To start this discussion I borrowed from another thread some thoughts by Caryn and Spooky:
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augoeideian
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Re: WTC attacks......
Reply #15 - Sep 29th, 2006, 2:23am  
All my love to you Marilyn xXx
~~~

Spooky, you mentioned Myths on the other thread and Myths is the start of the non-form into form process.  Also, emotions are addressed in that there same thread; unfortunately I cannot give as much detail as I would like too but for now lets look at myths as taught by Steiner;

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Such an exposition of the content of a myth must not be confused with a merely symbolical or allegorical interpretation. This is not intended here. The pictures comprising the content of a myth are not invented symbols for abstract truths, but real soul experiences of the initiate. He experiences the pictures with spiritual organs of perception as a normal man experiences the representations of material things with his eyes and ears.

Just as the representation is of little value by itself if it is not activated by perception of the external object, so the mythological picture is of little value without its activation through real occurrences in the spiritual world. It is only with respect to the material world that man at first stands outside the activating things; on the other hand, he can experience the mythological pictures only when he stands within the corresponding spiritual events. To be able to stand within the latter, in the opinion of the ancient mystics, he must have passed through initiation. There the spiritual events which he sees are illustrated as it were, by the mythological pictures.

Whoever is unable to take mythology as such an illustration of true spiritual events, has not yet advanced to a comprehension of mythology. For the spiritual events themselves are supersensible, and pictures whose content is reminiscent of the material world are not in themselves spiritual, but are merely an illustration of the spiritual.  

Whoever lives only in pictures, lives in a dream; he lives in spiritual perception only when he has reached the point of experiencing the spiritual in the picture, just as in the material world one experiences the rose through the representation of the rose. This is also the reason why the pictures presented by myths cannot have only a single meaning. Because of their illustrative character the same myths can express various spiritual facts. It is, therefore, no contradiction  
when interpreters of myths apply them now to one spiritual fact and again to a different one.  

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“Evolution isn't a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation but ... is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this point is then a descent to more and more simple forms.” — Rudolf Steiner
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Marilyn Maitreya
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Re: WTC attacks......
Reply #16 - Sep 29th, 2006, 9:59am  
My love to you too Caryn  xXx
I AM A SPIRITUAL WARRIOR AS I STAND FOR TRUTH & INTEGRITY I stand for being who I am. As You know, I live from my heart and what I believe. I AM THAT I AM, a spark of God
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spooky2
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Re: WTC attacks......
Reply #17 - Yesterday at 8:17pm

Hi Caryn,
thanks for Steiners take on myths. I agree myths contain a meaning which, after translation, can result in several different meanings. I don't agree with his opinion that mythologic pictures are or represent real spiritual events; this may be, but it may be not. Also, "reality" must be defined, what is meant by it, when exploring the nonphysical and/or spiritual it can get difficult to find a meaning for it which is practical of use. Myths in my book are the residues of a different perception of the world than today's predominant- let's call it the mythic worldview (not "mythologic", that would be when the mythic worldview has started to fade, so people don't live in it fully so a system of the mythos has to be written down, a "logic" of a mythos). For example, the world of ancient greek gods. I don't think only a few initiated lived in it. Steiner obviously preferred to give mythic/mythologic a narrow sense, the sense of esoteric-exclusive wisdom. Mythic worldviews differ in many points from today's western predominant, for example there seems to be a different perception of time, circular, so that when at a certain day in the year there is a feast of a god, the deed this god stands for is happening again, every year. Or the mythic space/location, a god can be in many places at the same time. And so on. A typical Christian mythic perception is for example the ritual of breaking the bread and drinking the wine, then Jesus is present, in and through the wine and bread, every time it is done, there is this different perception of space and time. Much of what here on the board is told and believed comes near mythic worldviews, so it may be our task to combine the mythic and the philosophic-physical worldview into something new- both have it's goods and bads. However, it's a different meaning of "mythos" than Steiner gave to it.  

Spooky
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"I'm going where the pavement turns to sand"
Neil Young, "Thrasher"

Greetings,
So if time in general is in a repeating and rising helix, but in the mythic it becomes a circle, then is it slowed or grounded by being in the mythic?
So when we lost most of the mythic,  did we make time go faster?
When we lost the mythic did we increase the outward explosive movement from the Big Bang center?
If we all participated with full consciousness in the rituals that relate to our remaining myths, would we slow time's expansion?
Just wonderring,
bets

Hi everyone, hope you are all well  :)

Bets, its great you have moved this thread here.  Myths talk to our soul spirit and we find all the ancient myths relate to the same experience; the passage the spirit takes to get back to the soul.

The first Myth i would like to put forward here comes from God .. here we can see and feel therefore a Myth is not make-belief - Myth is the telling of the spirits sojourn and in order to intrepret Myth's correctly we need take off our physical eyes and look with our spiritual eyes;

The first sacred Myth;
Genesis 1-5

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
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Spooky, thanks for your reply, always well written with much thought and understanding.  And Bets your intelligent ponders very healthy.  I hope to show here that it is through Myth that our spirit relates to its soul.  These Myths are communicating to our spirits that have times and times again wandered in and out, past and forward.  As you said Bets in a circle but we find in all myths the spirit does break out of the circle and joins its soul.  But the path is long and cannot be speeded up and your wonderful statement .. if we participate with full conscious .. in nourishing our spirit our spirit does not become wayward it becomes fill of purpose, understanding, meaning and direction.  

The ancients knew this very well, ah they were closer to the Godhead.  This day we take the challenge to find our way back to the Godhead through all the materialism that exists around us.  The challenge is greater, are we not blessed because of this?  

