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Objectives for week 8
- To appreciate the role of symbols in the elaboration of meanings among humans, and in mythology;
- To use Joseph Campbell’s concept of the mono-myth to identify the mythical and spiritual structure of many contemporary blockbuster films;
- To identify the social structure and functions of ritual;
- To apply van Gennep’s concept of rites of passage to analyse the structure of the hero’s spiritual transformation in mythology, and the phases and experiences of ritual.
RITUAL, SYMBOL AND MYTH
In this lecture, we will consider the collective dimension of enchanted worlds. We will examine how ritual and mythology transform people and groups, giving them structure while enacting their connections with an enchanted cosmos. Looking at the contemporary world, we will also consider to what extent the cinema operates as a source of enchanting ritual and mythology.
Last week, we talked about animism, about an enchanted world, and about how people communicate with what they imagine to be conscious beings out there in the world. In this lecture, we will see how this kind of communication and connection is not only a personal affair, but also, and perhaps primarily, a collective matter. At the core of every society are myths and rituals; and at the core of mythology and ritual – even when people are not aware of it – is communication with the invisible forces or beings of an enchanted world. There are times when we leave the state of ordinary reality and consciousness, and enter another state, one which is imagined or experienced as communication with these other beings and forces. During these states, which are called liminal, individuals become transformed in their path of life, and groups become reaffirmed and consolidated.
Earlier in this course, we considered how the sociologist Robert Bellah, conceptualised four main ways of understanding or representing reality -- what he called the "unitive", the "enactive", the "symbolic" and the "conceptual". In this lecture, we will focus on the "enactive" and "symbolic" modes through ritual and mythology -- two key building blocks in the evolution of religion.
The "enactive" type of understanding occurs through the enacted movements and rhythms of the body. This is exemplified by ritualised gestures and rhythmic perceptions, which can never be fully described or explained -- such as dance, music, and ritual. Enacting these movements produces a specific perception and consciousness, but one in which there is potentially no distinction between the subject and object of consciousness -- the dance and the body-mind of the performer become one and the same.
Last week, we talked about animism, about an enchanted world, and about how people communicate with what they imagine to be conscious beings out there in the world. In this lecture, we will see how this kind of communication and connection is not only a personal affair, but also, and perhaps primarily, a collective matter. At the core of every society are myths and rituals; and at the core of mythology and ritual – even when people are not aware of it – is communication with the invisible forces or beings of an enchanted world. There are times when we leave the state of ordinary reality and consciousness, and enter another state, one which is imagined or experienced as communication with these other beings and forces. During these states, which are called liminal, individuals become transformed in their path of life, and groups become reaffirmed and consolidated.
Earlier in this course, we considered how the sociologist Robert Bellah, conceptualised four main ways of understanding or representing reality -- what he called the "unitive", the "enactive", the "symbolic" and the "conceptual". In this lecture, we will focus on the "enactive" and "symbolic" modes through ritual and mythology -- two key building blocks in the evolution of religion.
The "enactive" type of understanding occurs through the enacted movements and rhythms of the body. This is exemplified by ritualised gestures and rhythmic perceptions, which can never be fully described or explained -- such as dance, music, and ritual. Enacting these movements produces a specific perception and consciousness, but one in which there is potentially no distinction between the subject and object of consciousness -- the dance and the body-mind of the performer become one and the same.
Enactive understanding: ritual
In this section, we will consider the social dimensions of living in an enchanted world by considering the role of ritual, which is a key concept in the anthropology of religion. In the film Avatar, we have a fictional depiction of an animist tribal society, in which the Na’vi communicate with other beings. Yet, the Na’vi do not communicate with those other beings simply as individuals. When do they have the most powerful communication with the spiritual being in the film? Towards the end of the film, all of the Na’vi people join in unison in a large ritual around the sacred tree, through which they communicate with the ancestral force.
In an animist society, communication with the animated beings is largely conducted through ritual. In other words, people don’t walk around alone and talk to the forest, to the animals or to the plants. Instead, they ritualise their communication with the other beings, and often do so collectively.
In tribal and ancient societies, however, rather than going to the cinema for a momentary experience, people seek for real transformation through liminal experiences. Let’s consider the !Kung people of the Kalahari desert in South Africa and Botswana, who have been extensively studied by anthropologists since the 1950s. In their rites of passage, these people entered a real physical trance. They underwent a real transformation of their bodily experience, so that they became physically different. And they did so not only at the level of individual experience, but also at the level of collective social structure.
In class, we will observe a film of a ritual dance, called "N/un Chai," among the !Kung tribe of Kalahari Bushmen in Southern Africa in the 1950s.[1] According to the film description:
In an animist society, communication with the animated beings is largely conducted through ritual. In other words, people don’t walk around alone and talk to the forest, to the animals or to the plants. Instead, they ritualise their communication with the other beings, and often do so collectively.
In tribal and ancient societies, however, rather than going to the cinema for a momentary experience, people seek for real transformation through liminal experiences. Let’s consider the !Kung people of the Kalahari desert in South Africa and Botswana, who have been extensively studied by anthropologists since the 1950s. In their rites of passage, these people entered a real physical trance. They underwent a real transformation of their bodily experience, so that they became physically different. And they did so not only at the level of individual experience, but also at the level of collective social structure.
