Ten Thousand Years of Transcendence
Religion and the history of escaping history
Although taken out of context and translated with some degree of poetic license, Karl Marx famously once described religion as “the opiate of the masses.” Regardless of what Marx truly meant by this, his analogy is difficult to deny in any sense. People take opium medicinally to relieve pain and suffering; others abuse it recreationally to escape from duty and responsibility. Most theologies offer a cosmological superstructure that also adds meaning to their anguish, but ultimately, religion serves to provide relief from the inexorable suffering of human existence. Whether that relief comes from a sense of meaning or simply by a way of escape, man’s physical and emotional suffering has forever driven him towards religious practices that promise divine catharsis and psychological solace.
This essay, however, like Marx’s philosophy, has more to do with history than with the ingestion of narcotics. Mircea Eliade, in his “Cosmos and History,” demonstrated with seminal clarity the ways and means by which archaic societies have used religious ritual to create a sense of permanent repetition and thereby escape the frame of historical time that modern, secular man takes for granted. Stepping away from time’s rigid tightrope, man escapes the delicate balancing act between yesterday and tomorrow, and swings like a trapeze artist over and outside the bounds of the temporal and the mundane. Modern religions of the West have developed their own defense mechanisms against the trappings of linear time, and new age philosophies have taken an even bolder and more literal position of anti-chronology.
Despite their best efforts to remove themselves from the ineluctable course of history, an overview of western religions – from the archaic to the post-modern – reveals a definitive history in which the traditions have undergone a continuous series of transformations and reinventions. But one pillar of consistency stands true over time, and that is the urge to transcend time itself.
ARCHAIC
The most ancient religions of paleolithic, tribal societies (including the present-day aborigines) created a sense of timelessness through rituals based on the myth of eternal return. These practices, as described at length by Eliade, refer back to a primordial time in which every significant act was performed first and best by the gods. Archaic man would reenact these archetypal events in his elaborate rituals as a way of returning to the mythic time where all was perfect and divine. The sense was that every important activity had already occurred in its truest original form, and that man’s best hope was simply to imitate those acts of the gods as closely as possible. This worldview seemed to pervade all aspects of daily life.
To create something new or perform something original was not only unnecessary, but outright offensive. The greatest good could only be achieved through pious repetition of the archetypal, and this permanent repetition created the effect of freezing time and preventing its progression. Only in the primordial time of the gods was the world a perfect place, and only by invoking that age of lost paradise could man create a tolerable set of conditions for himself and his community. Clearly, these were not societies that placed a high value on creativity and innovation. In a world where every decision is a matter of life and death, there is no room for experimentation and risk taking.
In stone age times, where life is said to have been nasty, brutish and short, nothing good would ever come from innovation or individuality. Man’s only surprises came in the form of catastrophes, such as war, plague and starvation. The great things on which their lives depended – good birth, good marriage, good hunting – had all been learned from the ancients, i.e., the gods, and assuring the health and welfare of the tribe meant following the lessons of the gods with perfect fidelity. Even the slightest deviation could spell disaster.
The notion of history as we know it did not exist. These catastrophic surprises, which modern man might label historical, archaic man refused to recognize. Whatever failed to conform to the model of archetypal repetition was considered not only aberrant but abhorrent. Archaic man’s chief interest was in the restoration of “pure” time. (Eliade, p.54) He would certainly agree with the words of Stephen Dedalus, who said, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” (Joyce) In this ahistorical paradigm, the concept of individuality as we know it is nowhere to be found. What matters, according to archaic religion, is to honor the gods and ancestors by fulfilling their fixed, archetypal roles.
OLD TESTAMENT WAYS
Leaping forward to Hebrew theology, which has been preserved in the books of the Old Testament, we find a belief system bound by nationality and the product of a common history. The Hebrew nation traces its roots down through specific individuals like Moses who performed specific deeds at a specific time and place, such as Mount Sinai. No surprisingly, these human and historical actions are gradually inflated to mythic proportions over time, but their religion rests largely on the premise that their members share a common and documentable heritage.
This marks a vital turning point in religious history for a number of reasons. First, the Hebrews transfered their emphasis away from the ritual (eliminating sacrifice altogether) and towards the scripture, in this case a written history. In moving away from sacrifice as the means by which to placate the heavens, the Hebrews instead adopted confession and penitence as the pathways to forgiveness. Most importantly, for the sake of this discussion, was the sense of history which distinguished Israel from all her neighboring tribes. Yet, as Rudolph Bultmann observes, “There is a curious inner contradiction here. By binding herself to her past history, …history was likewise brought to a standstill. The nation lived outside history.” (Bultmann, p.60)
Instead of tying herself to a mythic, primordial past, Israel was tied to a historical past, which ultimately served the same purpose of removing its members from the present. Interestingly, both of these orientations support the original etymology of the word religion, coming from the Latin re (again) and ligare (to connect), where a culture affirms itself through reconnection to a distant past.
