90:0.1 (986.1) The
evolution
of religious observances progressed from placation, avoidance,
exorcism, coercion, conciliation, and propitiation to sacrifice,
atonement, and redemption. The technique of religious ritual passed from
the forms of the primitive cult through fetishes to magic and miracles;
and as ritual became more complex in response to man's increasingly
complex concept of the sermaterial realms, it was inevitably dominated
by medicine men, shamans, and priests.
Please note: all pictures and notes in this book are not part of the original book!
90:0.2 (986.2)
In the advancing concepts of primitive
man the spirit world was eventually regarded as being unresponsive to
the ordinary mortal. Only the exceptional among humans could catch the
ear of the gods; only the extraordinary man or woman would be heard by
the spirits. Religion thus enters on a new phase, a stage wherein it
gradually becomes secondhanded; always does a medicine man, a shaman, or
a priest intervene between the religionist and the object of worship.
And today most Urantia systems of organized religious belief are passing
through this level of evolutionary development.
90:0.3 (986.3)
Evolutionary religion is born of a
simple and all-powerful fear, the fear which surges through the human
mind when confronted with the unknown, the inexplicable, and the
incomprehensible. Religion eventually achieves the profoundly simple
realization of an all-powerful love, the love which sweeps irresistibly
through the human
soul when awakened to the conception of the limitless affection of the
Universal Father
for the sons of the universe. But in between the beginning and the
consummation of religious evolution, there intervene the long ages of
the shamans, who presume to stand between man and God as intermediaries,
interpreters, and intercessors.
90:1.1 (986.4)
The shaman was the ranking medicine man, the ceremonial fetishman, and the focus
personality
for all the practices of evolutionary religion. In many groups the shaman outranked the war chief, marking the beginning of the church
domination of the state. The shaman sometimes functioned as a priest and
even as a priest-king. Some of the later tribes had both the earlier
shaman-medicine men (seers) and the later appearing shaman-priests. And
in many cases the office of shaman became hereditary.
90:1.2 (986.5)
Since in olden times anything abnormal
was ascribed to spirit possession, any striking mental or physical
abnormality constituted qualification for being a medicine man. Many of
these men were epileptic, many of the women hysteric, and these two
types accounted for a good deal of ancient inspiration as well as spirit
and devil possession. Quite a few of these earliest of priests were of a
class which has since been denominated paranoiac.
90:1.3 (987.1)
While they may have practiced
deception in minor matters, the great majority of the shamans believed
in the fact of their spirit possession. Women who were able to throw
themselves into a trance or a cataleptic fit became powerful
shamanesses; later, such women became prophets and spirit mediums. Their
cataleptic trances usually involved alleged communications with the
ghosts of the dead. Many female shamans were also professional dancers.
90:1.4 (987.2)
But not all shamans were
self-deceived; many were shrewd and able tricksters. As the profession
developed, a novice was required to serve an apprenticeship of ten years
of hardship and self-denial to qualify as a medicine man. The shamans
developed a professional mode of dress and affected a mysterious
conduct. They frequently employed drugs to induce certain physical
states which would impress and mystify the tribesmen. Sleight-of-hand
feats were regarded as sernatural by the common folk, and
ventriloquism was first used by shrewd priests. Many of the olden
shamans unwittingly stumbled onto hypnotism; others induced autohypnosis
by prolonged staring at their navels.
90:1.5 (987.3)
While many resorted to these tricks
and deceptions, their reputation as a class, after all, stood on
apparent achievement. When a shaman failed in his undertakings, if he
could not advance a plausible alibi, he was either demoted or killed.
Thus the honest shamans early perished; only the shrewd actors survived.
90:1.6 (987.4)
It was shamanism that took the
exclusive direction of tribal affairs out of the hands of the old and
the strong and lodged it in the hands of the shrewd, the clever, and the
farsighted.
Bible References and Comparison
90:2.1 (987.5)
Spirit conjuring was a very precise
and highly complicated procedure, comparable to present-day church
rituals conducted in an ancient tongue. The human race very early sought
for superhuman help, for
revelation; and men believed that the shaman actually received
such revelations. While the shamans utilized the great power of
suggestion in their work, it was almost invariably negative suggestion;
only in very recent times has the technique of positive suggestion been
employed. In the early development of their profession the shamans began
to specialize in such vocations as rain making, disease healing, and
crime detecting. To heal diseases was not, however, the chief function
of a shamanic medicine man; it was, rather, to know and to control the
hazards of living.
