Civilized societies, which began perhaps around 10,000 years ago, make up less than one percent of humanity’s presence on the planet. Prior to the gradual emergence of herding and farming communities, over 95% of humanity’s existence was spent as small-band hunter-gatherers. As the neocortex grew, with its astonishing capacity to create inner images not present to the senses, abstracted images filled human consciousness, pushing aside nearly all ‘other’ ways of knowing and relating. As abstract knowledge grew, so did its power to enchant. We lost track of what the mind is doing and assumed the image is real. Reification created a false virtual reality, mistaken as real, in which past knowledge, culture, personal identity, and ego, with their implicit conflicts, dominate. Technology magnified the excluding nature of this virtual reality, amplifying and broadcasting it simultaneously around the world, capturing humanity in a homogenized Global Brain, that is dominated by an easily manipulated artificial reality.