within the rate, for instance, at which forests were able to replenish the fuel supply they provided humans for their energetic needs. By making use of fossil fuels instead, humans were at liberty to consume their forests at a greater rate than the forests were able to replace their losses; and so, that is what they did. All over the world, humans cut back their forests over the course of centuries and millennia, opening land for agriculture and human colonization, at the expense of vast tracts of forest ecosystems. This activity had two major effects: a) the expanding employment of agriculture produced an expanding source of food, which in turn produced an accelerating population expansion; and b) the forests, which produced more than 92% of the atmospheric oxygen enveloping the planet,2 were all the while being destroyed at an accelerating pace.
The net result of all this, which became much more obvious in hindsight than it had been to foresight, was in grossly oversimplified terms, that in the course of about 200 years, by means of fossil fuels and the agricultural and industrial techniques they made possible, the human race swiftly and vastly overshot the actual sustainable carrying capacity of the planet, as established by the daily flux of sunlight at the planetary surface. At which point, the fossil fuels quite suddenly ceased to be available, because they had been virtually consumed.
These consequences appeared "suddenly" – not in a day, or a week, or in a single year – but over the course of a very small number of human generations; yet they were in actuality over five thousand years, or 250 generations in the making. This was itself but a "brief episode" in the evolutionary history of the human race. Prior to about the year -3114,3 humans and their protohuman antecedents had lived for hundreds of thousands of years peacefully and (nearly) sustainably upon the Earth, within the means supplied by the daily solar flux at the planetary surface. Humans continued to live more or less within their planetary means for a fair span within that era as well; yet the seeds for self-destruction were sown during the rise of the dominator civilizations, which made their first appearance in what became known subsequently as the Middle East; and through a virulently contagious campaign of conquest, tyranny, and war, eventually covered the Earth.
Prior to "-3114" – which is used here as symbolic for the beginning of the Dark Age, rather than as a literal date in the Gregorian calendrical system – human social evolution had been in steady progress for many thousands of years, characterized for the most part by peaceful social patterns in which the practices of warfare, conquest, and slavery, as practiced by all "historical civilizations," were universally alien and unknown.
In this context, warfare is a tricky term to define, because it can be seen as a species of predation, which has always been a natural part of the biological ebb and flow throughout the planet. In a loosely constructed argument, it may appear that what we call "warfare" and "predation" seem to be graduations along a continuum which differ in quantity, but not in quality. The contrasting characteristics between them which we wish to emphasize here is that predation is conducted on a relatively limited scale for the single purpose of sustenance, and does not produce the ecologically damaging effects of degraded richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty4 throughout the ecosystem; whereas warfare is conducted on a much larger scale for the purposes of conquest, tyranny, and annihilation, and universally does produce the ecologically damaging effects of degraded richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty throughout the ecosystem; conditions of vital importance alike to the evolution of biological life, and human culture.
With these distinctions in view, we can say that the defining quality of the Dark Age was that it was characterized by warfare, conquest, and slavery, which had not previously been significant features of human social evolution; and that it appeared in different times and places independently and in isolation from one another.5 The archaeologically discovered arts and cultures of the "pre-civilized" Neolithic and early civilized peoples did not feature weapons of war, or images of battle and conquest, as were conspicuously prevalent in all so-called "civilized" cultures throughout the Dark Age. The villages and towns of the pre-Dark-Age peoples were not walled fortresses built to withstand the sieges of armies, as were the prototypical structures built during the ensuing Dark Age.6 These differences are not notable because the pre-Dark-Age peoples were "primitive" or culturally unsophisticated, as was often charged against them by Dark Age anthropologists and historians. Pre-Dark-Age peoples were at least the equals, and in many domains the cultural superiors, of their Dark-Age counterparts – with the single significant exception of the domain of warfare, which was new and alien to them.
The immediate consequence was that, once introduced, the practice of warfare and conquest proved highly contagious, and spread like a plague; for it carried within its perverse nature a "positive feedback loop" whereby conquest facilitated population growth; which inevitably outpaced food production; which necessitated further conquest; which facilitated further population growth... and so on. The warfaring way of life had all the characteristics of a cancerous or parasitic disease, which thrived and expanded, so long as it was surrounded by an abundance of peacefaring cultures it could attack and plunder, and occupied a bountiful planet with abundant exploitable resources. A selection sequence was set in motion whereby the most brutal conquerors prevailed over all other cultures; and so the single suite of abilities to conquer and hold territory was selected for, in preference to all other abilities – with the consequence that the qualities of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty were steadily diminished throughout the world. Such conditions prevailed on planet Earth for five thousand years; and then the expansionist contagion, with population doublings by then at 40-year intervals, abruptly hit the wall of no further room for expansion – which spelled the doom of a way of life that could have been predicted for it five thousand years before.
The peaceful peoples who were attacked by conquering invaders had a very small range of options before them: a) they could be defeated and annihilated; b) they could be defeated and enslaved; c) they could withdraw to some remote or inhospitable place and forfeit their territory to the invaders; or d) they could resist and defeat the invaders. Only by besting the invaders at their own game, in other words, could an invaded people hold their place and continue their lives as before.7 Yet in actuality, they couldn't even do that; for in order to hold their place, they had to become more proficient warriors than their invaders. They had to become in some sense like what they were resisting; so the option of "continuing their lives as before" had already been foreclosed. Before, they hadn't had to defend themselves from invasion; now, if they succeeded in repulsing their invaders, they were thenceforth required to do so again, repeatedly, and did. And so, the contagion of warfare overtook, incrementally and inexorably, the long, peaceful history of pre-Dark-Age humanity, and inevitably overflowed the entire Earth.
The most important aspect of this cultural metamorphosis was not "external," as described; for the transition from "peacefaring" to "warfaring" cultures involved profound changes to their mythologies, and to their collective psychologies. The peaceful pre-Dark-Age cultures were widespread, and richly diverse; yet they were similar in one important particular. They shared a universal reverence and love for the Goddess, or the Divine Feminine Spirit embodied as "Mother Earth." They recognized and shared a reverence for the miraculous procreative power of Nature, and this reverence they expressed in their art, their religions, and in every nuance of their daily lives. Their social organization reflected this sensitivity by being universally egalitarian and non-hierarchical. Women were the social equals of men, and were prominent and influential in all aspects of communal and familial decision-making. Their societies, villages, and fully developed civilizations have been given the designation partnership, in distinction from the dominator cultures that conquered and replaced them.8
The impulse for invasion and conquest displayed an entirely different social expression, which featured angry and intolerant male war deities, and rigidly hierarchical social structures which first and always subordinated women to men, and demoted the status of the Goddess from Mother and Nurturer of Life, to consort and slave of the male God. These were the salient attributes of the dominator cultures that overwhelmed by brute force and replaced the partnership cultures that preceded them; and it was the values and ethics of the invading dominator cultures which usurped and supplanted those of the partnership cultures, and set the tone and the agenda for what was once called "civilization," and is now called the Dark Age, for the ensuing five thousand years.
