A Field Guide to Humankind
January 17, 2008
by Jeffrey Pierce
We've been challenging our perspectives on spirituality and pushing our boundaries through concepts we've considered in the last few articles and the latest lessons in The First Cycle course. Since we're breaking down walls and preconceived ideas to better understand the flow of magick, let's fully leap into the fray and consider one of the most controversial topics in all of mystical spirituality.
Human beings are not all made from the same mold. As one of my early teachers instructed me, "This issue isn't that we're not all human - it's that not all of us have human souls."
This is one of those topics that organized religion prefers not to deal with. On the rare occasion that I present this topic to students, I use the "Awful Waste of Space" model, borrowed shamelessly from the 1997 movie, "Contact." In the movie the younger version of Jodie Foster's character (played by Jena Malone) asks her father, "Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?" To which her father replies, "I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."
For just a moment, try to picture the size of our universe. It's estimated that there 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, the galaxy which we here on Earth call home. In 1999, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, it was estimated that there are 125 billion galaxies in the known universe.
If one in every billion stars has a planet orbiting around it that's capable of sustaining life, and out of those planets, one in every billion has life that has evolved to the point where it has developed even the most rudimentary spiritual path, then there are approximately 25,000 planets where spirituality has evolved.
And chances are that their gods and goddesses and the souls that inhabit their version of the afterlife look very different from our own. To be all inclusive, the divine would have to encompass every species of sentient life, not just cater to our own understanding of ourselves and the reflection we place upon our interpretation of the greater weave of reality.
For this model to work, one where the divine encompasses all spiritual paths regardless of where they originate, we don't need 25,000 planets with sentient life. And while it is easiest to understand when we embrace the concept of two planets (ours and another) with spiritual beings incarnated upon it, we don't even need that. It's simply an illustration. We only need our own.
Unlike many other religions, paganism is filled with beings possessing both spirit and souls. Animals. Plants. Trees. Stones. For some of us, we even extend these traits to otherworldly beings, such as the fae.
So let's rewind the clock here on Earth for moment and turn back the pages of history. According to an article by the Population Reference Bureau, there were an estimated 5 million people on Earth at the dawn of agriculture, approximately 8000 BCE. Over the next 8,000 years, the population slowly grew to an estimated 300 million people. In the last 2,000 years, the human population increased to over 6 billion people.
These estimates are generally accepted by the scientific community. Some estimates are a bit higher, but all are close enough for us to work with the same concept with a great deal of confidence.
We've considered the concept that this physical incarnation is school and that we're here to learn, to grow, to experience life, and to slowly evolve on a spiritual level so that we're capable of taking the next step in our spiritual evolution. In 8000 BCE, there were 5 million souls incarnated in human form here on Earth. This was the sum total of beings in this reality in human form, the total number of humans that had the ability to hone their spiritual paths in physical existence. Within 8,000 years, going from the dawn of agriculture to roughly the height of the Roman Empire, the number of souls increased to sixty times the previous amount. In the next 2,000 years, the population increased by almost 6 billion souls.
If this is truly "Earth School" and we're here to learn, to grow, and to spiritually evolve, then why the exponential increase in human incarnations? Why weren't these souls incarnating from the very beginning of human existence? Where did they come from? If the natural evolution of our soul is to reach the next level of spiritual existence, then why wouldn't at least half of all human souls be incarnating here on Earth from the very beginning?
The answer is a simple question. "What if we were?"
As human beings, we narrow down the possibilities of spirituality to a range that makes us feel comfortable. We work with what we relate to. We believe in the things that give us comfort, that validate our own struggles and experiences and make us seem important. Christianity is a prime example of this concept. The first chapter of the Book of Genesis states, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" Believing that we are like God or that God is like us is a tremendously comforting concept. As pagans we aren't immune to this desire. Our gods and goddesses look like us. They mirror our wants and our desires, they offer us strength where we're weak, and they encourage us to excel where we're strong.
But just because we're comfortable with a concept, doesn't mean that it's entirely accurate.
The Tao Te Ching opens with one of the keys to this entire concept. Think of The Tao (or The Dao as it is sometimes written) as everything that was, everything that is, and everything that has yet to be (or could be) - only even more inclusive. It's "God" and "not God." It's all of reality and everything that will never even be imagined. If you were to come up with a concept that included every possible reality and the stillborn ideas of universes that never came to be, the Tao would be a bit bigger than even that.
