THE GREAT FORGETTING: The Human Separation Myth and the Journey Back to Wholeness

There is a story beneath every system, beneath every war, law, invention, and religion—a story so embedded in our collective psyche that we rarely question it, even when it quietly dictates everything we do.

It is the story of separation.

The Human Separation Myth is not a single belief, but a woven architecture of falsehoods: the belief that humans are separate from nature, from one another, from our bodies, from the cosmos, and from the source of life itself. It says that consciousness resides solely in the brain, that matter is inert, that power comes from control, and that survival requires competition. It whispers that we are alone, vulnerable, and must dominate or be dominated.

And yet—this story is a myth. A myth in the deepest, truest sense of the word: a meaning-structure so pervasive it becomes invisible. But unlike archetypal myths that reveal truth, the separation myth conceals it. It is a trauma-born distortion masquerading as natural law.

What We Know—And What Was Hidden

Anthropological and archaeological evidence paints a strikingly different picture of our early ancestors. For over ninety percent of human existence, we lived in small, egalitarian, nature-bonded communities. These societies were cooperative, not competitive. They honored the land, the animals, and the unseen spirit woven through all things. The so-called “primitive” peoples were not underdeveloped—they were interwoven. Kin with Earth.

We now know that the transition from foraging to agriculture (around ten thousand years ago) fundamentally altered human consciousness. Domestication of plants and animals initiated a psychological shift: nature was no longer kin—it was now property. With surpluses came ownership. With ownership, hierarchy. With hierarchy, war.

Patriarchal systems soon emerged, often violently. Feminine deities were supplanted by sky-kings. Women became possessions. Earth was no longer Mother—it was resource. This was the first institutionalization of separation.

But this shift was not destiny. It was not evolution in the upward arc sense. It was a detour driven by trauma, cataclysm, and conquest. Some of the earliest records—like the Sumerian myths—describe humans being “created” as slaves by gods. Whether literal or metaphor, the encoded belief was this: your purpose is to serve a higher, separate power. Submission became sacred. And with it, the myth deepened.

The Role of Trauma and Epigenetics

Trauma is a master craftsman of separation. Studies show that unresolved trauma literally alters gene expression through epigenetic pathways. It wires hypervigilance, distrust, and disconnection into future generations. If a culture survives a planetary cataclysm—like the Younger Dryas comet impact twelve thousand years ago—and rebuilds in scarcity, their story changes. Survival hardens. Nature becomes unpredictable. Others become threats.

We inherit not only trauma’s biology but its cosmology. The myth of separation is a survival story mistaken for an origin story. And it’s one we’ve been re-enacting for millennia.

Suppression and the Systematic Killing of Knowledge

To maintain this myth, truth had to be erased. Indigenous traditions, which preserved the memory of interbeing, were targeted during colonization. This was not random. This was epistemicide—the deliberate destruction of knowledge systems.

The burning of the Library of Alexandria. The banning of shamanic rituals. The criminalization of plant medicine. The dehumanization of animist belief. The church replacing embodied mysticism with dogma. The school system replacing intuitive intelligence with rote logic. These were not isolated acts—they were mechanisms of control.

Even within science, truths were hidden. The CIA’s Gateway Report, which describes consciousness as accessing a unified holographic field beyond spacetime, was classified for twenty years. Remote viewing, quantum non-locality, field-based healing, and the entanglement of human minds with planetary resonance have all been explored—quietly, often secretly—by governments and elite institutions. Why quietly? Because a fully awakened population is difficult to manipulate.

The Myth Breaks Down

Yet the myth is cracking.

Quantum physics now confirms what mystics always knew: separation is an illusion. Ecology reveals what Indigenous teachings preserved: nothing exists in isolation. Trauma therapy shows that healing happens not through numbing, but reconnection. Even suppressed knowledge—from ancient flood myths to star-origin stories—suggests that humanity once remembered its place in the cosmos.

And the cosmos itself is speaking. Astronauts describe a state of spiritual awe when seeing Earth from space—what they call the “Overview Effect.” They realize borders are fiction. That Earth is one being. That we belong.

Beyond Science, Toward Remembrance

This is not just about data. It’s about deep knowing. The body remembers. The soil remembers. The stars remember.

We are not here to “ascend” away from Earth. We are here to re-enter her. To restore relationship. To remember that we are the Earth dreaming, we are stardust breathing, we are the myth rewriting itself.

The Separation Myth told us we are alone.

But we are not.

We are threads of one infinite fabric—each vibration affecting the whole. Every healed trauma, every act of truth, every return to coherence ripples through the field.

And this is the awakening: not a spiritual escape, but a sacred return.