Descriptions:
Video Description
What did the religious imagination actually build? Professor Jiang points to Gobekli Tepe, the pyramids, and the great cathedrals as proof that humanity’s mightiest works were acts of shared faith, not paychecks. When people believed heaven could be brought down to earth, they moved mountains. The closing question is personal: do we still carry that vision, or have we traded the fire for a credit score?
Full Video Transcript
So we continue our run through a run through of human history today so last class we did cave paintings and what I will do from now on is I will highlight some YouTube comments for for us to review what we learned last class but also as a chance for us to better engage the YouTube audience okay so this comment comes to us from Gary
art everywhere the paintings only survived in the caves and the answer is absolutely so back
then during the ice age they made these cave paintings as a ritual as a celebration of their
religion to express their imagination they really didn’t care about leaving a legacy that comes
later okay so that’s a very important comment so thank you um this man says that when i talk about
beethoven uh he points out that beethoven wasn’t born deaf he became deaf much later as an adult
and that is true um so but one thing about beethoven that people don’t really discuss
is that he probably had simple synthesisia okay and this is just a fancy word meaning the mixing
of senses so some people are born or special talent and so what happens is that their senses
get mixed up so when people hear things they actually see things okay so the classic example
is they have pitch perfect so there’s some people musicians when they hear something they can tell
exactly what the pitch is is it c um minor d uh major okay and the reason why is when they hear
something they see a color okay so they mix the audio sense with a visual sense and that’s probably
the situation with beethoven as well so a lot of really talented people in life what happens is
that they mix up their senses okay um another person is leonard euler who was a mathematician
and uh this youtuber says that the pirate bay he says that uh he probably did his best work
after he went blind and the reason why is that when you go blind um you’re able to imagine
much more strongly and much more deeply okay so he’s able to see the math in his head okay um
this man says that i also learned from indigenous people that they don’t produce trash and garbage
and that’s something that’s very true for most of you of human history for most of human history we
saw ourselves as part of nature and so when you go to someone’s house you don’t leave trash um
same thing for print of people okay they saw themselves as interconnected with nature and
so they have to respect nature and therefore um they had to keep it clean okay all right so from
now on we’ll just have highlight some youtube comments okay so let’s talk about heaven on earth
so we did the ice age and now what’s happening is that the um planet it’s warming up and it allows
for agriculture and that allows for settlements okay so now we will discuss today what happens
during this time as the population grows and as we settle down to form um cities okay so let’s
review what we learned last class because in this class we don’t learn facts or places we learn
about ideas and concepts so if you want to understand human history you need to internalize
certain concepts so in history class in our culture you’re taught certain myths about who
we are okay so i’m going to go over some of these myths and show you the wrong explain why we have
these myths okay so the first myth is that we are materialistic we like money sex and power the
truth of the matter is that throughout most of human history we had three goals or three concerns
the first is that we have a religious impulse and we want to express this religion through art
through music through dance and what i mean by religion i mean that we have three questions in
our heads the first question is where do we come from second question is why are we here and the
third question is where are we going that’s why we had religion to answer these three questions
okay and that’s why we still have religion today second thing about us is that we’re all diverse
and we want to differentiate ourselves we want to stand out the last thing is we are curious and we
want to explore that’s fundamentally who we are then the question then is why are we telling you
that we’re materialistic and the answer is it’s better to control you okay so in a society there’s
a hierarchy and the people in charge they want you to work hard they want you to be obedient
but if you believe that um you want to explore then you’re not gonna be obedient enough okay
does that make sense okay second myth is and this is gonna be hard for you to understand
what you’re taught is that the nuclear family father mother children that’s the most natural
human unit and it’s not true actually if you look at most angel societies the most natural
organization is that women are usually in control. Why? Because women have complete autonomy over
their bodies. So they can choose who to have sex with. And that’s where the power comes from. They
control access to sex, which gives men pleasure. And with this power, they often choose to sleep
with as many men as possible. And there are three reasons why they choose this strategy.
the first is it’s fun okay it gives some pleasure to have sex with as many men as possible that’s
number one number two is women are really good at negotiating politics and they use sex as a
political strategy so if two guys are fighting each other she has sex with both and then voila
they’re best friends now okay so women are very good at managing emotions through sex okay
and then number three is the most important if you’re a woman you wanna
make sure all your children grow up successfully they don’t die okay and
they’re happy and they’re healthy so from your perspective it’s your
advantage to hide paternity to hide the fact who the father is why because now
all the men in the village in the community are responsible for raising a
child because no one knows who the real father is so everyone assumes that i could be the father
okay and this is historically um how societies are usually organized with a woman in charge and as
such societies tend to be very egalitarian because women don’t really care about status and power
they care about harmony and balance and the question then is why did we change that’s
And that’s actually a very simple reason.
