The Hunter-Gatherer Stages

THE HUNTER-GATHERER STAGES

Human beings stayed at this level for literally millions of years and even today pockets of hunter-gatherer societies can still be found. This stage even predated the development of the language and represented the need of the primitive man of the newly entered human spirit to care first for his physical survival in the satisfaction of the instincts of hunger and thirst. It represents the lowest stage in the ladder of both spiritual and physico-cultural development. With the entrance of man into the earth, there could have been no question of his suddenly discovering agriculture and forming a settled society or of his without further ado immediately beginning to talk and write.

He had to follow the stages of development gradually; he first had to learn to know his instincts and control them, he had to learn how to provide for his physical needs. Having entered into a new environment in which he had never been and in which he was a complete stranger, the natural thing for him to do was to learn through experiencing what this new environment had to offer, what it was all about. Since he was in a new physical body, the first natural thing would be for him to learn to know what the body was, and generally he first had to obey his instincts. These instincts he had inherited from his predecessor through the physical body that he received from him.

In therefore satisfying these instincts of hunger and thirst and generally of survival, he had to hunt since there was no other way open to him. Though he was a human spirit, the animistic still dominated him because his spirit was just beginning to wake up. Therefore, we can visualise the human spirit germ lying quietly as if asleep within the physical body. It would only be able to grow strong through activity and the struggle with his environment. So it is natural to imagine that at the very earliest stages of human existence on earth what dominated more was the animistic part of him which were more or less the instincts which he had inherited from his animal predecessors. We can even see today that animals in general are completely dominated by their instincts and it is this that they respond to. Therefore, at the earliest stages though we were humans we were dominated by our instincts and it was gradually that we learnt to understand them and control them.

This domination by the animistic or the elemental was what for a long time forced the hunter-gatherer existence. When, however, our spirits began to show forth in activity we then began to do things which our animal predecessors never had the capacity to do. We developed languages, we developed better ways of hunting and gathering, we began to build shelters, we began through our God-given abilities to dominate in the natural environment because through these abilities we could consciously learn and use what our environment offered for our benefit, which the animals will never be able to do. Therefore, what was basically human only began to show itself with time. Yes, he was a human being when he incarnated because of the presence of the spirit germ, but because this could not be active immediately he was dominated in the first years by the animistic. In fact, for a long time, probably for millions of years, human beings remained inwardly like children. They had no more conceptions about life than our children are today. This is so because of the almost utter domination by the animistic. The animistic or the elemental that dominated them was not the animistic of the animal but a higher animistic or elemental, for within the animistic realm are so many subdivisions of which the animal is the lowest.

This is the type of animistic or elemental force that also even today dominates our children. But why were we dominated by the animistic? Is it just a question of the physical body? After all, we know that the physical body as such is lifeless. We were dominated by the animistic simply because of the animistic cloak that we also bear within us. Through this animistic cloak we were able to have connection to all that is animistic and it is only after this cloak had been developed to perfection through the gradual maturing of man and through finally the recognition of all the animistic beings and their activities including the Lords of the elements could the basis then be formed for the commencement of the activity of the spirit. Therefore firstly we had to develop our animistic nature to perfection and the development of this animistic nature involves the gradual recognition of all the beings of this realm and their activities.

All this is indeed the childhood of mankind. The beginning of his spiritual activity only starts after this. The recognition of all the animistic beings therefore corresponds to his childhood and it is after this that he enters into the period of adolescence with the commencement of the activity of the spirit and the beginning of conscious responsibility. We must realise that the animistic cloak given to man is just not an ordinary lifeless cloak. This cloak, we must realise has life and movement within itself, it is self-motivating. Since the human spirit is alien to the world of matter and the elemental beings that work therein, it is through this cloak that he can understand the nature of these helpers who are so important to his development since he too now bears within himself something of the essence of these beings. Without this animistic cloak it would be impossible for him to move closer to the nature of the elemental beings whose activities he must in any case understand.

