Episode:Civilization—Primitive Institutions (Part 4)

From Symmetry of Soul


Fire building forever separated man from animal; it is the basic human invention, or discovery. Fire was a great civilizer, providing man with his first means of being altruistic without loss by enabling him to give live coals to a neighbor without depriving himself. The household fire was the first educator, requiring watchfulness and dependability.

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Keywords: Urantia, Family Hearth, Fire Worship, Domesticated Animals, Watchdogs

Summary by Kermit

Commentary on Review

In something of an aside we emphasized the point that while religious consciousness and its awakening in the inner life to ideals provides a spark to action, no amount of religious consciousness in and of itself produces wisdom. The religious awakening is only a beginning to cosmic growth, not an end in itself. The zeal to act, in the absence of wisdom derived from the challenges, disappointments, and failures in human experience cannot lead to the realization of the ideal. Settle in your understanding that wisdom is not innate in the awareness of ideals. It is in the philosophic consciousness and not the religious consciousness that wisdom is sought and found. We further highlighted a deeper significance to the word capital as indicating “of the head.” The motivation to make a meaningful contribution to planetary progress must be coupled with the wisdom, insight, and foresight of genuine human (personal) action to be successful. Such are the lessons the revelation gives us in these recounting of our ancient past.

One of our frequent topics on SoS deals with the problems associated with the all too common bias towards so-called “unity consciousness”, or reverence for unity. In this treatment we explored the difference between the unity bias and the idea of “unification”, in the context of the threefold functional reality of individuality, associativity, and unity. Unification speaks to the harmonization and synchronization of the individuality viewpoint and the unity viewpoint, through their association in a cosmic process. Consult the first half hour or so of the archive for the fullness of this discussion.

69:6. Fire in Relation to Civilization

The revelators encourage us to reflect on the emergence of the four divisions of primitive society: industrial, regulative, religious, and military through the instrumentality of fire, animals, slaves, and property, these being the remaining sections in this paper.

Andon’s discovery of fire signaled the everlasting separation of man from animal. Its practical uses in providing light and heat were far reaching, enabling man to achieve security from wild beasts, and provided for social intercourse, even serving as the focus of the primitive family, the family hearth.

The distillation of the millennia of human experience through numerous vignettes of practices and behaviors of our distant ancestors is full of historical tidbits and deeper truths for our reflection. Through these snapshots of primitive man we noticed a persistent proclivity for evolving humans to stumble in their forward development by failing to progress in distinguishing between matter and spirit. Evidence of this confusion of matter and spirit is easy to see in our current day eternal flames honoring deceased heroes, religious commemoration and supplication etc. The revelators end the section reminding us that metal work, steam, and electrical power have their origins in the use of fire; thus underscoring its value to the industrial and scientific divisions of progressing civilization.

69:7. The Utilization of Animals

Animal-origin man learned early to protect himself from the other animals. He ate them and later domesticated them to his service. We noted the parallel of this process in man’s interaction with other humans in that, cannibalism gave way to slavery, and this was counted as forward progress.

We are reminded that animal domestication and the art of selective breeding were greatly facilitated by the work of the Dalamatian teachers. So it is, that many of the ingenious forward steps made by primitive man in the development of civilization took origin in the revelatory down reach of our universe benefactors, rather than the random and fortuitous discoveries of unaided humans.

The revelators gave a shout out to the dog, the first domesticated animal. The section ends with the reminder that with the domestication of animals, coupled with the Caligastia confusion, woman suffered a significant setback in how she was treated.

69:8. Slavery as a Factor in Civilization

Primitive man lacked the spiritual consciousness that would have inhibited his willingness to enslave his fellows. Slavery began with woman. Later, and persisting to modern times, military captives were enslaved. Compared with the earlier practices of cannibalism, death by torture, or other kinds of sacrifice, slavery is cited as a great advancement over massacre and cannibalism.