Western Civilization May Well Be a Therianthropic Variation of Potential Reality

8/3/2019 Western Civilization May Well Be a Therianthropic Variation of Potential Reality

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THERIANTHROPIC VARIATION OF REALITY 1

Western Civilization May Well Be A Therianthropic Variation

of Potential Reality

Looking for Europa by Jamie Kimmel Shelton

David Shane Shelton, MA, Indigenous Mind, Wisdom University, September 2011, Garrison, NY

1841 Pearce Ct., San Marcos, Tx,[email protected], 512.754.0427


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Abstract

What we experience, thus far, as Western Civilization is based on how we think and, thus

far, we are not thinking very well relative to pre-Western Civilizations. Contemporary

mindset has been, with rare exception, essentially the same mindset as our ancient

Greek counterparts. Our main interface with the absolute space of phenomena is our

triune brain: the neo-cortex, limbic system and basal ganglia (r-complex) in the

brainstem where dopamine is produced. Dopamine eventually synthesizes into

adrenaline in our bodies. This has been the main use of our brain to continually

produce, it would seem, adrenaline as we shifted perspective to a sensory stimulated

belief in reality. We can see reflections of this in Greek Mythologies. From these myths

and a neurological look at our brains and bodies we discover the perspective shift in

how we prepare for stress in that we no longer prepare thoroughly. This leaves us with

emotionally reactive moments creating memories of this behavior in our bodys organs

and causing an addiction to adrenaline.

In mythology, Hades can be interpreted as our collective unconscious. And, down there

with him is our repressed animus, Medusa and Eurydice. Perseus serves to project the

repressed animus while Orpheus continually searches for the noumena in surrounding

phenomena. Zeus is iconic of our consciousness, our self-awareness. Feminine aspects

here are represented by Athena, Hera and others and they work to reveal the shadows

of Hades to our awareness through reflective measures and outright disruptive activities

on daily lives. Specifically through Herakles, Hera instructs us in our misguided ventures

to shed light on our psychic shadows. Hephaestus allows us discovery of,


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metaphorically, our innovative compulsions; Hera, thus, reveals the feminine disapproval

as it cultivates our proclivity for adrenaline as we strive for newer and better

advancements. It is, though, with the contemporary interpreting of the story of Theseus

and of Minos we come to the ultimate consequence of our adrenaline addiction, the

Minotaur. It reveals many things of a causal nature to us: father abandonment, Oedipal

complexes and the results of not dealing with these repressed issues with proper daily

contemplative rituals.

These myths were enacted in our history. Alexander the Great very well may have

murdered his father and subsequently stabbed out at the Persians and Indians to

continually fulfill his adrenaline habit as this is misconstrued as filling his psyche, a

void left by the repression of the feminine energies. As astrology shows, with particular

astronomical alignments, combined with galactic positioning of our solar system, this

adrenaline addiction and altered perception of reality may not be entirely the fault of

our species as we are unaware of the cosmic energies rippling through our systems.

Regardless, we abandoned our mysticism to rely solely on the cosmological and

sociological aspects. Without mysticism, we react emotionally to the challenges of

reality, clench up and continually fall back on decisions from our r-complex. Worst case

scenario, we erupt violently, bestially. Such was the bestiality in our evolved nature

and mindset that therianthropic folklore arose. If we could overhaul our brains and

mindfully reprogram them with re-installed daily contemplative rituals, we could create

a new world from our neo-cortex. These rituals can be found where Alexander sought

sub-consciously to fill his empty psyche, India and the Far East.


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keywords: Western Civilization, adrenaline junkies, schisms, Greek Mythologies, r-

complex, bestial nature, bull, contemplative ritual


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Western Civilization May Well Be a Therianthropic Variation of Potential Reality

From the East We Depart

I think it would be a good idea. These are the irreverent words of Mahatma

Gandhi when asked his thoughts on Western Civilization. What he had experienced and

what we all experience within the construct of Western Civilization is a mere fraction of

its potential. This experience is often one of violence, famine, poverty and exploitation.

Naturally, there are positive attributes such as stated in Americas founding

documents, carried over from ancient Hebrew law, they specifically emphasized 4

traits: liberty, justice, truth, equality (Bhaerman, 2009). When not overlooked those

just mentioned provide a balanced approach to life. Which brings us to another quote

by Gandhi which says: A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he

becomes (http:// www.brainyquote.com/ quotes/authors/m/ mohandas_ gandhi.html).

