From Earth Spirits to Sky Gods: The Socioecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism, and Hyperabstract Reasoning from the Stone Age to the Axial Iron AgeLexington Books, 2000 - 327 páginas In this thought-provoking new book, Bruce Lerro offers a speculative reconstruction of the sacred beliefs and practices of cultures existing between 30,000 and 500 B.C.E. Lerro describes how material changes in various social formations--including hunting-gathering bands and horticulturalists in villages--were responsible for the shift from magic to realism, from the belief in earth spirits to faith in sky gods. Drawing from such diverse theorists as Marx and Engels, Vygotsky, Piaget, and George Herbert Mead, Lerro critiques and transforms mechanical, humanistic, new age, and countercultural perspectives on the history of sacred traditions. This study of comparative religion and mythology has important applications for the fields of archaeology, evolutionary anthropology, sociology, political science, and comparative psychology. |
Contenido
Sacred Worlds Commonalities Among Magical and Religious Traditions | 1 |
2 Beliefs myths and morals | 7 |
3 Dramatization | 9 |
4 Techniques and strategies | 12 |
5 Tensions within and between sacred traditions | 14 |
6 Evolution of sacred systems from immanence to transcendence | 19 |
Evolution of Politics and Economics Origins of Stratification Surplus Expropriation and Markets | 23 |
from federation to centralization from sacred to secular | 34 |
3 Empire building encourages universalist thinking and monotheism | 150 |
4 Invention of writing frees thinking from conversation and action | 152 |
5 Invention of writing frees thinking from memorizing | 154 |
from participation to dominion | 161 |
7 Invention of coined money promotes decontextualization deliberation and universalization | 168 |
8 Population pressure and resource depletion invite delayed gratification longterm planning and universalization of the human community | 170 |
the social and historical nature of cognitive evolution | 174 |
From PreOperational to Operational Cognition Stone Age to Iron Age Reasoning Processes | 185 |
3 Infrastructural structural and superstructural dimensions of ancient societies | 40 |
Societies in Upheaval Crises Conflict Improvisation | 43 |
consensual vs conflicted improvisation | 49 |
3 Did magic and religion lead or follow improvised social evolution? | 56 |
Magical and Religious Experience Conflicts from the Stone Age to the Iron Age | 63 |
2 Differentiating soul functions from spirit functions within the psyche | 70 |
4 Secondary magical states of consciousness | 73 |
5 Religious states of consciousness | 77 |
6 The impact of commerce on universalizing religions | 82 |
Places Spaces and Sensuality Physical Locale and Sense Ratios in the Ancient World | 89 |
psychological differentiation | 90 |
proximate and longdistance senses | 95 |
3 Dominance of place in magical societies | 97 |
the spatialization of society and nature | 100 |
5 Magical and skygod religions operate with different sense ratios | 103 |
6 The primacy of sound smell touch and taste in magical societies | 105 |
7The desert sensory deprivation and skygod religion in the Archaic Iron Age | 107 |
8 The rise of sight and hyperabstraction in skygod religion in the Axial Iron Age | 112 |
From the Collectivist Self to the Individualist Self Stone Age to Iron Age Personal identities | 119 |
what it is and where it occurs | 128 |
3 Interdependent self vs independent self | 130 |
4 The inner self vs the outer self | 137 |
5 The common root of monotheism and individualism | 142 |
Matter over Mind Impact of Ecology Demography and Social Systems on Cognitive Evolution | 145 |
2 Political centralization invites the cultivation of planning supervising and coordinating | 149 |
can Piagets stages be applied to history? | 195 |
3 Preoperational vs operational cognition | 202 |
4 Preoperations magic and the collectivist self | 206 |
5 Concrete vs formal operations | 212 |
6 Formal operations universalizing religions and the individualist self | 216 |
synthesizing Piaget and Vygotsky | 222 |
Wars of Heaven on Earth The Impact of Comets and Asteroids on the Origins of SkyGod Religion | 231 |
comets asteroids and meteors in planetary evolution | 236 |
3 Celestial marauders in human history? | 240 |
myths as illusions allegory or history? | 253 |
5 Did celestial events directly cause skygod mythology? | 260 |
The Axial Iron Age The Triumph of the Sky Gods | 267 |
2 Demythologization and the rise of philosophy and universalist religion | 269 |
3 Comparing Archaic and Axial religion and the self | 272 |
4 Comparing Western and Eastern Axial Iron Ages | 282 |
5 The politics of mind over matter | 288 |
6 Materialist explanation for the origin of the sky gods | 290 |
The Peril and the Promise The Legacy of the Sky Gods and Religion | 297 |
2 Pros and cons of religion | 302 |
3 The legacy of the individualist self and operational cognition | 308 |
Bibliography | 315 |
| 321 | |
About the Author | |
Términos y frases comunes
adaptation animals Archaic Iron Age asteroids Axial Age Axial Iron Age become Bronze Age Buddhism catastrophes celestial chapter cognitive evolution coined money collectivist comets complex horticultural societies concrete operations conflict consciousness contexts crisis cultures deities develop differences earth spirits ecological economic egalitarian emergence emotions experience Figure formal operations Greek Hebrews human hunter-gatherers hyperabstract identity impact improvised individual individualist internal invention labor locus of control magic and religion magical societies magical traditions meaning-making systems mind monotheism monotheistic mythology myths Neolithic objects operational cognition operational thinking physical Piaget's political pre-operational thinking primitive magic psyche psychological reasoning processes religious resource depletion ritual roles sacred beliefs sacred presences sacred systems sacred traditions sacred world secondary magic secular separate simple horticultural skills sky gods sky-god religion social evolution society and nature space stages stratification Taoism theory tion transcendental tribal societies uniformitarian universalist religion University upper classes Yahweh