ON MYTHOLOGY
A study conducted on Catholic nuns
and Buddhist monks, revealed that when individuals are in a state of concentrated
meditation and prayer the neurons stop firing in the parietal lobe of the
brain; the area responsible for spatial orientation and physical
awareness. Another study showed that
when individuals suffer from temporal lobe seizures and also others who have
had that region of the brain stimulated using electrodes produce sensations
that are considered intense religious euphoria or experience. Atheists look at that and interpret it as
proof that there is nothing spiritual going on at all. “There you go.” But I’m not devout to anything yet and so I
say simply, “I don’t know…” But for me
some interesting questions arise for the thought experiment; do we remove a
portion of our ego when we turn off the region that is aware of our physical
body? Isn’t it our egos that have fooled
us into thinking we’re individuals separate from the universe in the first
place? Does that portion of the physical
brain naturally block or impede our true connection with the universal
consciousness? Is the parietal lobe our
anchor to the physical realm? Or is it
all electricity and energy distribution? Is it all in our heads? I struggle with this debate all the
time.
There have been
other studies that suppose our brains naturally need to impose order to
everything; that we need to understand everything as having a cause-effect
relationship. We simply can’t accept
chaos. Things cannot happen
randomly.
I’m currently
enrolled in a mythology class. The
semester just began and the second chapter in the book looks at the origins of
myth. Where do they come from? The book breaks down several competing
theories. There’s the Archaic view that
basically says that, to the ancient Greeks, myths were substitutions for
history and theology, but also offered examples of heroic actions that promoted
certain courageous standards for not only their citizens but their leaders as
well. There were “externalist” theories
that state that myths were a prescientific attempt to explain natural
phenomena. Some believe that myths
derived from explanations for certain ancient rituals and customs; as
justifications.
The “internalists”
view myth like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung did, as stemming from our
subconscious; that they are expressions of the human mind. Jung had his mythological archetypes.
My friend Matt
Savage wonders if myths were actually viewed as fiction but accepted and
celebrated as holding universal truths worthy of veneration. He likened it to Harry Potter or Star
Wars. We know these stories are fiction
but we celebrate them as our modern mythology.
There was the
Hellenistic theory that supposed that the ancient gods were based on leaders
from the distant past whose exploits had been so exaggerated over time that
they took on divine qualities. I like
this theory for reasons I’m unaware of other than it supports my theory on the
Biblical stories and oral tradition. I
compare it to the game of telephone.
Each time the story is told to the next person it takes on a subtle but
important variation. But over thousands
of years those variations have grown to the point that what’s left is nearly a
completely different tale. But boiled
down and below them there was once some truth to them.
That leads into a
section I found to be missing from the text book; the Ancient Alien Theory. A kid seated behind me brought it up in class. As much as I don’t trust the Ancient Alien
theory its hard to watch the so-called History Channel and not come away with
at least a few more questions than you have answers on that subject. The idea is that mythology comes from the
ancients’ misunderstanding of technology well beyond their wildest imaginations
and so the aliens became gods.
A competing theory
to the aliens is the ancient demonic theory.
This one I’ve employed in a series of books that have yet to be
completed, but that I started over ten years ago. The idea is that the ancient gods were
actually powerful demons that corrupted and subverted the truth and tricked
ancient man into worshipping them. The
idea that the act of being worshipped made them extremely powerful makes more
sense to me as far as their motives are concerned, than the ancient aliens
needing to create a race of workers to build the pyramids. What also makes the ancient demon theory such
an intriguing one to me is how these pagan gods influenced history all the way
into our modern world. Think about
Christianity’s relationship with the pagans.
Constantine wasn’t the Christian saint they’ve made him out to be. He was still a pagan worshipper long after he
legitimized Christianity. But what
people don’t realize is that he corrupted the faith and from that moment
forward the pagan’s controlled it. When
Rome took over Christianity it no longer belonged to the pure of heart. They stepped into the shadows, these demon
gods, but they never left. And plenty of
evil was done in the name of the church.
According to the theory, that evil was orchestrated by these demonic
forces, to be carried out under the false name of God. Why does the Vatican have an ancient Egyptian
monolith in its courtyard?
The idea that for
thousands of years mankind made blood sacrifices to these demons, which we know
from the stories weren’t shining examples of morality. Zeus raped a lot of virgins. The conspiracy folks will say these pagan
demons are still at work in our world today, whispering into ears if not making
straightforward deals with extremely powerful people. If you want to lose your mind look into pop
music and hidden symbolism throughout it.
It will make your hair curl.
But I have to
leave it with the understanding that I don’t claim to have any answers only
questions. I see patterns in things, but
then again that’s what all of our brains do automatically. We look for and some times fill-in patterns
everywhere we look. But sometimes the
patterns fit and tell us things.