In class, we will observe a film of a ritual dance, called "N/un Chai," among the !Kung tribe of Kalahari Bushmen in Southern Africa in the 1950s.[1] According to the film description:
Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for “medicine dances” often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn. In this film, women sit on the ground, clapping and singing and occasionally dancing a round or two, while men circle around them, singing and stamping rhythms with their feet. The songs are wordless but named: “rain,” “sun,” “honey,” "giraffe,” and other “strong things.” The strength of the songs is their n/um, or medicine, thought to be a gift from the great god. N/um is also in the fire, and even more so in the “owners of medicine,” or healers. Most Ju/'hoan men would practice as healers at some point in their lives, and in this film we see several men in various stages of trance. A light trance gradually deepens, as the medicine grows “hot,” and eventually some men will shriek and run about, falling on hot coals, entering the state Ju/'hoansi call “half-death.” The film opens with a brief introduction to the role of n/um tchai in healing and in warding off evil, followed by scenes from one all-night dance. The dance begins with a social gathering and becomes increasingly intense as the night wears on, finally concluding at dawn.[2]
In the film on the !Kung bushmen, you see their method of communication with the divine power, which they called O!ung. This power was used to heal the ill. These people consider that there are evil spirits, similar to Chinese traditional beliefs. Therefore, if somebody was ill or suffered bad luck, they considered that those evil spirits had shot invisible arrows at them. When someone in the tribe was ill, people would start this ritual dance. After dancing for a while, some of the men enter a trance, and lay their hands on the sick people; they consider that the trance is a sign that the divine power has descended on them, and they then transfer this power to the sick person, driving away the arrows of the evil spirits. Through this dance, they channel the O!ung force to remove the invisible arrows and bring back health to those people.[3]
Emile Durkheim, a founding father of both sociology and anthropology, wrote in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life about this kind of ritual, which he considered to be the basic form of religion. If we look at the most ancient or “primitive” societies, we are likely to find these kinds of rituals. For Durkheim, these types of rituals gave rise to organised human society; it is through them that society forms, reproduces and strengthens itself.
Durkheim talked about the feeling of "collective effervescence" produced by intense group rituals.[4] The rhythmic coordination of bodies forms a higher-order, social body; thus, Durkheim concluded that such rituals are the foundation of organized social life. And, he claimed, the power and energy experienced by the participants, are the origins of the sense of a transcendent reality, what we call the “sacred” or the “divine.”
The !Kung, for example, were hunters and gatherers. Most of the time, they were dispersed all over the place in small groups, gathering plants to eat or hunting animals. It is when they had this kind of ritual that everybody came together. They were so perfectly synchronised in these movements that society became one body at that moment – the entire community literally became one synchronised body.
Most of you celebrate the Chinese New Year, or festivals such as Diwali, Eid or Christmas. You have family gatherings during that festival. You meet many family members and relatives during this period, whom you don’t see the rest of the year. There are relatives that you will only see in important festivals or holidays. Sometimes, they are relatives you don’t personally like. If it were not because of these important festivals, you would never go and see them. We are certainly attached to our family and believe them to be important to us. But actually, we don’t necessarily have personal affinities with them; indeed, we may have rivalries with some of them, or get along with some of them very poorly. If we were allowed to simply see our relatives on a voluntary basis, without being forced to during rituals and festivals, the extended family would probably disappear. And when we think about the happiness of the family, we often think about happy moments like the Chinese New Year, when the atmosphere is joyful and full of energy. It is precisely this kind of events that create a lot of the happiness which we associate with family.
Durkheim argued that without rituals, families and societies would not sustain themselves as long-lasting institutions. Durkheim considered that through these rituals, the people actually worship society itself. For example, for the !Kung people in the video, the divine power comes down as they engage in the ritual. All religious rituals involve connecting with this power. It is the worship of that power that glues members of the group together. The !Kung don’t dance simply because they love dancing, or being in each other’s company. It’s about connecting with or worshipping a power or a god. For Durkheim, it is actually the congregating around that god that makes society. When people get together for the ritual and get so excited, they literally feel a certain power, which Durkheim called “collective effervescence” – so full of energy and excitement. As the Chinese say, it’s “hot and noisy” (renao 熱鬧). Durkheim argued that the primitive people thought this energy was a supernatural power – the power of the gods; whereas, in fact, it is the power of society, the excitement generated when the community comes together for the ritual. But the people worship this social energy in the form of a god. Thus, society worships itself through ritual.
Durkheim’s theory has led to a chicken-or-egg argument – is it society that creates religion, or religion that creates society? Following Durkheim’s ideas, we could say that the two contribute to generating each other. In a sense, religion is the foundation of society, yet society worships itself through religion.
Chinese religion is an apt illustration of Durkheim’s point. If a Chinese god is considered to be very powerful, Chinese people may say the god is very “ling” (靈), i.e. it has strong spiritual power. How can people judge whether the god is powerful (ling) or not? One way is based on the popularity of the god’s temple – the more worshippers there are, the more powerful the god is considered to be. On the other hand, if there are not many worshippers going to a temple, people may think that the god in the temple is not very powerful (ling). Therefore, the Chinese temple is a very good illustration of Durkheim’s point. The more social energy there is, the more people consider the god to be powerful; the less social energy there is, the less powerful the god is considered.
On the other hand, the worship of these gods can’t be attributed only to the power of society. The cult of most Chinese gods does not start with large crowds – it usually starts with some unusual occurrence, and with one person experiencing the ling of a spirit and starting to burn incense for that spirit at a certain spot. Then a few others do so too, and they experience the ling through healing or other good fortune. Only later do many people come to worship and build a temple at that spot. At the beginning, it is not “society worshipping itself”.
In the case of the !Kung rituals, what the dancers experience is also more than the power of society – they literally enter into a trance. Something happens to their state of consciousness, as well as to their bodily state. They enter what is called an “altered state of consciousness” – their perception changes, and they become different from their normal state. Their mindscape is completely altered.
