Editorial Credits
Digital reprint. 2011, revised
Edition, 1996
Is not only an honor, but a pleasure that you can freely read, archive, transfer and cite this book, although it cannot be marketed without the written permission of the author:
Diagramming and digital composition for the Internet: Miguel del Valle
Campelo, to whom I am profoundly grateful for his unbinding, generous and well to do cybernetic craft.
@Primitivo Martínez Fernández, Ph. D.
BL311.M3 1996 291.1’3
ISBN: 1-881716-00-7.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publishing Data
Martínez Fernández, Primitivo, Ph.D.
Produced in Puerto Rico
DEDICATION:
To Zulema and Gabriel, my children.
INDEX
PROLOGUE ……………………………………………………………………006
INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..009
THE MYTH OF URANUS…………………………………………………….013
GAIA, THE EARTH……………………………………………………………016
PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA …………………………………………020
SYMBOLISM OF THE MYTH OF PROMETHEUS ……………………….025
THE MYTHS IN THE ILIAD…………………………………………………..030
THE MOIRAE IN THE ILIAD…………………………………………………036
AGAMEMNON AND CLYTEMNESTRA……………………………………040
DIALOGUE OVER THE MYTH OF ANTIGONE…………………………...044
THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM………………………………………………045
THE MYTH OF THE SIN OF KNOWLEDGE ………………………………..050
THE MYTH OF THE UNIVERSAL REGENERATION………………………055
RADIOGRAPHY OF THE MYTH………………………………………………056
WATER SYMBOLISM ……………………………………………………………063
THE TREE SYMBOLOGY ………………………………………………………..064
THE REASON , THE SLAVE OF FAITH……………………………………….066
POPOL VUH MYTHS …………………………………………………………….069
UNIVERSAL BOOK OF THE RENEWAL OF TIME………………..…………071
THE MYTH OF THE FIRE QUICHE……………………………………………072
THE TAINO MYTHS………………………………………………………………074
THE TAINO MYTH OF THE FLOOD…………………………………………..077
THE TAINO AFTERLIFE………………………………………………………….078
THE PHENOMENOM OF CEMIISM IN ITS RITUAL APPEARANCE……079
MYTHS AND BELIEFS OF NORTHAMERICAN INDIANS………………..082
THE FIRE…………………………………………………………………………..083
THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD…………………………………………089
THE UTOPIA OF AMERICA……………………………………………………099
THE INDIAN SLAVERY……………………………………………………..….102
THE SERMON OF MONTESINOS…………………………………………….108
THE INDIGENOUS BESTIALITY……………………………………...………110
THE INDIAN HOLOCAUST……………………………………………………112
THE CROSS AND THE SWORD……………………………………………… 114
THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS………………………………………….116
JUNGIAN APHORISMS ………………………………………………………...124
CYBERNETIC SIMILE …………………………………………………………...127
THE BIOLOGY OF BENEVOLENCE……………………………………………128
THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD……………………………………..131
THE ANTICHRIST OF NIETZSCHE…………………………………………….140
BUDDHIST WORLD VIEW……………………………………………………….155
BECKET, THE SEMANTIC GAP …………………………………………………149
APHORISMS OF CIORAN’S TRAGIC THOUGHT……………………….…..157
JESUS, THE MAN…………………………………………………………….…….162
A MISSED DEATH………………………………………………………………….164
THE TOMB OF JESUS IS FOUND……………………………………………..…165
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES……………………………………………..168
CONSULTED BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………171
I had launched the hypothesis that it is the Oedipus complex
which has suggested to humanity as a whole, at the beginning of
its history, the consciousness of its guilt, that ultimate source
of religion and morality’. (1)
Freud, Totem and taboo, 1913.
"The myth and symbol belong to the essence of human life
and never disappear from psychic reality, they are therefore
inherent to human being, "
C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, 1985.
' The person who administers the rituals carries the sense of culture’
Joseph Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time, 1990.
'(Quand nous parlons de Dieu, ce n'est pas de Dieu que nous parlons) ',
' When we speak about God, it is not about God that we speak '
Gabriel Marcel, Journal Metaphysique, 1927.
"Focused on its living part, the myth is not an
explanation to satisfy a scientific curiosity, but
a story that makes revive an original reality and that answers
to a deep religious need, to moral aspirations, to
constraints and imperatives of social order, and even to demands
practices. In early civilizations, myth plays a
indispensable function: it expresses, constructs and encodes the belief;
It safeguards the moral principles and imposes them, it ensures
effectiveness of ceremonies, and offers practical rules
for use of man. The myth is thus an essential element of
human civilization, far from being a vain fable, is, however,
a living reality which is always present; it is not
by no means an abstract theory or a parade of images,
but a real encoding of primitive religion and
practical wisdom "
Bronislaw Malinowski, Myth in Primitive Psychology, 1926.
