Mythic Inflation

Image via Wikipedia

Mythic Inflation is a term introduced by Joseph Campbell.

Campbell says Egyptian cultural beliefs about a ruler’s relation to God or gods progresses through several historical stages, each taking its own form.

In the second stage of mythic inflation, the ruler’s aggrandized ego believes and acts as if it were a deity. Mythically inflated rulers exhibit haughty arrogance and are obsessed with gaining material wealth and power over others. They ruthlessly lie, trick, exploit and murder to achieve earthly desires and prestige.

In contrast to mythic identification, the mythically inflated king would never consider sacrificing himself for the good of the community.

In ancient Egypt the often brutal, power-hungry kings envisioned themselves as “God on earth,” as did Julius Caesar in Rome.

Whether or not the examples Campbell provides to (apparently) support these stages reflect actual social-historical conditions remains open to debate.

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Inflation

Godman! by devan78 via Flickr

Most of us think of inflation as an economic term. But it’s also a psychological term, one coined by the Swiss psychiatrist, C. G. Jung.

For Jung, psychological inflation denotes the unsavory but, perhaps, temporarily unavoidable situation that can occur during the individuation process (another one of Jung’s ideas that points to a life-long process of self realization).

Inflation in the Jungian sense refers to a person’s ego-consciousness that uncritically and, often zealously, identifies with archetypal contents. This results in a loss of sensible discrimination and a regression into archetypal unconsciousness. It’s also “characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, often compensated by feelings of inferiority.”¹

Although some popular writers combine the ideas of inflation and conscious self-aggrandizement, for Jung the two are different mechanisms with different psycho-social outcomes.

Concerning religious leaders, teachers and alleged prophets, whether such figures are psychologically inflated (and trying to spread that condition to others) or, rather, genuine holy persons remains a matter of much and often heated debate.

Leon Schlamm’s excellent entry on inflation in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, Volume 2, is freely available online for preview: http://bit.ly/qV25Um.

—

¹ Source: http://www.jungny.com/carl.jung.108.html from Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts by Daryl Sharp, 1991.

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Mythic Subordination

"The Storming of the Bastille", Visible in the center is the arrest of Bernard René Jourdan, marquis de Launay (1740-1789) via Wikipedia

Mythic Subordination is a term introduced by Joseph Campbell.

Campbell says that Egyptian cultural beliefs about a ruler’s relation to God or the gods progress through several historical stages, each with its own characteristics.

In the third stage of mythic subordination, the pharaoh is no longer envisioned as a flawless incarnation of God or the gods. Unlike the previous two stages, he is neither sacrificed for the good of the community (mythic identification), nor is he shameless tyrant, unaccountable to his subjects (mythic inflation).

Instead, his ego is regarded as an instrument of the divine will; but at the same time, royal decrees are now subject to some form of societal approval or censure.

Although Campbell applies this idea to the ancient world, it is relevant to the development and increasing powers of the early parliamentary system within thirteenth-century Britain, and to the French Parliament which from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution questioned royal injunctions.

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Mythic Identification

Image via Wikipedia

Mythic Identification is a term introduced by Joseph Campbell.

Campbell argues that Egyptian cultural beliefs about a ruler’s relation to God or gods progressed through several historical stages, each taking its own form.

The first stage is mythic identification, where the ego is entirely absorbed by the real and/or imagined powers of the deity.

In pre-dynastic Egypt, the priesthood articulates this belief. Utterly lost in wonder at the immensity of the creator and the created cosmos, the god-like king willfully submits to self-sacrifice for the good of the community. By losing his mortal life at the altar, the king believes he doesn’t die because he’s already one with God. In tune with the immortal, his death merely signals a passing to a greater dimension.

This differs from mythic inflation, where rulers exhibiting haughty arrogance will lie, trick, exploit and murder to achieve worldly power, desires and prestige. Such rulers would never consider self-sacrifice for the good of the community.

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Mythic Eternalization

Yogi in Arunachala temple via Wikipedia

Mythic Eternalization is a term introduced by Joseph Campbell. Campbell says that humanity’s beliefs about the ego’s ideal relation to God (or gods) takes different forms.

In mythic eternalization, Campbell cites the case of the Indian yogi who strives to become one with the godhead. This differs from mythic identification because the ego does not merely identify with an immortal deity. With mythic externalization, the ego allegedly disappears when the locus of consciousness shifts, giving way to the atman, which itself becomes inseparable from the brahman.

