Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

The Cosmic Hierarchy: A Cross-Cultural Study

Science provides substantial evidence supporting the assumption that a human being is composed of three things: matter, mind, and consciousness. This leads to the related assumption that our cosmos itself is divided into regions dominated by ordinary matter, mind, and spirit. Such cosmologies have existed in a vast number of cultures down through history.

These cosmologies include hierarchies of beings adapted to life at various levels. The structures of these hierarchies can often be complex, but one can see in them a basic pattern. At the top of the hierarchy is some kind of supreme guiding intelligence. Next comes a subordinate creator god, or demiurge. From the creator god come varieties of demigods, humans, plants, animals, ghosts, demons, and spirits. The highest level of the hierarchy, the level of the supreme guiding intelligence, God, is purely spiritual. The levels of the creator god and higher demigods are predominated by a mixture of spirit and the subtle material mind element. The lower levels, inhabited by minor demigods, humans, animals, and plants, are predominated by a mixture of spirit, mind, and a substantial amount of ordinary matter. These lower levels may include an underworld or hellish world, in addition to the ordinary terrestrial realm.

Humans, and all other living things we observe on earth, have a spiritual essence, or soul, which originates in the spiritual level of the cosmos. This spiritual essence is covered first by mind and then by matter,in a process that I call devolution.The process of devolution begins when the individual conscious self desires in a way that is incompatible with the spiritual harmony that exists between all beings in the spiritual world. According to their degree of departure from the original spiritual harmony, conscious selves receive subtler or grosser material bodies and fields of action. The higher demigods, who retain some considerable portion of their awareness of spiritual realities, receive bodies made primarily of the subtle material mind element, and act in an appropriate field. Those with grosser desires obtain not only a body of mind but also a body composed of a considerable amount of ordinary matter, capable of acting in the field predominated by ordinary matter. All of the bodies are programmed to last fixed durations of time. At the end of this duration, the soul obtains another body, according to the final state of its desires and consciousness. It is possible for a soul that has completely purified its desires to return to its original spiritual position. Otherwise, it receives another body, for another fixed term.

Cosmologies material and Spiritual

There have always been various ways of looking at the world, some of them materialistic, focusing on matter and its purely mechanical transformations, and some of them mystical or spiritual, focusing on the influence of God, or of gods and goddesses, on transformations of gross and subtle matter. At a certain time and place, a particular cosmology may become dominant within the most powerful and influential social groups. But alternative cosmologies remain simultaneously in existence, perhaps among the general population or among subdominant elites. In ancient times, spiritual, or mystical, cosmologies were dominant, but materialistic cosmologies were also current. For example, during the time of the Greeks, some philosophers, such as Democritus, proposed that everything in the universe could be reduced to material atoms. But spiritual philosophers were more numerous and influential. Today the positions are reversed. Materialistic cosmologies are dominant in elite circles and a substantial percentage of the general population, but spiritual cosmologies have survived. Not only have they survived, but their influence is growing, and they may soon once more become dominant within leading circles of society.

Billions of people in the world are still under the influence of spiritual cosmologies. They include, in addition to the orthodox followers of the principal world religions, practitioners of voodoo, santeria, shamanism, wiccam, etc. Even in the most technologically advanced populations, a surprising number of people display commitment to spiritual cosmologies or phenomena identified with these cosmologies. In 1990, the Gallup organization presented Americans with a list of 18 kinds of paranormal experiences associated with spiritual cosmologies. Only 7 percent of the respondents denied belief in any of them. About 50 percent expressed belief in five or more (Gallup and Newport 1990, p. 1). For example, 70 percent of Americans said they believed in life after death, 49 percent said they believed in extrasensory perception, 36 percent said they believed in telepathy, 46 percent said they believed in psychic healing, and

29 percent said they believed in ghosts haunting houses (Gallup and Newport 1990, p. 5). In addition to believing in such things, a good number claim to actually have experienced them. The Gallup report stated that “1 in 4 Americans believe they have had a telepathic experience in which they communicated with another person without using the traditional five senses, 1 in 6 Americans have felt they have been in touch with someone who had already died, [and] 1 in 10 claim to have seen or been in the presence of a ghost” (Gallup and Newport 1990, p. 1). Belief in paranormal phenomena connected with spiritual cosmologies is not limited to the general population. According to one survey (Wagner and Monet (1979), 57 percent of American college professors expressed belief in extrasensory perception. Another survey found that 30 percent of the heads of the divisions of the American Association for the Advancement of Science also believed in extrasensory perception (McClenon

1982).

But in the midst of this sea of persons committed to spiritual cosmologies there have arisen connected islands of scientific elites who are strongly committed to the materialistic cosmologies. And they have spread over the planet a web of economic, political, cultural, and intellectual institutions, founded on their materialistic cosmologies, and this web has somehow managed to attain a certain dynamic force and power, relative to the international institutional expressions of spiritual cosmologies. In this book, I am principally addressing myself to those people who have become entangled in this network of dominant materialistic institutions but who feel suffocated by it and wish to restore the planetary dominance of spiritual cosmologies. The first step must be a thorough critique of the assumptions underlying the materialistic cosmologies in their institutionalized manifestations, especially in educational institutions. To put it simply, students should begin to question the materialistic cosmologies imposed upon them by their teachers. And teachers can begin to question their administrative superiors, who in turn can question theirs. The representatives of institutionalized manifestations of materialistic cosmology should be confronted by advocates of spiritualist cosmologies in such a way that they begin to acknowledge them and negotiate with them. To some extent this is already happening.

In January 1999, I went to Capetown, South Africa, to present a paper on aspects of forbidden archeology at the World Archeological Congress, a major international conference. At one of the sessions I attended, a woman archeologist involved in major excavations at the Hittite site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey explained how the scientists in charge of the project, which is funded by such major multinational corporations as Shell, Glaxo-Wellcome, and Visa, were taking into account the alterna-

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tive cosmologies of various parties interested in the site, including the New Age goddess worshipers. The cosmology of the modern goddess worshiper is a mystical one, quite different, in key respects, from that of a professional archeologist committed, as I assume most are, to the materialistic cosmology of modern science. But in this circumstance, the representatives of the materialistic cosmology found themselves compelled to negotiate with representatives of a spiritualistic cosmology.

The director of the Çatalhöyük site is archeologist Ian Hodder, of Cambridge University in England. While some members of the orthodox archeological establishment are striving to maintain their exclusive authority and control over the process of picturing the past for the rest of society, some few archeologists, such as Hodder, are starting to take notice of the evolving situation represented by personalities such as the goddess worshipers and this forbidden archeologist, with his roots in the ancient Vedic tradition of India. In a perceptive article in antiquity, Hodder (1997, p. 699) wrote: “Day by day it becomes more difficult to argue for a past controlled by the academy. The proliferation of special interests on the ‘fringe’ increasingly challenges, or spreads to, the dominant discourse itself.” The forbidden archeology phenomenon has done both. Over the past few years, I have certainly been working to challenge the “dominant discourse.” Indeed, through my presentations at mainstream archeological conferences, sometimes resulting in my papers appearing in otherwise orthodox professional academic publications, the challenge has in fact spread into the realm of the dominant discourse itself. Of course, this is not just true of me and my work, but of that of many others working in the fields of alternative history and archeology. Hodder (1997, p. 699) took notice of the alternative knowledge communities springing up on the web, acknowledging that “many are extremely well informed.” He then said that “it is no longer so easy to see who is ‘in’ the academy and who is ‘outside’” (1997, p. 700). Hodder was instrumental in involving New Age goddess worshipers and ecofeminists in the ongoing exploration and development of the Çatalhöyük site. Hopefully, things will continue to progress in this direction, with academy-trained archeologists and well-informed representatives of alternative wisdom traditions cooperating to produce new ways of understanding the past. Hodder (1997, p. 694) cited efforts by North American archeologists to “work together with native Americans and integrate the use of oral traditions in archeological interpretation.” The American archeologists involved in one such effort (Anyon et al. 1996, p. 15) said that it shows “scientific knowledge does not constitute a privileged view of the past . . . it is simply another way of knowing the past.” My own effort has focused on bringing the spiritual cosmology of ancient India into mainstream archeological discourse, thus contributing to our understanding of human origins.

Human Devolution and Cosmology

The human devolution concept can only be understood in the context of a spiritual cosmology, involving levels of matter, mind and spirit. In the first part of this chapter, I will review some of the expressions of spiritual cosmologies in the West, from the time of the Greeks and Romans to the time of Newton. In this way, I hope to provide any new spiritual cosmology that may rise to prominence in the West with a cultural pedigree, and also the heritage of a longstanding and substantial evidential foundation.

In the second part of this chapter, I will demonstrate that spiritual cosmologies, greatly resembling those that were once dominant in the West can be found in many other times and places in the world’s history. The demonstration will be based upon reports of traditional beliefs of non-Western peoples gathered over the past two centuries by social scientists and scholars of comparative religion. Such scientists and scholars have advanced various theories about the origin and function of spiritual cosmologies, differing greatly in their conclusions. It is not, however, my purpose to disentangle the history of their agreements and disagreements, but rather to point out that in the course of their presentations they bring to our attention a wealth of detailed observations confirming that the overwhelming majority of peoples and cultures on this planet have accepted, and still accept today, spiritual cosmologies.

My demonstration will take the form of soundings or test bores, spaced (or timed) widely and somewhat randomly. If we propose that there is an underground deposit of a certain kind of ore extended through a certain region, we may execute several widely spaced test drillings, and if all the test drillings over this particular region show the presence of that ore, then we may safely conclude our initial proposal is probably correct. Now to determine the exact boundaries of the ore deposit, horizontally and vertically, and the concentration and purity of the ore at different places, will take a much more intensive systematic mapping effort. But the initial test results will have justified that endeavor.

One problem with our cosmological test drillings is that the terminologies and conceptualizations of various historical cosmologies, although bearing a family resemblance, are somewhat different. This is to be expected, but for the purposes of analyzing the relationships among the members of this set of cosmologies, I wish to introduce a template cosmology against which the terminologies and conceptualizations of the

250 Human Devolution: a vedic alternative to Darwin’s theory

others can be measured and compared, much as various world currencies are measured against the dollar. Actually, the currencies are separate, and have their roots in distinct economies; yet, there is a practical need for translation of one currency into another, and for this purpose, some standard of comparison has to be chosen. For this purpose, I am adopting a cosmological structure from the ancient Sanskrit writings of India. This, of course, reflects my own personal preferences as well as my belief that the cosmology expressed in the Sanskrit writings is objectively best suited for this purpose. I characterize the Indian Sanskrit writings as “Vedic,” using the widest interpretation of the term to include not only the four original Vedas, but also the supplementary Vedic literatures such as the Puranas.

A template Spiritual Cosmology

A clear expression of a template model of a mystical cosmology is found in chapters 25–29 of the Fourth Canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam, also known as the Bhagavata Purana. These chapters present an elaborate cosmological allegory called “The City of Nine Gates.” The sophistication of the allegory and the potential explanatory power of its elements invite modern researchers to consider alternatives to materialistic cosmologies.

The account of the City of Nine Gates is specifically identified as allegorical in the Shrimad Bhagavatam itself. The account was spoken by the sage Narada Muni, who was questioned by King Prachinabarhishat about the nature of the self, and Narada Muni himself explained all the elements of the allegory in the original text. In other words, it is not that I myself have identified some passages from the Bhagavata Purana as allegorical, and myself interpreted the passage in terms of a spiritual cosmology. The allegorical nature of the passages and their application to a spiritual cosmology are features of the text itself.

