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A key moment on the History of Religion/Mythology occurs around 4000 BC when invasions from the North and South overwhelmed the agricultural river-valley goddess cultures, temporarily replacing the mother goddess with the father god of the hunter/killer invaders. Campbell claims that this:
“certainly has made a psychologica difference in the character of our culture. For example, the basic birth of Western Civilisation occurred in the great river-valleys—the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus and the Ganges. That was the world of the Goddess. The name of the river Ganges (Gangá) is the name of a goddess, for example. And then there came the invasions. Now these started seriously in the fourth millenium BC and became more and more devastating. They came in from the North and South and wiped out cities overnight. Just read the story in the book of Genesis of the part played by Jacob’s tribe in the fall of the city of Schechem. Overnight the city is wiped out by these herding people who have suddenly appeared. The Semite invaders were herders of goats and sheep, the Indo-Europeans of cattle. Both were formerly hunters and so the cultures are essentially animal oriented. When you have hunters you have killers because they are always in movement, nomadic, coming into conflict with other people and conquering the areas into which they move. And these warriors bring in warrior gods, thunderbolt hurlers like Zeus and Yahweh.” (Page 212)
It is the father who is now equated with death and protection, and the goddess is retired, becoming a grandmother goddess who is killed and dismembered (by Marduk, for example). By 1750 BC matriarchial societies disappeared. Yet, in Ancient Greece the Goddess remained a powerful figure and this was also the case in Christianity where the Virgin Mary is still widely worshipped as the mother of God:
“Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen”
Campbell notes in this context that all The French Cathedrals of the 12th and 13th centuries were called “Notre Dame” (Our Lady). This is a very different state of affairs to that which prevailed during the invasions in which women were prizes of war and raped:
“With the fall of a city, every woman in the city would be raped.” (Page 215)
Campbell regards the hunter mythologies as “sociological”, and he includes the Hebrews in this category:
“The Hebrews were absooutely ruthless with respect to their neighbours. But this passage (in Deutoronomy) is an extreme statement of something that is inherent in most sociologically oriented mythologies—that is to say, love and compassion are reserved for the in-group, and aggression and abuse are directed outward. Compassion is to be reserved for members of your own group. The out-group is to be treated in a way described there in Deutoronomy.”(Page 215)
One of the key words here is “projection” which, according to Freud, occurs in pathological forms of Aggression in those groups led by manipulative leaders. This is till occurring today in spite of the fact that, according to Campbell, there are no outsider groups left on the planet.
The first phase of a three phase process, then, is that of the Goddess who is replaced by the Father God in the second phase ,who is, in turn, replaced in accordance with the principle of the Golden Mean by a pantheon of gods and goddesses interacting with each other, for example, as occurred in both Ancient Greece and India. In the early books of the Old Testament it is the father-god that creates the world, but by the time we get to the book of Proverbs we are presented with a female goddess, Sophia, the Goddess of wisdom:
“who says, When he created the world, I was there, and I was his greatest joy” (Page 217)
There is however, no trace of the idea of Virgin birth in the Hebrew tradition. This comlex idea originated in Ancient Greece:
“When you read the four gospels for example, the only one in which the virgin birth appears is the Gospel according to Luke and Luke was Greek.” (Page 217)
Campbell then explores the Indian system of Psychology by mapping out the 7 psychologically significant zones of the body , located at different regions of the spine, accordng to the Indian system:
“The first is at the rectum, representing alimentation, the basic life-sustaining function. The serpent well represents this compulsion, as a kind of travelling esophagus, going along just eating, eating, eating. What you eat is always something that just a moment before was alive. This is the sacramental mystery of food and eating which doesn’t often come to our minds when we sit ourselves down to eat. If we say grace before meals we thank this figure out of the Bible for our food. But in earlier mythologies when people woud sit to eat they would thank the animal they were about to consume for having given of itself as a willing sacrifice.” (Pages 217-218)
The above reminds one of course of the Freudian oral stage of psycho-sexual development and we ought also to recall that Freud studied primitive cultures closely, especially in the later phase of his theorising. The second centre is that of the genitals connected to the act of reproduction or urge to procreate. The third centre, also located in the pelvic basin is a centre of aggression, the will to power. As we ascend the spine to the next centre at the heart this is a critical move because we shift from the region of purely animal instincts to that of compassion, the transformative passion connected to the suffering of others. Compassion is, of course the navigational star of Christianity, of Jesus, born of the Goddess Maria.