What kind of transformation is going on during this kind of rituals? During these rituals, the individual is incorporated into a socio-cosmic order. One the one hand, they consider that they are connecting to an invisible cosmic order, which transforms them. At the same time, by taking part in the ritual, people bond with the social group literally and physically; they become incorporated into the social body.
Emile Durkheim, a founding father of both sociology and anthropology, wrote in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life about this kind of ritual, which he considered to be the basic form of religion. If we look at the most ancient or “primitive” societies, we are likely to find these kinds of rituals. For Durkheim, these types of rituals gave rise to organised human society; it is through them that society forms, reproduces and strengthens itself.
Durkheim talked about the feeling of "collective effervescence" produced by intense group rituals.[4] The rhythmic coordination of bodies forms a higher-order, social body; thus, Durkheim concluded that such rituals are the foundation of organized social life. And, he claimed, the power and energy experienced by the participants, are the origins of the sense of a transcendent reality, what we call the “sacred” or the “divine.”
The !Kung, for example, were hunters and gatherers. Most of the time, they were dispersed all over the place in small groups, gathering plants to eat or hunting animals. It is when they had this kind of ritual that everybody came together. They were so perfectly synchronised in these movements that society became one body at that moment – the entire community literally became one synchronised body.
Most of you celebrate the Chinese New Year, or festivals such as Diwali, Eid or Christmas. You have family gatherings during that festival. You meet many family members and relatives during this period, whom you don’t see the rest of the year. There are relatives that you will only see in important festivals or holidays. Sometimes, they are relatives you don’t personally like. If it were not because of these important festivals, you would never go and see them. We are certainly attached to our family and believe them to be important to us. But actually, we don’t necessarily have personal affinities with them; indeed, we may have rivalries with some of them, or get along with some of them very poorly. If we were allowed to simply see our relatives on a voluntary basis, without being forced to during rituals and festivals, the extended family would probably disappear. And when we think about the happiness of the family, we often think about happy moments like the Chinese New Year, when the atmosphere is joyful and full of energy. It is precisely this kind of events that create a lot of the happiness which we associate with family.
Durkheim argued that without rituals, families and societies would not sustain themselves as long-lasting institutions. Durkheim considered that through these rituals, the people actually worship society itself. For example, for the !Kung people in the video, the divine power comes down as they engage in the ritual. All religious rituals involve connecting with this power. It is the worship of that power that glues members of the group together. The !Kung don’t dance simply because they love dancing, or being in each other’s company. It’s about connecting with or worshipping a power or a god. For Durkheim, it is actually the congregating around that god that makes society. When people get together for the ritual and get so excited, they literally feel a certain power, which Durkheim called “collective effervescence” – so full of energy and excitement. As the Chinese say, it’s “hot and noisy” (renao 熱鬧). Durkheim argued that the primitive people thought this energy was a supernatural power – the power of the gods; whereas, in fact, it is the power of society, the excitement generated when the community comes together for the ritual. But the people worship this social energy in the form of a god. Thus, society worships itself through ritual.
Durkheim’s theory has led to a chicken-or-egg argument – is it society that creates religion, or religion that creates society? Following Durkheim’s ideas, we could say that the two contribute to generating each other. In a sense, religion is the foundation of society, yet society worships itself through religion.
Chinese religion is an apt illustration of Durkheim’s point. If a Chinese god is considered to be very powerful, Chinese people may say the god is very “ling” (靈), i.e. it has strong spiritual power. How can people judge whether the god is powerful (ling) or not? One way is based on the popularity of the god’s temple – the more worshippers there are, the more powerful the god is considered to be. On the other hand, if there are not many worshippers going to a temple, people may think that the god in the temple is not very powerful (ling). Therefore, the Chinese temple is a very good illustration of Durkheim’s point. The more social energy there is, the more people consider the god to be powerful; the less social energy there is, the less powerful the god is considered.
On the other hand, the worship of these gods can’t be attributed only to the power of society. The cult of most Chinese gods does not start with large crowds – it usually starts with some unusual occurrence, and with one person experiencing the ling of a spirit and starting to burn incense for that spirit at a certain spot. Then a few others do so too, and they experience the ling through healing or other good fortune. Only later do many people come to worship and build a temple at that spot. At the beginning, it is not “society worshipping itself”.
In the case of the !Kung rituals, what the dancers experience is also more than the power of society – they literally enter into a trance. Something happens to their state of consciousness, as well as to their bodily state. They enter what is called an “altered state of consciousness” – their perception changes, and they become different from their normal state. Their mindscape is completely altered.
What kind of transformation is going on during this kind of rituals? During these rituals, the individual is incorporated into a socio-cosmic order. One the one hand, they consider that they are connecting to an invisible cosmic order, which transforms them. At the same time, by taking part in the ritual, people bond with the social group literally and physically; they become incorporated into the social body.
Rituals as rites of passage
How is this connection and transformation made? Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep explained this a long time ago, in his study of rites of passage, which I mentioned above. He distinguished three phases in a rite of passage:
In the phase of separation, people separate themselves from their previous ordinary condition. A good case in point is the house-sweeping before the Chinese New Year. Before the festival, people are expected to clear out their houses. In other words, people separate themselves from the previous year and the dust it has left behind. By cleaning the house, the old year is literally swept away. There’s the idea that good luck comes at the moment of the new year. So first, before the new year, people clean away all the bad luck and all the evil. The dirty things in your house are attracting bad energies, so you clear them away. But when the new year begins, there is a cosmic change – the cycle of the universe changes; now the good forces come with the new year.
