Civilization and Beyond
A Metaconscious Mosaic Outline
The hands of the gods may be a particularly apt way of labeling the mystery of the unknown context within which all our experiences occur; for the term suggests consciousness, intelligence, and creativity as properties of the mysterious universe we inhabit and experience. These extraordinary properties are indeed present, and are everywhere and always close at hand for observation and experience. You are conscious, intelligent, and creative; and I am – at least somewhat; at least enough to have some experience of them, and to be able to recognize them when we encounter them, in ourselves and at large, at least sometimes.
To me, if there is anything more jaw-dropping, mind-boggling amazing than simple, raw, unvarnished existence, it is the presence of consciousness, intelligence, and creativity. Whence come these inexplicable wonders? How comes it that I – to be right-here-right-now-immediate – am able to sit down at a computer and commence writing something I know not even myself what it will eventually be, giving expression to thoughts and ideas which may not yet have consciously occurred to me? Yet this is nothing unusual; everyone does this, one way or another. Someone bakes a cake, inventively substituting ingredients she or he has for others not immediately available; or knits a sweater, or designs a bridge, or composes a symphony, or a sonata, or a sonnet, or writes a novel, or discovers fire, or invents a wheel, or a printing press, or a transistor. On and on and on it goes – and not only among humans. How comes yonder apple ripening in the late summer sunshine, along with bushels of others like it? Coming back to the "original question," how comes anything at all? Is there anywhere a better "answer" than, "from the hands of the gods."?
If this "answer" strikes you as less than satisfactory, at least it is no better or worse than any number of alternative "answers" of the same kind that have been taken quite seriously, today and throughout history; such as, "In the beginning, God said, Let there be light. And there was light." or, "Approximately fifteen billion years ago,1 the universe came into being through a cataclysmic explosion we call the Big Bang." All these, and any number of others like and unlike them, which have been shared around human gathering circles and campfires for millions of years, and in churches, university lecture halls, and in books, etc. for centuries and millennia, are examples of mythological speculation.
What else can they possibly be? Verification or falsification of any of these so-called "answers" lies, if anywhere, far over our horizon and beyond the reach of anybody on Earth. They are myths, and although we cannot be human without them, to insist that any one of them is "The Truth," and all others are "false," "lies," "heresies," or "blasphemies," is suicidal folly. There is no way to "win" any such argument.
For example, by "apparently winning," by overwhelming domination of the Earth with the insistance that Ours is the only right way to live and everyone should live as we do,2 the contemporary global Taker culture has in fact catastrophically lost the argument, and is now in the final stage of self-extinction.
I would like to suggest, on the contrary, that it is not necessary to resolve the impenetrable mystery that lurks behind all things, as a prerequisite to productive and useful scientific, religious, or philosophical analysis; and that acceptance of the mystery is an essential aspect of adopting the Leaver culture and making the alternative choice to "live in the hands of the gods." There is nothing about mythological speculation, or "living in the hands of the gods," that is inconsistent or incompatible with the "scientific method" of disciplined and closely reasoned experiment, observation, and analysis. If it were actually necessary to resolve the mystery, science, religion, and philosophy would all have failed already, for the mystery remains no less mysterious today than it was at the dawn of human inquiry millions of years ago. By definition and necessity, the mystery lies incalculably beyond the reach of sientific, religious, or philosophical analysis, and is perpetually intractable of solution. This is no challenge to the validity or usefulness of science, or religion, or philosophy; it is simply an unavoidable artifact of finite existence in an inherently mysterious and unknown context.
One of "the gods" "who" has received a perhaps disproportionate share of attention in various mythologies is known, among a multitude of names, as "the devil." Who, or what, is "the devil?"
