The Power of Mimetic Performance: Cognitive Evolution and Supernatural Agency

Abstract

ABSTRACT The very widespread belief in the supernatural agency of cultural objects and actions is arguably underpinned by a mode of thought that entails the concept, widely and variously expressed in myth, ritual, and related cultural phenomena, of the priority of culture over nature, as well as related concepts of primordial wholeness or an initial undifferentiated state. This is explained here in terms of Merlin Donald’s theory of cognitive evolution, specifically that spoken language was preceded by a mimetic form of communication. Various theories of cognitive evolution are brought into play to explain the putative survival of certain forms of mimetic performance after the evolution of spoken language should have made them obsolete. It is argued here that, in spite of their apparently counterintuitive character, such mimetic performances were perpetuated and further developed because of their powerfully adaptive nature, their ability to address crucially important psychological issues.