The Dwight Goddard translation of this passage from The Tao Te Ching (reflected below) most clearly illustrates the idea to someone not familiar with the Taoist perspective of reality. It's here that we also find one of the keys to unlocking the secrets behind spirituality and magick.
The Dao that can be understood cannot be the primal, or cosmic Dao, just as an idea that can be expressed in words cannot be the infinite idea.
And yet this ineffable Dao was the source of all spirit and matter, and being expressed was the mother of all created things.
Therefore not to desire the things of sense is to know the freedom of spirituality; and to desire is to learn the limitation of matter.
These two things spirit and matter, so different in nature, have the same origin. This unity of origin is the mystery of mysteries, but it is the gateway to spirituality.
An overly simplistic way of stating the above is to say that everything, both spiritual reality and physical reality, comes from Spirit. Even though the physical and spiritual seem so different from each other, they are born from the same energy. When we define our reality, we see limitations and our perspective of reality can only be as big as we allow it to be. But when we let go of those limitations, we began to see the bigger picture and start to understand the secrets and mysteries of reality.
As pagans, many of us accept the existence of otherworldly beings. A sizeable percentage of pagans believe in ghosts and faeries, gods and goddesses, spirit guides and totem animals, and a wide range of spiritual entities. We believe that, as human beings, we both incarnate into physical form and guide others from the Elsewhere.
Our bodies are just a shell. It's our spirit or soul that is eternal. We are born into this body, carrying memories of past lives, of times when we wore other bodies, even other genders, before we were came into this lifetime. Some of us even remember times when we incarnated to experience life as another species, often another mammal of some type. If we are capable of interacting with reality from both sides of the veil, if we are capable of wearing a wide array of forms, what prevents other spiritual beings from doing the same? What prevents them from being born in human form?
The big secret isn't that not all of us are human. What we fail to consider because it's outside of our comfort zone is that none of us are.
And what's truly amazing is that the concept isn't as revolutionary as you might think it is.
For instance, I have very strong past life memories. I can clearly remember my life as a potter on Akrotiri, a city on the island of Thera (or Santorini) in the southern Aegean Sea. I also have strong past life memories of fighting and dying as a Janissary, of a life as a British soldier during WWI, an English banker several hundred years ago, a Native American from the north eastern part of what is now the United States, and the perspective and experiences of several other incarnations. Being a potter on Akrotiri does not make me Minoan just as memories from WWI fail to make me British. These are lifetimes that I wore in much the same way that I would put on a suit for a job interview or ritual garb for a group magickal rite. When I dress up for an interview or a rite, my energy shifts. In a very real sense, I become a slightly different person than I am when I play with my kids, teach a student, or commute to work. My identity isn't tied to the body I wear, but to the experience of living in that moment.
We are spiritual beings who have chosen to experience life from a physical perspective. We are not homo sapiens who have somehow discovered a spiritual identity.
If we remove the need to feel secure within the illusion that we are defined solely by our physical identity, then we can also let go of the need to believe that we're all the same "spiritual species," simply because we were all born into similar bodies. Instead of identifying ourselves as homo sapiens, there are two different ways to look at the scenario.
First, we can consider that each and every one of us is a unique expression of Spirit. We are composed of divine energy and are ourselves sacred. This perspective not only places a great deal of emphasis on the value of each individual, but strongly embraces and encourages diversity and equality. After all, each of us is a sacred, spiritual being. No one is better or more privileged than another. We all deserve the same rights, the same respect, and the same honoring of our individually chosen paths.
Second, although we are unique individuals, we aren't truly alone. While it's inaccurate to define ourselves as a biological species or a particular nationality, there is some truth to finding our identity as part of a spiritual family. Within the study of reincarnation, there's a long tradition of souls regularly incarnating within certain family groups. This concept is mentioned in Malidoma Some's "Ritual: Power, Healing and Community" where the author is recognized as his grandfather's brother and Tibetan Buddhism has long recognized the connection between reincarnated lama's (teachers) and their students. I have some experience with this as well, being closely connected with my younger sister from a past life. I've dated more than one person that I was romantically involved with in a previous incarnation (a connection that was independently confirmed by the people involved and a third party without my input) and I shared a past life with my closest male pagan friend in this incarnation.
Even if we aren't aware of the specifics of a certain spiritual family member, most of us have experienced these connections in one manner or another. We'll meet someone that we feel an immediate connection with or someone that we can only describe as kin. That instant recognition is often a sign of a past life connection. Whether they're a part of our spiritual family remains to be seen.
