10/27 Notes

10/27/11

The Great Pan- He was a half goat half man.  Great Pan is dead, the myths are gone, and the gods have all turned into a row of statues.  But in mythology, when one system ends, another one begins.  ‘It always starts with a woman and a swan.  Bird meets the woman and impregnates her.  She gives birth to Helen: the start of the Trojan War and the whole mythological world.  But Yates is right; another bird will come along and impregnate another woman. 

·      Mary is visited by a divine being in the form of the bird.  The Immaculate Conception.  Every 2000 years a bird impregnates a woman, but the problem is, those 2000 years have gone by.

·      We have now entered the third phase.  William Butler Yeats: ‘The Second Coming’

·       THE SECOND COMING

·           Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

·           Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

·           The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What B+D were saying: It is not the thing that is sacred; it is sacred if you believe it is sacred.  The strength of belief creates the thing.   

Holy Stone! Do not think that the stone is holy in itself; it is holy because it has been thought to be holy.  To the initiated, these are holy things. 

The world is charged with the Grandeur of God.  Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Gave MSU our motto and sprung rhythm. 

Myers Briggs personality test: Thinking, Intuition, Sensing, and Feeling

            -This is all boring stuff

Carl Jung: He gave us the psychological term introvert and extrovert; a follower of Sigmund Froyd. He was interested in typologies of mythology and fantasy.  Psychology: happened to be centered on the person of Psyche.  Eros abducts her and he takes her to this wonderful palace.  (Beauty and the Beast).  Almost all fairytales are about preparing young women for marriage and the wedding night.  Eros kicks her out because she looked at him and Eros abandons her; she is also with child.  Aphrodite gives her all these impossible tasks and some little animals help her (Cinderella).  She is sent down to the underworld to get some Cosmetics from Persephone.  She is put under, Eros gives her a kiss, brings her back to life, marries her… SO, Psyche means SOAL.  The story of Psyche is the story of the soul.  In Greek, the image of the soul is that of a butterfly.  What Plato will call a light-winged, holy-thing.  Psychology is the study of the soul.  The great stories came out of dreams and fantasies.  Jung gave us the four functions of stories.  We need to change the functions back into the stories from whence they came.  The mythological system is a total system where stories do all the work that psychology does today.  The stories are: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.  And these can be divided into Introverts (S+T) and Extroverts (F+I). 

Stories of thinking process: ZEUS-he thinks it through. UP.

Stories of Sensation: Athena, daughter of Zeus.  Concerned with cities: Athens. She is connected with the whole birth of the city Athens, and it is a grotesque story.  Ejaculation, Semen, Generation of snake-child, and that is how Athens was created.  Connected with the jury system.  OUT.

Stories of Intuition: The secret that goes on between mother and the maiden.  The Great secret of the Eleusinian mysteries. 

Dionysus: The feeling function.  Surrounded by women, stands for everything that is most, liquid, here today and gone tomorrow, mysterious, here today and gone tomorrow, and unspeakable.  Get in touch with your deepest bodily needs.  The whole function of Dionysus is to get you to stop thinking.  Have a drink.  Participate in something that is not you. 

Dionysus is the god of ecstasy:  Means to be out of your body.  She is with the god, god-possessed and enthusiastic.  

Psyche

Here is a picture of the abduction of psyche

The Aztec Funerary Ritual

The Aztec's have a pretty cool fun-for-all:

This is the Aztec's ritual call the 'Straw Death':

A priest would stand before a dead body and pronounce certain words.  We are but a ray of light in this world.  We are not immortal and after we have lived our lives, we will be extended an invitation by the God and Goddess of Hell.  We are invited to the Domain of Darkness, because our absence is eternal.  There is no light or windows, as there was when we were alive.  And do not worry, everyone gets the invitation.   *Preist puts a few drops of water on the head of the body*  The water created from life will lubricate your journey.  *Priest lays some certain papers on the body*  The pages, like the book of the dead papers, will also help the journey.