The accumulated thoughts of 2500 hundred years of Western Civilization (actually

I believe it is only of the first 500 hundred years which formulated the mindset of the

West, established in Greece as a base operating system and encrypted programming

run to this day) have echoed and reverberated in our everyday actions. Thoughts

conceived of in the West seem to stem from various schisms in our collective psyche

such as our separation from Nature and the separation of the masculine and feminine,

which were not problematic when ancient daily contemplative rituals were applied.

Contemplative rituals create a balanced mindset and an ability to approach daily

stresses from the higher brain functions. Thus, without these contemplative rituals we

are most often left in a constant state of angst and repression; we have found ourselves


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never fully out of our basal ganglia (r-comlex) systems. We have had glimpses

throughout history, epiphanies which contradict this statement and show off the

potential of our neo-cortex, however I consider the overall effect to be a dismal

mistreatment of the absolute space of phenomena we have been provided. By

dismissing the ancient practices, the daily rituals of contemplation, we allow ourselves

to sink into our basic animal natures and disregard our holistic potential.

The Brain: Hormones and Body Memory

The unique qualities of our triune brain (a three compartmentalized map

consisting of the basal ganglia, the limbic and neo-cortex), rather our unique ability to

use this triune brain and its setup, allows our collective consciousness to interact and

manipulate this absolute space of phenomena, as the Buddhists name our sensory

reality. The gem of this structure is, of course, the neo-cortex, a penthouse of

cognizance and self-awareness. Sandwiched in the middle is the limbic system, home of

our emotional centers and memory; and, the majority of the thalamus resides here. It

is the major integration center for all sensory information passing into the brain, except

for smell. Research indicates it plays a major role in both emotion and consciousness

(Baumann, 2010). Let us not forget the endocrine system. It is of vital importance and

can be found in the limbic system. It is an invaluable link between our minds and

bodies. The endocrine system, hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, as well, form a

delivery system like railroad tracks down into the kidneys, liver, and heart. The

hypothalamusplays the principle role in control ofhormonal release; the

hypothalamus lies on top of the pituitary gland and also influences the latters activity in


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hormone production (Baumann, 2010). Curled up beneath all of that is our basal

ganglia, also called the r-complex. Here is the location of our brainstem and cerebellum

and, most important for this topic, our dopamine manufacturing center, which

eventually ends up as adrenaline in our bodies. This extremely basic anatomy is only to

serve as a roadmap for later discussion (Baumann, 2010).

With the Western mindset, as illustrated in ancient Greek mythologies, to be

mentioned later, we find a more haphazard use of this triune system than from pre-

Western usage, to my understanding. Pre-Western chants and prayers, whatever they

may have been, prepared their minds and bodies pre-emptively to respond positively

from within to challenges and stress. These mental enactments became embedded in

the memory clusters of the limbic system and subsequently imprinted in the hormones

secreted throughout the body, by the above mentioned, into the kidneys, liver and heart

(essence, flow and soul-center of Qi in Chinese medicine). However, having

discontinued the use of daily contemplative ritual, the West instead falls back on the

production of dopamine; feeds daily off of this addiction and, I am wont to believe, it is

for the worse for soulful development.

Shift in Perspectives: The West Reinvents How We See

In the West, with the Greeks and later using Alexander as an example, we see

prayers made to gods which exist external to their personal space. Prayers are sent out,

projected from our unconsciousness, in hopes that some sentience out there will enter

said personal space and grant the recipient his/her wish. Depending on a specific

dialogues context, Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, and the rest could signify actual


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deities, allegorical figures, character types, psychological attitudes, modes of experience,

philosophic principles,divine communications,or rulers and teachers of mankind

(Tarnas, 91). When no sensory answer is relayed or fed back to them, a frustration sets

in a subconscious voiding sensation clenches the body and, voila, adrenaline comes to

temporarily satisfy. As rational thought and sensory inputs dominate their conceptual

processes they no longer embody the aspects of the gods from within themselves and

therefore create a different reality due to this difference, this shift in perspective and

subsequent misuse of the brain provided.

As the Greeks reprogrammed the operation of our brains, they ceased these

preparations (Mandalas, chants, prayers, some form of breath-work) and thus reacted

emotionally in the moment of the onset of a stressful situation. These negative

responses then embedded themselves in the memory center of the limbic system and

thus were delivered through the same endocrine system with imprinted signals for the

body to retain for future use.

Ever since, those of the West, mostly, rely on emotional reactions and adrenaline.

