04_(53-67)Creation of a Creation Myth CREATION OF A CREATION MYTH: STEPS TOWARDS A PROMETHEAN AGE Kenneth Dobson Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand Arthur Saniotis The University of Adelaide, Australia บทคัดย่อ บทบาทของตำนานในบริบทของศาสนานั้นเป็นที่สนใจในเชิง ทฤษฎีเป็นอย่างมาก การตีความตำนานท้ังในเชิงจิตวิทยาและมานุษยวิทยามักจะ เห็นว่าศาสนาคือวิธีปฏิบัติการ (modus operandi) ของพฤติกรรมด้านวัฒนธรรม ในขณะที่การตีความเหล่านี้อาจก่อให้เกิดญาณหยั่งเห็น ในเวลาเดียวกันมันก็ เป็นการทวนปัญหาเกี่ยวกับบทบาทของตำนานที่จะเป็นตัวชี้นำสังคมอนาคต บทความ น้ีเสนอความเห็นว่าถึงเวลาแล้วท่ีต้องสร้างตำนานใหม่ข้ึนมาเพ่ือรับมือ กับปัญหาและความท้าทายต่างๆ ท่ีใหญ่โตระดับโลกท่ีมนุษยชาติกำลังเผชิญอยู่ ขณะนี้ ตำนานที่เกิดจากความกล้าหาญและความคิดริเริ่มนี้จะใช้มโนคติจาก บรรดาศาสนาต่างๆ ท่ีมีพ้ืนฐานมาจากประเพณีด้ังเดิม แต่ว่า (ตำนาน) จะเป็น อิสระจากมโนคติ เหล่าน้ัน Abstract The role of myth in the context of religion has had considerable theoretical attention. Both psychological and anthropological interpreta- tions of myth have tended to view religion as a modus operandi of cul- tural behaviours. While such interpretations may be insightful it begs the question as to the role of myth for guiding future societies. This paper will pose the idea that a new myth is needed in order to tackle the major global challenges which humanity is facing. This promethean myth will use Prajna Vihara, Volume 11, Number 2, July-December 2010, 53-67 53 2000 by Assumption University Pressc ~ ideas from traditionally based religions but will not be dependent on them. The Rise and Fall of Western Myth It may come as a surprise to hear the question asked in this post- modern age whether it is possible to wonder whether a new creation myth could be created. These are hard times for authentic myths, it seems. The old myths are being exploited as entertainment. But before that they have been transmogrified into archaisms and demystified. Let’s see if we can reconstruct the millennia-long mythic life cycle. First, there is a re-eruption of chaos, a pervasive spiritual cata- clysm that the old myths cannot comprehend. So a new set of myths emerge (and that is the aspect of the pro- cess we need to consider). It is the nature of these new myths to show how the chaos that the older forces or deities was not subordinating was re-ordered by the new heroes and divinities. The older realm was rel- egated to some primordial region, safely put away, for the time being. Later this will be recalled as the primitive era. For the Mediterranean world the stories of Zeus and the Olym- pian deities was the evocation of the sacred. These were the myths of the Greeks and the Romans. As Mircea Eliade has demonstrated it is not necessary to find exact parallels between the old myths of Io and the Titans with Zeus and Athena. “Because the Sacred’s essence lies only in the mythical age, only in the Sacred’s first appearance, any later +appear- ance is actually the first appearance; by recounting or re-enacting mythical events, myths and rituals ‘reactualize’ those events (Eliade 1961:68-69). Then the second generation of gods and heroes begin to fade and lose their edge of awesome mystery. The narratives about them refer to a dim and distant past. Their power to coalesce human endeavor is at its zenith at this point, however, calling up sumptuous works of art, monu- mental architecture and liturgical spectacles. These works and the faith that inspires them is layered now. There is an application implied, an inference to configurations of secular authority. At the same time the mytho- logical aspects are becoming brittle and are the more stoutly defended. Toward the end there arises a generation (hundreds of years long) 54 Prajna Vihara~ of sophists: philosophers, skeptics, analysts, scholars, and explorers who search for still another layer of truth as the crest of the civilization passes, the monuments become archaic, and the liturgies anachronistic. By this time the myths are becoming nothing more than tales told to amuse, or curiosities that can augment some renaissance. Meanwhile, one of three things has happened: either chaos has re-erupted that needs to be dealt with mythically, or civilization has evolved or moved to enfold some additional mythic narrative, or some event has caused one mythic narrative to replace another. This latter is more often presumed than may actually be the case. Let’s review this scenario more slowly. There has been no shortage of chaos in human history. But hu- man beings, being as adaptable as anything living except viruses, cock- roaches and rats, have endured most of those chaotic epochs without suffering an immediate “pervasive