The simple explanation is in order to produce more children.
Because if you’re a woman, you don’t want to have too many children.
You want to make sure that all your children have access to resources, but you also want
to stay healthy, right?
If you have too many children, it’s possible you could die in childbirth.
It’s also possible that your children die in childbirth as well.
So women have always practiced population control.
But when we switch to a patriarchy, now we can have as many children as possible because
now women are basically become slaves and their main duty is to have as many children
as possible.
And that’s why after the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, a lot of women start to die.
So that’s number two.
Number three is humans believe in survival of the fittest.
And that’s not true.
Historically, if you look at how societies are organized, we tend to be compassionate.
We look after the ill, we look after the elderly, we look after the weak.
That’s who we are.
We have empathy.
We care about other people.
So why do we believe in survival of the fittest?
It should create fear and anxiety.
If you have fear and anxiety, you work harder, but also it’s easier to control you.
Any questions so far?
Okay.
All right, let’s continue.
humans have gone smarter over the centuries and when one thing that you
will learn in this class is that’s not true humans have always been smart but
we’ve expressed our intelligence in different ways so print of cultures they
express themselves through art they had better memories they had more they were
more sensitive and they were more resilient than we are so why are we
taught that we’re smarter the answer is confirmation bias because everyone likes
to believe that we’re smarter than people who came before us okay so now
let me give an example of how smart they were so let’s just say that you have a
boat and you want to navigate the Pacific okay that’s very hard to do and
usually need a computer why because there’s so much information that you
need to process in order to navigate the ocean okay so let’s go over some of the
information all right so these are the Polynesian people what’s amazing about
them is they set up the entire Pacific wherever there’s an island they had a
settlement and this is a testament to our desire to be to explore the world
okay what is fascinating is how they did this because if I would put you in a
boat in the Pacific you probably die okay and that’s true for most people so
the question then is how they navigate the Pacific well what they did was this
they built boats that allow them to navigate the Pacific but as you can see
these are not large boats okay so they had to get to an island fairly quickly
so what they needed to do was read the stars so in their heads they were out
there able to map up the stars and from the stars figure out exactly where they
were they also had to memorize oceanic currents okay how the oceans were moving
in order to better navigate the ocean also every island has its own distinct oceanic ecosystem
okay so there’s so much information that they have to take in they look at the wind they have to look
at the ocean currents have to look at the stars and that’s why we have computers to do this for
us today but back then they didn’t have computers so they had to do this all in their heads okay
and they had some maps that helped them okay so this is a map of the stars and this is a map of
the oceanic currents but they were all doing this in their head and what’s really amazing is while
they were out in sea they couldn’t sleep okay they have to keep track of all this information
doing exactly where they were they fell asleep the navigator fell asleep they got lost and then
they died okay that’s the power of the human imagination okay last myth we evolved from apes
and the truth is that we are imaginative and we can choose our own evolution okay so um you’re
taught in school about the theory of evolution how we evolved from apes and maybe our bodies evolved
from apes but our minds are not our minds come from somewhere else okay so why are you taught
we’re evolved from apes it’s to justify the power hierarchy okay right the people in charge are just
stronger and better and more fit than we are all right so having revealed last class let’s
Let’s now talk about the religious imagination, okay?
So this is the pyramids.
It was built 2400 BCE and today it’s the same pyramids.
This is one of the most, yes, yeah, go ahead.
You said that the previous people are smarter than today because they can navigate the Pacific
with the boat and and and don’t sleep but nowadays we use computer right um but i think that uh
nowadays we use computer it’s not because that we cannot uh navigate the ocean just by a boat and
and human is because uh this matter is we could get more precise and accurate information okay
that’s not true okay if i put you on a ceiling period you would die it’s that simple okay the
The computer’s not going to help you navigate the ocean, okay?
All right.
All right.
So these are the pyramids, okay?
And there’s a great mystery as to how these pyramids were built.
And you might have on the internet heard silly explanations like
aliens came and built the pyramids, okay?
Or maybe the lost civilization of Atlantis
gave the technology to the Egyptians to build the pyramids.
And this is an example of confirmation bias.
We think that we’re smart and everyone before us was stupid, okay?
And what you’ll learn in this class is that these people had an imagination that allowed them to build the pyramids.
So I’m going to show you how they built the pyramids.
Alright, so as you can see, the pyramids are extremely complex structures, okay?