Campbell claims that the male warrior-god began to be joined by the Goddess around the 7th century BC, quoting a revelation from the Upanishads in which a woman appears and begins to instruct the gods about the source of their own Being. The father, Campbell argues, is the disciplinerian, concerned with social order and the tranformation of character, an important element in the forthcoming new planetary mythology because, it is argued, we need:
“a whole new way of experiencing society” (Page 228)
If it is true, as many Philosophers and Artists claim, that civilisation is currently in a state of decline in the West, then there would appear to be some urgency in the task of the creating this new mythology for our times, and for all seasons. Stanley Cavell has argued convincingly that an essential disturbing characteristic of our modern form of life is that there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the role of History in our creative lives and in our present experiences. If this position is correct then, this may be an argument for returning to the Ancient Greek concern with the virtues of Justice and Courage(as exemplified in the life of Socrates) for inspiration in the forming of this “new planetary mythology.” Indeed this would in turn entail that the species of man embrace the Ancient Greek framework of psuché, logos, arché epistemé, eros, thanatos, ananke and eudaimonia. The Enlightenment rational telos of a Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends would be the hoped for outcome of the transformative power of any “new planetary myth”.
Kant’s Philosophy is an elaboration upon many Ancient Greek themes and it also reflects the first truth of life for Buddhism, namely that life is “melancholically haphazard”, a description that harks back to the carefully considered maxims of Ancient Greek Oracles, namely:
“Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction.”
and
“Know Thyself”
The Kantian rationalist account of the human psuché is in fact a complex elaboration upon Aristotelian hylomorphism(cf. the Goddess creator of all forms), which looks more toward the telos of an actualisation or tranformation process than towards its origin(arché). Kant, as does Aritotle, looks to the various sciences and arts, and seeks to clarify their Metaphsyical dimensions(Metaphysics of Nature, Metaphysics of Man), but he also finds a place for rational religion during a period in which men were conceiving of freedom in a very different way to the way in which it was being conceived in Critical Philosophy. Many, during Enlightenment times, were trying to free themselves from tradition and duty and the rituals and institutions of a society in transition to the Modern Era. Kant’s account of Space and Time, the Categories of the understanding/judgement, and the Principles of Reason, remained essentially Aristotelian, but focussed specifically the role the human mind plays in the formation of its own cognitive/practical/aesthetic states and processes. The major distinction between the phenomena we experience ,and the thing itself which is veiled, is critical in order to understand the Kantian synthesis of the ideal nature of the principle (form, arché), and the real nature of that which the principle regulates. Newtons “Principles of Natural Philosophy” was the kind of natural science that interested him most, because of the way in which it integrated Mathematics into its theorising about space, time, and causation in relation to motion on the earth, and motion in the starry heavens above. Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals was of course revolutionary in its theorising about Freedom in its delineation of the responsibilities of governments to honour the Human Rights of their citizens. This, in turn, led to the preservation of such rights in the Kantian inspired institutions of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. We ought also to recall once again in the context of this discussion, that Kant found a role for religion in his Critical Philosophy that accords well with Campbell’s search for the transcendental dimensions of mythological thinking.
