The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

This series of Massey Lectures begins by proposing the concept of the ethnosphere, “the myriad of cultures [that] make up an intellectual and spiritual web of life that envelops the planet,” and the “the sum total of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and beliefs, ideas and inspirations brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness” (2). This web of human culture is being destroyed even faster than its counterpart, the biosphere, with language loss being the “canary in the coal mine” (3) of this decline into cultural homogeneity. At least half of the world’s languages will soon be extinct, and this precipitates the loss of the cultural genius coded into each of these tongues.

Across the earth there is a 99.9% unanimity of genetic code. Contemporary DNA analysis simultaneously disproves the concept of scientifically significant differentiation of ethnicities and allows us to track the prehistoric spread of humanity throughout the continents. Until some 60,000 years ago, all humanity lived in Africa and from there migrated across the earth. Science can track these waves of migration into specific epochs.

The variations in human appearance and culture was historically used to promote racial elitism. In the 19th century, the nascent field of anthropology helped justify a European worldview that positioned Victorian England at the peak of social advancement.