The Buddha From Babylon

by Harvey Kraft

  Both the Mondial Cosmology’s world framework and the Dual Cosmology’s physical-spiritual dichotomy continued into the age of organized religions.

  In the nascent days of megalith religious architecture, the inherited belief in energy channels activated through sacred trees, totems, and obelisk towers inspired the construction of sky-high stone “mountains“— mounds, pyramids and ziggurats—to serve as stairways and pipelines to Heaven. Whole cultures devoted themselves to tapping into and aligning with the celestial venues. Temples were built to serve as cosmic landing and launching stations used to acquire knowledge and interact with the divine ones. In time, they installed idols to provide the gods with bodies to inhabit when they descended into this world.

  DIVINE POWER

  Gods were invested with the roles and duties of creation, protection, and sustenance of nature and its inhabitants. Therefore, the shamans explained, the tribe needed to regularly appreciate the good graces received from the divine lords. Although humans had been accustomed to honor the spirits in order to acquire goods or appease them, the shamans made clear that the favor of the gods would require a more sincere expression—daily worship and shared sacrifice of all that is gained.

  As the “Spirit-Talkers” spoke to spirits, now the shamans spoke to the gods.

  As the “Spirit-Listeners” listened to spirits, now the shamans received instructions from the gods. Earlier the “Spirit-Callers” had called upon the spirits. Now the shamans called upon the gods to protect and nourish the tribes through the treacherous terrain of the mortal domain. Possessing all the skills required of the “Spirit-Seers,” the shamans had crafted for themselves the role of divine mediums. Thus the tribal shamans had achieved the status of sages and prophets. Able to give voice to the will of the gods they served as guides for their flocks on Earth. Strengthening their hold with ritual ceremony and fetish objects, they superseded the power of all other leaders gaining primary control of tribal daily life.

  The need to communicate their visions and lead their people to engage with the laws of the gods advanced the development of storytelling languages. Returning from trance journeys to the divine realm, the seer-shamans developed symbols, images, and vocabularies to describe the deities in visually poetic terms and convey parables replete with meaningful metaphors.

  The physical forms of the gods—surreal composite images painted or sculpted in wood or stone—were selected from human, animal, ancestral, elemental, or celestial iconography. Using channel-opening ceremonies, the shamans guided the gods down into the human plane and into the idols. When the idols became inhabited they would embody divine attributes, such as protection, sustenance, or fertility. When they were angered the idols would throw thunderbolts and unleash elemental powers to cause destructive fires, rains, or winds.

  Stories about the deities were crafted to resonate on different levels depending on the listener’s ability to conceive. Tales of supernatural feats were designed to imprint upon the young a respect for divine power and cultivate dependence upon the gods. For adults, the myths would inspire appreciation of divine beneficence with corresponding fealty. Tribal elders and leaders were expected to request advice and understand the sacred messages needed for wise governance.

  The shamans called for worship of the gods and the social organization of tribes according to divine structure and laws. To ensure that their community would receive the blessings of protection, fruition, nutrition, and their perpetuation, they warned that disregarding the supreme commands of the gods—whether by ignorance or negligence—would invite suffering, chaos, destruction, and even deadly consequences. Solidifying their role as divine intermediaries, shamans came to exert the greatest authority over the tribe. No longer could secular tribal leaders send others on a hunt or make communal decisions without consulting the shaman for assurance of divine consent.

  ACCOUNTABILITY

  The seers had espoused the absolute authority of the gods to establish their dominance. But their own status remained vulnerable, especially when their tribes would be confronted with prolonged hardships. A tribe could turn on a shaman in the event of scarcity, sickness, or defeat by another tribe. Prone to accusations that the gods and spirits had turned their backs on them, the shamans looked for ways to redirect responsibility away from themselves. This hurdle led them to emphasize the idea of individual accountability.

  In designing the initial version of the Doctrine of Human Accountability, the seers established that human behaviors influenced the actions of spirits. Viewing spirits as independent agents, they could either attach to or separate from any host they inhabited. Based on the belief that the world operated in an orderly fashion due to the work of good spirits aligned with the goodwill of the gods, the idea arose that people must be accountable for holding on to the good spirits. Once a person dies, their spirit would depart for the higher realm and complete their duty by returning to make a good report to the gods.

  At any time a good spirit could abandon the body of a human being who defied, ignored, or defiled the will of the gods. Into this spiritual vacuum a malevolent spirit would invade the body and bring with it the ravages of loneliness, chaos, hunger, or insufferable death. These spirits were wild. Bucking the control of the gods, they created chaos and danger. The gods banished them from their sight.

  This doctrine for the first time placed responsibility on the individual human being to behave properly in order to hold on to his or her good spirit until the time of death. But as misbehaviors or disasters related to the tribe could be blamed on unsanctified spirits, the shamans were still vulnerable to charges that they caused bad spirits to invade the tribe.

  Consequently, in an updated version of the Doctrine of Human Accountability, human beings were assigned a permanent spirit—named “the soul.“ In this revised context, the soul acted as the lifetime recorder of information about its host. From this point forward, responsibility for actions were transferred entirely to the free will of individuals.

