The myth, Eliade, gives value and meaning to the world and life
Francesco Lamendola - 16/11/2010
Source: Arianna Editrice
Man can not live without myths, rather, can not live without a system
mythical thinking, which integrates in itself the whole
phenomenon of existence.
Because it is mythical universe of archaic cultures and those
traditional pre-modern world, however, there is an attitude
sufficiency and indifference to it, almost as if you were
child's expression of thought, justified
contended in a "primitive", but utterly incongruous in
rational society. This
crude scientistic prejudice means that the modern Western culture
hard to find the tools and operating
same conceptual categories capable of understanding the phenomenon of
from mythology, that is capturing the vital joints
with the spiritual horizon of the people who have worked to give
basis for their existence and to establish a relationship of
correspondence between themselves and the surrounding reality.
The myth is not only a tool to rationalize natural phenomena
ancestral fears and to reassure the man, as the Vulgate would
scientist, but something much more complex and
much higher: it is a window on the transcendent dimension
gaping immanent, sull'atemporale in time, in its
on the absolute.
Thanks to the myth, reality takes on a meaning and to the human
under the category of values, starting with its very existence
, connected to the past (ancestors) and future (descendants),
and all other living things, plants and animals, the sky, the
earth, the seasons, daily and at night, and pervaded by powerful currents
superhuman presence, now benign malignant hours, that man
same may, under certain conditions, understand, and sometimes
master.
If the animal falls under the arrow of the hunter, this is not exclusive to
on the ability of the latter, if the ear of corn
sprouts and matures, this is not the only effect
farmer. There is a covenant between man and the forces of nature
, signed by their ancestors and continually renewed by the
requirements totemic and shamanistic rites, through which the Earth offers
man what he needs, as long as it uses with
wisdom and moderation, provided that you acknowledge all that
debtor receives.
The myth is the structure of thought that gives an account of all of this and
thus offering the prospect of a man
meaning inherent in things, in all things, including his own
exist, in which sense, we can also say that the mythical thinking is a form
embryo of philosophical thought, or, rather, a form of
parallel to philosophical thought. In fact, the
mythology is not a philosophy girl, but a form of
thought that, like philosophy, seeks to explain the origin of things
and life, not limiting - however - the size of
logical thinking, nor a kind of knowledge is objective and external to things, but
descending, so to speak, in the things themselves, in order to reveal the hidden face
and deep meanings that speak to man
means of symbols.
This does not in any way mean that the myth is a form of knowledge
inferior to philosophy, so much
true that a philosopher of the stature of Plato has used the myth of their groped for
explore some of the deepest truths and difficult. (But on the whole
this, see also our previous article: "The thought mythical
is different, not less than scientific," especially dedicated to the discussion of epistemology
German Kurt Hübner,
appeared on the site in Arianna Editrice date 15/01/2008).
The great historian of religions Mircea Eliade
has devoted much of his studies and his own reflections
to illuminate the meaning of myth in the context of ancient cultures, with special emphasis on the
shamanism; and, on this topic,
has written some of the most significant that the entire
European culture has produced.
Observe, therefore, in Eliade, "Myth and Reality" (original title: "Myth and Reality
; transduction of Italian Giovanni Cantoni, Rome, Borla
Editore, 1974, pp. 144-46)
" In a world similar [to that of myth], the man does not feel
locked in his mode of existence, he is also "open"
communicates with the world, because it uses the same language: the symbol. If the world's
speaks through its stars, its plants and its
animals, its rivers and its mountains, its seasons and its nights,
the man responds with his dreams and his imaginative life, with
his ancestors, or with his "totem" - at a time nature, and humans
sovranatura - with its ability to die and rise again
ritually in its initiation ceremonies (neither more nor less
the moon and vegetation), with its power to embody a spirit
putting on a mask, etc.. If the world is transparent
for archaic man, this feeling "watched" and understood by
world. The game looks at him and understands him (often without capturing the animal
because he knows that man hungry), as well as rock, or
the tree, or river. Each has its own story to tell, a
advice from him.
While knowing how to be human and accepted as such, the man of archaic societies
also known to be something more. For example,
knows that his ancestor was an animal, or can die and come back to life
(initiation, shamanic trance), which can influence the
collected by its orgies (which can act with his wife as
heaven and earth, or who may be a part of the cutter and his wife
the groove). In the more complex cultures, the man knows
that his breath is wind, that his bones are like mountains,
a fire burning in his stomach, her navel
can become "the center of the world", etc..
must not imagine that this "openness" to the world is translated into a conception
bucolic existence myths of "primitive" rituals and
dependent not reveal ancient Arcadia.
As we have seen, the paleocoltivatori take responsibility to prosper
the plant world, have also accepted
torture victims the benefit of crops, sexual orgy, the
cannibalism, head-hunting.
This is a tragic conception of life,
result of religious exploitation of torture and violent death.
a myth as that of Hainuwele [passed in the Moluccas, in the easternmost part of today's
Indonesia], and the whole socio-religious
that it articulates and justifies
force man to accept his condition of being mortal and sexual,
kill and sentenced to work in order to feed. The world's plant and animal
"speaks" of his source, that is, ultimately, to
Hainuwele, the paleo farmer discovers
includes this language and meaning to everything around him and everything he does.
