This was a kind of interesting debate that came up in the nexus chat the other day. Some were discussing mythology and the values they find in it. I conjectured that modern media in some sense is our source to 'modern mythology'. I know nothing about specifics cultures and tribes so I won't attempt to go into any details about such but here are some interesting parallels I can think of. Would love to hear what others have to say.

So in days long gone by at least to the majority of western society. Many would gather around a fire, or a camp-site and tell stories about the gods and other members of the tribe/society. People would create stories such as the say Ahura Mazdah of the zoroastrian(spelling?) belief. Or talk of the goddess Durga and how she rode a lion and her with an army defeated Mahishasur which none of the other gods could. These stories would be enjoyed and passed down through out the ages, in fact we still have many of them preserved. The myths and stories would give people morals, and direct them for which goddesses and gods to put faith in or at least what their stories were, and provide entertainment.

Today we have access to televisions, and movie theaters/home entertainment systems, and we could implement the internet as well(loosely under this comparison). It is commonly expressed that television, which like it or not, does play a role in a lot of children's lives(reference: http://rnbphilly.com/223.../is-tv-raising-our-kids/ ). A television series involves characters with usually set personalities, scenarios these people run into, morals which can be observed, and over-all humour and entertainment. I find it hard to think of a movie without any message in it. Both modern visual art and spoken word myths in my eyes bare a lot of semblance to one another. In fact alot of our movies and t.v. shows are incredibly comparable to ancient myths themselves. We seem to even borrow story-lines(interesting reference: http://www.minervaclassics.com/movimyth.htm ).

We see a lot of similar themes. From violence, the struggle for power, how meekness is valuable, sexuality, etc. The way some people discuss television shows in a lot of ways in my opinion at least is of high reverence. They discuss the characters, what they think the characters should do, how emotionally affected they are by the stories, etc. Many people tune into the same series and those people tend to stick together to talk about it. For example I like the series "Trailer park boys" and have connected with many people about it, not only on a humourous level. Infact there are hundreds of web-forums based on different anime, science-fiction, soap operas, etc, where people discuss these shows and express which characters they feel closest too. Though there are some differences.

One divergence may be argued that there are commercials during and after shows. Though I wonder if the story tellers in tribes got special privileges such as being the person who lit the peace pipe first, who the ladies or men respected, rather then monetary reward. Who doesn't like a good story teller? Even on DMT nexus, many of the "quality trip report" writers are held with a high reverence (not to imply there is a social hierarchy here but... yea) . I suppose the comparison lays solely in the art themselves and not in the medium. Of course a television is not the same as someone speaking to another. One is incredibly visual and the other is more imagination driven, not to say imagination is not inside of television. There are thousands of artists who make their own comics, write their own story-lines, and movies of television series online after-all(see "fanfiction" ) .

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has anything to chip in either for or against this(television/movies being modern mythology). The next comparison I'm going to make might seem a bit far of a stretch so hopefully someone can counter it tactfully hehehe.

Let's talk cave-paintings and the internet. For example say Chauvet Cave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave ). In my eyes cave paintings served as a means to express information, stories, and perhaps other things. If I recall correctly in the documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" there were also paintings of naked women, and the possible but stretching idea that the cave itself was used as an instrument and other musical implements were found in them.

To me it sounds like a mini-internet. Naked women, music, stories, access to information about whats going on around you, etc. Perhaps these are just the microcosm of human interests though. Or maybe its just part of the birth of communication: cave-paintings and early language lead to written language, lead clay tablets, lead to scrolls, lead to books, lead to the internet.

Not really sure what else to say, these are just some ideas that I thought were interesting and wanted to see what others might think about them.

We know that the ancient Mesopotamians had the baghdad battery which not only produces voltage, but can be used to power some modern technologies. In Egypt, we know that no torches or flame were ever used inside the dark pyramids as there are no soot marks or carbon traces from them that they would have produced.

According to Dr. Bolter's "The Pyramid Code" documentary, the Great Pyramid is essentially structured like one gigantic Tesla coil. The tesla coil generates electricity under the principle that when sunlit-charged water runs through a limestone labyrinth, it will generate electricity which can then be redirected upwards to eventually be redistributed wirelessly. Despite the fact that Tesla invented it, he wasn't quite sure how it worked. As it should turn out (and unbeknownst to Tesla), the Great Pyramid is built on a foundation of a limestone honeycomb labyrinth, which at the end is funneled up into the pyramid where it would have been insulated by the magnesium casing stones with additional build in charge from the radioactive decay of the interior granite into radon gas.

That my friend, is simply not true:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...complex#Ceiling_cleaning


From king Tuts chamber:
http://www.touregypt.net/museum/tutl28.htm


More here:
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_lights_fd1.htm



Also consider the fact that after the tombs were build they were closed. The building itself was build from bottom to top in open sunlight while there was relatively little time spend inside (painting plus placing of artifacts). The lamps used by the Egyptians (documented by Egyptian hieroglyphs and later recovered from tombs) contained extra substances to reduce the amount of smoke coming of it.

I say this since I leave open the possibility that the soot found can be made in the last hundreds of years after tombs and temples were reopened in more modern times.

