Transcript The Five Locations of the Axial Age

The Axial Age
Identified by Karl Jaspers
in his book “The Origin and Goal of History”
Popularized by Karen Armstrong’s 2006 book
“The Great Transformation”
The Beginning of our Religious Traditions
According to the Axial Age Theory, the philosophy
behind the world’s major religions sprang from a
six-hundred year span of time in the
first millennium Before the Common Era (BCE)
8th century BCE (7 hundreds)
to
3nd century BCE (2 hundreds)
BCE=Before the Common era (was BC); CE= Common era (was AD)1
Abraham to Jesus: 18 Centuries Between
2 settlements
2nd Temple
2 kingdoms
First Millennium BCE
MOSES DAVID
ABRAHAM
Egypt
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9
th th th th th th th th th th th
8th
8
th
7
th
JESUS
Exile
6
th
5
th
4
th
3
rd
2
nd
1 1
st st
Axial Age
JE
PD
ZOROASTRIANISM
CONFUCIANISM
Red Consciousness:
1ST ISAIAH
HELLENISM
Egocentric, Bold, Violent AMOS
MYSTERIES
HOSEA
BUDDHISM
Blue Consciousness:
MICAH
HINDUISM
Authoritative, Ordered
JUDAISM
BCE
TAOISM
RED TO BLUE
PROLIFIC
2NDTEMPLE
WRITING
CE
2
BC
AD
The Axial Age 8th to 3rd
Century BCE
Evidence strongly indicates:
that during certain rare intervals in history
there have been major advances in the world's
political,
philosophical, and
religious systems.
The Greatest of these in history is called The
The 6th
Axial Age
century BCE, in particular,
was a period of radical changes
in basic religious concepts and
the emergence of new ideas.
which became the source of TODAY’S
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philosophical and religious traditions.
The Countries of the Axial Age
In the years centering around 600 BCE,
great advances occurred independently
and almost simultaneously in
China: Confucianism, Taoism
:
India: Hinduism, Buddhism
Middle East: Judaism, Zoroastrianism
Greece: Hellenism, Mysteries
Spiritual foundations were laid in dialectic antitheses
which humanity still use today.
These were times of social upheaval and political turmoil,
a new elite became the carrier of
cultural and social order;
Great religious leaders rose to prominence
attracting a mass following.
4
Two of the Major Locations of the Axial Age
In India: Hinduism was experiencing no fewer
than three revolutions:
1.The Vedic period was coming to a close; the Veda’s
polytheism, ritualism, and sacrifice were being
2. displaced by a new interest in
mysticism and philosophy – the Upanishads
3. the new religion of Buddhism was gathering
followers and opposing in many ways both the
traditional Vedas and newer Upanishads.
In Persia: Zoroastrianism was spreading through Persia and
nearby lands. Although Zoroaster is now known
to have lived in the 12th century BCE, a pre-Axial
Age, his religion blossomed under the 6th
5
century Achemenid king, Cyrus the Great
Two Other Major Locations of the Axial Age
In Israel: Under the harsh conditions of exile and return,
the Jews were beginning to transform their
tribal tradition into what became Judaism,
a greatly modified Hebrew Religion through
syncretism with Hellenism and Zoroastrianism.
In Greece: the Homeric world-view with its Olympian deities
was radically challenged, and would soon be
displaced by a philosophical tradition that was
generating remarkable new ideas and science,
art and architecture; and new more accessible
deities offering personal salvation such as the
Eleusinian mysteries.
6
One More Major Location of the Axial Age
In China: In the turmoil of great principalities
warring against one another,
and the flourishing of new technology,
and explosion of population,
two contemporaneous spiritual masters were
laying the foundations,
amidst large movements of social discontent
and rethinking of ancient “truths”,
for what would later be known as
Confucianism and Taoism.
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Early Hellenism in Greece
In Greece, developments were
both philosophical and spiritual.
Three philosophers,
Thales,
Xenophanes,
Heraclitus
regarded all existence to be in a state of flux -–
“one cannot step in the same river twice”.