And first of all, there’s debate as to what the pyramid is.
what are you taught in school what the pyramids are what is it come on you guys are taught all
this in school right the pyramid is what it’s a tomb right okay guys it’s not a tomb okay it looks
like a tomb but it’s not a tomb it’s a temple right okay so how do they build the pyramids
um so what happened was that they didn’t have blueprints they didn’t have computers but they
the imagination so they could see the building of the pyramid in their heads and what they did was
they actually built it from the inside out okay all right so again it’s hard for us to imagine
that they would do this because it’s like wait you don’t have a pen so you can write it down you
have a computer so you can process all the information they did all in their heads and
that’s the power of the human imagination okay all right um and as you can see it was a massive
undertaken huge organization it took about 20 years and lots and lots of people and then the
question then is how were they able to organize in such a manner and the answer again is empathy
the imagination someone had a vision and this vision was so compelling that everyone knew
exactly what part to play okay also what’s really important is that in school you’re taught that the
pyramids were built because the pharaoh is god and there’s a tomb for the for the pharaoh okay
that’s really insulting to the egyptian people like all cultures the pharaoh wanted what’s best
for his people okay so the pharaoh would in his lifetime undertake a lot of public works projects
okay including canals okay so that so the pyramids were just a public works project a temple um
what’s amazing about the pyramids is that we could not do the pyramid today okay back to your point
we have computers guess what we have all these machines okay and guess what we cannot build the
pyramids why well because the way we work is different from the way they worked before let’s
go over the differences okay ancient times people had religious devotion when they worked on a
project at a temple like like the pyramids or whatever the point was to bring heaven to earth
to bring god to earth to create eternal peace they felt that my dedication my sacrifice
would make my children my grandchildren my great-grandchildren all more prosperous okay
that’s why they worked so hard today it’s make more money okay second thing vision people back
then had bigger brains okay not bigger brains but like stronger imagination so in their heads they
were able to see the entire vision in their heads and this vision was it was able to pass on to other
people as well it was almost like they had sympathy it was almost like they could see the
same thing okay the structure of the parent was designed in a way that people saw the same image
and they worked towards that image today we focus on something called top-down process oriented
management okay the idea here is rather than work together you just go and work a particular part
and then once you do that part you go away okay so an example is maybe art class now i’m not sure
if you take art class but you guys know like to produce a great piece of art you stay in a room
and you work really hard at it okay but in school what do we do well first we do is first thing we
do is make you write a plan right if you do the plan well i give you 10 then after you do the plan
what do you do you write the outline then you do a draft then you do an iteration okay you understand
we bring it down in the process and you think that this would lead to better results it actually
leads to worse results okay because you’re no longer focused on the vision you just focus on
the process and that’s why today everything we do sucks okay i can give you the greatest computers
in the world and you really couldn’t do the pyramids okay i can give you the best machines
the best computers it wouldn’t matter because you lack that vision the last thing this is most
important is you have vision when you have religious purpose everything you do is careful
okay you put your best effort into doing it because you’re trying to create eternity today
you try to do the least amount of work for the most amount of pay right so the idea today is
to do it as fast as possible as cheap as possible to maintain the budget yeah so do you understand
it’s not about how smart you are it’s about your purpose in working it’s about how you work
and that’s why everything we do today is just crappy okay all right um let’s go over some
examples of tremendous human achievement okay this is the Hagia Sophia um and this was built
in 532 in Constantinople it’s still in Istanbul you can actually take a plane get on a plane and
fly and it’s still there guys okay this is a modern picture so you can see the amount of
attention and care put into architecture back then because it’s about bringing heaven to earth
creating heaven on earth this and you can see inside how beautiful it is okay and so every inch
every piece of the church is just beautifully constructed everyone who worked on it was working
with the same vision and working with the same dedication this is the Aachen cathedral built in
1790 okay and guys this is what it looks like today no different from what it looked like when
it was first built and guys no one said this was built by aliens okay no one said this was
built by the atlanteans so the idea that the egyptians couldn’t build the pyramids by themselves
and had to rely on aliens that’s just a racist comment okay um also charlemagne the first roman
emperor the first holy roman emperor he was buried he’s buried inside this cathedral but no one’s
saying this is a tomb okay we all know it’s a church so the pyramids are a church a temple
to their gods and once you understand that then we can better understand how they built the pyramids
okay does that make sense okay and this is what it looks like inside okay again this is today you can
actually get a plane go to germany and go walk inside this church and see for yourself how
beautiful it is back then they put care and love into everything they did because because they
believed that what they did was to make a more godly spiritual world okay another manhattan
project okay this is probably the greatest achievement of humans in the 20th century
all right and there were a hundred thousand scientists who worked on the manhattan project
to build the nuclear bomb same concept where they believe that they’re creating eternal peace on
earth heaven on earth and that’s why they worked so hard and guess what they were right right
because now with the atomic bomb nations are afraid to go to war before the atomic bomb
world war one world war two killed tens of millions of people and even though there’s
still wars they’re not as devastating as before all right so this idea of bringing heaven to earth
it goes way back to the beginning of humanity this is goblet goblade tepe um it was first built in
in 9600 BCE, and this is considered the world’s first temple.