Carl Jung makes an interesting point here. He asks who experiences the atman/brahman if the ego has disappeared. Ram Dass to this query by saying that Jung is supposedly caught up in astral levels of reality associated with the fourth chakra (there are seven in total) and is too afraid to take “the next step” toward discovering ultimate reality. “Then he will no longer be able to do what he does as Carl Jung,” Dass argues.

Noted for his sincerity and admission of his own imperfections, Ram Dass may no longer hold such a critical view of Jung today. And Jung would probably have responded by saying that Dass’ ego is stuck at the level of identifying with the “guru archetype” and he’s afraid to move on because he would no longer be able to do what he does as Ram Dass!

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Mythic Dissociation

Image by Richard Carter via Flickr

Mythic Dissociation is a term introduced by Joseph Campbell. Campbell argues that humanity’s beliefs about the ego‘s ideal relation to God (or the gods) takes different forms.

In mythic dissociation, the ego has a relationship with God. The psychologist-philosopher William James argues in The Varieties of Religious Experience that this characterizes the Christian approach to the deity but it also applies to Judeaism and Islam.

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Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell, late 1970 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an influential American scholar and educator in world religions and mythology.

Campbell’s books and PBS videos (hosted by Bill Moyers) have enjoyed worldwide acclaim. With other innovators like Mircea Eliade, Otto Rank, and Carl Jung, Campbell championed the syncretic study of psychology, myth and spirituality.

Campbell was ahead of many of his peers by seeing the film Star Wars as a contemporary variant, par excellence, of the age-old hero myth.¹ Campbell’s interest in the hero archetype can be traced to the works of Rank and Jung.

Campbell learned several original languages, and had an impressive knowledge of textual data from a wide variety of interconnected fields.

Pedantic and dogmatic critics, however, still entirely dismiss his pioneering attempts. His critics that say his opinions are simplistic. But it’s possible that he’s dumbing things down for a general audience not familiar with the specifics of world myth and religion.

A more serious charge could be that, and contrary to Campbell’s dictum of “follow your bliss,” every once in a while he seems a bit autocratic, particularly in reference to his beliefs about orthodox Catholicism. This isn’t just a problem with Campbell. Many Gnostic,  Fundamentalist, Protestant, New Age, Humanistic, scientific and even environmental thinkers arguably lump “The Church” into one big personal projection of The Big Bad Wolf (as if the Catholic Church is supposed to be perfect here on Earth, which is entirely unreasonable).

Campbell, himself, was a fallen away Catholic, which may have had some bearing on his somewhat negative treatment of Catholicism. He does seem to highlight the Catholic Church’s past mistakes without fully appreciating its positive aspects—e.g. how the Eucharist enriches the lives of present-day believers.²

Another difficulty in Campbells’ analyses of world religions echoes difficulties found in Jung’s work. At times Campbell seems to say that the various paths in world mysticism evoke identical mystical experiences and lead to the same afterlife abode.

This may be a politically correct view and, for all we know, could be true. But ultimate claims about the afterlife cannot be made with any certainty (unless you believe you have a pipeline to God, as so many zealots do).

These shortcomings aside, Campbell’s contribution to the study of myth, religion and culture is noteworthy (some might say remarkable). His popular PBS lectures, taped just months before his unfortunate death due to cancer, reveal that, in his own dignified way he was just as heroic as a Heracles or Luke Skywalker.

It’s not surprising that his name has become almost archetypal among students of world myth and religion.

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—

¹ Star Wars creator George Lucas says Campbell’s work was influential for the mythic structure of the film. Lucas had the insight to realize that his sci-fi story would work better if it had an authentic mythic feel. By adapting Campbell’s ideas, Lucas hoped that the Star Wars epic would resonate with the masses, which, of course, it did.

² Creative thinkers like Campbell are rarely one-dimensional, however. He also says that one of his peak experiences came when entering Chartres Cathedral in France.

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God

God Saman by Freelk via Wikipedia

There are at least three main and possibly interrelated ways of conceptualizing God, as well as three main ways of relating to the deity.

Conceptualizing God

First, in monotheism, God is generally seen as an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good transcendent but immanent (God dwells in creation but is also beyond it) being that created and rules over all of creation (e.g. Christianity, Judaism and Islam).

Second, one form of pantheism also known as polytheism boasts many gods, often ruled over by a master deity (e.g. the Greek Zeus).

Some non-Catholics say that the Catholic saints degrade Christianity with a form of polytheism. But this is a misunderstanding. Catholic saints mediate through contemplative prayer, not unlike people living on Earth who pray for one another.