Rite of Passage
Thus it is not surprising, but quite natural, and indeed necessary, that the dominator cultures that established and controlled the Dark Age should exercise every means to promote their unbridled expansion, and to be heedless of the necessity, recognized intuitively by partnership cultures for thousands of years previously, of living within the ecological carrying capacity of the environments they inhabited. In the dominator view, such constraints did not apply to them, for they were victorious and invincible warriors, and imbued by nature and by right with the ability to take what they needed or wanted at any time, simply by obliterating any obstacle that stood in their way. They considered that their unobstructed five-thousand-year march from victory to ever more glorious victory spoke unanswerably of the favor they enjoyed with the gods (or their mythical equivalents), and their uncontested destiny as the masters and dominators of all they surveyed – including, they unblushingly assumed, their defeated and conquered fellows; the planet, including all its human and non-human life forms; the Solar System; the Galaxy; and eventually, they imagined, even the entire Universe.
Were it not so fraught with peril, and the very real possibility (or probability) of global tragedy, the boundless hubris of nascent humanity on Earth might be viewed in some ways as an amusing irony. The masterful and victorious conquerors of all they surveyed were led thereby down the primrose path into the "trap" so deftly prepared for them hundreds of millions of years earlier, by the simple presence of the vast, yet not limitless deposits of fossil fuels; discovery of which exponentially boosted at once their imaginary "progress," and their very real populations. Well, if it hadn't been fossil fuel, it would have been something else, like the finite acreage of arable land on the planet, or water, or air that laid them low; for of course the path of conquest and limitless expansion is an unsustainable path, and many are the "pre-civilized" and "civilized" peoples alike who have had to find this out "the hard way." It is a universal rite of passage that all planetary human races in Cosmos must pass, in order to join their peers in the endless spiral of human evolution. For those who fail, their path simply ends, and the universe wheels on without them.
There were some quite surprising developments during the terminal phase of this emerging global drama. Clearly, the entire planetary human race was in an extraordinary predicament, long in the making by none other than themselves. They had apparently all but unanimously turned their backs upon their pre-Dark-Age partnership ancestors, and had virtually annihilated every vestige of their partnership heritage. Their culture was exquisitely engineered for automatic self-perpetuation of the agenda of conquest and war established at the outset of its career, and kept unswervingly on track for the previous five thousand years.
And yet... their long-forgotten heritage still resided in their bones, and in their genetic makeup; and the ghosts of their murdered ancestors still spoke to some of them. Little by little, quietly, invisibly, imperceptibly, here and there, everywhere around the planet, some of them began awakening from the strange dream in which all of them had been born, and to which each of them had been so carefully cultivated, instructed, and indoctrinated as faithful and unquestioning proponents of the dominator agenda.
It was far from obvious that any of this was taking place at all, for it was happening silently and without a visible trace, within the inmost recesses of individual human minds and souls. Questions were quietly and earnestly being asked, such as, "Why is the world the way it is?" "Why is not life a great deal more satisfactory than it is, for most people, most of the time?" "Why...?" "Why...?" And, "Why not...?"
The individuals who asked such questions were for the most part not in any visible sense remarkable, or distinguishable from anyone else; and they seldom voiced their doubts to others, absent some hint that their doubts were shared and reciprocated.
So it developed that these quiet, earnest, searching individuals, who looked and acted like everyone around them, and resided in every imaginable occupation and station in life, unbeknownst to themselves, each other, or anybody else, mostly, had as it were, "multiplied by night" into many hundreds of thousands, salted invisibly all over the world. They were not boat-rockers or rabble-rousers; most of them did not draw attention to themselves by speaking their minds in public. In many instances, they hardly knew their own minds themselves, and seemed no less bewildered, uncertain, and vulnerable than anyone else. They simply, quietly, in the inviolable isolation of their own minds, observed, and... thought about things.
Such individuals were many, but did not by any means include everybody. There were many others who had no questions, who identified enthusiastically with the "civilized" agenda of war and plunder, participated in it with a will, and cheered it on whole-heartedly. These too were to be found in every occupation and station in life, yet were practically oblivious to those who were quietly... not thinking as they were.
And so it came to pass that every individual on Earth was quietly, invisibly, making choices, in accordance with their beliefs, their values, their ethics, the character of who and what each one was "made of," and what conditions suited each of them best. Some changed their occupations; some moved away from, or into cities, or the country, or to foreign countries, or severed relationships, or entered new relationships. Each adjusted his or her life, as best they could, in the ways each felt important, proper, or advantageous; and thus the human deck was shuffled, cut, and stacked for the final hand in the game of "civilization."
The Mounting Crisis
Meanwhile, crisis mounted upon crisis, and human tension and stress around the planet were ratcheted ever tighter. Every three weeks or less, a population the size of that of Los Angeles was being added to the world; the quality of air and water was degrading to toxic levels in many places. At the same time the availability of fossil fuel was declining, demand for it was swiftly rising; and so its price increased as well, and with it, the price of everything else people needed or wanted for their daily lives. This precipitated economic convulsions on a global scale. The health of entire populations deteriorated, due to the injection of industrial and agricultural contaminants into air, water, and soil. Degenerative diseases, and antibiotic-resistant plagues reached epidemic proportions, and public health systems were stretched beyond the breaking point. The combined environmental impacts of runaway human industries produced unprecedented climactic changes, with catastrophic consequences for increasing numbers of people; storms of unimagined intensity and violence lashed the coasts. The bad situation on planet Earth grew steadily worse; and then, it grew even worse still.
Meanwhile too, the rich and powerful observed these developments, often with detached amusement, from the seemingly secure isolation made possible for them by their effectively limitless power and wealth. They imagined that anyway, they would weather whatever storms raged upon their plundered planet. Doubtless, many unfortunate people would perish before the storm blew itself out – which was part of the plan – for there were clearly far too many people on the planet by now anyway, and a proper house-cleaning was quite in order. Fortunately, they were not down on the street with the luckless wretches who would probably drown, or starve, or burn, or freeze, or die of plagues before the chain of events now in motion had taken their entire course; but up here, with their hands securely on the levers of command and control.
