Gobekli Tepe, Desire, and The Ecstatic Ape

A broad overarching look at the historical record, and evolutionary biology paints human beings as exquisitely
hedonistic creatures. In “general”, we are highly sexual, promiscuous, mind altering lovers of ecstatic
phenomena. That which moves us into rapture not only enlivens us, but in many ways appears to lead to some
of the strongest triggers for social change, and the power contained in these capacities, can be harnessed to
experience our full humanity. If we do not harness it, more often than not it is harnessed by others, and use to
lead us down a path we have not chosen for ourselves.

If you have not guessed it, this section is about sex, desire, flow states and psychedelics. Seriously fun, and
potentially nuclear material. Engaging with these forces, can lead into deep states of primal consciousness,
and in some cases, permanently alter our lives. Sex is one of the most accessible realms of ecstatic altered
states of consciousness, where we can unlock the very forces of birth and dissolution. It is no surprise that
religious, cultural and political groups often have “strong opinions” about how we are to relate to it, and are
allowed to express it.

Gobekli Tepe is one of the, if not the oldest known “temple” sites in the world. Some of the first megalithic
structures known are located there. As one author puts it:

“Located in modern Turkey, Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological sites in the
world. The discovery of this stunning 10,000 year old site in the 1990s CE sent shock waves through
the archaeological world and beyond, with some researchers even claiming it was the site of the
biblical Garden of Eden.” - Brian Haughton

We are of-course always looking though a small window into the past, and can never truly understand how our
ancient forebears related to the world, or precisely what significance these types of sites held for these ancient
peoples. There are some alternative hypothesis that claim these sties may have actually been “houses”, which
by no means makes them any less suggestive of an ecstatic component. None the less, we are here to do the
alchemical we do. What can we extract, transmute and imbibe?

The site “seems” to have performed a few primary functions:

• A “barbecue” like area for the cooking and eating of meat.

• A type of concert hall, where music would reverberate within the structure itself. In other words it
could be a type of musical instrument.
• Possibly an orgy site due to some of the art on the walls being suggestive of sexual and fertile
symbolism.
• A place where beer and possibly psychedelics were imbibed.
• Perhaps certain death related rituals were carried out as well.

So we have a cooking site for meat, that reverberated acoustically, with no roof and thus open to the night sky,
with possible sexual or fertility undertones, and mind altering substances. Considering what we find in
modern hedonistic cultures it seems not much has changed.

"Colonial anthropologists in the 19th century coined the term 'animism' to explain the worldview they found
literally everywhere, and then categorized it as a primitive 'mistake.' Yet for 98% of human history, 99.9% of
our ancestors lived, breathed, and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate — a world
imbued with lifeforce and inhabited by and permeated with forces, with which we exist in ongoing relation.
This animate vision was the water in which we swam, it was consciousness in its natural dwelling place, the
normative way of seeing the world and our place in it. It wasn’t a theory, a philosophy, or an idea. It wasn’t,
actually, an 'ism'. It was the felt experience of how things were. Which is why it has been commonly
understood across the entire world for all of time, so inherent that in most cultures there wasn't even a word
for it. In this episode we look at the ubiquity of the animate vision, and explore what this vision says about the
nature of consciousness and the world we live in." - Josh Schrei

The Kreung people of Cambodia for example strictly forbid divorce so they encourage young women to freely
experiment with a variety of partners, even several at once, so they can find “the one”. This free sexual
escapade occurs in what is referred to as “love huts”, which are actually built by the fathers themselves! The
young women are given complete sexual autonomy and the boys are in turn taught to respect and cherish
women. This society is virtually free of rape, sexual violence or domestic abuse; so much so that it is
practically unheard of and incomprehensible.

The practice of sharing partners is quite common. The women of Ovahimba and Ovazimba tribes in the
Kunene and Omusati regions in Northern Namibia open themselves to sex with men who are visiting the tribe
for the night, and it is understood that their husbands will have sleep in a different hut for the night, when this
custom, actually takes place. The same custom is sometimes seen in various Inuit tribes as well, within the
scope

The inheritance and push of the past (the ancestral), the emerging present, and pull of the future that is being
created. These our alchemical base materials. We are missing some key features of about who we are from the
past. So we find ourselves navigating the ancestral forest, like the hermit with his lamp, shining an
instrument manufactured with modern materials (the contemporary mind), on the past, to illuminate the
life-ways of our ancestors; working with this small window of perception to find clues about what
“could be” innate in us.

This whole process is a lot like taking a radioactive dye and injecting it, hoping to find the ancestral
structures within. We are looking for what is already inside us, that we inherited from the past, but that
is obscured or hidden by the amnesia we have suffered. Then put it through an alchemal process to
extract its essence, and imbibe the substance in the present, hoping to heal the future together.

massage and do bodywork on everything to has come before us, so that we can get it aligned the best we can
manage, with the present, in order to bring about a better future for us all, or what magician Gordon White
calls “mutual flourishing”.