02. Paradigms and Empiricism

Ancient Art and Human Consciousness

We are beset by numerous problems when studying History, and the further back in time we go, the more problematic these become. There are far more gaps than areas we can be certain of and very often we have to exercise enormous imaginative leaps in order to fill them. 

This is especially true in the study of Art. 

There are numerous discoveries that are being constantly uncovered that are not always helpful in establishing a neat and orderly timeline. As frustrating as these are it is not a scientific response to ignore or even destroy them. 

But the story of mankind is as much a political endeavour as is every bit of knowledge we have access to. History is written by the victors it is said and this it would seem is the sad truth of most Historical records which at best are an interpretation of scant evidence that more than likely fits a required.

1. Graham Hancock and his book, "Supernatural." 
2. Art, Archeology and the Darwinist Paradigm.

While researching his book Supernatural, Graham Hancock traveled to the Amazon to drink visionary brew Ayahuasca – the Vine of Souls – used by shamans for more than 4000 years. At TEDxWhitechapel on January 13, 2013, Graham Hancock described his experiences with the ayahuasca (containing the drug DMT). He speaks of the expansion of his own consciousness and the transformative effect of this drug on his own perceptions of reality. TED decided to remove Hancock's talk from their channel, Graham Hancock wrote a defence of his talk which can be read here

Graham Hancock brought to a larger public the need for a revision of our understanding of History. He demonstrated the need for a fresh angle in his first major best seller "Finger Prints of the Gods". This was certainly not the first book ever published that exposed problems with out understanding of History - but it certainly spread the idea to a far broader audience, of which I was one who was deeply effected by the ideas and discoveries in the book. 

The allegation is that our historians are locked into a paradigm which creates a lens through which they interpret History and archeology. 

We often find entrenched views that are generally inflexible and buried in the mud of years of assumptions and foregone conclusions, very often contradictory findings are ignored when they contradict the current mainstream view.

Graham Hancock delivers his controversial talk at TEDxWhitechapel January 13, 2013.

The story of the caves of Altamira 

One of the most infamous examples of entrenched paradigms can be observed in the account of the discovery of the Paintings in the Caves of Altamira in Spain. This account is recounted by Graham Hancock in his book "Supernatural".

What is so Shocking about the whole sorry episode is how it exposed the petty behaviour of the so called "scientific establishment," instead of using rational scientific methods to follow the evidence no matter where it lead, they demonstrated an extraordinary narrow minded attitude which was so pervasive that they could not accept physical evidence when it was front of their own eyes.

All that was demonstrated was an elitist establishment that was completely prejudiced, spiteful, jealous vindictive and cruel, totally destroying the reputation and credibility of an enthusiastic amateur lover of Archeology Marcelino de Sautuola.

. . . as Graham Hancock says: ". . . Sautuola . . . made three important mistakes when he tried to convince academics. The first was to be Spanish, the second was to have found the cave in Spain, and the third was to have been an amateur archaeologist,” Graham Hancock - Supernatural 

According to the evolutionary ideas of the day the artwork was in total contradiction to the new Orthodoxy. The art in the cave was supposed to be crude, primitive, perhaps more schematic and symbolic rather than the masterful depictions they actually are. 

What is amazing to consider is, that if someone actually wanted to create a forgery it would be so much easier to fake some crude depictions of a hunt or something the paradigm would have expected. Surely the intensity of skill required to paint these depictions was plainly a stupid idea if you follow the Evolutionary reasoning of the day. It is obvious to an observer of these depictions they were executed by a masterful artist every bit as skilled and accomplished as any artist who has every lived since. 

Professor García Guinea of the University of Santander: If the works of art that had been discovered had been primitive, deformed and badly executed, nobody would have put them at odds with the theory of evolution … However, it happened to be a refined and perfected art, an art which could easily be compared to contemporary art, to that of Manet and Monet … Could it then be believed that these techniques had been conceived and mastered by troglodytes, primitive cavemen, who had not yet discovered the plow?