During the interval between the last few days before and the first few days after the Chinese New Year, exciting things happen, such as happy family gatherings and setting off firecrackers everywhere. This interval is the second, liminal phase.
You also enter a different state when you go onto the street with firecrackers exploding everywhere. With the noise of firecrackers, you may not be able to think or walk normally. In this sense, you enter into a liminal state created by the firecrackers, which is utterly different from your normal life. A few years ago, when I was in Guangxi, in Southwest China, during Spring Festival, I felt like a war was going on – it was so noisy that I thought bombs were exploding. You couldn’t see anything, because there was so much smoke. And children kept throwing firecrackers at my legs as I was walking down the street. So, what is the purpose of this custom? People give many explanations. On the one hand, firecrackers are used to scare away evil forces; on the other hand, they are used to attract auspicious forces. Some people say they are used to scare away a monster called Nian. According to folklore, this monster eats villagers. People are scared of this monster. But this monster is so afraid of the colour red that people will let off firecrackers on the first day of the Chinese New Year. Another story is that on specific days, the God of Wealth will come and give people fortune. People thus use firecrackers to attract this god to their homes in the hope of getting good luck and fortune.
This is also the time when you have your Chinese New Year banquet, family reunion and different kinds of excitements, which are different feelings from your day-to-day life. This is the transitional or liminal phase. It is during the liminal time that connections with other powers are considered to occur. This is the time when the ghosts are driven away and the good forces come down. Invisible powers come and go during this phase.
In the ritual of the !Kung, the liminal phase is very powerful. The beginning of the dance is the separation phase, during which they depart from their normal day-to-day condition. Gradually, they enter into a complete trance. At this point, they are completely in the liminal phase, in which they become completely different from their normal self. When they are in the trance, they consider that they are in connection with the divine power. You may wonder whether they are being healed or whether they are simply crazy, but that’s the whole point – in the transitional or liminal phase, things are no longer the way they are in normal life.
Once people are in the liminal state, their previous problems or illnesses become immaterial. Everybody participating in the ritual is completely transformed. Then they enter the phase of reincorporation. After people come out of the liminal phase, they are reincorporated into the social order. That is to say, they return to the normal state, or accept a new status. For instance, after the Chinese New Year, you are reincorporated into the new cycle. Your life is back to normal, except that you are one year older, and you start things afresh.
Not only are religious rituals rites of passage, but also weddings, funerals and so on. We can think of many examples of such rites of passage in our society. It is during the liminal time that group bonding becomes extraordinarily strong, rather than the time of normal life. When things are different, people are connected more closely so that real group bonding is created.
These kinds of activities are widespread even in our contemporary society. Rites of passage are an integral part of our culture, even though they are not necessarily performed in a religious way. The search for liminal states is ubiquitous in both traditional and contemporary cultures.
- separation,
- transition or liminality, and
- reincorporation.
In the phase of separation, people separate themselves from their previous ordinary condition. A good case in point is the house-sweeping before the Chinese New Year. Before the festival, people are expected to clear out their houses. In other words, people separate themselves from the previous year and the dust it has left behind. By cleaning the house, the old year is literally swept away. There’s the idea that good luck comes at the moment of the new year. So first, before the new year, people clean away all the bad luck and all the evil. The dirty things in your house are attracting bad energies, so you clear them away. But when the new year begins, there is a cosmic change – the cycle of the universe changes; now the good forces come with the new year.
During the interval between the last few days before and the first few days after the Chinese New Year, exciting things happen, such as happy family gatherings and setting off firecrackers everywhere. This interval is the second, liminal phase.
You also enter a different state when you go onto the street with firecrackers exploding everywhere. With the noise of firecrackers, you may not be able to think or walk normally. In this sense, you enter into a liminal state created by the firecrackers, which is utterly different from your normal life. A few years ago, when I was in Guangxi, in Southwest China, during Spring Festival, I felt like a war was going on – it was so noisy that I thought bombs were exploding. You couldn’t see anything, because there was so much smoke. And children kept throwing firecrackers at my legs as I was walking down the street. So, what is the purpose of this custom? People give many explanations. On the one hand, firecrackers are used to scare away evil forces; on the other hand, they are used to attract auspicious forces. Some people say they are used to scare away a monster called Nian. According to folklore, this monster eats villagers. People are scared of this monster. But this monster is so afraid of the colour red that people will let off firecrackers on the first day of the Chinese New Year. Another story is that on specific days, the God of Wealth will come and give people fortune. People thus use firecrackers to attract this god to their homes in the hope of getting good luck and fortune.
This is also the time when you have your Chinese New Year banquet, family reunion and different kinds of excitements, which are different feelings from your day-to-day life. This is the transitional or liminal phase. It is during the liminal time that connections with other powers are considered to occur. This is the time when the ghosts are driven away and the good forces come down. Invisible powers come and go during this phase.
In the ritual of the !Kung, the liminal phase is very powerful. The beginning of the dance is the separation phase, during which they depart from their normal day-to-day condition. Gradually, they enter into a complete trance. At this point, they are completely in the liminal phase, in which they become completely different from their normal self. When they are in the trance, they consider that they are in connection with the divine power. You may wonder whether they are being healed or whether they are simply crazy, but that’s the whole point – in the transitional or liminal phase, things are no longer the way they are in normal life.
Once people are in the liminal state, their previous problems or illnesses become immaterial. Everybody participating in the ritual is completely transformed. Then they enter the phase of reincorporation. After people come out of the liminal phase, they are reincorporated into the social order. That is to say, they return to the normal state, or accept a new status. For instance, after the Chinese New Year, you are reincorporated into the new cycle. Your life is back to normal, except that you are one year older, and you start things afresh.
