The Human Superiority Complex Rides Again

Almost nothing can get me on my soapbox as the assertion that animals are lower and less-evolved than humans, or that humans are the ultimate, divine species on Earth.

Other animal (and plant) species have complex communication, self-awareness, learning capacity, and decision-making ability. Traits formerly regarded as only belonging to humans, scientific researchers are now noting these characteristics in more species and changing their assumptions about how to interpret them.

I do not see humankind as apart or superior to the rest of Nature. We have our unique characteristics and abilities like other animals do. We fill our niche, interrelating and depending on all the rest in the complexity of life. More than for physical health, humans can benefit by connecting with our fellow species for emotional and spiritual wholeness, something not often appreciated by people who feel disconnected from fellow beings of other species.

Recently, the expositions of well-known spiritual teachers prompted me to step up on my soapbox again.

Do Animals Choose How They Act?
A person reported that when she did an online course with a spiritual teacher with a large following, she was shocked when he repeated one of his core beliefs about animals in several classes.

She phrased his expressed belief: Only human beings have the image and likeness of God as they share the same faculty of volition as the Source/Godhead. While all beings are the conscious life of God, humans are different from animals and other conscious beings in their ability to think and act independently of conditions. Animals defend themselves when attacked, while humans can choose not to do that. He explained that he came to this from his inner knowing and his perceptions that animals act on instinct and don’t have the choice to do differently. Animals also do not have self-reflection as humans do.

Since the late 1970s, I have lectured and taught classes at metaphysical organizations, addressing similar mistaken notions about the spiritual nature of animals. This helped to reverse the idea that animals were lower beings who had no spiritual awareness. Yet, it looks like anthropocentrism is still strong in the minds of many.

There are now so many examples of animal volition and self-reflection posted on the internet, could anyone hold these limited views about other species anymore? The publications of biologists, scientific researchers, and animal communicators alike are filled with examples.

Susan Eirich, founder of Earthfire Institute Wildlife Sanctuary wrote in a recent newsletter:

Seeing the innocent, sensual joy of a bear lounging luxuriously in his hammock changes our perception of bears forever. A full-grown male wolverine babysitting a newborn human with gentle, intent concern, licking him so tenderly that he doesn’t wake up—is it really possible? Yes, it is documented. A 50-foot whale profoundly thanking each of her rescuers for untangling her from fishing nets. A chimpanzee, seeing a bird collide with a window, climbs down from her treetop perch and gently picks up its unconscious form. She climbs back up, holds out the bird, and spreads its wings, trying to help it fly. When the bird falls back to the ground, she climbs down and guards it until it regains consciousness and flies away.


Why do People Think Humans are Superior?
Spiritual teachers at a recent online summit on human evolution talked about the special role of humanity. Several speakers proclaimed homo sapiens as the only species with extraordinary abilities, the most advanced species, the only one with insight into what is happening around them who can guide their evolution.

These speakers, with backgrounds in Western scientific education, are looking through the bias of a limited human lens. This kind of thinking has also been applied to women, other races, or groups of people by the dominant culture. The people singled out were regarded as unable to make rational decisions and only governed by raw emotions. They couldn’t possibly vote or have equal rights to those with superior minds.

You can’t know another being of whatever species by looking at them as an object and labeling their actions as automatic responses. You have to communicate with them and understand directly from them what they think, feel, and how they view the world.

Without communicating directly with individuals of other species, we cannot know them fully. Telepathy helps us see and feel other species’ realities that show their spiritual nature. There is so much to learn from the viewpoints and lives of other species. It is a part of being human that needs to be restored and developed for our evolution.

Some of these teachers say we need all of Nature, we are One, and we are all the same energy. Yet they repeat the belief that humans are the only ones with complex intelligence and self-awareness.

How Can We Know a Species State of Consciousness?
How do people become clear about the consciousness of other species? They need to transcend their limiting beliefs and reawaken their ability to communicate telepathically with animals to find out other species’ perspectives.

