Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

If the disembodied soul ( iuani ) remains near its home after death, it is called pantu, or ghost. In such instances, the iuani may stay for days or weeks as pantu . One of Staiano’s informants said (1986, p. 96): “When my mother died, she came back plain and walked around the house for about half an hour.” Another said that one can sometimes see the pantu moving rapidly in the light of the moon, looking like a bundle of fire. Staiano (1986, p. 125) says that the spirit becomes a pantu “only if at death it was discontented or had committed some crime or misdeed. The pantus do not cause much trouble, but the person who sees a pantu becomes disturbed. In such cases, the person will announce the problem, and others will join in prayer, causing the pantu to go away.

Another kind of ghost is called ufie. According to some, they are, like pantus , the spectres of persons recently dead, and according to others, they are not connected with the recently dead. Murderers can become ufie ghosts. Persons whose bodies thrown into the bush instead of being properly buried can become ufie . Persons who are too attached to some possession or place can remain as ufie . Such ghosts can be driven out of haunted places by an exorcist (Coelho 1955, p. 256). The ufie are normally difficult to see, but people with sufficient mental powers may be able to detect them. The ufie is seen surrounded by a thin vapor, and the ufie’s feet do not touch the ground, although they remain close to it. After some time, the feet rise higher off the ground and the ufie grows dimmer and disappears. Coelho (1955, p. 143) observes that “the proper attitude in the presence of ghosts is one of impassiveness , since any display of emotion would give the ufie an opportunity to seize upon the spiritual double of the living person.”

The spiritual double ( afurugu ) is the third part of the Carib soul concept. Situated between the vital air and the soul, it is “an astral body reproducing the shape of a person in all its details, but composed of a substance akin to that of supernatural entities” (Coelho 1955, p. 138). Coelho further says (1955, p. 138): “The astral body is the intermediary between the supernatural and everyday realms of reality. It possesses faculties of discernment, even clairvoyance, which enable it to know of dangers threatening the individual to whom it is attached before he is aware of them. It gives its owner warning of these dangers by well-known signs, such as itching of arms and shoulders. . . . At times the signs are not so clear, and must be interpreted with the aid of an aged person, or any one conversant with supernatural lore.”

According to the Carib, the afurugu can wander away from the body for short periods of time, while remaining connected to it (Coelho 1955, p. 138). The same is true of the subtle, or astral body, in the Vedic conception. For example, while the gross physical body is sleeping, the subtle body may remain active and leave the gross physical body in a kind of astral travel in dreams. But unless the person dies, the subtle body remains connected with the gross physical body and returns to it.

When the afurugu suddenly departs from the body, as when a person is unexpectedly frightened, the person may fall into a stupor. If the afurugu stays away from the body for long enough, the person dies, or becomes a living corpse, without normal use of the mental faculties. Separation between the afurugu and the body may be brought about by “workers of evil magic.” Sometimes the worker of evil magic will be paid by a person’s enemy to capture the afurugu and deliver it to an evil spirit, in exchange for wealth and power. Or the motive may simply be to cause the person’s downfall. According to the Carib, a person’s afurugu is particularly vulnerable to capture by an evil spirit or sorcerer when it is wandering away from the body during dreams. afurugus may be heavy or light, according to the nature of the individual. A heavy afurugu is less vulnerable to evil spirits and sorcerers than a light afurugu . Those with heavy afurugus “may abandon themselves to dream experiences, which are valued by the Black Carib as a source of prophetic knowledge and a means of communicating with the dead, through which the ancestors make their will known to their descendants, indicating processes of obtaining large catches of fish, or revealing the secret designs of enemies, or the perils that must be faced by those who embark upon long journeys” (Coelho 1955, p. 139).

A famous spirit medium named Ding, who lived in the early twentieth century, reputedly restored people to life after their afurugus had been stolen by evil spirits. An old woman said that when she was twelve she had died. Her parents summoned Ding, and he told them that their daughter’s afurugu, or spirit double, had been stolen by one of the leading evil spirits, Uinani. Ding sent six of his spirit helpers to retrieve the afurugu. They found that Uinani had closed himself up within a mountain with the girl’s afurugu and would not let them enter. Ding sent six more spirit helpers, along with some rum. With the rum, they enticed Uinani to open the way into the mountain. When he took the rum and became intoxicated, the spirit helpers took the girl’s afurugu and brought it back to her body, thus reviving her. Ding lived in the village of Kauéch, near Livingston, in Belize, the former British Honduras (Taylor 1951, p.111).

The Black Carib conception of self, composed of anigi, inuani , and afurugu, resembles the Vedic conception. According to the Vedic literature, a person has a material body that is powered by the vital airs. A person also has a soul, a unit of consciousness or spirit that survives the death of the body. A person also has a subtle material body made of the subtle material elements (mind, intelligence, ego). The subtle body carries the soul from one gross physical body to another, until such time as the soul is liberated from all contact with matter, either gross or subtle, and returns to the purely spiritual plane of existence to be with God. The higher demigods of the Vedic cosmology have bodies made principally of the subtle material elements. So it could be said that the subtle material body of a human being partakes of the nature of the bodies of the demigods.

According to Coelho, the multipart Carib soul is derived from the similar multipart soul concepts of West Africa. The Africans of Dahomey believe in a four part soul. Se Djoto is the first part. It comes from the ancestors and serves as a guardian spirit. Se medo is the personal soul, which survives death. Coelho (1955, p. 255) describes the next part of the soul as “ Se lido, a particle of Mawu, the creator god, which resides in every individual.” This resembles the Vedic concept of Supersoul: every individual has a spirit soul and along with it exists a manifestation of the Supersoul, or Paramatma, who serves as a witness and permitter. A fourth part of the Dahomey soul is related to Fa , destiny personified (Coelho

1955, p. 255). This fourth part may correspond to the subtle material body in the Vedic conception. The subtle material body carries the karma of the individual. The karma stored in the subtle body determines the destiny of the soul, including the kind of physical body it will receive and the kind of experiences it will undergo.

Cosmology of the Gilyak of Siberia

The Gilyak are among the tribal peoples that inhabit the eastern most part of Siberia, including the island of Sakhalin and the coastal region around the Amur River. The world of the Gilyak is not one of dead matter. It is alive with deities. According to the Gilyak, deities are connected with each element and feature of nature. For example, in connection with mountains, there is a master of the mountains, a Mountain Man (Coxwell 1925, p. 119). Mountains are called pal. The master of the mountains is called pal-yz. Many clans of animals are subordinate to him, and he sends them to the Gilyak hunters. Without his sanction, they would not get a single animal. He lives on the highest mountain (Shternberg