90:2.2 (987.6)
Ancient black art, both religious and
secular, was called white art when practiced by either priests, seers,
shamans, or medicine men. The practitioners of the black art were called
sorcerers, magicians, wizards, witches, enchanters, necromancers,
conjurers, and soothsayers. As time passed, all such purported contact
with the sernatural was classified either as witchcraft or
shamancraft.
90:2.3 (987.7)
Witchcraft embraced the magic performed by earlier, irregular, and unrecognized spirits; shamancraft had to do with
miracles performed by regular spirits and recognized gods of
the tribe. In later times the witch became associated with the devil,
and thus was the stage set for the many comparatively recent exhibitions
of religious intolerance. Witchcraft was a religion with many primitive
tribes.
90:2.4 (987.8)
The shamans were great believers in
the mission of chance as revelatory of the will of the spirits; they
frequently cast lots to arrive at decisions. Modern survivals of this
proclivity for casting lots are illustrated, not only in the many games
of chance, but also in the well-known " counting-out " rhymes. Once, the
person counted out must die; now, he is only
it in some childish game. That which was serious business to primitive man has survived as a diversion of the modern child.
90:2.5 (988.1)
The medicine men put great trust in
signs and omens, such as, " When you hear the sound of a rustling in the
tops of the mulberry trees, then shall you bestir yourself. " Very
early in the history of the race the shamans turned their attention to
the stars. Primitive astrology was a world-wide belief and practice;
dream interpreting also became widespread. All this was soon followed by
the appearance of those temperamental shamanesses who professed to be
able to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
90:2.6 (988.2)
Though of ancient origin, the rain
makers, or weather shamans, have persisted right on down through the
ages. A severe drought meant death to the early agriculturists; weather
control was the object of much ancient magic. Civilized man still makes
the weather the common topic of conversation. The olden peoples all
believed in the power of the shaman as a rain maker, but it was
customary to kill him when he failed, unless he could offer a plausible
excuse to account for the failure.
90:2.7 (988.3)
Again and again did the Caesars banish
the astrologers, but they invariably returned because of the popular
belief in their powers. They could not be driven out, and even in the
sixteenth century after
Christ
the directors of Occidental church and state were the patrons of
astrology. Thousands of sposedly intelligent people still believe that
one may be born under the domination of a lucky or an unlucky star;
that the juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies determines the outcome of
various terrestrial adventures. Fortunetellers are still patronized by
the credulous.
90:2.8 (988.4)
The Greeks believed in the efficacy of
oracular advice, the Chinese used magic as protection against demons,
shamanism flourished in India, and it still openly persists in central
Asia. It is an only recently abandoned practice throughout much of the
world.
90:2.9 (988.5)
Ever and anon, true prophets and
teachers arose to denounce and expose shamanism. Even the vanishing red
man had such a prophet within the past hundred years, the Shawnee
Teuskwatowa, who predicted the eclipse of the sun in 1808 and denounced
the vices of the white man. Many true teachers have appeared among the
various tribes and races all through the long ages of evolutionary
history. And they will ever continue to appear to challenge the shamans
or priests of any age who oppose general education and attempt to thwart
scientific progress. *
90:2.10 (988.6)
In many ways and by devious methods
the olden shamans established their reputations as voices of God and
custodians of providence. They sprinkled the newborn with water and
conferred names on them; they circumcised the males. They presided
over all burial ceremonies and made due announcement of the safe arrival
of the dead in spiritland.
90:2.11 (988.7)
The shamanic priests and medicine men
often became very wealthy through the accretion of their various fees
which were ostensibly offerings to the spirits. Not infrequently a
shaman would accumulate practically all the material wealth of his
tribe. on the death of a wealthy man it was customary to divide his
property equally with the shaman and some public enterprise or charity.
This practice still obtains in some parts of Tibet, where one half the
male population belongs to this class of nonproducers.