All the top echelons of the privileged hierarchies had long since made careful and prudent preparations for the contingencies they had anticipated, and saw unfolding around and below them. They had their well-trained armies, police, and paramilitary units in place; their escape routes to fortified underground bunkers were well mapped out in advance; their razor-wire-fenced internment camps had been established, and were ready, at the issue of a command, to receive multitudes of excess populations, identified long since for extermination. Their biologically engineered pathogens, set to recognize and activate upon encountering predetermined genetic or ethnic markers, were in place and ready to launch at a moment's notice. Their nuclear warheads were armed and in their launching silos, with target cities selected and in their cross-hairs. All was in order; nothing could possibly go wrong; everything was under control.
The Very Last Day
Ev'rebody's gonna pray
On the very last day,
When they hear that bell
Ring the world away!
Ev'rebody's gonna pray
To the heavens on the Judgment Day.
A day arrived when it became clear at the highest echelons among the rich and powerful that the time had come to activate "Plan X" – or whatever it was named: the predetermined plan to liquidate or incarcerate and stifle the "surplus population" of the Earth, and bring a situation that was leaping hourly more and more out of hand, under control of the proper masters of the planet. All the components were in place; the logistics had been worked out; the decisions had been made; it was time to "press the button," or "issue the command."
"Plan X" was extraordinarily complex, however, and required implementation by the coordinated efforts of a great many compartmentalized operatives in military, paramilitary, intelligence, police, and other units deployed throughout the world. None of these operatives had anything like a complete picture of the gigantic scheme in which they were each to play a minor part. Yet many had eyes and ears, and an intuitive sense of the time in which they were living; and understood with an uncanny certainty, beyond any immediate knowledge to which they had direct access, that today was the Very Last Day; and each stood before a personal decision to perform, or not to perform, the deed for which they had been so meticulously trained. Also, many had been for a long time quietly, imperceptibly... thinking about things, and deciding at very deep levels what, in certain imaginable – or even unimaginable – eventualities, they would, and would not do.
Just for instance: there had been many individuals who had participated in some way, some years before, in the events of September 11, 2001, which had become known around the world as "911." At the time, very few of them had had any comprehension at all of the enormity of that operation, or of its cynically premeditated malicious intent; and they had mostly performed their given tasks faithfully, blindly, and obediently. Only much later, during the aftermath, and by sifting through the many disclosures that became semi-public, and were distributed via the Internet and other channels; and by combining these disclosures with the fragments of "inside information" to which they were personally privy, were they able to gain some intimation that they had been ignominiously used, and were themselves stained with the blood of innocents.
Others, who had no direct involvement in "911," also viewed the evidence that came to their attention during the aftermath, and arrived at their own private conclusions. Some of these, by various means, and for various reasons, arrived at quiet convictions that never again would they participate in, cooperate with, or allow, if they had any power at all to hinder it, so heinous a deed, even should it cost them their lives. No one on Earth, at the time, had any way of apprehending how widespread and "parallel" this process of quiet individual introspection was, or how profound and far-reaching its consequences would become.
The day had arrived, the decision was reached to put "Plan X" into execution; and those with their hands on the levers of control... pulled the levers, pushed the buttons, and issued the necessary commands. Nobody could possibly have predicted the outcome, and any advance warning of what actually occurred would surely have been dismissed out of hand as a silly fantasy, at best.
What happened was, from the moment the ball was put in play, what had often been jokingly cited as "Murphy's Law," and might justifiably have been designated "Plan Y," came into operation with devastating effect. Practically anything that could possibly go wrong did, and everything was suddenly and irrevocably out of control. Many operatives "on the ground," it is true, did perform their assigned tasks, and executed their orders to the best of their abilities. Surprisingly many others, however, did not, and indeed did their utmost to sabotage the operation at every level of its execution. Officers with responsibility to launch nuclear-tipped missiles refused to launch them, and sabotaged the launching mechanisms instead. Biological devices that were supposed to be released in their designated target areas were instead deactivated by their responsible agents; or released prematurely and devastatingly at their points of origin, instead of at their designated targets. In many instances, paramilitary units assigned to round up targeted individuals in their homes during the late watches of the night took it upon themselves instead to warn their targets of their peril, and assisted them in escaping. Bodyguards of impeccable loyalty and dutiful performance approached the bodies they were responsible to guard, and summarily shot them. Armed troops mutinied, and turned on their officers; and often, their officers joined them. Jailers released their prisoners. Volcanoes erupted; the Earth quaked; storms raged; meteors hit the Earth at peculiarly appropriate spots; chaos reigned supreme.
These things happened not as isolated and exceptional events, but again, and again, and again, as if deliberately and fiendishly coordinated by some uncanny conspiracy, or prompted by an unaccountable ubiquitous madness. They were not coordinated by any overt, collaborative human intent, and there was no conspiracy – aside from the five-thousand-year-old conspiracy of dominator civilization itself to enslave or annihilate in due course everyone on Earth not previously identified as "exempt." It was as if the entire metaconsciousness of planet Earth, and surrounding Cosmos, had spontaneously united in a global collaboration to rid itself once and for all of the mortal plague of "civilization." No one who survived that day, anywhere on Earth, had more than a tiny glimpse of what actually occurred throughout the planet on the Very Last Day. How it happened, why it happened, was beyond human understanding; and at the end of the day, "civilization" was a thing of the past.
"Plan X," intended by its perpetrators to put the capstone upon the project of bringing "everything under control," in the event had exactly the opposite effect, and was sabotaged by the fact that innumerable isolated individuals, in every imaginable occupation and station in life, had somehow previously thought the matter through for themselves, and decided, No, not this time. Not me, not now, not here. No. Very few individuals had actually conferred, or overtly "conspired" with any others; practically everyone had acted unilaterally, with no expectation that their supposedly isolated act of futile defiance and desperation would have the slightest effect, other than getting themselves killed or incarcerated. Yet even these reasonable expectations were in many instances surprisingly thwarted by unanticipated circumstances.
The bodyguards who shot their principals, for example, next instant turned their weapons upon themselves; yet in surprisingly many cases, witnesses on the scene prevented them, and applauded their actions, and supported and joined them. Those at the top of the global control hierarchy had never attempted to cultivate the love, appreciation, or respect of their "inferiors," only their cringing fear, and unquestioning obedience to stern and threatening commands. Obey, or die; or else you'll wish you were dead. Very few, if any, sincerely grieved the unexpected assassinations of their "masters," or raised so much as a finger to interfere. The hierarchical command structure dissolved from the inside out, and no one was ever able to put it back together again – or even wanted to.
