Evolution, Religion, “Spiritual Energy”, and Metaphysics:
Every religion in the world has a belief in some form of “spiritual energy”, and a believe that if people focus enough spiritual energy in particular ways, they can affect the world metaphysically. The fact that one group of pre-scientific people believes a certain thing to be true is scientifically meaningless. The fact that every group of people in the world believes the same thing to be true, and has for tens of thousands of years, is scientifically significant, regardless of whether their beliefs are literally true.
Within the modern Pagan community, it is generally agreed that the best way to study the world is through all available means, including modern science and even other people’s religions. It is also widely, if not universally, accepted that people have different ways of relating to the world, and all are equally valid. As a result, the modern Pagan explanation for metaphysical effects people supposedly have upon the world is universally inclusive of all religions and modern science.
By studying religious rituals, two universal constants can be observed. The Wiccan and Christian explanations for these constants fall at opposite ends of a continuum, so they make good illustrations.
First, all religious rituals involve building up some form of energy that exists within the person. The Christian word for it is “faith”, while the Wiccan word for it could best be described as “willpower”. Through their faith, Christians forge a strong bond with the metaphysical force that powers the universe, that created them, and that provides for them. Through their willpower, Wiccans harness the elemental energies of the world.
Second, all religious rituals involve intentionally focusing that energy on a specific objective. For Christians that means praying to an almighty power to make something happen. To Wiccans that means concentrating their creative energies to make it happen personally.
By the universally inclusive Pagan explanation, these two forms of energy and their uses are identical. Though they don’t generally see it this way, Christians forge a bond with the force that powers the universe through the use of a form of energy that already existed within them, and they use that force intentionally to try to bring about changes in the world. That is, they prove their worthiness to their god through the amount of faith they feel, and if he deems them worthy, he will bring about the change in the world that they requested. The faith that they perceive connects them to their god and thereby starts the metaphysical process, is a spiritual energy that exists within them; it is not a form of energy that can be supplied to them from an outside source.
Wiccans perceive themselves to be an inherent part of the world. That lets them concentrate their spiritual energy to bring about changes in the world directly because they already forged a powerful bond with the forces that power the universe. If they don’t forge a powerful bond with the forces that power the universe, any attempts to affect the world metaphysically are doomed before they’ve even begun. They generally perceive that the spiritual energy exists within them and that they are able to wield it personally because they’ve learned how to wield it personally. They don’t perceive themselves to be separate from the world in the way that Christians do, so they don’t need to direct their spiritual energy through a third party to reconnect themselves to the world. For the same reason, they depend on artificial connection to outside forces less than Christians do (although outside forces often play some roles in rituals) because that connection to outside forces is implicit. It is the equivalent of the widely accepted Christian sentiment: “If you have faith in God, he will answer your prayers; if you don’t have faith in God, he won’t.” So much of that statement is implicit in Wiccan ideology that its equivalent would be something like: “Are you a Wiccan or aren’t you?”
Both of these seemingly-opposing explanations for metaphysics lead to the same conclusion: In some way or another, people harness a form of energy that exists within them, direct it outward, and use it to bring about changes in the world.
A third metaphysical belief shared by many, and presumably all, religions, is that metaphysical effects don’t always come about the way people expect them. As a Christian saying puts it, “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” while various Wiccan sayings make statements to the effect, “You get what you need but not always in the way you thought you would.” The most immediate need for those beliefs is that they allow people to continue believing in their religions, and for their religions to continue serving their evolutionary purposes, even when metaphysical effects the people attempted to invoke don’t appear.
The less noticeable effect is that in the course of the ritual the religious practitioners try to connect to the forces that power the universe, they try to make use of those forces in some way or another, and they prepare themselves for disappointment. Even if they don’t get the results they wanted, they used their abilities to try to find a way to make the changes in the world they wanted, they used their abilities to try to make that change happen, and they convinced themselves that if the change doesn’t happen it’s a sign that the change wasn’t supposed to happen. Therefore, by trying to change the world metaphysically, the people always succeed in changing at least one thing: their own perception of the situation.
There have been various scientific studies conducted that support people’s ability to bring about metaphysical changes in the world, but it’s not my goal here to prove that metaphysical effects are possible. My goal is to show that the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity does not deny the possibility of metaphysical effects, it does support that possibility, it doesn’t need to prove the possibility, and it supports the possibility in a way that doesn’t favor any traditional concept of metaphysics over any other.
The Theory of Evolutionary Relativity indicates the existence of a form of energy that is applied as a force to humans’ decision-making processes. This force guides humans’ decisions in the direction of expending their energy in the direction of their personal survival. That spiritual/emotional energy effectively directs people’s decision making in the direction of the survival of our species as a result of everyone possessing it by default, because everyone whose emotional/spiritual energy didn’t direct their decision making in the direction of preserving their survival died out. Every religion in the world has a belief in some form of energy that exists within humans, that connects them to a power greater than themselves, and that provides for their survival. These beliefs have existed for tens of thousands of years in every human society discovered. In short, every pre-scientific group of people in the world conceived of the idea that the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity revolves around: that human instincts exert some form of spiritual/emotional energy within people’s brains.
Taken together, the facts of this section point to four important conclusions. First, metaphysics are pivotal to every religion in the world, and an evolutionary solution to problems facing the world will have great difficulty succeeding (if it can succeed at all) if it tries to disprove metaphysics. Second, it doesn’t need to prove or disprove metaphysics in order to succeed. Third, there are some religions at least whose metaphysical beliefs agree with the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity directly. Fourth, every religion in the world agrees with the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity in some way or another, whether or not they agree with it literally.