Also, some say the Christian Holy Trinity is polytheistic. But this, too, is a misrepresentation because Christians generally agree that the three persons of the Trinity share a unity of substance which is One.

Meanwhile, some say that the Hindu gods and goddesses are polytheistic. But most Hindus point out that they are manifestations of the Brahman, an unmanifest ground of All That Is.

The third main way of conceptualizing God is expressed in naturalistic pantheism. Here, the forces of nature (and usually the cosmos) are identified with God. Some believe that monotheism and polytheism may coexist within a hierarchy of value. On the individual experiential level, that would mean progressing through a belief in The Many to discovering a (usually described as higher) level of monotheistic worship.

Stamp commemorating the 100th day of birth of Martin Buber (1878—1965) via Wikipedia

Relating to God

The monotheistic approach to relating to God is aptly described by the Jewish theologian Martin Buber as an I-Thou relationship. This is experienced as a

1. feeling of awe
2. healthy fear of offending the deity
3. keen sense of personal humility

Another way of relating to the deity is seeing oneself as potentially identical to God. This second way is divided into three types:

1. mythic identification
2. mythic eternalization
3. mythic inflation

A third way of relating to God is more about phenomenology, that is, about a person’s unique experience. Michel Henry (1922–2002), for instance, talks about God as the “essence of Life” experienced by the individual. His view of God doesn’t go much beyond that because phenomenologists believe we can’t really know much (if anything) beyond ourselves.

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Pyramids

Inside the Pyramid: liber / Ricardo Liberato

The popular media has arguably created a whole new mythology about the ancient Egyptian and South American pyramids, one which some individuals accept without carefully examining the relevant historical data.

Many are rightly amazed at the sheer size and impressive interlocking precision of the Egyptian pyramids’ stone blocks. But some turn a blind eye to the solid textual and archeological evidence that human work gangs dragged these rocks into place, perhaps finding it easier to believe that the pyramids were constructed by high-tech spaceships (or related equipment) belonging to benevolent aliens.

If this were the case, why weren’t the friendly aliens documented by the Egyptian scribes of the day?

Another way some look at the problem is to suppose that aliens have been monitoring mankind’s development of Earth. From this some hypothesize that ETs used some kind of psychic power to subtly infuse architectural ideas into the minds of the Egyptians.

However, even if this unproven scenario did occur, the ETs still left human workers to complete the enormous task of constructing the pyramids. Also important to remember is the fact the pyramids were not built for everyone. While they may have been regarded as ‘portals to the afterlife,’ this applied only to a handful of privileged nobles.  For the masses, the pyramids were glaring symbols of the worldly wealth and power that they did not possess. Along these lines, foreign visitors to ancient Egypt write that the sight of the pyramids inspired not just awe but fear.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung suggests that the striking similarities found among the Egyptian and South American pyramids supports his theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Meanwhile scholars like Raymond Firth¹ question the simplicity of the Jungian view, arguing that any symbol, be it a pyramid, a totem pole or a national flag, brings up as many meanings as there are individuals to interpret it.

—

¹As an anthropologist, Firth stresses the more immediate, sociological aspects of a symbol’s meaning while not negating the possibility of deeper levels of understanding. See Raymond Firth, Symbols: Public and Private, New York: Allen and Unwin, 1973.

» Alien Possession Theory, Archaeology, Atlantis, Aztecs, Mythic Identification, Mythic Inflation, Mythic Subordination, Petrie (Sir William Matthew Flinders)

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Rome

Burning Rome: cuellar / Jose Maria Cuellar

Rome is the vibrant capital of Italy which has a long and complicated history, dating back to the 8^th century BCE.

Pre-Christian Rome fell in the 5^th century to Germanic invaders. In the 6^th century it became an important center for the Christian Church, with Vatican City on the West bank of the Tiber river.

In 1871 Rome became the capital of modern Italy.

When it was the center of the old Roman Empire, Rome was a symbol of worldly power and also of the cruel persecution of the early Christians. Ironically, the center for the persecution of Christians was to become the center for Christianity and later, as the Protestant revolution arose, for Catholicism.

The historian Arnold Toynbee and several others note that as soon as the Christian Romans gained power, they began persecuting individuals just as the pagan Romans had previously persecuted Christians.

Toynbee believes it was mostly power – and the greed and arrogance that often goes with it – that was responsible for this exceedingly cruel behavior among human beings.

» Acts of the Apostles, Aeneas, Aeneid, Caesar (Julius), Church Fathers,  Mythic Inflation, Romulus and Remus, Vestal Virgin

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