MYTHOLOGY AS NEED

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ABSTRACT

Starting point of this discourse is focused on the sapient ability of allegorical and metaphorical thinking and biologically seeded human imagination. Continuing with individual ability to reflect upon and articulate/share experience perceived and gathered through the senses. To question and expand this biological/psychological hypothesis the paper is structured in six topics:

• INTRODUCTION DICHOTOMIES: PLATO MYTHOS-LOGOS & IBN ARABI SUBJECT-OBJECT AND IMAGINATION DISCOURSES
• CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR MYTHOLOGY AS NEED OPEN HYPOTHESIS
• ALLEGORICAL AND METAPHORICAL THINKING
• HUMAN BIOLOGY AS MYTHIC CONTAINER
• MYTHIC WOUNDS AND NARRATIVES OF TRAUMA - EXAMPLE MYTH OF ISIS AND OSIRIS
• CONCLUSION

THE ROLE OF THE IMAGINATIVE FUNCTION AND MYTHOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

INTRODUCTION

The reason for writing this paper is to bring to the study and awareness of Mythology broader interdisciplinary context through a number of open questions and hypotheses. Starting with Psychological and Comparative Cultural Studies’ observations of possible communal and personal need for mythic cognitive processes. There are a number of accepted notions about both Mythology as discipline and its relationship to the personal internal and shared communal world across time and cultures. This paper's intention is to revisit, integrate and reflect on those issues.

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1a. Plato and Mythos-Logos Dichotomy

Examining Plato's relationship to the mythos-logos issue provides a means of clearing the way for the specific examples in the paper beyond any insistence on dichotomies as the only explanation/reflection methodology. Catalin Partenie in her essay Plato's Myths for The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes:

Plato broke to some extent from the philosophical tradition of the sixth and fifth centuries in that he uses both traditional myths and myths he invents and gives them some role to play in his philosophical endeavor. He thus seems to attempt to overcome the traditional opposition between mythos and logos. (Partenie 2014)

C. Partenie continues by noting that more and more scholars have argued in recent years that the Plato myth and philosophy are tightly bound together, in spite of his occasional claim that they are opposed modes of discourse. This becomes evident in neo-platonic work and particularly with Marsilio Ficino in the Florentine Renaissance. C. Partenie brings out the fact that "Socrates says the same thing at the end of the myth of Ear, the eschatological myth that ends the Republic: the myth 'would save us, if we were persuaded by it'." C. Partenie follows by referring to the work by F. J. Gonzalez Combating Oblivion where he argues about myth’s fundamental opacity:

The myth is not actually a dramatization of the philosophical reasoning that unfolds in the Republic, as one might have expected, but of everything that “such reasoning cannot penetrate and master, everything that stubbornly remains dark and irrational: embodiment, chance, character, carelessness, and forgetfulness, as well as the inherent complexity and diversity of the factors that define a life and that must be balanced in order to achieve a good life. The myth blurs the boundary between this world and the other. (Gonzales 2012)

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1b. Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 CE) Imagination and Subject-Object Dichotomy

Ibn Arabi's life journey from Seville to Damascus is a significant example of cultural osmosis and cross-fertilization of ideas. His profound study and interpretation of Platonic ideas has created within the western scholarship until more recent times, an implied or stated analyses that classify him as a "kind of" Neoplatonist, ignoring his existential committed to Islamic Revelation. Presented here is a brief overview of more recent scholarly reflections by William Chittick, Henry Corbin and James W. Morris on Ibn Arabi's understanding of cognitive locus of imagination. This could help us see similarities of issues approached in this paper of the Mythological consciousness, metaphorical thinking and transcendence aspirations, both in an individual and societal context.

William Chittick's contribution to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses Ibn Arabi's writing and teaching. W. Chittick cites H. Corbin's (1998):

Imagination (khayâl), as Corbin has shown, plays a major role in Ibn ‘Arabî's writings. [...] The symbolic and mythic language of scripture, like the constantly shifting and never-repeated self-disclosures that are cosmos and soul, cannot be interpreted away with reason's strictures. What Corbin calls “creative imagination” (a term that does not have an exact equivalent in Ibn ‘Arabî's vocabulary) must complement rational perception. (Chittick 2018)

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This complexity is important to point out at the beginning of our paper to understand that some issues will be observed, question but not necessarily insisted as ultimate explanations. James W. Morris paper Divine "Imagination" and the Intermediate World: Ibn Arabî on the Barzakh [Liminal]. (Pre-publication title) J. W. Morris helps understand the elusive nature of deliberations on inner psychological processes, introspection and articulations:

Ibn 'Arabî's intention was not to "clarify" in any sort of rational, conceptual and logical form the different ways in which we can speak of and understand the Imagination--however broadly or narrowly one might define that term--and all its manifestations. (Morris 1995)

J. W. Morris tell us that Ibn Arabi's aim in his writings was not just an intellectual understanding or interpretation of religious faith and practice but opening a possibility for a direct experience that Ibn Arabi l called Gnostic. Orally transmitted or sung Mythologies also have a similar aim imbedded in their traditions. J. W. Morris also points that "certain basic features of the Arabic language cannot easily be translated in a western tongue". This also could apply to indigenes, linguistically obscure Mythologies where just rhythm and tonalities of the language offer containers for deep comprehension of Mythic narrative intentions. The following passage by J. W. Morris points to a number of mental and cognitive processes that are skilfully employed in Ibn Arabi's writing:

Rather, as one can see most clearly at those moments where he [Ibn Arabi] suddenly shifts to the singular imperative ("Know!", "Realize!", etc.) it is to bring about in the properly prepared and attentive reader a suddenly transformed state of immediate realization and awareness, in which each of the implicit dualities (or paradoxes) of our usual perception of things--the recurrent categorical suppositions of subject and object, divine and human, spiritual and material, earthly and heavenly--is directly transcended in an enlightened, revelatory moment of unitive vision. (p. 4)

Some of J. W. Morris observation on Ibn Arabi’s Opus (Morris 1995) could also comparatively help reflections in this paper on the characteristic of Mythological experiential nexus, transmissions and continuity.

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1c. Biology and Animate - Inanimate Dichotomy

In approaching open hypothesis of Mythology as Need the paper opens discussion about internal intelligence of biological organism and its observable logic from a point of view of Comparative Cultural Studies relying on published specialized scientific literature. The reason for this focus is to extend the cultural discussion of the primitive-advanced dichotomy to the bounders of animate-inanimate in nature scientifically observed or mythology presented. Also is a brief exploration of biological boundaries of what is cognitively conscious or unconscious outside or in spite of presumed supremacy of the human experiential model. Mythological animation of inanimate objects and places by ancient humans is the phenomenon that bridges tangible reality of the manifest world and human metaphorical thinking.