The central character in the allegory of the City of Nine Gates is a King named Puranjana. One meaning of the Sanskrit word puran-jana in the context of the allegory is “one who enjoys in a body.” Soul/body dualism is thus hinted at in the King’s name. King Puranjana originally existed as a spirit soul in a purely spiritual realm in relationship with a supreme conscious being, God. Materialists may oppose the introduction of this transcendental realm, which exists outside the material universe knowable by science. But even the materialist cosmology of modern science sometimes incorporates a “transcendental” realm, that is to say, a realm that exists beyond the universe knowable by the traditional methods of modern science, and from which that universe emerged at the time of the Big Bang. This transcendental reality, existing beyond time, space, and matter, is called the quantum mechanical vacuum, and is pictured as a pure energy field in which particles appear and instantly disappear. From this sea of virtual particles, some go through a process of expansion that keeps them in existence. According to many cosmologists, our universe is the outcome of one such expansion.

So both the Shrimad Bhagavatam and widely held versions of the Big Bang cosmology of modern science posit an eternal transcendental existence from which our universe of matter, with its features of time and space, arises. Once this is admitted, we can then decide which version of ultimate reality has the most explanatory power, when applied to the variegated reality of our experience. Modern cosmologists and other theorists have a great deal of difficulty in coaxing a sufficient amount of variety from the rather smooth and featureless universe that, according to theory, expands from the quantum mechanical vacuum. The origin of consciousness also poses a difficult problem. In light of this, an ultimate reality that is itself variegated and conscious might offer a solution.

In the spiritual world, King Puranjana originally existed in relationship with the Personality of Godhead, Krishna. Having departed from the spiritual world by misuse of independence, King Puranjana journeys through the material world. According to the Vedic cosmology, the material world is manifested by a special expansion of the Personality of Godhead. This expansion is called Maha Vishnu, who rests as if sleeping on the Causal Ocean. From the pores of the Maha Vishnu come millions of material universes. They emerge from the body of the Maha Vishnu in seedlike form, and then, energized by the glance of Maha Vishnu, expand in size. This provides an interesting parallel to some versions of the modern Big Bang cosmology, which also posit many expanding universes. Maha Vishnu then expands into each universe, and there emerges from Him in each universe a subordinate creator god called Brahma. Brahma is a soul who is given a very powerful material body with which to perform his creative functions. From Brahma come many other subordinate gods who control various aspects of the material universe. Surya is in charge of the sun, Chandra is in charge of the moon, Varuna is in charge of the waters, and so on. Brahma also creates the various material bodies that souls like Puranjana will enter. All together, there are 8.4 million kinds of bodies, ranging from microbes to demigods.

In his journey through the material world, Puranjana is accompanied by Avijnata Sakha (“the Unknown Friend”). The Unknown Friend corresponds to the Supersoul expansion of God into the hearts of all living beings. When Puranjana leaves God and the spiritual world, his memory of them becomes covered. But unknown to Puranjana, God accompanies him on his journey through the material world. According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam, God accompanies all spirit souls in the material world as their Unknown Friend, who observes and sanctions their activities.

In the West, mind/brain dualism is identified with the French philosopher René Descartes, who posited the existence of (1) matter extended in space and (2) mind existing outside space. Cartesian dualism is characterized by an interaction between mind and matter, but explaining how this interaction takes place proved problematic for advocates of the Cartesian model. How, for example, are impressions transmitted from the realm of matter to the completely different realm of mind?

According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam, both matter and the souls in the material world are energies of God, and as such both have a single spiritual source. The Shrimad Bhagavatam philosophy is thus both dualist and monist, simultaneously. The interactions of matter and the soul in the material world are mediated by Supersoul, who exists inside each material atom and also accompanies each spirit soul. By the arrangement of Supersoul, impressions of material experience can be channeled to the soul and the intentions of the soul can influence matter. How this takes place is the subject of the allegory of Puranjana.

Having left the spiritual world, Puranjana, accompanied by his Unknown Friend, the Supersoul, wanders through the material world. He desires to find a suitable place to enjoy himself. In other words, he searches for a suitable kind of body to inhabit. He tries many kinds of bodies on many planets. Here we note that each species of life consists of a soul inhabiting a particular kind of body. In this respect, the Shrimad Bhagavatam account differs from that of Descartes, who held that only humans have souls. For Descartes, animals were simply automatons.

Eventually, Puranjana comes to a place called Nava Dvara Pura, the City of Nine Gates. He finds it quite attractive. The City of Nine Gates represents the human male body, with its nine openings—two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, mouth, anus, and the genital opening. As Puranjana wanders through the gardens of the city, he encounters an extremely beautiful woman. Puranjana is attracted to her, and she is attracted to him. She becomes his Queen.

Puranjana, as we have seen, represents the conscious self. The beautiful woman represents Buddhi, intelligence. Up to this point, for the sake of simplicity, I have referred to the subtle material body of the living entity as mind. But according to the Vedic philosophy, the subtle material body is actually made up of the subtle senses, mind, intelligence and false ego. According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam philosophy, intelligence is a subtle material energy with discriminatory capabilities like those manifested by artificial intelligence machines. The attraction between King Puranjana and the Queen is the root of embodied consciousness. The King, it should be noted, has distinct conscious selfhood, with nonmaterial sensory capability, but this capability becomes dormant when he begins his relationship with the Queen.

The Queen (the subtle material element called intelligence) allows Puranjana (the conscious self) to enjoy the City of Nine Gates (the gross physical body). Employing a computer analogy, we might say Puranjana represents the user, the City of Nine Gates represents the computer hardware, and the Queen represents the software that allows the user to interface with the hardware and use it for practical purposes.

The Queen is not, however, alone but is accompanied by eleven bodyguards and a serpent with five heads. The bodyguards comprise the mind and the ten subtle senses. The ten subtle senses are made up of five knowledge-acquiring senses and five working senses. The five knowledge-acquiring senses are the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. The five working senses are those of walking, grasping, speaking, reproduction, and evacuation. All ten subtle senses are grouped around the mind. The ten subtle senses are considered servants of the mind. Each of these servants has hundreds of wives. The wives are desires for material experience, and the subtle senses act under their pressure. According to this system, the subtle senses are different from the physical sense organs. The subtle senses are part of the invisible subtle material covering of the soul, along with mind and intelligence. The physical organs of sensation (the eyes, nose, tongue, ears, skin, legs, arms, mouth, genitals, and anus) are part of the gross physical body that is visible to the eyes. The gross body and its physical organs are made up of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether.

The distinction between subtle senses and physical sense organs is important, and offers consciousness researchers a valuable conceptual tool. Let us consider, for example, the problem of phantom limbs. Persons whose legs or arms have been amputated often report that they are able to distinctly feel the missing limb, and even experience quite distinct sensations, such as twinges of pain or itching. The City of Nine Gates allegory provides an explanation for this mysterious phenomenon. Let us take the case of someone whose arm has been amputated but who still feels the presence of the arm. The arm is one of the working senses. It is composed of two elements, the subtle grasping sense and the physical organ of the arm and hand. The process of amputation removes the physical organ through which the subtle sense operates. But the subtle sense itself remains, and therefore its presence may be mentally perceived.

Since the subtle sense is material, it may be able to act upon gross physical matter, without going through the related physical sense organ. This model may therefore explain some of the phenomena reported in connection with ghosts and apparitions, and in connection with mediums, particularly the mysterious movement of physical objects.This model may also explain how persons are able to experience sense data during near death experiences, during which the physical sense organs are incapacitated because of anesthesia or shock.

The subtle senses are compared to attendants of the Queen. They serve her by bringing information and by conducting activity. Together they comprise the array of material intelligence and sensory capabilities, all formed from subtle but nevertheless material energy. In combination, they manufacture a self picture, with which the King becomes entranced and falsely identifies. The body itself, the City of Nine Gates, is made of gross material energy, of the kind that can be manipulated by ordinary physics and chemistry. It is powered by five subtle airs, listed in the Ayur Veda, the Vedic medical science, as prana, apana, vyana, samana, and udana. In the Puranjana allegory the five airs, comprising the vital force, are represented by a five-headed serpent.

In the allegory, Puranjana asks about the identity and origin of the Queen and her attendants. The Queen replies, “O best of human beings, I do not know who has begotten me. I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. Nor do I know the names or the origins of the associates with me. O great hero, we only know that we are existing in this place. We do not know what will come after. Indeed, we are so foolish that we do not care to understand who has created this beautiful place for our residence. My dear gentleman, all these men and women with me are known as my friends, and the snake, who always remains awake, protects this city even during my sleeping hours. So much I know. I do not know anything beyond this. You have somehow or other come here. This is certainly a great fortune for me. I wish all auspicious things for you. You have a great desire to satisfy your senses, and all my friends and I shall try our best in all respects to fulfill your desires. I have just arranged this city of nine gates for you so that you can have all kinds of sense gratification. You may live here for one hundred years, and everything for your sense gratification will be supplied.”

The King’s questioning the Queen represents the self’s interrogation of material intelligence for the answers to ultimate questions. The answers provided by the Queen, as well as her fundamental attitude, reflect those of modern science, which prides itself on avoidance of certain metaphysical questions and the tentativeness of whatever answers it may provide to other questions. “I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. . . . We only know that we are existing in this place.” Essentially, the Queen provides a monist, materialist answer to the King’s questions about his situation.

The Shrimad Bhagavatam then provides a more detailed description of the nine gates of the city inhabited by the King and Queen. Seven of the gates are on the surface (the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and mouth), and two of the gates are subterranean (the anus and genitals). Five of the gates face east.

The first two gates on the eastern side are called Khadyota (glowworm) and Avirmukhi (torchlight). In order to see, the King would exit these two gates, and go to the city called Vibhrajita (clear vision). On this journey he would be accompanied by his friend Dyuman (the sun, the ruler of the subtle visual sense).

In other words, the King encounters qualia by sensory contact through the physical gates of the body. Qualia are secondary properties of objects, such as color. In consciousness studies, the question of how we perceive qualia is a much debated topic. Do they exist in their own right, in the objects with which they are identified, or do they exist only in our own minds? According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam system, qualia, such as colors, exist as subtle sense objects. They thus have a reality of their own, and are not simply produced within the mind. The five subtle sense objects are sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch.

That the King goes out through the gates of the eyes to contact subtle sense objects in a city of visual impressions is interesting. This suggests that the seeing process is not simply one of passive reception, but may involve an active process of image acquisition (as in sonar, or radar). This may explain such phenomena as traveling clairvoyance, whereby a subject can mentally journey to a particular location, beyond the range of the physical sense organs, and then accurately report visual impressions. Visual sensations reported during out of body experiences could also be explained by this model. The exact relationships between the physical sense organs, the subtle senses, and subtle sense objects are not easily understood, but could perhaps be clarified by experimental work based on the overall model of the City of Nine Gates.

In the eastern part of King Puranjana’s city there are, in addition to the eyes, two gates called Nalini and Naalini, representing the nostrils. The King would go through these two gates with a friend called Avadhuta (representing breathing airs) to the town of Saurbha (odor). The last gate on the eastern side is Mukhya (the mouth), through which the King would go with two friends to the towns of taste sensation and nourishment.

