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The Disconnect of Nature and Society

Most times this can be harmless, but other times it can create problems that become very difficult to change or even acknowledge because they are embedded so deeply into a culture. In particular this has led to a generally high rate of ethnocentrism among people in western societies. Abram attempts to help the reader see past theses cultural barriers and see people who are considered "undeveloped" in a different light. .
             For example, in chapter 1 Abram travels to Indonesia on a research grant to study the relationship between modern medicine and magic. More particularly the illusory magic practiced by shamans and healers in undeveloped cultures. During one of his stays, he noticed that the woman who brought him his breakfast every morning would always place several mounds of rice on the ground outside her house. Upon asking her what they were for she told him that they were offerings for the household spirits. Abram's initial reaction was to assume that she was referring to some supernatural beings. However, he later noticed colony of ants taking the rice and came to the revelation that "the spirits" were the ants. It was at this moment he realized that his western concept of the word spirit had caused him to misunderstand the woman completely. The woman wasn't referring to what we would define as a spirit in western culture but rather the collective actions of the earth's many inhabitants. If it were not for his own curiosity Abram would have assumed the woman was expecting an outer worldly presence to take the rice. Instead he began to notice the intimate and reciprocal relationship indigenous cultures have with the earth, and how the language they speak is closely intertwined with nature because of that. .
             During Abram's trip to Indonesia he noticed that to his surprise, the shamans played much more of a role as a mediator between the land and the people than they did as healers.


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