The Journey:

1. Pass the two dashing mountains
2. Pass the road where the serpant awaits
3. Pass the lair of the Green Lizard (hopefully a dragon)
4. Cross 8 deserts
5. Cross 8 hills
6. Not quite sure what this means: "And behold with what thou canst traverse the place of the winds that drive with obsidian knives.''
7. Now the perils of the Underworld Wary were to be passed and the soul arrives before Mictlantecutli (God of Death).
8. 'whence after four years he should fare onward until, by the aid of his dog, sacrificed at his grave, he should pass over the Ninefold Stream, and thence, hound with master, enter into the eternal house of the dead, Chicomemictlan, the Ninth Hell.'

Although not related to most of the 'Straw Death' ritual, I thought of this when I was reading the last section.

I thought this ritual was very interesting.  The Aztec's seem to have a very detailed perception of the passage to the underworld.  Who knew that living in eternal absence would be such a long and detailed process?

---

10/25/11

Rituals: if you do something correctly, everything will be alright.   You need to do the thing exactly as prescribed.  If rituals are not done correctly, the order of the universe will be set off balance.  The world is filled with rituals and if they are not done correctly, things can be very bad.  The insistence on burying people correctly has been vital during human history.  Antigone.  She was Oedipus’ daughter. Antigone believes in the familial law: everyone, even if they are a traitor, deserves a proper burial.

Here is a picture of Antigone: 

Halloween: Halloween as a mythological event.

What we are not familiar with is where all of this came from.  Here is some background: Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)". The name of the festival historically kept by the Gaels and celts in the British Isles which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".

But Symbols and the artifacts change over time.  Over time Halloween went from a celebration of all souls to the rites of kenosis.  (emptying out; its a Greek word for emptying).  Emptying ourselves of all the things that could have been contagious and evil during the year.  Tote Tage or the day of the dead.  Means that none of the rules that applied to you during the year are not in effect for this day.  NYE-liberation from the rules.  

Nacirema: The original use of the term was in Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, which satirizes anthropological papers on "other" cultures, and the Northern American Culture. Horace Miner wrote the paper and originally published it in the June 1956 edition ofAmerican Anthropologist.

In the paper, Miner describes the Nacirema, a little-known tribe living in North America. The way in which he writes about the curious practices that this group performs distances readers from the fact that the North American group described actually corresponds to modern-day Americans of the mid-1950s. The article sometimes serves as a demonstration of a gestalt shift with relation to sociology.

Some of the popular aspects of Nacirema culture include: latipso ("Hospital" spelled backwards and the 'H' removed) Medicine men and women (doctors, psychiatrists, and pharmacists), a charm-box (medicine cabinet), the mouth-rite ritual (brushing teeth), and a cultural hero known as Notgnihsaw ("Washington" spelled backwards).

Though generally viewed to be on the west coast, there are several places given the name of Nacirema, including certain streets and very old neighborhoods on the east coast.

Growing Pains= Metamorphosis.  

Elusinian Mysteries" http://www.eleusinianmysteries.org/

10-20 Presentations

10/20/11

Smudging ceremony- Taking a bundle of herbs (probably marijuana) and burning them.  Cleansing the energy of the air with smoke.  Different herbs are used for different purposes. 

Blood initiation: Papua New Guinea.  3 step process: 1. Shove cane down your throat, and vomit in the river.  2.  Get sharpened reeds jammed into your nose.  Your tongue gets pricked with a tiny bow.  All of these steps are to rid you of your feminine qualities and influences.  To eliminate from them all their associations of their mother.  Becoming a man. 

The Eliade is filled with Shamanic rituals. 

Me and Sherwood gonna make it rain.

Manhood initiation that takes place in Brazil:  Bullet ants-feel like you got shot if you get bitten.  The ants are packed into a glove, boys put the gloves on, dance around for half an hour.  When they take them off, the results can be severe, but they are a man.  Possible side effects: Brain hemorrhaging. 

Election day, a bizarre ritual. 

Nacirema Tribe: Lauren says it is the word American spelled backwards. 

Human sacrifice to Mayan culture:  The blue man group comes and they chop out the heart of the blue man and roll him down the stairs, like a slinky.  They practice human sacrifice to keep in contacts with the god. 

Seppuku-Japanese Ritual Suicide.  Part of the Samurai Warrior Code.  It takes two to Tango and Seppuku.  Warrior writes a death poem, plunges sword into abdomen, right to left, then up and down.  Samurai companion then cuts off the head of the Seppuku-er. 

