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METAGEUM '07
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Conference session: The Metaphysical Sahara
Conference session: Embracing Dreamtime: A Beginners Guide
Book now for whole or part of the Metageum event. |
About Renate Haupt
Renate Haupt is an archaeologist (or one might say pre-historian) who has travelled extensively in the deserts of Algeria and Libya, studying the rock art. Informed by her close relationship with the Tuareg (who name her "of the Kel Assuf" - a desert spirit), she brings to her work a profound understanding of spiritual aspects of prehistoric rock art.
Web site: www.desertfoxoverland.co.uk.
Academic qualifications: BSc Environmental Science (1993), Certificate Diploma in Prehistory (Europe & UK prehistory) at Bristol University (1995), BA (Hons) Archaeology at Bristol University (1997), MA Archaeology & Anthropology at Southampton University (1999), postgraduate research in Southampton University and Manchester University (2000-2001), and at Bournemouth University (2003-2004). Renate has carried out some of her research under Dr Simon Stoddart and Dr Caroline Malone of Cambridge University, who are well-known figures in Maltese archaeology.
Background
From fledgling beginnings in 1993, my interest in African archaeology and prehistory developed, exponentially it seemed at first. Initially I was fascinated by the amount of data coming out of Africa, but there were a number of anomalies -- contradictory evidence suggesting that there were other factors at play, I became unconvinced that Africa was our only place of evolutionary origin. Contemplating other comparative evidence from South-East Asia and Australia uncovered evidence to support a much wider multi-regional idea for human origins.
'Thunderer': the Toyota Landcruiser that Renate uses to cross the deserts in search of rock art
.By this time, having already amassed lots of interesting data on Late Quaternary post-glacial environments suggestive of unprecedented environmental and climatic change from the period 13,000 - 11,000 years ago to about 4,000 years ago, and the repercussions of this upon population dynamics and migrations of peoples around the Northern African, Egyptian, Near & Middle East (Western Asia), Eastern and Southern Mediterranean fringe following these times, lead me to consider the exhibited behaviours, ranging from the development of belief systems to adaptive behaviours.
At the same time, specialising in the Epi-palaeolithic epochs of African Prehistory and human creative expression at this time, it became increasingly apparent that there was now much more to creative expression then simply one-dimensional rock engravings and paintings.
From here, my research has latterly concentrated upon what I term the deeper, more symbolic, archetypal origin of human creativity (‘mythic consciousness’) which lead me to include interdisciplinary studies like human consciousness studies and neuroscience in my research.
Part of the human condition enables us to define our cognitive universe -- and, for the purpose of one direction of my research, the innate ability for some of us to live within two or more worlds at the same time - without having being taught, made studying the interphasing between "Unconscious" and "Conscious" (always a popular conversation killer!) a highly controversial but very interesting, engaging topic. Both these 'states of being', as a single entity, defined as constituting our earliest recalled memories, the aide memoire offers us the opportunity to rediscover our remembered spatio-dimensional timeline, and what I refer to as Mythogenesis.
Mythogenesis is defined as that very first moment when it finally dawned on humankind (likened to splitting of the atom), the realisation that there existed, at some point in time, a single, most crucial, fundamental 'event horizon', that somehow gave us the mental and intelligent edge over our wild cousins.
The further realisation and comprehension of Self ("me in here") and Other ("you out there") that supposedly came along later (this supposition is questioned, however), is not only crucial to the understanding of the human psyche, it also provides us with the best platform from which to launch further research on the ‘Creative Spark’. This ability, not shared by a great many other animals, aside perhaps from Cetaceans (whales & dolphins) is humankind’s defining feature.
The creative, symbolic, and sacred expression existed in North Africa from at least 11,000 years ago, and it is my belief that some, not all, of the prehistoric engravings and paintings found here suggests that there existed an alternative ‘hidden’ universe, separate from conscious, ordinary reality, but running parallel to it; I call this the Liminal Space/Liminal Mind Equation; it is here that I conduct my research from.
At Metageum '07
At the Metageum '07 conference, Renate will be giving two presentations. The first is Embracing Dreamtime: A Beginners Guide -- Dreaming: The Way to Our Soul, and the second is The Metaphysical Sahara: Beyond the Parallel Dimension -- The Wasteland "Abandon Ye All Hope, All Who Entereth Here".
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Embracing Dreamtime: A Beginners Guide |
The importance of our ancestors, especially in today’s world has all but disappeared, and the need to move on in our lives eclipses the teachings of our ancestors.
By following the Natural Laws our ancestors were able to live in harmony within their world and all that it contained, enabling them to live in accordance with nature, and her natural cycles.
The knowledge passed down to us from them should have prepared us to live in accordance with these Natural Laws, but for many the trade-off between the old ways and the new is worth the sacrifice.
