Excerpts from Derrick Jensen's not-yet-published book Possession
Following up on the blog post about some beneficial
effects of parasites, here are two excerpts from a recently
written but not-yet-published book by Derrick
Jensen, tentatively titled Songs of the Dead or Possession.
You can read the full version of it and other not-yet-published
books and works-in-progress before they are published by joining
Derrick's excellent Reading
Club.
This is a good time to mention that Derrick and I are currently
writing a book together about shit and decomposition. We're looking
at things like how shit has turned from a gift of fertility to
the land into a poison that has to be disposed of; how decomposition
works in nature and how civilization has broken those rules to
invent garbage and pollution; and how long poisons and remnants
of civilization will actually take to break down after collapse.
You can read it as we progress by joining the Reading Club.
--Aric McBay
From Possession by Derrick Jensen:
Lately
I’ve been thinking about Dicrocoelium dendriticum, the
lancet liver fluke. It’s a parasite with three hosts. The first
is a snail, who in the normal process of eating sheep or cow shit
accidentally eats lancet liver fluke eggs. The eggs hatch, develop
into sporocysts and then into cercariae (stages of parasite larval
development), then emerge from the snail coated in slime. The second
host is an ant, who in the normal process of eating snail slime also
eats the larval flukes. The larvae continue their development in the
ant’s gut, then chew their way out through the ant’s
exoskeleton. Because the flukes don’t yet want the ant dead,
once they’re out they patch up the holes in the ant and cling
to the ant’s outside. That is, all but one of them cling there.
One fluke is chosen instead to chew into the ant’s brain, where
it actually takes over the ant’s movement and control of the
ant’s mandibles. Come sundown, this fluke guides—convinces?—the
ant to climb to the top of a piece of grass and to bite down hard,
then cling there, waiting, waiting for the third host, a sheep or
cow. If no ungulate shows up that night, the ant climbs down in the
morning to resume its normal life, until the next night, when the
fluke once again takes the reins and sends the ant back up a blade of
grass. When an ungulate eats the grass to which the ant is clinging,
it accidentally eats the ant, and therefore all the liver flukes. The
flukes—eventually there can be as many as 50,000 in a mature
sheep—make their way to the cow’s or sheep’s liver
by way of the bile ducts, and within a few months begin laying eggs
of their own. The eggs are deposited on the ground in the creature’s
feces, where they are eaten by snails and the story starts all over.
By
now you can probably guess the question that I ask as the ant climbs
to the top of the grass: who’s in charge here?
#
I’ve
also been thinking about horsehair worms, nematode-like creatures
whose name derives from the old belief that they generate from
horsehairs that fall into water. They do look kind of like
horsehairs, long and slender, and they often do live in water.
Their
story begins with eggs laid in water or on damp soil. The eggs hatch,
and the young worms enter the body of some insect such as a beetle,
cockroach, cricket, grasshopper, etc, either by being eaten or by
simply penetrating the insect’s body. For weeks or months the
worm develops inside the insect it is slowly killing, until it can
often be many times longer than the host in whom it resides. By the
end, the worm occupies almost the entire body cavity of the insect
except for the head and legs. But the worm has a problem: if the host
dies away from water the worm will die with it. So what does it do?
As it nears the end of this stage of its life, the worm drives the
insect away from its home, and when it reaches water the worm causes
the insect to jump in, where the worm can emerge, killing the host as
it does so. Researchers have found that if you remove a host cricket,
for example, from the edge of a pond that it will return and keep
returning until either it is dead or until the worm has made its way
to water.
Once
again, as the cricket walks slowly toward a pond, what is it
thinking? Who’s in charge?
#
And
now I’m thinking about a certain solitary wasp. I’m not
sure if you know this—I didn’t until my mid-twenties—but
many species of wasps are not social creatures, but rather live
alone. Further, many wasps hunt only one prey species. For example, a
particular species of wasp may rely only on a particular species of
spider. Typically the wasp paralyzes the spider with a sting, carries
the spider to a nest she has prepared, lays an egg on the spider,
then closes the nest. The egg hatches and the young wasp consumes the
still-paralyzed spider (paralyzed instead of killed to keep the flesh
from spoiling).