This serves to clench the body and the flow of blood to the brain decreases. These

chemical signals, [adrenaline and cortisol], constrict the blood vessels in the viscera,

which preferentially redirects blood flow to the somatic system (Bhaerman, 2009).

Blocked out of our neo-cortex, now, we must fall back on dopamine to physically

alleviate our problems rather than through diplomacy.

The following takes us back to the beginnings to eek out a cross-section of the

mindset of the West; the Mythologies which reveal the underlying themes of this


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mindset. It will only serve, I am afraid, to reveal a possible set of errors, not any

solutions. It may also reveal the cause of the errors which lie in the very way we think.

Maui: So Far West It Becomes East

I found myself on a plane recently, with my wife, over the Pacific Ocean en route to

Maui. It was an anniversary vacation. It had been such a long flight, fatigue began to

set in and, with current studies of Greek Mythology and my personal transformation in

mind, I could not help but think of Hades and the underworld setting that has become

synonymous, for me, of the inevitable direction of Western Civilization (and we were

heading as far west as one can go before entering the East). As the sun set, and left

shades of colors never before seen, by my eyes, in the clouds, the magnificent colors

seemed to personify my thoughts of this darkened realm. I have long felt and noticed

the slow demise of Western Civilization. The correlations to a now ancient hegemony of

Western Civilization, the Romans, has seemed all too prevalent and has caused me to

wonder how or why no real effort to alternate potentials has been considered and

enacted to prevent a cyclical outcome to such similar activities.

Our plane lands and we find our way to the hotel and settle in. It is late, but we

still indulge in a night stroll along the beach. And, because I have in mind the West as

both civilization and as descent to transformation, I inevitably create a comparison.

Maui obviously has the trappings of America, the current model of the West, but there

also exists here a hint of its fate as it has, with the acquisition of Hawaii, expanded so far

west, it actually has tapped into and blended the feeling of the East and its

masculine/feminine balance. It is a much needed, very refreshing perspective for


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where divine feminine is not allowed to exist, an imbalance is spawned ( MacEowen,

2007).

Maui, the cultural hero and icon, was responsible, in the mythologies, of pulling

forth the islands from the depths of the ocean and tricking his brothers into helping

him. But, from a psychological standpoint, the islands could well be interpreted as a

form of self-consciousness, self-awareness in our species pulled up from the

subconscious realm.

Greece: One End to the Other

We returned from Maui with a deeper sense of, well, yes, relaxation, but also a

deeper sense of where Western Civilizations destiny, potentially, rests-in-wait. In the

meantime, we catapulted ourselves half-way back around the world to Greece, the seed

and sprout of Western Civilization. Here we spent a week with Dr. Ray Moody learning

more and more of Greeces ancient methods of perception, its mythologies and link to

the underworld. We tap into their thoughts for thoughts continue to live and act

when even the very name of the man who created them has been converted into a

myth (Ouspensky, 2011). We traveled to Heraklion, the Necromantium, and to the

Oracle of Delphi.

It was at this time I gained an intuitively initiated glance at the insight of some of

Greeces most potent mythologies from a psychological standpoint; focusing on the

three brothers, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades each ruling the overworld, the seas, and

underworld respectively. Similar to the Maui interpretation, I regarded these Greek

triplets of masculine origin as metaphorically ruling our conscious mind, and Zeus


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ultimately playing the role of our super-ego, Poseidon as our subconscious, leaving

Hades as he who dominates our collective unconscious mind.

Hades: Underneath and Within

If I may, I would like to elaborate on the realm of Hades and consider the

collective unconsciousness in relation to it by commenting on a most popular tale, that

of Medusa. The tale begins with a young devotee of Athena. She finds herself

consorted to Poseidon and they marry, thus stealing her away from her station and out

of favor with her previous mistress. In an act of vengeful cruelty, Athena spites her to

the underworld where she enfolds bitterly upon herself to become the hideous gorgon

we all know and love (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003).

Intuitively translated as part of our collective psyche, as told by our ancient

forebears, we may see the Greeks actively suppressing the feminine spirit to the

unconscious realms. Initially married down to subconsciousness, they ultimately tried

to cast the feminine away into the oblivion of the unconscious from where we

continually project outward our lack of anima/animus balance.

