Center For Folk Culture

[ABSTRACT] I theorize that the early use of camoflage and ambush hunting led to the advent of clothing and cultural adornment, and likely was the prime mover in the cognitive evolution of symbolic thought, early forms of shamanism and role play, and ultimately proto-hierarchy and enculturated forms of covert interpersonal exploitation, leading to the early role of cultism and the Revolution of Symbols that led to the development of agriculture, sedentism, and ultimately alienation and authoritarianism.

One major turning point of this theory is the simple connection that re-presentaion is not behavior exclusive to homo sapiens, but is in fact ubiquitous in nature in the form of camoflage (such as mimetic eyes and tree bark patterns on moth wings). This framing serves to demystify the origins of symbolic thought, cultural media such as ritual systems, and especially the role of alienation in the psychosocial makeup of the human family.

Starting from the revelation that early use of clothing, and by extrapolation body adornment, was not for thermoregulation but served as a form of disguise used in decoy / ambush hunting (such as dawning a deer skin and horns as a disguise to sneak up on a grazing deer herd, allowing a hunter to get in close enough proximity to strike by mimicing the behaviors of a living deer), we can deduce that the role of shamanism in ancient society stemmed in part at least from the cognitive evolution of predatory role play and the manipulation of perception using extraneous materials to create semblences of organic actions.

This resolves an inherent tension around the biopsychosocial development of the human family and of complex civilization by locating both the crux of hierarchy and the psychological function of reification (abstraction and alienation) in the willful manipulation of perception and the use of acting or role play to gain objectives.

The drawback to this theory is that it creates a disturbing link between structures of psychological estrangement and social manipulation, such that psychoanalytic impulses towards exploitation and abuse via the death drive are perhaps less mysterious, and more closely tied too cultural traditions and cautionary tales around “wolves in sheeps clothing” than previously emphasized.

This includes global mythological tropes epitomized by the Wendigo or skinwalkers of indigenous North America, the djinn of Islamic tradition, and includes shamanic practices across cultures such as necromany (channeling the dead, as was literally the case in animating the pelt of a hunted deer), witchcraft, and the use of visual symbols and storytelling or roleplay to channel an abstract psychological form (such as is found at Lascaux, in early theatre, or today in children’s bedtime stories). It also explains the pervasive similie between interpersonal pathology and duplicity, disingenuousness, and deceptive “masking” behaviors, which is strongly evidenced as a central cautionary tale or taboo in the etymology of Proto-Indo European language families, for example.

It also sheds new light on the nature of authentication as a sociocultural institution, such as the use of IDs and names as social signifiers, property rights, binding written contracts, bookkeeping, and perhaps even the archaic origins of the Id and Ego. These may prove to originate as wards against the incursion of parasitic duplicity rather than simply oppressive structures levied by a government attempting to control economics and populations effectively.

The role of identity both in law and in our own innate primal psychosociology takes on a new clarity if the primary origins of interpersonal pathology, performativity, and ultimately hierarchy center on the use of disguise and duplicity inherently linked to the predatory instinct, and in direct contrast, in the need to hide or evade detection in the presence of predatory impersonation or dehumanization.

The implications could transform our understanding of the Spectacle, social performativity, coersion, Narcissism and Sadism, and even the role of language, art, ritual, and agriculture in the history and future of human life.

For need of a concise term to describe my theory on the evolution of symbolic cognition, I’m going to start calling it theocrypsis theory, or crypsis theory if that is redundant.

Crypsis is the technical word for biological camoflage (sharing roots with the words cryptic and cryptography), and the root theo- comes from PIE roots related to both religious concepts and “contemplative speculation” or metacognition, as in the word theology, or the word theory itself. An example:

Theory (n): "conception, mental scheme," 1590s, from Late Latin theoria (Jerome), from Greek theōria "contemplation, speculation; a looking at, viewing; a sight, show, spectacle, things looked at," from theōrein "to consider, speculate, look at," from theōros "spectator," from thea "a view" (see theater) + horan "to see," which is perhaps (Watkins) from PIE root *wer- (3) "to perceive." Philosophy credits sense evolution in the Greek word to Pythagoras. (Etymonline)

This covers the fact that what we’re dealing with is a metacognitive crypsis, or the ability to abstract a subject’s perception and manipulate it using the most rudimentary form of symbolic thought, which I presume originates in ambush, role play, and decoy hunting (possibly on the Kenyan steppe around 1.1M years ago).

The word “cryptic” refers archaicly to a den, a hideaway, a cavern, or a safekeep (such as a crypt, a storehouse, or a fortified sanctuary or nesting place, hidden/occult, etc).

This may explain more about the origins of sedentism and early ritualism related to the transitions from hunter-gatherer society to agriculture in the PPN A/B than meets the eye.

For instance, I theorize that foundation burials are related to a kind of deep grief, and a form of (perhaps rather cryptic) safekeeping of ancestral spiritual “form” through dedicated preservation of remains, often considered a cognitive evolutionary landmark.

This also relates to the ritual abstraction of what we might call Ego or a socially reified identity in the so-called Neolithic skull cults, where the use of plastered heads, sometimes with shells for eyes, may represent a desire to preserve the living identity of loved ones or symbolically significant sociocultural figures.

Often a kind of traumatic psychospiritual rift is theorized to precede the advent of civilized life ways or the Revolution of Symbols (a la Cauvin), and this framework resolves the tension between the incredible accomplishments of ritually organized / domesticated humanity, and the ancient focus on preserving and enshrining methods and traditions of ego disillusionment as found in many world religions, the only apparent resolution to the primary cognitive dissonance of a reified identity abstractly attached to nearly all psychosocial phenomenology and to subjective perception and cognition.

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Site is under construction, and has been delayed by extreme censorship and repression. I have been the target of joint transnational operations by the US and its allies, which places me in an extremely vulnerable position when trying to address cyberattacks which have deliberately disrupted my writing and research, not to mention my access to fundamental rights. I am essentially exposed to nearly unchecked aggression from the convergence apparatus (the hybridization of private interests, law enforcement, and joint intelligence operations) which has hopefully stepped down its attempts to medically euthanize me (yes really) since I returned to the United States for a spell and helped diplomatically deescalate things for others.

The reality is that I'm dealing with extremely advanced and aggressive censorship and social engineering efforts. I am looking forward to writing once I find safety, since that's all I'll have to give after having the right to conduct commerce and express my civil liberties as a US citizen have been brutally wrestled from me time and time again.

Lay not up your treasures though, as they say.

Please keep a friendly eye on me, as there will be many more unfriendly ones in tow.

Blessings.