Catch
last night's episode of The Walking Dead? I did. In contrast to the
season 5 premier episode, last night's episode is one I can relate to as
pertaining to the human condition as opposed to a political ideology
based on historical half-truths and outright untruths about what
happened during world war 2 in Nazi Germany (to which this season's first episode was associated according to the show's producers). War is an ugly thing, but
my view of what happened during world war 2 does not match the
propaganda as to what happened. I do not demonize it as Hollywood
misguidedly does demonize it. That doesn't mean that there aren't people
like Joseph Mengele and Levi Aron in the human community, but these
kinds of individuals are anomalies, not the rule - even for Nazi
Germany. This is why I object strongly to the association the producers
of The Walking Dead tried to make with Nazi Germany in the first episode
of the season - they maligned the whole human race of homo sapiens by
doing that to Nazi Germany. That being said, now on to the second
episode. Human cannibalism.
I agree that there are people in the human population whose civilized behavior is a facade that can be stripped away - Joseph Mengele and Levi Aron attest to this.The only difference between Mengele and Aron is that Mengele lived in a society broken by war while Aron didn't. Mengele's sickness was enabled by war to escalate, while Aron's was not enabled to escalate in peace time America. Cannibalism is also reported to occur in Africa in recent times - a restaurant in Nigeria was shut down early THIS YEAR for reportedly serving human meat. So, without question, there are people among us who do horrible things to other people.
I think the revulsion to eating other human beings is what generally distinguished early modern humans from other hominids now extinct, including the Neanderthals. We know from the archeological evidence that Neanderthals and Homo Erectus were cannibals - they ate members of their own species. We know from the archeological evidence that Neanderthals ate early modern humans. We have genetic evidence that our early modern human ancestors may have also been cannibalistic. But, we changed as a species. We developed a revulsion to this practice of eating other humans and human types. A record of this pivotal change in the direction of human evolution toward social consciousness is preserved in the Jewish Torah in the Noahide laws, one of which prohibits eating the flesh from a living being, and another which pertains to a system of justice.
We know that our advantage over Neanderthals and other hominids of prehistory was the penchant of homo sapiens to create social structure and social bonds - to help one another to survive. Social laws help social groups to create a workable society - one where you don't have to worry that your neighbor or comrade is going to eat you instead of the mammoth your group is hunting - it's dangerous hard work to hunt a mammoth - you don't want to have to worry that your hunting partner might decide that it's an easier meal to just spear and eat you. You have to be able to trust the people with you, otherwise the society built to help you survive breaks down and few survive. Neanderthals lived in very small family groups, and though these small groups certainly hunted together, they never managed to create a larger society able to pass on knowledge between social groups. Neanderthals never managed to create this kind of larger cultural society, in my opinion, most likely due to their penchant for cannibalism. You can't trust your neighbor if he might just eat you, so a large society never evolved for Neanderthals.
Importantly as well to the development of a social consciousness in early modern human populations is the concept of evolving incarnate conscious awareness in early modern humans as a manifestation of the hybrid-vigor resulting from interbreeding with other human types. I believe that what DROVE US as a unique species toward greater social evolution (in contradistinction to the Neanderthals) was the expansion of consciousness we uniquely acquired from interbreeding. As I posted before, I remember my preincarnate journey into physical incarnation. One of my preincarnate memories involves genetic memory - the memory of personal past incarnations, of my own consciousness as an ancestor. Science has confirmed the existence of genetic memory.
One of my preincarnate memories is of preincarnately SEEING (like the ancestral völva of Germanic folk tradition I wrote about in my earlier post) the violence of archaic human prehistory and the penchant for cannibalism among human types who hunted one another. One memory of mine marks and records the boundary (as do the Noahide laws of Jewish tradition) when I believe homo sapiens as a species developed an evolving conscious social awareness. I believe that Jewish tradition preserved the record of the social structure which early modern humans imposed upon themselves in an effort to create greater social structures to improve survival and quality of life for survivors among our kind. I believe Germanic folk tradition preserves a record of the changes in consciousness which occurred which DROVE the creation of these social structures.
Homo sapiens decided to create a social system to improve survival and the quality of life for our species. The Noahide laws of Jewish tradition record this beginning of this system of self-regulating the behavior of our species - DON'T eat limbs from living beings, DO create a system of justice so that we can all live together without fear of one another thus improving the likelihood of the survival of our group. The Germanic folk tradition of the Völva tells WHY we did this. Because WE COULD CARRY THE MEMORY OF BEING HUNTED AND EATEN WITH US BETWEEN LIVES AND INTO THE NEXT ONE. We became aware of ourselves as being something more than a passing piece of meat. We exist beyond this physical plane of experience. In the beginning of our transformation from archaic human to fully modern human, in that time when we were early modern humans - hybrids between what we are now and what we were before becoming fully modern - we experienced the memory and vision I describe below which propelled us to say together as a species:
try as I might to rewrite the story, I cannot forget the truth
and some things can never be fixed
Cannibalism is something that cannot exist, it cannot be "rewritten in our memory of experience" to be something other than what it truly is, it cannot become fixed as a permanent feature in our human society because as many of us (the völva and other early modern human seers by other names) reported our memories to our groups in prehistory, "I cannot forget the truth and I will not allow it to continue in my group." Hybrid early humans recorded the WHY we changed, WHY we created laws regulating the behavior of our species.
