Myth & Understanding

Are you asying make-believe to the extent of fooling the emotions? I think there's a psychological diagnosis for that.

But that doesn't mean you're not right. The power of myths is the power of the psyche.

In the process of trying to understand I create a model and then somewhere in this process of creating and modifying my model I pass to the point of believing the truth of my model thus the feeling of ecstasy.

coberst wrote:

In the process of trying to understand I create a model and then somewhere in this process of creating and modifying my model I pass to the point of believing the truth of my model thus the feeling of ecstasy.

Yes, this strikes me as a very accurate description of your methodology. It's one you've alluded to before; I believe there was a post some time ago in which you used the metaphor of paper mache, and about how you "sculpted" what you thought the answer to a question might be, and used that as the pre-determined basis of your thought processes.

Yes, this strikes me as a very accurate description of your methodology.

Quote:

Yes, this strikes me as a very accurate description of your methodology.

The ecstacy of revelation, as coberst puts it, is a treasured experience. It comes as a result of a thought or an idea that bears the sense of implications beyond those we can immediately comprehend.
For myself I experience it most often in relation to music. Whenever I write a piece of music, create a riff or a song that I am particularly happy with, the feeling of intense inspiration washes through me like a reward for many hours of work.
I think it is the same feeling that is described as the ecstacy of revelation. But it is fuel for the motivation, this feeling. It is not justification of the idea at hand, and it is not directly related to the idea. It is more a matter of the pride of the individual who has thought of it. Pride of accomplishment.

It is not justification of the idea at hand, and it is not directly related to the idea. It is more a matter of the pride of the individual who has thought of it. Pride of accomplishment.

I like to say to young people that they find something that really interests them and then drive through that matter with great gusto in the hope that they may experience that ecastasy.

Myth & Understanding

I have been reading about mythology written by Joseph Campbell. In his attempt to make it possibly for the reader to comprehend how myth works he speaks about the human ability to ?'make-believe'.

He speaks of the universality of childhood make-believe and of how this same characteristic is exhibited in human rituals. For example he uses the Catholic Church practice of mass when the priest changes the wine and bread into the body and blood of Christ. In other words it seems to be inherent in humans to make-believe and in the process to truly believe and in truly believing experiences a form of ecstasy.

Such is probably our experience of understanding. In the process of trying to understand I create a model and then somewhere in this process of creating and modifying my model I pass to the point of believing the truth of my model thus the feeling of ecstasy.

In an attempt to explain to the novice the meaning of myth Campbell says that the "grave and constant" in human suffering may, and sometimes does, lead to an experience that is the apogee of our life. This apogee experience is ineffable (not capable of expression). Campbell considers this to be true because it is verified by individuals who have had such an experience.

"And this experience, or at least an approach to it, is the ultimate aim of religion, the ultimate reference of all myth and rite."

"The paramount theme of mythology is not the agony of quest but the rapture of a revelation."

"the first function of a mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is: the second being to render an interpretive total image of the same, as known to contemporary consciousness. Shakespeare's definition of the function of his art, " to hold, as ?'twere, the mirror up to nature," is thus equally a definition of mythology. It is the revelation to waking consciousness of the powers of its own sustaining source. A third function is the enforcement of a moral order: the shaping of the individual to the requirements of his/her geographically and historically conditioned social group. The fourth, and most vital function is to foster the centering and unfolding of the individual in integrity, in accord with d) him/herself (the microcosm), c) his/her culture (the mesocosm), b) the universe (the macrocosm), and a) that awesome ultimate mystery which is both beyond and within ourselves and all things"

The problem, or distance between the Christian churches and the words of Jesus are the difference between the connotations, the spirit of the words and the denotations, meaning they are hard facts. This is the basis of western religions, and in Christianity of the historical Jesus. But his words, as well as those of Mohammed, the Buddha, and others, have to be seen for their connotation, the spirit of the meaning and the pointing of a way to lead a full life and a way to seek the transcendent. This is the spiritual part of the message which religion houses in its structure, a way to a truly transcendental/spiritual experience

Religion is meant as a constellation of metaphors, ones pointing to the spirit, not the history books. When the latter happens, dogma arises and kills the spiritual message contained at the core of the religion..

"I had my first rock and roll experience at a performance of The Grateful Dead in Oakland (in 1986, he was 82 years old)…. Rock music had always seemed a bore to me, but I can tell you, at that concert, I found eight thousand people standing in mild rapture for five hours while these boys let loose everything on the stage. The place was just a mansion of dance. And I thought, "Holy God! Everyone has just lost themselves in everybody else here!" The principal theme of my talk was the wonderful innocence and the marvel of life when it recognizes itself in harmony with all the others. Everyone is somehow or other at one with everybody else. And my final theme was that this is the world's only of answer to the atom bomb. The atom bomb is based on differentiation: I-and-not-that-guy-over-there. Divisiveness is socially based. It has nothing to do with nature at all. It is a contrivance and here, suddenly, it fell apart."

"I was carried away in rapture. And so I am a Deadhead now."

I think so.

The rapture of a realization can often convince the thinker of it's inherent absolute truth, even though there may be none. From there it may be a simple desire to tell people the truth, fueled with the conviction that his way is the right way. His mind is closed to arguments that go against his idea.