I do not believe the Greeks, the original hegemonous representatives of the

West, to have been the ones who purged the feminine aspect of our psyche from our

conscious workings to create this imbalance; they were simply a culture who concretized

the existing ideals. Now these myths illustrate a Western mindset. Contemporary

interpretation can reveal and decrypt for us what becomes of our psyche when we

neglect our contemplative practices. For the West, we can further utilize the myths as

an interpretation of the Greek state-of-mind, observing how these archetypes played


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themselves out through the physical and sensory natures of these people; to more

deeply understand how our contemporary mindset reflects theirs. The archaic Greek

vision reflected an intrinsic unity of immediate sense perception and timeless

meaning; a peculiarly indivisible synthesis of the individual and the universal (Tarnas,

91).

In the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, we see an attempt by the artists of the

patriarchy to vow to retrieve the noumena of the feminine from the underworld, the

collective unconscious, and expect to find a phenomenal woman as the soul of an

artist can understand and feel the reflection of the noumena. We usually see nothing,

we merely feel our way; therefore we do not notice those differenceswhich cannot be

explained in terms of chemistry or physics (Ouspensky, 2011). Try as we might, the

West will never be able to touch her with our hands nor of any sensory capacity.

Noumena was recognized as really existing in itself, but inaccessible for our receptivity

(Ouspensky, 2011).

One quick last reference back to Medusa, lest we forget the magnificent efforts of

one Perseus, son of Zeus, a son of conscious awareness as he dives deep into the

unconscious mind, the underworld to confront Hades, slay Medusa; shattering this bitter

image and retrieving feminine energy and placing her proper on Athenas shield as a

shadow projection into the material realm! We see here, in the myths, examples of an

attempt towards the path of integration in this shadow work of the underworld and

awareness of projections. Unconscious images emit a weak signal which does not

reach the threshold of consciousness. This weak signal can be amplifiedby bouncing


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captured imagesoff of a backboard of collectively existing cultural image patterns such

as found inmyth, and ritual (Bosnak, 2007).

We see, then, an effort in the psyche of the Greeks and thus the West to at least

recognize the unconscious projections seeking balance in the masculine/feminine split.

This reconnect will not be accomplished from the r-complex or sensory phenomena. It

will be a conceptual, from the neo-cortex, healing and the first step is to put down the

shield from the defensive posture and look into it again to reflect on the feminine

wisdom. The manifestation of energy, and thought will remain somewhere beyond the

limits of investigation, retreating like a shadow at every approach (Ouspensky, 2011).

Zeus, et al

Let us go topside, all the way up Mount Olympus, to visit what amounts to our

self-consciousness. Yes, there is the ever present Zeus with the thunderbolts and the

lightning; very, very frightening. But, while we are here, I would much prefer, in the

interest of the potentiality of the development of Western Civilization and its schisms,

we look at how women are perceived from the top end of our collective psyche and the

Greek perspective; specifically Athena, and Hera. When we speak more in depth with

Hera we will want to discus her son Hephaestus and the epic cultural hero of the West,

Hercules.

We will begin, only too briefly a mention, with Athena, goddess of wisdom. While

I often question the wisdom of casting a devotee, such as Medusa, into the oblivion of

the underworld to be forgotten, I find it quite appropriate that wisdom is bestowed by

this feminine archetype for, concerning Ares [ego], his sister Athena ever appears in


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opposition to him (Berens, 2008). Ego is tempered by wisdom. And her wisdom makes

us at least aware of our projections.

On the one hand, it appears as if the Greeks find women and their perspective

quite the headache, as portrayed through Athenas rupturing birth through Zeus skull,

while on the other hand, Athena charges a man, Perseus, a normal Greek citizen who,

like his fellow citizens, lacks an integrated mindset, to descend into the underworld to

shatter and decapitate the embodied bitter woman and project her image on the shield

to utilize as a tool to find this lost animus outwards in the hopes that some omniscient

being will reward him with wholeness of mind; the Greeks seem to want to call for an

integration of our collective psyches (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003).

Unfortunately, I believe these projections to be outward seeking and futile. Men

may conquer women and vice-versa, but, ultimately, will only serve to feed the

adrenaline junkie within us and not to integrate. Ourconsumerism becomes a self-

fulfilling prophesy. Whether wesate it with food,drugs, sex, or gas [guzzlers],

such glutony does not address the inner vacuumof [the] modern world (MacEowen,

2007).

