Who’s Up for Building a Cathedral?
Ecocentric Human Development, the Hero’s Journey, and Cultural Regeneration, Part II
Friday, April 7, 2023
This is the second part of a multi-part Musing (one per week).
Patho-adolescent Societies
IF MY BRIEF DESCRIPTION, IN LAST WEEK'S MUSING, of egocentric adolescence sounds like an all-too-accurate portrayal of most current human societies, it’s not a coincidence: Most contemporary cultures are indeed thoroughly egocentric and anchored in a particularly pathological form of adolescence (what I’ve named “patho-adolescence”) [6]. From where I sit, this seems to be true not only of current North American and European societies but of all industrialized (aka, nature-alienated) societies in Asia, Africa, and South America, including both their elites and their marginalized communities. The kind of sociopolitical system that Rhiane Eisler, in The Chalice and the Blade, calls dominator society has “won” almost everywhere on Earth — with the resultant grave losses to land, water, and air, to millions of species, to cultural and linguistic diversity, social and racial justice, equity, and, more generally, to the quality of human life and all life. [7]
For those not familiar with our work at Animas Valley Institute, my characterization of most extant societies as patho-adolescent will rightly strike you as radical and audacious. It’s not an easy assertion for me to make — or to offer publicly. It rubs rudely against the way most of us think about ourselves and our societies. If it is correct — if it is — there are enormous implications and ramifications. It changes most everything we believe about who we are as a species on this planet at this time — and what to do about it.
It took many years for me to reach this conclusion and, when at last I did, I was filled with a profound grief with the realization of how many Earthly species, including our own, have suffered at the hands of humanity.
To really consider the possibility of developmental arrest of this scope, most people will want to know more precisely what I mean by “early adolescence” and by “true adulthood” and also how and when it came about that most contemporary cultures have devolved into societies of egocentric adolescents. In this Musing series, I’ll be able to only touch on these things. For more elaborate explorations and definitions, please see Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World and/or The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries.
But to at least stir your interest: By “a true adult human” I mean someone who (1) experiences themselves as a member, first and foremost, of the Earth community, (2) has had one or more visionary experiences of their unique ecological niche in that community (a niche that is theirs not because they chose it but because they were born for it or as it), and (3) is consciously and successfully embodying that unique place as a gift to their people and, more generally, to the Earth community. Doing so makes them an agent of cultural evolution — and also, in an egocentric-dominator society like ours, an agent of cultural revolution (or regeneration).
True adults are agents of cultural evolution not because they are consciously trying to support the evolution of their culture but because their conscious and successful embodiment of their unique innate niche in the Earth community is what contributes to cultural evolution, which it does precisely because that is the niche that Life (or Mystery or Soul or Nature) gave birth to them to embody.
In the end, it’s who we truly are that matters, not who we think we are — but we must undertake and endure an initiatory journey in order to discover and, more importantly, be able to embody who we truly are. And that journey cannot begin until we are psychospiritually prepared for it.
By serving as an agent of cultural evolution, a true adult is thereby also serving as an evolutionary agent for the human species and for Earthly life more generally. All true adult humans are, in short, visionary artisans of evolution.
How do you become a true adult in this sense? Long story. Short version: After having achieved and suffered sufficient success at the developmental tasks of the two stages of childhood and the stage of early adolescence (both the culture and nature tasks of each of these stages) [8], which is way easier said than done in a patho-adolescent society, you enter what I think of as late adolescence and the multi-year journey of soul initiation. A central element of that journey is one or more underworld adventures I call the Descent to Soul, during which, if successful, you have an experience of Soul Encounter, usually in the form of a vision or revelation. If you are fortunate, that encounter results in, over a period of many months or more, the radical metamorphosis of your ego into a form capable of carrying to your people the gift you were born with and as. [9]
People in different developmental stages — for example, egocentric early adolescence, ecocentric early adolescence, late adolescence, and early adulthood — may look and talk in similar ways but there are profound differences in their consciousness, what to them is important in life, and the ways they are in relationship to the world. Life stage makes all the difference as to where a person offers their attention, the choices they make, what they are doing in and with their lives, what counts as valuable or necessary, what they experience the world to be, what they live for, what they’re willing to die for.
The rare exceptions that currently exist to egocentric-dominator societies are of two kinds: First are the apparently very few indigenous, nature-based peoples who have not only physically survived the ravages of dominator imperialism but also managed to stay culturally/ linguistically intact, the latter being more challenging and rarer. These are what Eisler terms partnership societies. Second are the small ecocentric networks emerging now in many places throughout the world, socioeconomic sanctuaries within the confines of the patho-adolescent overculture. These early-stage regenerative communities are learning again how to be in life-enhancing relationship to the land and its flora, fauna, and fungi, how to be in compassionate communion with the great diversity of humanity, and how to cultivate mature and loving relationships within their own human circles.
So, again, it’s not at all a mystery that Campbell would see world mythology as telling an endless variety of what looks to me — and perhaps to Charles Eisenstein and others — as immature or egocentric hero stories. [10] It’s the worldview or lens Campbell was looking through, a lens with a narrative arc that Charles characterizes as:
… the call to adventure, leaving home, the mentor, the threshold, the test, the enemy, the ordeal, the triumph, the return and so forth.
By contemporary standards, that doesn’t sound like such a bad story to live, does it? For example, many of the best contemporary novels and Hollywood screenplays (not just Star Wars) are based on this narrative template. The immaturity built into this arc is not the call to adventure, leaving home, the mentor, or the threshold — mature framings of initiatory myths have these features as well. [11] Rather, the immaturity I see is in the understanding of what constitutes a test, an enemy, an ordeal, a triumph, and a return. And there are certain essential elements of a mature framing that are simply missing from the adolescent storyline. I’ll explore these points later in this Musing series. But first, I want to explore with you my main theme: what exactly do we mean by “mature”? I’ll do that with you next week. Stay tuned to this channel.