(1).-The letter blackened ("bold") of the textual quotations is always, across this work, from the author.
PROLOGUE
Of the fascinating myths, that seduce and illuminate human existence, Rilke emphasized their poetic side "Be your morning once again, gods!", he said. We will stress their prosaic appearance, the manipulative variable, which produces a disturbing tingling. The myth, in every tribe and people with a germ of stratification, has, among others, the fundamental function of social control mechanism. It is managed by a group that, controlling and administering the ritual symbols, shapes the values, worldview, culture and human life itself.
The theme of this editorial project is the manipulative factor of myth in different religions, cultures and at different stages and events in the history that we analyze. The myth speaks more to the feeling, desire, emotion, fear and even terror, than to intelligence: its roots are in the preconscious and its fabulous language generates beliefs always based on a hypothetical, theriomorphic or anthropomorphic god, shaped of man or animal. In the creation of the myth and in its conservation they are consistently involved intermediary bridges –pontiffs- who handle the hypersensitivity and suggestion of feeling and emotion in a particular social context of human relationships, to create images and symbols full of arcane and sacred. Such images and symbols are indisputable and have, by virtue of the sacred and subjective bias, immeasurable symbolism and meaning, with dimensions out of proportion.
The myth exceeds what was said by Malinowski in the above quotation. The myth of the sin of knowledge, for example, is the most tragic and profound thing humanity has lived: the knowledge, science, forbidden in itself - the tree of knowledge of good and evil -. All this led to the subjugation of reason to faith - the reason the slave of the faith of the dark Middle Ages - led to the primacy of beliefs not of the ideas in all religions, to the theocentrism and to the delaying of science, prohibited by the myth.
The myth of the fire in the Popol Vuh, with the god Tohil, led to human sacrifice of countless thousands of human victims.
The myth of sin is the big nose or ring that priests have placed in the consciousness of human beings to lead them to the flock of submission and destroy the root of self-esteem and dignity. Thus it corrupts and perverts human nature.
And beyond the time, about two thousand years before our era, a country: Persia; a character: Zoroaster (Zarathustra); a holy book: the Avesta; a religion: First the Mazdaism and, after Manes, the Manichaeism.
The Mazdaism postulates two realities that coexist in the human being: Spirit and Matter, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, whose two creator principles are: Hormuz and Ahriman. The two realities are not only incompatible, like oil and water, but entirely antagonistic. The Spirit and Matter - according to Mazdaism- are opposite "as a king to a pig”. This doctrine and philosophy infiltrated, with their stereotypes and stigmas, and dipped the monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These stereotypes and stigmas travel through time and still trap and degrade us. Matter, they say, is intrinsically evil. Precisely the matter is just the tangible reality in our cosmos, human beings are made of. For them, only the Spirit, which belongs to the realm of myth fables, qualifies as good.
The existence of a spiritual soul in man is not only scientifically improbable, but a fable, a myth. "The existence of the spirit is an anomaly of life. How can you imagine life without the body, how can you imagine an autonomous and original existence of the spirit? ", asks Cioran with good reason.
Recently Eduardo Punset, 2006, echoes Neuroscience scientists in his book: The soul is in the brain, "which involves to unlearn many assumptions and discover many others". We know, without a doubt, that our soul is our brain, which is not spiritual or immortal; brain death is final and irreversible, says medical science. They are closed and barred the roads leading to the beyond, to the lives after death, to heaven and hell, which exists only in our lives, made of matter convertible into energy and vice versa, highly complex and mysterious.
The sub-theme, or common denominator, is the myth of Prometheus, that challenges the human attitude of subservience to the gods of that era. In modern and contemporary times, this myth symbolizes the autonomy, self-perfection and self realization of human beings against the alienating mysterious and superhuman forces, such as their gods, their beliefs (dogmas) and their priests. It is the essence of today’s secularism.
The logical objective: the demystification of myths through knowledge and enlightenment. It is here that they come into play: Nietzsche, Beckett, Goethe, Shelley, Kafka, Wittgenstein, Cioran...
Matriarchy, as a social phenomenon, was rooted in female deities, pre-Hellenic period; the spear warrior and the male deities disrupted in patriarchy, Hellenistic period.
Pandora, Eve and other creation myths in which the woman comes from the man, made women to be marginalized until today.
The myth of the hereafter decried the human and human life in the here and now. The spirit degraded matter and the "immaculate conception" sullied the conception and sex. We are conceived in sin, says Catholic theology.
Besides the collective unconscious, with its archetypes, producers of the driving force of the symbol and imago, there were aware shamans, gurus or bards, medicine-men, sorcerers, behiques, druids, seers, priests and prophets who interpreted the silence of the gods. And it is precisely here where it lies the Gordian knot: the intermediate bridges –pontiffs- with their many and profound interests.
