Part 4

This has not been done, so far as I know, up to the present time. In fact, much of the teaching of modern anthropology has been calculated to deter it. The outspoken advocacy of atheism and materialism by the French School has led its disciples to consider the effort unprofitable;[34] and the acceptance of the doctrine of “Animism” as a sufficient explanation of early cults has led to the neglect, in English-speaking lands, of their profounder analysis. Such a writer, for instance, as Andrew Lang does not hesitate to teach that, “The origin of a belief in God is beyond the ken of history and speculation.”[35]

The real explanation of the origin of religion is simple and universal. Let any man ask himself on what his own religious belief is founded, and the answer, if true, will hold good for every member of the race, past and present. It makes no difference whether we analyse the superstitions of the rudest savages, or the lofty utterances of John the Evangelist, or of Spinoza the “god-intoxicated philosopher”; we shall find one and the same postulate to the faith of all.

This universal postulate, the psychic origin of all religious thought, is the recognition, or, if you please, the assumption, _that conscious volition is the ultimate source of all Force_. It is the belief that behind the sensuous, phenomenal world, distinct from it, giving it form, existence, and activity, lies the ultimate, invisible, immeasurable power of Mind, of conscious Will, of Intelligence, analogous in some way to our own; and,—mark this essential corollary,—_that man is in communication with it_.

What the highest religions thus assume was likewise the foundation of the earliest and most primitive cults. The one universal trait amid their endless forms of expression was the unalterable faith in Mind, in the super-sensuous, as the ultimate source of all force, all life, all being.

Science and Christianity teach the same, but with this difference: the progress of observation has taught us the existence of certain uniform sequences which we call “laws of nature,” based solely on Mind, but representing its processes of realisation. The savage knew not these. He imagined every motion in nature was the immediate exhibition of Will, his own will in his own motions, some seen or unseen will in other motions. The seen were of another being like himself; the unseen were to that extent unknown, and these were his gods.

I repeat, wherever we find the divine, the spiritual agency, set forth in myth or symbol, creed or rite, we find it characterised by two traits: it is of the nature of the human mind, that is, super-sensuous; and it is the ultimate source of power. It will be my aim to show the expressions of these universal postulates of the religious sentiment in the rudest faiths of the world.

You may ask, by what process of thinking did primitive man assign mind to nature. The process is extremely simple, and is illustrated by the action of any child. Let one be accidentally hurt by an empty rocking-chair in motion; at once, it is angry at the chair, and is gratified to see it whipped! The child-mind assigns to the object the will and the sensations of which it is conscious in itself. This is the simplest explanation it can imagine for action.

Precisely so is it with the savage man. Wherever he perceives motion, independent of a living being, he assumes the presence of a conscious agent, not visible to his senses. As Professor Sayce remarks of the early Chaldeans: “To them the spiritual, the _Zi_, was that which manifested life, and the test of the manifestation of life was movement.”[36] This is universally true of primitive faiths.

But this was not enough. To most if not all primitive men, movement was not the only manifestation of life. To them, the immovable, the rock, the mountain, any inanimate object, was likewise a conscious spiritual agency, a thinking being. This, too, has its explanation in one of the simplest, most elementary traits of mind, the sense of Personality. To the undeveloped reason, the Other is ever conceived as Another, a Self, and is clothed with the attributes of _the_ Self, of the thinking Ego. This is always the case in the tales of children and the myths of savage tribes.[37]

These are the earliest concepts of the religious faculty; but they would have been powerless to seize upon the emotions and to develop the great religions of the world, had they not been supported by that which is the corner-stone of every creed on earth, the corollary I mentioned, to wit, the direct communion between the human and the divine mind, between the Man and God.

This is the one trait shared by the highest as well as the lowest, it is the one proof of authenticity which each proclaims for itself. I shall tell you of religions so crude as to have no temples or altars, no rites or prayers; but I can tell you of none that does not teach the belief of the intercommunion of the spiritual powers and man. Every religion is a Revelation—in the opinion of its votaries. Those which are called the “book-religions” depend mainly upon the _record_ of a revelation, while in all primitive faiths inspiration is actual and constant. The human soul, regarded in its origin as an emanation of the Divine, is in its nature omniscient when in moments of ecstasy it frees itself from its material envelope.[38]

When an Australian native is asked if he has ever seen the great Creator, Baiame, he will reply: “No, not seen him, but I have felt [or inwardly perceived] him.”[39] A Basuto chief replied to the question whether his people knew of God before the missionaries came: “We did not know Him, but we dreamed of Him.”

