A second piece using material originally intended for appendices to the 'life story'. 

Part One

It is an ancient game indeed. By the time of the Roman Empire it was certainly in full swing. Since then, the details have changed and it has gone more fully global, but the face has remained the same.

Just how far back, nobody can say for sure. The Greeks, the Pharaohs in Egypt; Mesopotamia, ancient Babylon, beyond, who knows exactly? It appears to have undergone a progressive 'thickening' over time, until we arrive at the current global mess.

All kinds of descriptions and designations can be brought to the table, in order to get a handle on what has been going on. Ten years ago, following terms employed by Riane Eisler and adopted enthusiastically by Terence McKenna, I thought in terms of 'dominator culture' and 'partnership culture'.

The names say it all, really. Dominator culture is based on hierarchies, pyramids of power and control, of master and servant. Look around and ye shall see!

Apologists aplenty exist for dominator culture. I used to have a friend who would make the argument well. It is human nature, he would claim. Human beings are not altogether nice, and some will be nasty to others. It is perfectly natural, therefore, that we live in a world that is organised according to power structures, where some groups of people tell other groups what to do, and if they don't do as they are told, the consequences won't be pleasant.

I question this estimation of 'human nature'. It comes dripping with Darwinian cliches: nature red in tooth and claw; survival of the fittest. I question the entire notion of human nature. Show me someone who perfectly embodies this 'human nature'. You won't find one. The idea is an abstraction, and each and every person is different.

This old friend, who insisted that the political world was an inevitable reflection of real human nature, would finally fall silent when I asked him why, if it was so natural, he wasn't involved in the political world himself. The answer, which he would not communicate himself, is that he was a primarily decent, kind, and honest person, and wouldn't touch such a dirty vicious world with a bargepole.

Archaeological evidence also points up how this state of affairs is not inevitable. Human societies have not always conformed to a rigid dominator-style system. Catal Huyuk, in modern-day Anatolia, Turkey, is the site of a Neolithic civilisation that has undergone extensive excavation and archaeological research. Findings point to a society with far fewer differences between people socially and materially than is typically the case in later cultures. Distinctions between the functions of men and women are also less; the society is less viciously polarised. 

In Eisler's definitions, dominator culture is characterised by ranking, while partnership societies manifest linking. Catal Huyuk is a great example of the latter.

The Vinca culture of the Balkans, fully analysed by Marija Gimbutas, is similarly partnership in style; so, even more remarkably, is that of Gobekli Tepi in south-east Anatolia.

Part Two

Somewhere along the line, the evidence suggests, something happened to 'civilisation, and it wasn't all that pretty. Relatively peaceful societies were usurped and replaced by others more violent and warlike, characterised by hierarchies of control, and a dog-eat-dog mentality.

Aligned with, and parallel to, this change was a reshaping of the spiritual world. 'Ranking' became the name of the game here as well, with the emergence of stricter hierarchies, whereby spiritual gnosis was wrested from the majority of the population and officially invested in a priestly class. Spiritual knowing was no longer the birthright of every individual human being; it was the exclusive domain of a specialised group, who thereby wielded influence and power.

From now on, direct contact with the divine is out; want to speak to god? - go see the dude in a long robe and funny cap....       

"You are God: remember!" The rallying cry from Timothy Leary became consigned to the dustbin of amnesia. The natural mystical urge was actively discouraged, if not violently suppressed. 'Don't bother yourself with such concerns; leave the priests to look after all that for you. Just go back to work and shut up.'

It is not surprising, given the fragmented - not to say broken, lost, forgotten - state of serious spiritual traditions in the west that the 1970s pilgrim on the path of gnosis should have looked east. The various -isms emanating from that direction seemed like unbroken traditions, handing down theory and practice in abundance for the would-be mystic or great sage. 

In reality, there has always been an alternative, a counter-culture, in the west. Down, maybe, beaten hard and fast on the head by official versions of reality; but never out. This is the noble thread of human life, affirming its connection with the natural world, and insisting on the individual's quest for direct experience of the true nature of reality.

Druids and other pre-Christian Celtic traditions; Gnostics, Cathars, Mystery Schools in their various guises; troubadours, witches and shamans, practitioners of herbal lore; levellers, diggers, ranters. All have gone to form a countercultural thread of dissent to the orthodoxy running through the ages.

Our own faltering and imperfect efforts to create an alternative in the 1970s were heir to this noble tradition. Our lineage was magnificent, inspirational, carrying all before it. It was one of our shortcomings - certainly one of my shortcomings - that we did not adequately recognise our heritage, which would have provided strength, confidence, context. Instead, the perceptual fuel for our great adventures was provided by novelty, a constant sense of novelty. 

Everything seemed new, as if being discovered for the first time. This is barely surprising, given that the previous generations were characterised by stifling conformity and conventionality. The religious and cultural orthodoxies had done a brilliant job of snuffing out any hint of the great gnostic adventure from the mainstream. For all we knew, things could have been like this forever.

Because our ancient roots were either unknown or insufficiently acknowledged, they failed to provide strength, solidity, gravitas, and a wider perspective. Too much grooving on the latest, on the new; we were at times like dandelion clocks blown about on the westerly wind.

Words: Catal Huyuk, Gobleki Tepi, Marija Gimbutas 

Images:  Catal Huyuk

                Mother Goddess, Catal Huyuk

                Gobekli Tepi