Through the two gates on the northern and southern sides (the ears), the King would go to places where different kinds of sound were heard. Through the gates on the western side of the city, the King would go to the towns where sensations of sexual pleasure and evacuation are experienced. During his journeys, the King would take help from two blind men, Nirvak and Peshakrit, who represent the arms and legs.

In all his activities, the King would follow the lead of the Queen. In other words, the conscious self in the material world becomes conditioned by material intelligence. The Shrimad Bhagavatam says: “When the Queen drank liquor, King Puranjana also engaged in drinking. When the Queen dined, he used to dine with her, and when she chewed, King Puranjana used to chew along with her. When the Queen sang, he also sang, and when the Queen laughed, he also laughed. When the Queen talked loosely, he also talked loosely, and when the Queen walked, the King walked behind her. When the Queen would stand still, the King would also stand still, and when the Queen would lie down in bed, he would also follow and lie down with her. When the Queen sat, he would also sit, and when the Queen heard something, he would follow her to hear the same thing. When the Queen saw something, the King would also look at it, and when the Queen smelled something, the King would follow her to smell the same thing. When the Queen touched something, the King would also touch it, and when the dear Queen was lamenting, the poor King also had to follow her in lamentation. In the same way, when the Queen felt enjoyment, he also enjoyed, and when the Queen was satisfied, the King also felt satisfaction.”

As noted above, an important question that arises concerning dualist solutions to the mind/body question is how a nonmaterial conscious mind interacts with material sense objects. In this model, there is an answer to this question. The interaction is based on illusory identification.

To understand the nature of this illusory identification, we first need to readjust the familiar mind/body dualism to a triadic conception incorporating (1) a nonmaterial conscious self, (2) a subtle material body formed of mind, subtle senses, and intelligence, and (3) a physical body composed of gross matter. For the purposes of simplification, I sometimes reduce this triad to spirit, mind, and matter, with mind representing collectively all the elements of the subtle material body, namely, mind, the subtle senses, and intelligence.

In the more detailed model, however, the mind is a subtle material substance, associated with material intelligence. Mind is at the center of the subtle senses, which are in turn connected to the physical sense organs, which bring to the mind sense data in the form of subtle sense objects. Here yet another question arises.

In consciousness studies, one is faced with the problem of how the various kinds of sense data are presented in an integrated fashion. Even various elements of the visual sense, such as perception of color and movement and form are supposedly located in different parts of the brain. Sounds are processed in other parts of the brain. How are all these elements combined?

In the Shrimad Bhagavatam model, the integrating function is performed by the subtle mind element, which receives sensory inputs from the subtle senses grouped around it. The mind is not, however, conscious. The mind might, therefore, be compared to multimedia computer software capable of integrating audio and visual materials into a single, integrated display, making use of a variety of inputs and source materials. The material intelligence, represented by the Queen, directs the consciousness of the actual living entity to the integrated display of sense data. Intelligence, as a subtle material energy, is not itself conscious, but it mimics the behavior of consciousness. It thus attracts the attention of the conscious self, causing the self to identify with it, just as we identify with the image of an actor on a movie screen or the antics of a robot. By identification with material intelligence, which is in turn connected to the mind’s integrated display of sense data, consciousness is connected with the sense data. This connection is not direct. The indirect connection of the conscious self with gross matter arises from the self’s false identification with the action of a subtle material energy, intelligence. The extremely subtle material element that keeps the attention of the conscious self glued to the movements of the material intelligence is called ahankara, or false ego. The whole system is set up and directed by the Supersoul.

According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam picture, the conscious self originally experiences nonmaterial sense objects through nonmaterial senses. This takes place in the spiritual world, with God. But having turned from this original situation, the self is placed in a material body in the material world. Identifying with this artificial situation, the self forgets its own nature and that of God. But God remains with the self as Supersoul, the Unknown Friend. If the self tires of the artificial material reality and desires to return to its original position, the Unknown Friend will reawaken the original spiritual senses of the self and reconnect them with their spiritual sense objects.

The whole system of consciousness in the material universe therefore resembles a computer-generated virtual reality. In virtual reality systems, the user’s normal sensory inputs are replaced by computergenerated displays. But just as a person can turn off the virtual reality display and return to normal sensory experience, so the conscious self in the artificial sensory environment of the material world can return to its original spiritual sensory experience.

In the Shrimad Bhagavatam allegory, King Puranjana and his Queen enjoy life for some time in the City of Nine Gates. Eventually, however, the City of Nine Gates comes under attack by a king named Chandavega. Chandavega represents time, and his name literally means “very swiftly passing away.” Chandavega commands an army of 360 male Gandharva soldiers and their 360 female companions. Together, these represent the days and nights of the year. When Chandavega’s army attacks, the five-headed serpent (the vital force) tries to defend the City of Nine Gates. The serpent fights the attackers for one hundred years but eventually becomes weak, causing anxiety for the King and his associates. Finally, the attacking soldiers overwhelm the defenders and set the City of Nine Gates ablaze. As it becomes obvious that the battle is being lost, King Puranjana is overcome with anxious thoughts of his wife and other relatives and associates. Then the commander of the invading forces arrests the King and takes him away along with his followers, including the five-headed serpent. As soon as they are gone, the attackers destroy the City of Nine Gates, smashing it to dust. Even as he is being led away, the King cannot remember his Unknown Friend, the Supersoul. Instead, he thinks only of his wife, the Queen. He then takes another birth, this time as a woman.

In this part of the allegory, we see how the conscious self leaves the gross physical body, accompanied by the intelligence, mind, and subtle senses. When they leave, the gross physical body disintegrates. The conscious self then receives another gross physical body. The kind of body received depends on the condition of the subtle material body, which is composed of intelligence, mind, and subtle senses. The subtle material body is the template upon which the gross physical body is constructed. This model allows one to account for reports of past life memories, such as those researched and verified by Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia in his book twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. In the Shrimad Bhagavatam model, the mind is the storehouse of memory, including memory of past lives.

In his next life, King Puranjana becomes Vaidarbhi, the daughter of King Vidarbha. When grown, Vaidarbhi becomes the Queen of King Malayadhvaja. At the end of his life, King Malayadhvaja retires to the forest and takes up the process of mystic yoga. The Shrimad Bhagavatam (4.28.40) informs us: “King Malayadhvaja attained perfect knowledge by being able to distinguish the Supersoul from the individual soul. The individual soul is localized, whereas the Supersoul is all-pervasive. He became perfect in knowledge that the material body is not the soul but that the soul is the witness of the material body.” In this state of higher awareness, Malayadhvaja, following the yoga process, deliberately leaves his material body and achieves liberation from material existence.

Queen Vaidarbhi (formerly King Puranjana) is overwhelmed with grief at her husband’s departure. At this point, King Puranjana’s Unknown Friend (the Supersoul), appears before Vaidarbhi as a brahmana (saintly teacher). The brahmana says to Vaidarbhi: “My dear friend, even though you cannot immediately recognize Me, can’t you remember that in the past you had a very intimate friend? Unfortunately, you gave up My company and accepted a position as enjoyer of this material world.

. . . You were simply captivated in this body of nine gates.” The brahmana then instructs Vaidarbhi further about her original position as a purely spiritual self in the spiritual world. The message is that we should return to our original spiritual position, in which we have a spiritual body with spiritual senses. But if we choose not to do this, then we can remain in the material world, in a body adjusted to our desires. The body could be that of a demigod in the heavenly material planets, or that of a human being on earth. It could also be that of a plant or animal. Human life therefore takes its place in a cosmic hierarchy of life forms.

In this summary, I have extracted only the principal elements of the City of Nine Gates allegory. The complete account is much more detailed, and allows one to make an even more subtle and refined model of self-mind-body interaction in the environment of a multilevel cosmos, divided principally into regions of gross matter, subtle matter, and spirit. This model does not fit easily into present categories of the mind-body debate. Although dualist, it partakes also of idealism and monism. It does, however, allow one to integrate many categories of evidence from normal and paranormal science, as well as evidence from humanity’s wisdom traditions, into a rich synthesis, providing fruitful lines of research confirming and refining a complex model of self-mind-body interaction.

The potential explanatory power of this model, called by some the Gaudiya Vaishnava Vedanta (GVV) ontology, has been recognized by quantum physicist Henry P. Stapp, of the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory. Stapp observed (1994, p. 1), “The possibility that this ancient way of viewing Nature might be useful in science arises in the context of contemporary efforts to understand the empirically observed correlations between conscious processes and brain processes.” Such efforts are, according to Stapp, hampered by the concepts of mind and matter inherited by modern science from previous centuries. He finds the selfmind-body triad helpful in explicating the ideas of knower and known: “GVV accomodates these ideas in a straight-forward way by making a clear distinction between the subjective conscious knower, the spiritual

‘I’, and a mental realm that contains certain things that he can know directly. This mental realm, in contrast to the Cartesian realm of mind, is material: it is constructed out of a subtle kind of matter. The introduction of this second material level, mind, provides . . . a basis for coherently extending the mathematical methods of the physical science from the gross physical world into the realm of mind, while leaving intact the knower, or self” (Stapp 1994, p. 9). All in all, Stapp considered GVV ontology to be “internally consistent and compatible with the available scientific data” (Stapp 1994, p. 3). We can now begin our review of elements of spiritual cosmology in Western thought. There are many ways in which such a survey could be arranged. I have chosen to proceed as much as possible in time order.

The Presocratic philosopher Empedocles (c.495–c.453) spoke of gods, demigods, humans, and other species, each with their natural realm of existence. Empedocles said that if a soul inhabiting the body of a demigod, blessed with long life, commits a sinful act, then for many thousands of years that soul must take birth “in the forms of all manner of mortal things and changing one baleful path of life for another” (Kirk and Raven 1957, fragment 115). Empedocles described himself as “a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer” (Kirk and Raven 1957, frag. 115). He said, “Already have I once been a boy and a girl, a fish and a bird and a dumb sea fish” (Kirk and Raven 1957, frag. 117). He held that by philosophical insight and a pious life a soul can return to its original position.

Ideas of reincarnation were also found in Orphism, the Greek mystery cult that influenced some Presocratic philosophers and Plato. George Mylonas (1950, p. 178), an archeologist and art historian, said the Orphics believed humans were made from the ashes of the Titans, representing matter and its powers. But because the Titans had previously devoured Zagreus, a son of Zeus, whose essence was deathless, humans contained both divine and material elements, the divine being immortal and the material temporary. Mylonas (1950, p. 181) said, “Through purification and ritual, through sacred literature and initiation into the mysteries, through the Orphic life and asceticism, man could hope that the divine essence in him, his soul, by the intervention of divine grace would free itself of the original impurity, would escape the Great Circle of Necessity and the ever recurring weary cycle of rebirth, would attain redemption. . . . That was the supreme aim of life.”

According to his Greek and Roman biographers, Socrates communicated with a spirit being. “The familiar prophetic voice of my ‘spiritual guide’,” said Socrates, “has manifested itself very frequently all my life and has opposed me, even in trivial matters, whenever I was about to do something wrong” (Plato, apology of Socrates, 39C1–40C3; in Luck 1985, p. 187). The Greek word for the “spiritual guide” was daimonion. Xenophon, a disciple of Socrates, said Socrates referred to his daimonion as “the voice of God” (Xen. apology 12, in Luck 1985, p. 185). This is somewhat akin to the Vedic concept of paramatma, or Supersoul, which posits a localized personal expansion of God in the hearts of all living entities. Persons of a certain stage of spiritual advancement are able to directly communicate aurally with the Supersoul, and others may indirectly experience the promptings of the Supersoul in the form of intuitions and pangs of conscience. Of course, it may have been that Socrates was in communication not with Supersoul but with another kind of spirit being—for example, a minor demigod who had taken an interest in his activities.

