The problem with mythological research
July 30th, 2023
I have been annoyed and also rather impressed by the fact of baffling similarity and, in parts, of literal correspondence between myths from far-flung places and far-removed from each other in time. It is a problem, but it is also a wonderful challenge in mythological research to find an elucidation of the reason for the extensive analogies in the fundamental outline of mythological (and religious) tales. What is even more confounding is that those analogies are rendered in a puzzling unanimity in certain details and their reappearance in most (or rather best-researched and preserved) mythological groupings.
To take just two examples that come to mind — baptism, or initiation into a particular religious or ethnic group. It is practiced with extensive mythology of reasons by all varieties of Christianity, but it is also a very early practice in pre-historical human development that is connected to shamanism and finding a guiding spirit (an equivalent to a guardian angel). And the resurrection myth of the re-birth of the hero is common all over the world and throughout the ages with a connection to fertility rites— from Osiris to Tammuz to Adonis to Dionysus to Jesus and many others.
Of course, there are plenty of theories aiming at the explanation of these phenomena (here I can recommend this little book) but there is something common I can see in it myself. It is the idea of the people and the existence of elemental ideas that are embedded deep in everyone’s unconsciousness. The unanimity of the myths is then a necessary sequence of the uniform disposition of the human mind. The manner of its manifestation — be it in religious performances or in symbolism or in art — within certain limitations is then identical at all times and in all places. There is nothing special about any particular mythology or religion (or nationalism for that matter), since they all stem from the same source. That leads me to search for the last commonality of myths and religions. I am not even close to formulating any theory, but my journey so far has been fascinating.
