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Meeting
the Primal and Other Mentalities
- Within Ourselves
Frank
Fletcher MSC
You say 'Show me your God', I reply, 'You must show me that
the eyes of your soul can see, and the ears of your heart
can hear.' Thleophilus of Antioch.
Chapter one of Jesus and the Dreaming, clarified the direction
of this work, namely, to prepare ourselves as western Christians
to be fit for dialogue with the indigenous people?and, at
the same time, to be open to the renewal which this preparation
offers for our own heart and soul. Such preparation will require
an interior journey. A journey, whether exterior or interior,
presupposes a map; and in order to read a map, we must get
some idea of where we presently are. The quest for our present
position brings to mind the historical mix of cultures which
is the modern west. Remembering this mix makes us aware of
the delusions of innocence to which we are prone: for example,
believing we could prepare to dialogue with the Aborigines
from some neutral point of view, outside of our historical
self? interest. The task begins, then, by heightening awareness
of the mix. One effect of awareness of the mix will be to
question our authenticity regarding our own tradition. Why?
Because to dialogue fairly with the indigenous, who are the
inheritors of a tradition with primal roots, will challenge
us to face the primal elements in the ancient tree which is
our own tradition.
In chapter one we treated briefly of modernity and why it
is inhospitable to religion, be it Aboriginal or Christian.
In this chapter we have to return to modernity because it
is so obviously a dominant part of the western cultural mix.
However, we will be focussing more on two other cultural mentalities
which co?exist with modernity. These two mentalities are interior
and so are distinct from the outwardness of modernity. They
tend to be discounted by many precisely because they are interior;
yet they are necessary for humans to breathe spiritually.
I grew up in the foremost creation of modernity, the big city.
Our house was barely ten feet from a busy tram fine. The streets
were filled with the rattling momentum of lorries, cars and
carts; and the winking fights of planes seemed to be up there
with the stars. Within our house modern inventions underlay
most of the activities of our lives.
Fortunately, we lived near the sea. From my parents' room
we could see the ocean in all its moods. Also by good fortune,
there was a park nearby where the gnarled forms of Moreton
Bay fig?trees always startled me. In that park at night sometimes
I found a place of interior solitude. It seemed almost as
if I were driven there. Only later in middle age I came upon
images that helped me identify what I panted for in that solitude:
my soul fleeing to nature from the overwhelming outwardness.
Modern artists expressed that confinement and truncation of
soul: the primal desire to be 'at home' in the cosmos whilst
being bolted into the world of the machine. Artists have had
the ability to portray their inner experience, whereas religious
people, though they have been affected in the same way, have
commonly not been able to express it. Christian fife since
the industrial revolution has been a search for a settlement
between the inferiority of religious symbolism and the extremism
of technological reason. The search has appeared more difficult
because the religious symbols have taken their shape from
the two other cultures we are concerned with, 'die pre?modem'
and the primal.
Until the early 20th century these two cultural mentalities
and their religious symbols had coexisted reasonably well
with the modem mentality. As the century went on, however,
these symbols have sounded out of key to many modem cars.
My purpose is not to demonise modernity or to idealise the
'pre?modem' and the primal. As noted earlier, my desire is
to heighten awareness of the two other mentalities as being
in the mix, co?existing with modernity, whatever the strains
and discord. Yet, how can the pre? modern and the primal exist
in contemporary people? By definition those two belong to
eras that have been superseded?
This question is crucial for our coming to a proper appreciation
of the indigenous nous?and also for a genuine understanding
of ourselves as religious people in the modem west. You will
have noticed that I have been putting 'pre?modern' in inverted
commas. I do so because the term is very unsatisfactory; yet
there is no accepted term to replace it. The flag?bearers
of modernity have claimed total ownership of the contemporary
period. Whoever opposes modernity on the basis of traditional
positions gets designated as a throwback, an anomaly from
a previous age, a 'pre?modern'. There is one fact staring
at us in this discussion which should turn around the negative
perception implied in 'pre?modern'. The Aboriginal movement
in the second half of the 20th century has brought many fellow
citizens to the recognition that they are a contemporary people;
that, in spite of terrible social wounds, they have a living
spiritual culture. Westerners can no longer treat them as
childish primitives, out of place in the contemporary world.
Of course the battle for recognition still goes on. To our
surprise as westerners, we must admit that the primal lives
on within our souls too. To come to this realisation usually
needs the prompting of some unexpected event. Let me tell
you a story.
