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"The abundance of
myths, legends, and
pseudo-explanations for reality witness to a
propensity we have for inventing spurious ordering
principles to explain
reality. We are afraid of the unexplained."
- John D. Barrow
myths
What we
learn in
school is not the
wisdom of life.
We receive
technological
information.
There is reluctance to
admit the life changing aspects of the
technologies
we persue.
In
science today - anthropology,
linguistics, the study of
religions, and so forth - there is a tendency to
specialization.
A specialist scholar has to
know his subject extensively in order to
be a competent specialist.
To study Buddhism, for instance, you have to be
able to handle not only all - the
European languages in which the
discussions of the Oriental come, particularly
French, German, English, and Italian, but also
Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese,
Tibetan, and several other
languages.
This is a
tremendous task.
Such a specialist can't also be
wondering about the difference
between the Iroquois and Algonquin.
Specialization tends to limit the
field of problems that the specialist is
concerned with.
The individual who isn't a specialist,
but a generalist like myself, sees some
thing over here that he has
learned from the specialist, some
thing over there that he has
learned from another specialist - and
neither of them has considered the problem of why this occurs here and also
there.
The generalist gets into a range of
other
problems that are more genuinely
human than specifically
cultural.
The main
themes of myths are the same, and they have always been
the same.
There are historical
as well as psychological
aspects of the similarity of myths.
If you want to find your own
mythology, the key is with what
society do you associate?
Every
existant mythology has grown up in a
society in a bounded field.
When a
mythology collides with another
mythology they amalgamate, and you get a much
more complex
mythology.
These
myths, bits of information, from ancient
times, which have to do with the
themes that have supported
human life, built
civilizations, and informed
religions over the millennia, have to do with deep
inner problems, inner mysteries,
inner thresholds of passage, and if you don't
know what the guide
signs are along the
way you have to work it out yourself.
Myths are clues to the
spiritual potentialities of
human life.
Myths
teach you that to turn inward, and as you
do you begin to get the message of the metaphorical
symbology.
To
see this you must
read
other
culture's myths, not those of your own
culture, because you
interpret your own
religion in terms of the
concepts and symbols that you have been taught.
If
you read the
myths of
other religions, you begin to
see the underlying message.
Myth helps you to put your
mind in touch with the
experience of being
alive.
Once this subject catches you,
there is such a feeling, from one or
another of these traditions, of
information pointing to a very deep and
potentially rich life
that you too can enjoy.
Whether I am
reading
Polynesian or Iroquois or
Egyptian
myths, the images,
the symbols and the
conceptual archetypes are the same.
Every
mythology has to do with the
wisdom of life as
related to a specific culture at a specific
time.
Every
mythologies intent is to integrate the
individual into his
culture and the
culture into the field of
nature.
Every
mythology
unites the field of
nature and the culture with an
individual's
inner nature.
Unification is a
harmonizing
force.
Western
mythology, for example, is based on the
idea of duality;
good and evil,
heaven and
hell. Because of this
our religion
tends to be ethical in it's accent.
Sin and atonement, right and wrong.
Civilizations are grounded on
myth. The civilization of the Middle Ages was
grounded on the myth of the
fall, the
redemption on the
cross, and the carrying of the
grace of
redemption to
man through the sacraments.
The
cathedral was the center of the sacrament, and the castle was the center
protecting the cathedral. There you have the two forms of
government - the
government of the spirit and the government of the
physical life,
both in accord with the one source, namely
the grace of the
crucifixion.
There are three centers
of what might be called mythological and
folkloristic creativity in the Middle Ages. One is the
cathedral and all that is associated with monasteries and hermitages. A second
is the castle. The third is the cottage, where the common
people are. The cathedral, the castle, and
the cottage - you go to any of the areas of high
civilization, and you will see the same
- the temple, the palace, and the town. They are different generating centers,
but in so far as this is one civilization, they are all operating in
the same symbolic field.
The
folk tale is designed as
entertainment, and sometimes
for instruction if their is a
moral to the
story.
The
legend is designed to elicit
social cohesion bringing the
warrior hero,
the brave knight, the slayer of dragons to save the social culture from imminent
catastrophy.