But
the wasp I’m thinking of takes things one step further. Instead
of preparing the nest for her offspring, she gets the spider to do it
for her. It all starts, as it does with these wasps, with a
paralyzing sting, in this case on the mouth. The wasp then lays a
single egg on the spider’s abdomen.
This
time, however, the paralysis is not final. The spider soon recovers
and goes back to her life of spinning, weaving, waiting, eating. But
now a wasp larva clings to her belly, making holes in her abdomen
through which she can suck the spider’s haemolymph (blood). She
injects the spider with an anticoagulant to keep the food flowing.
This is how life goes on until the wasp is ready to kill the spider.
On the evening of the last day of the spider’s life, the larva
injects the spider with another substance. Soon the spider begins to
spin a new web, a web that is different from anything she has ever
built before, a web strong and durable enough to hold the wasp larva
as she pupates. When around midnight the spider finishes this task
the larva injects the spider with yet another substance, one that
kills the spider outright. The larva feasts until mid-day, then drops
the spider’s body to the ground and waits in the web until
evening. She spins her cocoon, where she will turn into an adult.
If
you remove the larva from the spider after she has injected the
spider but before the web is constructed, the spider will continue to
spin this special web, and spin it again, and again, for several
days, until the spell of the larva has worn off, and the spider can
go back to as she was before.
#
It’s
not just these particular flukes, horsehair worms, and wasp larvae
who influence or control the behavior of others. There are flukes and
tapeworms who make fish swim near the surface of the water so the
fish—and thus the flukes or tapeworms—can be eaten by
birds. There are barnacles who take over the bodies of crabs, make
the crabs incapable of reproducing, and get the crabs to take care of
the barnacles’ offspring. There are worms who move into the
bodies of snails, reproduce, and whose larvae move into the snails’
eyestalks, where they glow in neon colors as the normally reclusive
snails move into the open, where they can be easy prey for the birds
who are the worms’ next host.
And
of course there is the single-celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii.
These creatures normally cycle back and forth between rats and cats,
as rats eat infected cat feces, and cats eat infected rats. The
parasite doesn’t seem to deeply affect cat behavior—after
all, the cat merely has to shit to pass on the parasite, and anyone
who has ever kept company with cats knows that they already excel at
this—but it does affect the behavior of rats. This
single-celled creature causes infected rats to become less timid,
more active, and to have a greater propensity toward exploring novel
stimuli in their environment. Infected rats also lose their
instinctual fear of cats. I’m sure you can see how all of these
changes make it easier for cats to catch rats, and thus to catch
Toxoplasma gondii.
Cats
and rats aren’t the only creatures who harbor Toxoplasma
gondii: they live inside humans too, who also can get them by
ingesting infected rats, or far more likely, by ingesting infected
cat feces, presumably accidentally through touching feces then
eventually touching fingers to mouth. You can also ingest them by
eating undercooked pork, lamb, or venison. Most human carriers show
no physical symptoms, although some people suffer severe damage to
their brain, eyes, or other organs. Infants in the womb are
especially susceptible to damage from infection, which is why
pregnant women are cautioned to get someone else to clean the kitty
litter. Toxoplasma gondii live inside 60 million Americans.
Half the humans in England are hosts to these creatures, and 90
percent of the people in Germany and France.
It
may surprise those who believe that humans are fundamentally
different than all other animals to learn that rats aren’t the
only creatures whose behavior is changed by Toxoplasma gondii:
the same is true for humans. Studies conducted at universities in
Britain, the Czech Republic, and the United States revealed striking
personality changes among those infected. Changes include an
increased likelihood to develop schizophrenia or manic depression and
delayed reaction times that lead to greater risk, for example, of
being involved in automobile crashes.
There
are more subtle changes too. Infected men tend to become “more
aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and . . . less attractive.”
Infected men are characterized by researchers as “less well
groomed undesirable loners” who are “more willing to
fight” and “more likely to be suspicious and jealous.”
Infected women become “less trustworthy, more desirable,
fun-loving and possibly more promiscuous.” They spend more
money on clothes, and are consistently rated as more attractive. A
researcher said, “We found they were more easy-going, more
warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked.
