TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES

(SPECIAL MENTION: COMPLETE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS RANKINGS)

 

 

No, not a repetition of ranking mythologies by their apocalypses but more metaphorically in terms of their decline in actual or active belief in them.

These essentially fall on a sliding cultural-religious scale – from those that have declined to cultural impact or influence with diminished, if any, belief in them, to those that remain as the subject of active or actual belief at the religious end of the scale.

Surprisingly, my special mentions increase the number of mythologies that rank in the religious end of the scale, albeit not necessarily as the subject of religions rather than other forms of active or actual belief, such that somewhat over half my top ten mythologies and twenty special mentions (five of my top ten mythologies and thirteen of my twenty special mentions) rank in the religious end of the scale.

 

CULTURAL

 

(1) FAIRIES

 

Fairies rank in top spot for twilight of the gods – or is that twilight of the godlings (a la the book title by Francis Young)?

That is, at the far cultural end of the scale, enduring in cultural influence but not in actual belief. That’s because believing in fairies (at the bottom of the garden) has become proverbial for gullibility (and calling something a fairy tale as the proverbial expression of disparaging belief in it).

 

(2) DRAGONS

 

Here were dragons?

Dragons rank just below fairies at the far cultural end of the scale – that is, enduring in cultural influence but not in actual belief and almost as proverbial as fairies for symbolizing something as a myth or fantasy, now long-gone as the subject of belief.

 

(3) GIANTS

 

“There were giants in the earth in those days”.

Even in the Book of Genesis, giants are almost as proverbial as fairies or dragons for symbolizing something as myth or fantasy, now long gone, arguably reflecting the origin of giants in adults from a child’s perspective – and hence rank close to them at the far cultural end of the scale.

 

(4) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

Similar to dragons and giants, it goes with the adjective legendary – as opposed to cryptids.

 

(5) TAROT

 

I’ve ranked the Tarot high up at the cultural end of the scale for twilight of the gods – just under fairies, dragons, giants and legendary creatures. Even when used for divination, it has always been a novelty rather than the subject of serious belief. Indeed, it started as a game and it is only in its modern form that it has any degree of serious belief as a means of divination.

 

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN)

 

(7) EGYPTIAN

 

(8) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN)

 

(9) NORSE

 

(10) CLASSICAL

 

For the most part, these top ten mythologies have faded away in the twilight of their gods from the realm of any active religion or ritual, except for the small sliver from modern paganism or neo-paganism.

Classical mythology was particularly poignant, with Olympian gods fading away. Or even dying, as was famously reported for Pan – “Pan is dead!”

Although ironically, as the argument does, Pan was the one Olympian god who did not die, being reborn with his goat-hooved and goat-halved form as the guise of the Christian Devil – better to reign in a Christian hell than to serve in an Olympian heaven I suppose. Sadly, it seems that argument is overstated but I prefer to believe it.

However, these mythologies still retain cultural impact or influence – and I’ve ranked them in ascending order, as the more cultural recognition they have, the closer they come to approximating religion or ritual.

 

(11) VAMPIRES

 

I have to rank vampires at the cultural end of the scale, but surprisingly less so than classical, Norse or Egyptian mythology as there are still outliers of active belief in them even in the twenty-first century – with people even being killed as vampires (in Malawi 2002-2003 and 2017). There is of course also their substantial cultural impact and influence, as well as belief in them enduring for a remarkably long period of time.

 

(12) LYCANTHROPES

 

Similar to vampires, with some outliers of belief.

 

RELIGIOUS

 

(13) CRYPTIDS

 

Yes, there’s no cryptid religions as such – although something like the Church of the Mothman would be a hoot to see – but cryptids have to tip the scale into active or actual belief in them. After all, it’s what distinguishes cryptids from legendary creatures – serious belief that they do, in fact, exist out there somewhere.

 

(14) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

Similar to cryptids, Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle just tip the scale into the territory of active or actual belief in them, albeit very limited (I hope). And let’s face it – between the two of them, it’s probably the Bermuda Triangle that’s doing the heavy lifting in terms of people believing in it.

 

(15) URBAN LEGENDS

 

Similar to the preceding entries, urban legends tip the scales into active or actual belief in them – it’s kind of the point of an urban legend that it’s a “true story”, at least in some kernel of belief even if we mostly believe otherwise.

 

(16) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

Pretty much the same as urban legends, although conspiracy theories have more in the way of true believers – it’s again kind of the point of conspiracy theories.

 

(17) UFO

 

Now we’re getting into the territory of actual religion on the religious scale. Yes – there are UFO religions, although I anticipate that they remain a much smaller part of active or actual belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial aliens or something similar.

 

(18) DISCORDIANISM

 

Discordianism was tricky to rank. There’s probably more people with actual or active belief in the few preceding entries – cryptids, Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle, urban legends, conspiracy theories and UFOs – but with the exception of a few weird UFO cults, usually not as part of a religion. Of course, with Discordianism, that may be a religion disguised as a joke or a joke disguised as a religion.

When you throw in parody religions in general, that’s probably enough to bump it up the religious scale, ranking it with UFOs where that scale just tips into actual religions, albeit at the lowest or smallest level.