spiritual cataclysm”. Mythic ages, like geologic ones, are prolonged and slow. The fall of a civilization is not necessarily the end of a mythic age, nor is a mythic deposit co-terminal with a religion. Often, it seems, in retrospect, the nature of the chaos that precipitated the new mythos was too remote to be remembered distinctly. All that is left of the chaos, in fact, is the mythic evidence of its submersion. It is unclear what it was, for example, that led to the victory of the family of Zeus over the primordial giants like voracious Cronus at the same time that Marduk was subordinating Tiamat, the primordial mother. All we know is that now the giants reside in Tartarus, far from us. The stories of Zeus and his kin expressed the optimism of the new era and the confi- dence in the essential connectedness of the diverse and sometimes con- flicted aspects of life lived on little islands, peninsulas, mountainsides and valleys. Despite the perpetual change and turmoil, this was not re-emer- gence of the primordial chaos that had been overcome. The present vio- lence, disruption and discontinuity was part of a whole that was analogous to a clan whose various members did not always conform to the direc- tions laid down by their superiors, the agreements they had made, or even to their own basic characters and best interests. They were given to emotional outbursts, jealousies and whims. Village life is like that, even though it should be otherwise. But when the time came that this capricious picture did not satisfy, 55Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis when a new era of nations emerged with alliances and empires at stake, a new story cycle was needed, a new set of imaginative connections had to be evoked. Homer served it up. His heroes bridged the gap that had yawned between present reality and mythic reality. The heroes of Greece and Troy claimed divine ancestry, Homer carefully explained, and the di- vinities intervened in the battles as though they were a re-enactment of cosmic ones. Nearly a millennium after Troy fell, Alexander again as- sumed the mantle of divine hero, heir of Heracles (Hercules) and of Achil- les, descendant of the Aeacidae, and therefore from Zeus (Diodorus Siculus, 17.1.5; Plutarch, Alexander, 2.1-2). But Alexander’s destiny was greater than that of his Mediterranean tribal ancestors, divine though they might be. Alexander rode the mighty horse Bucephalus to conquer the heirs of Osiris of Egypt and Ahura Mazda of Persia. So the Greek mythos with Greek cultural artifacts and art spread east to the center of Aryan culture and south to the center of Egyptian culture. But, Hellenized though they were, the core narratives of those regions were not replaced. It can be argued, I think, that no religion which insists on utterly replacing the mythos of a region can become dominant in that place without first decimating the people there. Alexander, it is said, took another track. While he was in Persia he donned the gossamer robes of the Persian King of Kings and adopted Darius’s own mother as his third mother (counting Ada of Caria as his second), much to the disgust of a faction of his army (Plutarch, Alexander, 45). He made no war on other people’s culture. As a result, a Greek tone entered Persian culture, the first known statues of the Lord Buddha wore Greek countenances, and Alexandria became the home of a Hellenic line of Pharaohs. Meanwhile, Pyrrho of Ellis, born only 4 years before Alexander, was the founder of the Skeptic-Stoic line of philosophy. The thing they were most maddeningly skeptical about was Zeus and his unruly clan. It was Pythagoras and Socrates who had first proposed intellectual alterna- tives to the rote recitation of mythic memories that camouflaged the spiri- tual vacuum that was emerging (Durant 2005:9). The myths had lost their power, but the religion, note, was more glistening than ever. The philoso- phers might hold forth in the stoa (covered walkways where the philoso- phers conversed with their students) around the agora (market area), but Athena reigned unchallenged above it all in the splendid Parthenon on the 56 Prajna Vihara~ hilltop. When Rome succeeded Athens and Sparta it was not a new mythos that was needed. The old one held no threats, as had the older Phoenician fertility gods Baal Hammon and later Tanit of the Carthaginians. What was needed for the new age of Empire was not a new pantheon but a new set of heroes. Virgil served it up, along with Ovid’s justification of change as the very character, after all, of the gods. By this time what was left of the belief in Jupiter and his dysfunctional, metamorphosed and metamorphosizing