It’s the first temple that we discovered.
We can assume that wherever humans go,
they will build temples, because as I mentioned last class,
humans are first and foremost religious.
They express themselves through,
they express their religion through art,
architecture, music, dance, okay?
And it’s an amazing achievement,
because these pillars, okay, they’re really tall.
we don’t know how they were able to move these pillars into place okay you can see how small
people are how big this is but if you think about what we said about having a vision and then
working together to achieve this vision then it makes more sense okay so let’s discuss how they
were able to build completely and this process is important for us to understand because it repeats
itself throughout human history okay so let’s go over the process okay the first is that there’s
always a charismatic leader it could be a man it could be a woman but he or she has a vision for
creating a temple a place of god okay that’s what a temple is it’s a play it’s a place for god to
live on earth and he shares this vision with everyone and everyone works hard to achieve
this vision okay but then the leader dies and now you have different people competing to be the new
leader okay why because a temple and it’s really important for you guys to remember a temple is
always the most valuable real estate on earth okay if you were if you are in a
temple people come to pray to you right so that they give you gifts that they
give you tribute so what’s happening in this time is that they would organize a
religious festival once or twice a year and people would have to bring gazelle
had to bring food as a tribute to the priest and then they would celebrate it
together and then they would feast okay so if you’re able to control this temple
you live a very good life you were very powerful person okay and so there was so
when the first leader died you would have success in crisis and they would
vote who the next leader would be and so what happened is they would have these
trials where they prove to each other who the gods favor okay so it’s possible
maybe there are two hills okay you stand on one hill I stand on the hill and
and we’ll see where the bird lands if the if the bird lands on my hill then the gods favor me okay
because at this time um humanity believed that the mother goddess ruled over all because because if
as humans at this time you’re concerned about two things right you’re first concerned about
farming agriculture fertility and then you’re concerned about having babies okay so that’s
why the mother gosh was important because the mother goddess provided fertility for everyone
okay um but then over time what they realize is you know what we just cheat okay and how do you
cheat you cheat by forming secret societies okay by getting people to follow you and then you swear
blood oaths to each other and you also maybe have sex with each other and you become a faction okay
and this led to local conflict and the way they set they often settle this uh dispute or debate is
for human sacrifice okay so if your faction lost you’d all be sacrificed and we know this because
under global tepe there are tombs okay of human remains so we assume that um these people lost
a power struggle and as such they were all sacrificed together okay so in other words
power struggle political conflict uh religious dispute human sacrifice secret society they go
all the way back to human society okay all right so let’s go play tepe today again you can you can
you can get on a plane fly to turkey and then go visit go by tepe now one thing that’s really
important for us to understand is that with our architecture there’s mythology in place okay and
here we assume the mythology is the mother goddess with a bird in the sky and this might be a human
skull okay so there’s a very complex diverse mythology in place we don’t know what it is
okay but they had a sophisticated mythology and also remember humans are diverse so once the
mythology becomes established new people come to establish a competing mythology okay so um this
place is called karantepe and as you can see the mythology of this place it’s different but these
places are very close to each other okay so this is maybe the cult of the skull the idea here is
when people die you can still communicate with them in the spirit world if you have their skull
okay almost a skull becomes a portal into the afterworld okay so you can draw on their wisdom
you can draw on their spirit with the skull and this called the skull we see this in many ancient
cultures including in china okay it’s what we call ancestors worship and as you can see uh this is
the cult of skull okay the tower of jericho the tower of jericho is another settlement and we just
assume that okay if it’s a tower it’s for defensive purposes okay it’s to ward off invaders
but there’s actually a better much better explanation for the tower of jericho it’s a
religious temple why because during the solar equinox the sun hovers above the of the temple
and it causes the temple to flood this area with shadow okay so if you are a religious person you
feel as though heaven is coming to you directly okay so you have a ritual you have a celebration
when the solar eclipse happens and you can feel as though you’re ascending to heaven or heaven is
coming down to you okay that’s how jericho okay kanak hoyak kanak hoyak is one of the first
settlements that we found remember gobe tepe um is just a temple so they they would go there maybe
once or twice a year for a religious celebration but then they would leave okay kanak hoyak is
where they decided to settle down permanently for decades now in school you’re taught that
we started farming because it allowed us to access more food and so we can grow the population we
