Saturday, September 06, 2003

Yesterday I received a review copy of Michael Cremo's massive "Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory." With Richard Thompson, Cremo authored the underground classic "Forbidden Archeology," a 900-page encyclopedia of "impossible" -- but scientifically verified -- archaeological finds that point to a human presence on Earth lasting millions of years.





As I read the introduction to "Human Devolution" last night, I realized I had read "Alien Identities," one of Thompson's independent works, without realizing his affiliation with Cremo. "Alien Identities" is an impressive cultural study that seeks parallels between the modern UFO phenomenon and ancient Indian Vedic texts. Both Cremo and Thompson are consummate scholars. Cremo, in particular, has some impeccable "mainstream" scientific publications to his credit. So it was most interesting to find that not only is he essentially a loner in a field governed by a crippling, monolithic paradigm, but an adherent to the philosophy of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

I promptly started reading "Quest for Enlightenment," a hardcover compilation of Bhaktivedanta's teachings, to learn what Cremo's "Vedic alternative" might be. As the title of his new book makes clear, Cremo thinks Darwinian evolution is flawed. This isn't an easy claim to support in today's academic and scientific climate. But given the wealth of archaeological anomalies described in his former work, it's clear that some explanation is in order, even if it merely compliments natural selection, as opposed to toppling it. As a fan of Darwin and evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins, I can appreciate the magnitude of what Cremo is trying to achieve.

The main reason I'm sympathetic to Cremo is because he's willing to introduce entirely new disciplines that deal with such "abstract" concepts as consciousness. Krishna cosmology views physical reality as a devolved plane of existence which we can occasionally break through via out-of-body experiences and "psychic" phenomena. Rather than subscribing to a "nuts and bolts" universe composed of matter, advocates of "Krishna Consciousness" believe that reality is fundamentally "spiritual" (whatever that word means; I honestly don't think humans have a proper syntax for nonconventional states of being, let alone a practical understanding).

If my preview of "Human Devolution" is accurate, then Cremo thinks that we can transform ourselves into an entirely new, enlightened order of beings. (Shades of the people in "The Matrix" shedding their subservience to enforced virtual reality; Vedic literature warns us that the world we think we inhabit is a flawless illusion composed of maya.)

Will Cremo succeed in dethroning Darwinism? I don't know, although I will concede that he's already made a dent. It's disturbing -- no, terryifing -- to consider that we really might not know who we are and that our "rational" questions, while well-intentioned, have been somehow perverted by the fact that our consciousness, acting on a physical level, lacks the requisite dexterity.

Another R.E.M. song I hope I hear at their concert: "The Lifting," which I'm using as an epigraph in my book alongside some good quotes by Carl Jung and Thomas Kuhn.

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