Jenny-Mary Month Of May

Corona: Coronis

Day of the Dead: Originally derived from the Aztecs.  In the month of August they celebrated.  Spaniards conquered them and they thought that this was sacrigiligious.  They moved the ceremony to October and only allowed it to last three days.  (Rosemary puts on mask)…

Frozen Dead Guy Day!

Jill Yoder- An Initiation Ritual:  Masons and Eastern stars.  Eastern star is a female version of the Masons.  Show up in a white dress to the temple and have interactions with five weird women.  Da, Ruth, Aster, Martha, and Electa.  Be obedient to men and to be devoted to God.

Another rain making ritual!

Parker: The Bridger Whale, a story of safe passage.  Don't look the wooden whale in the eye.  On your way out, it is customary to salute the whale on your way out.

Vegetarian Festival in Thailand:  No meat, alcohol, or fun.  They want to cleanse their bodies so that they can be closer to the gods.

Chinese New Year.  Celebrated in East and South East asia.  Ten days before chinese new year, everyone is supposed to clean their house to avoid evil spirit (I hope this isnt the only day they clean their house).  Dirt Devil?  

10/18/11 Class notes

Assignment: Make a blog entry on the subject of middles.  Put the story or ritual we have chosen for Thursday.  Research the subject of middles. 

Middles: most teachers deal with the moving of the gods from to the world of the heroes.  Mostly deals with the subject of battle: Achiles. 

Athena: jumped out of Zeus’ head.  Dionysus came from his thigh.  Athena mates with a mortal and she gives birth to Achiles. 

Wars happen to start over the trivial things (pig stuck in the fence).

Big problem in Greek mythology: how am I going to stop my children from overcoming me?  Arestes: How do we get rid of the cyclical violence?  (All the great stories are family stories ex: Hatfield-McCoy Feud).  Arestes comes home to kill his mother because of the family-murder cycle and he does not want to but he has to. 

·      If you killed your mother, you will be faced with the Erinyes: Chthonic (of or related to the underworld) deities of vengeance.  They were born from the drops of Uranus’ blood after Cronus castrated him.  Meanwhile, Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam.  The Erinyes are vile and disgusting women. 

Arrestees is plagued by Erinyes.  Etiology: the origin of the modern judicial system.  Arrestees was guilty of killing his mom, but Apollo said that it was not that serious of a crime.  Apollo agrued that the man is the important one because the men provide the seed.   Athena thought that this was relevant because she was a daddy’s girl. 

·      Daddy’s girl.  Archetype-the original pattern or model; a prototype. 

Arrestees was aquitted from the crime of matricide.  The western political system is rooted in patriarch. 

Ask your Senator.  Senator comes from the Latin word Senex: The wise old man or the impotent old man.   

           

Zeus: Zeus also had to overcome cyclical things.  Zeus and Athena do not like circles; they like linear things.  Zeus puts an end to the cyclical business.  He ate their mother.  He had an alliance with a woman named Metis: She was the spouse of Zeus and the mother of Athena.  Zeus ate the mother and ingested wisdom.  Used thoughtfulness and the power of the mind to put an end of the cyclicalism through the adjudication of the court of law. 

Zeus discovered the power of persuasion, wisdom, thought, and cunning; rather than power, like his father. 

Rituals: Things that are done and we do not know why we do them. 

James Joyce: Ulysses.  Ulysses is almost the opposite of Achilles.  Leopold Bloom is anything but Ulysses.  But it is like finding Oz in Bozeman.  Joyce was trying to find a hero for the modern world.  He took his model from Odysseus.  We are all heroes and everyday of our lives is a heroic venture.  Most of our lives are spent with remedial concerns.  Eternal return. 

This Eternal return can also be seen in the film Groundhog’s Day.

OCD: everything has to be done has to be a certain way. 

Eliada: Rituals. 

·      The Eleusinian Mysteries:  What is the real meaning or purpose for these things that we have been doing all our life? 

·      Temenos: a a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct.  This is where the ritual goes on. 