Not only are religious rituals rites of passage, but also weddings, funerals and so on. We can think of many examples of such rites of passage in our society. It is during the liminal time that group bonding becomes extraordinarily strong, rather than the time of normal life. When things are different, people are connected more closely so that real group bonding is created.
These kinds of activities are widespread even in our contemporary society. Rites of passage are an integral part of our culture, even though they are not necessarily performed in a religious way. The search for liminal states is ubiquitous in both traditional and contemporary cultures.
Symbolic understanding
The “symbolic” type of understanding involves the use of stories (narratives) that use symbols to connect the elements of the world. Bellah defines a symbol as follows: “It is always possible that an object, person or event in the world of daily life may have a meaning in another reality that transcends the world of working. If so we call it a symbol.”[5] Mythology is the best example of symbolic understanding. This modality can be illustrated by the films we are watching for this class. Each film is full of symbols, and follows a mythological structure.
One of the defining aspects of being a human being is the fact that we can use language and symbols. We talked earlier about imagining: we imagine other worlds and create other worlds through our imagination. The key instruments of our imagination are symbols. We are capable of imagining without symbols; but with symbols, we can put many objects of consciousness together to create an entirely imaginary world. This is a faculty which seems unique to human beings.
Language, symbols and the capacity of imagination are indeed distinctive human characteristics. During the biological evolution of the human species, from the earliest hominids to the modern homo sapiens, humans acquired new capacities and elements of culture – bipedalism, tool-making, language, and symbolic thinking and communication. Evidence of burying the dead, as well as cave art, are signs of the most unique aspect of human culture – using symbols to imagine an afterlife and other realms of reality.
Only humans are known to use symbols. Symbols enable the imagination, by using the representation of what is visible or perceptible in the material world (such as “fire”) to imagine invisible realities (such as divine power expressed through symbols of fire). Ritual and mythology combine these elements at a high level of intensity, using dense symbols and narratives, within cosmologies that extend the immediate experience of the world to invisible realms and connections. Ritual and mythology are also central to the formation of social units, the construction of individual and group identities, and the working out of tensions and dilemmas.
If culture is what distinguishes humans from animals, and culture is characterized by the use of symbols, then religion, which is the most highly symbolic form of culture, is one of the most unique and distinguishing features of humans.
Other animal species may have what you could call an “economy” – a system by which collective material needs are provided for (think of ant colonies or of the sexual division of labour that exists in many species), and many species have a “political” system or dominance hierarchy, or even crude “tools” (such as chimpanzees using twigs to catch termites). But none has anything resembling symbolic systems or religion.
What is a symbol? First, a symbol is an image or word that we can affix to objects of consciousness. Various visions and feelings constantly come and go in our minds, but by linking them to specific words or images, we stabilise them. I feel a certain heat with my body, and see certain colours and movements with my eyes, and I associate these perceptions with the sound “fire” or the pictogram huo (火). Now my specific perceptions, have been attached, through the word “fire”, to a general concept. This links my perceptions to all past and future instances of “fire”; to past memories of fire; and also to many other things that are not immediately identical: for example, the word ‘fire’ is a conventionally accepted sign for a material fire. Meanwhile, it is also a symbol for notions such as light, warmth, truth, love, hell, et cetera. A symbol is a sign the meaning of which is extended to something other than its immediate referent. In the Chinese analogical ontology we discussed in a previous lesson, we saw how “fire” is associated with heat, the heart, daytime, summer, yang, masculinity, south, and so on. The word “fire” also evokes its symbolic opposite, which is “water”, which itself is associated in Chinese cosmology with cold, the kidney, night-time, winter, yin, femininity, north, and so on. Through chains of associations and opposites, symbols connect the thing we perceive with other things in our mindscape. This process creates an entire symbolic system that is the basis of a mental operating system, creating an entire world full of meanings.
What is critical to the production of meaning is not that words or symbols are assigned to things we perceive, but rather the connections and associations between symbols. A word, in and of itself, is simply an arbitrary sound. What is the connection between the sound “table” and the object it refers to? There is none at all. What the word “table” does is connect what we see with a whole range of ideas: the notion that if it’s a table, it’s not a “chair” but there are probably “chairs” nearby; that it’s probably used for “eating”, “writing” or “working” and not for “sitting” or “standing” on; and so on. One symbol evokes a whole range of associated ideas. It is the associations between the symbols that connect everything in a deep and powerful way.
Symbols separate, as well as connect, things. Let’s take the ideas of “good” and “bad” as an example. Through different symbols, we tend to put everything in the world into the categories of either good or bad. As we advance in our lives, there are things we consider to bring us happiness, security and life; while we perceive other things to bring pain, danger and death. The former is what we call “good”, we tend to be attracted to it, and we identify with it. The latter is what we call “bad” or “evil”; we tend to fear it and to be repulsed by it. From various practical notions about what we should do and avoid in our lives, a symbolic system emerges around the notions of “good” and “evil”, which are elevated into all-encompassing moral, spiritual and philosophical categories. How do we resolve the relationship between these categories?
Through most of human history and cultures, these questions have not been primarily resolved by philosophers, but through mythology. Symbols are crafted into stories that tell us who we are, where we came from, where we are going, who and what exists in the cosmos, and how problems, conflicts and contradictions can be worked out. Such stories are myths. Myths are central to each culture in the world, including our own.