And Spooky; what does it mean to us that we are not taught these Myths anymore in the classrooms of childhood school?  Does it mean that our spirits create modern day aliens as our modern-day Myths? Nay, these alien Myths are relying on spirits who have lost the ancient way of spirit feeling for these alien Myths do not soothe the soul as much as they would like too.

Anyway, my thoughts, my ponderings and my love.

Hi Bets and Augoeideian,

in circular time perception as it seemed to be strong in the ancient times, and nowadays in some little hidden cultures, there is a (or many) little story, or better a common knowing or belief the folks live in, which contains an action which is actually happening all over again, once a day, or once a year, the clue is, it seems to be not only a repetition, but the same, the identical action. (The linear time perception is also involved). For example, God is dividing light from darkness and creating night and day. When the cyclic time perception is strong, people would feel every morning the day is created by God, despite it is another day than yesterday (linear time) it's also the same identical act that takes place, every day again (circular time). So, I don't know if people feel like time speeded up or slowed down in comparison to a much more dominant linear time, but in essence it might be neither nor, but it's just different, it is more like eternity, unchanging. So, when linear time becomes dominant, like presently, God is creating not every day the day, but it's now what we call a repeating process, with similar, but not identical occurances, so we might more likely say God made the initial invention and since then a process is running.
As easy to see, mythic-thinking societies are much more resistent of change. When in cyclic-time perception, change is unthinkable, it is just as it is, as it was, and it will ever be this way; when people hold on to strange old-fashioned seeming traditions and some of us can't figure out why they do that, then it's quite interesting if we imagine that these traditional thinking people might perceive differently, they perceive more in this cyclic-time, in which change is simply unthinkable.

(There are other characteristics of mythic perception, for example the ego seems to be perceived only as one of many driving forces of a self, others are gods, demons etc.)

When in our times myths are not teached anymore it is (1.) a sign that teachers just don't know where to put it- it fits nowhere in the dominant perception. A typical comment about a myth may show it: "That is long ago and I haven't anything to do with it". Here is to see, the full ancient lively understanding of the myth is gone because of the dominance of linear time- it is a long time ago, while in the full blown mythic experience it is never "ago", it is but always present (the degree depends on if the specific myth is bound to a linear time date of the year and which date presently is). This "lost" of the mythic experience seems to have begun in the old western world maybe between Homers "Ilias" and "Odyssey" (two different authors). But it never faded totally.
(2.) If not a mythic experience, it is though possible to read myths and "translate" it in a way that makes sense to us today, and that is through means of psychology/psychoanalysis, together with some knowledge of ancient history and symbology. One has not to be a psychoanalytic to do this. If you (I speak generally) ever read an interpretation that you resonate with (there are also some that might sound weird to you) you might be impressed what can be found in a myth. Once you have read such interpretation, you might have gotten the approach, the method, and be able to start thinking about myths on your own, with a little bit knowledge in those fields. After all it seems to be that there are symbols we know of without being taught about it, it's only needed to change a bit the way of thinking, it's maybe similar to this opening up for non-verbal messages as TMI and Bruce recommend.
That this doesn't happen in educational systems simply mirrors that in our cultures we are constantly told everything is in the brain and those things, and with this background reflecting on ourselves and our place in our surrounding is stagnating in measuring bodily data and curing with standard means, rather than exploring ourselves with means of introspection, imagination, symbols and philosophy.

Spooky

Spooky what a wonderful brilliant posting you made.  I so admire your soul intelligence, and Bets and Dave and everyone here, your soul intelligence shines forth, it is truly wonderful!  (And not only your soul intelligence)

You spoke directly to my soul Spooky and I appreciate your wisdom.  It is a funny thing to call myself someone who (part) lives in the future while at the same time being wrapped up in ancient myths.  Now, Spooky when you say mythic-thinking societies are resistent of change; i say to you it is not change they are resistent to - it is the suppression of the soul through industrialisation that mythic thinkers are concerned over.  For in this natural evolution of change it is easy to forget the soul and the soul that is pushed into the dark cries out for substance that it may say to the physical person wherein she dwells .. I am.

Without recognising the I am in us the physical person will look for signs of divinity on the outside of itself without listening to the soul that dwells inside and finding the signs and seeds of life there.

Mythology needs time and gracious leisure for it to connect to the soul.  And in most cases people do not have this luxury nor the urge to delve into this realm.  This is understandable; but should not get in the way of nourishing the soul.  And there are many myths that are with us today wrapped up in modern day symbols and literature, all these have come through the ages in people's souls who express themselves creatively.  Here, when one comes across such literature and symbols, the soul will recognise it and it is up to the modern brain to understand this recognition and be alert for it.
For really it is like falling into a deep, blue ocean of serenity.

Just as your post said Spooky.  
:)

Greetings,

Please let me also thank you, spooky, for the level of wisdom and understanding you and some others bring to this board. I've never seen anything like it.
As smart as you are, dear spooky, I don't think you can comprehend how fully your answers enlighten us. Your explanations are not just answers, they go thru to speak to many more layers of our being.

Spooky gave us two formulas above for gaining insights-- he says
"through means of psychology/psychoanalysis together
with some knowledge of history and symbology"
[=s understanding];  and
"...exploring ourselves with means of introspection,
imagination, symbols, and philosophy".  

Well, OK, I'd love to go to a school that was based upon either approach, but you left out the part that truly makes it work---your (and some other people's on these boards) brilliance and empathy.
Truly exhilarating !  We are so fortunate.  Thank you!

bets