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Where did spirits come from?
If you’re a theist, that’s easy: God made them. But I don’t believe in God. I mean, I believe in powerful spirits that non-mages would mistake for gods, but I don’t believe in a self-causing intelligence.
I think spirits must have evolved. But it raises a few questions:
- If spirits evolved as body-less spirits, what was the selection pressure? And how do they reproduce?
- If they evolved as embodied, physical entities, then became spirits later, how did that happen, and what does that imply about life after bodily death?
- Or maybe spirits are a by-product of something that evolved, created from the dreams of man, or from some advanced alien technology.
(Not that I think spirits are evidence for aliens. And I hesitated to mention the possibility because I don’t want to be associated with people fascinated by UFOs. But when you’re exploring possibilities, you can’t discard one simply because some people have irrationally latched onto some aspects of it.)
And one more idea: If sufficiently powerful spirits could easily be mistaken for Roman-style gods, and if spirits evolved, does that mean Roman-style gods might have evolved, too?
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I was thinking about this today. After reading about the ‘new’ saint Santa Muerte who apparently came out of mexican (maybe?) adversity and the whole insanity of their situation. Up is down bad is good etc. I was thinking how you would start a spirit like that. Do you start with an offering? Who was the first to make an offering to her? Did that person’s spiritual power or authority somehow jumpstart the process or was this just another familiar? Is a pyramid structure (many constructs) necessary to support a spirit? Is there critical mass? Could this be replicated? Would the initial spirit evolve on its own or is it related to the people feeding it?