An example is the traditional concept of genius loci - spirit of place, with its number of meanings ranging from the special atmosphere of a place, human cultural responses to a place, to notions of the guardian spirit of a place, which may offer a common link to the archaic layers of our socialized self and shed some light on the rituals of bonding and common anxiety-release through personifications and enactments. (Paich 2007

In the archaic recesses of our being we ward off unbearable levels of irrational anxiety through the need for, and the mechanisms of, personification. To personify is to represent things or abstractions as having a personal nature, embodied in personal qualities. Myths in most cultures do just that, they provide a story to identify and unite with others. Besides being the characters of mythic stories, personifications are usually part of a space set aside for communal gatherings: a place for a symbolic ritual or a performance, inanimate is animated. In those places personifications manifest in forms of statuary, ritual markings, special buildings, representation of guardian spirits and votive objects and more. These are all myth making instruments. Although the word personification implies a human face or figure, the investment of natural and human-made objects and animals with certain qualities of soul or spirit, i.e., animism, are also manifestations of the same process. (Paich 2014)

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2. CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR MYTHOLOGY AS NEED OPEN HYPOTHESIS

Systematic observations, accurate reckonings and collections of instructional, abstract propositions have been known and used by the ancient Egyptians. Modern history of science is oblique and discrete about the achievements and similarities in history as the bias is in favor of an evolutionary argument that we are more advanced than our ancestors. The next few examples are included to tentatively broaden the view of ancient peoples' abilities and sophistication and create a critically considered psychological and social context for the open hypothesis about Mythology as Need.

2a. An example

An example is The Egyptian Mathematical Papyrus in the British Museum's dating 1200 years before Euclidian Elements that were clearly modelled of the ancient predecessor. The whole papyrus starts with the dedication titled Accurate Reckoning, written by the scribe Ahmes who signed it and acknowledged that he copied it from an older manuscript:

The treaties helping the entrance into the knowledge of all existing things and all obscure secrets [our bold] - This book was copied in the year 33, in the fourth month of the inundation season, under the majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, 'A-user-Re' (Chance 1927) Eighty-four problems are included in the text covering tables of division, multiplication, and handling of fractions; and geometry, including volumes and areas.(Web 1- British Museum No. EA1005)

In the A. B. Chance translation of The Mathematical Papyrus is one of perennial mathematical interests:

The relationship of a square and a circle dealing with this question is Section III, propositions 48 - 55 of The Egyptian Mathematical Papyrus titled Problems of Area: 48 - Compare the area of a circle with diameter 9 to that of its circumscribing square, which also has a side length of 9. What is the ratio of the area of the circle to that of the square? The manuscript offers ratio as 64/81 (Chance 1927)

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The simply stated proposition doesn't elaborate beyond mathematical problem stating and solving. What is significant for our reflections on mythic and symbolic knowledge is that in the ancient scribe Ahmes' dedication parallel to "the knowledge of all existing things" is the mention of "all obscure secrets". Nevertheless, the papyrus leaves symbolic and mythological aspects of Geometry to be transmitted orally. This omission of directly explaining in writing any cosmological and symbolic ideas is the tradition continued from Ancient Egyptian Wisdom Keepers to Pythagoras and the Platonists. This practice was endemic, beside Egypt, across ancient civilizations that did not have direct connection to each other. •Ahmes Papyrus 1550 BCE demonstrates postulates/theorems similar to The Elements of Geometry (original title) only centuries later called Euclidian.

•Euclid of Alexandria 300 BCE as an obscure mathematician or the concerned group of Alexandrian Platonic School assemble the primer as learning aid, intellectual and contemplative practice being the part of educational basis of Astronomia - Geodaisia - Geomertia.

Plato 428 - 347 BCE was also trained in Egypt and had strong connection to Persian Chaldean oracle, Mesopotamian geometry and Pythagorean mathematic/music theories recently deciphered in his Dialog Republic (Kennedy 2008)

Pythagoras of Samos 570 – 495 BCE was trained and accepted into Egyptian Priesthood at the age of twenty and was trained and practiced until he was forty, then returned to the Greek world as a seasoned Wisdom Holder and teacher.

This extremely brief overview opens the door for some future work analyzing examples from the vast field of the ubiquitous presence of actual and symbolic geometry in Ancient Egyptian Architecture and Mythology. In this paper the following example from Plato-Pythagoras practices as inheritors of Ancient Egyptian stated or implied lore of transmissions helps understand that sound and visual imagery are as important as narrations and words in Mythological Transmissions.

2b. Apeiron:

2b. Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science published J. B. Kennedy’s article Plato’s Forms, Pythagorean Mathematics, and Stichometry (Kennedy 2010) . J. B. Kennedy is a science historian at The University of Manchester, Great Britain. He has worked on the long disputed secret messages hidden in Plato’s writings. Using Stoichiometry that deals with an analysis of the variables in the elements in chemical reactions. Vastly expanded by computer algorithms, modern Stichometry has been developed to track, predict and analyzes complex chemical reactions. Using Stichometry J. B. Kennedy “reveals that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure”. Here we quote J. B. Kennedy from the 2010 press release about the discovery sent by The University of Manchester:

A century earlier, Pythagoras had declared that the planets and stars made an inaudible music, a ‘harmony of the spheres’. Plato imitated this hidden music in his books. In antiquity, many of his followers said the books contained hidden layers of meaning and secret codes, but this was rejected by modern scholars. It is a long and exciting story, but basically I cracked the code. I have shown rigorously that the books do contain codes and symbols and that unravelling them reveals the hidden philosophy of Plato. This is a true discovery, not simply reinterpretation. This will transform the early history of Western thought, and especially the histories of ancient science, mathematics, music, and philosophy.

J. B. Kennedy continues:

However, Plato did not design his secret patterns purely for pleasure – it was for his own safety. Plato's ideas were a dangerous threat to Greek religion. He said that mathematical laws and not the gods controlled the universe. Plato's own teacher had been executed for heresy. Secrecy was normal in ancient times, especially for esoteric and religious knowledge, but for Plato it was a matter of life and death. Encoding his ideas in secret patterns was the only way to be safe.

J. B. Kennedy concludes his article Plato’s Forms, Pythagorean Mathematics, and Stichometry by stating:

Though the evidence reported here will need to be verified and debated, it does clarify, in a surprising way, Aristotle’s once puzzling view that Plato was a Pythagorean.

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Pythagoras (Dangen 2010) is considered one of the fathers of western mathematics and music theory and a proto-scientist. As such his symbolic and metaphysical teachings were regarded as quaint like Plato’s after him, nineteenth century scholarship painted them as giants rising out of a ceremonially entangled and superstitious ancient world with clear thought and conciseness. In establishing the origins of western thought the overlooked and underplayed fact has been that Pythagoras at roughly the age of twenty went to the temple schools of Ancient Egypt and was trained there and in related or synergetic circles in Asia minor as well, before returning to Greek Territory at around the age of forty to teach a mixture of mathematics, music, astronomy and metaphysics Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and later Platonist structured their transmission model on apprentice training.

