ORIGINS MYTHIC OR HISTORIC

HUMAN DEVOLUTION

MY BOOK Forbidden Archeology, co-authored with Richard L. Thompson, documentsarchaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity, consistent with thePuranas, the historical writings of ancient India. This evidence places a humanpresence so far back in time as to call into question the Darwinian account ofhuman origins.

Kenneth Feder, in his review of Forbidden Archeology, said:

When you attempt to deconstruct a well-accepted paradigm, it is reasonable toexpect that a new paradigm be suggested in its place. The authors of ForbiddenArcheology do not do this, and I would like to suggest a reason for theirneglect here. Wishing to appear entirely scientific, the authors hoped to avoida detailed discussion of their own beliefs.

It is not true that my co-author and I were trying to avoid a detaileddiscussion of our own alternative account. Rather we were hoping to ignite justsuch a discussion. But some practical considerations compelled us to proceed instages. In my introduction to Forbidden Archeology, I wrote: "Our researchprogram led to results we did not anticipate, and hence a book much larger thanoriginally envisioned." I was genuinely surprised at the massive number of casesof archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity that turned up during myeight years of historical research. Forbidden Archeology went to press with overnine hundred pages. "Because of this," I wrote in the introduction, "we have notbeen able to develop in this volume our ideas about an alternative to currenttheories of human origins. We are therefore planning a second volume relatingour extensive research results in this area to our Vedic source material." HumanDevolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory is that second volume. Thebasic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve, orcome down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like that word.

Although I am offering a Vedic alternative to Darwinism, I acknowledge that itis part of a larger family of spiritual alternatives to Darwinism rooted invarious world religions, which I also honor and respect. Interestingly enough,many scholars are now willing to consider such alternatives to the Westernscientific worldview as candidates for truth. For them, belief in suchworldviews is no longer taboo. In American Anthropologist, Katherine P. Ewingsaid:

To rule out the possibility of belief in another's reality is to encapsulatethat reality and, thus, to impose implicitly the hegemony of one's own view ofthe world.

The basic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve,or come down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like thatword.

In the Journal of Consciousness Studies, William Barnard, in speaking about theworld's wisdom traditions, advocated:

... a scholarship that is willing and able to affirm that the metaphysicalmodels ... of these different spiritual traditions are serious contenders fortruth, a scholarship that realizes that these religious worlds are not deadcorpses that we can dissect and analyze at a safe distance, but rather areliving, vital bodies of knowledge and practice that have the potential to changeour taken-for-granted notions.

I am asking that scientists and scholars approach in this spirit the Vedicperspective on human origins outlined in Human Devolution.

A PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE FILTRATION

Before presenting an alternative to the Darwinian concept of human origins, itis reasonable to show that an alternative is really necessary. One thing thatclearly demonstrates the need for an alternative is the archaeological evidencefor extreme human antiquity. Such evidence actually exists, but it has beensystematically eliminated from scientific discussion by a process of knowledgefiltration. Archaeological evidence that contradicts the Darwinian theory ofhuman evolution is often rejected for just that reason.

For example, in the Nineteenth Century, gold was discovered in California. Toget it, miners dug tunnels into the sides of mountains, such as Table Mountainin Tuolumne County. Deep inside the tunnels, in deposits from the early EoceneAge (about 50 million years ago), miners found human bones and artifacts. Thediscoveries were carefully documented by Dr. J. D. Whitney, the chief governmentgeologist of California, in his book The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevadaof California, published by Harvard University in 1880. But we do not hear verymuch about these discoveries today. In the Smithsonian Institution Annual Reportfor 1898-1899, anthropologist William Holmes said,

Perhaps...