Many who have studied Newton became fixated with outer space and the cosmos, perhaps at the expense of the inner dimension of our experiences, dreaming of exploring the cosmos instead of the “Kingdom of God within” (Gnosticism). T S Eliot reminds us of the consequences of outer exploration:
“We shall not cease from Exploration, And at the end of all our exploring, Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time.” (Little Gidding, Four Quartets)
This quote perhaps explains the Eastern fixation upon the “inner search” for transcendence. If there is a message to be understood from the journey of Ariadnes thread from Ancient Greece through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and Enlightenment, it is that Being may be One, but it has many meaings, and understanding our beginnings in terms of the Kantian Totality of Conditions is vitally important for both the knowledge of ourselves, the knowledge of how our societies function, and the knowledge of our universe.
Campbell and Moyers both agree that journeying into outer space will not be transformative of our human form of Being-in-the-world, and perhaps all that is needed is to think about Space in the way in which Science does. That may, however, not be sufficient insofar as the inner reaches of outer space are concerned. We May, that is, need a transcendental account of the Kantian intuitions of space and time, if we are to understand this latter aspect. Campbell does not follow this line of thinking but rather draws our attention to a World Atlas showing:
“our galaxy within many galaxies, and within our galaxy, the solar system. And here you get a sense of the magnitude of this space that we’re now finding out about. What these pages opened to me was the vision of a universe of unimaginable magnitude and inconceivable violence. Billions upon billions of roaring thermonuclear furnaces scattering from each other…. Many of them actually blowing themselves ro pieces, littering the outermost reaches of space with dust and gas out of which new stars with circling planets are being born right now.” (Page 229)
It is difficult to know exactly how Newton and Kant conceived of stars, but it would be a safe guess to suggest it was not quite in the above terms of roaring thermonuclear furnaces. Newton’s concerns for example, seemed to focus upon gravitation, light, motion and speed. Kant, too, focused upon these phenomena but we also know he experienced awe and wonder when gazing at the starry heavens above, suggesting that the unimaginable magnitude of the universe strained our powers of imagnation and understanding, to such an extent that we experienced a feeling of the sublime. For Campbell, it appears as if both the magnitude of the universe and the power of its suns filled him with awe and wonder.
Chapter VII is entitled “Tales of Love and Marriage”, and it begins with an investigation of the concept of love which Campbell claims was transformed by the troubedours of the 12th and 13th centuries into a romanticised person-to-person intimate encounter. Campbell contrasts this with the more biological impersonal forms of Eros and Agape. The latter form of compassion being more akin to that love which Jesus proclaimed was necessary in both my relation to my neighbour and my enemies. Freud, we know, was highly sceptical of these Christian maxims, on the grounds that men were not gentle creatures but were capable of considerable accounts of aggression and cruelty. Men coud be, as Aristotle put it, the worst of the animals, with no thought of anyone else’s well-being other than their own.
Agape for Campbell, surpases the individual-based amor, because the latter is passionate, whilst the former is connected more to a principle- based compassion. Amor, Campbell argues, is aroused by the eyes which in turn quickens the activity of the heart. The Church, therefore, does not understand this very Western passionate phenomeon, and perhaps sees in this form of individualism, potential rebellion against all that is traditional and holy.
The Freudian libido is obviously related more to Amor and Eros than to Agape, which he would have characterised as a vicissitude of Eros. For Freud, one of the foundation stones for cvilisation, is Aristotelian, namely the Family. For Freud, family love resists transportation to the wider circles of society, yet to love and to work are both tasks the ego has to take responsibility for. Work relates both to the well-being of my family and the well-being of society, so perhaps there is not any problem in ths case with reconciling these two aspects. This, it has been pointed out, is how I can “love” my neighbour, by being useful to the society through my work. Work, in this sense, is truly reciprocal, because I can reasonably expect him too to be working for the benefit of society. Freud, however, points out that society, in turn, is not satisfied with just my work: it also expects other things of me, for, example, obedience to the laws and prohibitions of the social order which are not always rational. This is the reason, Freud argues, for mans discontentment with his civilisation, which, in turn, may lead to questioning the value of the entire project. The Church, of course does not care about Society. Its message that all men are brothers is, of course, a Cosmopolitan message that Kant has referred to in his Philosophcal reference to “The Promised Land”, namely the Kingdom of Ends.
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