Parmenides, discoursed on the nature of permanent
‘being’ as opposed to ‘becoming’
Democritus, devised the first atomic theory
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Classical Hellenism in Greece
The early philosophers
subsequently influenced the Classical philosophers
Socrates:
Plato: Socrates’ student
Aristotle; Plato’s student
What all these thinkers had in common
was a thirst for discovering
the fundamental principles of existence
and the implications they had on human life and behavior.
A major break-through from pre-axial beliefs
involved their recognition of the great chasm between
the transcendental / cosmic order,
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and ordinary human existence.
Platonism
Its chief features are the following:
1. A strong distinction between two levels of reality;
the intelligible world (God and the ideas –
transcendent models of which the things of this world are
images and constitute the contents of the Divine Mind);
All is eternal, unchanging, and perfect.
and the sense perceptible world.
2. A belief in the immortality of the soul (especially the rational part) and
reincarnation, possibly into animals as well as
other human bodies.
3. A moderately ascetic ethics, which had the aim of separating the soul
as far as possible from the influences of the body,
though Aristotelian ethics was generally accepted
by the end of the classical period.
4. In epistemology, a prejudice against the evidence of the senses, in
favor of the processes of pure reason.
5. In logic an acceptance of the substance of Aristotle’s discoveries. 10
Aristotelianism
Aristotle emerged as Plato’s star pupil,
to become a thinker more comprehensive and balanced,
and much less skeptical of the actual,
though he never altogether rejected his master’s teaching,
he departed from Platonism in fundamental ways.
Aristotle was a great classifier and collector of data
with a special interest in biology
and did not reject sense experience as did Plato.
He sought both firm knowledge and happiness
in the world of experience.
Aristotle rejected the notion of universal ideas;
rather he argued inductively from facts to general laws.
He was so rich a thinker and interested in so many sides of experience
that his historical influence is as hard to delimit as that of Plato.
What he wrote provided a framework for the discussion of:
biology, physics, mathematics, logic, literary criticism, aesthetics,
psychology, ethics, and politics for two thousand years.
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The Good and the Beautiful
The achievement and importance of Greece comprehended all sides of
life
the politics of the city-state,
a tragedy of Sophocles,
a statue by Phidias.
Greek Historians: The invention of history was a major achievement.
Two masters emerged: Herodotus and Thucydides made enquiry
about events in time and wrote the first extensive prose works.
Poetry and drama: Greek poets consciously addressed the problem of
justice and the nature of the gods thus confirming that of
literature was for more than enjoyment.
Tragedy: Only thirty three plays of 300 produced survive of the works of
Greece’s great tragedians; Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Comedy: Aristophanes manipulated people and events for others’
amusement giving striking evidence of the tolerance and freedom
of Athenian society.
Sculpture and Architecture: Artistic quality and the presence of good
stone, and the influence of oriental and Egyptian models, created
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the world’s greatest art for arts sake and standards of beauty.
Mystery Religion in Greece
The mystery religions were secret religious cults:
they involved worship of deities from
Greece, Anatolia, Egypt, Persia and Syria.
Commonly originating in ancient fertility
rituals
they emphasized salvation
for individuals
who chose to be
initiated
into
the mysteries.
And thereby feel close to each other and
to the divine.
Unlike official, public religions, in which people were expected to show
outward allegiance to the gods and goddesses of the institution
the mystery religions stressed an inwardness and
privacy of worship within groups that were
frequently close-knit and egalitarian. 13
“Mystery” and the Mysteries
Aristotle concluded “that initiates into the mysteries
did not learn anything but rather
had an experience and were put into
a certain state of mind.”
In fact, the word “mystery” derives from the verb myein “to close”,
referring to the closing of the lips or the eyes.
The closed nature of the mysteries
may be interpreted in two ways:
a person who has experienced a mystery was required to maintain
closed lips and not divulge its secrets.
The initiate also participates in the closing of the eyes to remain in
darkness until the eyes are opened to see the light.
Also the highest stage of initiation was designated as “beholding”.
One who attained a high initiatory status was called a “beholder”.
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The Eleusinian Mysteries
The most influential and popular of the Greek mysteries were the
Eleusinian mysteries. These mysteries focused on
Demeter, the “Grain Mother” and Kore, the “Maiden”.
From early time an agricultural cult at
Eleusis
observed rituals
commemorating
the
fertility and life of grain.