  Unlike the mobile spirits inhabiting the local animals or watering hole, the soul was conceived of as a life-giving spirit tasked with animating sentient beings from birth to death. Once the flame of life was extinguished, the human soul would separate from the body and return to the divine realm with a report to the gods. There the person would be judged to have been “law-abiding” or “sinful” depending on whether his acts in life were honorable or defiled the laws of the community or nature. The honored one would be lauded by the gods and remembered by the tribe, while memory of the sinful would be lost forever. The divine review of the soul allowed the shamans to connect retribution with the individual actions of tribal members.

  Now when a community suffered setbacks, the shaman could shift blame for any hardships onto others. When leadership failed they would claim that the good spirits had abandoned the land because the gods had grown weary of the behavior of the chief. Declaring that the gods wanted the perpetrator to be punished, they elevated the need for punishment to an essential component of reclaiming the favor of the gods.

  THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS

  The survival of nomadic tribes depended on migratory animal hunts, beach-combing for seafood, and gathering of edible fruits and vegetables. They had ventured out of Africa in waves. From 70,000 to 50,000 years ago some tribes crossed the Bab-al-Mandab Strait separating present-day Yemen from Djibouti and followed the southern coastline of Asia all the way to Australia. Another migration some 50,000 years ago crossed from Egypt into the Levant and then headed north into Europe. Some of these tribes diverged to take an eastern route into Central Asia and beyond. Finding temporary shelters in caves or in trees, they developed distinctly human cultures featuring religious beliefs and ceremonies involving spirits and gods.

  As far back as 30000 BCE cave dwellings in Central Europe (i.e., Chauvet Cave, France) featured deified animal drawings and figurines of sorcerers wearing lion-head masks and bison bodywear. From 20000–10000 years ago migrations had reached acros
s the world. Most shared the common heritage of the Mondial Cosmology, shamans using trance-induced channels to communicate with spirits and gods, divine laws, and the belief that the souls of their ancestors traveled to destinations beyond the visible world.

  From 11000–7000 BCE, as the last Ice Age came to an end, the growing impact of shaman intercessions with the divine led to the first constructions of temple complexes honoring animal deities and featuring stone towers to facilitate divine contact: Gobekli Tepe in SE Turkey, Nevalı Çori in Eastern Turkey, and Mnajdra Temple Complex in Malta.

  Further evidence of the pre-historic spread of shamanic cultures has been identified throughout the world in various locations including: (a) ceremonial megaliths, ritual mounds, and celestial ring structures in Nabta Playa in Nubian Egypt; Senegambian Stone Circles in Gambia and Senegal; Goseck Circle in Germany; Newgrange in Ireland; Stonehenge in England; Carnac in France; Watson Brake in Mounds, Louisiana; Norte Chico Pyramid mounds in Peru; and, (b) spirit art in caves, plains, and rocks in the Chauvet Cave in France; the Red Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, India; Acacus Mountain Caves in Libya; Tassili n’Ajjer Caves in Algeria; Mountain Caves of uKhahlamba in South Africa; Padha-Lin Caves in Thailand; and ancestral totem poles and stone stele in the Americas.

  During this period most nomadic tribes had to stay on the move ahead of a warming global climate. Sea levels were rising across the planet. The Mediterranean Sea flooded over, creating the Black Sea. Floodwaters formed the Nile Delta. The Indian Ocean spilled into a tropical basin to form the Persian Gulf. The heat along the equator started converting the North African coast of Sahara from a tropical wetness to a dry region interrupted by seasonal monsoon rains. The North American continent experienced a significantly heightened humidity.

  Global heating brought to an end the tens of thousand of years of human exploration into the farthest reaches of the planet. Once the rising waters washed away coastlines and islands, the intercontinental pathways were cut off, ending migrations across remote landmasses. Coastal tribes were forced to move further inland and some populations returned to cooler northern destinations.

  Climate issues continued to challenge efforts to settle down. Prolonged freezing temperatures from 10000–8000 BCE and torrential rains and long-lasting droughts from 7000–4000 BCE slowed efforts to establish sustainable villages based on agriculture. Following the contraction of livable territories conducive to migratory hunting and wild-fruit gathering, a kinder climate prompted experimentation with the cultivation of food sources and did lead to the successful establishment of permanent shelters in fertile areas.

  At the helm of these initiatives the shaman hegemony called for perseverance and implored the celestial Titans, gods, and spirits to provide nutrition from the land and initiate the domestication of “friendlyspirit” animals. Successful farming of millet and rice began in southwest Asia. Seeding was first initiated in the Near East. In Mesopotamia herding of cattle was adopted and settlements were claimed out of the swamps of the Fertile Crescent. Between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, planting and harvesting of grains, fishing, raising farm animals, irrigation, and trading activities accompanied construction of mud-brick and stone homes.

  Cooperation spurred the movement of large groups of people and animals into habitable regions, especially in response to floods or desertification in less favorable areas. But oftentimes the concentration of tribal settlements in close proximity triggered clashes. Initially loath to compromise their individual dominance over tribal order, shamans fell into power struggles over the supremacy of their tribal gods. But in time, wiser heads prevailed, and shaman diplomacy forged intertribal agreements that not only integrated their pantheons, rituals, and languages, but facilitated communal collaboration in daily activities.

