MYTHS ARE HISTORY
2. On Solving the Problem
of Partial Perspectives |
2. On Solving the Problem of Partial Perspectives
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As we continue to recover compelling archaeological evidence of disappeared and/or forgotten myth-making cultures in all corners of the world, we also continue to find an intrinsic interdependence between the geographical situation of primary cultural sites and the particular cosmological details conserved in the mythological record of the culture native to these locations.
Each primary cultural site was regarded as the central scene of a celestial hierophany (an “appearance of the sacred”), a focal point where a supernatural phenomenon on high was formerly observed and experienced in all of its numinous glory from the ground below. Such a place had been touched by the sacred, and from that time on was believed to provide a means of sympathetically connecting and mediating between the heavens above and the earth below. — This was the place where the people built their homes, their institutions, and their monuments. Any sincere act or service performed for the good of the community became a sacred undertaking when enacted in imitation of the way the gods had originally acted there. |
Each of these sites, however, was built around a finite vantage point. Having their own unique geographical situation naturally limited the possible range and scope of the peoples’ physical vision. The limitations of perspectival vision confined each culture within the spatial conditions of their respective location. Each culture, being a finite part of the world below, confined to a finite portion of the globe, was only able to perceive a partial perspective on the whole story unfolding above. The geophysical coordinates of each cultural settlement determined what portion of this storyline each observing culture was capable of observing. The major consequence of this was the natural restriction of each culture’s vision to a limited segment of land, sea and sky, where they would continue to perceive only a finite fraction of the world’s overall reality.
— Hence an essential characteristic of each primary cultural site was its specific perspectival Field-of-View. A culture’s field-of-view was simply the range of vision that included everything that could be seen and comprehended in a single glance at the skies above, the physical “line of sight” inherently shared by those gathered together at the same location. |
Considering each myth-making culture as an independent eyewitness of extraordinary historical events — the most decisive variable seems to have been the specific celestial field-of-view granted by the vantage point of each culture’s specific geographic location. The exact appearance of the heavens, of course, naturally differed from place to place and time to time, depending on the perspective afforded by whichever terrain one’s culture was situated on. This basic axiomatic principle naturally subdivides the mythologies of the world into mutually exclusive, but equally valid viewpoints on a commonly shared series of astronomical and geophysical upheavals.
— This is precisely why a decisive criterion of mythological classifications cannot be reached merely by considering all available mythologies and their associated ritual behaviors. The physical field-of-view encountered by each eye-witnessing culture is a decisively crucial factor that must be rightfully included. |
The Sites, the Scene, and the Sights Seen
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Each of these cultures at their native cultural site were at the respective ‘center’ of their entire cosmos. Every one saw themselves as central to the entire cosmic drama unfolding around them, albeit from a range of vantage points situated all around the globe.
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At each primary cultural site on the ground below, a culture’s naked eye point-of-view was centrally situated. — This was the vantage point of the peoples’ perspectival vision.
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From that frame of reference, each site’s perspectival line of sight extended up and out into a wider field-of-view in the skies above. — This was the celestial scene the people beheld at the projective apex of their vision.
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Every culture’s viewpoint naturally widened out into a cone-shaped field extending from horizon to horizon, each having an aperture with an average 120 to 180 degree radius on the skies above.
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And all around the world, these basic circumstances were repeated again and again and again.
— Taking account of all cultural sites on the ground, what we find is a large but limited number of celestial fields-of-view, many of which partially overlap each other, spread out in a very specific array: a Worldwide Compound Eye. |
Each myth-making culture, having its own intrinsically unique field-of-view, would attempt to memorialize the phenomena they had witnessed, as integral parts of their community’s system of knowledge and belief. In this fashion, each culture would develop its own local visual vocabulary, each based on their own particular partial perspective on the cosmos above. — This would account for both the remarkable similarities of certain cross-cultural correspondences, as well as the sharp distinctions and differences of others. The fact that each cultural rendition was a perspectively limited interpretation of events observed more or less simultaneously worldwide, would likewise account for the general underlying unanimity of cosmogonic myths found around the globe.
As such, no one set of myths from a given culture could possibly contain all of the pertinent details concerning the extraordinary events all our ancestors observed in the ancient skies. Instead, each cultural rendition conserved only a limited number of elements, based on the specific local circumstances of their respective field-of-view. Since certain celestial events were indeed witnessed by multiple cultural groups on multiple continents, reconciling the the apparent similarities and differences of these events, as seen from multiple points-of-view, becomes possible only by looking closely at the details recorded in the the myths of all corresponding cultural accounts. |
Unity in Diversity
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As the entire global picture cannot be approached from any single perspectival angle on the ground, we must instead endeavor to bring together, under one conspectus, all the various cultural perspectives. By these means the whole global story of cosmogonic myth might be rendered visible as a synoptic, all-inclusive, comprehensive whole.
The first key seems to be to approach ancient knowledge by reclaiming an ancient reverence. We must again find a way to grasp and to understand time spatially — precisely as many myth-making cultures did with their complex calendar systems. — Both time and space must be suitably incorporated into our global picture of events, in the same way that traditional mythic accounts unfolded across historical time, as well as in movements through physical space. Because the time of day referenced in any given myth simultaneously conveys the location in space where the celestial scene was seen, any analysis based upon the temporal sequence of events in cosmogonic myth also cannot help but draw explicit attention to the ways in which mean-motion relationships between astronomical objects in physical space were sequentially transforming. |
With planet Earth rotating relatively rapidly through day and night to the East, and the planetary ‘wandering stars’ revolving relatively slowly in the opposite direction through the heavens to the West — the celestial scene above would’ve been seen slowly moving clockwise, while the earthly sites of cultural vantage points below continued to rotate imperceptibly counterclockwise.
A temporal series of partial perspectives, configured by the particular placement of each culture’s geographical coordinates in space, would as such run from East to West, as the Earth kept steadily spinning eastward beneath the celestial scene. — Thus, what was directly overhead, say, in Jerusalem, to the East, one moment, would be overhead in Athens and Cairo, to the West some forty-five minutes to an hour later; <etc>. Some phenomena would be distantly visible only along the periphery of one culture’s horizon, while other cultures would be regaled by seeing the same phenomena more directly overhead. |
Having identified a sequence of cosmogonic events within the context of each culture’s mythology, the second key would then be to correlate and match the events recorded in multiple regional sequences. A spatial analysis of celestial events, observed sequentially across different geographic zones from East to West, might then allow us to fit the puzzle pieces from multiple cultures’ mythologies back together closely enough to see that they all recorded different aspects of the same series of events, all at once.
Tracing these narratives sequentially from East to West in the above fashion, passing successively through one cultural field-of-view to the next — a cumulative series of observational snapshots can then be constructed across space as well as time, allowing a bigger global picture to come more clearly into view, reflective of a wider worldwide commonality than was known heretofore. |
By thus synthesizing the total sum of all the partial perspectives native to all myth-making cultures in one integral whole, we might ultimately arrive at a more aperspectival, synoptic view of cosmogonical events, as seen through the multifaceted visions of a Worldwide Compound Eye. — This would not only establish a more solid potential for establishing tighter correspondences between multiple mythologies, but also the cultural histories of various geographic regions near and far, as well.
By recognizing that world history has always formed an organic whole, and that the affairs of one corner of the world have always been indelibly interlinked w those of all other corners from the start, the contours of a history common to all mankind might be uncovered, and the real meaning of the similarities discernible across all myth-making traditions could finally be revealed. — Only then might we arrive at the best possible composite picture of the prehistoric cosmogonic events sacredly enshrined in so many peoples’ mythologies worldwide. |