In Plato’s Phaedo (81C–D, in Luck 1985, p. 169), Socrates speaks of ghosts. He proposes that ghosts are souls who were not “pure” when they left the body. They retain some subtle yet visible substance, which enables them to be sometimes seen. Good souls do not become ghosts. As punishment for impious deeds during their earthly existence, ghosts are compelled to wander near inauspicious places such as tombs and burial grounds until they are once more allowed to enter a normal physical body. Many elements of Socrates’s description of ghosts are familiar to me from Indian philosophy, which holds that the human organism is composed of three elements: a gross material body, a subtle material body composed of mind, and the soul itself, which is a particle of eternal consciousness. Under this view, ghosts are souls without gross material bodies. But they retain their subtle material forms (without, however, being allowed to enjoy subtle material pleasures) and in those forms haunt the living with a view to gaining control of a gross material body for gross material enjoyment. I propose that the action of the ghost’s subtle material body upon the subtle senses of an embodied person’s subtle body produces the perception of an apparition. After some time, the ghost is allowed to take on another physical form. If one properly uses this human form, one can become freed from both the subtle and gross material coverings, and attain to the realm of pure spiritual existence. A ghost is different from a demigod. The higher demigods and ghosts are both souls that have subtle material bodies. But demigods are pious souls who have been given positions in the universal system of management, and they are also given opportunities to experience subtle sensual pleasures surpassing those available to ordinary humans. Ghosts, on the other hand, are generally impious beings, whose subtle bodies are full of strong material desires that cannot be fulfilled. They are denied the subtle sensual pleasures available to the demigods.The only opportunities they have for satisfying their desires lie in commandeering the physical forms of humans, as in cases of possession.

In Book Ten of the Republic, Plato presents the story of the warrior Er, who died in battle (Eliade 1967, pp. 375–376). Twelve days after death, he revived, as he lay on his funeral pyre, and described what he had seen when his soul left his body. He and other souls came to a place where they saw two openings side by side in the heavens and two openings side by side in the earth. Through one of the openings in the earth souls were coming out and entering the opening leading into heaven. And through the second set of openings souls were coming down from heaven and entering the earth. The souls coming up through the opening in the earth described their sufferings in the hellish regions below, and those returning through the opening in the heavens described their enjoyment in the realm above. According to the Vedic cosmology, humans living on earth accumulate karma. Those with good karma, accumulated through pious acts, are elevated to the heavenly planets, but they return to earth when their good karma is exhausted. Those with bad karma, accumulated through impious acts, are sent to the hellish planets, but they return to earth when their bad karma is exhausted. If, however, one performs pure devotional service to God, one goes to the spiritual world, from which one does not have to return. Pure devotional service results in no karma, good or bad.

Aristotle, in the twelfth book of his metaphysics, said that the stars and planets acted as an intermediary between his spiritual Prime Mover and the world of matter, composed of four elements (earth, water, fire, and air). The movements of the celestial bodies were therefore the intermediate cause of terrestrial life and movement (Thorndike 1923, v.2, p. 253). Here we find a cosmology that depicts the universe as divided into three regions, resembling the Vedic cosmology.

Publius Cornellius Scipio Aemillanus (185–129 bc) was a member of a patrician Roman family. At a time when he was contemplating suicide, he saw his deceased father in a dream. In the course of warning him against suicide, his father instructed him on the nature of the soul. An account of this incident is given in Cicero’s on the Republic (IV, 14–26). The father of Publius, from his place in the spiritual world, said: “Unless God whose temple is the whole visible universe releases you from the prison of the body, you cannot gain entrance here. For men were given life for the purpose of cultivating that globe, called Earth, which you see at the center of this temple. Each has been given a soul, from these eternal fires, which you call stars and planets, which are globular and rotund and are animated by divine intelligence. . . . Like all god-fearing men, therefore, Publius, you must leave the soul in the custody of the body, and must not quit the life on Earth unless you are summoned by the one who gave it to you; otherwise you will be seen to shirk the duty assigned by God to man. . . . be sure that it is not you who are mortal, but only your body; nor is it you whom your outward form represents. Your spirit is your true self, not that bodily form that can be pointed out with the finger. Know yourself, therefore, to be a god—if indeed a god is a being that lives, feels, remembers, and foresees, that rules, governs, and moves the body over which it is set, just as the supreme God above us rules this world. And just as that eternal God moves the universe, which is partly mortal, so an eternal spirit moves the fragile body” (Eliade 1967, pp. 373–374).

The views expressed by the father of Publius about the soul of the individual body and the soul of the universe are quite close to those found in our template Vedic cosmology. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says in his commentary on Bhagavad Gita (7.6): “This material body is developed because spirit is present within matter; a child grows gradually to boyhood and then to manhood because that superior energy, spirit soul, is present. Similarly, the entire cosmic manifestation of the gigantic universe is developed because of the presence of the Supersoul.

. . . The cause of the big universe is the big soul, or the Supersoul. And Krishna, the Supreme, is the cause of both the big and small souls.”

In his metamorphoses, Ovid (43 bc–18 ad) declared that in the beginning “nature was all alike, a shapelessness, chaos . . . in whose confusion discordant atoms warred.” But he also spoke of an original, singular god “who out of chaos brought order to the universe, and gave it division, subdivision.” Then came stars, the abodes of a plurality of gods, who seem to have been subordinate to the one who originally brought order out of chaos. Then “shining fish were given the waves for dwelling, and beasts the earth, and birds the moving air.” Finally humans appeared. Ovid suggested “man was born, it may be, in God’s image” (Sproul 1979, pp. 170–171). Here again we see an apparent tripartite division of the cosmos. The spiritual realm of the original singular god, the celestial realm of the subordinate gods (demigods), and the terrestrial realm of ordinary living beings, including humans.

The Greek philosopher Plutarch (c46–c120 ad) said in on the Soul that the journey of the soul at the time of death was like the experience of someone being initiated into mysteries, such as the Eleusinian mysteries. Plutarch wrote: “At first one wanders and wearily hurries to and fro, and journeys with suspicion through the dark as one uninitiated: then come all the terrors before the final initiation, shuddering, trembling, sweating, amazement: then one is struck with a marvelous light, one is received into pure regions and meadows, with voices and dances and the majesty of holy sounds and shapes: among these he who has fulfilled initiation wanders free, and released and bearing his crown joins in the divine communion, and consorts with pure and holy men, beholding those who live here uninitiated, an uncleansed horde. . . . huddled together in mud and fog, abiding in their miseries through fear of death and mistrust of the blessings there” (Eliade 1967, p. 302).

In the first century ad, Manilius composed an astrological treatise in which he compared the universe to a living creature permeated by a single spirit, which gives it form (Luck 1985, p. 332). Here we have further echoes of the Indian concept of God distributed in nature, and of the vishvamurti, or Universal Form, the universe conceived as the body of God. According to both Manilius and the sages of ancient India, God is the soul of the universe, giving it life. It is this unifiying presence of God’s spirit in nature, said Manilius, that establishes a connection between human destiny and the stars (Luck 1985, p. 333). Furthermore, he says that this God “brings down from the heavenly stars the creatures of the earth” (Luck 1985, p. 333). I find this view quite compatible with my own, which also involves a descent of humans and other living things from higher planes of existence.

Around 217 ad, Philostratus composed the life of apollonius, recording the travels and teachings of the Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana. Scholars agree that Apollonius was a genuine historical figure, but they disagree as to how well Philostratus’s account reflects the actual life of Apollonius. In any case, the cosmological and metaphysical content of the the life is of most interest to me, and whether it derives from Apollonius or Philostratus does not make much difference for my purposes. The citations I give from Philostratus are from the translation by Conybeare.

As a Westerner who has journeyed to India and taken up the practice of an Indian philosophical and religious system, I find it interesting that Apollonius, according to Philostratus, traveled to India, where he encountered brahmanas with mystic powers. These brahmanas could mys-teriously sense that Apollonius was coming, and sent a messenger to greet him by name while he was still far away from their dwelling place. The chief of the brahmanas, Iarchus, knew that Apollonius was carrying a letter for him, and correctly identified a particular misspelling in the unseen document (Philostratus III, 12, 16). Iarchus also displayed knowledge of many things that had happened to Apollonius during his life. According to the account, the brahmanas could make themselves invisible whenever they chose and could also levitate (III, 13, 17).

When the local king came to visit the brahmanas, Apollonius noted that vessels bearing food and wine appeared mysteriously from out of nowhere (III, 27). Iarchus and Apollonius also spoke of reincarnation (III, 19). In the course of this discussion, each gave details of his own previous existence. On being questioned by Apollonius, Iarchus claimed to be a reincarnation of an Indian warrior much like the Greek hero Achilles (III, 19), while Apollonius, on being questioned by Iarchus, revealed he had been in a previous life the pilot of an Egyptian seafaring boat (III, 23).

Apollonius asked Iarchus and his Indian companions about the composition of the universe. They said it was composed of elements. “Are there four?” asked Apollonius, referring to the earth, water, fire, and air of Greek cosmology. Iarchus replied that there were five: “There is the ether, which we must regard as the stuff of which gods are made; for just as all mortal creatures inhale the air, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether” (III, 34). Lists of the five elements mentioned by Iarchus, including ether, are found in Bhagavad Gita and other Vedic texts. Responding to questions by Apollonius, Iarchus said that the universe is to be seen as a living creature, with a soul. This soul adjusts the conditions of the universe to the actions of the creatures inhabiting it. “For example,” said Iarchus, “the sufferings so often caused by drought are visited on us in accordance with the soul of the universe, whenever justice has fallen into disrepute and is disowned by men” (III, 34). Here we find an account of the laws of karma, which are administered by God in His form of Supersoul, the witness present in the hearts of all and even within the atom.

Iarchus compared the universe to a ship: “They set several pilots in this boat and subordinated them to the oldest and wisest of their number; and there were several officers on the prow and excellent and handy sailors to man the sails; and in the crew of this ship there was a detachment of armed men. . . . Let us apply this imagery to the universe and regard it in the light of a naval construction; for then you must apportion the first and supreme position to God the begetter of this animal, and subordinate posts to the gods who govern its parts; and we may well assent to the statements of the poets, when they say there are many gods in heaven and many in the sea, and many in the fountains and streams, and many round about the earth, and that there are some even under the earth. But we shall do well to separate from the universe the region under the earth, if there is one, because the poets represent it as an abode of terror and corruption” (Philostratus III, 25).

Once when the city of Ephesus was suffering from a plague, Apollonius determined that the cause was a demon disguised as an elderly beggar. Following the orders of Apollonius, citizens of Ephesus stoned the beggar. As soon as the order was given, fierce rays of light shot from the beggar’s eyes. After the stoning, the people removed the stones and found instead of the beggar’s body that of a demonic hound, smashed to a bloody pulp (Philostratus, IV, 10). Such incidents provide evidence that certain beings have the power to change the appearance and form of the gross physical body. If this can be done, perhaps beings with greater powers could be responsible not just for the changes of physical bodies, but their very production.