children, was merely belief in the belief in them. It was Augustus who was to be believed in, and the gods were to help sustain that and to grace it with the aura of authentic divinity, the glint of religious respectability. Thanks to Peter Heather’s “new history” of The Fall of the Ro- man Empire (2005), a more realistic picture of the transition from the Roman to the Gothic era has relieved us of the traditional interpretation that Christianity completely replaced paganism, or specifically that the Truth came in to wipe out heathen superstition on the coat-tails of Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312 A.D. Heather insists that the Christian Church did not replace the Imperial litur- gical and architectural structure, but claimed it. As far as the Roman Imperial apparatus was concerned perhaps the change the Church brought was just a coat of varnish; it was certainly no more than a new veneer that was laid on the accoutrements of empire after Constantine. …Christianity…and Empire rapidly reached an ideo- logical rapprochement. Roman imperialism had claimed, since the time of Augustus, that the presiding divinities had destined Rome to conquer and civilize the world. The gods had supported the Empire in a mission to bring the whole of humankind to the best achievable state, and had intervened directly to choose and inspire Roman emper- ors. After Constantine’s public adoption of Christianity, the long-standing claims about the relation of the state to the deity were quickly, and surprisingly easily, reworked. The presiding divinity was recast as the Christian God, and the highest possible state for humankind was declared 57Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis to be Christian conversion and salvation. Literary educa- tion and the focus on self-government were shifted for a while to the back burner, but by no means thrown out. And that was the sum total of the adjustment required. The claim that the Empire was God’s vehicle, enacting His will in the world, changed little: only the nomenclature was different. Likewise, while emperors could no longer be deified, their divine status was retained in Christian- Roman propaganda’s portrayal of God as hand-picking individual emperors to rule with Him, and partly in His place, over the human sphere of His cosmos. Thus the emperor and everything about him, from his bedchamber to his treasury, could continue to be styled as ‘sacred’ (Heather 2005:123). On the other hand, just as certainly, Christian faith and practice were very, very much impacted and changed and the remnants of the religious cults of Zeus and Athena disappeared and after a short while were hardly missed. The Empire changed the Church far more than the Church changed the Empire. The Roman Empire was validated on the core belief that the Roman people were divinely chartered to dominate the barbarians. That belief has adhered to Christianity right through the era of European colonialism. The acceptance of Christianity as the Ro- man state religion simply renamed the divine authenticators. Heather pains- takingly recounts the steps by which “Roman” changed from referring to citizens of a single city to mean a type of culture and land-ownership. It was in defense of the landlord class that the Empire needed its military legions. And it was the loss of the infrastructure to support the Empire and its armies in the fifth century that ended the political dominance of the Western Roman emperor, while the Eastern Roman Empire, now called Byzantine, continued for another thousand years, according to Gibbon, until the fall of Constantinople/Byzantium in 1453. In short, insofar as the Mediterranean world is concerned, the mythic era that began with Zeus did not end. It migrated and evolved. Its antecedents linger influentially and recur again and again. When Europe underwent another seismic spiritual shift at the time of the Renaissance- 58 Prajna Vihara~ Reformation-Enlightenment, it was none other than paintings of Zeus and his family that appeared after a millennium to hang beside the Virgin Mary and the newborn infant or next to the grieving Mother of the passionate newly-dead Jesus. But when the divinities of an evolving mythos re-emerge they may not be the same. The “cult” of Isis in Roman times would have been as unrecognizable to the Egyptians in the time of Rameses II as the 20th Century art deco Egyptian motifs would have been to Tutankhamen who inspired them. The Christos Pantokrator who presided awesomely over the Imperial cathedral and was celebrated in clouds of incense would have been unrecognizable by the apostle Paul who introduced the Christ narrative