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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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