One of the vital elements for the functioning and evolution of metaconsciousness is a habitat of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. Also, The "universal metaconsciousness" of "All That Is" must be benign, purposeful, potent, and present, everywhere, always, without exception.3 These are qualities traditionally attributed to "the gods," which the metaconsciousness myth equates with "the metaconsciousness of 'All That Is'." The evolutionary tendency of "All That Is" is toward the expansion and proliferation of diversity and complexity: a spontaneous and, shall we say, "meta-intentional" product4 of which is the manifestation, expansion, and evolution of metaconsciousness. This seems to me as useful a summing up as any of "what the universe is about," and it seems in its totality to be a singularly benign process. Elsewhere, I have written that it is positively "Good," not bad, and not neutral. "This leads to a clear definition of 'the good'," I wrote, "which is simply 'What Is'."5
Therefore, it makes sense to me that "the devil" is a mythological label which may be appropriately applied to any agency, force, or instrumentality which has the effect of stifling, or inhibiting metaconsciousness; and conversely, that anything which fosters, nurtures, or encourages the expansion of metaconsciousness may be considered as generally a "Good Thing," beneficial to all Life, and to all living things, including but not limited to humans and human culture. Thus, a "pact with the devil" is a metaphorical way of describing any cooperative venture, particularly among humans, which has the effect, in large or small ways, of inhibiting the expansion of metaconsciousness. "The devil" is in these terms not an entity or a "diabolical personality." "The devil" is a peculiar set of circumstances, probably highly unusual, aberrant, and short-lived in the wide Cosmos, which combine to inhibit and / or reverse the overall trend of Cosmic evolution toward ever expanding, ever enriching diversity, complexity, and metaconsciousness.
Today, Taker culture – human civilization – is almost perfectly suited to advancing "the devil's agenda." That is, there is very little about civilization that nourishes the expansion of metaconsciousness on any level, and conversely, almost everything about it stifles metaconsciousness on every level – primarily because the "engine" that drives civilization is and always has been pre-emptive force, the most effective inhibitor of metaconsciousness... that I, anyway, have been able to imagine.
Even this formulation is not entirely satisfactory, for it is an oversimplification. Simple predation is by all appearences the exercise of pre-emptive force; yet nothing lives, except at the cost of the life of some other living thing(s). Thus we are all predators, one way or another, and do not have the choice of being otherwise. Yet predation by itself does not have a stifling effect upon the evolution of metaconsciousness, and is on the contrary a vital part of the process. Without predation, the web of Life wouldn't work.
Perhaps Daniel Quinn expressed it as well as may be done, as a "clause" in the Law of Life to the effect that
You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.6
The fundamental nature of Taker culture – civilization – is to wage war upon its competitors, and this is definitely destructive to metaconsciousness, and to the web of all Life. In terms of the myth of the gods, civilization by its very nature "kills the gods." If we think of "the gods" as superhuman entities like mighty Thor wielding his hammer and thunderbolts, the idea of "killing the gods" may seem whimsical to contemporary minds, and not easily taken seriously. However, if we see the connection between "the gods" and metaconsciousness, then "killing the gods" – stifling metaconsciousness – may be seen as a very serious matter indeed, for it is by nature what civilization does, and it is deadly to all Life.This must cease, and it shall, if for no other reason than that it is unsustainable, and will therefore not be sustained. I submit that a preferable means of bringing it to a halt is for we humans to elect to sustain it no longer. If "doing civilization" stifles metaconsciousness, i.e. "kills the gods," then it must be possible to "kill the devil" by doing the opposite, by walking away from civilization and fomenting metaconsciousness.
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* Sources: The Gods & the Law of Life; A Pact With the Devil.
1. Or twenty, or twelve, or eight, or whatever the prevailing consensus happens to be these days....
2. See Beyond Civilization or The Killer Meme.
3. The Gods & the Law of Life.
4. Although "product" may not be at all the appropriate word here, as it implies metaconsciousness is a product of richness, diversity, variety, complexity, and liberty. It may just as well (and poorly) be said that these are a product of metaconsciousness.
5. See "Waves of Change," July, 2003.
6. Daniel Quinn, The Story of B, Bantam Books, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1996, p. 252, quoted in The Tribal Ideal; and also in The Tribe.
Civilization and Beyond copyright 2004, 2005 by J. Harmon Grahn. Copying and redistribution, in whole or in part, are permitted in any medium provided this notice is included.