Asheville Mhthology RoundTable 2/8/08
The Asheville Mythology RoundTable will be meeting next Friday (a week from today) from 7-9 PM (location TBA).
We'll be discussing chapters 4 & 5 of Karen Armstrong's Short History of Myth -- but you don't need to have read the book to join us. Here's a topic outline:
Chapter 4: The Early Civilizations
1. Armstrong writes of the constant fear that civilization would revert to barbarism (p.59). A theme coming forward is that myth is always a response to the fear/anxiety of “chanciness.”
• Paleolithic: fear of a bad hunt/no game
• Neolithic: fear of drought or famine
• Early Civ.: fear of the collapse of civilization
What myths, rituals & institutions do we have today to psychologically insulate us against “chanciness?”
2. A pantheon of gods rules the world like the governing oligarchy of the city-state. (p.65) Early Iron Age myths revolve around how (female/goddess-centered) Chaos is overthrown by (male) governing, legal, civilized Order. The Jungian Shadow vs. the Ego. The Rational Order is then balanced by a ritualized breakdown of order into chaos (Saturnalia) (p.70). Are Order & Chaos in balance in our society? How do we balance our collective Shadow & our collective Ego?
3. Armstrong argues that the fact that the creation story was told as part of sacred rituals proves that creation myths were not regarded as history but “therapy.” (p.70) When and why did creationist start taking their myths literally?
Chapter 5: The Axial Age
4. How and why has the hero quest has transformed over time?
• Paleolithic: the hero quest of the hunter, the shaman & the neophyte (p36)
• Neolithic: the heroin/goddess quest. (p.48)
• Early Civ.: the mortal human quest (usually against the gods) for posterity through the arts, conquest & civil/economic growth
• Axial Age: the quest becomes for a higher moral/spiritual/psychological state
5. In the Axial Age myths were given a more consciously psychological & ethical interpretation. Why? What accounts for this great transformation? (p.80-81)
6. How come when every other mythology of the Axial Age (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Greek Tragedy and Greek philosophy) moved towards a more psychological, metaphorical & poetic interpretation of myth, Hebrew monotheism went in the exact opposite direction - becoming aggressively literal?
We'll be discussing chapters 4 & 5 of Karen Armstrong's Short History of Myth -- but you don't need to have read the book to join us. Here's a topic outline:
Chapter 4: The Early Civilizations
1. Armstrong writes of the constant fear that civilization would revert to barbarism (p.59). A theme coming forward is that myth is always a response to the fear/anxiety of “chanciness.”
• Paleolithic: fear of a bad hunt/no game
• Neolithic: fear of drought or famine
• Early Civ.: fear of the collapse of civilization
What myths, rituals & institutions do we have today to psychologically insulate us against “chanciness?”
2. A pantheon of gods rules the world like the governing oligarchy of the city-state. (p.65) Early Iron Age myths revolve around how (female/goddess-centered) Chaos is overthrown by (male) governing, legal, civilized Order. The Jungian Shadow vs. the Ego. The Rational Order is then balanced by a ritualized breakdown of order into chaos (Saturnalia) (p.70). Are Order & Chaos in balance in our society? How do we balance our collective Shadow & our collective Ego?
3. Armstrong argues that the fact that the creation story was told as part of sacred rituals proves that creation myths were not regarded as history but “therapy.” (p.70) When and why did creationist start taking their myths literally?
Chapter 5: The Axial Age
4. How and why has the hero quest has transformed over time?
• Paleolithic: the hero quest of the hunter, the shaman & the neophyte (p36)
• Neolithic: the heroin/goddess quest. (p.48)
• Early Civ.: the mortal human quest (usually against the gods) for posterity through the arts, conquest & civil/economic growth
• Axial Age: the quest becomes for a higher moral/spiritual/psychological state
5. In the Axial Age myths were given a more consciously psychological & ethical interpretation. Why? What accounts for this great transformation? (p.80-81)
6. How come when every other mythology of the Axial Age (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Greek Tragedy and Greek philosophy) moved towards a more psychological, metaphorical & poetic interpretation of myth, Hebrew monotheism went in the exact opposite direction - becoming aggressively literal?