The
myth is designed for
spiritual instruction,
redemption for the
spiritually corrupt.
There's a fine saying in
India in regard to these two orders
of myths, the folk
idea and the elementary
idea.
The folk aspect is called
desi, which means "provincial," having to do with your
culture. That is for young people. Through
desi a young person is
brought into the culture and is taught to go
out and kill monsters. "Okay, here's a
soldier suit, we've got the job for you." But
there's also the elementary idea. The
Sanskrit
name for that is marga, which means
'the path.'
The
path is the
trail back to the
reality of self.
The myth comes from the
imagination, and it leads back to it.
The society
teaches you what the
myths are, and then it disengages you so that
in your meditations you can follow 'the
path'.
The dictionary definition of
a myth would be
stories about gods but this is incorrect.
There are two totally different types of
mythology
There is the mythology that relates you to your
nature and to the
natural world,
of which you are a
part.These myths deal with a
god or gods that are personifications of the
motivating power in human
life and in the universe
- the power of your own
body and of nature.
Myths are metaphorical of spiritual potentiality in the
human being.
The same
power that animates
our lives
animates all the life on Earth.
A nature oriented mythology would be of an
Earth cherished compassionately by mankind.
There is the mythology
that is strictly sociological, linking you to
a particular society.
You are not
simply a natural
man, you are a member of a particular group.
Brotherhood is confined to a bounded community.
In bounded
communities, aggression is projected outward.
For example, the ten commandments say, "Thou shalt not
kill."
Then the next chapter says, "Go
into Canaan and
kill everybody in it."
That is a
bounded field.
The myths of
participation and love pertain only to the 'in'
group, and the 'out' group is totally 'other'.
This is the
sense of the word 'gentile' - the
individual is not of the same
order.
In the history of European
mythology, you can see the interaction of
these two systems.
Usually
the socially oriented
system is of a nomadic
people moving around,
you
learn that your center is in that
group.
The Talmudic
mythical religious
traditions are a
socially oriented
mythology in which
nature is condemned.
In the 19th
century, scholars incorrectly
thought of mythology and ritual as an attempt to
control nature.
That is
magic, not
mythology or religion.
Natural religions are not attempts to
control nature but to help you put yourself in accord
with nature.
When
nature is thought of as evil, created by
the Demiurge, Lucifer,
Satan or Saklas, you
do not put yourself in accord with it, you attempt to
control it, and hence the
tension, the anxiety, the cutting down of
forests, the strip mining of
mountains, the damming of
rivers, the overfishing of the
seas, unsustainable agricultural practices,
toxic pollutants, the
destruction of entire
ecosystems and the annihilation of
native
peoples. The
imperial accent here
separates us from nature.
I will never forget the experience I
had when I was in
Japan, a place the people
have never heard of the fall. One of the
Shinto texts says that the processes of
nature cannot be evil. Every natural impulse is not to be corrected but to be
sublimated, to be beautified. There is a
glorious interest in the
beauty of nature and
cooperation with
nature, so that in some of those
Japanese
gardens you do not
know where nature begins and art ends.
For
myth to function in a
society the
individual has to be able to
find
an aspect of myth that relates to his
or her own life.
Myth basically serves four functions.
The first is the mystical function which causes one to
realize what a
wonder the
universe is, what a
wonder life is and thus allows one to
experience
awe before this mystery. Myth
opens the universe to the
dimension of mystery, to the
realization of the
mystery that underlies all
forms. If you
lose that, you don't have a
mythology. If mystery is manifest through all
things, the
universe becomes, as it were, a
holy image. You are always addressing the
transcendent mystery through
the conditions of your actual reality.
The second is a cosmological dimension, the dimension with which
science is concerned - showing you what
the shape of the universe is, but
showing it in such a way that the
mystery again comes through.
Today we tend to
think that
scientists have all the
answers. But the great
scientists tell us, "No, we haven't got
all the answers. We're telling you how
nature works - but what is
nature?" You strike a match, what is
fire? You can tell me about oxidation, but that does not fully
explain the
reality of fire.
The third function is the
sociological one - supporting and validating
a certain social order.
