Mythos and Logos

There is a story about a German explorer and naturalist named Alexander von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) and his investigation of the village of Atures. He was exploring through South America and found out about a tribe called the Atures who had been hunted to extinction by a people called the Caribs.

All that remained of these people were tombs in a mountain cave and a parrot that spoke forty words of their language. Humboldt is supposed to have wrote that:

It is to be supposed that the last family of Atures did not die out until a long time afterwards: since at Maypures - bizarrely - there still survives an old parrot that nobody, say the natives, can understand, because it speaks only the language of the Atures.

This is a potent image that raises a number of interesting and difficult questions. It can touch on a deeply emotional level, captured by Michelle Dockrey and Tony Fabris in their song Strange Messenger (full lyrics):

To those who study history, it seems a bitter curse
The loss of language terrible, the lost potential worse
Past and future stories multiplied a thousandfold,
Vanished out of history and never to be told

Were they beautiful and gentle? Would they call us friend or foe?
What wisdom did they live by? What secrets did they know?
It's a symphony reduced to what a single bird can sing
The forest lost their language, and they lost everything

So tell me, bold explorer, as you wandered through the leaves,
Did you ponder unknown losses that the very Cosmos grieves?
Was it halting? Was it flowing? Was it lilting and divine?
Was it fearless as your native tongue, mercurial as mine?
Would it pique a linguist's interest? Would it hold a poet's thrall?
Do the words of one strange messenger tell us anything at all?

There is haunting power here, and a very compelling story. It speaks to the very essence of humanity and conveys a thousand things with one image, that of a culture who was hunted to extinction and who's last remaining trace was found in forty words mimicked by a parrot.

The problem is that I can't actually confirm the veracity of the story of Humboldt's Parrot. Despite the citation, I've found some who say that--while the phonetic transcriptions of the language are there--that there is no mention of having found them out from a parrot. I can't even confirm this because I lack access to a good translated copy of his Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent and my German isn't nearly good enough to read the original. Even if I could overcome this, I have no way of knowing is Humboldt embellished that one point (though prevailing evidence would seem to indicate that he didn't do such in general, how can I be absolutely sure?)

Really though, it doesn't matter.

Sure, there are areas where it does matter, as does the authenticity of those forty words. There are entire domains for which the veracity of such things matters. But as a symbol and as a legend for discussion of endangered languages or the human condition, it holds its power regardless of the veracity of the claims.

This echoes of Worf's statement in the Deep Space Nine episode "Once More Into the Breach" (season 7, episode 7), talking to Bashir and O'Brien who were discussing whether the story of Davy Crockett's death at the Alamo is real. O'Brien argued that it is absolutely true, Bashir argues that it is implausible at the extreme. Worf tells them:

You are both wrong. The only real question is whether you believe in the legend of Davy Crockett or not. If you do, then there should be no doubt in your mind he died a hero's death. If you do not believe in the legend, then he was just a man and it does not matter how he died.

If you believe in the legend of Humboldt's Parrot--as a legend--then it is a powerful and captivating image of loss. If you don't, if that symbol holds no power for you, then it is just a story, and how Humboldt got his forty words is only important from a linguistics and historical research perspective. It then doesn't matter overly much if he got them from a parrot so long as they are accurate.

In truth, one could even argue that it isn't important even then. Forty words of a tongue that no longer exists, with no written text, and only questionable translations (and possibly transcribed through a parrot) is of questionable use as anything but a symbol.

Today many people want to dismiss old stories--and those who follow them--because some people are inclined to take them literally and believe in their literal interpretation. Both the people who take them literally and those who dismiss them out of hand make the same error: Confusing mythos and logos. They treat myths, which are about deeper truths (see my essay on Crude Superstition for further comments on this) as if they were facts, and treat facts as if they were interchangeable with myths. This insults both science and spirituality, as it holds neither of them to their proper function. To quote Plato's Republic, Book II:

Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths--telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in diverse forms'; but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.

In most situations, the literal truth is relevant in one context, and the mythological, spiritual, or poetic truth is relevant in another context. Both are useful, but to confuse them weakens them both. It dilutes scientific inquiry by giving it things to accept regardless of the evidence to the contrary, as we see with the Young Earth Creationists. It dilutes spiritual pursuit by trying to find an objective truth in a symbol that may take subtlety different meanings for different people, and may help different people in different ways, as we see with the evangelical atheists who insist on trying to talk about the impossibility of Virgin Births.

