Campbell Reading 3: The Mystery Number of the Goddess

Campbell in the Mystery Number of the Goddess presents the view that certain numbers provided metaphysical insight in many mythological systems.  Specifically, that the number 432 was seen as an important guide in understanding the order of the cosmos.   In the myths of the Goddess religions, the procession of the zodiac was seen as having a major cosmological importance and was believed to a length of 432,000 years.  This was a fairly accurate estimate and provided them with a workable astronomical and astrological formula and useful for determining a useful calendar.  Additionally they believed that this number was the number of heart beats occurring in 12 hours and also the root musical sound vibration of (middle A), the sound audible as the mid point of human hearing.  Thus the number 432 and its derivations became a key in explaining numerous other phenomena.

Campbell points to the work of Marija Gimbuttas who proposed that a Goddess culture flourished in the Middle East from 7000-3500 BC.  And that these cultures effectively used these symbols to guide their agricultural and husbandry based cultures.  Campbell further believed that these myths influenced the myths of the cultures in Sumerian, Mesopotamian and Greek and later in Hebrew and Christian writings.

In a further exploration of the ancient myth’s use of numbers, Campbell points out the use the use of each of the units of 432, that is, the individual numbers 2 – 3 – 4 and their corresponding geometrical representations such as the triangle.  And their relationship to the crescent moon and which, in turn, was represented as the horns of a bull were important keys for understanding monthly time frames and processes such as human pregnancy.  In addition, Campbell extends the discussion to include the use of 1 and 0 and their geometrical equivalent the dot.   2, 1 and 0, each of which have an inherent reference to duality.  Campbell points to 3 and the corresponding triangle as a representation for the fertile female and the dot as creation point.  He also pointed out that 3 is expressed in concepts such as the three graces, the kundalini and the Christian trinity.  Campbell also discusses the significance of the squares of numbers in myth, specifically 3 X 3 or 9.  He sites examples of its use in myths such as the Nine Muses, the planetary spheres and the nine chakras.

Campbell Reading 2: Renewal Myths and Rites of the Primitive Hunters and Planters

This Post is Incomplete. Post will be completed at a later time.

Campbell in Renewal Myths and Rites of the Primitive Hunters and Planters presents the world where the oldest recorded miths played a active role in the consciousness of early man  Campbell proposes that the paleolithic hunters in course of hunting had to confront the issue of killing.  In the expention of there own awareness of there morality they felt that the noble beasts they hunted shared the same cosmological reality.  Thus they perceived a order of being in which all interacted.  In these myths lessons of agreed interaction were passed on in the group.  Campbell uses the Ainu of Japan and a Blackfoot and Indonesian myths to illustrate.  Campbell proposes that elements of these myths are present in Catholic Rituals.

Campbell Reading 1: The Mythic Dimension – Mythology & History

Campbell proposed that in the comparative study of the world’s myths one could see reoccurring common themes. He felt that these themes pointed to a common search for to the same basic ineffable force that underlay’s all existence.  He felt these myths provided a culture not only with a spiritual vision but also with a sense of purpose and authority.  The result was functional group that had both social cohesion and inter-generational longevity.  He hoped that in cataloging the world’s myths we would gain an insight into that common search.

Campbell divided this study into four parts: The Psychology and Archaeology of Myth; Oriental Mythology; Occidental Mythology; and Poetic Mythology.  In his discussion of the Psychology and Archaeology of Myth, Campbell proposed that one should first examine our biological history for the hints to the mechanisms that might be influencing our consciousness in this search.  He felt that perhaps we possess natural physiological processes that have built up over the vast scope of our evolution that influences us in this search (the Freudian / Jungian unconscious and personas/archetypes)

Campbell then divides world mythology into Oriental and Occidental Mythology.  Observing a major difference in their primary orientations is the placement of man within or outside the physical cosmos.  With the oriental, according to Campbell, man is connected to nature and has a mystical relationship with God or the gods  He is part of nature – fulfilling his role in the cycles of the cosmos.  The occidental man sees a direct relationship with God.  Most often fulfilling a mission in life and is destine for a higher plane of existence (or if he is evil a lower).  The earth and nature are a temporary space he occupies.

Campbell’s fourth part was that he felt some people like poets were able to see through the artificial Occidental separation between man and nature.  Especially the Judeo/Christian/Muslim establishment which placed an arbitrary power seeking hierarchy between us and the ineffable.  Campbell gives examples of how various people and movements that were able to get back in touch with the transcendent and reclaim what he thought is the rightful heritage of man.

Any comments you have would be appreciated.

Discussion 1: Consciousness and Myth

The first evidence of the recognition of self is an image of a hand in an ancient cave.  Our ancient grandfather placed his hand on a rock, blew dust around it and viewed his mark, perhaps marveling at the permanence of his image and then reflecting on himself and his own self identity.  In the tens of thousands of years since, every human has been undoubtedly been both blessed and cursed with the ability to intellectually separate themselves from their surrounding.

It appears each of us is an “envelope of consciousness.”  An island of individuality.  We all seem to start here, at the ground zero of consciousness, asking the great existential questions – “what is this” – “who am I.”  Mankind as a whole has pondered these questions and, it appears, has explored every conceivable answer.  Only to find that we are indeed complicated beings. Freud and Jung theorized that each of “us” is a consciousness that floats on top of a supporting system of interconnected mental processes.  Some are directly available to our consciousness and some are buried in our unconscious.