to that part of the world. Some things are changed. Furthermore, some things are lost, some new eras ignore empha- ses that a previous era valued. More than the names are changed. Themes are lost. Essences are submerged. One thing that the Mediterranean mythos lost was a creation myth. Some objection can be expected as we suggest that Western cul- ture, by which we mean the heirs to the Mediterranean mythos, does not any longer have a creation myth. Take it, for the moment, at least as a debatable point that both the Jupiter and Jehovah narratives have a lot to say precisely about the suppression of their predecessor mythic heritages. What else are the culture wars of Joshua, Samuel, Elijah and Elisha about if not the suppression of creation-sensitive fertility cults of Baal-Astarte- Isis-Proserpine? We can perhaps yield the point that the cultural heritage still retains these mythic strata, if we can agree that they are layered over and are virtually, practically inaccessible. What passes for a creation myth in Christianity is barely a stop- gap. The narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 talk of creation in passing on to the real point. Syntactically, the opening phrase of Genesis 1, verse 1 is subordinate and better translated, “When, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void….” The meat of the text is not about creation, much less the process of creation, but about the Creator and the Creator’s authority to dictate terms for living comfortably in a state of paradise with an amicable relationship to the Creator. The narrative wastes no more words on creation. It’s over and done with quickly. The story cycle of the Jewish and Christian Bible is 59Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis concerned with society, not cosmology. What’s important is “now what?” The job of the theologian is to expound on the “now what” by extrapolat- ing from the rest of the long narrative applications to present circumstances by using a hermeneutic that has achieved a consensus in a particular com- munity (the Church, or part of it). The job of the philosopher is to try to stand outside the community and assess the relevance of both the narra- tive and the theological exposition using a more universal set of principles. What, then, are we to do when we have arrived at a time of environmental and ecological crisis? In myriad ways humankind has brought survival to the tipping point. We do not need to explain these ways and the dangers they present. It is enough to name some of them: nuclear holocaust, population explosion, global warming, species eradi- cation, viral proliferation, and environmental degradation. As far as we know, the solutions, if there are any, are in human hands. At the same time it will take a monumental shift of human will to seize upon those solutions, or even to sense the crisis. One proposal now being considered is to create or revive a cre- ation myth. Thomas Berry calls it a “new story”. But is such a project feasible? The ‘New Story’: Sacred Earth and the Promethean Myth The new creation myth proposed by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme (1992), centres on cosmogenesis as the centerpiece of religion. They rightly argue that anthropocentric ideals contained and propounded by the wisdom traditions have led humanity to a path of destruction. This argument was propounded by the Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr who suggests that human disenfranchisement from nature began during the European renaissance and the concomitant rise of humanism which deemed humans as the centre of the world. During this time, a split began between the human and non-human worlds in which the latter was in- creasingly de-sacralised. According to Nasr (1968), during the medieval period nature was still perceived as sacred. However, from the 17th cen- tury onwards the rise of mercantilism and capitalism, as well as mechanis- tic science, recalibrated human ideas of nature. The new schemata now 60 Prajna Vihara~ saw nature as something material and bereft of spirit, waiting to be ex- ploited for human purposes. The Copernican revolution which began in the 16th century reached its zenith and final acceptance in Newton’s semi- nal work, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). Here, the universe is systematically stripped of its sacred meaning and supplanted by a materialistic and mechanistic paradigm. Orbs and planets follow mathematical principles that have been designed by the human mind. The trajectories of the spheres are no longer the abode of celestial beings but an infinite vacuum governed by centripetal forces and infinitesimal