title: From Earth Spirits to Sky Gods: The Socioecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism, and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning, From the Stone Age to the Axial Iron Age
author:  Bruce Lerro 
description: Well researched and teeming with ideas, Bruce Lerro's <i>From Earth Spirits to Sky Gods</i> makes an important contribution to Western cultural history. (<i>ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment</i>)<br /><br />This is a magnificent and original work with important implications for our understanding of social evolution. (Christopher Chase-Dunn, Johns Hopkins University)
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  #
  
  
  The Earth Gods Are Coming
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (
  
  
  1960
  
  
  )
  
  
  *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Kenneth Bulmer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##
  
  
  1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Prophets of Earth slept crated in their thousands.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They filled the ship's bomb bays, lying quietly waiting in their machine-
  gleaming metal sheaths.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Each individual one was destined to conquer a world.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Each individual one lay there, quiescent in its capsule, awaiting the master
  command that would send it, one after the other, in strict mathematical order,
  out over a new and unknown world to plunge down to its destined consummation..
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They were all alike and each one epitomized the embodiment of the Perfect Man.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Made by the cunning hands and brains of men they yet possessed the chilling
  power of striking awe into those charged with their care, protection and
  delivery. The knowledge that these godlike beings were composed of steel 