Atavism

An atavism is an activation of genes that are still present and intact in another organism that seem to have gone inactive. And in the case of some of the more backwoods magickal and spiritual practices, we have methods and rituals designed not to supposedly advance the human consciousness, but to regress it. Atavistic ritual relies on triggering the mirroring nervous system through ceremonial dance, meditation, even costume. The purpose being to create a sort of identification with another species.

We all draw from the same pool of physical and thus metaphysical potential. But in the modern attitude of species supremacy, we blind ourselves not only to big parts of our own psychology, but to whole domains of experience. We operate in a deep seated domain that humanity has avoided becoming aware of by pure conceit as far as I can tell. Your instincts tell you more than you may have experienced before. You know more of the way of the wolf than your thinking tells you.

“What a time experiences as evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good-the atavism of a more ancient ideal.” Friedrich Nietzsche (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)