In the Body of the Snake
In 1948 1 entered a school for prospective missionary
priests. The school, just outside of Sydney, enjoyed a large
bush setting. When I arrived there for my final school year,
the priest director seemed quite strict. Then, after six weeks,
that man was replaced by another priest quite new to school
work, a very genuine person. To kick off our relationship
together he suggested we all picnic by a creek at the bottom
of a precipitous gorge nearby. Next afternoon after class,
with sandwiches packed, we climbed down to swim and play around
the rocks. With evening a fire was fit and the meal organised.
just as we gathered to say grace, there was a scuffle and
a shout: 'Snake, snake!'
The new priest moved swiftly grabbing a branch on the way.
He then held up for all to see the body of a long black snake.
'Have any of you ever eaten snake?' he said. We said, no.
'Let's cook it; you'll like it.' So the snake was skinned
and cooked. We sat in a circle around the fire and the cooked
snake was passed around. Each took a morsel. It tasted good,
like poultry.
Later, when we climbed out of the gorge we were not the
same gaggle of boys who had come down. In the days following
the modern mentality in me tried to keep the experience within
rational boundaries. The snake had come simply to get water.
Our eating its flesh was a spur of the moment decision. The
atmosphere was heightened by darkness, fire?light and the
bush. Really, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Yet there
was another voice in my consciousness which insisted that
this incident had brought to me (and to others, as I found
out over the years) an experience of soul. In eating the black
snake together we had participated in something mysterious.
We had been at the edge of an eerie reality.
Perhaps it is only through such moments, out of the everyday
paths of life, that the primal and the 'pre?modern' assert
themselves in consciousness.What characterises the primal
is the sense of participating within a higher or sacred Mystery.
The intimation of participation is evoked through immersion
in the communion of nature and aided by ceremonial-like action.
And the pre?modern? It has an openness to Mystery and an attraction
to the communion of nature. However, it has not the participatory
depth of the primal. I ascribe to the 'pre? modern' an openness
to, rather than the sense of participating in mystery in a
creaturely way.
The 'pre-modern' has a degree of alignment with the modern
and so it stands at some distance from Mystery. Similarly,
the 'pre?modern' imagines the personal God as Himself standing
apart from other beings. So there is the desire for an interpersonal
relationship with God as between two quite separate beings.
This is foolish thinking both metaphysically and spiritually.
My impression of our schoolboy group was that, naturally,
the 'pre?modem' in alignment with the modern, predominated.
Most tried to keep their impressions within rational, interpersonal
boundaries. For others the experience was what is caged a
liminal experience. Ale primal always includes a liminal dimension
(from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. We were jerked out
of our everyday world to the threshold of something other.
Like Alice in Wonderland there was an opening within the ordinary.
We will speak more of the liminal in a later chapter.
In initiation ceremonies, the indigenous are subjected to
liminal experiences. From youth till now I would judge myself
to be predominantly a 'pre?modern', whilst I recognise, as
noted above, the strong influence of the modem.
What, then, can I say of the modem as distinct from the
primal and the 'pre?modern'? The latter two as I wrote earlier,
both carry an intimation of higher or sacred Being. Here is
the point of difference. Many moderns appear tone deaf to
Mystery. They delight in themselves as metaphysical rebels
who can forge autonomous selves extricated from the limits
of nature. Theirs is an heroic impulse to be explorers of
the outer world.
Adam and Eve
The presence of the three cultural mentalities in the mix
can be illuminated by the interpretations of scripture which
arise from each one. The Adam and Eve story is an appropriate
example, a story that would have gone through, a number of
differing re?tellings. In our day interpretations of it include
those of thoroughly non? religious modems. For them the story
of the first human beings must be in accord with the data
regarding evolution. In fact some believe there is an interpretation
precisely in line with the psychology implicit in the evolution
breakthrough. In this interpretation Eve was an almost?human
who had the audacity to make the breakthrough. Eve did the
right thing.
The pro-Eve interpretation takes a characteristically modem,
cheeky attitude towards the role of the Lord God in the story:
the modern as metaphysical rebel. The Lord God put the two
almost? humans into a sumptuous garden, yet he commands that
the tree in the centre of the garden not be touched. Wherever
the pair went they would have felt orientated towards the
centre and so to the embargo. Surely a set?up to entice human
curiosity.
Why were they forbidden to eat of that tree? If we believe
the serpent (and the modems remind us that the serpent in
ancient times was a symbol of wisdom and healing), the embargo
was imposed because, if they ate the fruit, these two simple
almost? humans would become like God knowing good and evil.
