21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

I don’t mean to suggest that religious institutions need to be abandoned. But there is room, I suggest, for more secular forms of ceremony, celebration and festivities around nature. This was once what all beliefs, religions and worship seemed to be about. It was the basis of ‘organic’ cultures — completely wedded to everyday life in all its aspects. (It could even be claimed that the immanence of God in the Christian believer is itself borrowed from the more ancient belief of the gods (especially Dionysius) taking possession of worshippers.) So it looks like organic societies come out of this question of soul better than our more ‘developed’ world, and its conflicting religions and secular culture. Some authors criticise the apparent simplicity of the belief systems and mindset of indigenous peoples, suggesting that there is no difference between belief and magic. But it would be fairer to recognise that indigenous peoples’ closeness to nature is a huge benefit. It is us in the ‘developed’ nations, I suggest, who have lost the way.

John Higgs says: ‘The awareness of what makes nature sacred is what separates us from it. There is no way to square this circle. It is like the grief felt at the loss of a loved one, in that there is no way to make it right.’ (The Future Starts Here — Higgs is referring to Paul Kingsnorth and the Dark Mountain Project.) People are at once part of nature and separate from her and Higgs is correct that this is something that can never be resolved. But this is the human condition, and it could be turned around to be a subject of special celebration rather than a problem.

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