However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships
with men.”
One
researcher even stated, “I am French and I have even wondered
if there is an effect on national character.”
All
from a single-celled creature.
All
from a hitchhiker.
Who’s in charge?
I’m
thinking that the health of the landbase is everything, and I’m
thinking about the roles parasites play in maintaining that health.
I’m thinking about parasites who take over the bodies of marine
snails, and I’m thinking of snails living full lives—fifteen
years—but over that time not making more snails but more
parasites. I’m thinking of the grasses those overpopulated
snails would otherwise have eaten. And I’m thinking of
parasites leaving snails and moving into fish, and causing those fish
to swim near the surface and flash their shiny underbellies to be
seen by birds who eat those fish. I’m thinking that catching
infected fish is ten to thirty times easier for those birds. If fish
did not get infected, birds would starve to death. I’m thinking
of birds becoming infected with parasites who lay eggs to be dropped
off by birds in feces, and I’m thinking of the cycle beginning
again. I’m thinking of how parasites help all these
species—though not always individuals—and I’m
thinking of how they help entire communities. I’m thinking they
are absolutely crucial to their landbases, that their landbases would
die without them. I’m thinking of the words of one former
professor of parasitology and invertebrate zoology, “The irony
is that to support healthy bird populations, maybe [the birds] need
to be infected with parasites.”
I’m
thinking about a world far more complicated than any of us may dream.
I’m
thinking about hitchhikers.
I’m
thinking about a conversation I had with the writer and activist Aric
McBay in which he said, “I have a friend who lives at an
intentional community. All of her kids have gotten pinworms at some
point, probably from hanging out in the garden and eating dirt,
although pinworm eggs are also in the air. When she compared her kids
with the kids who hadn’t had pinworms, she found that hers had
almost no allergies, but the kids who didn't have pinworms had many
allergies. She figured pinworms probably stimulated their immune
systems in a good way.”
I
said, “I’ve heard about that. I always wondered if the
pinworms weren’t lying, though: maybe something else cures the
kids’ allergies, and the pinworms just hitchhike, and maybe
they even con the parents into thinking the pinworms are doing the
kids good when all they’re doing is living in their intestines,
being parasites.”
He
ignored me. That was probably the best thing. He continued, “I
wonder if civilization could be the direct result of one or more
behavior-altering parasites. Perhaps a parasite that benefits from
the dense, concentrated populations of cities with their
immuno-suppressed hosts. Reading from the very good book Parasite
Rex that the ‘gruesome trypanosomes that cause sleeping
sickness had nearly been routed from Sudan when the country’s
civil war began: now they’re back,’ I can’t help
but wonder if those same parasites that benefit from the conditions
of war might actually cause those conditions as well: they would
certainly benefit from a large, growing, sick population which
invades adjacent lands and expands the range of the parasite.”
He
continued, “Perhaps civilization is, in a literal and
pathological sense, a disease. It would explain a lot.”
I
nodded.
He
kept going, “On the flipside, I wonder if landbased cultures
are inhabited by subtler microorganisms that, instead, nudge them to
work with the land and each other. Certainly such subtle
relationships exist; I interviewed self-described renegade scientist
Diana Beresford-Kroeger, who told me that scientists are now
beginning to realise that trees produce certain hormones in their
leaves, and that these hormones run off into streams and rivers.
These hormones seem to moderate the metabolism of fish in those
streams, so that in autumn trees produce dormancy hormones that slow
fish down, and in spring they produce stimulating hormones that wake
fish up and help them grow. There are many examples of this.
“Helpful
behavior-altering microorganisms might have similar effects on humans
and other creatures living on their landbases, giving them feelings
and urges appropriate to survival and to the encouragement of life
there. Perhaps each landbase would have its own set of such
microorganisms, so that when you move from one place to another you
become imbued with the ‘spirit’ of that landbase at least
partly through the microorganisms.
“It
would make a lot of sense: the most long-lived parasites are those
who don’t kill their hosts—or more precisely don’t
harm their landbases—but encourage their landbases and
sometimes their hosts to live and be healthy, so that the parasites
are healthy too. In that sense they are symbiotic.
