Reflection on the First Day of Class by Anna Hemphill

It's always interesting to begin a new class, especially one you take purely for the curiosity of the subject. As an artist and actor, I am always looking for the inner workings of the human mind, heart, spirit; the impulses of humanity intrigue me, and the idea of primal peoples - ones uninhibited by modern expectations and norms - is fascinating in that they are totally in tune with the impulses of their spirits!

On the first day of class we talked about the differences between the term "primal" and "primitive" - both come from the root word "prime" which means first or original. In this sense it seems that all religion is primal in the practice of it, because when we participate fully in a religious experience we are opening our souls to the power of the supernatural (God, Jesus Christ, deities, anscesters, spirits of the earth - whatever it may be). And our souls are the most primal aspect of our human selves - they are the first and original parts of who we are. Our souls are not of this world, but of Heaven (the first and original). In the Bible it talks about how God fashioned not only our bodies in the wombs of our mothers, but also our personalities and character. The spirit which informs our character is usually subdued in the mundaneness of everyday life. But when we participate in religious experience, we are connecting and expressing the most original, most authentic side of who we are: our spirit.

Primal may for the sake of this class and other scholarly subjects refer to those people who live an oral tradition (non-literate), like the Native Americans, or the Aborigines, or tribal peoples of Africa. And certainly, their religious experience is going to differ greatly from our Western, literate society, but I think we can all connect in the sense that religious experience calls us to open our hearts and spirits to the possibility of the Divine. In this way, I think I'll be able to relate to the peoples we are examining and learning from - because we can always gain a broader understanding and clearer perspective when we empathize and connect with people from different cultures.