Some say Apollonius of Tyana died a natural death in Ephesus, attended by two maidservants. Others say he went to Lindus, where he entered the temple of Athena and mysteriously disappeared. Still others say he continued on to Crete, where he is also said to have disappeared in a temple, behind closed doors, outside which people heard a chorus of maidens singing, “Hasten thou from earth, hasten thou to Heaven, hasten” (Philostratus, VIII, 30).

After the death of Apollonius, a skeptical young man was studying philosophy in Tyana, the home town of Apollonius. He was doubtful about the existence of an immortal soul. He was particularly doubtful about the continued existence of the soul of Apollonius. “I myself,” he said to his companions, “have done nothing now for over nine months but pray to Apollonius that he would reveal to me the truth about the soul; but he is so utterly dead that he will not appear to me in response to my entreaties, nor give me any reason to consider him immortal.” Five days later, he awoke from a daytime sleep and asked those around him: “Do you not see Apollonius the sage, how that he is present with us and is listening to our discussions, and is reciting wondrous verses about the soul?” No one else could see or hear this. The young man repeated to them the following words from Apollonius (Philostratus, VIII, 31):

The soul is immortal, and ‘tis no possession of thine own, but of Providence,

And after the body is wasted away, like a swift horse freed from its traces,

It lightly leaps forward and mingles itself with the light air,

Loathing the spell of harsh and painful servitude which it has endured . . .

Alchemy, as practiced in the Hellenic world, had its basis in spiritual cosmology. In his book on magic in classical Greece and Rome, Luck (1985, p. 364) wrote: “The mystical side of alchemy is about as well documented as its practical side. It is marked by a quest for spiritual perfection, just as the search for precious metals involved the perfecting and refinement of raw materials. . . . Many alchemic operations can be understood as a sacrificial offering, as ceremonies to be accomplished after the alchemist himself has been initiated into some higher mysteries. A long period of spiritual preparation is indispensable. The ultimate goal of this process, as in the mystery religions, is salvation. Thus alchemy appears to be a Hellenic form of mysticism. Since the soul is divine in origin but tied to matter in this world and isolated from its spiritual home, it must, as far as possible, purify the divine spirit inherent in it from the contamination by matter. In his search for the materia prima, the alchemist discovers hidden powers within his own soul.” The practice of alchemy continued for centuries in Europe. Sir Isaac Newton, renowned as the father of modern science, wrote extensively on alchemical subjects.

The similarity of alchemical transformations of metals and the purification of consciousness is noted in the following text from a sixteenth century Sanskrit work, the Hari-bhakti-vilasa (2.12), by Sanatana Goswami: “As bell metal is turned to gold when mixed with mercury in an alchemical process, so one who is properly trained and initiated by a bona fide spiritual master immediately becomes a brahmana” (Chaitanya Charitamrita, adi-lila, 7.47). A brahmana is one whose consciousness has been purified of the grosser material influences. A brahmana is also defined as one who knows Brahman, or absolute spirit. The ultimate state of Brahman realization is knowledge of the soul’s eternal loving relationship with God.

Mystical cosmologies, with similarities to our Vedic template cosmology, continued to dominate European thought after the time of the Greeks and Romans. We shall now review a sampling of these cosmologies.

Kabbalah is a school of Jewish mysticism that became prominent during medieval times, but which was founded in earlier schools of Jewish esoteric wisdom. The principal text of the Kabbalah was the Zohar. In the Zohar, we find elements that are reminiscent of my template Vedic spiritual cosmology. For one thing, the Kabbalah’s threefold concept of soul (nefesh, ruah, and neshamah) is related to the divisions of matter, mind, and spirit that form the basis of the human devolution idea. The Zohar says: “The ‘soul’ (nefesh) stands in intimate relation to the body, nourishing and upholding it; it is below, the first stirring. Having acquired due worth, it becomes the throne for the ‘spirit’ (ruah) to rest upon. . . . And when these two, soul and spirit, have duly readied themselves, they are worthy to receive the ‘super-soul’ (neshamah), resting in turn upon the throne of the spirit (ruah). The super-soul stands preeminent, and not to be perceived. There is throne upon throne, and for the highest a throne” (Scholem 1977, p. 44). The “super-soul” mentioned here is not the Vedic Supersoul, which is a localized manifestation of God Himself in the heart of each living entity. The neshamah of the Kabbalah would appear to correspond to the soul proper in the Vedic system, or, more to the point, the soul (atma) in touch with the Supersoul (paramatma). It might be correct to say that when the Vedic soul identifies principally with the gross physical body, it is like the nefesh; when it identifies with the subtle material body of mind and the vital force, it is like the ruah; and when it identifies with its own true nature as a particle of God’s own spiritual energy, then it is like the neshamah.

That the Kabbalah may be speaking of one soul that reveals itself in three ways is hinted at in this passage from the Zohar (Scholem 1977, p. 44), in which the three souls are compared to parts of a single flame: “The study of these grades of the soul yields an understanding of the higher wisdom. . . . It is nefesh, the lowest stirring, to which the body adheres; just as in a candle flame, the obscure light at the bottom adheres close to the wick, without which it cannot be. When fully kindled, it becomes a throne for the white light above it, and when these two come into their full glow, the white light becomes a throne for a light not wholly discernible, an unknowable essence reposing on the white light, and so in all there comes to be a perfect light.”

The Kabbalah also incorporates a multilevel cosmos. The Zohar says: “We have seen that when a man’s soul leaves him, it is met by all his relatives and companions from the other world, who guide it to the realm of delight and the place of torture. If he is righteous, he beholds his place as he ascends and is there installed and regaled with the delights of the other world. But if no, then his soul stays in this world until his body is buried in the earth, after which the executioners seize on him and drag him down to Dumah, the prince of Gehinnom, and to his allotted level in Gehinnom” (Scholem 1977, pp. 57–58). The “realm of delight” also has several levels. The Zohar goes on to say about the pious soul: “It is first permitted into the cave of Machpelah up to a point, set in accordance with its merit. Then it comes to where the Garden of Eden stands, and there encounters the cherubim and the flashing sword which is found in the lower Garden of Eden, and if it is deemed worthy to do so, it enters. We know that there four pillars are waiting, and in their hands they hold the form of a body which the soul joyfully dons as its garment, and then it abides in its allotted circle of the Lower Garden for the stated time. After that a herald issues a proclamation and there is brought out a pillar of three hues, called ‘the habitation of mount Zion’ [isa. 4:5]. By this pillar the soul ascends to the gate of righteousness, where are to be found Zion and Jerusalem. Happy is the lot of the soul deemed worthy to ascend higher, for then it is together with the body of the King. If it does not merit to ascend higher, then ‘he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy’ [isa. 4:3]. But when a soul is granted to ascend higher, then it sees before it the glory of the King and is vouschafed the supernal delight from the region which is called Heaven.” The multilevel cosmology of the Kabbalah appears to correlate nicely with the template Vedic cosmology, in that both include hellish levels, earthly levels, paradisiacal levels of enhanced material enjoyment, and an ultimate spiritual level of transcendental delight in the association of the Personality of Godhead.

The ninth century Arab scholar Alkindi, known through summaries of his manuscripts by Latin authors in Europe, described a universe with similar features. Alkindi attributed occult influence to stars, and all things natural were a combination of stellar influences, carried by rays, acting on various aggregates of matter. According to Alkindi, each star has a different influence, and each kind of matter is especially receptive to a particular influence or combination of influences. In addition to occult stellar radiation, there are other kinds of radiation, such as sound and light. All of the various combinations of rays influencing natural objects are ultimately governed by a celestial harmony imposed by God.

Alkindi also spoke of the power of words uttered by humans to affect natural objects. These incantations, similar to the Vedic concept of mantras, were increased in potency by the faith and solemnity of the person uttering them as well as by favorable astrological influences (Thorndike 1923, v. 1, pp. 643–645).

About Alkindi’s teachings on sound, Thorndike (1923 v. 1, p. 645) says: “The four elements are variously affected by different voices; some voices, for instance, affect fire most powerfully. Some especially stir trees or some one kind of tree. Thus by words motion is started, accelerated, or impeded; animal life is generated or destroyed; images are made to appear in mirrors; flames and lightnings are produced; and other feats and illusions are performed which seem marvelous to the mob. . . . He states that the rays emitted by the human mind and voice become the more efficacious in moving matter, if the speaker has fixed his mind upon and names God or some powerful angel.”

During the early Christian era, apocryphal literatures such as the Gospel of enoch were quite popular. The Enoch books spoke about angels controlling human destinies. The angels controlled the stars and planets, the years and seasons, the rivers and seas, as well as meteorological phenomena such as dew, hail, and snow (Thorndike 1923, v.1, pp. 342

–343). The Book of enoch also tells of fallen angels who mated with terrestrial human females. These angels instructed humans not only in magic, witchcraft, and astrology but also in practical sciences such as writing, mining metals, weapon making, botany, and pharmacy (Thorndike 1923, v.1, pp. 343–344). All this knowledge of “the secrets of the angels and violence of the Satans” was, according to Enoch, not good for humanity, “for man was created exactly like the angels to the intent that he should continue righteous and pure, . . . but through this their knowledge men are perishing” (Thorndike 1923, v.1, p. 344). The cosmology of the Enoch literature included a multilevel universe composed of seven heavens, or, in some manuscripts, ten heavens. Each level was inhabited by beings adapted to the conditions there (Thorndike 1923, v. 1, p. 346).

Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141), one of the founders of Catholic scholastic theology, divided the cosmos into three levels: (1) the spiritual world, where God resides and everything is eternal; (2) the superlunar world, or the world beyond the moon, where things have a beginning but no end; and (3) the sublunar, or terrestrial world, where things have a beginning and an end (Thorndike 1923, v.2, p. 12). This is slightly different from the Vedic tripartite division of the cosmos, which includes the eternal spiritual world of God; the higher heavenly planets of the demigods (corresponding to Hugh’s superlunar world), where a day is equivalent to millions of solar years; and the terrestrial realm of our human experience (corresponding to Hugh’s sublunar world). The Vedic demigods are, like humans, subject to death, but their life span is far greater than that of human beings in the terrestrial realm. Hence the demigods are sometimes called amara, or deathless, but the word amara truly applies only to God and the liberated souls who exist with Him in the spiritual world. So in the planets of the Vedic demigods, things do have an end.

According to Hugh, the sublunar world is controlled by the planets and beings of the superlunar world. All terrestrial life and growth came “through invisible channels from the superior bodies” (Thorndike

1923, v. 2, pp. 12–13). The superlunar world is called Elysium, because it is char-acterized by peace and light. The sublunar world is called Infernum, because it is characterized by confusion and constant change. To the extent that humans identify with the sublunar nature, they are held in the grip of change by necessity. This is reminiscent of the Vedic concept of karma. All material change is carried out by karmic law, and living beings are forced to accept from material nature the results of their actions. But, according to Hugh, if they identify with their immortal nature they are connected to eternal Godhead (Thorndike 1923, v. 2, p. 3).

In the middle of the twelfth century, William of Conches wrote his Dramaticon, which takes the form of a philosophical dialogue between William and his patron Geoffrey Plantagenet, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou. In this work, William described three kinds of daimons, attributing his classification to Plato. The first class, which existed in the realm of ether between the starry heavens and the moon, were immortal beings blissfully engaged in contemplation of the sun. The second class inhabited a realm of rarified air near the moon. These immortal, rational beings transmitted the prayers of humans to God and made known to humans the will of God. The third class, inhabiting the realm of humid air near the earth, acted harmfully against humans, motivated by lust and envy. They would sometimes seduce terrestrial women (Thorndike 1923, v. 2, p. 55).