This is the poem I wrote over 20 years ago (and as I've shared on this blog before), describing the horror which drove the TRANSFORMATION of our species from archaic human to modern human. This is a early modern human Cro-Magnon memory written in my biology, marking and recording the impetus for evolution of the species group (the also encodes the symbolism of Thor's Hammer - imposing structure upon conditions of chaos: THE THORN (þ)
from the mind inscribed before time
in a dreamlike primeval existence
before my life began, at your side,
I loved you
set before seeing, witnessing
the violent play of creation
rising jagged with twisting thorns
ascending toward there
wild and fierce the bloody storm from below,
a churning pit of cold fire and coal
dripping with pain torn from earth,
cutting edges
raging from a lawless horror,
a terror untamed upon the earth
spreading as a plague coming near
with powerful fury, iterating screams
reverberating with dysrhythm, the battering melody
shattering the noise of silence
in agony melding together,
into a cyclone of spiraling shrill despair
hopeless, the sound of an inky blackness,
line upon line writing
a writhing scroll, twisted with affliction,
death and blood everywhere
below the colorlessness of the sanctuary
where I stood, immobile in the sight
testifying, not forgotten, revealing
some wordless cry of terror
embedding beyond the throat,
becoming chained in the belly
burning my world, descending
into the hallowed depths of my heart
with no way to restrain it,
its direction of attraction
toward me the knife came to cut
please see me! I am here! I cried without sound -
to you as you watched it climb up
as you watched it climb up
with some curious, strange fascination
not seeing me, or disregarded, either way,
outside your direction of attention
as the rabid destruction erupted up the wall,
and all I could do to escape the blade
becoming broken, I turned away,
pulling myself in ... only to be thown away
thrown down, as a coarse grain
into the only history I ever knew, and I know
what you did, throwing me down to be ripped apart,
for those who would destroy me
why do you hate me - still you don't see me,
you don't hear me, and you don't care
try as I might to rewrite the story,
I cannot forget the truth
and some things can never be fixed
The record of this memory from Germanic folk tradition:
She that remembers, the first on earth,
when Gullveig they with lances pierced,
and in the high one's hall her burnt,
thrice burnt, thrice brought forth,
oft not seldom; yet she still lives.
Heidi (Heidr) they called her, whitherso'er she came,
the well-foreseeing Vala (Völva):
wolves she tamed, magic arts she knew, magic arts practiced;
ever she was the joy of evil people.
—Völuspá (21-22), Thorpe's translation
Why was she the joy of evil people? Because she turned us from (evil as we judged it for ourselves) cannibalism and drove our evolution (a joy to us) from archaic humans into modern humans.
I agree that there are people in the human population whose civilized behavior is a facade that can be stripped away - Joseph Mengele and Levi Aron attest to this.The only difference between Mengele and Aron is that Mengele lived in a society broken by war while Aron didn't. Mengele's sickness was enabled by war to escalate, while Aron's was not enabled to escalate in peace time America. Cannibalism is also reported to occur in Africa in recent times - a restaurant in Nigeria was shut down early THIS YEAR for reportedly serving human meat. So, without question, there are people among us who do horrible things to other people.
I think the revulsion to eating other human beings is what generally distinguished early modern humans from other hominids now extinct, including the Neanderthals. We know from the archeological evidence that Neanderthals and Homo Erectus were cannibals - they ate members of their own species. We know from the archeological evidence that Neanderthals ate early modern humans. We have genetic evidence that our early modern human ancestors may have also been cannibalistic. But, we changed as a species. We developed a revulsion to this practice of eating other humans and human types. A record of this pivotal change in the direction of human evolution toward social consciousness is preserved in the Jewish Torah in the Noahide laws, one of which prohibits eating the flesh from a living being, and another which pertains to a system of justice.
We know that our advantage over Neanderthals and other hominids of prehistory was the penchant of homo sapiens to create social structure and social bonds - to help one another to survive. Social laws help social groups to create a workable society - one where you don't have to worry that your neighbor or comrade is going to eat you instead of the mammoth your group is hunting - it's dangerous hard work to hunt a mammoth - you don't want to have to worry that your hunting partner might decide that it's an easier meal to just spear and eat you. You have to be able to trust the people with you, otherwise the society built to help you survive breaks down and few survive. Neanderthals lived in very small family groups, and though these small groups certainly hunted together, they never managed to create a larger society able to pass on knowledge between social groups. Neanderthals never managed to create this kind of larger cultural society, in my opinion, most likely due to their penchant for cannibalism. You can't trust your neighbor if he might just eat you, so a large society never evolved for Neanderthals.