“And
if such helpful behavior modifiers exist, they would surely be wiped
out by a physical separation from the land in cities, and especially
by modern
medicine and antibiotics. I wonder if civilization is
not the C. difficile of
the behaviour-modifying parasites,
wiping out helpful organisms and carrying out this awful work.”
“C.
difficile?”
“Recently
someone in my family was prescribed heavy doses of antibiotics, which
killed off the natural microorganisms in her digestive tract. With
those helpful microorganisms gone, she got pretty sick when she
contracted an infection of a pathogenic, antibiotic resistant
‘superbug’ called C. difficile, a bacteria that
has been giving hospitals a lot of trouble lately, because it slips
in once antibiotics have killed off the natural microorganisms.”
I’m
thinking about civilization as C. difficile. And now I’m
thinking about parasites. And now I’m thinking about
hitchhikers, and I’m thinking about spirits of places. I’m
thinking about my muse, about how she hitchhikes in my body, about
how she enjoys physicality, enjoys sex, orgasm, eating, walking,
breathing, enjoys feeling wind in my hair, and how much she enjoys
giving me feelings, words, ideas. I’m thinking about the ways
we work together. And I’m thinking that hitchhikers aren’t
generally the problem. Parasites aren’t the problem. Bacteria
aren’t the problem. Viruses aren’t the problem.
I’m
thinking that maybe there are many problems. And I’m thinking
that maybe one of the problems is God. I’m thinking God really
exists. I’m thinking He has no body. Imagine forever having no
body, feeling no physical embodied pleasure, feeling no physical
embodied pain. Imagine never knowing the joys of gesture, touch,
caress, as winds caress the leaves of trees and as ants tickle the
surfaces of stones. Never. Imagine being too frightened, too
arrogant, too distant to allow yourself to then hitchhike as does my
muse and as do so many others, to feel these things through others
with whom you join and unjoin and join again. Imagine the resentment
and hatred this leads to, festering age after age after age as these
others experience embodied life in all its myriad forms and you
remain distant, unchanged, disembodied. I’m thinking that God
does not respond to being disembodied by hitchhiking and enjoying
embodiedness through us, with us, but instead resents our
embodiedness. I’m thinking He—and how arrogant it is that
He demands to always be capitalized—has forever been
disembodied, has never breathed fresh air, drank cold water, felt sun
on skin, felt skin on skin, never been inside another or had another
inside, body in body. I’m thinking He has lived a very long
time and has never experienced physical intercourse—as trees do
with wind and as the wind does with trees, as flowers do with beetles
and with the soil and as beetles and soil do in return as well as
with each other, as clouds do with mountains and mountains do with
clouds, as wolves do with snow, as we all do with each other in ways
great and small every moment of every day. I’m thinking that
God does not join us in our bodies but has become deeply envious of
anybody who gets to experience the beauty (and pain) of living in a
physical world. I’m thinking that God hitchhikes into us not so
He can experience with us but so He can destroy our experience and
get us to destroy our own, can cause us to hate our own bodies as He
hates our bodies, to fear our own bodies as He fears all bodies. I’m
thinking that God infects people with this hatred and this fear and
then causes them to infect others, through trauma, through teaching,
through the creation of many religions that in fine spoiled-grapes
fashion attempt to convince us we’ve been condemned—not
privileged—to live on this planet, attempt to convince us that
this life is not good enough, that we will achieve the bliss of
heaven or nirvana if only we turn away from this life. When none of
this quells God’s emptiness—and by now the emptiness with
which He has injected us and we have even come to accept as our
own—when none of this makes Him finally forget that He does not
have a body and that others do, He moves beyond the creation of these
religions, moves beyond traumatizing us, moves beyond causing us to
hate and fear our bodies, moves even beyond causing us to hate and
fear embodied life, and causes us to destroy our own bodies and the
bodies of those around us. Even more than that, He is trying to get
us to kill embodied life, to kill the planet, all so we will not
remind Him of what He is missing, the beauty of being in a body.
And
He’s succeeding. |
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