The later Eleusinian mysteries employed similar rituals
but directed particular attention to transformed life of people.
Hippolytus would observe, “That among the ‘things shown’ in certain
Eleusinian mysteries was a single head of grain
that was beheld in silence as a manifestation
of the life in grain and in all things.”
Cicero wrote, “we have learned from the Eleusinian mysteries
the fundamentals of life and have grasped not only
the basis for living with joy
but also for dying with a better hope.
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Ideas Common to All in the Axial Age
Each culture questioned and reinterpreted their previous cosmologies.
Believers sought the supremely and eternally "real"
that was believed to lay beyond the world
of senses and understanding.
The rapid change in beliefs then stabilized and the implications unfolded.
This became the source of lasting cultural traditions,
most of which endured to the present time.
Note that complete rejection of all beliefs in gods,
like complete rejection of all contents of myths,
was practically unknown in the ancient world.
What was actually rejected was the earlier concept of
gods being nothing more than larger-than-life human beings.
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The Mystery of the Concurrent Axial Age
The closely timed changes
in China, India, Palestine and Greece -countries that are widely separated from each other –
seems too remarkable
to be dismissed
as accidental.
The only example of intellectual communication
among these countries appears to be the conjecture
that in the 6th century BCE
the Greek poet Alcaeus may have known
the prophecies of Isaiah.
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The Fact of the Concurrent Axial Age
The rapid transformation cannot be satisfactorily explained
by any acceptable theory of causation.
Most of the new doctrines, and values,
eventually became organized
as religious systems.
While many of mankind’s traditional rituals and beliefs have
been incorporated into these new religions,
it was not a question of reformulation and
development of old religious teachings;
it was very much a
fresh beginning.
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Teilhard’s Ideas on Historical Concurrency
It was the Catholic Jesuit priest,
Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin , who proposed
the existence of the NOOSPHERE.
He wrote in his book “The Phenomenon of Man”
(p182 )
“The recognition and isolation of a new era in
evolution, the era of noogenesis, obliges us to
distinguish correlatively a support proportional
to the operation – that is to say, yet another
membrane in the majestic assembly of telluric
layers.
Telluric: from Latin tellus earth; (earthly layers such as
Lithosphere (earth’s crust), Hydrosphere (earth’s water), or
Atmosphere (earth’s air). Noosphere from Greek nous thought
– therfore noosphere is the thought sphere around the earth. 19
Teilhard’s Ideas (continued)
A glow ripples outward from the first spark of
conscious reflection. The point of ignition
grows larger. The fire spreads in ever widening
circles till finally the whole planet is covered
with incandescence.
Only one interpretation, only one name can be
found worthy of this grand phenomenon. Much
more coherent and just as extensive as any
preceding layer, it is really a new layer, ‘the
thinking layer’ which since its germination at
the end of the Tertiary period, has spread over
and above the world of plants and animals. In
other words, outside and above the biosphere
there is the noosphere.
End of Tertiary: 500,000 years ago; a very early beige consciousness;
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Teilhard has probably dated reflective thinking too early, but maybe not.
Other Ideas on Historical Concurrency
There are today many efforts using scientific methods that are seeking
to know more about interconnections between
human to human
animal to animal
biochemical to biochemical
human to mechanical
all possible combinations
Some recommended reading is:
Lynne McTaggard’s “The Field”
Ruppert Sheldrake’s “The Rebirth of Nature”
“Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home”
Dean Radin’s “Entangled Minds”
Larry Dossey’s “Reinventing Medicine”
Bruce Lipton’s “The Biology of Belief”
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6th
2nd Temple Era Timeline & SYNCRETISM
EXILE
5th
3rd
4th
2nd
1st
BCE
1st
CE
2nd
3rd
4th
JUDAISM
Judea
HEBREW
Maccabees
JESUS
PAUL
PERSIA
REVELATION &
GOSPEL WRITERS
ZOROASTRIANISM
GREECE
HELLENISM
HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES
ROME
CHRISTIANITY
The Axial Age
An explosion of Religious
Ideas: Wisdom Writing,
Pseudepigrapha (65 Books)
New Testament Apocrypha
(76 books)
THE
DARK
22
AGE