2c. Apprentice training

2c. Apprentice training was one of the major educational models in the diverse, culturally fluid regions of Central Asia, Caucasus, Near East and Balkans since prehistoric time. Also apprentice-training models were ubiquities to the territories and geographies greater than the regions we just cited. It was universal mode of transmission of practical and intangible knowledge. One of many historical examples of recorded apprentice learning models is the presence and influence of the potter and transcendence teacher Bahauddin Naqshband. The 16th century CE author, Ali ibn Husain Safi wrote Beads of Dew from the Source of Life. (Safi 2001) The book deals with the historic tradition known as Masters of Wisdom the Khwajagan and its continuity as Naqshbandi Order. In the book Ali ibn Husain Safi among multiple short biographies traces teacher-apprentice relationships. There is naturally a section on Bahauddin Naqshband and relationship to his formative teacher Amir Kulal who was not only the teacher of transcendence practices and ways of being but also a master potter who initiated whole lines of pottery families and professional clans dealing with production and distribution of ceramics stretching from Bokhara to Istalif in Afghanistan. (Coburn 2008)

One overlooked aspect of Central Asian and neighboring territories is the upbringing and education of holders or intangible heritage of Epic Singing. For example, the Ashik tradition of the Caucasus region cultivated and gave voice to singers whose repertoires easily crossed regional cultures and could inspire audiences of many local believers, creeds and religions outside their own. Ashik performers are divided in to two types. The first type, often itinerant are the ones who earned their living exclusively through singing at communal gatherings. The second type is householder, men and women who had a working life parallel to music performance. Those highly skilled, trained performers of epic poetry were also carpenters, carpet weavers, potters and many other trades. The householder type was unfortunately translated into western languages that include Russian as amateurs. This completely obscures householder musicians' societal function, level of skills and equal importance to the itinerant musician type.

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The householder type of Ashik performer’s history is mostly obscured in the western general knowledge. Only in last ten years anthropological and comparative ethnographic studies of Central Asian cultures are more available in the west. An example is the work of Razia Sultanova, research fellow of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at University of Cambridge in England. Her book From Shamanism to Sufism: Women, Islam and Cultures in Central Asia (Sultanova 2011), opens an informed vista to continuity of diverse subcultures under Russian Imperial and Soviet rule in Central Asia. Sultanova's research demonstrates the role of women in preserving and passing on music skills, epic performative poetry, therapeutic rhythmic and melodic lore and emotional cultivation through traditional lyric songs. Sultanova's research also gives insight into how general culture was in one of those regions of extremely diverse and syncretic religions and subcultures. Sultanova's research helps understand very strong Sufi influences in Muslim and Christen cultures. All the craft, music and any practical skill training was structured in a same way as Sufi spiritual training. Stages of master - apprentice relationship were the fundamental way of orally transition and remembered craft skills. The professions and the skills were often the hereditary right of certain families. Since ten years of daily practices are needed to become a master of any evolved human activity, children have to start very early. The Sufi orders in themselves had itinerant, renunciate practitioners and settled householders who parallel to daily work also practiced Sufi training and rituals. The pre-Islamic, pre-Christian social structures in wide and diverse geographic areas exhibited similar organization. This integration of daily life skills, craft or/and transcendence practices were learning modes and vehicles for inherited wisdom continuity.

2d. The Singers of Tales

Essential and central carriers of cultural values and reassuring, edifying expression of communal sharing were Singers of Tales. Preservation of Myths and nurturing, sharing of mythic consciousness is an integral part of these practices. The epics and myths retold were the focus of events celebrated outside places of worship. This cultural form flourished in pre-industrial era and was in evidence in more remote regions well into the beginning of the 20th century, replaced by radio, film, television etc. The Singers of Tales performing vast repertoire entirely from memory can be found in ethnographic and musicological research documents from Central Asia, Caucasus, Black Sea regions, Anatolia, and Balkans.

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In the seminal book on oral tradition and epic poetry by A. Lord, The Singers of Tales there is a translation of a live interview with one of the last oral epic singing practitioners surviving among mountain regions of Bosnia, recorded in the 1930's by M. Parry:

When I was a shepherd boy, they used to come [the singers of tales] for an evening to my house, or sometimes we would go to someone else's for the evening, somewhere in the village. Then a singer would pick up the gusle, [bowed string instrument typical of the Balkans used specifically to accompany epic poetry] and I would listen to the song. The next day when I was with the flock, I would put the song together, word for word, without the gusle, but I would sing it from memory, word for word, just as the singer had sung it… Then I learned gradually to finger the instrument, and to fit the fingering to the words, and my fingers obeyed better and better… I didn't sing among the men until I had perfected the song, but only among the young fellows in my circle [druzina] not in front of my elders…(Lord 1960)

Now imagine any contemporary teenager first listening to an epic for several hours and then repeating it the next day from memory. How many graduate students or doctorial candidates can do that with their thesis? By contrast, the non-literate shepherd boy was equipped with the necessary plasticity and capacity of brain independent from written record and entirely confident in the ability of comprehension, retention and reproduction through oral means alone.

The example from A. Lord's book may help understand dynamics of the oral traditions. The recitation is approached from the general thematic over-sense to the particulars of the events of the story. The epic is held as a whole and also as parts simultaneously, as a spatial and temporal continuum in the narrator’s internal space. In a similar way traditional music was thought, practiced and performed within the oral tradition of skill training and memorizing vast amount of music elements from variety of sources. Diverse trades, all manner of crafts, varieties of music traditions and transcendence training are part of apprentice learning, cultural sharing and retention of knowledge. The other part, which obscures that tradition’s intellectual discipline and rigor, is the fact that most of Singers of tales were "illiterate" in a sense of not using reading and writing as a mnemonic and means of communication. The emphasis on literacy is a product of western, state or imperial control of knowledge and the values imparted in that worldview that stigmatizes illiteracy by denying a person any intellectual worth. Summarizing this cultural contextual background of the hypothesis of Mythology as Need, before approaching biological and psychological context, we could say that there is evidence of systematic observation and retention methodologies of complex and sophisticated systems, recorded orally as mnemonics of Wisdom Transmissions and Cultural Sharing. The reflection and understanding of these social examples contributes to the study of Mythology as multifaceted discipline.

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3. ALLEGORICAL AND METAPHORICAL THINKING

Starting point of this chapter is the sapient ability of allegorical and metaphorical thinking and the possible biologically seeded human imagination

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By state, "metaphor is a matter of concepts, not of words" (Lakoff-Johnson 1980) Lakoff and Johnson”s articulation about metaphorical thinking helps to understand the elusive intention of this paper to locate rather than explain the phenomenon of Myth Making as part of human characteristics including its needs, stimulus and transmissions. Describing Metaphor Lakoff and Johnson write:

Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness. These endeavours of the imagination are not devoid of rationality; since they use metaphor, they employ imaginative rationality.

C. G. Kamalanabhan's article Metaphorical Thinking and Information Processing Ability from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences publication of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras states:

Practice of Metaphorical thinking in understanding given information promotes the communication of the two hemispheres [of the Brain....]. Hence, metaphorical thinking helps learners to make connections and develop patterns and relationships in parallel to the language as well as symbols relevant to the given information. (Kamalanabhan 2014)

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We abbreviated "two hemispheres [of the Brain...]" part of the C. G. Kamalanabhan's abstract citation above with our comment in square brackets. It was to give us space to comprehend the significant intention of C. G. Kamalanabhan's article and to revisit the full statement written in specialist scientific language now. For the sake of interdisciplinary communication we shall approach the specific brain dynamics portion of C. G. Kamalanabhan's abstract from the point of view of Comparative Cultural Studies and Humanities disciplinary language as an approximation and to bring it closer to our explorative intention of searching for an understanding, through scientific writing on metaphor, hypothetical Mythologizing functions within the biology of Human Brain.

• The communication processing of metaphorical thinking across the two hemispheres of the brain is facilitated by a broad band of nerve fibbers connecting the two hemispheres (bundles of the corpus callosum]. This happens at a part of the brain's frontal layer (Neocortex) that serves as the center of higher mental functions for humans.
• Once received, the communication of the two hemispheres is processed through a small organ (hippocampus) located within the lower regions of the brain dedicated to the processing of the sensory input (medial temporal lobe)
• Then the received metaphorical impulse enriching and expanding experiential memory concludes at a collection of brain structures (limbic system dealing with unconscious bodily functions, emotions, learning, memory, and behavior).

In our attempt to give a glimpse of the Metaphorical process and to make it more accessible to non-specialists, we have written about it as if it was an event in history or a plot in a novel. With a more interdisciplinary description, we hope that the depth of meaning of the C. G. Kamalanabhan's article and abstract's concluding sentence could be appreciated more clearly. So, we cite C. G. Kamalanabhan statement again:

Hence, metaphorical thinking helps learners to make connections and comprehend relationships in parallel to the language as well as symbols relevant to the given information. [Our bold]

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Myth and particularly when they are sung or narrated are full of metaphors. This triggers an inter-communal sharing, a sense of wellbeing and bonding on a deeper level than through mundane conversations and proliferation of decontextualized information. Mumford’s quote from Art and Technics may offer some context:

We find ourselves more absorbed than ever in the process of mechanization. Even a large part of our fantasies are no longer self-begotten: they have no reality, no viability, until they are harnessed to the machine, and without the aid of the radio and television they would hardly have the energy to maintain their existence. (Mumford 2000)

Mumford wrote this in the 1950s even before computer games, smart phones, reality shows, social media and the ubiquity of media invasion of today. Homer's metaphor "wine dark sea" is present more than 10 times in the epics deep bond to Mythological causes and human reactions to them, the Iliad and the Odyssey. This example of organic connection of known and repeated metaphors and Mythological content of ancient epic singing or narration in the community is important in this discourse. It is a pointer to Mythology’s cognitive and experiential deepening and retaining function. C. G. Kamalanabhan's article Metaphorical Thinking and Information Processing Ability that we cited earlier helps provide an approach to the organic and behavioral connection between Biological processes and Cultural experience.

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4. HUMAN BIOLOGY AS MYTHIC CONTAINER

Viewing the Embryo and child development as one of the roots of Cultural Experience may help to open an approach to the organic and behavioral connection between Biological processes and Cultural experience. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby the co-directors of the Centre for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara wrote the paper The Modular Nature Of Human Intelligence. Their contextualized opening is significant for understanding our interest in the biological and psychological roots of mythic consciousness. L. Cosmides and J. Tooby state:

For cognitive scientists, brain and mind are terms that refer to the same system, which can be described in two complementary ways - in terms of its physical properties (the brain) or in terms of its information- processing operation (the mind). (Cosmides-Tooby 1997)

Mind, Cultural experience and myth making processes belong to intangible manifestations of the human organism. L. Cosmides and J. Tooby write:

William James (1890) in his seminal book, Principles of Psychology, talked a great deal about instincts. The thousands of evolved circuits in our own species constitute a scientific definition of human nature - the uniform architecture of the human mind and brain that reliably develops in every normal human just as do eyes, fingers, arms, a heart, and so on.

L. Cosmides and J. Tooby continue their exposition by describing the common position still prevalent today that " animals are ruled by instinct but that humans have lost all or almost all their instincts and have come to be governed instead by reason and learning." From the Cultural Studies point of view this presumed human position is at the center of rationality since the 18th century Enlightenment movement and 19th century Public Education curriculum design. Positioning humans as superior because of reason and rational judgment and being above instincts. L. Cosmides and J. Tooby are preparing for William James views on substitution of "instinct with reason and humans having more flexibly intelligent than other species" with this statement:

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William James set this common-sense view on its head. He argued paradoxically that human behavior is more flexibly intelligent than that of other animals because humans have more instincts than other animals have, not fewer.

This interior richness starts with the single cell's inner dynamics, a vitality impulse and continues in the intangible realms of ideas and problem solving. At the end of their paper, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby acknowledge and thank William Allman for suggesting the phrase:

"Our modem skulls house Stone Age minds," which is a very apt summary of our [Cosmides - Tooby paper's] position.

Although the focus and expertise of our paper is different, as it looks for signs of continuity rather than evolution, the cited statement in some way points and discretely corroborates the core of our research and reflections on possible cognitive and biological roots of Mythology as Need. Looking at it as a cultural phenomenon of the inborn inner intelligence of the elements of human, sapient consciousness. This intelligence as vitality impulse and cellular decision making can be observed in the human natural development from zygote to new born and beyond.

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4 a. Zygote as an Entity

A zygote consists of a nucleus cell and minute particles of messenger cells and associated proteins present in the material within a cell membrane. The liquid within the cell membrane is eighty percent water. The cell is formed by a fertilization merging between two parental genetic materials of the future organism. It carries all of the information needed to form a new individual. The zygote is the earliest developmental stage. The dynamics within the Zygote are a story in itself. This does not attempt to confuse the issues discussed by ascribing a Zygote consciousness or multiple choices of intelligence nor does it dismiss them as simplistic, inferior processes. We reference the unfolding logic of cellular growth as a vitality impulse evident in all living organisms. To open a discussion with an example from current research and ideas, we turn one more time to the paper The Modular Nature Of Human Intelligence by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby the co-directors of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at University of California, Santa Barbara. L. Cosmides and J. Tooby in writing about the Zygote phenomenon state:

If a human zygote (a fertilized human egg) is dropped into liquid nitrogen, it will not develop into an infant. If particles are shot at the zygote's ribosomes [inherited traits' messengers] in just the right way, it may influence the way in which the RNA [bind messenger] is translated into proteins. By continuing this process, one could, in principle, cause a human zygote to develop into a cactus or an armadillo. (Cosmides-Tooby 1997)

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4 b. Early Stages of the Embryo

Out of the vast field of embryo development, we chose a brief set of reflections on the sense of hearing as a sense that develops first and has great ramifications for the variety of explorations of roots of cultural experiences. The following description of an embryo’s physical hearing development is based on Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel’s pregnancy advice page (2019) and Bruce M. Carlson Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (2014).

A month and the half into pregnancy, the specific signature tissues of the head area begin to differentiate themselves into cell clusters for the brain, ears, nose, eyes, and mouth, the receivers of external input and their sapient neurological home brain and mind. At this stage the embryo is a half-centimeter, quarter of an inch in its longest direction and the shape of a cashew nut but only a quarter of its size.

In the context of this inquiry, the mind is part of the biological brain. In the development of the embryo some cognitive experiential triggers and their retention must also begin. The embryo within the mental envelope of the mother's cognition and cultural sensibilities is also the sapient part of the womb which can provide the larger experiential field than the embryo's cellular development can offer. Significant for our discords is the miniscule size of the embryo and the internal cellular vitality intelligence which differentiate toward specific functions but are unified by a vitality drive of its own spaces and its dependence, connection and capacity to receive nourishment from all aspects of its parental being.

4c. Reznikoff Thoughts on Child Development

The paper for the Archaeology of Sound, 2015 Conference was titled Bringing Cave Echoes and Sanctuary Resonances Home. It was written by the author of this work and explored possible remnants of prehistoric music in folkloric traditions. The introductory section of that paper reflected on the work of Iegor Reznikoff’s approach to understanding of prehistoric sound making through the ubiquity of the embryo’s hearing development. The concept and word archaic in modern language use is associated with antiquated, bygone, obsolete, old-fashioned and the outmoded. It is not often used in its broader sense as vitality, relevance, continuity and inherited meaning. Like the word primitive, archaic could also be related to primordial, original, formative. From the child development point of view the archaic sound is related to auditory experience in the womb and early developments of the brain whereas the Cerebellum of adults holds some basic function and is often referred to as a primitive, atavistic brain. In that sense archaic is always present biologically. Culturally some of the most sophisticated images of animals from prehistoric art are referred to and classified as primitive.

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I. Reznikoff, a great musicologist, anthropologist and pioneer in exploring the possible acoustic intention of prehistoric painted caves through using the sound of human voice in his paper On Primitive Elements Of Musical Meaning writes:

The deep primitive sound level is always present in our consciousness (in the corresponding areas of the brain) and because of its primitiveness [primordial biological continuity] it remains unaffected even when other, more superficial levels of consciousness are damaged or destroyed, by accident, illness, stressful situations or age. (Reznikoff 2005)

I. Reznikoff continues in the same section of his paper with:

[…] the very first levels acquired in early childhood and even before birth. With the exception of the sense of sight, the means of perception, particularly the auditory system, of the child in its mother’s womb are already formed at the sixth month of pregnancy. […] It is also important to notice that the first consciousness of space is given by sound. The child doesn’t see but hears the voice of the mother high or low in her and the sounds or noises in various locations coming from internal or external surroundings. This sense of space is important for the child to position itself in the right way, head down, in preparation for the moment of birth. It has been shown that children whose mothers sing are in general better positioned for this major event. (Reznikoff 2005)

I. Reznikoff in his studies makes a relationship between prenatal and early childhood experiences of hearing and prehistoric cave echoes and singing of ancient humans. He forwarded an important hypothesis concerning the practice and meaning of archaic music and its relationship to painted markings, images and their possible societal function.

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4 d. Embryo's Emergent Inner Psychological World

If one considers the dreaming process as one of the psychological organs of the intangible brain faculties, then some embryonic form must exist in the mind of an emerging individual. Like hearing, dreaming must emerge through the nine months and in the last trimester is well seated in the being in the womb preparing to exit. Dreaming, cerebellum's atavistic memory pool requires that the fibbers that would unite the two frontal lobes when triggered by metaphors and symbolizing must all be in place. The baby is equipped with so many inborn instincts and traits that manifest upon and subsequently after its arrival.

4 e. The birth

Rhythms, preparation and timing can be observed in many natural phenomenon. When the sun reaches a certain angle in the autumn, the leaves don't fall at once, they go though color changes and cease producing chlorophyll that weakens the stem gradually severing the water supply and loosening the foliage from the tree.

In human pregnancy contractions of uterine muscles begin mildly already in the sixth week. They are known as practice contractions. These contractions are the result of the uterine muscles tightening for a few minutes only and are birth preparations both for the mother and the child. The contractions are essential and are thought to be an aid to the ultimate goal of pregnancy and learning signals of the birth process to the bodies involved. Perhaps the intensity and frequency of the spasms are influenced by the size and weight of the growing embryo. Starting from the minimal presence of pain and irregular cramping, then stronger spasms at regular frequencies in the last months of pregnancy and culminating with labor pains.

Paediatrician and Child Physiologist D. W. Winnicott's in the 1954 edition collection of his papers have a section on the birth process. To ground his papers topic Birth Memories, Birth Trauma and Anxiety D. W. Winnicott articulated non-traumatic process even if not ever completely possible in reality to balance the exaggerated emphasis on birth trauma by his colleagues and contemporaries S. Freud and M. Kline.

D. W. Winnicott envisions healthy development process of the child while an embryo and the nature of the preparations. For Winnicott the short environmental (Space within the Womb) impingements before birth are essential preparations. The impingements give the embryo the experience of a natural return to the nurturing and protective environment of the womb. The memory of the safe post contraction’s return is the seed of the rudimentary awareness of the difference between the environment and I.

For Winnicott the embryo by "not having to react" is in the only state in which the intangible psychological self can begin to just exist as an entity. From the comparative cultural studies point, the position of this paper, the view the birth emergence into a different environment is to varying degree a traumatic experience. D. W. Winnicott understands the spectrum of that experience:

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[...] two grades of traumatic birth, the one being common, and largely annulled as to its effects by subsequent good management, and the other being definitely traumatic, difficult to counteract even by most careful nursing, and leaving its permanent mark on the individual. (Winnicott 1954)

Mythic communication and its traditions and stories, among its multiple social function help potently connect, redeem and release residues of the birth trauma and person's sense of achievement of emerging as human.

4 f. Inborn Wisdom of the Body and Early Childhood

The author of this paper wrote Learning Body - Feeding Mind for the 2011 International Symposium: Parents’ Bodies, Children’s Bodies - From Conception to Education held at V. B. University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timişoara, Romania. In this section, we shall include the passages from that paper relevant to the intention and discussion of the Mythology as need open hypothesis

4 g. Reflex Actions

Reflex Actions are an involuntary, automatic and nearly instantaneous reaction to external stimuli. They may be considered defense mechanisms like a blink, sneeze or shiver that are a specific response to potential body harm. The fact that they happen without the conscious choice of an organism is important in understanding and valuing an inborn wisdom of the body. The constancy of Reflex Actions and its inter-species occurrence offers potentially significant reference points in the cultural history of the body. There are reflexes that a baby manifests from the first moment of being born that appear miraculous to the experienced or inexperienced parents. In child development theory and observation they are referred to as Infant Reflexes. The involuntary readiness and consistency of these reflexes makes one of the first relational parent–child interplays. It is like a set of non-verbal vocabulary-reactions, each with it own characteristic. These involuntary reflexes originate in the central nervous system and are part of normal infants’ responses to specific stimuli. Through typical child development the frontal lobes inhibit these reflexes so they do not manifest as a child grows. One of the most fascinating early manifestations of connecting and learning is the Grasp reflex. Through this survival action, the baby’s fingers will tightly close and grasp anything that finds its way and strokes its palm. In principle the grip can support the weight of a new born. This instinct offers the potential of playfulness with the baby and safe mock survival gestures if and while securely held at the mother’s body.

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4 h. Weaning

Like all processes surrounding the development of an infant, weaning has its innate instinctual side. Everyone involved somehow knows that breast-feeding will come to an end. Individual characteristics of a mother and child and social expectations enter the process producing variable timing, reactions and formative traits. The important and difficult feeling of closure and separation enter the field of learning and psychological development. This as one of formative processes is part of multiple roots of the need and participation in the cultural experiences. Winnicott has studied weaning both from the physical and psychological point of view, he writes:

But the breast-feeding experience carried through and terminated successfully is a good basis for life. It provides rich dreams, and makes people able to take risks.

Contextualizing further our interest in the dynamics and timing of infants’ adoption of external objects and circumstances, we turn to Winnicott (1957) for more insights into weaning as a way of emptying and creating space for new experiences and learning, he writes:

In the last chapter, I described a baby who caught hold of a spoon. He took it, he mouthed it, he enjoyed having it to play with and then he dropped it. So the idea of the ending can come from the baby.

This hand and mouth exploration of the objects other than breast or bottle is an important learning phase, Winnicott continues:

It is plain that at seven, eight or nine months a baby is beginning to be able to play games of throwing things away. It is a very important game, and it can even be exasperating because someone has to be all the time bringing back the things thrown down. By nine months, most babies are pretty clear about getting rid of things. They may even wean themselves. In weaning, the aim really is to use the baby’s developing ability to get rid of things, and to let the loss of the breast be not just simply a chance affair.

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Winnicott advises the new mother about containing her infant awakened by hunger and frightened, regressed to wanting the breast as the only consoling solution and the need for the mother to see her baby through this phase. Even when the process is relatively peaceful Winnicott observes:

Or things may go well, but nevertheless you notice a change towards sadness in the child, a new note in the crying, perhaps going over into a musical note. This sadness is not necessarily bad. Don’t just think sad babies need to be jogged up and down till they smile. They have something to be sad about, and sadness comes to an end if you wait.

Recognizing the need for contained natural sadness and deeper feelings is a first step towards reflective and cultural experiences, Winnicott continues:

So, there is a wider aspect of weaning – weaning is not only getting a baby to take other foods, or to use a cup, or to feed actively using the hands. It includes the gradual process of disillusionment, which is part of the parents’ task. (Winnicott 1957)

Weaning as a natural stage of individuation and emergence of selfhood is very important to our discourse. It provides background for Winnicott’s articulations of the transitional object. All these processes form roots, the experiential matrix and background of Myth-making as an aspect of cultural experiences.

4 i. Transitional Object

Studying infants evolving from complete dependence to gradual self-reliance, Winnicott observed a natural, transitional, intermediate developmental phase. This sequence is where the time of transition creates a new awareness for the baby, a new relational space between the inner psychological and outer, external reality. Regardless of geography and culture at this time of transition, the outer space and the intimate space between the mother and the child acquire a new sense of mutual learning, broader sense of the inner and outer world for the baby and challenges of managing this dependence/independence. From Winnicott’s writing, we get a strong sense of transitional phenomena taking place in the transitional space that begins to include elements of the outside world entering between a mother and a child. In this space, Winnicott observed and articulated the emergence and presence of the "transitional object."

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Transitional object is a real object invested by the baby with deeply personal and relational meaning. It could be anything that is safe for baby to handle, a piece of string, a small blanket or piece of cloth, but often an anthropomorphic looking object that includes teddy bears. Non-tangible phenomenon also appears in the repertoire of repeatable personal transitional objects, like a word, a word like an incomprehensible utterance or a melody. The transitional object is the first possession of choice that belongs to the infant. The involving and multi-layered aspects of a transitional object open a child to the use of illusion, symbols and metaphoric thinking. Aspects that get lost in their full ramification for Mythology need because some psychologist see the transitional object only as a security device because one of its functions is to replace the mother in her absence. Taking the transitional object when going to sleep is not only to ward of deep fears and insecurities but also to bring a cherished object to the inner world of dreaming.

Just as walking, swimming or grasping, instincts come with a new-born, and the weaning takes place naturally in most cases, so does the transitional phenomenon and its object. They belong to cognitive development and environmental adoption. The involuntary imagination of the dreaming process and the voluntary process of fantasy are deeply connected to the internal responses to the transitional object of an infant.

The exclusivity of one object being more precious than any other at that time, the transitional object has traits and internal responses to and outside, ‘non me’, similar to the falling in love of older humans that facilitates species continuation. Mythology as cultivator, educator, inspirer of the continuity and bonding impulses plays a significant part in individual and social formations.

4 j. The Location of Cultural Experience

The psychologist D. W. Winnicott, quoted in previous sections, is a significant contributor to play theory and has included ideas and observations about the cultural experience in relation to the transitional phenomenon. Winnicott describes cultural experience as an extension of the initial learning process and a necessary nexus for rich, sharable human experiences. In his The Location of Cultural Experience (1967), he writes:

The potential space between baby and mother, between child and family, between individual and society or the world, depends on experience, which leads to trust. It can be looked upon as sacred to the individual in that it is here that the individual experiences creative living.

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In his essay, Playing: Its Theoretical Status in the Clinical Situation (1971), Winnicott states:

The place where cultural experience is located is in the potential space between the individual and the environment (originally the object). The same can be said of playing. Cultural experience begins with creative living first manifested as play.

Winnicott’s observations help place cultural experience as one of the central fields for deepening self-knowledge and cultivating the abilities of immersion and sharing. Some contemporary schools of psychology overlook or take for granted two aspects of playing: intimacy and companionship. They articulate causes for playing as libidinal expressions, safety vehicles for aggression and anxiety releases. The author of this paper through his own research, observation and teaching agrees with Winnicott’s understanding of the intimacy of play which connects the child with an innate quest for wholeness and finding one’s place in the outside world, while keeping in touch with fantasy and the internal processes of image making. When this intimacy is shared with a companion or companions, a very rich interplay of fantasy and reality is contained by the actively of play. Similar experiential subtleties and richness happens between audiences and players, spectators and visual arts or readers and texts. Also between ancient listeners and singers of tales and narrators of Myth. Winnicott writes in The Location of Cultural Experience (1967):

I have used the term cultural experience as an extension of the idea of transitional phenomena and of play without being certain that I can define the word ‘culture’. The accent indeed is on experience. In using the word culture, I am thinking of the inherited tradition. I am thinking of something that is in the common pool of humanity, into which individuals and groups of people may contribute, and from which we may all draw if we have somewhere to put what we find.

The diversity of the common pool of humanity although astonishing in its variety when observed globally or across time, shows some underlining commonality and traits. The explorations so far and the reflection triggered by Winnicott’s ideas are intended to pave a way for probing their inter-cultural commonality of which Myth making and metaphorical thinking are one of the foundation stones.

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5. MYTHIC WOUNDS AND NARRATIVES OF TRAUMA - EXAMPLE MYTH OF ISIS AND OSIRIS

Cultural narratives of trauma and their presence and function in societal and individual life are reflections in this chapter. Myths for all their grandeur offer intimate and identifying, recognizable containers for reliving individual concerns into shared wisely constructed sets of ideas, values and atmospheres intended for deepening self-knowledge and experiencing release. Towards that end we shall explore cultural stands of implied and articulated narratives of trauma in the Ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris (Plutarch 1st CA) (Massey 1907). The author of this work S. D. Paich wrote the paper Possible Restorative Function of Opening Mythic Wound -Ancient Traditions and Contemporary Portrayals. We shall use or paraphrase some of the text from that paper (Paich 2019).

5 a. Language of Symbols

In Ancient Egypt the emblematic visual language of symbols was a very crucial means of communication of subtler deeper aspects beneath what was apparent. Visual narratives in Ancient Egypt had a particular place for exhibiting symbolic meaning using the heads and particularly the headdresses of gods and pharaohs.

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Isis, one of the central deities of Egyptian belief-system, is represented with the headdress of the Empty Throne. The Empty Throne emblem and hieroglyph is the most archaic representation associated with Isis. The meaning of the Empty Throne is not only the symbol of bereavement of losing her husband Osiris to conflict, but also of bearing the agony of separation from the primordial, all enveloping essence of the experience of doubt and abandonment. This is the aspect that makes her human-like. With all the powers attributed to her, she was plunged into the trauma of essential separation and bereavement. Her contemplation, sorrow and actions have helpful, redeeming qualities for the listeners in need, or people just seeking companionship and solace through remembering, repeating or listening to the story of her ordeal and transformation.

In its essence this type of grief supporting mythic narrative tradition, images and rituals are known in a number of cultures across time and geography and in a variety of different forms.

As a linear epic, besides the allegorical and therapeutic intentions and references, the mythic narrative of Isis and Osiris has many episodes. The story is known in the West mostly through Plutarch's writing. The Egyptologists have found numerous contradictory accounts in surviving Ancient Egyptian sources, always referring to it as if the oral narrative is familiar to everyone. In a culture where most important ideas are transmitted orally, the written parts are specific formulae for preparing the dead and sometimes living for the other world.

Plutarch probably heard someone telling him the version of the myth from or in the oral tradition. As our interest is in open hypothesis of the possible restorative function of opening mythic wounds or mythologically structured by the ancient societies' methodology of understanding, coping or helping with different levels and ubiquitous presence of trauma in human experience.

5 b. Cosmological and personified elements of the myth

Isis and Osiris are betrothed in a preparatory period before consummating their relationship and starting a lineage of what was to be Pharaonic succession as a form of protection of the Ancient Egyptian land and its people. They are a pair from a mythological unit of four siblings. To address the complexity of maintaining and governing an earthly domain, the interaction of four siblings and their relationship to the inner and other world is part of the narrative. The all-unifying Ancient Egyptian principal Maat is at the center of the unspoken subtext of the story. The all-pervasive unity includes strife, suffering and bereavement. For the ancient Egyptians, as well as for the beliefs that came from and after them, suffering can be the gate to the non-material aspects of existence starting with the psychological understanding of separation, bereavement and trauma.

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5 c. The characters

The ancient Egyptian cathartic teaching and identifiable elements that make this a functional myth about life and death are constellated around four siblings Isis, Osiris, Set and Nephthys. Personification of Osiris is as a bright open solar character. He is the legitimate heir, inheritor of the responsibility to protect and livingly demonstrate the all-pervasive unifying presence Maat. His brother Set personifies the incarnate aspect of the tangible world of nature and human society's brutal and catastrophic characteristics, often causing abrupt damage and suffering. He is represented as an envious, shadowy competitive type, which is residing in all the beings that breathe, including animals. This duality of solar and eclipsed light is half of the existential diversification of Maat, the first all embracing principle in Ancient Egyptian cosmology.

Isis and Nephthys represent the other half of the manifest quaternary of elements and characteristics. Isis as solar principle is personified as the life restorative protective goddess of the manifested universes and beyond. As protector of the world and its creatures she experienced deeply the severance from Maat, the all-pervasive essence. Through her response to the trauma of separation and expression of grief, she models the possible relationship to the unknown through understanding and living with deep loss.

Isis and her sister are not antagonists but work together as Nephthys personifies transition into twilight, death and darkness to complete the experiences of life. With Isis she protects Osiris in life and death, and in turn every human hearing or knowing of the Isis, Osiris, Set and Nephthys’ story. The Interplay of these four characters is the essence of this particular narrative of trauma and recovery.

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5 d. Narrative's Background Research

Not to interfere with the narrative flow of the Isis and Osiris story, the references are presented in the paragraph below. The narrative synopsis is mostly based on Plutarch and affirmed discreetly by comparative cultural researches of the author of this paper at Artship Foundation and before. These histories include ancient numbering systems, comparative analysis and semiotics of the language of emblems, ideas and technics transmission history that include Ancient Egyptian medicine, terrestrial and symbolic connections and societal function of sanctuaries of the ancient world in the greater Mediterranean Basin. Also the Isis and Osiris myth presented here is supported by research into ancient narrative techniques and a trained memory capacity of oral narrators to present lengthy, complex myth and legend without written text. Oral narratives’ understanding is exemplified by the work of A. Lord and M. Parry presented in the book Singers of Tales, we cited earlier. Finally the story is minimally punctuated by vocabulary and ideas based on understanding trauma in contemporary psychology, particularly present in the work of Donald Winnicott and Carl Jung.

5 d. Isis and Osiris Narrative

Osiris, the solar principle of the four-part unit with his siblings, is the symbol of incarnate reality within the principle of Maat (unity of all things) and became King of Egypt. Egypt's influences, inspirations and connections are found from the earliest history in distant oracle centers like Dodona, Delphi in Greece and Metsomar at the foot of Mount Ararat in Caucasus. The engagement with havens and distant sanctuaries demanded long periods of Osiris' absence from Egypt. In this vacuum Set, Osiris’ brother, hatched the scheme to permanently eliminate him. Organizing nine groups of eight people where all seventy-two formed a bonded league of conspirators.