calcu- lus. Arguably, this radical discontinuity between religion and science reached its height during 19th century philosophy commandeered by Darwin’s work On the Origin of the Species (1859). This work stated that humankind was not exclusive as expounded by the Abrahamic reli- gions, but was informed by natural selection as all other species. It re- cently took molecular biology to conclude that all life on earth originates from one primordial ancestor, making all species kindred. In this new mythos, humans share 98.5% of DNA with chimpanzees and 70% of DNA with the humble slug. Modern science tells us that there is no pin- nacle in evolution nor teleology (Ridley 2000:24). Nor does it seem that any species is given special favour in nature’s design. 99.9% of species that have existed on earth are now extinct; a sobering thought. Species it seems have an expiry date as do periods on earth. For example, the Permian-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic and late Cretaceous extinction events transformed the planet. It seems that mass extinctions are part of nature’s tool kit for revolutionary change. Like Prometheus who gave fire to hu- mans, natural selection has endowed planet earth with illimitable creativ- ity. Berry’s and Swimme’s new myth privileges organic processes as the domain of human spirituality. Their myth is elegant. Starting from the Big Bang which saw the formation of energy changing into sub-atomic particles, then atoms, then primordial stellar galaxies, life begins on earth approximately 10 billion years after the Big Bang. The first life forms are single cell animals called eukaryotes which can live in the inhospitable environment of early earth. After aeons of time prokaryotes with nuclei come into existence. However, for over 2 billion years, all life on earth is 61Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis microscopic and denizens of seas. For some mysterious reason, a plethora of multi-cellular life evolves approximately 700 million years ago. This event is called the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ and it has been unparalleled. During this period, the 31 phyla or ‘body types’ evolve over a stupen- dously short period of geological time. After this period, multicellular life festoons the oceans and forays on the earth’s surface. Myriads of eco- systems evolve, testifying to nature’s creativity. But here is a mystery. Although, evolution is like a ‘blind watchmaker’ there seems to be some kind of hidden purpose which is seen in the increasing complexity of life forms. For example, the advent of multicellular life begins the formation of archaic central nervous systems in invertebrates and vertebrates. These nervous systems eventually cluster to form primitive brains. Over time, brains become increasingly more sophisticated and are capable of prob- lem solving and predator detection. Brain complexity continues through the long ages of reptiles and mammals to a point in time only a few million years ago in Africa where various species of apes starting from Ardipithecus ramidus (circa 4.5 million years ago) and Australopithecus aferensis (3.5 million years ago) begin the line of homo; the human lineage. These creatures are the first known hominins to have been selected for bi-pedal locomotion and clever brains. Although there is much which we will never know about these creatures, it has been speculated that they must have had a behavioural repertoire that spurred the rise of the self reflexive mind in later hominins. According to evolutionary theory, each successive hominin from Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neandertalinensis and Homo sapiens sapiens are cognitively more sophisticated than previous hominins, an idea which is highly disputable. In any case, all these creatures seem to share self reflexive awareness, the hallmark of homo. For Berry and Swimme, the universe can now ponder upon itself through the human mind. Such self- awareness, has among other things, allowed humankind to tinker with its own evolution. We have seemingly outgrown the gods. Advances in mo- lecular biology, nanotechnology, information technology and recombitant DNA are steering the human species into a promethean age. In Greek mythology the titan Prometheus was punished for pro- voking the Olympians. With the gift of fire Prometheus provided a means for humans to challenge the gods, and ultimately rejecting them. Fire, in 62 Prajna Vihara~ this instance may stand as a metaphor of the human imagination. Unlike the other elements fire needs to be created and that takes imagination and insight. However, fire must also be harnessed otherwise it can destroy instead of profit. For the ancient Greeks human intellect needed to be tempered by moderation (souphrosene) if it was to benefit others. For this reason, on top of the entrance of the Apollonian oracle at Delphi was written gnosis auton (know thyself). To this end, the Greeks invented an array of myths which instructed future generations about the sin of hubris and inevitable fall from grace. If the promethean myth is to inform future humans we must re- solve our own foibles and trespasses with which we have plagued planet earth. First, we must recognize the origins of human biology in the context of the ‘New Story’. Second, we need to create a rapprochement with the non-human world. Like other mythic genre that foreground human dependency on the animal kingdom, the promethean myth will have to re- connect with other species. This will need a transformation from a hu- man- centered language to an Earth-centered language (Swimme and Berry 1992: 258). Here Swimme and Berry are instructive. Beyond any formal spoken or written human language are the languages of the multitude of beings, each of which has its own language given to it generally, in the world of the living, by genetic coding. Yet each individual being has extensive creativity in the use of the language. Hu- mans are becoming much more sensitive to the nonhuman languages of the surrounding world (1992:258). The new promethean myth should be informed by both the world’s indigenous and wisdom traditions which foster an inter-dependent worldview. For example, the Islamic notion of tawhid (divine unity) in- formed Islamic science to view the universe as a unity and humankind as a microcosm whose interiority reflected the glory of creation. The Muslim mystic philosopher Mohyuddin ibn Arabi viewed the universe as a kalei- doscope of infinite potentiality reflecting the Divine attributes (sifat). Simi- larly, in his Summa Theologica (1265-1274), Thomas Aquinas expounded Platonic and Aristotelian inspired natural theology which placed an onus 63Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis on sensory experience of the life world. In his essay on the Christian concept of perichoresis Buxton discusses this term in relation to interconnectedness and holism (2004:109). The classical meaning of perichoresis describes the Divine nature as “dynamic relationality”. Here Buxton uses Moltmann’s synthesis of the “creation-community” __ a com- munity encompassing the web of terrestrial life (Buxton 2004:110). The creation-community is the primordial family, intimately connected to each other through DNA; such interconnectedness is referred to as the primal reality (Buxton 2004:110). In Buddhist thought, the mutually interpen- etrating diversity of forms and expressions are recognised by the term pratityasamutpada (the-together-rising-up-of-things) (Brown 1994:125). A conjoining idea of pratityasamutpada is the theory of tathagatagarbha (unborn, pure, permanent undying reality) (Brown1994:128). The theory of tathagatagarbha includes the identification of the Buddha with the cosmic body (dharmakaya). This cosmic body is perfect self aware- ness, integral and universal essence (dhatu) (Brown 1994:128). The promethean myth will therefore not be totally adverse to tra- ditional religion but adhere to the ecological principles apparent in the wisdom traditions. We are at the terminal phase of the Cenozoic era and entering into the Ecozoic era which will foster a rapprochement with the non-human world. The mechanistic and materialistic worldviews of mo- dernity will be devalued in the Ecozoic era. This is the hope for Swimme and Berry. For Swimme and Berry “the universe is a collection of sub- jects rather than a collection of objects” (1992:243). This is a far cry from Heidegger’s ‘night world’ in which humankind’s technocratic re- gimes have de-mystified the universe. Because the Earth is an integral world, it cannot survive if it is fragmented (Swimme & Berry 1992:243). The message behind our biological discoveries in recent decades is that life is a unity. For this reason the earth must be primary. The promethean age, will therefore, make inroads to understanding life on earth, its com- plex interactions and evolutionary stages. Present knowledge of plan- etary life forms is small, fewer than 10%, with fewer than 1% which have been studied (Wilson 2006:116). In 2002 alone, 6,288 new species of bacteria were discovered (Wilson 2006:118). Earth’s present biodiversity is probably the highest in its long history. In other words it has taken 3.9 billion years for the earth to achieve this level of biodiversity. Present 64 Prajna Vihara~ extinction rates of flora and fauna are so high that some commentators have called it the sixth mass extinction event. The last mass extinction event happened at the end of the Cretaceous period approximately 65 million years ago. According to the well-known biologist Paul Ehrlich, humans are probably causing the extinction of nearly 10,000 species a year (Swimme & Berry 1992:247). The loss of biodiversity is immense with unknown implications for the future. Since variation is the engine of natural selection the analogy of this level of biodiversity loss is like walking through a library only to find whole shelves of books missing everywhere. For Ehrlich what is needed in extant humans is the ability to think and plan ahead for several generations. He coins this ability as having “long twitch muscles” (Ehrlich 2000). Incumbent with having long twitch muscles will be having a spiritual appreciation of the earth. The philosopher David Abram (1997) considers a recalibration of human sensory perceptions in order to ‘presence’ the non-human world. As Saniotis (1997) explains: Here, the senses become increasingly attuned to the animal and organic landscapes, to the “encompassing cosmos”. Both Berry and Abram argue for a new kind of poietic embodiment emulating the mytho-experiential un- derstandings of creation that are found in shamanic soci- eties. Abram also believes that present human language is partly re- sponsible for human exploitation of nature. Western based languages, he says, have led to an objectification of the non-human world. These lan- guages have also tended to de-mystify the universe which in indigenous languages retains the magical element of the cosmos. For example, the English language possesses many metaphors dealing with quantification, as well, as privileging the primacy of vision. This is the Aristotelian legacy. It was Aristotle who professed that vision was superior to all other senses. From Descartes onwards, vision has been viewed as the most verifiable of the senses. Stoller (1989) notes that such a vision-orientated world handicaps our ability to fully engage with cultures which may privilege other senses. In Genesis, the construction of the Tower of Babel leads God to separate human beings through various languages. The lesson of 65Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis Babel is also a return to the primordial language of the senses. The promethean myth will need to retrieve our previous engagement with the senses in order to respond appropriately to global problems. Gregory Bateson is informative here. Bateson, like Martin Buber, points out that “I-Thou” relationships are possible between humans and ecosystems. Na- ture is always sacred for Bateson. His theoretical development of Mind as alluding to the informational and cybernetic processes inherent in na- ture enabled a possibility for humans to ecologically relate with the non- human world (Charlton 2008:162). His notion of systems as comprising sub-systems fits into his model of a dynamic and interactive nature. This view is of the living world as a unity, “a single interrelated mental system” closely “related to the idea of divinity” (Charlton 2008:164). Bateson’s epistemology posited the individual mind as being immanent, of which it is a part of a sub-system of a larger Mind (Bateson 2002). This larger Mind is the totality of all ecological and social systems, immanent and self cor- rective, identifying with all life and extending towards the cosmos (Charlton 2008:164-165). References Abram, David. 1997. The ecology of magic. Spell of the Sensuous: Per- ception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books. http://www.primitivism.com/ecology- magic.htm. 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Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 1968. The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. London: Allen & Unwin. Plutarch, Alexander. Retrieved from history-of-macedonia.com/ wordpress/ 2006/10/18/greek-ancestry-of-alexander-the-great. Ridley, Scott. 2000. Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. New York: Perennial. Saniotis, A. 2007. Reinventing nature: Thomas Berry’s “New Story” as universal communitas Prajna Vihara: The Journal of Philoso- phy and Religion. 2007 January-June 7 (1). Stoller, Paul. 1989. The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. Swimme, Brian. Berry, Thomas. 1992. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Faring Forth to the Ecozoic Age. New York: Harper One. Wilson, E.O. 2006. Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. New York & London: W.W. Norton & company. 67Kenneth Dobson and Arthur Saniotis