90:2.12 (989.1)
The shamans dressed well and usually
had a number of wives; they were the original aristocracy, being exempt
from all tribal restrictions. They were very often of low-grade mind and
morals. They spressed their rivals by denominating them witches or
sorcerers and very frequently rose to such positions of influence and
power that they were able to dominate the chiefs or kings.
90:2.13 (989.2)
Primitive man regarded the shaman as a
necessary evil; he feared him but did not love him. Early man respected
knowledge; he honored and rewarded wisdom. The shaman was mostly fraud,
but the veneration for shamanism well illustrates the premium put on
wisdom in the
evolution of the race.
Bible References and Comparison
90:3.1 (989.3)
Since ancient man regarded himself and
his material environment as being directly responsive to the whims of
the ghosts and the fancies of the spirits, it is not strange that his
religion should have been so exclusively concerned with material
affairs. Modern man attacks his material problems directly; he
recognizes that matter is responsive to the intelligent manipulation of
mind. Primitive man likewise desired to modify and even to control the
life and energies of the physical domains; and since his limited
comprehension of the cosmos led him to the belief that ghosts, spirits,
and gods were personally and immediately concerned with the detailed
control of life and matter, he logically directed his efforts to winning
the favor and sport of these superhuman agencies.
90:3.2 (989.4)
Viewed in this light, much of the
inexplicable and irrational in the ancient cults is understandable. The
ceremonies of the cult were primitive man's attempt to control the
material world in which he found himself. And many of his efforts were
directed to the end of prolonging life and insuring health. Since all
diseases and death itself were originally regarded as spirit phenomena,
it was inevitable that the shamans, while functioning as medicine men
and priests, should also have labored as doctors and surgeons.
90:3.3 (989.5)
The primitive mind may be handicapped
by lack of facts, but it is for all that logical. When thoughtful men
observe disease and death, they set about to determine the causes of
these visitations, and in accordance with their understanding, the
shamans and the scientists have propounded the following theories of
affliction:
90:3.4 (989.6)
1.
Ghosts—direct spirit influences. The earliest hypothesis advanced in explanation of disease and death was that spirits caused disease by enticing the
soul
out of the body; if it failed to return, death ensued. The ancients so
feared the malevolent action of disease-producing ghosts that ailing
individuals would often be deserted without even food or water.
Regardless of the erroneous basis for these beliefs, they did
effectively isolate afflicted individuals and prevent the spread of
contagious disease.
90:3.5 (989.7)
2.
Violence—obvious causes. The causes for some accidents and
deaths were so easy to identify that they were early removed from the
category of ghost action. Fatalities and wounds attendant on war,
animal combat, and other readily identifiable agencies were considered
as natural occurrences. But it was long believed that the spirits were
still responsible for delayed healing or for the infection of wounds of
even " natural " causation. If no observable natural agent could be
discovered, the spirit ghosts were still held responsible for disease
and death.
90:3.6 (990.1)
Today, in Africa and elsewhere may be
found primitive peoples who kill someone every time a nonviolent death
occurs. Their medicine men indicate the guilty parties. If a mother dies
in childbirth, the child is immediately strangled—a life for a life.
90:3.7 (990.2)
3.
Magic—the influence of enemies. Much sickness was thought to be
caused by bewitchment, the action of the evil eye and the magic
pointing bow. At one time it was really dangerous to point a finger at
anyone; it is still regarded as ill-mannered to point. In cases of
obscure disease and death the ancients would hold a formal inquest,
dissect the body, and settle on some finding as the cause of death;
otherwise the death would be laid to witchcraft, thus necessitating the
execution of the witch responsible therefor. These ancient coroner's
inquests saved many a sposed witch's life. Among some it was believed
that a tribesman could die as a result of his own witchcraft, in which
event no one was accused.
90:3.8 (990.3)
4.
Sin—punishment for taboo violation. In comparatively recent
times it has been believed that sickness is a punishment for sin,
personal or racial. Among peoples traversing this level of
evolution
the prevailing theory is that one cannot be afflicted unless one has
violated a taboo. To regard sickness and suffering as " arrows of the
Almighty
within them " is typical of such beliefs. The Chinese and Mesopotamians
long regarded disease as the result of the action of evil demons,
although the Chaldeans also looked on the stars as the cause of
suffering. This theory of disease as a consequence of divine wrath is
still prevalent among many reputedly civilized groups of Urantians.
