Hanging on the wall of my study is a remarkable map. It is about three feet wide and six feet long. It shows the history of religious evolution starting about 180,000 years ago and ending at the bottom in 1966. The title is "The History Map of Religions." It is in eight colors, with each color representing a flow of mythologies, and concepts, from one religion to another. For instance, if you follow the color "blue," you can see the mythological diffusion, or continuity, from Zoroastrianism and Mithraism into Christianism. It is quite an educational experience to stand in front of the map and study the overall evolution of religions from the 3rd (warm) interglacial period, from the Lower Mousterian Culture of Neanderthal man in Europe to the religious picture of the Earth in 1966. We ask: "Where did it all begin, this behavior that we call religious?" How far back do we go to find the origins of some of our beliefs, like life after death, or the belief in supernatural beings and spirits? Anthropologists think that religious behavior can easily be found in the Neanderthal period of 135,000 years ago. The Neanderthal people buried their dead with great sensitivity and care. Flowers were put into the graves. Artifacts were buried with the dead. Artifacts were either to take with you into another life following death, or to have them for an offering to the gods or goddesses. We ask: "What led them to believe in an afterlife, or supernatural beings?" The answer that I am the most comfortable with is fear and dreams. We all know what fear can do, and when you realize that the Neanderthal people could not possibly have had an explanation for lightning and forest fire, earthquake and storm, thunder and gale, what else would they think but that supernatural beings were behind it all and had to be placated, worshiped and feared? Fear must have played a major part in the development of ideas concerning supernatural beings. For we know that today, even in our own time, it is fear that drives millions to churches and to their knees, either begging or asking the gods for forgiveness of one thing or another. Today, millions live filled with a fear of what is going to happen to them after death. Still today, it is fear that is one of the primary religious motivators of our species, Homo sapiens. As for life-after-death beliefs, I like the dream theory better than any other. We all know how vivid, alive, real and moving dreams can be, to such an extent that when we awaken we are amazed it was a dream. My father died 20 years ago, and yet from time to time, my dreams of him are so sharp and clear it is staggering. What would you think if you were a member of the Neanderthal group, and you knew that you had buried one of your friends long, long ago and yet, last night, in a vivid dream once again you were with him, hunting? He was alive! But how could that be? You buried him many moons ago. Last night he was alive and hunting with you. Why, your friend is not dead at all. He lives on after death in some other place. From such a beginning, thousands and thousands of years ago, there developed and evolved basic ritualistic behavioral patterns, and mythological motifs, or themes, that have spread by a process of diffusion from, at least, the Neanderthal period through Cro-Magnon caves, and into the Christian churches and cathedrals of 20th-century America. One of the more obvious of these is the "sacred meal" or ritualistic cannibalism. We still practice this ritual today in the Protestant and Roman Catholic communion, where we eat the body and drink the blood of the divine leader. The Christian church calls it "communion," or "taking communion." The communicant eats and drinks, symbolically or literally, the flesh and blood of the divine "leader." The traditional invitation to Communion, spoken by the presiding clergy, is this: "Take, eat, this is my body . . . this cup is the new covenant is my blood . . . drink." Eating a body and drinking blood is a cannibalistic theme, no matter how hard the clergy try to water it down, or theo-babble around it by calling it "only symbolic" cannibalism. In the 9th century, the clergy said that God made the flesh of Jesus only look like a wafer so as not to upset the worshipers. They were really cannibals, but they didn't have to face up to it, admit it, or be vividly aware of it. How convenient. History reeks with Theo-babble. ("Theo" God-babble.) One anthropological scholar who has spent a lifetime studying this ritual is Dr. Jean-Paul Dumont, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington. He writes: "Cannibalism has always been a part of religious behavior. The principle is the same . . . acquiring through ingestion the powers of something, whether human or divine. The purpose has always been to take on the qualities of the person being eaten. Through the ritual you share in the divinity of the one being eaten. In our Christian traditions we still practice this cannibalistic ritual in taking Communion." People often ask me, "How could you serve communion when you were a Congregational minister, knowing it was a cannibalistic ritual?" My answer: "I never did use the cannibalistic words or invitation, and the congregations loved my honesty." I spoke only of the joy of breaking bread together and drinking wine, which has for thousands of years been a way to celebrate life. Bread has been a symbol of strength, and wine for life and wisdom. Says the Hebrew Qabbalah, "It is the symbol for the mysterious vitality and spiritual energy of all created things." There is a beautiful teaching in Judaism that says Abraham went to see his great-grandfather Shem, and Shem gave him bread and wine. Shem's message to Abraham was that if you want to turn the world to God, you have to give them bread and wine; the old must be connected to the new and fresh and vital. Bread is best when it is fresh. With wine, the older it is, the more beautiful it is. When bread is broken and wine is drunk around a table of joy, there is a glorious communion of kindred spirits, whether Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Hebrew, American Indian, Hindu, Agnostic, Humanist, Atheist or Deist, Druid or Pantheist. There is a communion of more than our bodies. For those who cling to the archaic cannibalistic theme, I would remind them of the Christian tragedy, never better expressed than by Samuel Driver, when he was a professor of Hebrew at Oxford University:
For those who still believe they are eating a body and drinking blood, they are, quite honestly, cannibals, whether symbolic or literal. William Edelen is a newspaper columnist, symposium speaker, and radio talk show host.
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