Bernard Silvester, in his Di mundi universitate, composed during the reign of Pope Eugenius III (1143–1153), gave a more complete list of supernatural creatures. He considered the stars to be living beings, “gods who serve God in person.” In the realm of ether, they enjoy a life of eternal bliss, in constant contemplation of the divine. The human soul, upon leaving the material body, can return to this realm to become once more one of these gods. Next come the angels, who share with the stars the quality of deathlessness. But like humans they are influenced by passionate impulses. These angelic beings are of several kinds: (1) Benevolent angels serve as mediums between the Supreme Being and humans. They exist in the region between the sun and the moon. (2) In the aerial region just below the moon reside angelic beings who enjoy a tranquil and serene state of mind. (3) Next come genii, who are associated with particular humans, and guide them. It would seem that the daimonion of Socrates was of this category. (4) In the lower atmosphere, near the earth, resides a category of dark spirits, called by Bernard fallen angels. Sometimes they are assigned by superior powers the task of giving punishments to humans who deserve them. Sometimes, however, they act on their own, and possess humans, taking over their minds. They may also take on the forms of ghosts. (5) Finally, there are harmless nature spirits—gods and goddesses of mountains, rivers, lakes, and forests, with bodies composed of the pure forms of the physical elements. These bodies, though long lasting, are temporary (Thorndike 1923, v. 2, p. 104).

According to Bernard, the stars control nature and reveal the future. As the stars are living things, they accomplish their purposes not mechanically, but by receiving from the mind of God the knowledge of future events, which they then establish in the lower worlds, by arranging themselves in certain patterns (Thorndike 1923, v. 2, pp. 104–105). Those with proper intelligence would therefore be able to read the future from these stellar arrangements. Indeed, without the higher influences, there would be no movement of life in the lower world. But Bernard believed that humans, although in some ways subject to inevitable fate and variable fortune, could also exercise free will (Thorndike 1923, v. 2, p. 106). This seems to follow the concept of karma. The situations in which we find ourselves at present are determined by our past actions, but in each situation we have the freedom to choose different present actions, which in turn determine our future situations.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) wrote De occulta Philosophia, in which he divided the cosmos into three regions: elemental, celestial, and intellectual (Thorndike 1941, v. 5, pp. 134–135). In terms of our Vedic template cosmology, Agrippa’s intellectual region appears to correspond to spiritual, celestial to mental, and elemental to material. Each kind of being in the elemental world is imbued with an occult virtue, implanted by the World Soul through the stars. The human soul originally belonged to the intellectual (Vedic spiritual) realm, but it has descended into the elemental realm, where it is bound and covered by the body. Agrippa believed that numbers, being of purer form than elemental objects, possessed more powerful occult virtues. The same was true of the letters of the alphabet, astrological signs, and geomantic figures. The book also deals with the lore of divine names, categories of demons, necromancy, and divination. According to legend, one of Agrippa’s students once entered his private study while his teacher was gone and started reading one of his books of spells. Suddenly, a demon appeared, killing the youth or frightening him to death. When Agrippa came back some time later, he saw the dead body, and in order to avoid suspicion of murder, he summoned the same demon, causing him to enter the corpse. Thus animated, the body left the study and went walking around outside, in front of many witnesses. Thereafter, Agrippa caused the demon to depart from the body, which then fell down as if it had just been struck dead (Thorndike 1941, v. 5, p. 136).

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) wrote several treatises on magic and occult properties of things. He believed in a World Soul, as well as a hierarchy of invisible spiritual beings, including those inhabiting the bodies of humans, plants, stones, and minerals. He believed that demons were the cause of various diseases. He believed it was possible to communicate with and influence these demons through signs, seals, and rituals. Bruno’s concept of magic was based on a set of relationships between God and the lower worlds. God exercises influence over gods, corresponding to the Aristotelean Intelligences, and these in turn exercise influence upon the celestial bodies, including the earth. These celestial bodies are inhabited by daimons, who act upon the elements, which act upon compounds. The compounds act upon the senses, which act upon the soul, which acts upon the body of the animal or human. By magic, a human can attempt to influence higher beings in this ladder of relationships, with a view to obtaining specific results (Thorndike 1941, v. 6, pp.425–426).

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) is one of the most famous figures in the history of astronomy. Following on the work of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, he calculated that the orbits of the planets were elliptical rather than circular. Nevertheless, he still accepted a spiritual cosmology. He wrote texts on astrology and also cast horoscopes himself. He said that the “geometry of the rays of the stars affects sublunar nature” (Thorndike

1958, v. 7, p. 21). In Harmonice mundi (1619), Kepler said there was “a soul of the whole universe, set over the movements of the stars, the generation of the elements, conservation of animals and plants, and finally the mutual sympathy of superiors and inferiors” (Thorndike 1958, v. 7, p. 26). He thought this soul most probably was located at the center of the cosmos, which for him was the sun. This soul of the universe controlled the movements of the stars and the generation of elements, as well as the manifestations of plant and animal life, and the occult properities of objects. Its influence was propagated by the sun’s rays, just as the soul propagated its influence throughout the body of an animal. In his mysterium cosmographicum, Kepler said that each planet also had a soul. Kepler believed that the earth and living things on earth had a special faculty which put them in sympathetic contact with stellar influences (Thorndike 1958, v. 7, p. 26). The Earth, for Kepler, was like a living thing, like an animal, not a quick one like a dog, but more like an elephant or cow (Thorndike1958, v. 7, p. 31).

The German physician Sebastian Wirdig (1613–1687), in his book nova medicina Spirituum, spoke of an immortal, nonmaterial, indivisible soul in the human body. But between the soul and the body, there are, said Wirdig, “spirits” (subtle yet material substances) that act as a medium. The condition of the spirits determines the health and sickness of the body, the difference between life and death. These spirits are several, each more subtle than the next: natural spirits associated with the simple brutish and vegetative bodily activities; the vital spirits of the heart and arteries; the animal spirits of the brain and nerves; and the genial spirits of the reproductive system. Altogether they form one complex vital spirit of the body. This vital spirit acts in conjunction with astral and occult influences and powers. Wirdig held that the soul can through the vital spirits influence matter. For example, strong feelings of lust can print moles on embryos or produce monstrous children. Also, the vital spirits of one person can influence those of others, depending on relative strengths. This influence can be communicated by speech, song, gaze, touch, weapons, and witchcraft. According to Wirdig, imagination is also controlled by the vital spirits. If the vital spirits are too thin, or obstructed, then the impressions of imagination on the soul are very weak. If the spirits are thicker, the impressions on the soul are stronger (Thorndike 1958, v. 8, pp. 436–441).

Newton, widely regarded as the father of modern science, is most known for his published works. But among his private papers are extensive manuscripts in which he reveals his commitment to the study of esoteric subjects connected with spiritual cosmologies. This caused Lord Keynes, in a paper published on the three hundredth anniversary of Newton’s birth, to call Newton “the last of the magicians” (Thorndike 1958, v. 8, p. 588). Newton’s unpublished writings contain hundreds of pages of notes on alchemy, including extracts from books by various authors as well as the results of Newton’s own experimental work on transmutation of metals, the philosopher’s stone, and the elixir of life. Newton also analyzed sacred writings such as Revelation in his search for the key to the mysteries of the universe. Lord Keynes noted, “The scope and character of these papers have been hushed up, or at least minimized, by nearly all those who have inspected them.” It was clear Newton had dedicated years of his life to these experiments and writings, which Lord Keynes characterized as “wholly magical” and “devoid of scientific value” (Thorndike 1958, v. 8, p. 590). I disagree with Lord Keynes’s latter remark. Newton’s unpublished writings are of immense scientific value because they remind us that the best scientific minds are willing to consider all the evidence available to human experience in their attempts to comprehend life and the universe.

Newton believed that the human body was pervaded by subtle animal spirits. He said that the motions of the bodies of animals and humans were produced by the soul causing the subtle spirit element to move through the nerves, which then caused the muscles to act (Thorndike 1958, v. 8, p. 595). In an appendix to the 1713 edition of his Principia, Newton suggested there might be an all-pervading subtle spirit that was the ultimate cause of gravity, electricity, light, and sensation. But he did not believe he had yet enough experimental evidence to give “an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic Spirit operates” (Thorndike 1958, v. 8, pp. 595–596). Newton, in a famous letter to Richard Bentley, said that “Tis unconceivable that inanimate brute matter should (without the mediation of something else which is not material) operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact” (Griffin 1997, p. 19).

Non-Western Cosmologies

I deliberately began this review of mystical cosmologies with examples from the history of science and philosophy in the West, from the time of classical antiquity to the beginning of the scientific revolution. My purpose was to show that the evidence for psychic phenomena gathered by prominent scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should not necessarily be seen as strange anomalies, outside the realm of science. Of course, such things would be anomalous in the context of a science with metaphysical commitments to a strict materialism. But they would find a place in a science with a different set of metaphysical commitments, a science with the same kind of metaphysical commitments maintained by Kepler and Newton, for example. Another purpose was to provide a context for the introduction of spiritual cosmologies from outside the Western sphere. By showing that elements of these cosmologies have a strong presence in Western science and philosophy, I hope to show that the spiritual cosmologies of the world’s great wisdom traditions are not alien to the intellectual tradition of the West.

276 Human Devolution: a vedic alternative to Darwin’s theory

Traditional Cosmology of China

The traditional wisdom of premodern China was a mixture of Buddhist, Confucianist, and Taoist elements, along with elements of a more primitive animism. The Taoist element was particularly influential. According to Taoism, the universe is pervaded by an order called Tao. The celestial aspect of this order (Tao T’ien) is revealed in the precise movements of the stars and planets. There is also a terrestrial aspect of the Tao revealed in the natural forces. But the original Tao existed before both of these manifestations of order. From this Tao come the principles of Yin, representing femininity, coldness, and darkness, and Yang, representing masculinity, warmth, and light (Day 1940, p. 56).

According to Day (1940, p. 165), the traditional Chinese cosmic hierarchy included many minor deities, such as the controller of small pox (Tou Shên), village patron protector (Chang Lao Hsiang Kung), spirit of wells (Tai Yi), and shop patron of prosperity (Kuan Kung). The Chinese also believed that they were surrounded by evil spirits (kuei) of many kinds. Latourette (1934, p. 163) reported: “On occasion they may take the forms of animals or even of men and women. A kuei may be in a maneating tiger. Great numbers of stories are told of animals—kuei—who can take at will the body of a man or especially of a beautiful woman and in that guise work harm. Kuei may be in old trees, or in clothes, in objects of furniture, or in mountains or stones. Leaves driven before the wind may each be a kuei. . . . Insane persons are controlled by kuei” (Latourette 1934, p. 163). Among the kuei are the fox demons, who enter into humans, afflicting them with disease, mental illness, or death. Sometimes the fox takes on the shape of a beautiful young woman (Day 1940, p. 42).