90:3.9 (990.4)
5.
Natural causation. Mankind has been very slow to learn the
material secrets of the interrelationship of cause and effect in the
physical domains of energy, matter, and life. The ancient Greeks, having
preserved the traditions of
Adamson'
s teachings, were among the first to recognize that all disease is the
result of natural causes. Slowly and certainly the unfolding of a
scientific era is destroying man's age-old theories of sickness and
death. Fever was one of the first human ailments to be removed from the
category of sernatural disorders, and progressively the era of science
has broken the fetters of ignorance which so long imprisoned the human
mind. An understanding of old age and contagion is gradually
obliterating man's fear of ghosts, spirits, and gods as the personal
perpetrators of human misery and mortal suffering.
90:3.10 (990.5)
Evolution unerringly achieves its
end: It imbues man with that superstitious fear of the unknown and dread
of the unseen which is the scaffolding for the God concept. And having
witnessed the birth of an advanced comprehension of
Deity,
through the co-ordinate action of revelation, this same technique of
evolution then unerringly sets in motion those forces of thought which
will inexorably obliterate the scaffolding, which has served its
purpose.
Bible References and Comparison
90:4.1 (990.6)
The entire life of ancient men was
prophylactic; their religion was in no small measure a technique for
disease prevention. And regardless of the error in their theories, they
were wholehearted in putting them into effect; they had unbounded
faith in their methods of treatment, and that, in itself, is a powerful remedy.
90:4.2 (991.1)
The faith required to get well under
the foolish ministrations of one of these ancient shamans was, after
all, not materially different from that which is required to experience
healing at the hands of some of his later-day successors who engage in
the nonscientific treatment of disease.
90:4.3 (991.2)
The more primitive tribes greatly
feared the sick, and for long ages they were carefully avoided,
shamefully neglected. It was a great advance in humanitarianism when the
evolution
of shamancraft produced priests and medicine men who consented to treat
disease. Then it became customary for the entire clan to crowd into the
sickroom to assist the shaman in howling the disease ghosts away. It
was not uncommon for a woman to be the diagnosing shaman, while a man
would administer treatment. The usual method of diagnosing disease was
to examine the entrails of an animal.
90:4.4 (991.3)
Disease was treated by chanting,
howling, laying on of hands, breathing on the patient, and many other
techniques. In later times the resort to temple sleep, during which
healing sposedly took place, became widespread. The medicine men
eventually essayed actual surgery in connection with temple slumber;
among the first operations was that of trephining the skull to allow a
headache spirit to escape. The shamans learned to treat fractures and
dislocations, to open boils and abscesses; the shamanesses became adept
at midwifery.
90:4.5 (991.4)
It was a common method of treatment to
rub something magical on an infected or blemished spot on the body,
throw the charm away, and sposedly experience a cure. If anyone should
chance to pick the discarded charm, it was believed he would
immediately acquire the infection or blemish. It was a long time before
herbs and other real medicines were introduced. Massage was developed in
connection with incantation, rubbing the spirit out of the body, and
was preceded by efforts to rub medicine in, even as moderns attempt to
rub liniments in. Cping and sucking the affected parts, together with
bloodletting, were thought to be of value in getting rid of a
disease-producing spirit.
90:4.6 (991.5)
Since water was a potent fetish, it
was utilized in the treatment of many ailments. For long it was believed
that the spirit causing the sickness could be eliminated by sweating.
Vapor baths were highly regarded; natural hot springs soon blossomed as
primitive health resorts. Early man discovered that heat would relieve
pain; he used sunlight, fresh animal organs, hot clay, and hot stones,
and many of these methods are still employed. Rhythm was practiced in an
effort to influence the spirits; the tom-toms were universal.
90:4.7 (991.6)
Among some people disease was thought
to be caused by a wicked conspiracy between spirits and animals. This
gave rise to the belief that there existed a beneficent plant remedy for
every animal-caused disease. The red men were especially devoted to the
plant theory of universal remedies; they always put a drop of blood in
the root hole left when the plant was pulled .