Michelangelo’s painting: The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1509-10, The Cistine Chapel, the Vatican, Rome)
In the story of the Garden of Eden, the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were living blissfully in the Garden. God told them not to eat the apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent tempted Eve, who then tempted Adam, and they both ate an apple from the Tree. They fell into sin, and God ejected them from the Garden of Eden.
There are many binary oppositions and symbolic tensions in this story. The first obvious opposition in the story is man and woman, i.e., Adam and Eve. How are Adam and Eve as man and woman portrayed in this story? A common interpretation is that because it was Eve who tempted Adam to eat the apple, the woman is the source of sin. So woman is symbolically associated with sin. But there is also an association between the woman and power, because she is so powerful that she could entice Adam. She is in possession of a dangerous power, with which she can seduce the power of man. The apple is on the tree of divine knowledge – the knowledge of God. There is supposed to be a boundary – man should not eat the apple on the tree. There was a boundary that man transgressed. What is the boundary between human beings and God? What will happen if human beings try to take the place of God? Hence, the story symbolises tensions between good and evil, between men and women, and also between God and humanity.
Another, spiritual interpretation of the story is that Adam and Eve symbolise the two aspects of the human being: Adam symbolises our higher nature, the divine spirit or soul of man, while Eve symbolises our lower nature -- our body and our ego. The tree represents the knowledge of the material world, which can be used for good or for evil. Indeed, while the garden of Eden represents the divine world of pure spirit and goodness, the material world combines both light and dark, good and evil. And the serpent represents attachment to material desires. Thus, according to this interpretation, our lower nature (Eve) was tempted into attachment to the material world and its pleasures, and corrupted our pure spirit (Adam). Thus, the human being (Adam and Eve) fell out of the state of nearness to God (the Garden of Eden) and has been living in sin, struggling with his attachment to material desires.
Another binary opposition we find in the story is between nature and culture. In the story about the Garden of Eden, our primordial innocence – a state before we had culture and knowledge – is lost. As soon as we acquired culture and started “carving up” the world based on our knowledge, we fell into sin and suffering. As I mentioned in the previous reading, the film Avatar revolves around the same theme.
As we can see, there are many possible symbolic interpretations of stories. Symbols have no fixed and closed meanings; thus, there is no limit to the possible interpretations of stories and myths. If such stories are taken literally, they are absurd; but taken symbolically, they open the imagination to endless possibilities. Mythology uses symbols to work through the conflicts between the binary oppositions at the root of our basic ontologies or “mental operating systems”. The story of Adam and Eve and other myths are certainly very ancient. But they are not obsolete. We still now live in a very mythological world. Through films, mythology is constantly being produced in our society. While tribes-people would recount myths while sitting around the fire at night, we follow myths by going to the cinema.
When you watch Hollywood films, you may have realised that they are often the same story repeated over and over again, only with different appearances, characters and plot variations. The basic mythological structure remains unchanged. The American scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell analysed thousands of myths from around the world and found a single common structure underlying them; he said they are all variations of a single basic myth called the “mono-myth”. He wrote a book in 1949 on this subject, which was entitled The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He called the basic story the “Hero’s Journey”.[6] Although it's debatable whether such a common structure exists, Hollywood directors have used the mono-myth as a template to write their scripts -- and so it is easy to find the mono-myth structure in Hollowood films.
For example, George Lucas, the producer of the Star Wars series, studied Campbell’s theory so closely that he based his entire story upon it. He consciously based the Star Wars story on the mono-myth.[7] That’s why the Star Wars series was so popular, because this story touched something deep in the structure of human mythology. Similarly, the success of Avatar and other blockbusters are also built on this mythological structure.
Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the mono-myth was inspired by the early anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, who wrote the classic Rites of Passage in 1903. Van Gennep focused on certain types of rituals, which we shall discuss below; but Campbell used van Gennep’s scheme to consider the mono-myth itself as a sharing the structure of a rite of passage. Basically, a rite of passage has three stages: (1) separation; (2) transition or liminality; (3) reincorporation. In the first stage, one is pulled out of ordinary life and separated from one’s conventional social roles and routines. In the second phase, one undergoes tests, tribulations, and extraordinary experiences through connection with magical or spiritual powers. In the third phase, one returns back to normal social life but as a transformed person or community.
The mono-myth is basically a story of spiritual transformation structured as a rite of passage – the journey from an ordinary person to a hero. It starts off with an ordinary person leading an ordinary and often unhappy life, like the handicapped Jake Sully in Avatar, Harry Potter in his abusive uncle’s home, or Luke Skywalker in his uncle’s moisture farm in Star Wars.
Suddenly, something happens – the call to adventure. These heroes-to-be are unexpectedly pulled out of their ordinary world. This is the “separation phase” in the rite of passage. They are separated from their ordinary world. At first, they hesitate and even refuse to join the adventure; but they are eventually dragged in.
Next, begins the second phase of the rite of passage: the transitional or liminal phase. They meet their mentors, their spiritual guides – Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and Neytiri in Avatar. And then, they become part of another, enchanted world; they learn its ways and secrets. Jake learns to become a Na’vi on Pandora, where everything is different. Harry Potter learns the magic of the sorcerers. Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Jedi. In this other world, there are many tests, difficulties and ordeals. Their spiritual character is tested. These are stories of spiritual transformation. But in the end, they manage to find the secrets, which are connected to the secret power of the universe. Jake connects through the tree of life; he understands the meanings, secrets and wisdom of the Na’vi; he learns how to communicate with the animals of Pandora and enlist them to his cause. Luke learns how to work with the Force and brings spiritual redemption to his father, Darth Vader. Harry Potter destroys Voldemort’s Horcruxes, saving the world from evil. At long last, these heroes become completely transformed people with special spiritual powers. This is the third phase of the rite of passage – the phase of reincorporation, where the hero returns to normal social life.[8]
The popularity of these films can be attributed to our own identification with the heroes. In some ways, these myths are saying something about ourselves. As we watch these films, we put our feet into the shoes of those heroes – the adventure and transformation they undergo, and the discoveries they encounter. As we watch these films, we identify with the challenges and transformations that the heroes are undergoing.