become healthier and stronger okay but if you actually dig up bodies of hunter-gatherers as
opposed to farmers what you realize is one hunter-gatherers are taller a lot taller than
farmers hunter-gatherers are stronger live longer healthier they have better teeth why because if
you’re a farmer um you so sorry if you’re a kind of gatherer you have access to lots of different
food right meats and getting the food is actually pretty easy okay you can just pick fruit off a
tree as a as a farmer you throw really hard to grow food that’s not very nutritious and often
the food is just similar okay you’re just eating one vegetable one crop okay it’s very limited
diet and also because of starch your food your teeth gets really rotten really fast okay also
because you’re living together in a close quarters it’s really easy for diseases to spread
okay so um it’s hard for us to appreciate this but being a hunter-gatherer it’s an easy happy healthy
life being a farmer sucks so the question then is why they become farmers for religious purposes
right so that they could settle down and be with their religion okay be with the charismatic leader
okay does that make sense right so this is categorical this is the this is the religion
of the mother goddess okay and accompanying the mother goddess is the bull okay because if you
think about it a woman cannot give birth by herself she needs a male and this male god is
the bowl who represents mobility energy strength okay so they worship both as you can see how
people are worshiping the bowl uh this is an image of kadakoyak it’s a very sophisticated community
it’s also very egalitarian and each house is a temple unto itself okay each so that these
paintings in order to bring in the energy of their gods that they worship and that’s why they want to
stay here because they want to be with their gods even though it meant a harder life for them okay
this is um katakoyak as you see it’s beautiful this is what it looks like today okay all right
this is another image rendition of katakoyak okay as you can see each house is a temple on to itself
and they bury the dead underneath okay so they’re trying to um practice a religion like here okay as
as i mentioned each house is a temple onto itself as you can see how each house is elaborate
decorated with you know the bowl with ornaments to their gods into the religion um this is a gazelle
so they hunt gazelle for food but as you can see it’s really a dance right so they’re hunting the
gazelle but they see it more as a dance as a celebration the reason why is at this time in
history we feel an obligation to the animals we killed we have to thank the animals that we killed
we have to celebrate the animals we killed in order to maintain balance and harmony in the world
okay it’s almost like a contract before you kill animals you need to pray to the gods and ask for
permission after you kill the animals you must thank the animals for sacrificing their body to
you so you can you can uh eat okay all right guys got it all right so let’s go over the pattern of
human settlements okay and i need you guys to remember how this process works so let’s look
at how kind of your came together and i’ll explain to you why it fell apart again you have a
charismatic leader who has a masonic vision he takes us to this place and says this is where
the gods are this is divine place and let’s sit all down here and and as such we can bring heaven
to earth and then they become a creative artistic community okay and they often choose a place where
the climate is very nice and that allows them to farm to supplement um their hunting gatherer okay
and over time as the population grows they become much more dependent on um farming okay so it’s a
gradual process that doesn’t happen overnight in the early days there’s lots of social mobility
in that all leaders are elected and also it’s very egalitarian okay doesn’t make sense but over time
the system breaks down what happens well first thing that happens is because of overpopulation
there’s too much stress on the environment and so you have um the land uh you’re not you’re not able
to grow as much on the land then you have climate change happening as well okay another big issue
is that the hierarchy becomes hereditary before the leaders were elected now they are just
inherited okay and this leads to corruption where the elite bully and exploit everyone else and
people forget the memories of the first days and so what do people do people just get up and they
leave okay you understand you can always choose to leave and so if you don’t like the community
anymore you and your family just get up and you go to another place to build a new community based
on your principles okay all right so based on today’s lecture i want you to remember three
things about how we humans come together in a community okay and these three basic principles
almost like laws i want you to remember them and then these laws will help you better understand
how societies rise and fall okay the first important principle i want to remember is
societies are fluid and dynamic they’re always changing over time okay they’re never still
second thing is that diversity within society is greater than across societies so another way of
saying this is yes there’s a conflict between the united states and china but actually if you
actually look at differences in diversity the difference diversity within china is greater than
the difference between china and the united states it doesn’t make sense okay the third law is
communities exist in opposition to each other okay so think about the cities in china okay beijing
Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi’an, they’re all different.
