A. Introductory Pemarks
There are, according
to alternative researcher Bruce Rux, essentially three ways to view
the similarities in ancient myths from around the world:
One, each myth cycle is indigenous to a given people, beginning with features unique to them that then become influenced by invaders or assimilated tribes; two, myths are all psychological projections (called by Jung “archetypes”) of man’s innermost psyche, showing the universality of the human soul; or, three, they are all the same myth from great antiquity, becoming individually corrupted in various ways over the ensuing centuries. The first two theories are the prevailing ones today, being the anthropological and psychological schools of thought. The latter is generally dismissed without much consideration, since it brings to mind Atlantis (and other seemingly fabulous theories), which has become excluded from the accepted canon of theories though there is a tremendous amount of evidence to suggest it once existed.499
How else would one
explain, for example, the myth among the Omaha Indians of North
America of the burning cedar tree which was not consumed, and from
which the animals had worn four trails, each of which led in one of
the four cardinal compass points?500 The similarity to
Moses’ theophany at the burning bush in Sinai is at least as
remarkable as the differences between the two
accounts.
And this
“similar-dissimilar” pattern is one that can be encountered time
and again when one examines the myths of the world. It is not the
fact that there are such similarities
that is so arresting, it is rather their sheer quantity, and the extent to which these
similarities extend to details. But equally arresting are the
dissimilarities. All too often one
encounters in parallel myths not only the same details, but
new ones, at times seemingly
contradictory to what is assumed to be the “original”
story.
So one must modify
Rux’s “third alternative” method of explaining the commonalities of
ancient myths to include the possibility that not all details of a
mythological “archetype” will be included in any given culture’s
retelling of a particular myth. Details might be missing in one
account that might be preserved in another. And this makes any task
of reconstructing the “original” myth that much more difficult. It
is like trying to assemble a massive four-dimensional jigsaw
puzzle, matching the edges of motifs from one account with those of
another. The situation is rendered all the more complex given that
so many of these myths evidence the same kind of “sacred punning”
and multi-tiered layers of meaning that we have called the “Unified
Intention of Symbol” in our encounters with the rich mythological
traditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The details preserved in one
account might be found in a completely different context in another
account, and thus, one or the other, or both, might be garbled
versions of the “original.” On any account, if the pursuit of the
first two alternatives mentioned by Rux be viewed as a kind of
“mythological liberalism” or Jungian “deconstruction,” then by the
same token the third alternative is a kind of “mythological higher
criticism” seeking to recover the lost originals from textual clues
and external evidences.
But clues nonetheless
there are, and ignoring them by the standard academic anesthetic of
deconstruction, Jungian or otherwise, will not make them go away.
They are still there, a throbbing and nagging symptom in our
perceptions that the anesthetic has only dulled but not eradicated.
It is time then to allow the anesthetic to wear off and die of its
own dead weight, and confront the headache head-on.
Perhaps the most
painful aspect of this mythological migraine is the persistent, and
detailed association of Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Mars. In The Giza Death Star
Destroyed I speculated on a connection between the Red
Planet and the Giza plateau by way of the curious correspondences
that exist between the Mesopotamian god Nergal - god of Mars, fire,
rebellion, and war - and the whole concept of a chimerical creature
such as the Sphinx.501 But there are many,
many more such peculiar connections...