Of course their human curiosity won out. What happened? 'Rey
recognised they were naked. Nakedness signified they had been
in the state of the natural world, like birds and animals.
Thus, in their recognising their nakedness as inappropriate
the couple understood that they had become distinct from the
natural world. They had passed over the evolutionary bridge
to intelligent self-consciousness and all its problems?but
also to all its, wonders. Eve's eating was 'a happy fault',
if any fault at all. Was it a divine set?up from the beginning.
This interpretation cleverly turns the story on its head:
it becomes an affirmation of evolution rather than a religious
narrative explaining mythically the human experience of inner
and outer disorder. This modem interpretation clearly goes
against the grain of the story. It also goes against the biblical
context of the story? for the Adam and Eve narrative does
not stand alone. It is chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis. Chapters
4 to 11 recount the spread of human disorder in the succeeding
generations and in their social structures. Thus, chapters
3 to 11 build up an awareness of sin as permeating the human
condition.
The evolutionary interpretation, on the contrary, has no
interest in this sin-disorder context. So, do we simply reject
the cheeky evolutionary interpretation? No. It does discount
the non-rational elements. In these comments I am not making
a judgment that the 'pre?modern' interpretation with its focus
on the issue of obedience is untrue. Clearly, it is the core
issue. However, the disregarding of the mythic elements, whilst
understandable, must mean something is lost.
We seek, then, an interpretation which includes the mythic
or primal elements already noted. The story opens with the
couple hiving in a communion of life with other creatures
including the serpent. The garden appears to be a mystical
place which is prior to our present world or at least prior
to the land having been cursed by God. It is a place no longer
visible to humans; its story, however, is mysteriously active
'behind' our present visible world. When described in that
way it reminds one of the Aboriginal dreaming. Some may object
that to see any connection whatever with the mythic dreaming
is to reduce the scriptures to nonsense. Though this objection
comes from religious people, it arises from the modem attitude
that the non?rational has no meaning. On the contrary, the
mythic attains intimations of Mystery that the rational cannot
express.
To interpret the mythic adequately one must put to one side
the modem demand for the rationally literal. The mythic has
a tantalising quality: one walks on the edge of what seems
literal but is more than literal. Another objection queries.
how the mythic could have been taken into the monotheistic
scriptures of the Hebrews? Scholars indicate that the Hebrews
undoubtedly took stories from the mythologies of the peoples
around them in the Near East and re? interpreted them in terms
of their own religion. At times, it seems, they were ready
to leave the mythic elements intact. So, let us reflect further
on the mythic elements, beginning with the dreadful and deathly
tree. Recall the Aborigines' dread of sacred sites, their
insistence that such places are dangerous for those who have
not been spiritually initiated into their mysteries. The awe
of the sacred does not originate from mythic stories. The
experience of it, the awe, dread and fascination, comes first.
Further, the danger regarding the sacred may arise from moral
faults but also from an ignorance which does not seek to be
aware of where one should not go, what one should not touch.
The ordinary world bears the imprint of the prior sacred world,
a mystical otherness that shows through at sacred places.
Once we sense the mystical quality that suffuses the Adam
and Eve story, then the couple are not humans who accidentally
have broken through; they are creatures enveloped in mythic
mystery that we will never be able rationally to explain:
they are ancestral humans, those beings who have given shape
to the human condition.
The Divine Initiative
It is difficult for us as modems and 'pre?moderns' to grasp
the significance of ancestral figures. Yet as Christians we
are accustomed to Abraham being described as our ancestor
in faith. Faith, however, is a gift of God: where does Abraham
come into it? Is he just an inspirational figure? The Hebrew
and Christian traditions rate him more highly. Some African
theologians write of Jesus as the ancestor, the true Adam
who has remedied the failure of the first Adam. Does calling
Jesus the ancestor demean his title as the Christ? Hardly.
The Christ or Messiah figure of the scriptures is an ancestral?type.
his quality shows through in the Gospel context where Jesus
is first recognised as the Christ (Mark ch.8 vs 27ff with
its parallels in Matthew and Luke). Jesus had asked his disciples,
'Mo do people say that I am?' They answered, 'John the Baptist
and others Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets.'
He asked them, 'But who do you say that 1 am?' Peter answered,
'You are the Messiah.'
