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Cult, and Meditation in His Life-Form The Individual Is Necessarily Only A Fraction and Distortion of The

This document discusses mythology from several perspectives: as a means of social instruction, as symbolic of archetypes in the human psyche, as a vehicle for metaphysical insights, and as a form of divine revelation. It states that mythology can be understood differently depending on one's viewpoint. More importantly, mythology serves to function for mankind by addressing individual and societal needs and obsessions over time, just as life itself adapts. Rituals in tribal societies serve to place an individual's life events in a larger, impersonal context that reveals one's role in the group rather than as a unique personality.

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Vikram Rao
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47 views1 page

Cult, and Meditation in His Life-Form The Individual Is Necessarily Only A Fraction and Distortion of The

This document discusses mythology from several perspectives: as a means of social instruction, as symbolic of archetypes in the human psyche, as a vehicle for metaphysical insights, and as a form of divine revelation. It states that mythology can be understood differently depending on one's viewpoint. More importantly, mythology serves to function for mankind by addressing individual and societal needs and obsessions over time, just as life itself adapts. Rituals in tribal societies serve to place an individual's life events in a larger, impersonal context that reveals one's role in the group rather than as a unique personality.

Uploaded by

Vikram Rao
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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instruction, to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of

archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional vehicle of man's
profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God's Revelation to His children (the
Church). Mythology is all of these. The various judgments are determined by the view-points of the
judges. For when scrutinized in terms not of what it is but of how it functions, of how it has served
mankind in the past, of how it may serve today, mythology shows itself to be as amenable as life
itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age. The Function of Myth,
Cult, and Meditation In his life-form the individual is necessarily only a fraction and distortion of the
total image of man. He is limited either as male or as female; at any given period of his life he is
again limited as child, youth, mature adult, or ancient; furthermore, in his life-role he is necessarily
specialized as craftsman, tradesman, ser-vant, or thief, priest, leader, wife, nun, or harlot; he cannot
be all. Hence, the totality—the fullness of man—is not in the separate member, but in the body of
the society as a whole; the individual can be only an organ. From his group he has derived his tech-
niques of life, the language in which he thinks, the ideas on which he thrives; through the past of
that society descended the genes that built his body. If he presumes to cut himself off, ei-ther in
deed or in thought and feeling, he only breaks connection with the sources of his existence. The
tribal ceremonies of birth, initiation, marriage, burial, in-stallation, and so forth, serve to translate
the individual's life-crises and life-deeds into classic, impersonal forms. They disclose him to himself,
not as this personality or that, but as the warrior, the 354

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