Why? Because they want to be different from each other, okay?
But also within Beijing, you have
Haidian, Chaoyang, Xizhang, different districts, right?
They’re all different from each other because they want to be different, okay?
So these three laws will help us better understand
how societies form, thrive, and ultimately die.
All right, so I’m going to go over some books
to highlight certain issues that we discuss in this class this is the thought everything uh by
david grabber and david wengro who are both anthropologists okay and they’ve looked at
different societies and what they emphasize is diversity and the dinas dynamism of different
societies okay so let’s look at one particular society which is the native people of of the
canadian northwest coast okay these are the native people and what happens what’s really interesting
is throughout the year that different social structures so during the winter everyone comes
together and they form a hierarchy where there are palaces where there’s an aristocracy um and
where the different they’re divided into different classes okay but then what’s really interesting is
that during the summer people will just go away and start new societies okay this is like really
interesting how in different times of the year when the needs are different people will choose
different social organizations people actually adopted different names in summer and winter
literally becoming someone else depending on the time of year okay so a metaphor that you can think
of is think about how when you play war of warcraft or a different video game you adopt a
different identity you adopt a different persona and that’s fun for you okay so um what’s common
in the ancient past is for people to adopt different social structures and they can choose
what social structure to go to and certain certain communities still practice it today
okay this is the wayfinders by wade davis one of the best books i’ve ever written sorry i’ve ever
read um he’s he is looking at also print of communities native tribes throughout the world
okay and he’s looking at specifically the amazon people if you go to amazon you’ll have many
different indigenous tribes okay so let’s look at the religion and as you can understand one thing
that i will show you is that even though these people look simple like you know they wear the
same clothes and their lives looks very simple spiritually they’re very complex people and
they’re very complex and sophisticated mythology okay so these are these called called people of
the anaconda okay in the beginning before the creation of seasons before the ancestral mother
woman woman shaman opened a womb before her blood and breast milk gave rice rivers and her ribs to
the mountain ridges of the world there was only chaos in the universe okay so there’s this very
complex mythology i’m not gonna i’m not gonna go through all of it okay but i will show you
the picture of it this is a universe that they’ve created from themselves it is complete it’s
unified it’s very complicated and that’s true for all mythologies one thing that’s really important
for them is to maintain balance and harmony in the world okay so like most printed people they
believe there are different dimensions and their role is to maintain harmony across these dimensions
because not that was what guaranteed a happy and prosperous life okay so let’s read this together
the people living today in the forest of the parapania which is the amazon the entire natural
world is saturated with meaning and cosmological significance every rock and waterfall embodies
the story plants and animals are but distinct physical manifestations of the same essential
spiritual essence okay so every plant every rock has a life force and they appreciate the diversity
the complexity the sophistication of different life forces okay so even though they can express
themselves they don’t have a written language their minds are extremely vibrant and dynamic
and energetic at the same time everything is more than it appears for the visible world is only one
level perception behind every tangible form every plant and animal is a shadow dimension a place
invisible to ordinary people but visible to the shaman this is the realm of the ho spirits a world
of deified ancestors where rocks and rivers are alive plants and animals are human beings sap and
blood the bodily fluids of the primordial river of the anaconda hidden in cataracts behind the physical
veil of waterfalls in the very center of stones are the great molecules of the host spirit where
everything is beautiful the shining feathers the coca the calabash of tobacco powdered which is
itself the skull and brain of the sun okay you can see how the mythology is very complex and how they
imbued it embedded into their everyday life every day when they wake up and they see the world they
see a world of color of energy of change okay all right he continues among the barasana such
renewal is the fundamental obligation of the living in practice this implies the brass and
see the earth as potent the forest as being alive with spiritual beings and ancestral powers to live
off the land is to embrace both its creative and destructive potential human beings plants and
animals share the same cosmic origins and a profound sense are seen as essentially identical
responsive the same principles obligated by the same duties responsible for the collective
well-being of creation there’s no separation between nature and culture of the forest and
rivers humans would perish without people the natural world would have no order or meaning
all will be chaos thus the norms that drive social behavior also define the manner in which human
beings interact with the wild the plants and animals the multiple phenomenon of the natural
world lightning and thunder the sun and the moon the scent of a blossom the soul sour order of
death everything is related everything connected a single integrated whole mythology infuses land
and life with meaning encoding expectations and behaviors essential to survival in the forest
anchoring each community each malacca to a profound spirit of place okay so you can see how
sophisticated their imagination is okay so one thing that um i discuss continuously because it’s