 

 

(19) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)

 

(20) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC)

 

And now we get to two of my top ten mythologies that persist in active religious belief, albeit on a small scale. There are practitioners of native American religions but their numbers are largely a matter of speculation, although unlikely to exceed a million and indeed estimates go lower than 10,000 or so. Arguably they punch above their religious weight in cultural influence and the preservation of Native American sacred sites.

The persistence of meso-American mythologies in active religious belief is harder to track but I speculate them to have higher numbers than their northern native American counterparts simply due to larger population. As I understand it, “the Aztecs abandoned their rites and merged their own religious beliefs with Catholicism, whereas the relatively autonomous Maya kept their religion as the core of their beliefs and incorporated varying degrees of Catholicism.”

 

(21) PAGANISM

 

Paganism would arguably be the archetype for the twilight of the gods – as the combination of all the pantheons eclipsed by Christianity. And yet, here it is in the religious part of the scale for twilight of the gods, not only because of its enduring cultural persistence – arguably as elements of belief in contemporary religions, particularly Christianity – but even more so its modern revival or reconstruction as religion, which pushes it into the religious side of the scale. The number of practitioners of modern paganism are still relatively small worldwide but would place it among what Wikipedia classifies as medium religions – 1 million or more. Indeed, there are estimates of 1 million adherents of modern paganism in the United States alone.

Given that Discordianism is a tiny (and somewhat obscure) subset of paganism – and one that is hard to tell whether it is a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke – I obviously had to rank paganism further along the religious scale than Discordianism.

 

(22) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

Voodoo, or more broadly, Afro-American diaspora religion in general, which may well rank among major world religions in number of adherents but for the difficulty of estimating with any precision due to “its diverse, decentralized nature and syncretism with other faiths”. Even so, it is estimated at 60 million adherents.

 

(23) SHAMANISM

 

Shamanism might seem up (or down) there with paganism in its twilight of gods, clinging to the residual tribal religions of the world, except that like paganism, shamanism and tribal religions have had their modern revival or reconstruction. As such, you can argue that shamanism effectively incorporates Native American, Meso-American and even Afro-American mythology or religion within it – hence the more religious ranking.

I was tempted to rank it as even more religious, potentially as the most religious, on the argument that there’s the recurring shamanic nature or elements argued for all religions, as by Weston La Barre in The Ghost Dance – but I drew the line here.

 

(24) ZEN

 

Zen outranks most other mythologies for persistence and endurance in cultural influence and religious belief, given that I use it as representative of Buddhism (and Taoism) in general

 

(25) TANTRA

 

There’s not too much information about the number of genuine tantra practitioners out there – that it is an esoteric tradition suggests I might have ranked it too highly in terms of religious belief but because it is a tradition or reflects elements within Hinduism (and Buddhism) to the extent of prolific er0tic temple sculpture, it seemed appropriate to rank it just under the next entry.

Speaking of which…

 

(26) HINDU

 

(27) BIBLICAL

 

‘Nuff said – no surprises here for these entries from my top ten mythologies, except perhaps I rank three other entries as further on the religious end of the scale.

Hindu mythology underlies Hinduism, the third largest religion in the world, while Biblical mythology underlies Christianity as the first largest and arguably Islam as the second (as well as Judaism).

 

(28) WITCHCRAFT

 

Wait – witchcraft as even more religious than Hindu or Biblical mythology?

Am I referring to modern witchcraft or Wicca?

In short, no – or at least almost entirely not. I’m referring to the old witchcraft rather than modern witchcraft or Wicca – that is, the almost universal belief in witchcraft, including in the Bible itself, which not only features religious injunctions against witches but also an actual witch, the Witch of Endor. Hence the ranking above all but two other mythologies, because it features in almost all other mythologies.

You’d think that belief in witchcraft would not persist in the modern world but you’d be wrong. For one thing, it’s sobering to recall that the height of witch hunts and trials was not in the medieval period but the early modern one, not too far removed from the scientific revolution. For another, it persists as a subset of my next special mention entry and almost as prevalent, since it is intertwined. And for a last sobering thought, the persistence of beliefs in witchcraft in the modern world still has very real and fatal consequences, the latter particularly for those accused of it.

 

(29) MAGIC

 

In terms of persistence of belief, magic – and even more so magical thinking – would seem to outrank even the most religious of my top ten mythologies (or special mention entries) as it is almost universal to all of them, such that I rank it second only to one mythology on the religious side of the scale. As I like to quip, religion is just organized magic.

 

(30) GHOSTS

 

And here we are, with ghosts ranking as the most “religious” of all my top ten mythologies or special mentions – as in higher than actual or active belief than Biblical mythology or Hindu mythology with their major world religions, as well as higher than witchcraft or magic.

How so? There may not seem to be any ghost-religions as such but I have ranked it so high in terms of belief because almost all religions would seem to have some belief in ghosts, albeit more in terms of souls and afterlife. Indeed, it’s been argued (by Pascal Boyer in his book “Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought”) that religion itself originated in the nearly universal belief that we persist in some form after our death (at least in the dreams of the living if nowhere else). Hence I have ranked ghosts so that they outrank all other mythologies that persist in actual or active belief.