The traditional Chinese believed they were being constantly protected from such evil spirits by their ancestors who had achieved spiritual liberation (De Groot 1912, p. 178). And they were also being protected by helping spirits. “There are, first of all,” wrote Day (1940, p. 46), “the lesser officials Sui Hsing Shang Kuan and Hsi Fu Shang Kuan, who may be called in as demon-detectives; then the help of Hsing Tsai Szu, evil eradicator, or of the Hsing Tsai Wu Shêng, five sages who take away bad fortune, or of Hsiao Tsai Ta-Shêng, who assists in escaping calamities, may be secured. . . An extremely potent expeller of demons is Chung K’uei, usually represented as a fierce and powerful giant with sword in hand in the act of transfixing a demon underfoot. He is in the celestial Ministry of Exorcism (Chü Hsieh Uüan), associated with P’an Kuan as a god of demon-control.”

A positive influence for good were the tutelary deities, who exercised guardianship over various aspects of Chinese life. There were, for example, the tutelary deities of the local land (T’u Ti), and the god of city walls (Ch’êng Huang). Higher than the tutelary deities were the gods of thunder (Lei Tsu), fire (Huo Te), and rain (Lung Wang). Lung Wang was the Dragon King, for whom many temples were built. Dragons are often featured in traditional Chinese art. Still higher were the planetary deities such as the god of Jupiter and Time (T’ai Sui), the moon goddess (T’ai Yin), and the sun god (T’ai Yang). In addition to the earthly and heavenly deities, there were also controllers of the underworld. These included the Taoist King of Hades, Tung Yüeh Ta Ti, and the Buddhist chief king of Hades, Yen-lo Wang (Day 1940, p. 165).

One interesting figure in the Chinese Buddhist pantheon is the savior of Hades, Ti-Ts’ang Wang, who mercifully delivers souls from the sufferings of the underworld to the heaven of Amitabha. About the savior of Hades, Doré (1922 v. 7, p. 252) stated: “With his magic wand, he opens the portals of this dismal land and rescues tortured souls from the grasp of Yama (Yen-lo Wang). According to the ti-ts’ang Sutra he uttered a vow before the throne of Buddha (deified), that he would devote himself to the salvation of suffering mankind, and would pursue that work until he had brought all living beings safely to the haven of Nirvana. . . . On his birthday, which falls on the 30th of the 7th month, all the judges of the Ten Courts of Hades come and offer him their congratulations. On this occasion, he grants special favors to the damned. Those whose tortures are completed may leave the dismal realm of Hades and be reborn on earth as men, animals and plants. Others have their sufferings condoned [i.e., excused], and are transferred without further delay to the tenth court of Hades, where rebirth will soon take place.”

The hierarchical nature of the traditional Chinese cosmos is further revealed in accounts of the Taoist saintly persons. One group called the Holy Men (Shêng Jên) live in the “highest heaven.” Another, the Ideal Men (Chên Jên), live in the second heaven, and the Immortals (Hsien Jên) live in the third heaven and in remote parts of the earth such as the sacred central mountains called the K’un Lun. The latter group appears from time to time on earth to perform acts of mercy, including the curing of the sick (Latourette 1934, p. 162).

At the top of the Taoist cosmic hierarchy is the chief Taoist god, Yü Huang Shang Ti, who was called Father of the Gods (Day 1940, p. 125). He resides in the highest heaven, in the jade palace Ta Wei, situated in a constellation near the Pole Star. This celestial region was the source of all life and natural energy on the lower levels of the cosmic hierarchy (Day 1940, p. 132). In the Pole Star itself dwelled T’ai Yi, known as the Great Unity, or Supreme Spirit. The Pole Star, around which the universe revolved, became a symbol of the terrestrial emperors. There is also a Queen of Heaven (Burkhardt 1954, pp. 126–127).

According to Chinese traditional wisdom, humans are made of two elements or souls, kwei and shen, which are identified respectively with terrestrial matter (Yin) and the immaterial celestial substance (Yang). In a book called tsi, Confucius said to Tsai Ngo, “The khi or breath is the full manifestation of the shen, and the p’oh is the full manifestation of the kwei; the union of the kwei with the shen is the highest of all doctrines. Living beings must all die, and the soul which must then return to earth is that which is called kwei. But while the bones and the flesh moulder in the ground and imperceptibly become the earth of the fields, the khi or breath departs to move on high as a shining light” (De Groot 1912, pp. 12–13).

It thus appears that according to Taoist and Confucian teachings, a human being, and all other living things, are composed of a material body (identified with kwei and p’oh) and a conscious self (identified with shen and khi). At birth they come together, and at death they separate. The material elements of the body merge back into Yin, earth, and the true soul, the shen, returns to Yang, or heaven. However, for the soul to remain in Yang, it has to be pure; otherwise, if infected with desires for lordship over matter, it comes again to earth in an earthly body.

The Taoist saint Chwang mentions another saint, Shen-pa, who lived in a cave, taking only water. He preserved his youthful complexion up to the age of seventy, at which time a tiger ate him. But Chwang noted that “this saint had nourished his inner man, and the tiger merely devoured the outward” (De Groot 1912, p. 88).

In the Taoist conception, souls who achieve liberation go to live in the abode of Shang-ti, the highest god, whose throne is the Pole Star. The other gods of nature, such as the gods of the sun, moon, stars, winds, clouds, thunder, and rain, surround Shang-ti in humanlike forms. The divine abode of Shang-ti is one of peace, stillness, and goodness, compared to the terrestrial realm, which is full of intense materially motivated action, which sometimes degenerates into dark savagery. This is somewhat like the Vedic conception of the three modes (gunas) of nature—sattva-guna (goodness), raja-guna (passion), and tama-guna (ignorance). In both the Chinese and Vedic systems, humans at death go to the place appropriate for the qualities they have acquired (De Groot 1912, pp. 170–180).

In the Chinese Taoist tradition, there are celestial warriors (t’ien ping), commanded by divine generals, who at the request of saintly persons sometimes come down to the terrestrial world to fight to establish principles of goodness (De Groot 1912, p. 180). The Buddhist strain of traditional Chinese cosmology also has personalities who descend to the terrestrial realm to mercifully assist humans. They are the boddhisattvas, who are worthy to enter nirvana but instead voluntarily take birth repeatedly in the material world to act for the benefit of others. We have already mentioned one such boddhisattva, Ti Ts’ang, the deliverer of souls from hell. Others are Kuan-yin, the goddess of mercy, and Wên-shu, lord of wisdom. Those who have attained complete supreme enlightenment are called Buddhas (MacNair 1946, p. 293).

In addition to the Taoist supreme god, Shang-ti, traditional Chinese cosmology also includes a creator god named P’an Ku. Emerging from an original cosmic egg, P’an Ku expanded in size, pushing the heavens (Yang) upward and spreading the earth (Yin) outwards. Then P’an Ku is said to have died. Harry Titterton Morgan (1942, p. 4) wrote: “In dying P’an Ku added to the completion of the Universe, for his head was transmuted into mountains, his breath into winds and clouds and his voice into thunder. His left eye became the light of the sun, his right eye the moon, his beard the stars; his four limbs and five extremities the four quarters of the globe and the five mountains. His veins and muscles became the strata of the earth, his flesh became the soil, his skin and the hairs therein changed into plants and trees, and his teeth and bones into minerals. The marrow in his bones became pearls and precious stones, his sweat descended as rain, while the parasites which infested his body, being pregnated by the wind, were the origin of the human race.”

The Chinese understood that there were practical connections between different levels of the cosmic hierarchy. Such understanding is revealed in feng shui—the art of locating dwelling places, graves, and religious sites so as to receive the most favorable influences from the gods and goddesses of heaven and earth. If altars and temples are not properly situated, gods will refuse to dwell there. If graves and altars dedicated to ancestors are not properly situated, the ancestors cannot receive and distribute beneficial influences from higher powers (De Groot 1912, pp.285–286). Feng shui means “wind and water.” Valentine Rodolphe Burkhardt (1954, p. 130) said in Chinese Creeds and Customs, “The forms of hills, direction of watercourses, forms and heights of buildings, direction of roads and bridges, are all supposed to modify the Ch’i, or spiritual breath of the universe, and Feng Shui is the art of adapting the residences of the living and the dead to conform, as far as possible, with the local currents.”

Altogether, the traditional Chinese cosmology appears to match our template Vedic cosmology quite well. Both have a high god, Vishnu or Krishna in the Vedic cosmology and Shang-ti in the Chinese cosmology. Both have a creator god, P’an Ku in the Chinese cosmology and Brahma in the Vedic cosmology. Both systems have a multilevel cosmos inhabited by various levels of demigods and demigoddesses. In both systems, humans have material bodies and nonmaterial souls.

Cosmology of the ainu of Japan

The religion of the mysterious Ainu people of Japan is animistic. John Batchelor (1927, p. 345) noted in ainu life and lore: “The Ainu certainly believe that whatever has life moves, and that whatever moves has life. . . . The welling up of the bubbling water spring, the rippling rivulet, the gliding stream, the rushing torrent, the tearing rapids, the whistling winds, the flying clouds, the pouring rain and falling snows, the mist and fog, fine weather and foul, the quiet lake and the restless oceans, thunder and lightning, the falling tree and the rolling of a stone down a mountain side; all such phenomena have, so they think, each a real life or soul, either good or bad, or both good and bad, abiding in it.”

But such animism does not exhaust the cosmology of the Ainu. They have quite a developed picture of the universe, following the basic pattern of our template Vedic spiritual cosmology. For example, the Ainu have in their cosmology a creator god in addition to a supreme God. This subordinate progenitor god was called Aeoina. He descended from heaven and created the first human being on earth. He stayed on earth for some time, teaching humans how to live. During his time on earth, Aeoina dressed just as humans did. Upon finishing his task, he returned to heaven, still wearing terrestrial human clothes. The gods in heaven did not very much like the smell of these clothes, and they sent Aeoina back to earth to get rid of them. When he returned once more to heaven, he did so without any unpleasant human smell. Because of this incident Aeoina was sometimes called Ainu-rak-guur, which means “Person Smelling of Men” (Batchelor 1927, p. 115).

In each Ainu home is installed a fetish representing the household deity, generally pictured as an old man. The original fetish came not from the creator god Aeoina, but from the divine being said to be the True God. The Ainu Chief Penri told John Batchelor, “The deity who rules the household was first made by the True God, Who, after He had made him, sent him down from heaven to be the husband of the Goddess of Fire and to help her to attend to the wants of the Ainu. He is therefore called The Ancestral Governor of the House” (Batchelor 1927, p. 177). The Ainu distinction between the progenitor god and the true supreme being is parallel to the distinction between the creator god Brahma and the supreme being of the Vaishnava Vedic cosmology (variously named Vishnu, Narayan, Krishna, etc.).

The Ainu believe that the spirits of the dead live on in an afterlife. The household hearth is the gateway to the spirits of the dead. When the spirits of ancestors are invoked, they come through the hearth. The hearth is also the residence of the fire goddess, Kamui Fuchi. The household fire is carefully attended. Burning coals are covered with ashes during the night, during which time Kamui Fuchi is said to be sleeping. It is considered most inauspicious for a household woman to allow the fire to go completely out during the night. Neil Gordon Munro, in his book ainu Creed and Cult, wrote (1963, p. 58): “There was no worse sin than neglect to provide fuel for Kamui Fuchi, who reared all Ainu at her hearth.” Munro also noted (1963, p. 58), “All food . . . , at any ceremony, is supposed to be Kamui Fuchi’s, and is placed on or near the hearth before distribution to guests.”