All shamanism is based on a direct relation to divinity. The shaman is an inspired prophet and healer, and believes as firmly in his inspiration as do his credulous adherents. From shamanism was developed in India the practice known as _Yoga_, characterised by ecstatic seizures, periods of cerebral exaltation, and alleged divine powers.[40] To the same origin we must attribute the similar phenomena of “speaking with tongues,” and religious mania.

I am not speaking of deceptions or illusions. When I say that all religions depend for their origin and continuance directly upon inspiration, I state an historic fact. It may be known under other names, of credit or discredit, as mysticism, ecstasy, rhapsody, demoniac possession, the divine afflatus, the gnosis, or in its latest christening, “cosmic consciousness.”[41] All are but expressions of a belief that knowledge arises, words are uttered, or actions performed, not through conscious ideation and reflective purpose, but through the promptings of a power above or beyond the individual mind.[42] Prophets and shamans, evangelists and Indian medicine-men, all claim, and all claim with honesty, to be moved by the god within, the _deus in nobis_, and to speak the words of the Lord.

The intensity of purpose, and the suppression of the reason which everywhere and at all times this sense of inspiration brings with it, cannot be overestimated in their influence on the history of the race. To them are due all fanaticism, religious bigotry, and illiberality.

He who has walked with God, who has felt the pressure of the divine hand, who has been rewarded with the “beatific vision,” to him all lesser ties are weak, all knowledge vain. He will say: “It is better to know God and be ignorant of all else, than to know all else and be ignorant of God.” No reasoning can convince him of error, for his logic acknowledges not the laws of human thought; no appeal will soften his judgments, for he utters not the decision of a man, but the unalterable edict of the God.

Unless we can offer a rational explanation for this universal trait, all religions become inexplicable. Fortunately the investigations of modern psychology enable us to present such an explanation. It teaches us by innumerable examples that by far the majority of the impressions on our senses leave no trace in conscious recollection, although they are stored in the records of the brain; that what seems lost to memory, still lingers in its recesses; and that mental action is constantly going on and reaching results, wholly without our knowledge.

The psychologist calls this process by the terms “unconscious cerebration,” or “psychic automatism.” It is the function of the “sub-limital consciousness,” or, for short, the “sub-consciousness.” Not only is it common, it is constant, and the results of this unperceived labour of our minds is often far more valuable than those of our intelligent efforts. The most complex mechanical inventions, the most impressive art-work of the world, even the most difficult mathematical solutions, have been attained through this unknowing mechanism of mind. They seemed real inspirations, but we may be sure that the mind through long _conscious_ effort had been storing the material and laying the foundation for the perfect edifice which sprang so magically into existence.

The psychologist has gone farther. Not resting content with the detection of this automatic mental machinery, he has studied how it is set a-going, and is prepared to show that in all its forms it can be produced at will under favourable conditions. Like an ancient necromancer, he can inspire and bewitch, he can exorcise demons and cast out devils.

His power is not occult, for it belongs to science, and science has no secrets. It is known as “suggestion,” and in it lies the sociologic power of all religions and superstitions whatever, primitive or present. It is necessary, therefore, that I devote a few words to its explanation.

Suggestion in its simplest form is the indirect evocation of an idea in the mind as the starting-point of a process of thought and feeling. The idea may be impressed by a repetition of the stimulus, by association with allied ideas, or by sensory contacts. It may be evoked by deliberate effort of our own, which is called “auto-suggestion”; or the impression may be derived from or directed to a number of individuals, which is termed “collective suggestion.”

Powerful means of suggestion are the monotonous repetitions of certain words; the fixation of the sight on a single object; the concentration of the mind on one thought; the reduction of the ordinary nutrition; association with persons already under its influence; continuance of the same motions; prolonged hearing the same note or rhythmic chord; silence, darkness, and solitude. These may be variously combined and brought to bear upon the mind in such a manner as entirely to alter its ordinary habits, and seemingly to evoke another personality.

The rationale by which this is reached is through developing the automatic and unconscious action of the mind into a conscious display of its powers. This may be repulsive or admirable, above or below the normal capacities; but is always correlated to the individual, and connected with his experiences.

This is the explanation of nearly all the religious experiences of primitive peoples, as it is of what is known as “theopathy” everywhere, and of the modern forms of theosophy, mesmerism, and hypnotism.[43]

All religious teachings and associations, in the lowest as well as the highest faiths, aim to cultivate these mystical feelings by increasing the intensity of the suggestions which give rise to them, and diminishing the force of other suggestions which may interfere.