Supernatural (p. 143). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

The Altamira Paintings - evidence of primitive man slowly and clumsily learning how to translate reality in artistic depictions? Clearly the work of a highly accomplished and skilled Artist. 

Why didn't they figure this out? Yet somehow all this was completely lost on the academics whose vision was so twisted by their view of reality they were unable to accept the evidence in front of their eyes. 

So what were the academics expecting to see in the Caves? 

Based on their presuppositions and view of palaeolithic man as "simple  and primitive" they were expecting to see simple depictions executed crudely of Shamanistic rituals in which the outcome of hunt was predicted in advance with the successful cavemen shown triumphing over their fallen prey. 

Surely had Marcelino de Sautuola wanted to create a forgery it would have been a simple task to satisfy these prerequisites to the satisfaction of the French academics. What they actually saw was nothing like any of them could have predicted or expected at all.

 Emile de Cartaihlac was the chief editor of the revue Matériaux pour l'histoire naturelle et primitive de l'homme founded by Gabriel de Mortillet. It was these two totally immersed in the new Darwinist Orthodoxy who led the charge against the findings of Sautuola. 

The Paintings in the Cave

The cave of Altamira had already been explored, and Sautuola, had previously discovered some ancient pottery in the cave system. But it was very dark inside and he had been exploring the floors for pottery, it never occurred to him to look up onto the roof of the cave. It was (quite ironically) his nine year old daughter who first noticed that were some depictions of Bison on the walls and alerted her father. Sautuola, having seen similar images engraved on Palaeolithic objects displayed at the World Exposition in Paris the year before correctly drew the conclusion they were ancient Palaeolithic art. One can just imagine the great excitement he must have felt when he contacted professor Vilanova from Madrid University and together, they documented what they saw and published their findings in 1880 ( Breves Apuntes Sobre Alguno Objectos Prehistoricos de la Provincia de Santander), not doubt fully expecting to make a significant contribution to the development of the academic study of ancient Palaeolithic art. No doubt the acclaim of the find was indeed greatly anticipated together with the pride of having such a discovery in their own native Spain. The caves began to attract great attention and 

The Sad and Tragic events that  ensued are recounted below . . .

It was back in France the leading academics of the day held sway, names like Gabriel de Mortillet and Emile Cartailhac, who ruled the academic World of Palaeontology and any new discovery was going to have to pass the gauntlet of their inspection. One would have assumed in this relatively new discipline they must have been understood they were at the very beginnings of a new frontier. Surely they would have expressed curiosity and amazement and immediately set off with a team of investigators to study and verify the new discovery.

 

But this was not what happened at all! 

Professor Vilanova y Piera of the University of Madrid, took the case for Altamira’s antiquity to the IXth International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology held in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Amongst the many other distinguished participants were Emile de Cartailhac and Gabriel de Mortillet, then the two biggest names in the field.

 The evidence presented by Sautuola and Vilanova at the 1880 Pre-historic Congress in Lisbon did not elicit the excited response they anticipated, Emile Cartailhac felt offended by what was in his view, these parochial Spanish amateurs, how could they make such a revolutionary discovery in the impoverished backwaters of Spain instead of France? 

Graham Hancock: . . .the downside of his being Spanish and finding the cave in Spain was that all the pieces of portable Upper Palaeolithic art hitherto recognised had come from France and all the leading authorities on the subject were also French. They had a very definite tendency, perhaps inspired by patriotism or habit – or a bit of both – to respond positively to claims of great antiquity for new sites discovered in France but negatively to rival claims from sites in other countries. When it turned out, in addition, that Sautuola was not a member of the Academy, but an outsider with no qualifications, he was more or less doomed to be crushingly snubbed and ridiculed. What made this fate certain for him, however, was that Altamira began to attract a great deal of attention, and became hugely popular, after he first announced his discoveries there. For a couple of years it was widely hailed in the media as the site of the oldest-known art in the world (as indeed it was then) Supernatural (p. 138).  Random House. Kindle Edition. 

