Beginning with some of the classical
philosophers, scholars have pondered the nature and
origin of myth for centuries. Yet while respectable
disciplines such as astronomy, physics, geology, biology,
archaeology and linguistics gradually matured, the field
of mythology continued to lack a consensus core of method
and direction. Employing structural historical and comparative
methods akin to those applied in linguistics and evolutionary
biology, it is possible to establish a solid theoretical
foundation for this discipline. In this, transient
natural events are recognised as the source of inspiration
for many of the most salient themes. Rare and awe-inspiring
events in nature experienced with the senses emerge
as a potent class of 'mythogenetic' experiences.
The most challenging types of historical
information concerning the cosmos were traditionally
invested with sentiments of verity, sanctity or awe, the principal ingredients of religion.
Cosmological traditions - especially myths, rituals
and icons - that were treated as 'holy' and truthful
often concerned allegedly natural phenomena that are
not or rarely seen today, such as the events of the
'creation' of the world, the manifestation of deities
or other encounters with the numinous. Generally, what
is unknown and not understood tends to be feared, tabooed
and explained by deification, a process known as deux
ex machina.
a listing of transient natural events
The following is a catalogue of remarkable
and often short-lived natural events that may have left
traces in myths and other cosmological traditions:
geological: |
triboelectric,
pyroelectric and piezoelectric discharges |
tsunamis,
meltwater floods and other types of inundation |
methane
burps |
earthquakes |
volcanic
eruptions (magma and lava flows) |
wildfires |
fire
whirls |
dust
devils |
tornadoes,
hurricanes, waterspouts |
falls
and finds of 'thunderstones' (meteorites, tektites,
fulgurites, some fossils and prehistoric implements) |
large impact events
(asteroids, comets) |
blowhole
activity |
landslides |
rapid
formation of islands (atolls), mountains,
rivers or lakes |
instant
fossilisation |
|
orbital-dynamical: |
rapid geographical
pole shift (wobble and nutation) |
rapid
astronomical pole shift (precession) |
rapid changes in
the earth's volume |
rapid changes in
the earth's orbit around the sun |
rapid changes
in the earth's axial rotation |
|
atmospheric
(tropospheric, stratospheric, mesospheric, ionospheric,
exospheric): |
ordinary
lightning |
upper-atmospheric
lightning (megalightning), including 'sprites' and
'elves' |
St.
Elmo's fire and other corona discharges |
ball
lightning, plasmoids |
'Gorgons'
(volcanic fireballs) |
volcanic lightning |
earthquake
lights |
earthlights |
bolides
(fireballs), meteors and meteor showers |
aurorae,
including intense
'aurorae' |
ion
plumes |
dusting (volcanic or cometary) |
many
unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified
atmospheric phenomena (UAPs) |
changes
in the earth's albedo or atmospheric opacity |
high-energy-density
atmospheric z-pinch discharges (Peratt Columns) |
|
atmospheric-optical
(involving diffraction, reflection and refraction
of light): |
zodiacal
light and Gegenschein |
crepuscular
rays |
parhelia
and paraselenae |
solar and lunar haloes |
sun
pillars and crosses |
green
sun, blue sun |
green
flash and ray on sun or Venus |
lunar
zodiacal light |
rainbows |
fog
bows |
mirages
(inferior, superior, and Fata Morgana) |
anthelia |
shifts
in colour and brightness of stars and planets (may
also be celestial) |
|
celestial: |
transient lunar phenomena |
impact events on
the moon and on planets |
planetary
conjunctions, transits and occultations |
cometary
passages, splits and other events |
sunspots |
novae and supernovae |
rapid
fluctuations in the zodiacal light |
visibility
of solar corona |
visibility
of planetary magnetospheres |
|
*
Phenomena coloured grey are contentious: whereas anecdotal or traditional
evidence for them exists, scientific proof and understanding
of them are either unavailable or insufficient to
convince a majority. |
ephnidionto- or 'catastrophist' mythology
It is hard to come up with an effective
short-hand term to describe the theory that myths
arise in response to rare and exciting events
in nature. A neologism such as ephnidiontomythology,
derived from Greek aiphnídia ónta ('sudden
things'), would be accurate but cumbersome. The
old notion of catastrophism adequately
covers truly catastrophic events, such as tsunamis
or cosmic impacts, but hardly seems applicable
to non-destructive but still conspicuous transient
events such as eclipses or aurorae - unless the
Greek word katastrophe is understood in
its original, literal sense as an 'overturning'
of any kind.