·      Of all the mysteries, these Eleusinian mysteries were held to be the greatest of mysteries.  Something was seen, something was said, and something was done.  What was seen was what made everything work. 

·      Outside of the Temenos, when the thing is said, seen, and done, it is life-transforming. 

Here is the myth that I chose to recite:

Mircea Eliade "From Primitives to Zen":

RAIN-MAKING

AUSTRALIA

---

It is universally believed by the tribes of the Karamundi nation, Of the Darling River, that rain can be brought down by the following ceremony. A vein in the arm of one of the men is opened and the blood allowed to drop into a piece of hollow bark until there is a little pool. Into this is put a quantity of gypsum, ground fine, and stirred until it has the consistency of a thick paste. A number of hairs are pulled out of the man's beard and mixed up with this paste, which is then placed between two pieces of bark and put under the surface of the water in some river or lagoon, and kept there by means of pointed stakes driven into the ground. When the mixture is all dissolved away, the blackfellows say that a great cloud will come, bringing rain. From the time that this ceremony takes place until the rain comes, the men are tabooed from their wives, or the charm will be spoiled, and the old men say that if this prohibition were properly respected, rain would come every time that it is done. In a time of drought, when rain is badly wanted, the whole tribe meets and performs this ceremony.

Study Time!

Not as nice as Andrews but in case you stumble on my sight here is what I took down from the review:

October 4^th Review Session.

Cortneybury.blogspot.com

Group number 2.3

1.     Know the following from the Elliada:  Hanieuweli and the creative murder

2.     Apolo

3.     The earth mother of all

4.     The Enuma Elish

5.     Heseods Theogony

Collaso :

Page 5: the basket

Page 15: Idiology (Why do Greek men have small butts)

Page 39: the subject matter of goats (the story of eurigory and her father and the story of grapes and what happens when you leave them alone to ferment.  It is the origin of tragedy and a better understanding of Dionysus). 

Page 81: another idology that answers the question of who has more fun making love, the man or the women.  Tiresias said the women and he was wrong, so he was blinded).

Page 94: Ate-know what it means “infatuation” Divine infatuation.

Page 383: The definition of myth.  The precedent behind every act.  Every step you take has been taken before you.  In human affairs, there is no such thing as originality.  Everything we do is an imitation of something that has already been done.  (Defenition of the phrase In Illo Tempre-which means in the beginning, in the dream time, once upon a time)

Page 52: Megans Blog.  Main theme is that we have been constantly declining from one age to the next.  The age of conviviality followed by the age of rape, and then we forget about the gods. 

Page 176:  Colasso telling us how it all came about.  Pelops.  Who was he?

Leda and the Swan-William Butler Yeats.  Zeus took the form of a swan and raped Leda.  If he had not done this, there would be no Trojan war. 

Jill:s Blog

Kinds of creation stories. 

Who was the mother of the muses? Mnemosyne

What was Percephone doing before she was abducted.

            She was picking the narcissus flowers.

The Cave: suggesting that we are all prisoners.

            This refers to what myth? Fable? Philosophical Allegory?  Plato was responsible for this theory. 

Who was always described as deceitful and beautiful, she was also thought to be a phantom? Helen.

What arrives unexpected and possesses? Dionysus.

What is the root mythological meaning of this word “enthusiasm.”  Entheos which means the god inside you.  God possessed. 

Who sais: One more time Athena, love me as much as you can.  Odeseus is pleading for his divine spirit one last time. 

What always follows abduction?  Metamorphosis. 

Homosexuality was the highest order of eroticism

Which body was born from Uranas dismembered body? Aphrodite

Who was the mother of the Minotaur? Pasiphae.

Sparagmos- means the tearing of the limbs.

Define Anamnesis?  You already know what you need to know.  Simply means recollection.  According to Plato we have already forgotten everything. 

What does the word apocalypse mean?  To lift the veil.

What is eschatology? Study of the end of the world. 

Zeus came in many forms:  he took the shape of a cloud, to seduce Europa he took the shape of a bull, to seduce leda he took the form of a swan, to seduce Danae he took the form of gold.  To seduce Semele he took the form of an Everyday mortal.

What did he show himself to semele, he showed himself as he truly is and she exploded.