To the horror of Sautuola and Vilanova he ridiculed the discovery and refused to even visit the cave, and to add insult to injury he influenced all the other participants of the congress who mocked Sautuola and also refused to go and check whether or not the claims were valid. When asked to comment on reproductions of the paintings in May 1881 Gabriel de Mortillet  rapidly concluded as follows: 

Simply by looking at the drawings you sent me in your letters I can see that it is a farce, nothing more than a hoax. They have been done and shown to the whole world so that everyone can have a laugh at the expense of palaeontologists and prehistorians who would believe anything. Supernatural (pp. 139-140). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

It did not end there, angry Sautuola fought for the authenticity of the find but he was further accused of forging the paintings when it was discovered there was an artist living on the property at the time, a certain Mr. Paul Ratier, who never spoke to anyone but was constantly in and out of the cave of Altamira. Sautuola employed Ratier to make copies of the paintings as a record for other researchers. 

There were several more indignities and accusations and betrayals that were levelled at Sautuola and eventually  in 1888 after a protracted struggle covering a period of 23 years de Sautuola died, brokenhearted and broken-spirited 

What changed? 

It was only after a steady stream of discoveries were publicised, the attitude and opinions of Cartailhac was eventually changed. But it has to be noted, that this did not just happen willingly but rather grudgingly as the new findings made their position no longer tenable.

New findings in Figuier, 1890, La Mouthe, 1895, Marsoulas, 1897,29 and Les Combarelles and Font de Gaume, 1901.30, all had the capacity to vindicate Altamira, Supernatural (p. 144). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

Cartailhac worked hard to discredit them. As late as 1897, for example, he joined other scholars in mocking suggestions that there were authentic prehistoric paintings in the cave of Marsoulas in the Pyrenees, supporting the argument instead that they were modern and the work of children. He also used his influence as editor of the journal of the Société Archéologique de Midi to suppress evidence on the antiquity of the paintings submitted for publication by local scholar Felix Regnault. But the tide was turning. At another French cave, Pair-non-Pair (Heads-or-Tails), wall engravings were discovered in 1896 partially buried under Upper Palaeolithic occupation layers – making them at least Upper Palaeolithic in age. Supernatural (p. 144). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

Mortillet was the first to capitulate after a flood of new discoveries, but the intractable Cartailhac held on for a few more years exhibiting a typical case of cognitive dissonance and denial unti eventually in 1902, he went on a research visit to Altamira with newcomer  Abbé Henri Breuil (who, emerging from obscurity, had also assisted Cartailhac. Supernatural (p. 145). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

Mea Culpa d’un sceptique

At the end of their one-month hands-on study of Altamira we have already seen how the two men declared its previously disgraced paintings to be authentic and of Palaeolithic age. Such a volte-face as this represented could not go unnoticed and it was obviously necessary for Cartailhac to make some sort of statement about his former position on Altamira. The ugly fact was that he had ‘changed his mind only at the last minute when the evidence became overwhelming’,and his problem now was to spin this to his advantage. Against all the odds, he did so masterfully before the end of 1902 by publishing an article titled ‘Mea Culpa d’un sceptique’ in the journal L’Anthropologie. In it he admitted disarmingly that he had participated in ‘an error, committed for twenty years, an injustice that must be acknowledged and made reparation for publicly … For my part I must bow to reality, and render justice to M. de Sautuola.’ Supernatural (p. 145). Random House. Kindle Edition. 

 Today, opinions about this article vary. Kleibl praises it as "one of the finest moments of prehistory" and a "brave article, showing no fear of hurting his" [Cartailhac's] "professional credit", while Lewis-Williams writes about it as an opportunist thing used calculatingly for Cartailhac's own benefit when his position was no longer tenable.

`

What is consciousness?

•  Is our conscious mind in its abstract existence, something that is generated entirely by the brain and when the body dies consciousness dies along with it? 
• So given the current paradigm on human evolution, when did the human brain therefore "Evolve" to the point where this state of consciousness became more than a mere mechanistic survival instinct? 
• When did our ancestors become "Self Aware" to the extent they developed abstract ideas that we can see in writing and artistic expression? 
• What can we find in the archeology that demonstrates this progression?

