Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
mind myth and magick pdf 15
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly controversial. Many adherents of religions view their own religions' stories as truth and so object to their characterization as myth, the way they see the stories of other religions. As such, some scholars label all religious narratives "myths" for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another.[1] Other scholars avoid using the term "myth" altogether and instead use different terms like "sacred history", "holy story", or simply "history" to avoid placing pejorative overtones on any sacred narrative.[2]
Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality.[3] Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be true accounts of their remote past.[3][4][5][6] In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form.[3][7][8][9] Other myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified.[3][8] There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals.
The main characters in myths are usually non-humans, such as gods, demigods, and other supernatural figures.[10][4][11][12] Others include humans, animals, or combinations in their classification of myth.[13] Stories of everyday humans, although often of leaders of some type, are usually contained in legends, as opposed to myths.[10][12] Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.[12][14]
Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.[2]
Though myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives.[24][25] Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories, are not considered true by anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason.[26][27][28] Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans,[3][4][11] while legends generally feature humans as their main characters.[3][29] Many exceptions and combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.[30][31] Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants, elves and faeries.[4][32][33] Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table)[34] and the Matter of France, seem distantly to originate in historical events of the 5th and 8th-centuries respectively, and became mythologised over the following centuries.
In colloquial use, "myth" can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story.[35] This usage, which is often pejorative,[36] arose from labelling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well.[37]
In present use, "mythology" usually refers to the collection of myths of a group of people.[40] For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Celtic mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures.[41]
Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the Middle Ages.
Myth criticism is a system of anthropological interpretation of culture created by French philosopher Gilbert Durand. Scholars have used myth criticism to explain the mythical roots of contemporary fiction, which means that modern myth criticism needs to be interdisciplinary.
Cultural myth criticism, without abandoning the analysis of the symbolic, invades all cultural manifestations and delves into the difficulties in understanding myth today. This cultural myth criticism studies mythical manifestations in fields as wide as literature, film and television, theater, sculpture, painting, video games, music, dancing, the Internet and other artistic fields.
Myth criticism, a discipline that studies myths (mythology contains them, like a pantheon its statues), is by nature interdisciplinary: it combines the contributions of literary theory, the history of literature, the fine arts and the new ways of dissemination in the age of communication. Likewise, it undertakes its object of study from its interrelation with other human and social sciences, in particular sociology, anthropology and economics. The need for an approach, for a methodology that allows us to understand the complexity of the myth and its manifestations in contemporary times, is justified.[46]
Because "myth" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted for "mythos" instead.[41] "Mythos" now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.[47] It is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft.
Mythopoeia (mytho- + -poeia, 'I make myth') was termed by J. R. R. Tolkien, amongst others, to refer to the "conscious generation" of mythology.[48][49] It was notoriously also suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.
The word "myth" comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος (mȳthos),[50] meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."[35][47]
In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία (mythología, 'story', 'lore', 'legends', or 'the telling of stories') combines the word mȳthos with the suffix -λογία (-logia, 'study') in order to mean 'romance, fiction, story-telling.'[51] Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind.
The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word "mythology" in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths,' 'the interpretation of fables,' or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate's Troy Book (c. 1425).[53][55][56]
From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, "mythology" meant a moral, fable, allegory or a parable, or collection of traditional stories,[53][58] understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world.[53]
Thus "mythology" entered the English language before "myth". Johnson's Dictionary, for example, has an entry for mythology, but not for myth.[61] Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos[63] (pl. mythoi) and Latinate mythus[65] (pl. mythi) both appeared in English before the first example of "myth" in 1830.[68]
Comparative mythology is a systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to the myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between separate mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common "protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture.[69]
A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior[70][71] and that myths may provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby coming closer to the divine.[5][71][72] 2ff7e9595c
Comments