very important concept is how effing is a harmonious whole and so when you kill something
you first need permission you need a contract okay this is true through most of human history
so these people are no different when men go to the forest to hunt or fish it is never a trivial
passage first the shaman must travel in trance to negotiate while the master with the masters
of the animals forging a mystical contract with the spirit guardians an exchange based always on
reciprocity okay data reciprocity if you kill an animal you need permission now to kill the animal
you must thank the animal through ritual sacrifice okay the basana compared to marriage for hunting
two is a form of courtship in which one seeks the blessings of a greater authority for the honor of
taking into one’s family a precious being meat is not the right of a hunter but a gift from the
spirit world to kill without permission is to risk death by spirit guardian by it in the form of a
jaguar anaconda tapar or harpy eagle okay so the concept here is karma right if you do evil evil
will come to you okay so it’s important to maintain harmony all right and this is no different from
the cave paintings okay so you go way back to the dawn of humanity we believe the same thing
okay we believe that these animals came from the spirit world and that’s why you paint it that’s
where you express art to thank the animals for coming from the spirit world to feed and nourish
us and after we kill them then um we pray that they return to us okay and this goes back you
know tens of thousands of years all right let’s go to africa so so we were in the amazon now let’s go
to africa and in africa there’s some some people called the force people okay this is both by
colin turnbull we spent a few years with them and these are the pygmies they live in the forest
and guess what even though the mythology is a bit different they have different names they have
different structures it’s still the same essence okay so let’s let’s go over um this is called
molomo which is a mutual instrument that you use to communicate with the spirits of the forest okay
all right so one thing that’s really important for these peoples is the idea of ritual you are
a member of the community if you participate in all their rituals if you believe in mythologies
if you honor their ancestors and their traditions okay if you’re not if you refuse to honor their
traditions then they will ostracize you or they may even kill you okay so um the pygmies are
having a religious festival and colin turnbull says this i was told however that everyone had
to eat just as no adult male was allowed to sleep but had to sing while malomo singing was in
progress apparently one of the greatest crimes the pygmy can commit if not the greatest is to be
found asleep when the malovo is singing okay if you refuse to participate in the ritual or
if you break the seriousness of the ritual then you are a threat to community and they will kill
you and they will forget about you okay so if so once they kill you the woman would be told that
the malomo itself the great animal of the forest had carried off one of their number but like the
The men, they would ask no questions and would never again mention the missing men.
So if you disrespect them, they would not only kill you, but they would forget about you forever.
So this is how they explain why they do what they do.
Why do they practice these rituals?
Why are these rituals such an important part of their lives?
Normally, everything goes well in our world.
But at night when we are sleeping, sometimes things go wrong
because we are not awake to stop them from going wrong.
Army ants invade the camp.
leopards may come in and steal a hunting dog or even a child if we were awake these things would
not happen so when something big goes wrong like illness or bad hunting or death it must be because
the forest is sleeping and not looking after its children so what do we do we wake it up we wake it
up by singing to it and we do this because we want it to awaken happy and everything will be
well and good again. So when our world is going well, then also we sing the force because we
wanted to share our happiness, okay? So their idea of God is heaven on earth, where you’re connected
to the environment around you. Everything that you do impacts the environment. The environment
also impacts you as well. So you practice rituals in order to maintain balance and harmony in the
world okay the world is a script living in living you must follow certain
practices in order to respect the traditions of the world and that’s what
brings harmony and heaven to the world and it’s something that we’ve for most
of our history something that we’ve understood and we’ve appreciated then
the question then is what do we change okay and we’ll be discussing this as the
semester progresses okay so that’s it are there any questions before we end
yeah so before you said that people nowadays okay so so first of all I
totally agree that people nowadays are lack of vision and imaginations you know
contrast to people back in the days because of you know multiple reasons and
so my question is that I agree that people nowadays are lack of vision but I
kind of are a little bit confused about what your argument your argument that we
cannot rebuild the pyramid because well from my point of view um nowadays we
have the ability to you know build skyscrapers or metropolitans and so why
what what is the factor that kind of stops we us to build you know structures
type pyramid um okay so the question is what why can’t we build the pyramids okay all right so
there are different factors in place the first is um the resources that are required to build
the pyramids it is tremendous okay okay so um to give an example the stone that um sorry let
me just bring this up okay the stone that they use to build the pyramids is enough to build a wall
around france okay so this the size okay is beyond our imagination okay that’s number one okay where
we where we find the resource to do this second is the question of will why would why we want to
do this like do you want to rebuild the pyramids like okay well yeah that’s another problem okay
And the third problem is this organization, which is how would we organize the people in a way as to build the pyramids?