Modern Archeology cannot present any kind of definitive tangible scientific evidence for this "progression" and we are left with the assumption that it "must have occurred" simply because we "are here". But there is much to challenge in this this hypothesis and it is perfectly acceptable to view it as one of many possibilities and certainly not the "settled Science" its proponents would have us believe.

1. Graham Hancock discusses a possible answer to these questions in his Book "Supernatural". 

• He presents a case for a "return to the past" theory in which he presents evidence of the use of Hallucinogens he believes may have accelerated the development of human consciousness. He presents his reasons for believing that this past with its use of Hallucinogens was able to elevate our society to a higher state 

• He then advocates the return of mankind to these ancient practices and is convinced that this could be the means by which our World could be rescued from the madness we currently are experiencing.  

Hancock introduces his Ayahuasca experiences with the following excerpt: There’s one very odd thing that all of us at all periods of history seem to have done that defies an obvious evolutionary explanation. Against logic and reason, lacking irrefutable proof that we are right, and sometimes contrary to our own objective interests, every society that we know about since the appearance of modern humans on the planet has maintained a steadfast belief in the existence of supernatural realms and beings. Even in this rational and scientific century (the twenty-first since the crucifixion of a supernatural being called Jesus),more than a billion Christians still believe in Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, angels and demons. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, the ancient Egyptians, the Maya, the Druids, and the practitioners of all other known religions living and dead have all also entertained similar ideas. (Graham Hancock - Supernatural)  

• In Graham Hancock's Book he makes the point that Religious ideas and practices are not really very conducive to evolutionary progression.  

2. Art, Archeology and the Darwinist Paradigm 

Since our School textbooks present us with the "official version" of History we naturally need to begin here in our journey through the development of early man and his so called "evolutionary" development from Primitive towards modern mankind 

What then does the evidence available show us in this upward trajectory?

If one considers the main principle behind the Darwinist hypothesis, it is survival of the fittest, what exactly does that mean? Any encumbrance that reduces the creatures chance for survival will surely ensure the inevitable extinction of the creature since it is unable to survive or to compete in its environment.  Survival of the fittest should develop the most suitable candidate to inhabit that environment, a creature totally in harmony with the natural setting it inhabits or in the process of becoming so. Any weakness or frailty should by definition eliminate it and force it to make way for a superior and better adaptation. 

The first question is how would the "in between" species manage to survive on the way to becoming more suitable? like the long neck on the Giraffe becoming steadily longer and longer over untold millions of years and beneficial mutations, surely it would have starved itself out of existence long before its neck got long enough to reach those high up leaves?  We certainly don't see any "in between' species in any fossil records any where. On the contrary the fossil records just show fully developed creatures we find in the world today right back in the furthest reaches of the fossil record. 

Surely we also would find many examples of "failed species" in our fossil record, and by this I don't mean the dinosaurs or the sabre tooth tiger, which were fully developed species. I have to say that the very idea of dinosaurs becoming birds is a ridiculous idea when one considers the development of the bone structure and feathers, but this is taken very seriously as a viable hypothesis. Where are the "in - between" species of animal that is neither dinosaur nor bird, I can think of some really funny cartoons one could use to demonstrate the silliness of this theory at this point. What I am referring to is an "in between" species on its way to developing into something different, but "not making it" and we have the failed remains in our fossil record. But in fact we don't because it's a false hypothesis.

Why has man has the smartest brain of all creatures and yet our children are the most helpless of all creatures? I have often speculated on what really would a creature that has evolved in the most advanced physical and mental state look like? This is not an isolated question and many ideas have been put forward, but the one I personally think fits the bill is the creature invented for the Science Fiction movie "Alien". This is a good example of what a real apex creature should be like.Virtually indestructible with a tough exoskeleton not soft vulnerable skin and organs that can bleed out with a prick from a pin. 