The dialectic between catastrophism and uniformitarianism
involved the sciences as a whole and dominated the past
three centuries. The prevailing view today, with which
humanities scholars still need to catch up, is that
the history of the earth, life and the cosmic environment
can be modelled as a punctuated equilibrium with
prolonged periods of stability and ephemeral episodes
of upheaval and accelerated change. The mythological
application of this understanding requires that myths
primarily related to events at the catastrophist end
of the spectrum as well as arresting but harmless events
transpiring during stable episodes.
'catastrophist' mythology as a comprehensive
theory of myth
Within the history of ideas, 'catastrophist
mythology' can be seen as a successor to
the 'introspective' and structuralist psychosociological
models preferred during most of the 20th
century, that were championed by thinkers such
as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Joseph
Campbell, Émile Durkheim, Georges
Dumézil, and Claude Lévi-Strauss.
The exploitation of scientific knowledge of geological,
atmospheric and astronomical events as potentially
the ultimate inspiration for numerous mythical
themes can be regarded as a revival of the old
'nature school' of mythology, which
beginning in the late 19th century
and eventually supplanted by the 'psychosociological'
theories sought to invoke the mundane properties
of the sun, the moon, vegetal life and so forth
as the inspirational source of prominent mythical
themes. Yet unlike this old school, catastrophist
mythology
|
avoids invoking elaborate
abstract metaphors; |
|
places far
less emphasis on the etymologies of the names of
mythical characters; |
|
concentrates
on short-lived, dramatic events instead of more
trivial spectacles such as the sunrise and the lunar
cycle; |
|
and benefits from the
immensely improved state of geophysics, solar-terrestrial
physics, plasma physics, climatology, and other
scientific disciplines. |
Yet this positive approach to historical information
about the world, including the baffling themes of creation
mythology, does not simply deny or ignore older mythological
theories. Instead, while acknowledging their value,
it places them in a different perspective, incorporating
them into a comprehensive overarching framework:
|
The contention
of the old naturalists that many mythical and other
traditions describe familiar natural phenomena (symbolic from a modern point of view, often meant
literally in traditional societies) is often correct,
insofar as the comparison of gods and ancestors
to the sun, the moon, the rainbow, a certain plant
or animal and so on can be seen as an adaptation
of earlier narrative material to the present, 'tranquil'
condition of the natural world. For example, some
myths about an oddly behaving sun could have been
based on past observations of some other sun-like object in the sky that was subsequently associated
with the sun. |
|
Durkheim's and Dumézil's
assertion that many myths symbolise aspects of human
society are on target, although they were not
inspired by those aspects, but rather acted as models
for them. |
|
Jung's archetypes
and Lévi-Strauss' binary structure of thought
may exist and operate in the mind as suggested,
but illuminate only the psychological, interpretive
dimension of myths, not their naturalistic contents.
Some of these mental substructures may again have
directly resulted from the myths, while others may
have pre-existed and assisted in the process of
rendering the natural events experienced with the
senses into the metaphorical narratives we have. |
As a broad synthesis, it could be said that mythology
is typically based on experiential or observational
evidence of two kinds: sensory experiences concern
the external or natural world around us and can
be communal, while spiritual experiences spring
from the internal world of the mind only, notably
as altered states of consciousness (ASCs) entered into
by individuals before being orally shared with the community.
The raw content of both types stands in a reciprocal
relationship to prevailing psychological, sociological
and artistic conditions, with their respective ethical
and aesthetic values, as it is coloured by them on one
hand, but shapes them on the other, not least in the
domain of religion.
In an ongoing project, I develop a methodology to distinguish
between traditions based on external, physical phenomena
and ones based on internal, psychological phenomena.