These myths tell a story about what it is to be a human being, and about the possibility of spiritual transformation that we can undergo as human beings. These characters are often young people on their way to maturity. Life is always a process of transformation – we are always becoming something new and different, especially during our youth. What should be the direction and purpose of these transformations? These myths let us imagine ourselves undergoing a spiritual transformation, going through a spiritual rite of passage – leaving our old state, entering an enchanted, liminal world, and finally becoming a transformed person, with a new mission of service to humanity or to all living beings, saving the suffering, bringing goodness and justice to the world. Many myths are stories about this transformation, giving us a path to imagine ourselves going through such transformation. In our mindscape, we go through those transformations and become heroes.
These myths are not stories we make up individually. Mythology is a collective thing; we learn myths from our society. In ancient days, our ancestors learned them through the storytelling around the campfire. In modern times, we learn them in the cinema and other modern media – that is our rite of passage. We separate ourselves from our daily life by going into the dark room of the cinema. In the darkness, we enter another world, where we can forget ordinary life and live in an imaginary world. Then, we step out of the cinema and return to our normal world.
There are many binary oppositions and symbolic tensions in this story. The first obvious opposition in the story is man and woman, i.e., Adam and Eve. How are Adam and Eve as man and woman portrayed in this story? A common interpretation is that because it was Eve who tempted Adam to eat the apple, the woman is the source of sin. So woman is symbolically associated with sin. But there is also an association between the woman and power, because she is so powerful that she could entice Adam. She is in possession of a dangerous power, with which she can seduce the power of man. The apple is on the tree of divine knowledge – the knowledge of God. There is supposed to be a boundary – man should not eat the apple on the tree. There was a boundary that man transgressed. What is the boundary between human beings and God? What will happen if human beings try to take the place of God? Hence, the story symbolises tensions between good and evil, between men and women, and also between God and humanity.
Another, spiritual interpretation of the story is that Adam and Eve symbolise the two aspects of the human being: Adam symbolises our higher nature, the divine spirit or soul of man, while Eve symbolises our lower nature -- our body and our ego. The tree represents the knowledge of the material world, which can be used for good or for evil. Indeed, while the garden of Eden represents the divine world of pure spirit and goodness, the material world combines both light and dark, good and evil. And the serpent represents attachment to material desires. Thus, according to this interpretation, our lower nature (Eve) was tempted into attachment to the material world and its pleasures, and corrupted our pure spirit (Adam). Thus, the human being (Adam and Eve) fell out of the state of nearness to God (the Garden of Eden) and has been living in sin, struggling with his attachment to material desires.
Another binary opposition we find in the story is between nature and culture. In the story about the Garden of Eden, our primordial innocence – a state before we had culture and knowledge – is lost. As soon as we acquired culture and started “carving up” the world based on our knowledge, we fell into sin and suffering. As I mentioned in the previous reading, the film Avatar revolves around the same theme.
As we can see, there are many possible symbolic interpretations of stories. Symbols have no fixed and closed meanings; thus, there is no limit to the possible interpretations of stories and myths. If such stories are taken literally, they are absurd; but taken symbolically, they open the imagination to endless possibilities. Mythology uses symbols to work through the conflicts between the binary oppositions at the root of our basic ontologies or “mental operating systems”. The story of Adam and Eve and other myths are certainly very ancient. But they are not obsolete. We still now live in a very mythological world. Through films, mythology is constantly being produced in our society. While tribes-people would recount myths while sitting around the fire at night, we follow myths by going to the cinema.
When you watch Hollywood films, you may have realised that they are often the same story repeated over and over again, only with different appearances, characters and plot variations. The basic mythological structure remains unchanged. The American scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell analysed thousands of myths from around the world and found a single common structure underlying them; he said they are all variations of a single basic myth called the “mono-myth”. He wrote a book in 1949 on this subject, which was entitled The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He called the basic story the “Hero’s Journey”.[6] Although it's debatable whether such a common structure exists, Hollywood directors have used the mono-myth as a template to write their scripts -- and so it is easy to find the mono-myth structure in Hollowood films.
For example, George Lucas, the producer of the Star Wars series, studied Campbell’s theory so closely that he based his entire story upon it. He consciously based the Star Wars story on the mono-myth.[7] That’s why the Star Wars series was so popular, because this story touched something deep in the structure of human mythology. Similarly, the success of Avatar and other blockbusters are also built on this mythological structure.
Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the mono-myth was inspired by the early anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, who wrote the classic Rites of Passage in 1903. Van Gennep focused on certain types of rituals, which we shall discuss below; but Campbell used van Gennep’s scheme to consider the mono-myth itself as a sharing the structure of a rite of passage. Basically, a rite of passage has three stages: (1) separation; (2) transition or liminality; (3) reincorporation. In the first stage, one is pulled out of ordinary life and separated from one’s conventional social roles and routines. In the second phase, one undergoes tests, tribulations, and extraordinary experiences through connection with magical or spiritual powers. In the third phase, one returns back to normal social life but as a transformed person or community.