How was it so that early man became so physically frail in comparison to other creatures in nature? How and when did his brain and thought processes take precedence over his development. Whilst we can clearly see that man's smart brain and the development of the human hand takes mankind to a vastly superior advantage over the animal kingdom, It seems more logical to think of man as having an advanced brain from the earliest possible time. This smart brain is clearly not developed from a "survival of the fittest" scenario since the necessity to survive is quite adequate in what are dubbed our closest ancestors, namely the Chimpanzees, who clearly are in no need for any development or change. So we are told that we simply outgrew the need for survival in this sense as our brains developed.  So when did it occur this idea that our brains no longer needed basic survival abilities since we suddenly had time and leisure and into this space we began to dream. When exactly was the tipping point when the brain began to develop to the time when we protected ourselves from the harshness of the environment by invention rather than adaptation? And then when did change from basic hunter gatherers and start becoming Artists?

The standard answer to all of this is for us to "look to the Caves", mankind's earliest habitat, or so we are taught. So we can now imagine an ape creature stumbling into a Cave and was able to keep warmer and shield itself from the elements and through the course of many millions of years the cave gave us the necessary freedom from fear to start engaging our own creativity and the next enormous step was man's ability to eventually make fire which sealed our fate and started us on the road to the precedence of the brain over brawn. Eventually we over came the cave and built primitive dwellings and moved on from there.

Its sounds pretty logical but for the problem of key transitions from beast living in harsh nature towards human creating his own environment there is no clear manner or method or evidence of how this transition takes place. It is simply assumed that it must have happened this way. But we have some rather strange anomalies to over come in this developmental stage. Graham Hancock's approach to man's relationship with the supernatural realm is clearly an area the standard materialist view of reality cannot accept since naturally to their way of thinking any idea of the supernatural only exists in the imagination of man and outside of this there exists no such reality. But if we put that aside then even the very idea of man reaching such a cognitive state that he can begin to create simple marks on a cave wall and these can be communicated to another human audience is a staggering leap from a simple creature sleeping in a Cave to a human being being able to communicate with his first forays into literacy.

Such an incredible leap forward needs some kind of explanation and maybe some kind of evidential evolutionary progression that can be observed and documented. But alas this extraordinary development is really just accepted on the basis that it had to have happened, we just don't know how. 

When we look at the Caves themselves we find a host of difficulties and problems that just don't give us any answers and only further to complicate matters.

When we observe the Cave Paintings, the first question is what is their purpose? The standard answer we are given we can read from a standard textbook.

“these primitive hunters thought that if they only made a picture of their prey—and perhaps belaboured it with their spears or stone axes—the real animals would also succumb to their power. Of course, this is guesswork—but guesswork pretty well supported by the use of art among those primitive peoples of our own day who have still preserved their ancient customs. True, we do not find any now, as far as I know, who try to work exactly this kind of magic; but most art for them is also closely bound up with similar ideas about the power of images. There are still primitive peoples who use nothing but stone implements and who scratch pictures of animals on rocks for magic purposes. There are other tribes who have regular festivals when they dress up as animals and move like animals in solemn dances. They, too, believe that somehow this will give them power over their prey. ”

Excerpt From: Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans), 1909-2001. “The story of art”.     

So in summary, these images were believed to have been made to somehow give some kind of magical power to the hunters of these animals and enable them to enjoy a successful hunt. Much of the art depicts animals which would have been familiar to our prehistoric ancestors such as horses, bison and woolly mammoths. This quickly gave rise to the idea that the paintings were a form of magic designed to give humans power over the animals they hunted. 

Again Graham Hancock observes in "Supernatural" there is a problem with this hypothesis. . . 

"This idea prevailed for much of the twentieth century but it is hard to see why, because it was so patently wrong. We can tell what our ancestors ate by the animal bones discovered in the caves, and these rarely match the creatures depicted on the walls. More importantly, many of the images feature fantastic monsters that have never existed in everyday physical reality. Known as “therianthropes” (from the Greek therion = “wild beast” and anthropos = “man”) these are human-animal hybrids.

Clearly, such images are not depictions of a hunter’s prey. They are pictures of “supernatural beings” – i.e. beings that we do not see in everyday life and that are not governed by the normal laws of nature.

