Jane Goodall's abiding experience of God

Jane Goodall writes in her autobiography Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey: “Years of war, when those who are loved are dying every day, are filled with powerful psychic experiences, and Vanne [Jane’s mother], who has always been psychic (though she never talks about it), certainly had her share. I have already told of her premonition of danger that saved our lives when the German plan dropped its bombs on our holiday village. The other incident occurred earlier in the war. She was taking a bath. Suddenly she called out, loudly and urgently: ‘Rex!’ Rex was my father’s younger brother. She began to sob bitterly, tears pouring down her face. My father, on leave, rushed in to see that on earth was going on. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ he asked her. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ she sobbed. ‘I only know it’s Rex.’ Later she learned that she had cried out at the time Rex was shot down and killed in combat over Rhodesia. Hugo’s mother [Hugo was Jane’s first husband] had a similar experience when her husband’s boat was torpedoed in the war. She was in England, and the ship sank thousands of miles away. It was at night and she woke up terrified, hearing the engines of a German plane overhead, and the sounds of heavy gunfire. She began to cry, knowing her husband was in danger.” [165-166]

 

“During the first six months or so after [my husband] Derek’s death, I often felt his presence. I had a strong conviction that in his spirit state he could not see or hear—or perhaps it was that he could not feel the things he had loved in earthly life—the sea, the pounding waves, ballet, the graceful hand-over-hand swinging of the young chimpanzees playing in the trees. And I felt very strongly that if I looked and listened with great concentration, and paid attention to every detail, he would be able to enjoy, for a little longer, the things he had loved—through my eyes, through my ears. Perhaps it was fancy, but it comforted me, the thought that he was there, that I could do something for him. And then, after a while, as though he knew that I was all right, that my days had, indeed, brought sufficient strength, I felt his presence less and less often. I knew it was time for him to move on, and I did not try to call him back.” [167]

 

Goodall writes of holocaust survivor Henri Landwirth who in his autobiography, Gift of Life, says that in the death camps “he lost touch with his spiritual side, ‘abandoning God, as I had felt abandoned.’ How did he recover his faith in in God? How has he reconciled the unspeakable cruelties of the death camps and the suffering of innocent children, stricken with some terrible disease, with the existence of a just God, a caring God of love? Henri writes: ‘Where does a heart truly broken, a spirit hopelessly abandoned, find hope? What exists within a human being that allows for survival amidst such devastation? It must be God. . . . Who else could it be?’” [260]

 

At the end of her autobiography, published in 1999, Jane Goodall concludes: “It is hard now, after twenty-five years, to recapture that moment of ecstasy in the Notre Dame cathedral—although the experience has never left me . . .. The impact was so powerful, I suppose, because it came at a time when so much was changing in my life, when I was vulnerable. When I was, without knowing it, needing to be reconnected with the Spirit Power I call God—or perhaps I should say being reminded of my connection. The experience, whatever else it did, put me back on track; it forced me to rethink the meaning of my life on earth.

 

“Only quite recently did I begin to wonder whether there had been some specific message for me, wordlessly conveyed by the powerful music, a message that I absorbed, but was not yet ready or able to interpret. And now, through experience and reflection, I believe that there was indeed, a message. A very simple one: Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other. Together we must reestablish our connections with the natural world and with the Spiritual Power that is around us. And then we can move, triumphantly, joyously, into the final stage of human evolution—spiritual evolution.

 

“Is it arrogant, presumptuous, to think that I might have heard the Voice of God? Not at all. We all do—that ‘still, small voice’ that we speak of, telling us what we ought to do. That, I think, is the Voice of God. Of course, it is usually called the voice of conscience, and if we feel more comfortable with that definition, that’s fine. Whatever we call it, the important thing, I think, is to try to do what the voice tells us. My experience in the cathedral of Notre Dame was dramatic, awakening. It is the still, small voice that I hear now—and it bids me to share. And that is what I try to do. [266-267]

 

Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (1999, Warner Books). Excerpts selected by Robert Traer.