I consider this work more as a spreading than as a research. I analyze texts by various authors that I quote, comment and, sometimes, synthesize. I drank refreshing water in their springs and their trails provided me with lengthy and varied landscape of ideas to share with you, as we walk.
The Author
INTRODUCTION
Initially, the myths were stories passed down orally from generation to generation. The myths have kaleidoscopic nature and multiple perspectives of different meaning: sacred stories, fantasy metamorphosed into reality, early science fiction, even symbolic and literal representations of reality. But there were the real aspects of the myths that have kept them meaningful for mankind for thousands of years. They are products of highly sophisticated and brilliant minds and they are treasures of revealing realities of experiences, fantasies, fears and hopes of humanity. They present human nature as a constant in the becoming future of humanity.
In the pristine origins, myths explained and taught the origin and order of the universe, the creation of human beings, natural phenomena, human behavior... The mythical explanation of the natural world was always presented in terms of religious beliefs that provided human beings early responses to universal questions. Unable to explain natural phenomena scientifically, man populated the world with a multitude of immortal gods, which, created at his own image, each of them controlled one aspect of the natural environment, put order without chaos and provided a rational scheme of life instead of confusion and unanswered questions.
Myths explained also the political aspect of their lives, the origin of the kingdoms, their history and that of the neighboring peoples. They also explained how to behave socially through directive moral doctrine, the Greek gods did not give an authoritative moral code as the Hebrew God did. Greek myths have positive and negative models for humans and they create significant patterns of behavior in a world of values they originate themselves. With the homo sapiens the first signs of mythological thinking appear in the burials, which include offerings and sacrifices that start the divine magical presence of extraordinary beauty. The rites and worship are offered to the animals, unknown forces of nature, the spirits of life and death. They are rituals of death and resurrection. Myths represent ignorance and creative genius at the same time, impotence and great creative, artistic combination of imagination and reality, attempts at playing with the spirits to attract the good ones and ward off the evil, to recognize the essentiality of nothing and nowhere and create immortality as a defense mechanism against the existential crisis.
The element of myth is that of our life, our body, of the environment of heroes and gods. The Greek, circa 1600 before our era, with their bronze and copper weapons, brought a new religion dominated by the masculine deities: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades…with their respective myths. Their lives were dominated by a heroic weapon, the spear.
Previous native agricultural Greeks were peaceful, professing a religion dominated by goddesses. The supreme deity was the goddess Mother Earth, called the Mother Goddess and the Great Goddess. Warriors invade, conquer and impose a patriarchal religion; their court was Mycenae, 1,600 BC. They were heroic warriors, aggressive conquerors. The most prominent warrior could become the leader of the community. They were the antithesis of the agricultural town whose matriarchal social structure reflected maternal principles, particularly the superiority of women, and it promoted respect and appreciation for the beauty of life and peace. Sparta, on the contrary, became the symbol of the values of war and of a military lifestyle.
Originally religion was the property of individuals, then moved to families, then to tribes and then to the State, builder of temples, gods and manipulative myths. Each farming community was small and enough isolated from its neighbors to develop a strong sense of independence with their local deities. But this did not prevent the sharing of beliefs and myths of surrounding communities, thus affecting their social, ethical values and morals of their daily lives.
The appreciation and reverence for the land was natural in women, being farmers themselves. Mother Earth made up for them shelter and food needed to survive. It was the Mother Earth that made reborn life every spring and fed it to reach maturity. These people felt a deep bond with everything related to nature. They also were born, grew, and died, as well as animals and plants in their environment. Earth was also responsible for their fertility, as for the plant and animal kingdom. And they also, like plants and presumably like animals, must be reborn in some way after death. Their religion was centered on the belief of eternity, using the cycle of birth, maturity, death and rebirth or reincarnation. Their safety depended on the continued operation of this cycle. Mother Earth, goddess of fertility, becomes the supreme goddess of life and death and she receives prayers and rituals, sacrifices that she rewards with blessings like the fertility of plants, animals and man, like good health and economic prosperity.
The religious life of the Mediterranean people was dominated by the belief of a Great Mother Goddess. Agrarian society reflects these religious attitudes in its structure and values. The community was ruled by a queen who was the greatest priestess of the Great Mother Goddess. Probably the one who received her position of authority from the last priestess-queen was the youngest daughter, to ensure the longest reign. All mortal women were considered daughters of the Mother Goddess. Their position in their societies reflected the community's attitude towards the matriarchal Great Goddess. Moreover, women dominated all the religious and social rituals and all the institutions.
The family was vital in the matriarchal community.
Social status, inheritance and the name came from the mother, who, accompanied by a brother, ruled the family. The father's role was negligible, there was complete sexual freedom. A woman could love so many men as she wanted. In the early days, it was even thought that man was not necessary for procreation. Motherhood was a mystery, a miraculous event, possibly aided by the fertilizing wind and water.