Because back then, it was a massive undertaking.
But again, people were united by a similar vision, which is like we’re bringing heaven to earth.
Once we build the pyramids, the gods can rest in peace.
The gods can come down and shine a divine light all over us.
So that’s the end of history.
We’re done.
okay just do just work hard for 20 years and then there’ll be heaven on earth okay that’s what drove
them what inspires people today there’s nothing there’s nothing that inspires people today okay
like oh make a billion dollars make a trillion dollars okay that’s what inspires people but you
know what to make a billion dollars it doesn’t mean you have to work hard it just means you have
to cheat and lie and steal okay so so does that make sense yeah it makes sense but well nowadays
we people still have religions right let’s say chris christian is still one of the most powerful
religions and uh people shared and so are are they capable to you know build another
very tremendous or imaginary structural buildings okay okay so um this is hard okay if we understand
it means it’s a different world and the brains work differently back in this age religion was
the end on be all okay you live for your religion okay does that make sense today our religion is
capitalism okay so and capitalism is just make as much money as you possibly can and the difference
is back during the time of the egyptians it was a spiritual age okay so you sought inspiration
from the heavens and people’s imaginations could expand because um they would wake up with ideas
okay today we live in a materialistic age we just say we don’t believe in god we don’t believe in
divinity we just believe in numbers in computers in process okay does that make sense to you okay
it’s hard to understand because you live in a time of complete materialism so you don’t understand
what it means to live a life of spirituality of divinity of trying to bring heaven to earth okay
but if you did do that then you’d be a very different person there were things that you
could do that would be unimaginable to you okay for example if you go visit a temple or a monk
they could meditate for months and months and months they could walk bare feet in the cold
for years and years and years we can’t do that okay because the moment i say hey
meditate for a whole month just don’t eat you can’t do that and you’re like what’s the point
and then their answer is because i want to be with god okay because i want to feel as though
it’s heaven on earth so it’s not just a question of how smart you are it’s a question of faith
and purpose and meaning as well the reality is that not only do we live a life of purpose and
meaning and spirit we also think these things don’t matter okay does that make sense all right
any more questions yep uh so so i do i do agree that we cannot be privileged nowadays and um
i’ll definitely die if you just put me on a pathetic but uh so but like
Like for more modern people, we also can do like a lot of things that previous people
cannot.
So how does the building of pyramid, these things demonstrate that the previous people
are small?
Can you tell me what we do today that is so wonderful and spectacular?
What, what, what?
Yeah, what do we do today that’s so wonderful and spectacular and you think it’s amazing?
What, what?
Give me an example of something that we do today that is spectacular and wonderful.
Okay, yeah.
I mean, give me an example.
Okay.
Okay, thank you, okay?
Yeah.
So give me an example.
Any more questions?
Does it matter for the first person who have the vision to build it
and the second person have the same vision, or it doesn’t really matter?
They just build, they just want to bring heaven to earth?
Look, that’s a great question, okay?
And this is hard for us to understand.
but there’s no sense of individual propriety okay it’s like this is my idea you can’t have it okay
it’s it’s always like we’re in this together okay we don’t know who built the pyramids why because
it doesn’t matter who built the pyramids all that matter is it was built that’s the spirit that they
had nowadays like if i have this idea how do i patent it how do i get credit for it how do i
make money out of it okay and that’s where ideas suck back then it was just like it doesn’t matter
what my idea is what matters is this idea is expressed to other people okay when you have
that spirit when you have that heart when you are when you share who you are then god comes into you
and gives you ideas you understand but if you’re like nope all i want to do is make money
god leaves you okay and that’s hard for us to understand that’s so back then there must have
been a genius a charismatic leader and god gave him this not god but like the spirit world okay
the universe gave him this vision for the pyramids and he knew exactly how to do it
and then he goes to the pharaoh and says listen i have this vision the pharaoh says let’s just
do it okay so the pharaoh got credit but it didn’t matter who got credit it just doesn’t matter
what mattered is it was built you understand there’s no sense of individualism there’s no
sense of capitalism there’s no sense of like private property it’s all like let’s just make
let’s just work together to build a better world okay and yes the people who worked on it were
getting paid but that was that’s not what mattered to them what mattered was achieving this vision
together okay so it’s hard for us to understand but once you have this mentality of common
sacrifice you are able to do tremendous things together okay and i’m sorry but i can’t think
of an example of things that we do wonderful today like chat gpt give me a break okay
all right any more questions all right great so i’ll see you guys next week okay
Source: Predictive History