A danger among spirit workers is to take stories that have been crafted--possibly a thousand years ago--and treat them as having truly taken place. If we accept the gods and spirits as real (which many, myself included, do) then some of them may (or must) have, but how do we know which ones? Do we favor Saxo's interpretations or Snorri's? What if they are both wrong? What if it was a story made up by a god to convey a certain message, but the original message has been garbled?

In truth, the question I like to put forward is what do you gain from this legend. If what you gain is positive and leads toward spiritual growth and healing, if that legend has meaning for you, then you can believe that it is true without necessarily accepting that it is real. If it doesn't, but it does for other people, then so long as they aren't trying to present it as a verified fact that you should accept as well there is no sense in trying to take away that healing image from them based on your own conception of how it should be used.

Further Reading

• Strange Messenger: Behind the Music
  
• Crude Superstition
  
• Mythos and Logos: How to Regain the Love of Wisdom
  

The Role of Religion

One of the things that is frequently misunderstood in our society is the role of religion in people's lives. There are two opposite errors that people make:

We see in the modern atheist movement--typified by individuals such as Dawkins and Hitchens--a concept that religion basically amounts to superstition, who's role in people's lives is to substitute and fill in the individual's gaps in knowledge. They treat religion as a competitor to Science™.

We see in the modern fundamentalist movement--typified by entirely too many politicians--a theory that their religion is external. Something to be forced on others. It doesn't matter why their god believes that homosexuality was wrong, it is and therefore others should be strongly discouraged from practicing it.

In many of the important respects both of these get confused about what I believe the purpose of religion to be: religion is a tool by which we can gain fulfillment and happiness in our daily lives, it is a tool by which we can bring about health and happiness in others, and shows a grasp of theology reminiscent of "God wants a bigger goat!" They both treat religion as the crudest of superstitions: "If I do/don't do X, the gods will smite me!"

This may be true of some religions, but it is not true of my path, and I do not believe that it is the proper role for religion in our lives. Rather I believe that there are three pillars for the proper role of religion:

• Similar to Psychology: "To help us become rational, moral human beings." This forms the "mind."
  
• Similar to Action: To help us improve the world around us. To help others find their way, by ourselves becoming the change we would see in the world. This forms the "body."
  
• Similar to Philosophy: To help us understand ourselves, the mysteries of human existence, and our own inner realities. This forms of the "soul."
  

These three are not independent: they work together to help us realize Ourselves in service to the Gods. In serving myself I serve others, in serving others I serve the gods. In serving the gods I serve others, in serving others I serve myself. This is one of the fundamental concepts behind the Wounded Healer: Using one's own wounded nature to help others in our service.

In essence, religion is a way of helping us attain clarity of understanding and a better world, not merely as individuals, but as a people. It is not the only way, and we don't all have to be the same in order to realize it, but it is a powerful tool that helps some of us on the road.

Crude Superstition

Previously, when talking about associations I mentioned a quote by Dion Fortune, where she says that "It is this lack of training which makes popular occultism so very apt to degenerate into the crudest superstition." Unfortunately, for many modern Neopagans and Mesopagans, this seems to encompass their entire approach to spirituality.

Deities are treated as mere abstractions or bowdlerized and simplified to the point of meaninglessness even--or perhaps especially--by those who claim to follow that path.

Spirituality is far more than standing around in a circle and chanting bad poetry together. Spirituality is more than something you do on the weekends with a couple of friends, or on Sundays in a Church. It is more than trying to cast spells or dance to raise power.

Spirituality is, in essence, an attempt to touch Mystery. To get in touch with the Divine presence. The word "Spirituality" comes from the word "Spirit," which derives from the latin spiritus -- "breath, spirit" -- which came from the word spirare -- "to breathe." In the Torah/Pentateuch YHVH Elohim "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." (Genesis 2:7; see the parallel that, in the Northern Tradition, Odin gives man Önd, or "breath.")

So we see in spirituality--no matter what our culture--something vital, something that connects us with the very essence of being, the breath of life. It is something intrinsic to our being.

Similarly, theology--when properly done--is more than the literal interpretation of source texts, and more than the rote recital of pithy aphorisms without understanding or context. It is more than citing The Lore™ or any historical document and saying they believed it then, we should believe it now.

Theology is the philosophical side of what we do, it is the philosophical study of the nature of the Divine and of Religion. It comes from the Greek word theologos (one discoursing on the gods). It encompasses the discussion of ethics, the nature of the divine, and the nature of being.