We also have this thread on the DMT-Nexus:
Ancient Aliens Debunked

That threads contains some very interesting information and it also helps to set things straight about certain assumptions.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Though these are all interesting ideas, they don't really relate to what I was writing about at all. Thanks for the debunking traveler.

i dont know anything really about this area either, but i think global was talking about the great pyramids- not the temple of hathor or king tuts chamber (which aren't pyramids), or the red pyramid of dahshur which was built earlier

Inmotion i think a lot of ancient myths were not just made up stories. some were probably just poeticised takes on events (which then went through thousands of years of alterations)- take for instance the flood myth found universally all over the world, along with the myth of balls of fire coming from the sky, also found all over the place. we know now that unbelievably intense flooding occurred at the end of the last ice age and the sea level rose some 350 ft, covering millions of square miles of land- often very fertile and convenient coastal land that would be appealing for people to settle on. Theres lots of evidence now that it didn't happen smoothly or gradually as people used to think, but in spurts where giant lakes of melted ice sitting on top of the glaciers would suddenly break they're barriers and coming crashing down across entire continents and into the oceans. Theres also been a lot of research showing how it seems a fairly large meteor impacted the earth around 12k years ago, correlating with all these myths of fire balls coming from the heavens. Which isn't really surprising, (look at russia heh). although this one 12k or so years ago seems to have been pretty huge

There's a bit of truth in everything, including mythology. A lot of myths are highly metaphorical or at least we can choose to see them that way. That can lead to anomalous findings such as the flood story, or serious blunders such as discovery channels "ancient aliens"(mentioned above). We still don't know though even with that flood story whether or not the flood was true or just a very very old myth. Though certainly television and movies also often incorporate true things that have happened or are happening usually with a few twists and turns, not unlike word of mouth mythology in my opinion. For example "satire" a commonly watched one such as "southpark", illudes to many current happenings and past happenings in a fictional and often humorous way.

I was referring to the Great Pyramid. No pharaohs were ever found in any pyramids, so King Tut is clearly out, and the Temple of Hathor is far from a pyramid.




I watched that documentary trav. Not implicating aliens in this at all, nor do they debunk much from the Pyramid Code. Apparently soot would have been found on the ceilings if there were torches used, but there are zero traces. If what you say is true, then it's interesting.
[edit]: though I did find the whole sand to cut the stones as quite interesting.

Actually it IS very important for two things:

1) The temple of Hathor is part of the complex where the famous hieroglyph is found of the 'lightbulb':


2) The oil burner in king Tuts chamber shows that the old Egyptians knew how to reduce smoke from their oil burners.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

i agree but what do you mean by


We know for a fact that there used to be several mile high glaciers right where me and you are sitting now, just 20,000 years ago or so, which stretched from here all the way to the north pole...and then they started to melt

Have you looked into the evidence for this? There is way too much for me to even list here. just one example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods

many of the ancient flood myths trace back to when all of this was happening, in many parts of the world

Pardon my imperfect wording. What I meant to imply was whether or not the entire myth is true. As there are divergences in the re-accounting of the myth. IE, the dimensions of the boat, was Noah really on it, did god say to build it, was it really a cube as one description implied(not sail-able nor bouyant by modern calculations), how many people were on the boat(4,5,6,7,8,9,10), etc. I'd never attempt to deny an ice-age and the end of such...

oh yeah i wasn't talking about Noahs story specifically heheh. that was most likely a composite of other more ancient myths (such as gilgamesh) that had already been around for thousands of years. most don't talk about the whole boat story and 2 pairs of animals each lol. people all over the world just have different variations of some myth that involved a great flood

I would like to address this "light bulb". When I was writing up my initial post in this thread, I was going to include it, but decided against it, as I'm not quite convinced that it's a representation of a light bulb. Of course it does in fact bare a heavy resemblance to one. I had never looked at it up close until that picture of it that you posted today. Upon close examination, it's actually quite the intriguing image regardless of any technological implications.

Now of course I'm no expert, and so take this with a grain of salt, but having gained a little familiarity with Egyptian symbolism, there are a couple things I would like to point out about this "light bulb". The vertical structure on which the bulb rests with the arms coming out of it is the djed pillar, associated with Osiris (specifically his spine/chakras) and his death/rebirth. The arms are a common symbol of the Ka, or the soul-like "body double". According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, snakes are a common symbol of death/rebirth, while Allan Coult who wrote "Psychedelic Anthropology" notes a distinction in snake symbolism between the coiled and uncoiled snake. It has clear ties to kundalini with the coiled snake being the kundalini in the root chakra with the extended snake symbolizing the rising of the kundalini and satori (enlightenment). I find it somewhat significant that in the very same Temple of Hathor, on its famous colorful ceiling, we find imagery of the coiled snake as well suggesting that the Egyptians may have been aware and used this symbolism as well.