We could translate Jesus' question this way: what do the
people recognise as the incarnate meaning of my life? The
word, incarnate, means 'made into human form'. The significance
of the word becomes evident when one remembers the scriptural
conviction that whatever good is happening in the world reflects
God's designs; yet God works his designs by incarnating them
in the flesh and the images of human beings. Incarnate meaning
is that which a person has in the divine designs. Ancestral
figures, then, are keys to the incarnating of the divine designs;
and their role is not only for themselves but for the ongoing
tradition. So, since Jesus carried the aura of prophetic power,
the people said: he shares in the divinely prophetic work
represented by the ancestral figure, Elijah or, in recent
times, by John the Baptist. This collective way of thinking
'throws' our western minds; for our mentality persons can
only be individuals. In the scriptures, however, ancestral
figures have a participatory meaning; numbers of people can
be recognised as participating in the divine design represented
by the figure because its quality is resonant in their fives.
In that sense, ancestral figures live on.
Returning to the Gospel scene, Peter recognised that Jesus
represented a more profound divine design even than that of
a prophet. He evoked the presence of the long desired liberation
of Israel by the Christ. Further, God had en-fleshed the final
healing design for all humankind in Jesus of Nazareth.
Therefore, Jesus as an individual is the Christ, but in
and through Jesus many others participate in the Christ mission.
St Augustine in the 5th century spoke of the Christ as referring
to the whole Christ. Jesus and all those baptised into participation
with him. This accords with the teaching of Paul the apostle
centuries earlier: we are baptised into the Christ. This into
was well symbolised by the putting under water which was the
earliest form of baptism. The person was lowered into a river
or a lake and covered over by the water. This signified the
person's submission to the Father unto death, in union with
that of Jesus.
Paul in a kind of shorthand, repeatedly referred to the
Christian's participation in the dying and rising of Jesus
as living in the Christ. From the participatory role not only
of the Hebrew ancestral figures but also of Jesus as the Christ
it is evident that the primal understanding of existence as
participation became significant in Christian conversion.
These considerations, however deep in the Hebrew and Christian
traditions, do not make the primal easy to grasp by modern
westerners. The main obstacle, I believe, is psychological.
Our mind-set takes this world to be the really real. If we
are 'pre? modern' we go on from this?world to an openness
to Mystery. For the primal, on the other hand, it is Mystery
which is the really real.
We have true, that is incarnate meaning in so far a's we
participate in the sacred designs worked in us and through
us by the ancestral beings. Participation is the glory of
human living. What can we say regarding the ancestors in traditional
Aboriginal culture? Are they similar to those in the Hebrew
and Christian traditions? The answer has to be somewhat complex.
For example, the biblical figures arose in the context of
oral traditions which much later were written down. The traditional
Aboriginal ancestral stories began in, often secret, ceremonies
and were portrayed in art. They were not written down till
modem times.
From the art it is clear that a people's dreaming and their
ancestral beings were identical. The ancestral beings of a
place and a people shaped the land through their travels,
conflicts and adventures. They gave a particular people their
relationship to the land. The intricate relationship between
land, people and ancestral beings has a limited likeness to
the Abraham ancestral promise and to the theme of the promised
land in the Hebrew tradition.
However, just as the Aboriginal ancestral beings provided
a cosmic identity for their people, so the ancestral stories
of Abraham, Israel, Moses, David provided the tiny Judean
state with a spiritual identity in the face of mighty empires.
Whilst these likenesses should be noted, it is also important
to stress the substantial differences. To begin with: in the
Hebrew tradition the ancestors are portrayed as truly human;
they live and die within the ordinary human world. This contrasts
with the non? human figures among the Aboriginal ancestral
beings such as those in the wallaby dreaming, the possum dreaming,
the honey?ant dreaming, etc. 'The everyday world lived in
by the Hebrew ancestors also contrasts with the mystical aura
of the Aboriginal dreaming which is prior to the present world,
has shaped it and still can influence it. There are cultural
roots that account for the differences. The Aboriginal ancestral
beings emerged from a thoroughly primal culture. 'The biblical
figures arose from a culture that had broken
out of the totally primal and which was seeking to be faithful
to the designs of a personal God amid the tides of ruthless
historical forces.
In Conclusion
This opening Chapter has focussed on the primal. The reason
is this: it will be a foundational theme for the work. We
cannot hope to dialogue adequately with the indigenous without
having a genuine awareness of the primal and of what is connected
with it such as the participatory, the ancestral, the liminal,
the sacred, the mythic. All will be picked up further in later
chapters. Even to understand our Christian tradition we will
have to appropriate these within our own experience. Such
appropriation will require an ongoing awareness of the mix
and of how the three mentalities interact within our own consciousness
and religious experience.
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