Herakles

Hera creates a perplexing view of the Greek patriarchy. She seems to be epicentric

to what can only be described as a bitchy archetype. She seems to at all times, and I

can not say that I blame her, complain of her husbands extra-marital behaviors. While

a staunch defender of the loyal house-maid/wife, she exerts all energies into thwarting

the disloyalty of Zeus through his bastard son, Hercules, the icon of the West. She


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hounds Hercules, who we will address with a bit more rigor shortly, and boots her own

son, Hephaestus, right off of the mountain for not meeting her standards. But, we find

in Hera a strong, spirited woman who is a champion of women and a potent rep-

representative of doing what it takes to keep women in the conscious mind of

awareness in both ancient and contemporary Western Civilization that seems bent on,

until very recently, repressing feminine aspects at all costs.

As Hercules enters the scene of Western Civilization, son of Zeus and bane of

Hera (animus projections he would not accept, perhaps?), we take a look at a cross-

section of what amounts to the struggle of men in this era. [Leonard] Laskow, [M.D.]

wrote: When you accept and love the parts of yourself you want to reject or change,

you create an opportunity to discover the positive life force behind them (Bhaerman,

2009). We know him more popularly as Hercules, but he was referred to by the Greeks

as Herakles. That is, the glory of Hera. Herakles is merely a name bestowed upon

Alkeides as he battled through life over the hurdles set upon him by Hera not out of

unforgiving spite but rather to form opportunities for Herakles to accept a holistic

mindset to include Athenas wisdom (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003). His ordeals follow

and are representative of our collective psyche. Although he does seem to perpetuate

the separation from Nature, at times he does show great poise in his decisions as if he

were ultimately utilizing that feminine wisdom to balance his warrior mentality; allowing

access to his neo-cortex.

There are a handful of subplots most interesting to Herakles plight and of

Wo/Man in Western Civilization. The first of these subplots to make note of involve

his interactions with Prometheus. Prometheus, in the context of this work, could


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represent the scientific realm of endeavor for our species. As the benefactor of our first

technology, fire, Prometheus was severely punished by his cousin, Zeus. Chained atop

Mount Caucuses; Prometheus was daily ravaged by Zeus eagle through the

consumption of his liver. All of these details beg the question of their interpretation

and the liver detail is no different (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003).

In Chinese medicine, the liver regulates blood flow and Qi; connection of the

various body parts and wholeness. Thus, without the liver, as was Prometheus, there

would be a lack of Qi or conscious connection to this god who represents scientifically

motivated activities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_(Chinese_medicine)). In other

words, our collective psyches, at this time, were unaware of the modality of science in

their daily regiment. As our cultural icon, Herakles, slays the eagle and opens our

conscious awareness to science.

Herakles, then, switches Prometheus out with Chiron, the Centaur to whom he had

inadvertently shot with an arrow poisoned with the blood of the hydra. In this we see

the Greeks replacing in the psyche Nature for science. And, I not only say Chiron and

the Centaurs represent Nature but, more specifically, I am saying that Centaurs must

represent, as I have interpreted it, Wo/Mans self-emergence from Nature and self-

awareness. To the Greeks, Centaurs were analogous to an absurd creature (Berens,

2008; Martin, 2003) and, furthermore, the Greeks had little respect, it would seem, to any

connection with Nature even though their greatest heroes personages were set and

matured by nature and could not have accomplished such greatness without it.

Yet, emergent as our self-awareness has progressed we still maintained, in small

pockets, a connection back to Nature in this conceptual form of the Centaur. To take


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literally the idea of a Centaur, though, I can only imagine wandering bands of woodland

people who either refuse to live within the cities confines or cannot afford them and are

thus homeless.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus is not so much a son of Zeus, as are Herakles and Minos, as he is a son

of Hera and the feminine. He was born of a virgin birth, no father had been involved;

and so was of the matriarchal mindset. Oddly enough Hera found this baby, as we will

see as a metaphor for technological innovation, so hideous a notion she heaved him off

of Mount Olympus and the awareness of his metaphorical nature into the subconscious

realm of Poseidon, into the ocean. It seems a statement of the matriarchy to have

opposed such things, perhaps.

Innovation, Hephaestus, being what it is, developed a contraption to ascend itself

back to conscious awareness. Hephaestus designed a throne so lovely for Hera and had

it delivered via Thetis, daughter of Nereus (creatures of the sea are, in mythologies,

the typical delivery system of the subconscious; this and the giant sons of Poseidon)

(Martin, 2003). She received it and adored it. Upon sitting in her new throne, it

immediately ensnared her by the wrists and ankles and would not yield, even at the

prying of her peers. This throne, now an incarceration of Hera, began to waddle its way

to the edge; threatening to drop Hera off into the ocean with it; virtually threatening to

drop the matriarchy into the absolute suppression of the subconscious to be forgotten

if the gods, and Hera, did not permit Hephaestus a place in the heavens. Naturally, she

did yield to his demands and Hephaestus ascended, but bringing a Cyclops, another of


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the sons of Poseidon, with him. Thus innovations of technology emerged and continue

to emerge from the subconscious in the mind of the West (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003).

