In one way, I think the ancients knew things because they hadn't had their senses dumbed down or lost their contact and deeper understanding of life by exposure to mass media and propaganda as we have. These days thinking isn't encouraged by those that watch what my father used to call the 'idiot box in the corner', nor do computer games and so on encourage reflection and introspection. Nor does the removal of religious teaching in school. My old school taught the concepts of ALL religions in Religious Instruction classes and we explored other thinking - that is the way it should be.

We have been manipulated into a place where we are bombarded by information with agendas that remove our power and freedom. It is assumed that we don't think beyond the messages that make us lesser - for example that we are bad parents if we don't use such and such drugs to make our children better from things that our bodies are actually born with the ability to overcome and heal naturally. We are not encouraged to heal ourselves because it is a big, money making industry that has also got people to accept horrendous and disgusting animal experiments as a means to test these drugs, (which often aren't effective - remember Thalidomide anyone?). Big money is spent on advertising and more big money is spent lobbying the legislators to allow these drugs. Even more is spent getting doctors to prescribe these drugs. Big money is spent on copywriters and advertisements which are then carefully placed in magazines and TV to brainwash us into thinking it's good for us to take these drugs - EVEN IN THE FACE OF the hideous health warnings at the end of advertisements that are longer than the propounded benefits!

I regard 'evil' as bad thinking and the misuse of knowledge. The pharmaceutical industry has a lot to answer for in this respect - and this is just one example of the removal of our understanding of basic truth about who we are and our true abilities.

Maybe there were periods in history when people had more time to contemplate nature, develop their spiritual life and pursue intellectual interests.

In our modern world, we have enough material possessions to keep us busy every minute of every day. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a choice; you do have to turn off the TV to meditate.

Today our primary needs, like food and shelter, are largely satisfied. You would think that would make it easier to find time to contemplate, but most people fill that time with busy activities. What did we do before we had email, Twitter, cell phones, video games, and on-demand movies? How did we manage to live without them?

One of my friends told me once that Native American tribes spent an average of 30 hours a week performing all of the necessary activities (hunting and gathering) to survive. How would you like to work at your job just 30 hours a week? It's anecdotal, and we do have a tendency to romanticize Native Americans (many tribes were very warlike), but it does make you think.

In Aristotle's time, you could make a major scientific discovery with a brass tube and some carefully crafted pieces of glass. Today you need supercolliders measured in miles, budgets measured in billions of dollars, and an army of physicists with PhD's.

http://institute-human-potential.com/index.html

I tend to believe that a civilization lived here on earth with much more knowledge and intelligence than we have now. They were wiped out by the great floods. Evidence shows that the Sphinx was eroded by water which puts it at about 5000 years old.

Michael