Even in civilised communities it is extraordinary with what facility suggestive sense-delusions can be produced in waking persons. At least ninety out of every hundred individuals can be persuaded thus to deceive themselves. The extreme contagiousness of such delusions, common enough in civilised conditions, is greatly increased in the savage state. In their lives the phenomena of auto-suggestion are strikingly frequent. Among the African Zulus any adult can cast himself or herself into the hypnotic state, and by this obtain what they consider second sight,—“the power to see where lost objects are, and how absent friends are occupied.” When asked to explain this state of mind, they can only say that it is one “in which a man is awake, but sees things which he would not see, if he were not in this state”[44]; which reminds us of the remarkable doctrine of the Sanscrit Upanishads—“There is no limit to the knowing of the Self that knows.”[45] Among many Australian tribes, among the Kamschatkans, and among the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, as well as many other peoples, the mysterious power of the shamans or medicine men is shared by all adults in a greater or less degree.[46]

These are at the bottom of the scale. One degree higher, and we find the priesthood a separate class, usually of both sexes, but chosen by natural selection from those members of the community who by temperament or cultivation possess in the highest degree this tendency to mystical power. This is generally indicated by the clearness and character of the dreams and visions which appear at the time he or she enters adult life. These are considered to be direct inspirations from the spirit world, either from the souls of the dead, or the powers other than those which control the destiny of man.

These inspired seers represent the priesthood of every primitive religion. They cultivate and preserve it, and in them the missionaries of higher faiths have ever found their most resolute foes and successful opponents. The reason is, as I have said, that the shaman has himself been face to face with God, has heard His voice, and felt His presence. His faith therefore is real, and cannot be shaken by any argument. He may indeed, and he generally does, assist his public performances with some trickery, some thaumaturgy; but that this is merely superadded for effect is proved by the general custom that when one such adept is ill or in straits he will solicit the aid of another.[47]

Among his associates he is looked upon as set apart from other men by the divinity which chooses him for its agent, or dwells within him. In the Polynesian islands this is forcibly expressed in the terms applied to the native priests, _pia atua_, “god boxes,” receptacles of divinity; and _amama_, “open mouths,” for through them the god speaks, not their own selves.[48]

The presence of divinity is recognised and felt only in unusual mental states, in moments of ecstasy or trance, in periods of rapture, intoxication, or frenzy. Hence in all early and many late religions abnormal and pathological mental seizures are regarded as cases of inspiration, or else of demoniac possession. In the Quichua language of Peru the word _huaca_ is their most general term for the divine, but _huaca runa_, “divine man,” means one who is crazy[49]; and in Greek, the word _mania_ was used for both madness and prophetic inspiration.

We thus see that in this mental state we find the psychic development of the primitive idea of the divine, the notion of God. It is not, as has sometimes been claimed, the sudden result of a single feeling; it is a complex conception, from a multitude of obscurely felt impressions and emotions. It is neither an intuition nor an induction; it is neither an inference from observation, nor the conclusion of a logical process. A study of its aspect in savage life shows that it arises from the perception of the latent activity of the sub-consciousness, from the strange sense of activity, will, and power which, under favourable conditions of concentration (suggestion), it imparts to the more or less conscious Self. This influence is at first vague, impersonal, undefined, but is gradually differentiated and personified. Furthermore, it is constantly strengthened and sustained by the agency of that cultivated suggestion I have described, which is intended to bring the individual into contact with unknown activities. Thus the idea of the superhuman is developed from the unconscious human powers of Mind.

Conclusive evidence of this is offered by language. From the abundant material at hand let us choose three examples, widely separated, one from the Dakotan stock of North American Indians, one from the ancient Peruvians, and one from the South Sea Islanders.

The hidden and mysterious power of the universe is expressed in the Dakotan dialects by the word _wakan_. This term expresses infinite will; it is, as Miss Fletcher tells us, “the deification of that peculiar quality or power of which man is conscious within himself as directing his own acts or willing a course to bring about certain results.” From the word _wacin_, will, are derived the terms for what we call “telepathy,” a belief in which is nigh universal in primitive cults; for intelligence or mentality; and for the sacred dance.[50]

While the meaning of _wakan_ in Dakota is well defined, its derivation is uncertain. It is singular that precisely the same word with the same meaning reappears in the Quichua and Aymara languages of the interior of Peru. It is there applied to everything which is extraordinary or immense, out of the course of nature, and especially to everything sacred or divine. It was not a deity, but expressed the deific power believed to be present in men, animals, or things.[51]

The identity of the two words is probably no mere coincidence, nor is the one borrowed from the other. In Quichua _wakan_ expresses the sound characteristic of any animal, as _allco wakan_, the dog howls, _huallpa wakan_ the cock crows, and this in turn is derived from the interjection of surprise or astonishment or admiration, _hua_. It was that which was employed in the sacred invocations.