Hephaestus relationship with Aphrodite, then, is also most curious, as one of the

stipulations for Heras release was this idyllic woman. She appears, though, to represent

all form and little-to-no function, except as a sensory stimulus. She has no affinity for

Hephaestus and is, from the get-go, repulsed. In this couple we discover an appealing

vehicle for which to deliver the function of the technology to a manifest reality.

However, the very nature of this relationship, being so tentative, and as we have all

discovered, our technology often times fails us. We very well may have a case of

opposing poles only attracting through a coerced state. For more often than not,

Aphrodite will flee for the big arms of Ares, metaphorically our warrior-minded egos,

who steps in and angrily wants to control and destroy such feeble technologies which

dare to, even in jest, embrace such beauty as Aphrodites (Berens, 2008; Martin, 2003).

We begin to see the power hungry structure of the r-complex beginning with

Hephaestus wanting to be an Olympian and wanting to fulfill his feminine needs as

projected onto Aphrodite. Beyond this lies, for each of us following this path,

corruption of the soul and self-consumption. The ego, Ares, remains a static warrior

aspect demanding more adrenaline, more dopamine to satisfy its bodily needs and our

own innovations, hesitantly allowed by the matriarchy, according to these mythic

interpretations, feed this corruption and flare dopamine production. The warrior can

have either an actualizedexpression that leads to peace, discipline, and personal

refinement or an imbalanced expression that can lead to violence, [and] unconscious

conflict (MacEowen, 2007 ). Again, Athenas wisdom is required in possible


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application of each of our innovative technologies rather than just creating because we

can.

Theseus and Minos

At last we move on to our final Greek Mythological reference in Theseus, a

contemporary of Herakles. A most underrated story in our contemporary culture until

we mention the Minotaur. At this, I believe, a majority of people would tune-in with

positive recognition. This tale is, in my opinion, a pivotal moment in the foundation of

what is Western Civilization where we encounter a subtle aspect of the psyche and the

reason for the daily contemplative practice: our lack of control over our own bestial

nature due to our subconscious projections to which we still encounter to this day and

the causal connection to our adrenaline addiction. King Minos and, surprise, Herakles

(in his 7th ordeal) begin this myth.

Minos as a projection of his psyche, called forth from Poseidon, his own

subconscious, to reveal the cause of his woes. He vows to slay any animal which

appears from the sea, the subconscious knot which torments his soul. A white bull

emerges. Uncanny this is the same form his father, Zeus, took to impregnate his

mother, Europa. Only, Zeus promptly abandoned them both afterwards. This trauma

has re-emerged in Minos, projected from his psyche, but, I must say, he prayed it come

forth. With no daily ritual or prayers to deal properly with this shadow archetype, the

bull then ferociously possesses Minos; it becomes him, rage and all.

It was not until Herakles, who having had many ordeals to gain a foothold into his

own shadow projections, and having gained some semblance of internal balance over


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his own Self to portray a much more holistic individual as demonstrated in the myth by

his riding freely, without the burden of trauma, of the Cretan Bull, that Minos was

impressed upon to gain self-control of this bestial portion of his psyche (Berens, 2008;

Martin, 2003). By this demonstration, I think, Minos aspires to seek the help of Daedalus

to construct a labyrinth to which, as we see, is a physical reflection of a conceptual

construct meant to be used as a psychological tool to corral our own bestial natures

which can otherwise possess us.

This was to be daily contemplative practice to embody the inner beast, to utilize

the strengths of the bull in a mindful fashion. However, no sooner had it been

established than was too soon to be completely dismembered by Theseus and Western

Civilization. For it has no place, it would seem, in the new mindset of the West who

turns now to embrace Prometheus sciences. By bringing back the decapitated head of

the Minotaur, Theseus, son of Poseidon and the subconscious mind, makes the

statement that Greece and the West no longer honor the ancient traditions of the

Egyptians, Persian or Indians, et cetera, with their Pantheons. Egypts animal headed

gods, for example: Set, Khnum, Tefnut, Taueret, Sobek, Horus, Hathor, Thoth, Bastet,

and Anubis (I am almost certain to have left out one or more) to whom they prayed

daily and embodied as needed were of the inner-self, gods from within. This allowed

each citizen to enter mentally their neo-cortex to solve dilemmas and deal with daily

stresses. The Minotaur is of this vein of embodiment and the labyrinth the means to

acquire this mindset.

