Myth, Mystery and Mysticism

With the rise of rationalism in fifth century B.C. Greece, the traditional gods and their myths were subjected to a scrutiny without historical precedent. As regards mythology, at least three interpretations were put forward. First, that the myths were valueless and should be disregarded. Next, that a grain of truth informed them, but that it should be reserved for a chosen elect. In order to achieve this the myths were mystified, either translated into a doctrine originally foreign to their intent, or transposed into tales engineered to express this doctrine, quasi myths. Finally, many sought to transcend myth by liberating from it its rational truth value, variously seen as psychological, historical, or naturist. In its most radical form, mysticism, even these formulations were themselves transcended, for the mystic sought instead to merge into the divine source of myth. The most extreme confrontation between rationalism and traditional religion occurred in the clash with Dionysos, the sponsor of irrationalism in its most dramatic manifestations. The underlying purpose of his cult was the active experience and celebration of the energy of life itself. The majority of Dionysiac myths are myths of “resistance,” expressing the reluctance of the ego to abandon itself to its vital, unconscious wellsprings. In the Bacchae of Euripides this antagonism between reason and its source in the irrational is explored in depth. The mystification of the Dionysiac is to be tound in Orphism, a mystery cult arising in this period. In Orphism reason succeeds in subverting the irrational, retaining its forms and symbols externally but substituting beneath them not only a philosophic Weltanschauung, but indeed one that condemns vitalistic exhibitions in the most thorough going manner. The mysticizing of Dionysos—or at least his Indian twin, the Indian god of life, exuberance, and the dance, Shiva—is foreshadowed by the mythology of Shiva, in which acceptance rather than resistance forms the leitmotiv. These culminate in the Upanishads in which the myths and symbols of the traditional Shiva are abandoned in the effort to descend to their psychic source.

Aesthetics · Art · Cult · Epistemology · Irrational number · Irrationality · Literature · Mysticism · Mythology · Rationality · Theology · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices