“History records man’s perceptions of the “truth” and these perceptions are firmly distorted, as anyone knows who has researched historical sources.
On the other hand Legend and Myth preserve the essence of the truth. This is validated by the similarity of world legends that persist in all parts of the world and in all cultures and religions. ”
-Christopher S. Hyatt
We honour our pasts in strange ways
tho we remember it not
after all it is not the truth that lives on
and facts are easily distorted
It is story that lingers.
Everyone knows the myths of their country and culture and connect to it on a visceral level more than they ever could dry historical facts.
If you want history to be remembered a certain way despite how it may or may not have happened, the easiest way is to make your version of history legendary. Have clear heroes and villains. Remember everything the heroes did in the most positive light possible and everything the antagonists did in the most negative. Make it romantic and sexy and you too will have created a new legendary history that will be taught in school textbooks and sworn to be the way it was.
I’m sure some examples easily come to mind.
Blessings, G
“It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religion, philosphies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.”
–Joseph Campbell
From a young age I had a strong interest in archetypes and myths. As a child I read every book on mythology that I could find in the library and constantly searched for more. There was something in me that was touched by these stories. I felt a connection to the beliefs that people had. As a teenager and young adult this expanded into studying every religion I could find as often as not from the inside. I was searching for large answers, perhaps even capital Truth (as opposed to the personal subjective small t truths we all have). More than anything I wanted to understand why people believe what they believe in and how it all matched up. When I started reading Carl Jung and his ideas on archetypes and the collective unconscious things started clicking for me. There was a reason why so many of the deities in each culture seemed to match up with one another. They were all aspects of the same universal forces. Thus almost every culture had a war god, a love goddess, brother gods who fought each other, solar gods who died and were reborn etc. Then at the age of eighteen I discovered the tarot.
At the time I was studying the works of Carlos Castaneda and using those books as a springboard into the study of Theosophy, Wiccan Lore, Qabalistic Lore, Parapsychology, Philosophy and about ten different phenomenon. A friend of mine (who was more knowledgeable than I and saw himself as my teacher) and I would read chapters and sit there with books strewn all over our apartment keeping ourselves going with over the counter caffein and diet pills and take out. It was a sublime time for me but then I have always been something of a geek.
When we discovered that there was a tarot class being held nearby we jumped at the chance to attend.
Sandy who taught the class was a woman in her late twenties who together with her husband ran an Astrological Research centre. They taught classes and did charts and readings for people. There were about eight or nine of us in the class and Sandy’s two chihuahuas. Week after week we would sit in a circle while she went over the cards and what they meant with her dogs jumping at her heels. My room mate Bill and I supplemented the class with our own outside reading which consisted of a few of Arthur E. Waite’s books, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, Crowley’s Book of Thoth and Eileen Connolly’s Tarot Handbook for the Apprentice. We also gave each other and anyone who would ask readings.
On the night before the last night of class, Sandy thought it would be a good idea for the class to attempt a reading together. Someone suggested that she be the subject and she giddily (as she did everything else) agree. She laid out the cards in a typical celtic cross spread and then abruptly switched gears and put the cards away and started another project. Bill and I who were sitting closest had to avoid laughing because we had seen the cards. There was quite a lot in there about Sandy’s marriage and other aspects of her life she did not particularly feel like sharing.
I don’t know whether Sandy was the best teacher or not but she did start me off on a subject that has held my interest for the last thirty years. It has helped me expand my understanding of human consciousness and spirituality and cosmology. It has also given me an amazing perspective on human nature and perception and how to open myself up to my own intuition and for that I owe a strong debt of gratitude.
Blessings, G
Staged Ritual by G A Rosenberg 
The Doctor Will See You Now by G A Rosenberg 