He would not even be in a position to understand the world of matter as such as this would remain too alien to his nature. The animistic cloak is like a kind of medium through which he is brought closer to the world of matter, which otherwise would have remained too removed from him. After having through the medium of this cloak understood the entire world of matter, he could now make a spiritual beginning and for the first time make an entrance into the spiritual realm in his recognition and perceptions and that for him would place him in the stage of spiritual adolescence at which stage he can begin to work powerfully in the world of matter using all the acquired recognition he had gained during his years of spiritual childhood. At this stage full self-consciousness enters and he can only grow stronger in the use of his abilities.

He is now a perfect young spirit who knows all the laws as they operate in the world of matter and is ready to apply his knowledge of the laws to further the progress of the entire material creation. Spiritually he has become an adolescent with full responsibilities and powers. He has reached the stage of spiritual maturity and has left the stage of spiritual childhood. To have reached this stage he would have had to go through millions of years of experiencing and several incarnations. Through his experiences he would have become aware of all the spiritual laws as they operate in the entire creation. He would have become thoroughly familiar with them through his experiences and it is through this knowledge that he became perfect and can be in a position to apply them beneficially in the world of matter. His self-awareness would have reached a point where he is fully responsible for his actions and fully knows the consequences.

How was man, however, at the start of his journey here on earth? Early man, equipped with various kinds of tools which he had learned to improve upon hunted and gathered. Because he had to hunt over large distances, he was a nomad who moved from place to place in order to find suitable game. With this nomadic life he was not able to build permanent settlements for himself. With the aid of the elemental beings he was able to hunt down all kinds of animals and he was also able under the guidance of these beings to make better weapons each time. He was given directions as to the type of animal he should eat and the kinds of fruits he should gather. Therefore man with the help of the animistic beings was able to survive in an environment completely strange to him and without which help it would have been impossible to survive.

He needed directions, help and guidance from those who have been placed here by the Creator for the maintenance of all the things that have been created in the world of matter. Without the help and guidance of these beings the survival of the human spirit would have been inconceivable. Even today, without the activity of these beings, we could not be talking about a habitable earth. The human spirit therefore is completely dependent on the activity of the animistic beings. Therefore, he hunted and gathered and roamed about and in the process gained more and more experiences. It must be seen that this roaming about was an opportunity for a quick garnering of experiences. He was thereby exposed as much as possible to different environments and landscapes which made him become familiar with the earth. In this way, he became familiar with nature and learnt to know its laws and gradually to apply them to his life.

If he had been allowed to stay in one place, he would not be fulfilling the purpose of his existence which is to gain experience, familiarise himself with the laws of nature and as a result attain to perfection through the application of the knowledge gained. This is the only way open to him to perfect his spirit. He must move about to familiarise himself with all the realms of Creation including the earth. The impetus was thereby provided for rapidly maturing through this hunter-gatherer stage. It brought him directly close to nature and the beings associated with it. He came to know them and realise his dependence on them and through this interaction he learned from them and as a result he advanced. He advanced because he allowed himself to be taught how to apply the laws of nature for practical earthly existence. That was why he was able to improve on his tools, that was how he was able to formulate language and that was how he was able to discover agriculture and domesticate all kinds of animals. All these he was able to do through the interaction with the animistic or elemental helpers from whom he learned.

The beginning of self-consciousness for man actually started at the stage when he recognised his physical nakedness. His physical ancestors did not recognise this and therefore walked about naked. They did not possess that self-recognition, that self-consciousness which would make them realise that they were naked. This happening of the recognition of physical nakedness is one of the many things that differentiate man from the animal. No animal possesses this ability to recognise that it is naked and not even the most perfect animal that provided the basis for the entrance of man was able to do this. No animal has been associated with being able to deliberately clothe itself and this is the consequence of the fact that they lack what the human spirit possesses which is self-consciousness.

