Fleeing suppression and intolerance in Europe, pilgrims of several faiths set sail for the New World where their aspirations of freedom were probably best summed up by Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. He wrote, “. . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The light of spiritual freedom was once again burning bright.

There were some however, like Charles Darwin, who had a very different message: Man was but another rung on the evolutionary ladder, and could never hope to raise himself to greater levels of awareness. Darwin’s man-from-mud theory, the idea that life was a chance happenstance resulting from a chain reaction in a sea of ammonia, soon took hold in the scientific community. Ironically, however, that very same theory may be traced to an ancient Egyptian myth wherein man was seen as emerging from a primordial ocean.