Something like a breath of fresh air swept the Earth; for somehow, miraculously, a mighty spell of terror, tyranny, and death had been broken. Humanity still faced an awful predicament; Earth was burdened with almost seven billion humans, only one of which billions could she possibly support sustainably. Infrastructure, already burdened to the breaking point, suddenly ceased to function altogether. Multitudes were sick and dying – of starvation, thirst, poisoning, injuries, disease, as well as some deliberate genocidal slaughter. Thoroughly dysfunctional hospitals were overwhelmed by floods of people in need of their services. The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps were melting – at a suddenly and unaccountably swifter pace. Sea levels were rising rapidly, and densely populated coastal regions around the world were being inundated by rising tides, forcing swarms of refugees to flood in turn already densely populated higher ground.
Yet, through it all, an entirely fresh spirit could be sensed among humans. In their misery, in their multitudes, large numbers of people began helping one another in any ways they could. They shared what food, water, clothing, and other resources they had, and did what they could to ease the pain and suffering of the stricken. It was suddenly "very uncool" to be a policeman or a soldier, anywhere on Earth, and uniforms of all kinds, being survival liabilities to those who wore them, were doffed around the world, and traded for less conspicuous clothing. Yet those who had lately been in uniform often possessed useful skills, and were no less touched by the growing spirit of sharing and cooperation than anyone else.
Cities were inhospitable and unhealthy, and those who could, deserted them; while those who couldn't, perished. People perished by the millions; yet not abandoned and alone, but among fellow-refugees, and new-found friends. The bitter trials and tribulations of the time bound formerly hostile and mistrustful peoples together. With surprisingly few exceptions, Blacks and Whites, Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, all over the world, laid aside their mutual age-long hostilities, and spontaneously extended helping hands to one another in this moment of universal peril. Ethnic and racial distinctions once believed to be insurmountable faded like morning mist as people everywhere recognized only the differences between the living, the dying, and the dead. Those who perished were thoroughly grieved for; those who survived from one day to the next were filled with gratitude for yet another day on the battered bosom of Mother Earth.
The Aftermath
No one who lived through that terrible time emerged unchanged by the ordeal. No one was prepared for it, each was overtaken by it in their tracks where they stood, and all they had to meet it with was what and who they were, and what they understood about how and how not to live. Multitudes spontaneously grasped that they were all in this thing together, that the past was gone forever, and that it was far more productive of one's own interests to cultivate friendships than to make enemies. Therefore, people were vigilant for opportunities to be helpful and useful for one another. There were exceptions, and some attempted to sustain themselves as predators. But that was only during the earliest stages of the emerging catastrophe. The predators were not long tolerated, and soon ceased to be an annoyance.
The first month was by far the worst. Unimaginable multitudes swiftly perished throughout the world, and often, "the living envied the dead." What there had been to eat was eaten, and the means of producing more were scant. Plagues of virulent diseases swept like brushfire through huge populations, beset on every hand by piled-up catastrophic hardships. The city folk – the vast majority – had it hardest, for they were the least prepared, practically or psychologically, for living in a chaotic wilderness – even though they had become insensibly habituated to a chaotic wilderness of an entirely different kind. There was suddenly nothing at all to eat in the cities, and the surrounding countryside was at first a sea of hungry people. Those who were addicted to pharmaceutical medications, which were no longer available by any means, were either able to live without them, or perished. Those who broke under the strain, and fell into strife with others like themselves, didn't last long. Those who had already distanced themselves from the major urban centers had it potentially better, but it soon became evident that if there was any way at all to get through this ordeal alive, it would have to be by helping one another and sharing, not by hoarding and defending.
Vast seas of urban refugees fanned out across the surrounding countryside like a plague of locusts, devouring everything edible in their path. Some, finding no sustenance after several days' march, attempted to retrace their steps back to the familiar urban centers from whence they had come – and simply perished in the attempt, or in the no longer habitable cities they had known.
The relative few who somehow managed to outlast the first month gradually formed nomadic cooperative communities, typically of 20-50 individuals. The universal impulse was to spread out, and put space between these small bands, thrown together by chance and circumstance; not out of hostility, but because that seemed to be the only way anyone at all might find a way to survive. Motorized transport trickled to a virtual stand-still, for fuel had all but vanished. Although those with bicycles seemed to enjoy the advantage of increased mobility, they sacrificed the advantages of the community unless they kept to its pedestrian pace. Those who went on foot and traveled light did best; those attached to heavy burdens did worst, and the slightest disadvantage was a threat to ultimate survival. Those too infirm to walk, or endure hardship, had no chance at all. Bicycles, although not advantageous for long, migratory treks, became useful for facilitating communication within and between groups over wider distances.
Those who managed to outlast the first month in many instances were able likewise to outlast the second, and the third. People learned to help themselves by helping one another. Those with knowledge of edible or medicinal wild plants, or with other effective survival skills, shared their knowledge, and the knowledge spread. It quickly became universally evident that everyone still standing was thereby demonstrably in possession of some valuable ability, or understanding, or quality of vital importance to everyone around them; and was conversely surrounded by others with priceless skills and knowledge as well. Thus the communities or bands that emerged from the collapse of the Dark Age were populated by highly motivated teachers and learners of every useful skill, craft, and art. Some were skilled builders, or carpenters; others knew the lore of medicinal herbs, or were experienced in animal husbandry, or knew how to deliver a baby, or understood the principles of Permaculture. Some were skilled hunters, or fishers, or were simply gifted with wisdom or good humor. All had something of value to contribute; and each appreciated the priceless contributions of their peers.
The lives of the first nomadic survivors were sometimes complicated by the attempted predations of occasional isolated bands of armed pirates. Some of these hunted down and attacked nomadic encampments when they were able to find them; yet their intended quarry quickly became much more proficient in the tactics of guerrilla backlash, than the rogue warriors were in their missions of piracy and plunder. As the "post-civilized" bands and communities became more effective guerrillas, and the food stockpiles, if any, of the rogues swiftly dwindled, their attempted predations became ever more costly and infrequent. The rogue warriors and the relatively few rich folk who had secured for themselves isolated and initially well-stocked fortified redoubts, became in the end the last pitiful remnants of vanished "civilization" to starve.
