Darwin, Wallace,
And Shiva Seal

World History 
And The Eonic Effect
Civilization, Darwinism, and Theories of Evolution
2nd. Edition
The Book
By  John Landon

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 2. Mysterious Drumbeat 
      2.1 The Eonic Effect
              2.1.1 The Axial Age 
              2.1.2 An Unexpected Challenge to Darwinism   
              2.1.3 Purposive Evolution 
              2.1.4 The Evolution of Morality—At Close Range 
       2.2 The Great Explosion 
              2.2.1 A Photo Finish Test   
              2.2.2 Debriefing Darwinism: The Hurricane Argument   
              2.2.3 Beyond Natural Selection 
       2.3 History and Evolution: The Great Transition 
              2.3.1 Freedom, Necessity, and Self-consciousness 
              2.3.2 Darwin, Wallace and the Shiva Seal  
              2.3.3 Non-genetic Evolution 
       2.4 Man Makes Himself 
              2.4.1 ‘Eonic determination’ and ‘free action’  
              2.4.2 Evolution, Freedom, and Volition 

Endnotes  
       2.5 Huxley and Social Darwinism   
              2.5.1 Ideology and Theory: The Oedipus Effect   
              2.5.2 Theories and ‘Action Scripts’  
              2.5.3 Art, Evolution and The Tragic Genre  

 Wallace is an important, but neglected, figure in the emergence of evolutionary theory. Let us note that one of the co-discoverers of selectionist theory later dissented on the question, as far as the descent of man is concerned. Wallace (who started as a super-selectionist) saw something that becomes obvious in light of the eonic effect, that is, the appearance not of adaptive traits, but of potential that emerges through self-realization (making the term ‘evolution’ ambiguous). His classic observation was that

...in creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.
An instrument has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor...Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of the ape, whereas he possesses one very little inferior to that of the average member of our learned societies.... [i]

This sentiment springs to life once again, for we see Wallace’s dilemma is fully apt as we examine recent history. We are confronted with questions about the meaning of evolution, if history shows yogis exploring consciousness in traditions as old as the emergence of civilization. It is entirely possible man came into being as he is in times unseen in the Paleolithic, and that what we sense as ‘evolution’ is another process entirely, a kind of self-realization of potential. It is still evolution in our sense. That close observation of historical facts might uncover some surprising indications of what is left out of Darwinism can be seen in the history of Indian religion. That Wallace was righter than he knew is obvious to any student of world religion. Man in his ordinary state is unaware of the potential of his ‘self-consciousness’, let alone able to produce a theory of its evolution.

Note: The Shiva seal History shows the extreme antiquity of the kinds of explorations of self-consciousness in the discovery of the cylinder seal of a meditating yogi from the period ca. –2000. That what we find in later Buddhism should be discovered much earlier was to be expected, and makes us suspect still earlier forms of such explorations stretching backwards into the Neolithic.[ii]

One problem is Wallace’s intent to introduce some spiritual explanation into a naturalistic context. That is not really the issue. Another is the claimed ‘exceptionalism’ implied by applying his objection to man only. That, again, is not the point. If chimpanzees show elements of mind then the argument could be easily backdated, no doubt, to restate the point. We should be glad that Darwinism shows us a sense of kinship with earlier primates. Man is, is not, exceptional. These are dialectical issues that tend to seesaw as we discover new evidence. But in the final analysis we should not be deprived by current efforts to find the unity of organisms from possibly claiming man crosses, or is crossing, a definite threshold into a new evolutionary stage.

The tougher question revolves around the demarcation of the spiritual. Since the crux seen in the Shiva seal is the mastery of the power of attention, we can dispense with the material/spiritual distinction. It is worth noting that one of the most ancient of the strains of the yogis in question was even more ‘materialistic’ than current science, finding this ‘higher potential’ of man to be an issue of ‘material consciousness’ in an evolutionary psychology not quite like the current version. We will examine a later redaction of this called ‘Samkhya’ whose demarcation, itself still dualistic, is ‘material top to bottom’, including consciousness as ‘spirit’, and—something beyond consciousness.

Note One problem here is that a great deal of current New Age thinking is now using the term ‘evolution’ to refer to the realization by an individual of his potential, by various methods, whatever their status, but many of them descendants of those of our figure in the Shiva seal. The use of this terminology is misleading, although spontaneous usage gains a footing by a process we cannot resist, if it is a fait accompli. We should at least be careful to note that this is not ‘eonic evolution’, and that the latter is clearly operating at a different level than even the creation of religions, for we can see the Axial dependency and transformations of Indian religion in historical times, on a far greater scale that such exemplars as Buddhism, or Hinduism, which become temporal streams with their own character. Beware of gurus attempting to coopt the idea of evolution with claims that some spiritual development under their control represents ‘evolution’. This is not historical evolution in our sense. Nonetheless, Jainism and early Buddhism give us one way to see a purely ‘evolutionary psychology’ emerging prior to the immense cultural politics, mixed with monotheism, that came later.

Later we will see one way to sort out these different levels by looking at the ‘eonic evolution of religion’, and the difference between religion in general, and what we see as it intersects with the eonic effect, i.e. religion under relative transformation.