So the question is, how and why and because of what experiences did our ancestors first begin to conceive of the existence of beings like these?

3. The Origins of the Supernatural Realm

  Graham Hancock believes he may have the answer to this problem, in his Book "Supernatural" he posits a theory about Shamanism and the use of hallucinogenics. 

Lets go back a while and ask a question about the origins of art skills and the ability of primitive ape men to paint such high quality images in these Caves

“ It is not their standard of craftsmanship which is different from ours, but their ideas. It is important to realise this from the outset, because the whole story of art is not a story of progress in technical proficiency, but a story of changing ideas and requirements. There is increasing evidence that under certain conditions native artists can produce work which is just as correct in the rendering of nature as the best work done in any art class. Only recently a number of bronze heads have been discovered in Nigeria which are the most convincing likenesses of negroes that can be imagined (Fig. 24). They seem to be many centuries old, and there is no reason to believe that the native artists learned their skill from anyone outside.”Excerpt From: Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans), 1909-2001. “The story of art”. Apple Books. 

My next question is this. . . when one considers the high level of excellence seen in the Cave Paintings of Chevet Altimira and Lescaux for example, the idea that these were primitive beings who depicted their prey is clearly a defunct idea and it is well accepted nowadays that this is not actually the case. 

But another important observation needs to be made, can it be asserted that these artists were incapable of other kinds of skills and abilities? If we agree upon the technical veracity of the oldest cave paintings, then surely if we can liken these to the art of any Historical culture after this time, then it is also logical to assume these artists were perfectly capable of building and construction and creating other sophisticated devices as well. 

One also has to consider the fact that many of these artworks are in difficult to reach places in dark recesses hardly an ancient "living Room" of a family of Primitives decorating their dwelling places. Some of the works are made in large open areas in which many people could congregate which gives rise to speculation about community involvement perhaps religious. All this signifies is that people may have gone into the caves to perform these paintings for any number of reasons and we today have no idea what these were. 

Since the paintings are at a high level of technicality we can also conclude that these are modern humans with fully developed motor skills as well as sophisticated reasoning and cognitive abilities, in other words exactly the same as modern man. 

What conclusions can the caves give us in our quest for a visible evolution and development of mans ability to create Art and self-expression? 

And 

What conclusions can ancient cave Art give to us about the development and evolution about human consciousness?

The Bison from Altimira shows the dexterity of a sophisticated and highly trained Artist the equal of any artist in mankind's History.

The caves and their Artworks can only point to the work of fully cognitive and physically modern people and the caves show absolutely no evidence of any kind of evolutionary progression from very basic to complex.

Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape  

Terence McKenna picked up the baton left by Timothy Leary in his research into the mind enhancing effects of Hallucinogens. In his book "Food of the Gods",  McKenna developed a theory that dovetails neatly into what Graham Hancock was asserting in his research into early cave art.

 McKenna's theory agreed that early man over a vast period of time was not really developing at all. Then there came a time, approximately 100 000 years ago, of deprivation due to desertification in north Africa. So because of a lack of available food early man was forced to find alternative food sources and became more nomadic. According to McKenna, what propelled early man from this primitive state to a more advanced state, was specifically the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet. 

According to McKenna, How did this happen?

 The change of the North African climate that created the desert regions, forced man to migrate. In this migration he began to  follow herds of cattle, and it was in the dung of these cattle that psilocybin mushrooms very easily developed and this would have been discovered by early man. He would have ingested these mushrooms initially as a food source before discovering, by accident, so to speak, the mentally enhancing effects of the mushroom. the mushrooms enhanced vision allowing enhanced hunting ability, also enhanced sexual drive increasing higher fertility and birthrates, all these increasing early man's ascendancy over others.

Psilocybin mushrooms were also responsible for increased language forming elements of the brain which would lead also to musical expression and artistic forms. Not only this but the actual effect of mushrooms on consciousness would also introduce early man to the notion of religion and religious experiences.

And so we return to a thesis gaining ascendancy in our own time with the research of Graham Hancock.