Just as the first month was the most brutal month, the first year was the most brutal year for those who survived. Those who lived to celebrate the turn of the new year had pretty much selected themselves and their kind, and the terrible attrition of the first months and the first year had essentially run its course. What remained of the human race, in whatever pockets that persisted on the face of the Earth, had universally passed through fire, and were incalculably transformed from the soft clay they had been a year before. Men, women, children, and seniors, had performed exploits none of them had dreamed in advance lay within their capabilities. Women in particular distinguished themselves with an inner strength, fortitude, and resourcefulness that was an amazement to all, including even themselves; and the Dark Age lies about the "weaker sex" were revealed to one and all as the hollow myths they had always been.
During that first year, remembered ever after as "Year Zero," the human population of the Earth had been decimated, not just to the planet's "normal" carrying capacity, but to far below the planet's now severely damaged carrying capacity. Of the nearly seven billion humans alive on Earth on the Very Last Day, not more than 100 million remained alive on the planet a year later. The human race, responsible collectively for the most catastrophic species die-off in the planet's biological history, had themselves experienced a 98.6% loss of their own numbers. Nevertheless, 1.4% of seven billion people is still a substantial global population, and the sense of incalculable tragedy and loss was generally brief; for even though their lives were beset on every side by formidable challenges and difficulties, the emergent human race discovered in general that tremendous burdens of the Dark Age they had without conscious awareness borne constantly, had been miraculously lifted.
Although many formerly choice locations on the planet were choice locations no longer, and were now uninhabitable, such as harbors and the confluences of large rivers blighted by the gigantic hulks of dead cities, there still remained many remote and unspoiled regions, and into these the new hunter-gatherers filtered, with a universal determination to spoil them never again by their human presence, and to do all in their power to heal the mighty wounds of the past.
Additionally, the thing that had all but killed the very life-sustainability of the entire planet, was doing so no longer, and the vital fabric of Life itself, seemingly with a will of its own, immediately set about the process of healing the wounds inflicted by a degenerate "civilization." The atmosphere was rich with carbon, the climate of every region on Earth had warmed significantly; and although the "lungs" of the planet, its once vast forests, had been heedlessly reduced to a small fraction of their former size, that wanton destruction too had now ceased, and plant life in many places around the world thrived in the warm, moist, carbon-rich atmosphere.
The Dawn of True Humanity
The first year lengthened into the first decade; which lengthened in turn into the first quarter century. Infants grew into adults, and produced infants in their turn. Children, who remembered life in the Dark Age, became elders and guardians of the new path. Dispersed tribes and bands reconnected, shared their stories, the lessons they had learned, their crafts, arts, skills, and nascent cultures. Various tribes developed widely varying cultural patterns, which were universally enriched as they periodically reconnected and shared. They developed rituals and protocols whereby young men and women from different groups could exchange affiliations, and so enrich and diversify the gene pool and unique cultural "flavor" of each.
Embedded deeply in all surviving human cultures was the universally shared determination never again to take, or tolerate, the path of conquest, tyranny, and war which had been at the root of the Dark Age; and never again to forsake or dishonor the Goddess, or the Feminine Spirit that is the portal for all living things upon and within the living Earth. There was a universally shared intuitive understanding that richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty, were conditions of vital importance to the ongoing evolution of all life, and to the life of each individual; and that human actions which obstructed or degraded these vital conditions were damaging to the entire fabric of life, and obscenely hostile to the Goddess, and to all living things. The history of the Dark Age was remembered with universal abhorrence and disgust, and was preserved as a cautionary tale illustrating how never again to live upon the bosom of Mother Earth; and the signs to recognize early, should such a perversion ever in future be encountered.
It was also universally recognized that preservation of each individual's vital liberty is each individual's exclusive right, and responsibility; and that an "individual" may as easily be an individual tribe, or an individual family, as an individual human. All living things – indeed all things, great and small – were appreciated as sacred and of incalculable value, and could never again be quantified on a hierarchical scale.
Concurrently, many individuals, particularly among the youth, discovered themselves to be in widespread telepathic communication with reciprocally endowed individuals dotted all around the planet. This is a trend that had begun to surface during the final stage of the collapse of "civilization," first appearing during the '80s, '90s, and the first decade of the "third millennium" Dark Age time reckoning. The emergence of widespread telepathy was believed to have had a deep relationship with the emergence of "Plan Y" that had played such a decisive part during the actual collapse of "civilization," and the rise of "post-civilization;" and with the spontaneous retirement of the many volatile antagonisms that had divided various human cultures against each other during the Dark Age.
Such telepathic communication appeared to be clear, reliable, instantaneous, and transcendent of spoken language, over short or vast distances. Many youths in many bands brought these capabilities to the attention of their elders, and were often successful in coaching the elders in achieving similar proficiency themselves. Verifiable experiments were conducted to test and prove the accuracy and reliability of this swiftly spreading telepathic capability, and so the evident isolation of widely dispersed bands became another relic of the past. Even though large portions the digital infrastructure had dissolved through disuse and lack of maintenance, surviving humanity were now in more instantaneous and thorough communication throughout the planet than they had ever been before. Local fire circle discussions became global in scope, and although people could not yet move physically about the planet, except by long and arduous voyages, large numbers of people throughout the Earth were in instantaneous global communication with one another, and the global view became universally shared, in matters "great" and "small."
It was widely agreed that the Dark Age had demonstrated that, of all the challenges faced by evolving humanity, the most formidable by far was, and possibly remained, the eventuality of the re-emergence of the dominator mentality in a "post-civilized" human culture. Although it seemed the newly developed and developing capacity for global telepathic communication might mitigate the threat, this pathological warfaring syndrome had manifested in the past in many times and places, and therefore might be anticipated to materialize again, sooner or later, among "post-civilized" humans. In the past, there had been only four evident responses to the presence of a dominator culture in the midst of partnership cultures: a) conquest and annihilation; b) conquest and slavery; c) abandonment of threatened territory; and d) successful resistance, resulting in probable infection of the successfully resisting partnership culture by the dominator disease. There must be a fifth option for meeting this contingency, one which does not degrade the purity of partnership culture, yet is strategically and tactically effective against dominator aggression. Perhaps, if telepathic communication turned out to be reliable enough, and widespread enough, it might provide the basis for such a fifth option. Even a well trained and equipped army might find it daunting to face a telepathically mobilized and coordinated population bent on resistance at all costs. During the Dark Age, even the most formidable armies fared poorly against highly motivated guerrilla adversaries.
Unlike their "pre-civilized" partnership predecessors, who had never encountered or imagined a dominator culture before the first one appeared on their horizon, all of the "post-civilized" tribes and clans who had survived the global collapse of dominator civilization were intimately acquainted with dominator culture, and could recognize the merest "whiff" of it at its first appearance. It was therefore clear that they must be ceaselessly vigilant against any such eventuality, and prepared to respond to it immediately and decisively, should it ever appear again. Such response must not be one inconsistent with partnership culture, yet must be reliable and effective, even if required suddenly after a long period bearing no dominator threat. This was recognized as a "tall order," yet one of such vital importance to the future evolution of humanity, and all life on the planet, that it must be given high priority among the many challenges immediately facing all the "post-civilized" peoples.