The mono-myth is basically a story of spiritual transformation structured as a rite of passage – the journey from an ordinary person to a hero. It starts off with an ordinary person leading an ordinary and often unhappy life, like the handicapped Jake Sully in Avatar, Harry Potter in his abusive uncle’s home, or Luke Skywalker in his uncle’s moisture farm in Star Wars.
Suddenly, something happens – the call to adventure. These heroes-to-be are unexpectedly pulled out of their ordinary world. This is the “separation phase” in the rite of passage. They are separated from their ordinary world. At first, they hesitate and even refuse to join the adventure; but they are eventually dragged in.
Next, begins the second phase of the rite of passage: the transitional or liminal phase. They meet their mentors, their spiritual guides – Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and Neytiri in Avatar. And then, they become part of another, enchanted world; they learn its ways and secrets. Jake learns to become a Na’vi on Pandora, where everything is different. Harry Potter learns the magic of the sorcerers. Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Jedi. In this other world, there are many tests, difficulties and ordeals. Their spiritual character is tested. These are stories of spiritual transformation. But in the end, they manage to find the secrets, which are connected to the secret power of the universe. Jake connects through the tree of life; he understands the meanings, secrets and wisdom of the Na’vi; he learns how to communicate with the animals of Pandora and enlist them to his cause. Luke learns how to work with the Force and brings spiritual redemption to his father, Darth Vader. Harry Potter destroys Voldemort’s Horcruxes, saving the world from evil. At long last, these heroes become completely transformed people with special spiritual powers. This is the third phase of the rite of passage – the phase of reincorporation, where the hero returns to normal social life.[8]
The popularity of these films can be attributed to our own identification with the heroes. In some ways, these myths are saying something about ourselves. As we watch these films, we put our feet into the shoes of those heroes – the adventure and transformation they undergo, and the discoveries they encounter. As we watch these films, we identify with the challenges and transformations that the heroes are undergoing.
These myths tell a story about what it is to be a human being, and about the possibility of spiritual transformation that we can undergo as human beings. These characters are often young people on their way to maturity. Life is always a process of transformation – we are always becoming something new and different, especially during our youth. What should be the direction and purpose of these transformations? These myths let us imagine ourselves undergoing a spiritual transformation, going through a spiritual rite of passage – leaving our old state, entering an enchanted, liminal world, and finally becoming a transformed person, with a new mission of service to humanity or to all living beings, saving the suffering, bringing goodness and justice to the world. Many myths are stories about this transformation, giving us a path to imagine ourselves going through such transformation. In our mindscape, we go through those transformations and become heroes.
These myths are not stories we make up individually. Mythology is a collective thing; we learn myths from our society. In ancient days, our ancestors learned them through the storytelling around the campfire. In modern times, we learn them in the cinema and other modern media – that is our rite of passage. We separate ourselves from our daily life by going into the dark room of the cinema. In the darkness, we enter another world, where we can forget ordinary life and live in an imaginary world. Then, we step out of the cinema and return to our normal world.
References
Bellah, Robert N. Religion in Human Evolution. Harvard University Press, 2011.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books, 1949.
“DER Documentary: N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen.” Accessed September 28, 2017. http://www.der.org/films/num-tchai.html.
Durkheim, E. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. 1915. Reprint, New York: Free Press, 1995.
Marshall, John. N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 1969.
“Mythic Discovery: Revisiting the Meeting between George Lucas and Joseph Campbell.” StarWars.com, October 22, 2015. http://www.starwars.com/news/mythic-discovery-within-the-inner-reaches-of-outer-space-joseph-campbell-meets-george-lucas-part-i.
Seabrook, John. “Letter from Skywalker Ranch: Why Is the Force Still with Us?” In George Lucas: Interviews, edited by Sally Kline, 190–215. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1999.
Shostak, Marjorie. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Harvard University Press, 2009.
On the underlying structure of Amerindian myths: Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology. 1964. Reprint, Pimlico, 1995.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books, 1949.
“DER Documentary: N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen.” Accessed September 28, 2017. http://www.der.org/films/num-tchai.html.
Durkheim, E. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. 1915. Reprint, New York: Free Press, 1995.
Marshall, John. N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 1969.
“Mythic Discovery: Revisiting the Meeting between George Lucas and Joseph Campbell.” StarWars.com, October 22, 2015. http://www.starwars.com/news/mythic-discovery-within-the-inner-reaches-of-outer-space-joseph-campbell-meets-george-lucas-part-i.
Seabrook, John. “Letter from Skywalker Ranch: Why Is the Force Still with Us?” In George Lucas: Interviews, edited by Sally Kline, 190–215. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1999.
Shostak, Marjorie. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Harvard University Press, 2009.
On the underlying structure of Amerindian myths: Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology. 1964. Reprint, Pimlico, 1995.
Suggested further reading:
[1] Marshall, N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen. The film can be viewed at http://anth.alexanderstreet.com.eproxy1.lib.hku.hk/view/764978.
[2] “DER Documentary: N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen,” para. 1.
[3] Shostak, Nisa, 259–72.
[4] Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, chap. 7.
[5] Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, 8.
[6] Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
[7] “Mythic Discovery”; Seabrook, “Letter from Skywalker Ranch.”
[8] For further details on the mono-myth, see the following websites:
http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html; http://www.mythichero.com/what_is_mythology.html.
[2] “DER Documentary: N/Um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen,” para. 1.
[3] Shostak, Nisa, 259–72.
[4] Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, chap. 7.
[5] Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, 8.
[6] Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
[7] “Mythic Discovery”; Seabrook, “Letter from Skywalker Ranch.”
[8] For further details on the mono-myth, see the following websites:
http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html; http://www.mythichero.com/what_is_mythology.html.