Here is where
myths vary enormously from place to place.
You can have a whole
mythology for polygamy, a
whole mythology for monogamy.
This
sociological function of
myth has taken over on
Earth - and it is out of date.
The
fourth function of myth is the pedagogical
function.
Myths teach you how to
live a human lifetime
under any circumstance.
Myth is that field of reference
to what is absolutely
transcendent. The symbolic conceptual imagery is based on the
experiences of
humans in a particular
community, at that particular
time and place. Myths are so intimately bound to the
culture, time, and place that unless the
symbols, the metaphors, are kept alive by constant recreation through the
arts, the life
just slips away from them.
The only
mythology that is valid today is a
mythology of the
whole Earthand of
humanity as one
social cutural group.
The closest thing
to a planetary mythology is Buddhism, which is really not so much a
religion as a
philosophy of
living
life.
The task at
hand for
humanity is only to
understand and
know what reality is, and then use that
knowledge to
act correctly
within the relationship of the brotherhood of all of these
beings, both
human and animal, that inhabit Earth.
We have today
to learn to get back into accord with
the wisdom of nature and
realize again
our brotherhood with the animals.
To say that
the divinity informs
reality and all
things is
condemned as
pantheism.
Pantheism is a misleading
word.
The word pantheism suggests that many
gods inhabit the universe, but that is not the
idea of
divinity informing
reality at all.
The
idea of
divinity informing
reality is of an undefinable, inconceivable
mystery, thought
of as a power, that is the
source and supporting basis of all
life and being.
If we
think of ourselves as coming out of the
Earth, rather than having been thrown in here
from somewhere else, you see that humans are
of the Earth.
Humans become the sapient
consciousness of the
Earth.
Human eyes are the
eyes of the Earth.
Human voices are the voices of the
Earth.
Myths and dreams
come from the same place.
The myth
puts you into a dream all the
time, the dream
connects you with the mystery which you are a part of.
Myths come from
realizations that have to
find expression in symbolic
form.
Myths come from humans of spiritual power
and depth who experienced their
lives as being
inadequate to the
spiritual aspect or dimension of their
being.
The only
myth worth thinking about in the immediate
future is one that includes the
whole Earth, not this
city, not these
people, but the
whole Earth and everybody on the
Earth.
What mankind needs to deal with
will be exactly what all of mankind's myths
have dealt with - the maturation of the
individual, from dependency
through adulthood, through maturity, and then to the end of life. These new myths must relate to the social culture of humanity as a
whole and to the reality of
nature and the cosmos.
This is the ground of what the
myth has to be to be viable for a
global culture.
When you
see the Earth from the
moon, you do
not see any divisions there of nations or
states.
We need an inclusive philosophy for all the peoples of
Earth, not for this group, that group, the
'in' group or the 'other' group.
Such an inclusive philosophy
could use the Earth as a
symbol.
That is the homeland that
we are going to be celebrating.
Those are our
brothers and
sisters that
we are one with.
Humanity need this all inclusive
myth. A myth that identifies the
individual, not with his local
social, cultural or political group, but with the
whole Earth.
The best model for this is the America of the founders
dreams.
Here were thirteen different little
colony nations that decided to act in
cooperation,
without disregarding the
individual interests of anyone
of them.
If America could just
return to the principles of
America's
founding fathers, whose model is
the model Americans should emulate, then
America could lead the
way to an Earth of unprecedented
spirtual enlightenment and
justice.
adapted from the
Power of Myth, interview of Joseph Campbell,
mythologist, by Bill Moyers, journalist.