Ironically, Theseus, after the destruction of the labyrinth, becomes possessed by

the same raging bull from the sea (from his subconsciousness) so carefully contained


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by the ritual of the labyrinth of Daedalus, and kills his own son! Sadly, Minos demise

comes by similar fate in that he also becomes possessed by his bestial nature and is

killed, because of it, on the isle of Sicily seeking to destroy Daedalus. Consumed by his

inner bull-rage, the king there had him disposed of for his lack of self-control. These

are what fates await without daily ritual to enter higher brain functions (Berens, 2008;

Martin, 2003).

Mythologies Embodied

To summarize before moving on to actual historical events which played out,

mirroring the myths, the Greeks put down into words the existing myths which would

help set the foundation of Western Civilization. The myths were the living body

ofmeaning, constituting a language that both reflected and illuminated the essential

processes of life (Tarnas, 91). The Greeks inscribed tales embedded with wisdom such

as the need to retrieve and maintain awareness of the feminine voice, the switching of

science for nature, the coerced allowance of technology and innovation by the

matriarchy to prevent their complete and utter suppression, father abandonment issues,

Oedipal complexes, and the problems of technologys form manifest, as well as control

or lack thereof of our inner bestial natures as a by-product and demand of dopamine. I

believe that when I mention embedded wisdom I must be clear that I am referring to

not wisdom of what our self-consciousness should be, but more of what it will

potentially become if we continued to espouse the existing myths without realizing and

decrypting said wisdom. Thus, there are a few momentous historical events,


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movements, more like it, in the setting of the foundation for this new mindset. For

example: Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great

I have not mentioned word one of astrology in this context, yet. But, I feel it

necessary at this juncture and for this particular astronomical event is unique to

recorded history. There so happened an event of a triple planetary conjunction of

Uranus, Pluto and Neptune which has not happened since, as a nebulous node of

initiation; sparking the onset of what we know to be the West. The triple conjuction

of the sixth century BCE coincided not only with the heart of the global Axial Age but

also with the rise of Greece and its rapid emergence as a world-historic civilization[;] the

eruption of a collective will to power during Uranus-Pluto eras canbecome

concentrated and embodied in a single powerful figure, a world-historic political-

military conquerordriven as if by a force of nature. And, this on the heels of the birth

of the Hellenistic agein the period from 443 to 430 BCE (Tarnas, 96).

And, who better in the sensory realm we understand to portray and manifest this

grand experiment than Alexander the Great. He not only launched the greatest invasion

and subsequent onslaught of military might and genius, he also calcified into stone,

into record, precedent for what it means to be either living within Western Civilization

or beyond its borders in-waiting for what it will do. For the West, now true adrenaline

junkies, under the movement of the energy of this triple conjunction was nothing less

than a declaration of patriarchal control, rather, attempted control of everything within

the sensuous order, of the absolute space of phenomena; continued repression of the


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feminine, usage of new technologies, mainly of warfare, and his own father issues were

all aspects of his campaigns. Symptoms of fear and terror are thus reflected in the

actions of the people of the West, beginning with the Greeks and these two aspects

cause an organism to put its energies to protection rather than growth (Bhaerman,

2009).

The Rest, They Say

From this briefly exposed perspective, we can get a sense of psychological cause

and effect, the cause being the collective unconscious level schisms such as the

anima/animus, Wo/Man from Nature, and its aftermath of adrenaline addiction. We

see, too, a species relying much more exclusively on sensory inputs to stumble their way

through life, subconsciously disregarding more cognizant solutions. To make a clearer

distinction, we can always turn to Joseph Campbell. When relying on mythologies for

some form of guidance, Mister Campbell states that myth serves 4 functions: (one) that

of the mystical or invisible world, (two) of the cosmological, visible world, (three) of the

sociological here and now order, and (four) the pedagogical. This final detail serves to

show as the inevitable crisis of the world (Free, 99).

Thus, as Alexander moved to crush and conquer, he too was moved by the

cosmos; and, the people of the West leave behind the mystical aspects to rely more on

the cosmological which led to more imbalance and greater pedagogy. Imbalance of

energies formed stressful living conditions to which people of Western Civilization

responded with through adrenaline, r-complex mindsets as threatening signals from


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the external environmentactivate[d]the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis

(Bhaerman, 2009).

