Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Loki, Eshu, Cagn, Ama-no-Uzume, Satan...



 It's odd that a perfect God would allow His son to be tempted by a lowly devil.
Or that an imperfect serpent could exist in a perfect garden.
Or that God would place a bet with lucifer regarding the piety of Job.
Sometimes the tempter/temptress appears in the form of a man - sometimes in the form of an animal or beast.
Similar to indigenous mythologies - this tempter is often a shape shifter.
 In Asia, Ama-no-Uzume (among others) takes on this role.

 In the Americas, it is Iktomi or Kokopelli (among others) who plays this part.
 In Greco-Roman mythology, it is Mercury or Hermes who resists the God(s) to bring knowledge to mankind.
In Norse mythology, this task falls to Loki.

Ama-noUzume, Anasi, Bamapana, Cagn, Coyote, Eshu, Gwydion, Sun Wukong.....
the image of tricksters in religion is almost universal and exists on every continent and in every culture.
Exactly what is it that these tales are trying to teach us?
Is CERN a current example of man reaching beyond his prescribed limits?
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5 comments:

  1. CNuOctober 6, 2010 at 1:25 PM

    Exactly what is it that these tales are trying to teach us?

    They draw our attention to and tell us some very important things about the differences between the "conscious" (talker) and "unconscious" (listener) parts of the bicameral human mind.

    Guess which part is universal and was also referred to in the genesis tower of babel story?

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  2. uglyblackjohnOctober 7, 2010 at 5:51 PM

    So these guys were really bringing us a conscious?

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  3. CNuOctober 7, 2010 at 6:24 PM

    same as it ever was brah..., thus the universality of the motif.

    Now then, one of the burning, tantalizing kwestins embedded in all this here mythopoesy, is, what striking differentiation must have existed between the hieroglyphic or picture form mode of consciousness re-presentation, and, the alphabetic/cuneiform modes of consciousness re-presentation.

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  4. CNuOctober 7, 2010 at 6:26 PM

    According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where they resolved to build a city with a tower "with its top in the heavens...lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth." God came down to see what they did and said: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do." So God said, "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth."(Genesis 11:5-8).

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  5. uglyblackjohnOctober 7, 2010 at 9:06 PM

    -Or from unspoken to spoken.

    -With all the problems at CERN it seems as though CERN is a modern version of the tower.

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