Global motifs embedded in the cycle of creation myths
and traditional cosmologies generally that are incompatible
with the current state of the environment tend to originate
in unusual collective experiences of the physical world.
More isolated motifs, motifs concerning human souls
and ancestors instead of deities, and motifs that continue
to be experienced by visionary individuals today likely
betray a spiritual source. The remarkable uniformity
of many human traditions owes its origin both to common
celestial or geological causes, such as global aurorae
or elevations of eustatic sea level, and recurrent patterns
in spiritual experiences, such as visions obtained by
holy people or during near-death experiences (NDEs).
geomythology and 'cosmomythology'
In recent decades, the potential of transient natural
events as a crucial key towards understanding traditionally
held cosmological ideas was recognised by a group of
scholars representing the nascent subdiscipline of geomythology.
This field studies geologically relevant information
in mythological sources, with a stronger emphasis on
transient events than on regular ones. Geomythologists
concentrate on possible mythologised reports of historical
tsunamis, volcanic eruptions or meteorite falls and
the idea that ancient discoveries of fossils, such as
those of dinosaurs or Pleistocenic megafauna, contributed
to the belief in fabulous creatures such as dragons.
Important names in this budding area include Dorothy
Vitaliano, Adrienne Mayor and the pairs of Elizabeth & Paul Barber, Amos Nur & Dawn Burgess, and Luigi Piccardi & Bruce Masse.
From the earth-based perspective, the natural world
can conveniently be divided into a geological and a
celestial half, the first of which is concerned with
the lower regions of the earth and the oceans, the latter
with the upper zones occupied by the atmosphere and
the realm of stars and planets. I have proposed the
neologism cosmomythology to accommodate a study
of historical materials pertaining to the celestial
half of the visible cosmos, complementary to geomythology.
A large number of respectable mythologists, including Robert Stephen Briffault, Mircea Eliade, Giorgio
de Santillana & Hertha von Dechend, Edwin
Krupp, Anthony Aveni and David Kelley
& Eugene Milone, have explored mythical reflexes
of regular and ordinary proceedings in the sky, such
as the lunar cycle, the precession of the equinoxes
and the planetary cycles. Other specialists in the humanities
drew attention to the significance of more striking
short-lived celestial events, some more hypothetical
than others, such as the passage and possible impacts
of comets, meteor showers, fluctuations in the zodiacal
light, eclipses, supernovae and auroral displays. Recent
contributors to this more catastrophist line of investigation
include Bruce Masse, Derek Allen & Bernard Delair, Richard Firestone & Allen West, Victor Clube, William Napier & Mark Bailey, Duncan Steel and Peter
Bobrowsky & Hans Rickman. All of these
scholars can conveniently be referred to as 'cosmomythologists'.
from ordinary to extreme
Another dichotomy that can be applied to mythical traditions
recognises two categories for which I propose the following
terms:
Parontomythology is the mythology concerning contemporary and relatively common phenomena in the natural world, typically given in the form of
'protoscientific' explanations. Examples of parontomyths are the widespread belief that lightning is produced
by a so-called 'thunderbird' or 'lightning bird', or
the common interpretation of the rainbow or the Milky
Way as a snake or dragon.
Etiomythology is the mythology concerning the origin or history of the present world, including
episodes of creation and destruction. Examples of etiomyths are the Greek story of the succession of divine kingship
from Ouranos to Kronos and from Kronos to Zeus or the
Aztec tradition of four past eras or 'suns'. The term
incorporates the familiar notion of 'etiological myths',
which are traditions accounting for specific aspects
of the present world, such as the existence of a lake
or the colour of a bird.
In many cases, parontomyths can be shown to trace to
aspects of creation myths, but this is not always so
and for methodological purposes the two categories are
best distinguished initially.
The drastic changes in the cosmic environment with which
etiomythology is concerned, collectively remembered
in traditional societies as 'origin stories', relate
to events that must be extremely uncommon on a human
timescale - transient events assuming dramatic and sometimes
devastating or world-altering proportions, which resonate
most strongly with the classic notion of catastrophism. |