On the basis of examples found in Nature, the project of establishing an effective response to an emergent dominator presence, not in conflict with partnership principles and ideals, was deemed within the realm of possibility. After all, skunks, honey bees, porcupines, and many other creatures who were not themselves aggressive or predatory, had developed effective means of dealing with predators when they encountered them. Even seemingly defenseless rabbits had developed an effective response to predators. Their celebrated fecundity, combined with their fleetness and agility over uneven ground, and their almost 360° field of view, kept their populations in balance with attrition due to predation.
And of course some creatures, such as the notorious Cape Buffalo in Africa, were imbued with such nasty dispositions that, although not predators themselves, were as dangerous as the most vicious predators; which generally gave them a wide berth, and hunted easier prey instead. Now with widespread telepathy, perhaps human partnership cultures at last had such an effective response as well. The consensus emerged that, if possible, it would probably be preferable to be like a skunk, rather than to be like a Cape Buffalo or a rabbit – although in dealing with the possible re-emergence of dominator-oriented humans, a bit of the Cape Buffalo's disposition might not be at all a bad thing.
A skilled animal husbandman suggested a corollary principle to be woven into "post-civilized" culture: intransigent resistance to domestication. Of all the wild creatures inhabiting the Earth larger than 100 lb., or 45.4 kg, only 14 have ever been domesticated, and bread in captivity. Make that 15, for Homo sapiens is conspicuous among them, although in former times had not usually been included in the list. All such domesticable species share certain qualities, one or more of which are absent from species which have never been successfully domesticated. Among these qualities are docility, a herd social structure with clearly defined hierarchical ranking, and an ability to share overlapping territories.9 Some species, such as practically all large carnivores, have been too fierce, or too exclusively territorial to adapt to domestication; others have lacked the hierarchical social structure which humans were able to exploit in managing them. With few exceptions, humans have been receptive to domestication on all counts. This quality can be culturally amended, however, if "post-civilized" peoples make it a conscious priority to do so. Here is perhaps another reason, it was suggested, to cultivate some of the qualities of the African Cape Buffalo. This argument was also received with widespread approval.
Accordingly, those who had reached this consensus began immediately acting upon it; for although widespread telepathy significantly diminished the risk, a nascent dominator culture could imaginably grow in isolation from the communicating cultures, and might someday put in an unanticipated appearance. Many fire circle discussions were required to arrive at a clear understanding and agreement among all communicants upon the principles and ideals to be pursued by a "post-civilized" people. The past was gone forever, yet many of the survivors were disconcerted to find themselves influenced still, in spite of themselves, by "civilized" habits, ideals, and expectations.
The question was posed: If we faced no limitations whatsoever, and anything we can imagine were possible, how would an ideal "post-civilized" culture be organized?10 A provisional list of principles and ideals emerged, as follows:
This was seen as a beginning, not the end, of a long and convoluted evolutionary path for a "post-civilized" culture in the labor of being born and finding its true orientation in the world and universe at large. The most effective hedge against the emergence of a dominator culture in the "post-civilized" era – and the best means of promoting the cultural health of humanity and the entire web of Life at large – was perceived to be the practice of as widespread and comprehensive communication as possible among humans throughout the world. The simple practice of sharing information – about anything, and everything – was finally recognized as the best possible means of promoting conditions of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty throughout the planet, of promoting the metaconscious health of all living beings, and of diminishing to the vanishing point opportunities for the incubation of domination and warfare. The new telepathic capability among humans was naturally appreciated as a profound aid for facilitating such communication – not only among humans, as many of the youngsters enthusiastically pointed out, but throughout the metaconscious web everywhere!
The Resurrection of the Dead
Meanwhile, it is not to be imagined that the surviving bands of hunter-gatherers considered every facet of the collapsed Dark Age to be anathema, or desired to preserve its memory only as a counter-example for living. There were many who had knowledge of, and appreciated alike the advantages, and the formidable dangers of "civilized" technologies, arts, and learning; and were keenly interested in salvaging and resurrecting elements of them that could be usefully applied to "post-civilized" living. Such matters were widely discussed, and deeply considered, for upon one thing all could agree: the new and old surviving tribes alike wanted no part of a way of life that had any likelihood of evolving eventually into anything resembling the aberrant monstrosity they had so recently survived. Its proclivity for preempting all ways and forms of life foreign or not deemed useful to itself were well known and widely appreciated; and the method of fomenting metaconsciousness by means of ubiquitous telepathic communion boosted confidence that the pathological dominator agenda could be quarantined indefinitely. Yet it was also suggested that another element of "civilized" culture, once resurrected, might be at least as insidious and difficult to deal with.
Suppose, the question was framed, we succeed in resurrecting one or some of the technologies developed by "civilization;" and suppose these resurrected technologies, even if not so intended, give us unanticipated advantages over our fellow-creatures with whom we share this planet; and our population consequently expands at the expense of other species, thus bringing about a net decline in the planet's sacred richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty? Such an evolution might occupy many generations, and advance so imperceptibly that its effects are not noticed from one generation to the next.12 If so, what then? Old cultures, preceding or isolated from, and entirely uninfluenced by "civilization," had fallen into such traps in the past, and one can hardly fault such "pre-civilized" cultures for failure to anticipate the unintended outcomes of their actions. How can we safeguard ourselves and our descendants from parallel errors?
It was observed that one of the lessons of the Dark Age was that humans are endowed with capabilities which, for weal or woe, seem to transcend those of all other species on Earth. The Dark Age demonstrated the consequences of wielding these formidable capabilities unconsciously and irresponsibly. The challenge confronting those who now faced "the dawn of true humanity" was not to attempt to submerge or suppress their innate human capabilities, which must prove futile, but unlike their "civilized" and "pre-civilized" predecessors, to employ them consciously and responsibly.
It was further observed that "post-civilized" peoples enjoyed an advantage not shared by their "pre-civilized" counterparts: namely, the advantage of hindsight. We have seen, and are now painfully aware, it was argued, of the consequences to the life-sustainability of Mother Earth of unconscious or irresponsible human action; and are therefore in a position to act responsibly and make sure such actions and their negative consequences do not occur.
Evidently, most "pre-civilized" peoples had lived within the sustainable limits of the planet, and their local ecosystems, often because they had not yet developed the technologies necessary for exceeding those limits – rather than because of their superior wisdom and foresight. Even so, they had caused extinctions and other ecological damage,13 because they had not been conscious of the consequences of their actions. Species of animals and plants had been going extinct from the moment "pre-civilized" humans first migrated out of Africa to other regions on the planet. Yet there have been instances in the past in which cultures, apprehending in time they were following a suicidal course, have made deliberate mid-course corrections, and avoided looming catastrophe.14 "Civilization" might have done likewise, but in the event, did not, and perished. Now, having survived both the "pre-civilized" and the "civilized" ways of life, it is incumbent upon "post-civilized" peoples to live consciously, to take voluntary responsibility for the consequences of every human action; and to perceive early, and make corrections for human actions exhibiting negative consequences for any part of the fabric of Life upon Mother Earth. This sacred responsibility must be woven indelibly into the fabric of "post-civilized" culture, and handed on to succeeding generations.
Yet it was also noted that those of one generation cannot make decisions for future generations, and that the progress of human and cultural evolution cannot be predicted in advance. The current generation, it was pointed out, can only make their best decisions on the basis of their immediate understanding, and on the basis of as sound principles and ideals as they are able to formulate and hand on to the next generation. Future generations must be trusted to meet future perils effectively, as we must trust ourselves to meet present perils, or perish.
These matters were discussed, locally and globally, around many a fire circle among many tribes and bands, and views were widely circulated and considered. A consensus emerged to the general effect that humans possess capabilities which can be a blessing or a curse, to themselves, and to the planet upon which they live and depend. Previous generations had been unaware of the far-reaching consequences of human action, and the Dark Age, and its aftermath, had universally corrected this ignorance in its survivors. The danger had not gone away, and might arise again, whether from the resurrection of Dark Age technologies, or from technologies developed fresh by "post-civilized" peoples, if such peoples ignore the lessons of the past, and cease weaving them into the fabric of their ever-evolving cultures. It must therefore be the responsibility of each generation to keep alive these vital lessons, and lessons yet to be mastered, and to pass them onward to future generations.
Meanwhile, many individuals with knowledge of Dark Age technologies, anxious to apply their expertise before they were lost entirely, remained active among surviving tribes. They were knowledgeable about agriculture, electricity, metallurgy, structural engineering, machining, blacksmithing, steam engineering, mechanics, marine architecture, navigation, aeronautics, telecommunications, cybernetics, mathematics, geometry, physics, astronomy, and many other domains of Dark Age culture and lore. Technologies requiring fossil fuels and large-scale energy sources were beyond the reach of small tribes and settlements of hunter-gatherers. Yet a few individuals emerged who claimed understanding of the potential for limitless sources of energy, by means of technologies deliberately suppressed by those in command of the Dark Age, who were in the energy business themselves and intolerant of competition.15 The problem faced by such visionaries was the matter of somehow reconstructing a technological bridge from the hunter-gatherer way of life to some threshold at which such sophisticated technologies could be resurrected, developed, and applied.
Once the new tribes were able to stabilize themselves, and develop sustainable patterns which no longer required every available effort, just to remain alive from one day, month, or year to the next, it became feasible to expand the focus of attention to broader interests, and to explore possibilities with longer horizons than the immediacy of daily survival. Explorations were undertaken to evaluate what might be usefully salvaged from the deserted cities and towns, and what risks and hazards might be encountered doing so. It was suspected that large cities may conceal many hazards, such as toxic substances, or pockets of disease, or even settlements of crazy or hostile humans. Accordingly, initial explorations were undertaken with great caution; yet it soon became clear that the potential benefits of such salvage probably vastly exceeded its hazards. Some individuals and groups took it upon themselves to preserve and maintain deserted libraries, containing a vast cornucopia of potentially useful information. Others explored industrial areas, and had their imaginations kindled by discovery of functional machine tools, such as lathes, milling machines, and precision measuring instruments. The electrical power needed to run such tools was no longer in operation, but an electric motor is not the only way to power a lathe. There had been operational machine shops, after all, long before there had been either electric motors, or the electricity to run them.
The more they probed and explored, the more evident it became that the survivors of collapsed "civilization" were in a totally unique circumstance in all of human history. "Civilization" was dead, and at first sight, at least, its energy infrastructure seemed to have collapsed with it, and was no longer operable. So far as anyone knew for sure, "civilization" now belonged to a swiftly receding and inaccessible past. Yet tons of useful machinery remained behind, much of it evidently in at least potentially operable condition; which with the proper know-how might be employed in any number of useful projects, if some way of powering it could be engineered.
Inventive individuals imagined water wheels, or windmills, as potential sources of motive power, for instance for a machine lathe – which might then be used to fabricate many useful parts and tools from scrap metal, or cannibalized machine parts. One party of explorers returned with the discovery of a steam locomotive with every appearance of having been recently in operation. On hearing about this, a fellow from a neighboring tribe came forward with a rich fund of experience with steam engines, railroads, steam locomotives, and tractors. He suggested, however, that a locomotive was probably too large a scale for the power requirements of a startup village machine shop; and that more modestly sized steam engines could be put to myriad uses, because anything that burns can fuel them. If a modest functioning steam engine could be located, it could be harnessed to a gradually expanding machine shop, as machine tools are located and gathered; and these could be employed, among other projects, in machining parts for additional steam engines for further expansion, and other tasks.
Industry
These possibilities raised once again the specter of industry and its long-term consequences – which prompted additional serious pow-wows to further consider the implications and consequences of resurrecting Dark Age industries and technologies. It was acknowledged that industry and technology are necessarily neither "good" or "bad," and that the natural world may be viewed as a vast "industrial park" constantly at work turning out an endless variety and quantity of extremely "hi-tech" products useful to creatures and beings all over the world. The crucial difference, it was stressed, between "natural industry" and Dark Age human industry, had been that the former produces no byproducts that are not useful or assimilable by other "natural industrial" processes; whereas Dark Age human industry produced, ultimately, nothing but toxic, polluting products and by-products. They were, in a single word, the products of war, and their effect was to degrade and diminish the qualities of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty throughout the planet.