A fundamental belief of Joseph Campbell’s was that all spirituality is a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. He believed this elemental force was ultimately “unknowable” because it existed before words and knowledge. Although this basic driving force could not be expressed in words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to the force through the use of metaphors-these metaphors being the various stories, deities, and objects of spirituality we see in the world.  Accordingly, Campbell believed the religions of the world to be the various, culturally influenced “masks” of the same fundamental, transcendental truths. Campbell was fascinated with what he viewed as basic, universal truths, expressed in different manifestations across different cultures.

Given the new information that science has given us, what is the relationship of consciousness and myth?  It appears consciousness has always used what we call myth as a mental construct for pursuing knowledge - both at the practical level and at the mystic level.  The envelope of conscious is seamless and self-referential and we know from the work of Freud and Jung that it has access to a legacy of unconscious information.  Jung called them archetypes.  The studies in neuroscience seen to validate these concepts.  Basically the hardware of the brain contains programs that are activated by “life.” This information provides templates for our conscious mind to work with and provides an evolutionary leg-up for us.  So in a very real way our ancestors have passed their wisdom to us.  Our consciousness appears to use this “mythical process” to link the information from our conscious and our unconscious into a coherent explanation for our reality.  Correct or not it allows us to function, providing us with a model of the world that explains us and our surroundings and provides ways for us to interact with it.

To many the new science robs us of the romance of mythical explanations but for others it gives myth a important role in the modern world.  A role founded in our biological roots but expressed in our choice of words, sounds and images.  And, in fact, an important tool in our search of knowledge of ourselves and the cosmos.  Myth has in truth become a legitimate part of the science of the mind.  Archetypes, perhaps, use the brain’s connections to link us with the roots of preverbal knowledge – concepts on which words are laid to explain their basic meaning.   These concepts do not negate the issues of spirituality but do open new questions on the possible interrelationships between mind and spirit.  Spirituality can be seen as the evolutionary direction of consciousness or it can be seen that the spiritual is using evolution as its platform for embedding the soul in the material body.  In either case the new science and myth start to aline.  Myth is not dead but very much alive in us.

Discussion issue: Joseph Campbell refers to concept of “Elemental Elements” or as he calls them “The Wisdom Body”.  These concepts are primarily religious/spiritual perspectives.   But these ideas also appear to relate Jung’s to psychological theories of the unconscious and archetypes which science now supports.  While both areas of thought have some compatibility there are also some disconnects. We are perhaps in the middle of the long debate of faith vs. intellectual inquiry but at a point were there are real answers and hopeful bridges between the two formally mutually exclusive points of view.

Any comments you have would be appreciated.

Overview: Consciousness – From the INSIDE Looking OUT

Consciousness is simply each of us looking out.  Each of us from birth is reaching out to understand how to “be.”

Each of us is in a truly unique position in this cosmos.  We are scattered in a variety of environments with different sensibilities and abilities but all sharing our basic “humanness.”  It appears as we acquire and process information we remember it.  Then as we take another step we use what we learn – and  in the constant improvement of our lot, we make breakthroughs, insights and understandings enough to make tools that make life easier.  We learn how to communicate with other beings and how to cooperate for mutual advantage.  And even to ponder ourselves and the cosmos that we inhabit.

But there is a problem…  We constantly encounter inconsistencies, ambiguities that test our assumptions.  Solutions we carefully worked out stop working and then sometimes work again.  Our environment vanishes and is replaced by another.  Others we communicate with and depend on apparently loose their reference to us are and we are no longer able to effectively cooperate with them.  And most surprising of all, some of us seem to reach an end of existence itself and vanish from our sight.

Interestingly, this pattern not only exists in the development of our own existence but also in the development our species as a whole.  And it even appears that the cosmos itself follows that principle.  At its most basic level it is unfolding in space and in time.  The cosmos happened and evolved.  Our species happened and evolved and we happened and evolved.  We see patterns, then relationships, then whole systems moving each in their own way – sometimes in unity, somethings in opposition…  Though we don’t usually at first see it, it is in fact verified by over and over again by our investigations.

This website is about exploring these happenings and the evolving that we are going to experience. The ways that things clump (elegantly referred to in science as systems formation and evolution) and the ways they interact (referred to as process functionality).  These systems include the way the physical universe organizes itself (natural systems) and the ways we visualize it (mental constructs) and lastly the way we remold the physical world and our inter-human relationships to comply with these constructs.  Of specific interest is our psychological and social evolution in all its complexity – our development of awareness, communication and interaction.  And the reality that despite our apparent aloneness that we are tied to a common human developmental past and a physical reality that is the platform for that very existence.  Also, that our mental and, perhaps, spiritual, abilities apparently allow us to totally go beyond these restraints to deep and profound insights.

Since we are working from the inside out – from our conscious core to our interacting with the cosmos -  we will start in the envelope of consciousness from which we view and interact with everything else.   We will especially concern ourselves with consciousness as a psychological process.  The works of Freud, Jung, Campbell, Erikson and others are a valuable aid in this as are the philosophers who provided us with the first recorded investigations and who continue to aid us with phonological and metaphysical tools.  Also to be included are the experimental and clinical finding of current psychology and the highly impactful theories of modern genetics and neuroscience.   Of course the real focus are our individual experiences of consciousness – the sparks of fire that combine into the blazing star that is human existance.

The following posts will present a topic which you are invited to comment on.  This will include material specific to Joseph Campbell’s theories on psychology and mythology.