The Aftermath: Christendom and Folklore

As it was with Theseus, when we cease to use intuition and react strictly from

emotional centers with a need of adrenaline and without a firm practice of detachment,

we find ourselves living with our poor decisions made under the duress we helped to

create and mire into our r-comlex. In neurological terms, our triune brain allows self-

consciousness to access this absolute space of phenomena through functional brain

compartments such as the thalamus and neo-cortex. Yet, these have grown around the

still existing, still needed r-complex; no higher brain activity occurs here. My point

being that under these circumstances, with the void of mysticism, we tend to clench up

and cease our regular breathing which cuts off enough of the blood supply to the neo-

cortex and the higher brain functions to where we fall into the bestial modality of our

r-complex (synonymous to basal ganglia). We have become overwrought with the bull

of the sea.

Through the centuries, I believe the church perpetuated this and concretized the

separation from Nature. This includes the fanning of the fire of the werewolf lore. It

seems silly folklore to us contemporaries, however, when broken down and looked at in

the context of history, it reveals this lost Daedalus of psychology which prepares us a

guided pathway to positively engage negative situations with emotional detachment.

Without this profound mental tool, this exercise and daily practice (one might call it

chanting, prayer or meditation, or yoga) people have succumbed to this bestial nature


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as second nature, indicative of r-complex modality. And, when cursed, become, at

times, werewolves right before our eyes and fly off into tangential rages and lose their

awareness entirely.

This r-complex modality, an entropic step of our collective psyches, has been

taught to each successive generation. Although we today live in a world where we have,

or are realizing, a power to create and destroy through our interaction with the absolute

space of phenomena with set intentions, this embedded overreliance of the r-complex,

a power happy and adrenaline rush mindset, we have created a world of violence,

famine and poverty. Think of the potential world if we all chanted and breathed

contemplatively together everyday. Think of the world we could create and the

challenges we could face from a mind set way up in the neo-cortex! Only when we own

responsibility do we have an opportunity to cultivate processes and practices that

empower us to respond differently the next time we are revisited by previous stressful

situations. Life success is predicated on navigating our actions with conscious decisions

rather than engaging in reflexive, preprogrammed subconscious behaviors (Bhaerman,

2009).

Where to (Re)Turn?

Interesting, I would say, that Arnold J. Toynbee, a British historian, said in the

1950s that The vast literature, the magnificent opulence, the majestic sciences, the soul

touching music, the awe inspiring gods. It is already becoming clearer that a chapter

which has a western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in

the self destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history


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the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way (http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/

Arnold_J. Toynbee). He says this and then there is Gandhi. From Indias Mythologies, I

agree, is where the West should seek to solve its many multi-faceted dilemmas but

without limiting itself to just India. Western Civilization must look deeply into the

philosophies of the Eastern mind as did Pythagoras, Gurdjieff, Campbell and the

mythological Maui of the Hawaiian Islands and fulfill the potential garden rose that is

Western Civilization. If we could change our psyche apparatus and should then

discover that the worldwas changing, this would constitute for us the proof of the

dependence of the properties of space upon the properties of our consciousness

(Ouspensky, 2011).


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References

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Berens, E.M. (2008). The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. Biblio

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1256, 1425, 1916, 2053, 2703, 2714, 3008, 3059, 3068, 3103, 3131, 3210, 3265,

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Bhaerman, Steve (2009). Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (and a Way to

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Bosnak, Robert (2007). Embodiment: Creative Imagination in Medicine, Art and Travel.

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Free, William (Producer) (1999). Mythos 1 with Joseph Campbell: The Shaping of Our

Mythic Traditions[Film]. New York, New York: Joseph Campbell Foundation.

Martin, Richard P. (2003). Myths of the Ancient Greeks. New American Library. Kindle

locations: 392, 562, 619, 643, 665, 671, 782, 885, 1393, 1406, 1409, 1446, 1898,

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Ouspensky, P.D. (2011). Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought A Key to the

Enigmas of the World. White Crow Books. Kindle locations: 1674, 2683, 2768,

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Tarnas, Richard (1996). Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View.

Kindle locations: 4055, 8616.

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That Have Shaped Our World View. New York: Ballantine Books. Pages: 13, 17,

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Documents

Western Civilization May Well Be a Therianthropic Variation of Potential Reality