In the cosmic hierarchy of the Ainu, the bottom region is called Chirama-moshiri, or “the Lowest World.” This was not the place of judgement where souls went after death. They called that place Pokna-moshiri, “the Underworld.”And the place of punishment for the wicked was called Nitne-kamui-moshiri, “the world of devils” or Teinci-pokma-moshiri, “the wet underground world.” Chirama-moshiri, according to John Batchelor in his book ainu life and lore (1927, p. 367), was not inhabited and represented “the bounds of material creation.”

Elaborating on the Ainu view of Chirama-moshiri, Batchelor (1927, p. 368) explained: “As regards place, it is thought by them to be situated at the very confines of all created worlds. There are supposed by some to be six worlds beneath this upon which we dwell. The very lowest of these is called ‘the lowest world’ (Chirama-moshiri). . . . But as regards the nature of this land, it is not supposed by the Ainu to be a place of darkness, though it may have iron gates. It is said to be a very beautiful country, as full of light as this world; and it does not seem to be the prison house or abode of fallen angels or any other living beings, whether they be gods, men, or demons. The thunder demon, after having waged war upon this earth, is said to have proceeded to do so in heaven, because this world was unable to stand such a grievous conflict. The Creator, Who resides in heaven above, was much distressed at this, and sent the demon to fight in the ‘lowest world.’ Here the thunder demon was slain, but as no god or demon can actually die, his spirit again ascended to its original home, namely, the clouds of the lower skies.”

The concept of there being six worlds below the terrestrial world is similar to the Vedic cosmology, which places the earth of our experience as the seventh of fourteen worlds, with six worlds beneath it and seven above it. The similarity of concepts might have resulted from diffusion of religious ideas throughout Asia, or from common perception of an existing spiritual reality, or from a common revelation by a supernatural being. That the accounts might differ in various respects and degrees does not rule out common perception or revelation. Once it is accepted that there is a supreme being, it becomes possible for the supreme being to reveal aspects of cosmology to greater or lesser degrees to various peoples, according to their particular structures of consciousness and sensory capabilities. Even if we wish to accept a purely local naturalistic explanation for the similarity of accounts, i.e., that the manufacture of such accounts is somehow favored by the process of evolution by natural selection, we must still take the accounts seriously and cannot dismiss the idea that they might reflect some underlying feature of reality. At the very least, we must wonder why the human physiology is so constructed as to produce mental cosmological pictures that so heavily govern human behavior. If we favor a simple diffusionist concept, we must still ask why the human mind, at all times and places, has the disposition to accept and incorporate into its deepest cultural concepts strikingly similar elements of our template cosmology. The most natural explanation for the similarity of accounts remains common perception or common revelation.

According to Ainu tradition, one of the worlds beneath the terrestrial world of our experience is a place where the wicked are sent after death. Another subterrestrial world is called Kamui-moshiri, the Land of the Gods. It is a place where good souls are sent. It is said that the inhabitants of this region walk with their feet pointed up toward the bottom of the terrestrial plane of existence and that the day of this heavenly region corresponds to the night of the terrestrial region (Batchelor 1927, p. 368). Batchelor concludes (1927, p. 368), “This myth shows very clearly that the Ainu believe the soul to exist apart from the present material body after death.” Batchelor (1927, p. 346) also said about his conversations with the Ainu Chief Penri: “The old chief and I had much conversation on these matters soon after, and I learned many things from him. Particularly did I learn that in their idea, death in no way implied the extinction of the life or soul. He said they did not like the body to become a senseless corpse, but we must not imagine that because it became such, the soul also decomposed or got withered up.”

From what we have seen above, the Ainu cosmology included heavens above and heavens below the earth. An Ainu chief told John Batchelor (1927, pp. 142–143) that the earth of our experience is, by arrange ment of the supreme god, under the control of the fire goddess, who serves as his deputy. He sent her down from her home in heaven to rule the earth. A heavenly serpent, in love with her, desired to come with her. The goddess tried to dissuade him, telling him that if he came with her, he would have to endure fire. But the serpent still desired to make the journey, and the fire goddess gave him permission. He came down with her in a flash of lightning, which made a large hole in the ground. To this day, the descendants of the heavenly serpent sometimes come to earth to visit him, and they make their journeys, as he did, by lightning bolts, which also make holes in the ground. It is believed that these holes lead to underworlds in the subterrestrial regions of the cosmos, and it is there that the original serpent from heaven lives along with his serpent followers. The Ainu chief told Batchelor (1927, p. 143), “Snakes live in large communities in the underworld, and there they assume the bodily forms of men and women. They have houses and gardens just as we have, and their food consists largely of dew.” They take the form of snakes when they come to our world. The Ainu chief said, “As his origin is divine, the snake is of a very haughty disposition. . . . From the very beginning the snake was desirous of doing evil; nevertheless, if fetishes are made of walnut wood and presented to him with the words ‘Thou art a good God’ he will be much pleased and render help. Again, if snakes are treated in a slighting manner they cause sickness. Yet, if they cause illness it may be cured by making fetishes of the walnut tree and offering these to them with worship.”

Divine serpents living in subterranean realms, and taking the form of humans, are also a feature of the template Vedic cosmology. The Naga (serpent) race is said to live in a subterranean heavenly realm that is in some senses more opulent than the celestial heavens. In traditional Indian art, the Nagas are sometimes depicted in human or half-human forms.

Traditional Cosmology of Korea

Traditional Korean folk religion, like that of China, is a mixture of Confucianist, Buddhist, Taoist, and animist elements. It has a cosmic hierarchy that conforms to the pattern of our template cosmology.

According to Koreans, a person has three souls. One remains with the dead body in the grave. A second goes into the ancestor worship tablet kept in the home of the relatives. And a third goes into the afterworld (Clark 1932, p. 113).

The traditional Korean cosmic hierarchy includes gods of the heavens and earth, gods of mountains and hills, dragon gods, and gods who served as guardians of local districts. Some of these high ranking gods are the gods of the Buddhist pantheon. Below these are various household gods, including spirits of the kitchen and of possessions and furniture.

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Some spirits take the form of animals, and others possess young girls and turn them into exorcists. Other spirits threaten humans in various ways. These threatening spirits include spirits that cause tigers to attack humans, spirits that cause people to die while traveling on roads, spirits that cause women to die in labor, and so on (Bishop 1898, p. 421). Almost any imaginable calamity is caused by some specific kind of evil spirit.

About this multitude of spirits, traveler Isabella Lucy Bishop wrote

(1898, p. 404): “They fill the chimney, the shed, the living room, the kitchen

—they are on every shelf and jar. In thousands they waylay the traveller as he leaves his home, beside him, behind him, dancing in front of him, whirring over his head, crying out upon him from earth, air, and water. They are numbered by thousands of billions.”

Followers of traditional Korean religion are especially concerned with ghosts of departed humans, who are thought to be especially dangerous during the fall and winter. To appease the ghosts, the traditional Koreans offer them food in sacrifice. Younghill Kang (1931, p. 107), recalling his life in Korea, wrote: “All those who haunted around the tree-top from which they had fallen, those who had drowned and left their soul in the water, all who had died of hunger or of violence, was it not a pitying kindness toward them, to feed them now,—now especially, when hearts were anxious and the outlook dark?” Of all ghosts, the ghosts of persons who had drowned were considered most dangerous. Charles Allen Clark (1932, p. 203) wrote in Religions of old Korea, “They are said to be in torment confined to the water until they can pull some other poor unfortunate in to take their places. Then they can come out on land. They wail around the side of the water and try to entice people near. The boatmen are terribly afraid of them.”

Counteracting evil spirits is the business of the mudangs or exorcists. mudangs are women and come from the lowest social class. J. Robert Moose (1911, pp. 191–192) says of the mudang: “She claims to be in direct league with the evil spirits which infest the world, and can appease them and persuade them to leave those in whom they have taken up their abode for the purpose of afflicting them in body or mind. The religious feeling of the people is so strong that even the highest and best educated classes do not hesitate to call for the mudang when they are in trouble.”

Another kind of exorcist is the pansu. The pansu is male and, although he can come from any social level, his work is considered to be of a low kind, like that of the mudang. Moose (1911, p. 192) notes: “The pansu is always blind, and is supposed to be able to control the spirits not by persuasion but by power. They tell fortunes, and claim to be able to drive out evil spirits from sick people. The spirits are often soundly thrashed by these men, the evidence of which may be seen in the sticks with which they have been beaten. I have often seen bundles of these sticks, about as large as a broom handle and about two feet long, beaten into splinters at one end, caused by the severe thrashing which the poor, unfortunate spirit had received at the hands of the pansu. Sometimes an unruly spirit is driven into a bottle and corked up with a stopper made from the wood of a peach tree, and then delivered to a mudang to be carried away and buried.”

In addition to a whole array of gods and spirits, the traditional Korean cosmology also appears to have a supreme being, Hananim. Homer B. Hulbert wrote (1906, p. 404): “This word Hananim is compounded of the words ‘heaven’ (sky) and ‘master,’ and is the pure Korean counterpart of the Chinese word ‘Lord of Heaven.’ The Koreans all consider this being to be the Supreme Ruler of the universe. He is entirely separated from and outside the circle of the various spirits and demons that infest all nature.” Protestant missionaries used the word Hananim as a synonym for the Christian God. Catholics tended to use Chun-ju (or Chunchon), a Chinese word that means the same thing (Hulbert 1906, pp. 404–405).

Local legends say that Chunchon once looked into a small box, and found many letters inside, some of which spelled out the following message, “The ‘ok’ (precious) Heaven controls all of the other thirty-six heavens, their inner apartments, and middle courts, the east and west lighted places, the depths and heights, the four departments and six places; also the ‘yoosa’ officials and their departments. All of this is in order to control the five thunders and the three kingdoms. Chunchon, being infinitely great, personally surveys all of these matters. He does not even need to employ all of these agencies” (Clark 1932, p. 277).

J. Robert Moose, in his book village life in Korea (1911, p. 191), said about Hananim (Chunchon): “Strange to say, this the greatest of all the spirits, receives the least attention in the worship of the people. This is probably from the fact that he is considered good and the religion of Korea is one of fear and not of love. It is not worth while to bother the good spirits, since they will do no harm; but the bad ones must be placated. In times of severe drought, by special command of the king, sheep are sacrificed to Hananim. There are no temples or shrines dedicated to Hananim except the altars on which the above-stated sacrifices are offered. So it can hardly be said that the village religion has much to do with the great spirit Hananim.”

William Elliot Griffis (1882, p. 301) distinguished several kinds of dragons in the Korean cosmology. The first kind, the celestial dragons,

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watched over the palaces of the gods in heaven. A second kind, from a position below heaven but above the terrestrial level, controlled natural forces, such as wind and water. And a third kind, the terrestrial dragons, determined the courses of rivers and streams. And a fourth kind ruled over mines and hidden treasures. These categories of dragons reflect a division of the cosmos into a spiritual realm, a realm of higher beings in charge of natural forces, an earthly realm, and a subterranean realm. About this last kind of dragon, Griffis (1882, p. 301) noted, “Intense belief in the dragon is one of the chief reasons why the mines in Cho-sen [Korea] are so little worked, and the metals disturbed. The dragon pursuing the invaders of their sanctuary or fighting each other to gain possession of the jewel balls or sacred crystals is a favorite subject in all art of Chinese parentage.”

Tlingit indian Cosmology