But this requires him to accept
cruelty and murder as part and parcel of its way of being. Certainly, cruelty, torture, killing
, specific behaviors are not exclusive of
"primitive." You encounter them throughout history, sometimes with a paroxysm
unknown in archaic societies.
The difference is mainly in the fact that, for the "primitive", this violent conduct
has a religious value and is modeled on models superhuman. This concept
lasted a long time in history. The mass extermination of a
Genghis Khan, for example, are still a religious justification
.
The myth is not, if itself, a guarantee of "goodness" and morality. The
Its function is to reveal patterns and thus provide a
meaning to the world and human al'esistenza. Even his role in
constitution of man is immense. By virtue of the myth, we said,
ideas of reality, value, transcendence, are slowly
to light. By virtue of the myth, the world is left to grasp the universe as
perfectly articulated, intelligible and meaningful.
telling how things were done, the myth reveals for whom and for what
were made and in what circumstances. All these "revelations" directly engage
man because they are a "sacred history
."
As you can see, the vision of Eliade is very far from any sweetened
in key roussoiana of archaic societies, no
myth of the noble savage, no "goodness" inherent in the mythical world: and ,
the rest, just a basic knowledge of history and ancient literature
for immediate account.
Is it not to perform a rite of nature and propitiatory atonement
Achilles kills the twelve Trojan youths on the pyre of Patroclus;
fine episode that even Virgil, a member of a culture
much more "modern" and resumed his "Aeneid "? Well, this is
an action that is meaningful in the light of belief in a link between
aldiqua el'Aldilà, originally
light and meaning to the myth: specifically, the belief that the blood of some
innocent victims to appease the Hands of a torn
prematurely deceased to life.
And are not filled with Etruscan tombs, starting with the famous
Tomb of François Vulci of such representations, even
impressive in his office of the tragic and bloody
realism, with the demon hell Charun (Charon latrines) from
'frightening aspect that accompanies the souls on their journey to the Kingdom of the
dead?
Eliade reminds us that the practice of human sacrifice is inextricably tied to the cultures of
paleocotivatori;
and archeology gives us confirmation, from one end of the world, from Europe to the Americas
: for example, with the ceremonies Maya
to avoid drought by sacrificing a virgin maiden
, which was plunged into a well, or that of Skidi
dedicated to the Pawnee Morning Star, in which, again
propitiate the magical forces of nature, they
killing a virgin, at dawn, pierce with small flaming arrows.
are wrong, then, both those who flaunt contempt
the mythical conception of the world, both those who idealize the
in a naively uncritical, projecting on it
their yearning for a perfect and unspoiled Eden that is born of frustration
to be members of an individualistic and materialistic society maddeningly
.
The function of myth was and is essentially
reveal the hidden dimension, original things, showing the close interconnection
that all joins and combining them also
man.
At the same time, the myth handed down the memory of a time when a happy
order reigned in the world and man himself enjoyed a privileged status
; both things that are lost due to a
disorder, a disturbance, a fall that cracked
the original layout, but note that the myth is able to recover, at least partially
, enabling human beings to reconnect to that
successful original condition.
In this sense, it is fair to say that myth seeks to reintegrate
man in his ontological fullness and that reintegration takes
forms and the prospect of an elevation, ie a
overcome its present condition, limited and precarious to develop and strengthen
him in the higher faculties, including that of
talk to property, plants, animals and, therefore, to have closer ties
magic that keep in balance the cosmic forces.
The myth is also linked from this side to shamanism and
man opens the possibility to enter no more helpless as a bystander or victim
resigned, but as a true protagonist in the game
of these cosmic forces, from which it can draw power It is possible that
in the ordinary state of existence, are unimaginable for him. Finally, the myth
outlines a sacral conception of reality, a
conception, namely, that, clothed in mystery and power
elements of the cosmos, there is the polar opposite of our secular culture and
its claim to understand everything, to explain everything, to measure and quantify everything
, in the light of the Logos instrumental and calculative.
The myth, in fact, is not simply knowledge of reality, but
revelation and, as such, requires a corpus of doctrines
esoteric that only the time and manner established
can be transmitted from generation to generation, he was of the human upper
; what is proper under the name of tradition. Recognizing a Tradition
superhuman, from which they derive much
the cosmic order, when the doctrines that allow initiation
man to see it, to respect and to stand in line with it, the myth
there is, indeed, as a form of approach to the real
radically different, and antagonist, compared to that which we moderns
we become so accustomed to consider the only true and
effective.
One thing is certain: until they drop from the pedestal of our
scientistic presumption, we can not understand anything about the myth and continue
or denigrate, or idealize,
never penetrate the inner essence.
that can not be captured in such schemes only logical and scientific
, such as those which we have lived four centuries of rationalism
materialistic and mechanistic, but that requires a leap, a discontinuity in our
attitude toward reality, which
involving not only the Logos, but all of our faculty, beginning
the internal senses and the potential slumbering soul.
0 comments:
Post a Comment