Frankly, that Voegelin person appears utterly dumb (and also uneducated). You know my views about JP being a dangerous charlatan. With that being said, I will only add that -- and it's a point where you, too, make a mistake (*) -- animals are in a lot of cases more "human" than humans themselves. So, while I disagree with your "hypothesis of anti-naturalness", I agree with your points made here, only based on different grounds.

(*) You basically concede to JP’s argument that hierarchies are baked into nature, which is false. There are closed chains (or circles, if you will) and relative strength (definition of which is also rather debatable -- see virus vs. human, etc.) plays no role in importance of individual "links."