There are new gods to tempt us now, one of the newest is ‘Consumerism’ the God of Instant Gratification of Want (not need), and through him we slake our thirst, fill our bellies, buy our cars, our houses etc.
If this very day Consumerism disappeared, it would fill people with utter foreboding and dread; they’d try to escape their desolate terror by selling their soul to this unfeeling, icy God, who would as soon as gaze at them witheringly, as destroy them, taking away their homes, their cars, their children, their food and their drink.
This God cannot now be placated with offerings; it cannot be persuaded to be lenient when we fall on hard times, neither those brought upon ourselves, or those from outside. The world is run by this One God, and would be unable to escape its vice-like grip - but for one creature; Homo Sapiens Sapiens (The wise, intelligent one).
There is of course, only one way to evade capture and that is to turn away from this God’s Malevolent glare and return to our ancestors, to a familiar place that many deny ever existed; but existence is relative, and is, after all, in the eye of the beholder; Dreaming is not a cure, more of a way of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and being – and living fully in the present, for the Dreaming doesn’t have an end.
True Dreaming (as defined by our Aboriginal cousins) is not a place where one walks through sensorally deprived; it is quite the opposite in fact, and is a world full of colour and creative energy that will always welcome back the errant amongst us.
Some people fear the dark as much as death; but we humans don’t reside in a place where we are not bound by physical laws, so we must abide by these laws, and death, together with birth is as fundamental to our continuing development as our need for sustenance.
Dreaming should never be denied because of our irrational fear; it provides a Gateway to Our Soul and is like an ever-opened door; it only closes behind us when we traverse from the unconscious to the conscious; and this is more through the need to shut off unconscious influences that might be detrimental to our waking lives than anything else.
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The Metaphysical Sahara: Beyond the Parallel Dimension |
The Sahara Desert, that wide, desolate expanse of incessantly blistering heat, constantly moving sand, that in one month can submerge an entire wadi, where tyre tracks in the sand remain for centuries to serve as permanent reminder to those pioneers in days gone by who took upon themselves to explore this land. It is a world where the reality is the dream, and where the sand meets and joins the sky at noon, fooling us into a sense of complacency as we hurtle over the top of a dune that is fooling us into thinking that it is solid ground, and where the promise of water is merely an illusion.
It is not called the Tanezrouft (the emptiness) for nothing, for here lies its ultimate, and true paradox; as amongst the twisted remains of automobiles and aircraft there lies a hidden, wonderfully mysterious world kept safe from prying eyes, a world where life only comes out at dusk because it is simply too inhospitable for it to survive during the day.
If the desert served as a metaphor, it would be the constant reminder that human wilfulness, foolhardiness, stupidity and frailty are our nemesis. Some consider the Sahara like the Kalahari, to be the last barrier by which control of the known world can be administered by our western ‘civilised’ empiricist world.
But the Sahara wasn’t always like this, indeed, during the last 20,000 years it has witnessed extremes in climate from cold and hot, wet and dry and back again. Shortly after 12,000 years ago there was a remarkably rapid return to better watered conditions and life in all its variability thrived, and it is at this time when we first see evidence of land settlement, not in the sense of a farming economy, more the small-scale temporary, seasonal occupation of camps and rock shelters, where the lands that are now impoverished and hyper-arid were verdant with life, with fresh running water. And of the animals that roamed this land? All the animals that are now confined to the Veldt of East-central, central and southern Africa.
It was about this time when some consider the first engravings and paintings in rockshelters to have taken place; hippos, big cats, giraffes, elephants baboons, crocodiles are just a few of the animals depicted in both engravings and paintings.
But paradise has to end someday, it is not a permanent fixture in the landscape, and cold snaps have a habit of returning, and this occurred with a vengeance about 8,200 years ago, making people reconsider their options and flee hurriedly to better climes, biding their time for their eventual return, and they do -- the continent of Africa has witnessed this many times in the past.
It wasn’t until a few more thousand years had elapsed that we next see proper evidence of an extraordinary flowering of human creativity, quite unlike anything else up until that point. This is also the time when some say complex belief systems began to develop (if they hadn’t occurred already a few thousand years before).
This extraordinary flourishing of creativity shows a highly complex, interactive, and interdependent relationship with their environment, the animals that inhabited it, the land suffused with anthropomorphic and theranthropic divinities, and a whole host of other supernatural beings, and other entities, if they can be called this, all existed in their multivariant worlds.
I refer to multiple worlds purposely, because in spite of our world pretending to know next to nothing about the Nature of Reality, the rock engravings and paintings are like an open portal to their worlds - we just haven’t found the right keys yet for the right portal; the journey is still too uncomfortable for many of us to make that leap of faith.
I conclude with this comment "To breathe and shed light upon their multivariant worlds is to understand them; and to know them is to come to love them."