Therefore, it was easily agreed, "post-civilized" human industry must be founded from the outset upon the non-negotiable principle that it be so conducted as to produce no byproduct that is not a useful input to some other benign process. No toxic wastes; no trash heaps. Organic wastes must be composted and used to nourish and maintain the soil; and any proposed undertaking that produced a polluting byproduct must either be abandoned, or a benign use must be found for the byproduct that neutralizes its polluting qualities. That's how Nature does it: that's how humans have to do it too. Otherwise, as we have clearly seen already, we or the children of our children's children, are ultimately doomed. That is a path we shall not take a second time. So it was resolved – not because somebody had laid the resolution down as a "law" to be obeyed, and its "violation" punished, but because all could clearly see and appreciate that every human action is inseverably linked to its consequences, and negative consequences can be avoided if they can be anticipated, and the actions that lead to them avoided from the start.
Such considerations brought the matter of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle itself under discussion. Is the hunter-gatherer way of life really the most effective one for conscious humans, or does it lead to limitations and evolutionary dead-ends for cultures that adhere to it?
A woman who had studied human history and anthropology pointed out that the pure hunter-gatherer lifestyle, although it maximized freedom of movement for individuals and tribes, and minimized lasting impacts upon Mother Earth, particularly if conducted consciously (as had not always been the practice in ancient times); it also by nature imposed limits upon the population density of those who practiced it. Population density is limited not only by the availability of forage and game, but by other factors as well; such as the logistics of transporting very young children over the tribe's range. Practically, mothers cannot bear new infants until their older children have gained the ability to keep up with the tribe's movements; because although she can carry an infant on the march, she cannot carry two who are themselves unable to keep pace with the tribe.
Over the course of history, it has been shown that people who cultivated their own food, rather than foraged and hunted it wild, were thereby relieved of the need to accommodate small children on the march, because they didn't march, but lived in settled villages and towns. They were therefore not constrained to space their birthing, as hunter-gatherers were constrained to do, and so the populations of settled agriculturalists grew faster than the populations of nomads; with the result that when agriculturalists and nomads found themselves in competition for space, the agriculturalists invariably prevailed, and the nomads were forced to give way to larger numbers. The consequence in the long run was that the hunter-gatherers declined, the agriculturalists advanced, and the human population which started out as 100% hunter-gatherers, ended up as almost 100% agriculturalists, or were entirely supported by agriculture.16
With this in view, it was argued, by holding fast to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, may the emerging "post-civilized" tribes not be encumbering themselves with avoidable disadvantages? If the pattern of agriculture has already demonstrated its advantages over the hunter-gatherer pattern, then hadn't we best be about developing an agricultural basis for our sustenance? And furthermore, if the emerging tribes want to resurrect any substantial part of the Dark Age technologies, will it not be necessary to develop a settled way of life? Technological R & D is not remotely compatible with an exclusively nomadic lifestyle. It was a telling argument.
Accordingly, it was agreed that crop cultivation and animal husbandry should be encouraged, along with foraging and hunting, and that evolutionary consequences must be consciously and carefully monitored, and adjustments made early in response to the development of any potentially damaging trends. Upon one fundamental principle all could agree without qualification: injury to any part of Mother Earth is personal injury to every human. Such injuries, to Earth and individual humans alike, occur along a spectrum of severity between "mortal wounds" and swift-healing "mere scratches." The principle, however, is universally applicable, and it was felt, if adhered to steadfastly down the generations, would by itself prohibit many of the errors of "civilization," and its "pre-civilized" predecessors.
Thus, over an extended period, with many a fire-circle pow-wow within and among communicating tribes, principles, objectives, and ideals were articulated, considered, shaped, and modified into an organically evolving consensus for conscious, deliberate, and purposeful evolution. This was an ongoing process that developed in many places, locally and globally, among many surviving tribes dotted all over the Earth. They did not necessarily take the shape, or occur in exactly the order described, yet they had similar motivations, and reached similar or parallel conclusions in a great many instances; for everyone still alive on Earth, though having vastly varied particular experiences, shared at once the certainty that they had survived something enormous and profound; and the unswerving determination to imbibe its lessons to the bottom, starting with the first: that the five-thousand-year experiment with "civilization" had been a catastrophic failure, and would never again be repeated.
Conclusion
It is with a heartfelt sigh of welcome relief that we acknowledge the transition for the human residents of planet Earth from what we may now regard as "pre-human" to true human status in the "Community of Cosmic Beings." As always, it was a very close-run race, and in serious doubt until the "very end" – which turns out instead to have been the very beginning of the Earth-human adventure in Cosmos as fully initiated Peers in the Cosmic community. Wherever, whenever, however it has appeared in Cosmos, the human prototype has always been a very iffy proposition, beset on every side by formidable hazards of almost insurmountable scale; and very few of the races which have set forth upon this supremely challenging evolutionary path have ever emerged from it whole and intact, as have the human residents of Earth. Bravo! and congratulations for completing a well-run course, and gaining the victory over yourselves. Welcome, Earth-humans, to the "Community of Cosmic Beings," and to the beginning of an adventure without end!
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1. Thom Hartmann, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation, Harmony Books, New York, 1998, 1999, p. 55; pp. 15-19.
2. Ibid., p. 47.
3. The year -3114 is the Gregorian year identified with the beginning of the Mayan Long Count, which had its later terminus in the Gregorian year 2012. This five-thousand-year span also embraces almost exactly the period of the rise and fall of warlike dominator civilizations, which were preceded by hundreds of thousands of years of "pre-civilized" human cultures, and followed by the era of "post-civilization," otherwise known in retrospect as "the dawn of true humanity."
4. First mentioned in What I Mean by Metaconsciousness, in the Prologue. See also Warfare and Predation, in section II.3.
5. At the time of its first encounter by Europeans in the 16th century, the Inca Empire is said to have been the largest empire on Earth, including contemporaneous empires in Europe and Asia. (See Hartmann, 1998, 1999, pp. 143-9.) Yet it was no less a dominator civilization than was the European civilization that conquered it; it was simply not as skilled at the art of conquest, and was less effectively armed.
6. Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, in section I.11.
7. Schmookler, 1984, p. 22; Hartmann, 1998, 1999, p. 140; The Parable of the Tribes, in the Prologue.
8. Eisler, 1987, p. 105; Dominator and Partnership Civilizations, in section I.11.
9. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London, 1997, pp. 170-4..
10. Adapted from Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, 1999, p. 132.
11. Adapted from Conditions for Social Success, section II.3.
12. See Diamond, [undated], pp. 89-90, described in Easter Island, section I.14.
13. Hartmann, 1998, 1999, pp. 55-7. See also Learning to Live Within Our Means, section II.3.
14. Diamond, [undated], pp. 286-93. See also Tikopia, section I.14.
15. The Myth of Free Energy, section I.12.
16. Diamond, 1997, p. 89.
Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Introduction to Volume III | Contents | Bibliography