Lastly the snake (and the its encompassing "bulb" ) is emerging out of the lotus flower. I do not remember the specifics, but Dr. Bolter makes a case for the Egyptians having used the lotus as a consciousness altering plant. Regardless, an Egyptian myth states how they believed the universe came into existence through the opening of a blue lotus flower on the great cosmic waters. Now I'm not claiming to know just how exactly all of these symbols come together, but I would like to try and make the case that our view of it as a light bulb could be a result of heavy cultural conditioning. If we see it through the eyes of the Egyptians, I believe that it is depicting a metaphysical process of some sort, possibly involving kundalini, death/rebirth motifs, and possibly the consciousness alteration properties of the blue lotus to perhaps induce the process. Again, I state this as my pure speculation, as I have never heard anyone really try to argue against it as not a light bulb.

In regards to King Tut's tomb, the dating of the Great Pyramid seems quite ambiguous. It could be the case that their use of the refined oil burners was developed after the creation of the Great Pyramid.

(hope this is on topic...)

One thing that puzzles me about the Ancients...Egyptians specifically...

They had remarkable abilities and intelligence...
Clear knowledge of Astronomy, Geometry, Engineering, Social Manipulation etc..

Why, then, did they not conjure up the ability to develop a clear and concise written language?
Why all the cryptic glyphs?
I mean the hours spent explaining the ideas to the army of foremen and sculptors...to render pretty pictures of their musings...
Why not just write it down in a language that all could read or decipher?

Seems to me that an intelligent race such as these people (or even just the enlightened monarchy/clergy) would be able to figure out a useful language that conveys the cultural imperatives, that could stand the tests of time, with more clarity than cryptic glyphs...!
It's not as if they didn't have enough time/generations to sort it out...

The question now arises...
Should WE, as a race, be carving our thoughts and desires and most precious beliefs into stone...In a language that could be read by explorers in 20,000 years from now?
What if the Asteroid hits? How will the they 'Know' what WE were all about?...

Thoughts?

Back in those days education and literacy were not rights, they were reserved only to the most privileged upper echelons of society. In those days it was only known to the priesthood and ruling class - royals if you like. So there was a concerted effort to keep such "technology" as obscure to the layman as possible. Just to add a layer of complexity I'll mention the masons here too.

They realised knowledge is power and kept that power to themselves, so keeping the finer points obscured by cryptic Hieroglyphs suited their greedy ends right down to the ground.

I've seen a reasonably good case presented about the Great Pyramid of Cheops, postulating that the entire structure is a piezoelectric generator capable of generating several megawatts of power - quite impressive for "primitive man" making baby steps from the hunter gatherer profile said to exist before "civilisation" popped into existence almost overnight

I'm tempted to take this discussion off on tangent and mention some of the ancient Greek, Chinese and Vedic technology that has been uncovered but I'm way too drunk to quote much of substance at the moment so I'll chime back in when I'm in a more coherent state later.

You ask why they didn't develop a clear and concise written language, however those glyphs are both phonetic as well as symbolic. Language can be so limited, but the glyphs with their layers of meaning can convey a swath of ideas at once. I read somewhere (don't remember where unfortunately, so I have no link) that reading iconographic writing such as the glyphs creates increased activation of the right hemisphere that is absent when reading a language like English.

Also from my understanding, there were the mystery schools in Egypt like that of the Greek Eleuysinians (it stands to reason that the Greeks likely got the idea from the Egyptians). As such the glyphs were mainly intended for the priestly caste. Only the scribes knew how to write.

Additionally I'm not sure it was necessarily their imperative to be completely understood by future societies. They clearly went very far out of the way to store and preserve knowledge, but for whom? Those who have the means to understand it will. When they were developing their writing system, I think the last thing on their mind was, "what if we're wiped out one day, and no one will be able to read this."

Though it's not about these Egyptian glyphs, I think you need to watch the documentary "Breaking the Mayan Code" which came out a few years back and was one of the rare modern documentaries on Mayan culture to not get into the whole 2012 bit. The Mayan glyphs are even more complex than the Egyptians, and it's absolutely fascinating to see how they go about deciphering it over the decades (no Rosetta stone for the Mayans!)

About the original question...



I think the main difference lies in the amount of transmitted information. Today we have a huge cultural information flow, and that does increase the amount of myth-wannabes.

But definitely the current stories we tell in books and audiovisual media are the same essence as mythology. Mythology always has some real basis, whether it is the account of a tragedy that once happened, or the representation of a fact of the mind that is there... but that's what myths are, human accounts and representations, that change according to the emitter, the channel, the language and the receiver.

Some myths survived for a long time, either for simple physical reasons (book was not burned, the group spreading it was culturally successful) or also because they have resonated in a powerful way with the mind of the group. Today we can easily see how some cultural myths, how some stories and heroes, survive - and others don't.

In the eyes of many people, some of today's runners-up for the "myth" status may appear spurious, or irrelevant, or ridiculous, or pernicious... specially when compared to the universal, epic myths we all know that seem so full of meaning, and extend so much in time. But most likely the proportion of crappy soaps, lousy icons, B-movies, and B-Myths has always been the same, and time and our culture lineage let them die eventually, or survive in a few dark corners.

Let's hope we're lucky and the myths that win the contest are not too bad for our survival. It would be sad if our species committed suicide culturally.

Awesome take Vodsel! Thanks for bringing the thread back on track