Years ago I attended a seminar by some monks from the Society of St. John the Evangelist (wiki). In the course of this seminar, they asked us to consider "What is Baptism." One of the answers that we discussed is that "it is an attempt to connect with a Mystery." One of many in Christianity, actually, but one of the most significant sacraments. Like the symbolism of washing away impurities from one's hands before entering a Shinto shrine, the water symbolically washes away the individual's sin and welcomes them to the Church. It is a fundamental rite of initiation, whereby the individual leaves a Christian.

Yet many modern Neopagans and Mesopagans want their religion to be a weekend culture, not a spirituality. They want what spirituality they do find to be tame, predictable, or easily controlled with the right color of candle. They want their theology to be either as rigid and fundamentalist as protestantism, or so loose as to make statements like the Chaos Magician's "nothing is true, everything is permitted" almost look restrictive and resent any discussion of ethics or boundaries in a religious context...

Some resent authority and experience in any form, others will follow anyone who claims to be an authority, and we see an increase in people who believe the solution to all the world's problems comes from burning little slips of paper. To quote Zak Kramer in his essay on the Adolescence of the Pagan Community:

[T]he various Pagan communities are going through an ugly adolescence, and the decisions that current Pagans make about what our religion means to us, how it relates to the rest of the (non-Pagan) world, and how we transmit those convictions to neophytes will have a profound effect on Pagan religions in the future. I think it is a foregone conclusion that most won't survive in their present forms; the question is, what forms do we want them to take?

We see people declaring themselves to be a Goði or Gyðja, when as Svartesol puts it, they have not earned it. We see some Wiccan groups handing out 3^rd degree initiations to people after 6 months if they can pay enough, and others who believe a handful of online-only classes with no supplementary reading and multiple-choice tests are sufficient for an initiation. We see people treating everything under the sun as real, no matter how much foolishness is involved, or worse, as real but toothless (it isn't really a chitinous vampiric insect, it's a fairy that is just misunderstood!)

We see the gods become nothing more than a table of abstract associations and a means to an end that works strictly in our service.

At the core of many Pagan religions is a rich, deep theology and an amazingly potent spiritual system. In stories of gods, giants, and demons we see a ancient people's attempts at defining--as put by H. R. Ellis-Davidson--the mysteries of inner reality. In the story of Coyote stealing the Water Monster's children we see an amazing story on ethics, conservation, teamwork, and an explanation on why we must die.

In stories of turning to stone we get lessons about navigation and about not staying up too late.

In the story of Óðinn sacrificing his eye, we see a story of sacrifice, the importance of wisdom and knowledge, and the cost of magic. We get an idea of the character of the god, and we see in him someone who will pay almost any price--and suffer any trial--in exchange for knowledge.

In late-period pieces that put Þórr in a dress, we see the importance of swallowing one's pride and of using the mind to overcome hurdles, as opposed to merely using brute force.

This is the most superficial analysis of these stories--they are all much deeper in nature--and we see a rich, deep symbolic and poetic language being used to relay these allegories. We have a true and rich mythology, and yet many people treat those myths as nothing more than shallow reflections, making one of two opposite errors: Either treating them as literal, or treating them as purely figurative.

Either way is bad theology.

We should be questioning, examining, and reflecting on them and seeing how what they say applies--and doesn't apply--to a modern world. Whether the god Þórr ever actually got into a dress and some spirit worker is relaying the actual story from what they saw, or if it is relayed by a god at some later date, or if it was made up by humans for entertainment and teaching purposes is irrelevant. Our stories are filled with potential and reflections on human existence, and we should be willing to threat them as philosophy and understand them both in the context of our own experiences and the context of human existence.

We can discuss these things, and we are starting to do so (see the Further Reading section at the end for some examples), but the adolescence of the Pagan communities is far far from over.

To end with a quote from Zak Kramer:

Will Pagans continue to primarily focus on superstition, seeking to impose their wills on the universe for their own, often self-gratifying, ends? Or, will we seek to be part of, and act with, the unfolding, evolving Cosmos, which is the manifestion of the Divine? Do the Gods serve us, or do we serve the Gods?

Further Reading

• Voluspa: Seidhr as Wyrd Consciousness
  
• Sigdrifa's Prayer: an Exploration & Exegesis
  
• The Adolescence of the Pagan Community