Both writers have tried to use the credentials of qualified researchers to give their points of view some academic underpinning 

There are however a few problems with this point of view

Firstly the idea that early man discovered psilocybin and ayahuasca and these catapulted him into an accelerated evolution after which he began living in harmony with nature and was in touch with his spirituality and by all accounts was peaceful prosperous and happy. It sounds perfect, so much so Hancock among others are making a spirited campaign for mankind to return this ideal condition in order to save the world from its current self-destructive state.

So what happened to the world when it was in this condition in the first place? Why did it end? Shouldn't we simply have inherited this blissful state handed down to us by our happy contented forefathers, I mean if it's not broke why fix it? 

The scientific community could be critical of this idea based on its somewhat romanticized recreation of  time that we actually don't know anything about and its total premise is based purely on speculation and conjecture. Are we imagining Timothy Leary's "Turned on, tuned in, dropped out" counterculture actually existed in perfect balance with nature all those eons ago?

There are other objections that are worth noting, such as cultures that did exist within more recent memory that commonly used Psilocybin and Ayahuasca. For example, the Aztecs who are known to have regularly used Psilocybin, routinely sacrificed human victims to their Gods. As well as cultures in the Amazon whose shamans used ayahuasca but were frequently involved in warlike and violent behaviour. Rather barbaric societies whose behaviour whilst using these hallucinogens was not quite in keeping with peace-loving hippy ideals.

Materialism and the study of Archeology, Art History, and Anthropology

Atomic Materialism

This concept is attributed to Democritus  460 - 370 BC, who is attributed with the formulation of Atomic Theory as well as a rejection of the spiritual or divine.

Dante and Materialism

The Big Dilemma 

We study Dante from the vantage point of modern times and for our 21st-century scholars the early Renaissance may show some great developments but we still study this as a Historic period and the great scientific achievements of the Renaissance have long since been eclipsed in our modern technological society. 

But when Renaissance Scholars looked back in time to a much earlier epoch, specifically the Greco Roman, they certainly did not look back with a sense of superiority in the knowledge they had superseded the ancients. Definateley not - they believed as Dante being a product of his time, also, that they had been through a very dark time in human History, and even though it can be argued that the so-called Middle Ages had many high points, the 15th Century nevertheless saw this period as dark and backward in comparison to what they perceived as the "Golden Age" of the Greek and Roman Empires. They began to excavate the old temples, and palaces as well as the artworks statues and representations of the various Gods and heroes still preserved in marble. 

These had become neglected and abandoned apart from some buildings they had been requisitioned for various practical reasons. The Pantheon is a good example of this, they used it as a Church building but they had totally forgotten the techniques and methods the Romans had used to build it.

The Renaissance looked back from a somewhat Romantic lense, to a time of great achievements, artistically, architecturally and most importantly Philosophically. 

But they had a major problem

The "Golden Age" they so admired was totally Pagan in its spiritual values and religious philosophies. 

Epicureanism. 

In Dante's Inferno, He places Epicurus inside the fiery walls of the city of Dis reserved for Heretics. How could Epicurus be branded a Heretic since this specifically refers to Christian religious beliefs? Obviously, there was no Christian religion available during Epicuris' lifetime. 

Apparently was not so much of a heretic as an opponent of Plato, much revered by Renaissance Scholars because he acknowledged the Divine Order and Creator. It is interesting to note that Epicurus developed his ideas of materialism directly from Democritus. But Dante places Democritus in "Limbo" a place for the ancient Philosophers who depended only on the "limitations of their intellect" so due to their "ignorance" and their "noble intentions" they do not deserve the worst excesses of Hell and spend eternity within not exactly a state of bliss but a lot better off than what Dante was soon to find out. Epicurus is placed in a very unpleasant fate, that of the fiery flaming tombs in the Sixth Circle of hell. A possible reason that Dante took a very dim view of the Epicureans was the belief that they were Hedonists. This was seen as a very low and selfish philosophical outlook that sought temporal pleasure as the soul focus of life. 

But one has to question this conclusion since surely a scholar of Dante's calibre would be aware that Epicurus was not simply advocating physical pleasure as the sole focus of existence.