Certain spiritual traits or psychic abilities also tend to be passed down through family lines, sometimes skipping a biological generation or two before reappearing or appearing more than once in a single generation. While we tend to attribute these traits to genetics, they are actually connected to our spiritual family's "bloodline." Although we tend to reincarnate with the same spiritual family, there is very little in the way of rules governing this process. Relationships between siblings and parents will reverse themselves, a daughter from one lifetime becoming a mother in the next. Siblings will be reborn as close friends. What may begin as a sense of losing our identity by shifting our focus from our biology to our spiritual connection, becomes a process of discovering who we really are as we rediscover our spiritual family and the power of our bloodline.
You may remember a few weeks back in an issue of Magickal Correspondences, a reader wrote in to share that they had been "told by one of the fae that she was the being's granddaughter 'by six or eight generations removed.'" The reasons behind this were explained in some detail by the fae who spoke to her. "In order for our race to survive [the olden times], as less and less [humans] honored mother earth and less knew of our race, we found that we were slowly being pushed out... As a result we decided [rarely] to allow one of our kind... to cross over the veil and take on human form for one [mortal life] and then return. They were to [bare children with a mortal] keeping the fae bloodline thriving and alive." It was then explained that the reader had faerie "blood within your blood."
It should begin to become clear how this entire process works, but hold on - we're only half way there. While we have opened the door for a fae to be born in human form, we need to add one more piece to the puzzle.
Most of us who practice magick are familiar with the concept that spiritual reality and physical reality have a tendency to mirror each other. This is outlined in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus which begins, "As above, so below." Being spiritual beings, we receive a portion of our traits from our spiritual family and from the divine. However, just as the miracle of conception and birth mirrors the act of creation, we also receive certain traits from our birth parents. The younger our soul, the more we're influenced by the energy and spirit of our physical mother and father - and we can also be influenced by the energy and spirit of our children, especially if they are near their first lifetime . As our soul matures, our growth and spiritual evolution become more of a conscious process and we're influenced less and less by the connection with our spiritual kin, regardless of whether we're a parent or a child. Once these traits are present in a spiritual bloodline, they can be passed to other members of that spiritual bloodline as the roles of parents and children shift and change from lifetime to lifetime.
It's this influence on a spiritual bloodline that's key to our friend with the blood of the fae in her spiritual lineage. It was decided that one of the fae would be born into mortal form, giving birth to a human child. That's why the fae incarnated as a human being, "keeping the fae bloodline thriving and alive." There's no better way to reconnect someone to your specific energy than to be born into their bloodline as one of their children, your energy influencing those who are connected to that life.
In Offering the First Seed we wrapped up our discussion with the reminder, "What we here in this lifetime forget is that we created this reality. After all, just as we have unique traits and skills, so the needs of our personal growth are unique to each of us." As our souls evolve and mature, our own energy begins to resonate with others in our spiritual family. We find that our lessons begin to parallel one another, that we simultaneously experience breakthroughs in our personal growth or that doorways open for us when the other members of our family reach a certain milepost on their journey that allows them to participate in a particular endeavor. This is the process in play when we find we're drawn together by a particular calling.
If you think back to the article, Spinning in Circles, the idea was presented that, "Each of us creates our own sphere of reality. If you're in energetic balance, you can reach out and sense the world around you equidistant in every direction. That's your sphere. Reality isn't an even plane, but a series of overlapping spheres that create a seamless whole. Because there are so many individual overlapping spheres, and we're capable of perceiving the energy of those we interact with, we see this conglomeration of individual spherical realities as a composite, rather than as its individual pieces."
Now imagine what happens when you work with others who resonate closely enough with your own energy that those spheres can merge and strengthen one another. That's the concept that's in play when we do ritual work with a closely-knit coven. Energy flows, magick is heightened, and we're able to effectively shape reality as a single cohesive whole. This is the same concept that governs the interaction of members of a spiritual bloodline when they reach similar places in their spiritual evolution.
While our spiritual family is a core component of our growth and spiritual evolution, it isn't the only factor in the work we do and the paths we're called to. Those we share our lives with for any stretch of time can equally influence our journey and there is a certain amount of work that we're called to do on our own. Most of the time, it's a collection of "strangers" that we find ourselves doing our life's work with - but it's our spiritual families, in whatever form they manifest, that can be a very special source of strength and encouragement and provide us with a sense of home.
Originally published at www.oldways.com/articles/2008/080117.html