Importantly as well to the development of a social consciousness in early modern human populations is the concept of evolving incarnate conscious awareness in early modern humans as a manifestation of the hybrid-vigor resulting from interbreeding with other human types. I believe that what DROVE US as a unique species toward greater social evolution (in contradistinction to the Neanderthals) was the expansion of consciousness we uniquely acquired from interbreeding. As I posted before, I remember my preincarnate journey into physical incarnation. One of my preincarnate memories involves genetic memory - the memory of personal past incarnations, of my own consciousness as an ancestor. Science has confirmed the existence of genetic memory.
One of my preincarnate memories is of preincarnately SEEING (like the ancestral völva of Germanic folk tradition I wrote about in my earlier post) the violence of archaic human prehistory and the penchant for cannibalism among human types who hunted one another. One memory of mine marks and records the boundary (as do the Noahide laws of Jewish tradition) when I believe homo sapiens as a species developed an evolving conscious social awareness. I believe that Jewish tradition preserved the record of the social structure which early modern humans imposed upon themselves in an effort to create greater social structures to improve survival and quality of life for survivors among our kind. I believe Germanic folk tradition preserves a record of the changes in consciousness which occurred which DROVE the creation of these social structures.
Homo sapiens decided to create a social system to improve survival and the quality of life for our species. The Noahide laws of Jewish tradition record this beginning of this system of self-regulating the behavior of our species - DON'T eat limbs from living beings, DO create a system of justice so that we can all live together without fear of one another thus improving the likelihood of the survival of our group. The Germanic folk tradition of the Völva tells WHY we did this. Because WE COULD CARRY THE MEMORY OF BEING HUNTED AND EATEN WITH US BETWEEN LIVES AND INTO THE NEXT ONE. We became aware of ourselves as being something more than a passing piece of meat. We exist beyond this physical plane of experience. In the beginning of our transformation from archaic human to fully modern human, in that time when we were early modern humans - hybrids between what we are now and what we were before becoming fully modern - we experienced the memory and vision I describe below which propelled us to say together as a species:
try as I might to rewrite the story, I cannot forget the truth
and some things can never be fixed
Cannibalism is something that cannot exist, it cannot be "rewritten in our memory of experience" to be something other than what it truly is, it cannot become fixed as a permanent feature in our human society because as many of us (the völva and other early modern human seers by other names) reported our memories to our groups in prehistory, "I cannot forget the truth and I will not allow it to continue in my group." Hybrid early humans recorded the WHY we changed, WHY we created laws regulating the behavior of our species.
This is the poem I wrote over 20 years ago (and as I've shared on this blog before), describing the horror which drove the TRANSFORMATION of our species from archaic human to modern human. This is a early modern human Cro-Magnon memory written in my biology, marking and recording the impetus for evolution of the species group (the also encodes the symbolism of Thor's Hammer - imposing structure upon conditions of chaos: THE THORN (þ)
from the mind inscribed before time
in a dreamlike primeval existence
before my life began, at your side,
I loved you
set before seeing, witnessing
the violent play of creation
rising jagged with twisting thorns
ascending toward there
wild and fierce the bloody storm from below,
a churning pit of cold fire and coal
dripping with pain torn from earth,
cutting edges
raging from a lawless horror,
a terror untamed upon the earth
spreading as a plague coming near
with powerful fury, iterating screams
reverberating with dysrhythm, the battering melody
shattering the noise of silence
in agony melding together,
into a cyclone of spiraling shrill despair
hopeless, the sound of an inky blackness,
line upon line writing
a writhing scroll, twisted with affliction,
death and blood everywhere
below the colorlessness of the sanctuary
where I stood, immobile in the sight
testifying, not forgotten, revealing
some wordless cry of terror
embedding beyond the throat,
becoming chained in the belly
burning my world, descending
into the hallowed depths of my heart
with no way to restrain it,
its direction of attraction
toward me the knife came to cut
please see me! I am here! I cried without sound -
to you as you watched it climb up
as you watched it climb up
with some curious, strange fascination
not seeing me, or disregarded, either way,
outside your direction of attention
as the rabid destruction erupted up the wall,
and all I could do to escape the blade
becoming broken, I turned away,
pulling myself in ... only to be thown away
thrown down, as a coarse grain
into the only history I ever knew, and I know
what you did, throwing me down to be ripped apart,
for those who would destroy me
why do you hate me - still you don't see me,
you don't hear me, and you don't care
try as I might to rewrite the story,
I cannot forget the truth
and some things can never be fixed
The record of this memory from Germanic folk tradition:
She that remembers, the first on earth,
when Gullveig they with lances pierced,
and in the high one's hall her burnt,
thrice burnt, thrice brought forth,
oft not seldom; yet she still lives.
Heidi (Heidr) they called her, whitherso'er she came,
the well-foreseeing Vala (Völva):
wolves she tamed, magic arts she knew, magic arts practiced;
ever she was the joy of evil people.
—Völuspá (21-22), Thorpe's translation
Why was she the joy of evil people? Because she turned us from (evil as we judged it for ourselves) cannibalism and drove our evolution (a joy to us) from archaic humans into modern humans.
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