Still, like any other religion, ancient Judaism faced the challenge of providing some form of relief from the trials and tribulations of the temporal world. From the pages of scripture and the annals of history, no one was more keenly aware of the fact that human history is a continuous tale of pain and suffering; but relegated to the former times of Moses and Abraham, Yahweh offers little promise of intervening with relief from present day struggles. “Since experience taught that sin was as permanent as personal misfortune and national suffering, the hope of his forgiveness and grace was transferred to an eschatological future.” (Bultmann, p.56). In this sense, man’s hope moved from a mythic past to a mythic future, both of them above and beyond the realm of historic time.
Finally, as greater emphasis is placed on the paradisal future, or the New Jerusalem as they would call it, the national past loses its sense of historical and becomes more and more mythical. “The history of the nation becomes an allegorical illustration of religious psychology and ethics.” (Bultmann, p.100) So a fantastic future is exalted at the expense of the true past and living present.
GREECE ENLIGHTENING
In most ways, Greek Mythology, as practiced in its original sense, conformed to the description of archaic religion given above. Imbued with all the magical powers that regulate the cosmos, the gods of Mount Olympus demanded frequent sacrifice in order to spare humanity from disaster. Etiological myths concerned themselves with the beginning of time and the creation of divine order out of chaos. Various cults honored the various gods, and matters of ritual were followed with precision.
Classical Greece, under the auspices of the the great Athenian philosophers, shifted the attention toward humanity, and human reason in particular, i.e. Logos. In this era of unparalleled innovation, the Greeks believed themselves capable of reducing the cosmos down to its elemental substances. “The spirit dwelling in the body is not really an alien element…. It is the Logos of man, identical with the universal Logos, his intellect and will.” (Bultmann, p. 142)
Plato credited the gods with divine justice and for endowing man with the order and reason necessary to hold the city-state together. “The Olympian Gods are not the embodiments of uncanny powers, but the spiritual forces of moderation and purpose, order law and beauty…. The gods become representatives and patrons of man’s social institutions and the virtues they require.” (Bultmann, p.105)
In their schools of Idealism, Sophism and Stoicism, the Greeks sought rational explanations, through the use of logic. They understood the world around them as a system of dualities, made up of matter and form, and within their intellectual grasp. In these respects, they deviated from all former religions who sought justice in an mystical past or a hidden future. And, in fact, we consider these schools of philosophy, not of religion. But, as we shall see, they did perform a crucial function of psychologically and theologically preparing Europe for the the acceptance of a savior, the son of God, the son of man.
FEATHERING THE SAVIOR’S NEST
In post-Classical Greece, following the explosion of Athenian philosophy and the exposure to the mystical ideas of Persia and India, new religions emerged with some highly original characteristics. Certain “new age” ideologies of the East had no difficulty capturing the imaginations of antiquity. “Astrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon a remote island people.” (Murray, p.139) The Oriental system of star worship meshed all too well with the Greeks’ elaborate system of mythology, and with all the attention Greeks science had paid to the celestial motions, it’s only surprising that the concept of astrology had not infected them sooner.
Unlike history, the stars and planets offered a degree of certainty not to be found anywhere else. Their motion could be predicted with absolute precision, and once that motion was causally connected to the lives and times of mankind, it became clear that the future had already been written in the stars, to borrow a phrase. Of course, this celestial order was far too complex for even the most advanced astrologers to read the future with absolute certainty, but they came to believe in a divine fatalism regulated by some transcendent deity.
Bultmann suggests that astrology was a symptom of those particular beliefs, rather than the impetus for their emergence, but either way, they would serve to reinforce one another and ultimately share the path toward a new way of thinking. “A new dualism replaces the dualism of form and matter, of spirit and sensuality. It is the dualism of the two worlds, the sublunary and the world of the stars…. Theology develops the concept of omnipotence and eternity.” (Bultmann, p.152)
Under this paradigm, it becomes useless to seek divine intervention to improve one’s lot in this lifetime. One could just as easily prevent the new moon from waxing or the sun from rising. The course of the stars and planets are beyond man’s control, and the supreme being who keeps them moving in perfect order is far beyond man’s influence. “It must be a deity above the world, on whose caprice or grace he is utterly dependent. He knows he is in the hands of a power beyond his own control.” (Bultmann, p.161)
The nature of eternity, however, offers an entirely new possibility: the hope for a better lot in a later life. If divine intervention will not rescue man’s body from suffering in this lifetime, then perhaps he should think about saving his soul all of eternity. “The real savior of men is not he who protects them from earthquake and famine, but he who in some sense saves their souls.” (Murray, p.154)
And with Gnosticism the separation between man and God, between God and the temporal world, is finally completed, and the hope for salvation is placed with man. Plotinus shared his views on salvation in the third century B.C., ideas that would form the cornerstone of Gnosticism. He who has known god is thereby deified, Plotinus said. He is the image of God, the son of God, in a sense he is God. (Plotinus, I. ii. 6) Or, in the words of Porphyry, his best known student, “The philosopher is the savior of himself.” No longer can a dialogue take place between man and God, nor does man have much hope in comprehending the mystery of God; his best hope is simply to accept the mystery and save himself.