His perfidious scheme was to commission an exquisitely executed and inscribed wooden casket with evocative hieroglyphs and sacred images made in the size of Osiris body. According to the ancients on the seventeenth day in the month Athyr, when the sun was in the constellation of Scorpio a great auspicious feast in anticipation of seasonal changes took place. Set exhibited the casket on that occasion and offered to give it to the guest whose body fitted into it. Amazed by its beauty and lured by sacred inscription and in spirit of conviviality, most guests tried their luck in winning such a treasure. Nobody fitted into it. To be sociable and join in the game, Osiris tried it too. The moment he was in it and fitted perfectly the conspirators came out of hiding, shut the casket and swiftly took it out of the banquet hall. They sealed it with molten led and hurriedly brought it to the banks of the Nile and forced it upon the river to take it to the sea.

Like the unease of midday twilight at the eclipse of the Sun, the nature spirits and elementals sensed that Osiris had been murdered. Their agitation and disquiet sent alarm through the land and eyewitnesses told Isis what happened to the casket forced upon the Nile. Isis at once understood the gravity of what has happened and began to search for Osiris’s dead body. Wearing the mourning cloth of ordinary people she began to search the big wide sea. As protector of ships and sailors she knew that Middle Sea currents along the coast of Africa while receiving Niles water flow eastwards and then turn up the neighboring coast of Asia Minor. Nevertheless uncertain, bereft she fully merged into the experience and let her grief lead her in the quest of Osiris' body.

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Meanwhile the sea currents carried the casket to the Byblos’ seashore. At Byblos the casket was caught at unusually high tide in the branches of a tree. There the nature of wood responded to the carved wood of the casket carrying entrapped the energies of Osiris, messenger and bringer of fecundity in this and other worlds. The tree's response according to legend was to grow fast around the casket and envelope it, protect it at an unusually fast, magic pace. This is, according to the ancients, what nature spirits can do in specific situations.

As like can respond to like, Isis has to overcome the ordeal and the shock by living in bewilderment for a while before being able to reconcile her and Osiris with realties and continuity. Both brooding and proactive, Isis applied herself to reviving the life force.

The miracle of the fast growing tree attracted the attention of the king who asked for the tree to be cut and brought to the palace as structural reinforcement for the palace and symbol of his kingship. Human-like intuition as part of natures spirit led Isis to the spot were the tree was. There she learned that it had become a column of support at the palace. Isis found her way there and became governess of the king's sickly child. She asked to nurse him in the chamber with the wooden column embracing Osiris’s casket.

After many episodes, which is a story for another day, Isis liberated the casket from the column and took it to Egypt. There she opened the casket and hid Osiris body in the rushes and marshes in the Nile Delta, reviving it secretly. While Isis had to sleep and attend to some of her daily duties, Set discovered the body. He snatched it from the secure hiding place and dismembered it into 42 pieces and scattered if throughout the Egypt with the help of his conspirators.

Isis was thrown into a violent and unthinkable second bereavement, a point at which the majority of souls give up, she continued and began to collect the dismembered parts to reassemble Osiris. All parts of his body were found except the penis that was swallowed and digested by a fish in the Nile. So, Isis had to reconstruct one in Gold to be able to consume her rightful union with Osiris and give birth to their child, Horus, as progenitor of legitimate kings of Egypt. The traditional conclusion of the myth of Isis and Osiris is the confrontation and eventual victory of young Horus against the usurper Set that completes Osiris' resurrection.

Isis supported her son psychologically and as a physician healed his wounds of soul and body. The best known is her knowledge and ability to restore Horus' gouged eye. This injury was caused as one of the cowardly and desperate deeds by Set in the process of losing. A most interesting aspect of the myth's conclusion is that in spite of Horus' victory Isis would not condone full destruction of Set. Through her own ordeal on the level of human emotions, she deeply knew that her inner connection to the Maat principal would not be possible without the catalyst of trauma lived with and though to the bitter end. The elation of victory leads to hubris of omnipotence and entitlement to dominate. Isis as a fully trained teacher knew that Horus has to go through many more experiences before his personal unification with Maat. Isis also learned bodily through her ordeal of reviving Osiris that she and her siblings represented an inter-dependent whole, a first monad of its kind. This brief overview contributes to the discourse on and questioning of possible restorative functions of opening mythic wounds. Bringing out the main thread of this chapter where the Universality of Myths, for all their grandeur, provide intimate and identifying, recognizable containers for reliving individual concerns into a wisely shared constructed set of ideas, values and atmospheres intended for deepening self-knowledge and experiencing release.

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6. CONCLUSION

THE ROLE OF THE IMAGINATIVE FUNCTION AND MYTHOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

To gather the issues approached in this paper and bring a sense of a possible underlying principle of the intangible aspects of human biology and social bonding, we would look at imaginative function as the inner psychological nexus of retention and communication. Understanding some aspects of the inner world of voluntary and involuntary imagining: the imaginative function may pave a way to approach Mythological consciousness as an inborn instinct, for that reason it may be useful to reflect upon our human ability to nurture ourselves through sublimation, dreaming and cultural expressions. Mythological and literary narratives may offer a common link to the archaic layers of our socialized self and shed some light on the common cognitive mechanisms of recognition, comprehension and sharing.

The vast field of imaginative function is looked at with particular interest in the human ability to nurture oneself through sublimation, dreaming, envisioning and its cultural expressions. Just like how the physical body continuously works to keep body fluids moving, temperature almost constant, the stomach acid at manageable levels, etc., so does the psychological self produce compensating, relieving images and nonverbal scenarios, or proto-stories to help us deal with life's complexities.

The imagination plays a significant role in the internal psychological world, where experiences continuously ebb and flow between various principal nodes of sapient consciousness: that of conquering fears in the survival instinct, looking for and experiencing comfort through communal closeness and seeking ecstasies, reassurance and continuity in the procreative drive. It also seems that parallel to survival and procreative imaginings, there runs a need for reverence, an idolizing, ascending aspect of internal mechanisms that seeks shared meaning and symbolic communication, which gives voice to transpersonal emblematic signs and leads to cultural experience.

The personifying function and its manifestation as rudimentary non-verbal sequences has narrative potential. When personification acquires duration and begins to exist in time, like a sequence in a dream, a rudimentary story may begin to form. This embryonic story, an individual inkling, finds great relief in joining the established flow of existing stories and well-known myths. That may be why children love hearing old stories over and over again. The imaginative function in daily life is crucial for our problem solving in mental and practical issues and significant for our social recovered closeness. Imaginative function in the biology of dreaming process helps us self-heal and inadvertently deepen self-knowledge. Allegorical, mythological, metaphorical aspects of cognition play a significant role in continuation, survival and characteristics of Humanness.

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