Primitive and Pre-Cultural Religion

Spengler considers the task of uncovering a ‘morphology of religious history’ to be a uniquely Faustian task. It is our unique ability in our civilisation period to disembody even from our own cultural sensibilities which means that what we consider to be ‘Truth’ for us can be renounced so we may consider the perspectives of ‘Truth’ for other higher cultures.

The first, primitive, era, is largely ruled by a type of religiousness that feels the chaos and the unknowns of the world, but unable to grasp and subdue them, is resigned to fear it. This Spengler compares with the animal, which he regards as ‘Lucky’ for the animal does not think about such matters as man does. This world remains primitive because the path to any higher understanding, to the ‘understanding love’, remains invisible.

‘Every stone on which a man stumbles, every tool that he takes in his hand, every insect buzzing past him, food, house, weather, all can be daemonic; but the man believes in the powers that lurk in them only so long as he is frightened or so long as he uses them – there are quite enough of them even so. But one can love something only if he believes in its continued existence’

Effectively what is said here is that religious fear belongs to the realm of facts, but love begins when the realm of truths do as well. The religious systems that appear in this primitive age ‘penetrate everything’ as they are not rounded off and rooted down in a landscape and its unique effect on populations. Primitive religions were homeless as primitive peoples were, wafting over the land like languages without connections. They organically originated, grew, expanded and faded out, not tied to any particular dogma or teaching that couldn’t be overwritten, which deeply contrasts the higher culture, whose very essence is predicated on Truth, Love and deep rootedness and connection to peoples.

We mustn’t confuse the primitive with the pre-culture though, for despite the pre-culture being primitive, it begins to bear the hallmarks of higher contemplation and resultantly its religious forms begin to toy with high ideals. The primitive era lasted thousands of years spanning into the unknown backdrop of human history, but the pre-cultural period only lasts a few centuries and begins to accustom itself to a certain landscape. When we look at Mycenaean religion, what we find is the peasantry had their world-image filled with ‘beast-formed deities’, embodying the lower powers of lower gods. This clashes with the ancestor worship of the Mycenaean castles, and when 1100 inaugurates the Apollinian springtime, we see traces of their assimilation together. Zeus is seen as a bull, Hera the cow-eyed, Poseidon a horse and apollo bears the name for many animals such as wolf, dolphin and serpent.

The Merovingian period that preceded the Faustian springtime is interesting when considering the differences between types of Christianity, because what is emblematic here is not a difference in dogma per se but a difference in the underlying spirituality of the landscape that received the faith. Christianity is seen in the pre-cultural period of the Russian culture as well, though their pre-culture has yet to end. Between 500 and 900, the Faustian pre-culture is embodied in the ‘tour de force’ of the resurrection, which raised Christ from the dead and legitimated him as the saviour. The mystic meaning of the Passion available to the Magian mind was lost in favour of a great triumph. Russia’s pre-culture came with a heavily strict piety. The Synod of a Hundred Chapters in 1551 forbade the shaving of beards and wrong handling of the cross, the Synod of Antichrist in 1667 led to the succession of the Raskol movement. From Peter the Great onwards so many were moved to celibacy, poverty, pilgrimage, self-mutilation and thousands throwing themselves into open flames, does this sound like a love for God or a fear of God? Does this sound like a pursuit of understanding, or an acceptance of rite and ritual to interact with the daemonic?

The primitive period before the higher cultures is so largely dominated by a base, primal fear of the unknown. The world is too chaotic to find meaning or understanding or a path to Truths, thus religion takes on an organic form, chaotically spreading without higher significance across the landscape like peoples or languages and having as much impact on the next moment of history as a tribal dispute. But with the pre-culture, we begin to see the beginning stirs of a personality within this fear, the many soul parts of the Greek world, mixing animals with humans, the soul force of the Faustian resurrection, and the collective monasticism of the Russian steppe. Religion prepare to take root and enter the spring of the culture.