IN JESUS’ NAME
With the groundwork carefully laid by the Hebrew trust in a paradise of the permanent future, the Hellenistic belief in a fatalistic divine order that transcends all things earthly and temporal, and the Gnostic conception of salvation through knowledge, mankind was finally ready for a new savior. Unlike the gods of the past, the Nazarene did not belong to a magical and otherworldly past. Instead he entered the realm of knowable history and forged the link between man and God, a link which the Greeks and Hebrews seemed to have permanently severed.
On the surface, Christianity delivered salvation in the sense of meaning, and with a sense of timely immediacy. “It gave value to suffering: transforming pain from a negative condition to an experience with a positive spiritual content.” (Eliade, p.96) Eliade goes on to suggest that modern man, in his attachment to history, has finally escaped the cycle of archetypes and repetition. For the believers, the promise of a New Jerusalem had been fulfilled. Emphasis however, remained on the soul, which would continue dwelling in eternity and therefore required spiritual salvation.
But it gradually became evident that the New Jerusalem had not arrived in the here and now, but still waited in the faraway kingdom of heaven. “It can only be understood in the light of God’s grace as the permanent futurity of God which is always there before man arrives, wherever it be, even in the darkness of death.” (Bultmann, p.208) Modern-day Christians place their faith in that futurity of salvation and grace, and gain the peace of mind that makes the suffering of this temporal world bearable. Yet the challenge persists, for the promise of that remote future paradise to outweigh the obstacles of a world plagued by pain and injustice. Only by transcending the human experience, that of time and matter, is it possible to commune with God.
NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT
With the advent of the Enlightenment and Newtonian physics, Europeans were lining up to trade in their transcendental theology for rock-solid science. To them the universe operated according to clearly definable laws, allowing all features of time and space to be measured with reason and accuracy. Such scientific progress led to the belief in God as a clockmaker who merely put the wheels into motion and allowed mathematics to do the rest. The laws of physics could explain all past, present and future events.
As nature lost more of her mystery, the church lost some of its membership. But for those who remained faithful, God still operated outside the box of rational science, in the paradise before the Fall, the void before Creation, and the heavens beyond the afterlife. Medicine provided some relief from man’s physical suffering, and science may have even offered a new sense of meaning, but for spiritual salvation man still placed his faith in the rock of ages, the kingdom of eternity.
This unshakable faith received a gentle nudge in the twentieth century when Einstein’s relativity came along and displaced Newton from the rock of reason. With his groundbreaking discoveries, Einstein demonstrated that time was no longer a hard and fast line moving straight through history, but just another dimension of space, subject to perception and perspective. With one swift blow, absolute time was removed from its high place on the altar of Newton. For some, this notion that things are not what they seem would renew their faith in a transcendental deity. This surfeit of uncertainty and instability found in quantum physics seemed to suggest that everything is transcendent, that our perception of time and space is no longer reliable, that the temporal world is purely illusory and hard science has proven it so.
The questions provoked by this line of reasoning are profound indeed. This paradigm shift prompted westerners in the later half of the twentieth century to flock toward Eastern philosophy in unprecedented numbers. In the traditions of China and India, the search for salvation is oriented far more inwardly. Strangely consistent with modern and post-modern physics, these ancient religions describe the material world as illusory and prescribe practices like yoga and meditation to transcend this world of distractions to find the truth that resides in emptiness.
New age poets, pop music and trendy natural fiber t-shirts repeat the mantra, “Be here now,” and Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” has become the most popular self-help book of the last two decades. In stark contrast those forerunners of Western religion who exalt the ancient mystic past or the permanent future, Tolle, Ram Dass, and Hatha yoga all demand detachment from both the past and the future, and a complete embrace of the present moment. The new ideas not only maintain the goal of transcending time, but they spell it out explicitly: the object is to free the mind from the regrets of the past and the worries about the future.
THE GRAND ELUSION
On the surface, these new age philosophies appear to run contrary to the traditional religions above, but closer examination reveals a perfect consistency. Archaic religions escaped to a mythic past through ritual, Judeo-Christians follow their scripture to a mythic future, and new age believers escape to the mythic present. Just like the ages of paradise that follow or precede historical time, the present moment will always elude us. As close as it feels, it remains unattainable, like holding infinity in the palm of the hand. In the pursuit of the mythic gold, however, the journey always means more than the destination; with proper mindfulness, man will find temporary transcendence from the mundane.
That each of these traditions of Truth should promise or promote some form of escape from time, as we know it in the material sense, does seem significant. Birth, death, joy and sorrow are accepted, but all the great religions identify time itself as the grand illusion, the barrier that separates man from god. While everything else continues to change, this need to extract ourselves from the frame of time has remained constant for the duration of human history. Reality with a capital R, it seems, lingers somewhere else, in a time and place before the birth/Creation and after the death/Apocolypse. What happens between those events is a mystery; what waits beyond them is our home.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bultmann, Rudolf. Primitive Christianity. New York: Meridian Books, 1956.
Eliade, Mircea. Cosmos and History. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954.
Joyce, James. Ulysses. New York: The Modern Library, Inc., 1934.
Murray, Gilbert. Five Stages of Greek Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1955.
Plotinus. Enneads.