  Attracted to fertile areas multi-tribal congregations converged into new population centers accommodating several thousands, such as Jericho, Levant (Jordan); Catal Hüyük, Anatolia (southern Turkey); and Eridu, Sumer (Iraq). For obvious reasons these agro-center cities worshipped the deities of Fresh Waters, the Fertility of the Land, and the Moon, used to regulate the timing for plantings and harvests.

  RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS AND ROYAL BLOODLINES

  Most tribal spokespersons for the gods found it advantageous to form religious councils, and, in time, they were able to establish areas of common interests and beliefs. Invariably shaman fellowships produced partnerships that grew into organized ministries. They formed the first human institution of any kind, religion, and they inspired the earliest civilizations.

  The divine power originally invested with the sage of a tribe would be transferred to the ruling body of a priesthood charged with guardianship of the sacred places and practices. The hierarchical power structure of religious institutions—high priests, specialty priests, god-servants and caretakers—reflected the divine strata of the gods and their retinues. This chain-of-command infrastructure also served as a model for royal, warrior, commercial, and social organizations.

  Initially, the clergy had the dominant power to demand that the appetite of the gods be appeased, even if it called for the sacrificial execution of a king and his entire royal court. But soon the balance of power became more evenly distributed. Cloaked in the robe of divine intercession, high priests became the personal advisors to kings and builders of royal bureaucracies that gave them the power to administrate the interests of the state.

  Increasingly the role of priests involved the establishment of stability and order and the civilizing of the population. They created social laws to be consistent with divine law and aligned criminal punishment with divine judgment. Facing the continuing challenge of keeping peace among larger, often competitive groups, the religious leaders increasingly produced stricter social rules and moral codes.

  Order would insure the long-term viability of their power structure. Needing the support of royal allies and the protection of their military, the priests agreed to recognize the generational rights of kings and set aside prominent positions in the divine afterlife on the basis of bloodlines. Seers “visiting” the heavenly domain then reported that they witnessed a king’s royal ancestors seated with the gods. The Doctrine of Divine Bloodlines espoused the special status of kings to join their forbearers in an immortal afterlife.

  The priests established a stable and successful society inspiring both people and sovereigns to embrace a devotional obsession with pleasing their gods. But euphoric worship also inspired competition among emerging settlements and their gods. Each city-state had its god and priesthood. Each had its lands and farmers. Each had its treasures and artisans. From 4000–2000 BCE, the appetite for economic, military, and religious domination resulted in conflicts and the beginning of nation building.

  With the domestication of the horse and the ability to produce armor the military power of kings suddenly rose to a new level of violence. Conquest became the means for gaining wealth. Moreover, the priests would declare that the gods of the winner prevailed over those of the loser. Thus it came to be that the gods of one city subsumed the gods of the other. Military victories would enrich the prevailing religious institutions. Bounty for their gods came in the form of sacked treasures and foodstuffs.

  Success meant greater wealth for honoring the gods who brought the victory. The wealth was then used for the development of creative cultures. The temples hired artisans to create sacred gold, copper and bronze metal objects; craft decorative pottery, figurines, and bejeweled ornaments; formulate fragrances, ointments, and oils; and design colorful garments. The ritual trances of old now became flavored with sensual dancing, purification ceremonies, and idol worship. Priests and priestesses, kings and queens, and gods and goddesses were adorned in increasingly sumptuous visual and symbolic splendor.

  The sudden viability and tremendous success of settled, growing, organized, and civilized communities overwhelmed the old traditions of

  nomadic tribalism. Planned urban environments and artisanship developed across
the world. Builders constructed public places where people bringing goods into the city would have facilities for bathing and resting and where residents could be safe and enjoy music and dance. With their wealth and abundance came the enchantment of growth and beauty that produced remarkable cities in Egypt and Mesopotamia, in Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro along the Saraswati and Indus Rivers (Pakistan), in Minoan cities and palaces (Crete) on the Mediterranean, and in Europe with the gold-laden military settlement at Varna on the Black Sea Coast (Bulgaria).

  LIVING GODS

  Kings became obsessed with their ultimate destination and role in the afterlife, demanding that seers acknowledge their bloodline so that they may join their ancestors in the realm of the gods. Increasingly, the kings gained the upper hand over religious authorities. To remain in power the priests needed to appease each presiding king by showing that their gods favored him as one of their own. The capitulation of the clergy inspired the paradigm of an inter-world transfer of positions between royal and divine organizations. For example, in Egypt pharaohs were guaranteed their place among the gods in the afterlife. In this way the seer-priests set up the alignment of social authority with divine status.

  The Egyptian Doctrine of Living Gods proposed the idea that earthly kings were divinely selected to sit on the throne and would return to sit on an eternal throne in the afterlife. The gods, they believed, picked from among their own to represent their divine power on Earth. Upon death these sovereigns would undertake a cosmic journey to retake their immortal seat among the gods next to royal ancestors of the same lineage. Consequently, blood relationships revealed one’s status on Earth and for royal authorities it unveiled their divinity.