The animal is not self-conscious but only merely conscious and there is indeed a great difference in this fact. Having incarnated into an animal body, one of the first steps that the spirit made in the upward direction is the recognition of his physical nakedness and his attempt to cover this nakedness. It shows a growing awareness of his physical body and his environment and it is one of the most important steps that he would take in his upward climb. It was actually during this hunter-gatherer stage that he was able to transform the animal body he inherited into a human one through the control he had on this body through his blood. Therefore, human beings probably for the first few centuries walked naked and it was only gradually that this awareness penetrated to them. This brought in its wake the quality of shame which is an inherent part of the human spirit.

This feeling of shame which only penetrated gradually was what led to the urge to cover this nakedness at least of the sexual organs. This quality, this ability to feel shame is one of the fundamental differences between animal and man and between mere consciousness and self-consciousness. The higher spiritual qualities are lost in a person who does not have this feeling of shame. It is the most reliable sign of the presence of an active spirit within. The more aware he became, the more his needs grew. Since he wanted to cover his nakedness, he had to look for suitable material for this and this was when he started to use in the first place leaves to cover his genitals and then the skins of animals for this purpose according to the directions he received from the elemental beings. He realised that he could not continue to remain in the open, therefore he asked for advice and was shown suitable shelters in the form of caves. Later he moved out of caves and began to construct some form of shelter but he is far however from the formation of a settled society.

The peculiarity of the spirit germ is the ease with which it reverts to the sleepy state if not continually stimulated to keep awake. If not stimulated from outside, the spirit germ sleeps and this is exactly why he is in the world of matter because it is the latter which has the conditions to keep the spirit germ in a state of continuous wakefulness. Through the struggles and the necessities which assail it in the world of matter he is forced to keep awake if he is to survive. Only the world of matter has these peculiarities which serve to make the spirit germ be on the alert, exert itself and as a result grow strong. Necessity through experiencing, want and adversity were the factors used in love to gradually awaken the spirit germs to the awareness of their environment. Nothing else works where the human spirit is concerned and the conditions in the world of matter are so arranged that he benefits from them.

The necessity to feed the body made him roam about but in so doing ended up familiarising himself with all the facets of nature which in any case was the purpose of his life. Necessity forced him to open his eyes more and more to his gross material physical environment. The need to survive made him recognise with time the diversity of his surroundings. The serious upheavals on the young earth opened his eyes to the mighty forces of Nature. If he did not remain alert he was bound to perish. With the serious upheavals he had no choice but to turn to the animistic for help. He had no choice but to come to recognise his powerlessness before these mighty forces which threatened to swallow him up. All these upheavals forced the spirit germ to awaken in the process of defending itself. The hunter-gatherer stage therefore is one of the most important in the spiritual evolution of man. This corresponds to the saying in Genesis that "In the sweat of thy brows, thou shalt eat bread." Genesis 3:19. In interacting more with the animistic, he learnt to know more and more about the real purpose of all the elements of nature such as fire, water, earth and the air. In his need he was allowed the use of fire which initially was used for warmth and the cooking, baking and roasting of the food but which with time acquired a spiritual significance. In the same way the significance of water, air and the earth were known through experience.

Coarse instinct was gradually overcome with the assumption of the erect posture, the animal instinct were overcome and something more noble took its place. This is nothing but the result of the spiritual control over the body through the blood radiation. These instincts therefore, in the human were ennobled. In his wanderings during this stage he covered wide distances and this would undoubtedly have contributed to the separation of the races, especially as the stage of settlement caught up with him. One must realise that before the full commencement of the settled stage he settled for shorter or longer periods in some place or the other but he always moved as necessity demanded. This is to provide a basis for the fully settled society as it would be illogical for the human spirit to suddenly jump from the stage of the full nomad to that of the full settler. This intermediate stage was indeed very important in the formation of the early cultures. After man had separated himself into communities through the Law of Attraction of Homogenous Species, rudiments of culture began to emerge and the rate of spiritual development depended entirely on the effort he is ready to put in this direction using the gift of the free will given to him. This is why we find differences in the level of maturity of men.

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