Intellectual understanding will not fully reveal the consciousness of others. It requires expansion beyond mental limitations and opening to greater spiritual understanding of all beings.

The kind of body/brain one has enables a certain type of physical expression. The brain is a switchboard or filter for the spirit to operate a form in this universe through the nervous system. With the ability to communicate with all beings, one comprehends that each physical expression is remarkable and complex.

It is so important at this time for our spiritual growth and planetary balance that humans make the shift from narrow anthropocentrism to a universal acceptance of all being from the same Source, made of the same essence. We have so much to learn from our non-human teachers, and they are willing to share their truth, joy, and beauty with us if we stretch to communicate and understand them.

Shall we slight or ignore the spiritual wisdom reservoir, ability, and beauty of our fellow species by so much emphasis on the human race? Dogmas that separate humans from the rest have been the cause of imbalance and inequity on our planet.

The message begs to be reiterated in many ways until it flows through human consciousness making harmony among beings the watchword of our lives. Enough of higher and lower categories that create a false sophistication, alienation, and psychological malaise! Let's take the leap and accept the circle of life as it is—unbroken, whole, all sections of the circle flowing energy to all, each part important. Humans are unique, as is each species and individual. Let us not get trapped in our ability to analyze and categorize and lose the joy of soulful friendship and loving understanding with all beings.

To assess the validity of beliefs, look at their consequences on individual and planetary harmony. Ideas of interchange and equality of spiritual experience lead in the direction of loving care for all beings, no matter their form. Hierarchical and segregating attitudes lead to domination, abuse, and slavery.

Another Way of Walking
Native wisdom finds life around us populated with the spirits of animals and others, many of whom are guides and helpers. It is not unusual for a human to "become" an animal to learn from animals' power and wisdom. Indigenous people often revere animals, plants, rocks, and the earth as more knowledgeable and powerful than humans, who need other species' help to understand the ways of spirit.

Many people who are narrowly focused on their species feel superior or that their actions are more important. Of course, many individuals of other species are primarily interested in their species' affairs, but they aren’t adamant, defensive, or righteous about it.

Deepak Chopra stated in the same summit on evolution:

Cooperation is innately founded on a felt sense of relationships. Alongside and beyond the evolution of self-aware intellect, Gaia has progressively nurtured empathy and emotional attachments. In the mutually supportive and loving relationships of mates, parents and offspring, families and communities, are embedded circles of caring. Bacteria, insects, and fish work together to look after others of their communities, especially the vulnerable. And in the altruism of rats and monkeys, the grieving of elephants not only for their own kin but for a human caretaker, the self-sacrifice of a human stranger, and the protection of other species by humpback whales from orcas, the circles of care further expand and evolve as spirals of compassion.

A most important consideration is what exactly gets this designation of “sacred.” In a classic context, some things are set apart as holy and consecrated, while in a more Indigenous and increasingly universal context, all things can be cherished, revered, venerated, and held in the highest regard as being essential, interconnected components of a “sacred” creation.

What bridges these two ways of understanding “sacred” is remembering that unity, harmony, and wholeness is the nature of Creation. The entire universe is a wholeness-in-motion. Our sacred mission might even be to re-create and reflect that innate unity and wholeness of all things around us. Most needed now, in our divisive times, is recognizing and appreciating all things as tied together in a sacred web of wholeness, the entirety of which is to be revered and cherished.”


Here are references where I address the subject more thoroughly: My audio recording, Animal Intelligence and Awareness in the Animal Communication Mastery Series (first recorded in 1985) The first chapter in my book, When Animals Speak, “Who Animals Really Are.”

See also these articles: https://animaltalk.net/The-Animal-Communicator-Blog/files/6b51e58361e8156029dbe5580e576c17-27.html
https://animaltalk.net/The-Animal-Communicator-Blog/files/d10bfbde5413638b12ad49de86d1dfda-164.html