Acolmiztli,
Michlantecuhtli, Hades, Pluto - god of underworld
Adonis - an annually-renewed,
ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity
Anansi - spider trickster god, king of all
stories
Angra Mainyu, Ahriman,
Arimanius - hypostasis of the "destructive spirit"
Asklepios, Asclepius, Babbalu-aye - god of healing, god
of medicine
Atlas - a titan who bears the Earth upon his shoulders
Attis - a life-death-rebirth deity
Bacchus - the Liberator (Eleutherios),
freeing one from one's normal self, by
madness, ecstasy, or wine
Baldur - god of peace
Bureauclamus - god of bureaucrats
Ceres - the goddess of
agriculture
Coatlicuem - mother goddess of the
Earth who gives birth to all
things celestial
Cybele - a deification of the
Earth Mother
Daghda - god of great
knowledge
Danu - mother goddess of the Tuatha-de-Danaan
Demeter, Chac - goddess of corn, grain, and the
harvest
Demiurge - god of the faulty creation
humans inhabit
Diana - goddess of the moon and of wild places
Dionysus - god of wine and
fertility
Elegua - guardian of the crossroads of
life
Epimetheus - god of afterthought
Eshu - trikster god and guardian of houses and
villages
Eris - goddess of discord
Haddad, Adad - storm and rain god
Hebe - goddess of youth
Iblis - personification of
evil
Ixchel - goddess of the moon
Governonius - god of government
Itzamna - god of corn, chocolate, writing, drawing,
calendars, divination, medicine and healing - founder of Mayan culture;
Ometeotl in Aztec culture
Kinich Ahau - sun god who appears in the shape of a
firebird
Loki - the sly one, the trickster, the shape
changer, and the sky traveler
Lucifer - the morning or day
star; the light bringer; a powerful fallen angel;
ruler of the world
Mammon - false god of riches;
avarice; reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth
Mercurius - god of
commerce
Ngalyod - the great land
transformer
Odin - father of the gods, king of
Asgard, the lord of
war, death and knowledge
Ogun - god of war, the hunt and ironworking
Olorun - the almighty owner of the
sky, god of peace and justice
Osiris-Dionysus -
virgin-born god/man of
life-death-rebirth
Orion - god of the hunt
Pan - the god of goatherds and shepherds
Quetzalcoatl - the divine ruler of the Toltecs
Ra - the
Sun god
Sabazius - nomadic horseman father
god of the sky
Saklas - god of the faulty creation humans
inhabit
Securitis - god of
security; worshipped by black-ops,
secret police, Ashkenazi and
control freaks - also known as
Satan
Self - god
that elevates the individual ego to
godhood
Shokpona - god of smallpox
Tammuz, Du-zu, Dumuzid - a
shepherd-god
Tezcatlipoca - "smoking mirror" god of the
night, the north, temptation, sorcery,
beauty and war
Venus - the goddess of spring
flowers,
love and beauty
Vesta, Chantico - the goddess of
hearth and home, of domestic and
religious fire
Wandjina - cloud
and rain spirits of the
Dreamtime. Walaganda, a Wandjina,
became the Milky Way.
Yaltabaoth - god of the faulty creation
humans inhabit
Yemaya, Chalchiuhtlicue - mother of
Waters
Yingarna - mother of creation
Poseidon,
Hermes, and Zeus urinated on the hide of a bull and buried it. After nine
months, Orion grew up on the spot and was named Orion by his father. Orion was
the son of three gods who represent the elements of
Water, Air and Earth.
Orion, composed of stars then becomes Fire.
Being born from the urine of three gods is a "male divine virgin birth". Orion
was a handsome giant who could walk on water as could all of Poseidon's sons.
demigods - part mortal part
god"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days - and also
afterward - when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children
by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." - Genesis 6:4 (New
International Version)
"There were giants in the earth in those days;
and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,
and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old,
men of renown." - Genesis 6:4 (King James Version)
"The Nephilim were
in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came unto
the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty
men that were of old, the men of renown." - Genesis 6:4 (American Standard
Version)
Kastor and Polydeukes were twin brothers. Sons of the god Zeus
and the mortal woman Leda. Kastor and Polyduekes became the twin stars that
make up the constellation Gemini.
Heracles - son of Zeus and the mortal
woman Alcmena, performed 12 heroic things that no mere mortal could accomplish,
proving he was the son of a god.
Dionysus, the god of wine - son of
Zeus and the mortal woman Semele
Zeus had many affairs with mortal
humans, bearing him twenty-two different half-god, half-mortal children.
Also see Joseph Campbell on:
in the beginning
image
life
consciousness
archetype
metaphor
mystery
the
serpent
religion
dreamtime
hero
God
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