 So what is Dante's take on Epicursim?

Epicurus was opposed to the superstitious beliefs of the ancient Greeks, who he believed, lived in perpetual terror of offending the Gods. This was in no way a similar idea to being an atheist during the time of the Renaissance but, rather, one could say, he felt there was a need for his society to remove all of the absurd superstitious practices from contemporary Greek society held in bondage by their fears of offending their Gods. Epicurus had no faith in the inhabitants of Mount Olympus and scorned the contemporary Greeks for believing in all kinds of ridiculous superstitions and practices used to appease their petty and fickle deities. 

Epicurus saw how people's lives were ruled and governed by portents and signs which had to be interpreted then followed by all kinds of offerings and appeasements which made life extremely complicated and difficult. Should they forget this kind of ritual or that kind of offering untold calamities could befall them. And should aspects of their lives go wrong it was their belief they had failed their Gods in some way or another.  

In contrast to these silly practices, Epicurus felt life was governed by practical choices we constantly make every day, if we overindulge in alcohol we suffer the effects of it, if we cheat and lie, these will come back to haunt us later, these were simple pragmatic choices which had positive or negative consequences. Epicurus felt we needed to find a place of peace which he called "ataraxia" which was in "balance with nature" which will bring us to a "state of tranquillity" as well as a state of "aponia" which was freedom from pain through wise choices and achieving pleasure through careful living in balance with nature.

So it is a state of balance and harmony to be attained rather than a mere pursuit of sensual pleasure. So it is not clear why Dante deals with Epicurus so harshly, and Democritus, on the other hand, gets a better deal. We might receive a clue in Dante's sojourn in Hell, Dante does go to have a conversation with two Epicurean Florentines in one of the flaming Tombs, what we see here is most interesting since the epicurean denial of the soul's immortality would certainly not be expecting to be conscious and eternally aware in a future place of torment after death. So a supreme irony here even though Dante and Farinata seem to be mainly concerned with their opposing political factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Farinata was posthumously accused of being a heretic but that seems to be Dante's Ghibelline point of view and the Guelph "division" of the believers into separate factions was deemed a tearing of the symbolic body of Christ and therefore "heretical".

This is an important point since Dante's viewpoint is totally caught up in the politics of the day and represents broadly the consensus of his time. Obviously Dante's poetic descriptions of hell are not meant to be taken literally, but nevertheless the philosophical idea that materialism is an incorrect view of reality and the belief in a judgement and an afterlife was widely accepted at the time.

 In the 6th Circle of Hell Dante and Virgil meet famous Florentine Epicureans Farinata degli Uberti, a famous Ghibelline leader; and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet  poet, Guido Cavalcanti. 

 Total commitment to a 'material reality' has always had its adherents and in Italy there also were those who made a decision to abolish the supernatural realm, since as they reasoned, they had no practical experience of it that could logically prove its existence, therefore, it doesn't exist. 

The next step, for them, was to devise a life worth living without the benefit of supernatural deities or beings, which of course was the whole aim and purpose of philosophers from Epicurus to Nietzsche in our own time in books such as "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and the "Gay Science"Nietszche struggles with plotting the course forward for man now we supposedly have accepted the non existence of the spiritual realm. 

This was not the case in Renaissance Rome since, to put it simply, the occupants of Mount Olympus had been replaced with the Christian equivalents. Because of this Christian Roman Catholic outlook that was generally accepted by most Italians during the Renaissance years, we can therefore understand clearly enough the adoption of Plato's philosophical outlook as opposed to that of Epicurus. The fact that Plato's creator was not the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible was conveniently ignored or they simply decided that it was the same God under a Greek appellation.

It would appear the materialist ideas about reality were suppressed but not extinguished, and as we can see at least from Dante, they were regarded as persona non grata but held onto Epicurean views on reality. As soon as the enlightenment Scholars did away with the Aristocracy and the Roman Catholic stranglehold on Western Europe, Epicurus was reinstated and the road was paved for a totally atheistic world view based on Atomic materialism.