Strange as it may seem, the English word “God” is traced by Aryan scholars through the Gothic _guth_ to the Sanscrit verb _hua_ to call upon, to invoke (past participle, _hutha_), the same primitive interjection in verbal form; and the holy name of the Hebrews, _Yahve_, is now believed to be that of the Chaldean god of the earth, waters, and fertility, in whose name _Eā_, _Ya_, or _Yah_, we recognize a cognate interjection or refrain, the same which, shouted in the orgiastic rites, gave the name, Bacchus or Iachus.[52]

Turning to the island world of the Pacific we find through its countless groups of sunny isles the impersonal Divine expressed by one general term, _mana_. The natives believed in the agency of departed souls and also of spirits of independent origin (_vui_); but the supernatural power through which both acted on nature or events was this _mana_. If a man prospered in his affairs and gained influence in the tribe, it was not by his own efforts, but because he had _mana_; precisely as pious persons among ourselves attribute their prosperity and that of their worthy neighbors to the favour of the Lord. The original meaning of _mana_ appears to be “that which is within one,” and, later, the intelligence on mind, whence power or might, as the expressions of Will applied to the concept of universal life and motion.[53]

These words, I repeat, do not convey any idea of personality. They are not evidences of a primitive monotheism, as has often been claimed. They, and all like them, are vague, indefinite terms for the supernatural, that which was inexplicable by the limited knowledge of the most ignorant of our species.[54]

The media of suggestion act primarily through the emotions, and in the religious suggestion those emotions especially are concerned which give rise to thoughts concerning the super-sensuous and the manifestation of power.

But none of these emotions in itself, neither fear, hope, awe, wonder, nor any other, has the power to evoke the notion of the supernatural. It arises from those deeper intellectual traits which are peculiarly human.

Yet it is true that such emotions are potent stimuli to those forms of suggestion which lead up to the religious feelings; they are part of them, and what arouses and incites those, develops and strengthens these; and they thus have their place as suggestive accessories.

To the savage, all nature testifies to the presence of the mysterious power which is behind its forms and motions. He sees the Divine everywhere. But from this multitude of impressions which excited him to religious thought we may separate a limited number as beyond others potent and universal. These are special stimuli to the religious emotions. They are five in number:

1. Dreaming and allied conditions.

2. The apprehension of Life and Death, from which arises the notion of the Soul.

3. The perception of Light and Darkness.

4. The observation of Extraordinary Exhibitions of Force.

5. The impression of Vastness.

1. A line of Lucretius asserts that “the dreams of men peopled the heaven with gods.” We have a right to reply that if dreams alone give us the gods, why are they absent from the lives of dogs, who are vivid dreamers?

Certain it is, however, that among all savage tribes dreams are regarded as a part of the experience of life. To primitive man, they are real: he sees and hears in them as he does in his waking hours; he does not distinguish between the subjective creation of his brain cells and objective existence.

In what they differ from daily life, they are divine. They reveal the future and summon the absent. The Kamschatkans, we are told, gather together every morning to narrate their dreams and to guess at their interpretation. Of the Eskimos it is stated that their daily lives “are to a great extent guided by their dreams.” The Bororo of Brazil take a dream so literally that a whole village will decamp and seek a distant site, if one dreams of the approach of an enemy.[55]

The physiological character of dreams easily explains the superstitious attention they have received in all ages and nations. The absence of external impressions during sleep favours the rise of unconscious mental action into consciousness. In them memory is often more active than while waking; our personality seems doubled, because it has no longer the will to react against the throngs of varied impressions which arise. The emotions in sleep are excitable, and both fear and joy are often more intense than when awake. Add to this that many persons, especially those of nervous temperament, are subject to peculiarly vivid illusions during the moments between waking and sleeping, which seem to belong as much to the former as to the latter conditions,[56] and we have reasons enough for the part they play in primitive religions.

There are reasons for believing that the dreams of ruder races are more vivid than our own, more like pictures and realities.[57] They certainly do not draw the line so sharply between the sights and sounds of sleeping and waking as we do. With wide-open eyes they see spectres and apparitions, such as are not unknown, but are ever growing scarcer, in civilised lands. These waking visions are assiduously cultivated, and become, as I have already said, the chief bond between man and divinity.[58]

Not only by fasting, solitude, and intense expectation centred on the expected revelation, is it brought into reality, but in nearly every savage tribe we find a knowledge of narcotic plants which were employed to induce strange and vivid hallucinations or dreams. The negroes of the Niger had their “fetish water,” the Creek Indians of Florida their “black drink,” for this purpose. In many parts of the United States the natives smoked stramonium, the Mexican tribes swallowed the _peyotl_ and the snake-plant, the tribes of California and the Samoyeds of Siberia had found a poisonous toadstool;—all to bring about communion with the Divine and to induce ecstatic visions.[59] Whatever the means employed, their aim was everywhere the same, and was directed primarily and essentially towards the excitation of the religious emotions, towards securing a revelation of the will of the gods.