90:4.8 (991.7)
Fasting, dieting, and counterirritants
were often used as remedial measures. Human secretions, being
definitely magical, were highly regarded; blood and urine were thus
among the earliest medicines and were soon augmented by roots and
various salts. The shamans believed that disease spirits could be driven
out of the body by foul-smelling and bad-tasting medicines. Purging
very early became a routine treatment, and the
values of raw cocoa and quinine were among the earliest pharmaceutical discoveries.
90:4.9 (992.1)
The Greeks were the first to evolve
truly rational methods of treating the sick. Both the Greeks and the
Egyptians received their medical knowledge from the Ehrates valley.
Oil and wine was a very early medicine for treating wounds; castor oil
and opium were used by the Sumerians. Many of these ancient and
effective secret remedies lost their power when they became known;
secrecy has always been essential to the successful practice of fraud
and serstition. Only facts and truth court the full light of
comprehension and rejoice in the illumination and enlightenment of
scientific research.
90:5.1 (992.2)
The essence of the ritual is the
perfection of its performance; among savages it must be practiced with
exact precision. It is only when the ritual has been correctly carried
out that the ceremony possesses compelling power over the spirits. If
the ritual is faulty, it only arouses the anger and resentment of the
gods. Therefore, since man's slowly evolving mind conceived that the
technique of ritual was the decisive factor in its efficacy, it
was inevitable that the early shamans should sooner or later evolve
into a priesthood trained to direct the meticulous practice of the
ritual. And so for tens of thousands of years endless rituals have
hampered society and cursed civilization, have been an intolerable
burden to every act of life, every racial undertaking.
90:5.2 (992.3)
Ritual is the technique of sanctifying
custom; ritual creates and perpetuates myths as well as contributing to
the preservation of social and religious customs. Again, ritual itself
has been fathered by myths. Rituals are often at first social, later
becoming economic and finally acquiring the sanctity and dignity of
religious ceremonial. Ritual may be personal or group in practice—or
both—as illustrated by prayer, dancing, and drama.
90:5.3 (992.4)
Words become a part of ritual, such as
the use of terms like amen and selah. The habit of swearing, profanity,
represents a prostitution of former ritualistic repetition of holy
names. The making of pilgrimages to sacred shrines is a very ancient
ritual. The ritual next grew into elaborate ceremonies of purification,
cleansing, and sanctification. The initiation ceremonies of the
primitive tribal secret societies were in reality a crude religious
rite. The worship technique of the olden mystery cults was just one long
performance of accumulated religious ritual. Ritual finally developed
into the modern types of social ceremonials and religious worship,
services embracing prayer, song, responsive reading, and other
individual and gro spiritual devotions.
90:5.4 (992.5)
The priests evolved from shamans
through oracles, diviners, singers, dancers, weathermakers, guardians of
religious relics, temple custodians, and foretellers of events, to the
status of actual directors of religious worship. Eventually the office
became hereditary; a continuous priestly caste arose.
90:5.5 (992.6)
As religion evolved, priests began to
specialize according to their innate talents or special predilections.
Some became singers, others prayers, and still others sacrificers; later
came the orators—preachers. And when religion became institutionalized,
these priests claimed to " hold the keys of heaven. "
90:5.6 (992.7)
The priests have always sought to
impress and awe the common people by conducting the religious ritual in
an ancient tongue and by sundry magical passes so to mystify the
worshipers as to enhance their own piety and authority. The great danger
in all this is that the ritual tends to become a substitute for
religion.
90:5.7 (993.1)
The priesthoods have done much to delay scientific development and to hinder
spiritual progress,
but they have contributed to the stabilization of civilization and to
the enhancement of certain kinds of culture. But many modern priests
have ceased to function as directors of the ritual of the worship of
God, having turned their attention to theology—the attempt to define
God.
90:5.8 (993.2)
It is not denied that the priests have
been a millstone about the neck of the races, but the true religious
leaders have been invaluable in pointing the way to higher and better
realities.
90:5.9 (993.3)
[Presented by a Melchizedek of
Nebadon. ]
Bible References and Comparison
Paper 91: The Evolution of Prayer