mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================
Maverick Science 
The Saturn Theory 
Venus 
Mars 
Myth 
Archaeoastronomy 
Evolution 
History 
BuiltByNOF 
Myth

Why should anyone care about ancient myth?  The answer, quite simply,
is that for untold centuries myth served as the primary means of
recording and communicating man's fundamental ideas regarding the
nature of the cosmos and the sacred.  In this sense, ancient myth
represents an intellectual heirloom encapsulating the history of our
species and is thus a ripe field of study for all students of
evolutionary psychology.  If, as appears to be the case, myth also
preserves important clues for reconstructing the recent history of our
solar system its study becomes all the more essential.

Modern scholars have defined myth as a sacred history purporting to
describe the origin of the world and mankind's various cultural
institutions.  Mircea Eliade would emphasize myth's central function
in ancient (and so-called primitive) cultures:

"One fact strikes us immediately: in such societies the myth is
thought to express the absolute truth, because it narrates a sacred
history; that is, a transhuman experience revelation which took place
at the dawn of the Great Time, in the holy time of the beginnings (in
illo tempore).  Being real and sacred, the myth becomes exemplary, and
consequently repeatable, for it serves as a model, and by the same
token as a justification, for all human actions.  In other words, a
myth is a true history of what came to pass at the beginning of Time,
and one which provides the pattern for human behaviourClearly, what we
are dealing with here is a complete reversal of values; whilst current
language confuses the myth with 'fables', a man of the traditional
societies sees it as the only valid revelation of reality."

Countless myths, according to Eliade, commemorate the Creation, the
latter regarded by ancient man as something that "really happened, as
an event that took place, in the plain sense of the term."  Intimately
related to this widespread idea that Creation was something actually
experienced and witnessed is a corollary beliefthat a great
catastrophe brought down the curtain on the paradisiacal conditions
which formerly prevailed during a remembered Golden Age.

Yet as insightful and compelling as Eliade's analysis of myth proves
to be, there is one gaping hole in the argument: No explanation is
offered for the origin of the specific mythical themes uncoverede.g.,
Creation, the Golden Age, epoch-ending catastrophe, the primeval
hieros gamos, etc.  This question is directly related to another major
flaw plaguing most modern theories of ancient myth; namely, their
general inability to explain the recurrence of mythical themes around
the globe.  Levi-Strauss emphasized this problem in an essay on myth
many years ago: "How are we going to explain the fact that myths
throughout the world are so similar?"

Particularly troubling are those bizarre details of ancient myth that
don't make sense in the real worldflying, fire-breathing dragons, for
example; the dwarf-like hero who suddenly assumes a gigantic form; the
birth of the warrior-hero from the "heart" of the mother goddess; and
countless others.  One is naturally inclined to attribute such motifs
to creative imagination and fictional storytelling, but this
"explanation" runs up against an insuperable difficulty: These
seemingly meaningless and impossible motifs are likewise to be found
around the globe.  As Levi-Strauss emphasized, it is very difficult to
understand how creative imagination could explain such recurring
motifs:

"Mythic stories are, or seem, arbitrary, meaningless, absurd, yet
nevertheless they seem to reappear all over the world.  A 'fanciful'
creation of the mind in one place would be uniqueyou would not find
the same creation in a completely different place."

There would appear to be but three possible explanations for the
presence of such recurring motifs:
(1)They originated in creative imagination and subsequently became
diffused around the globe;
(2)They are natural products of the human mind;
(3)They have some reference to celestial phenomena, observed and
commemorated in mythical language by ancient man the world over.

For reasons which will become clear, the third explanation is the only
one which is compatible with the evidence and, indeed, it forms the
cornerstone of the Saturn theory.  With this brief introduction before
us, we refer the reader to the following articles.

The Stairway to Heaven

Samson Revealed

On Thundergods and Thunderbolts
[Maverick Science] [The Saturn Theory] [Venus] [Mars] [Myth]
[Archaeoastronomy] [Evolution] [History]