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TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (SPECIAL MENTION)
I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.
Indeed, I have a top ten mythologies – and I have a whole host of special mentions as well. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way. My special mentions are also where I usually have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.
Just to remind you, these are my Top 10 Mythologies.
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(1) BIBLICAL
(2) CLASSICAL
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(3) NORSE
(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN
(5) EGYPTIAN
(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN
(7) HINDU
(8) MESO-AMERICAN – AZTEC
(9) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA
(10) AFRO-AMERICAN – VOODOO
And here are my twenty special mentions:
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(1) PAGANISM
I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses.
The mythos I call home – which I playfully refer to as my pagan catholicism.
Also the ethos I call home – that classical Greek pagan ethos encapsulated by Weston La Barre, “live valiantly, gloriously and joyously in the world”.
Let’s face it – it’s my mythos, ethos, eros and hieros gamos.
For mine is the passion play, grail quest, ghost dance and mojo rising.
And yes – I know paganism is not in itself a mythology or religion, but rather a loose amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, usually identified with ‘pre-Christian’ Europe, prior to the advent of Christianity or their conversion to it.
And not even that to start with –
“It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century, people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised. The notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others…as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense”.
Pagan apparently originated from Latin paganus – essentially to connote rural (as opposed to the more Christianised urban population of the later Roman empire), or civilian by the Roman army and hence adopted by Christians to distinguish themselves as “soldiers of Christ” (although I seem to recall the Roman army was big on Mithras until late in the piece).
“The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church”.
Apparently elsewhere and at other times, “Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan; and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace”.
Which suits me as my paganism is essentially a fusion of Hellenism (alternating with Romanitas) and humanism, with Dionysianism thrown in for the fun of it.
“Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes” – with those of Germanic tribes of course being best known through Norse mythology.
Although I think that overlooks the sphere of Roman Empire beyond Europe, notably in the near East – because I’m determined to get those funky animal-headed Egyptian deities and slinky goddesses in there as well.
“However, modern parlance of folklorists and contemporary pagans in particular has extended the original four millennia scope used by early Christians to include similar religious traditions stretching far into prehistory.”
And some would argue also well beyond Europe, pretty much to all mythologies or religions outside of Christianity, Judaism, Islam or variants of those – with Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, native American and African diaspora religions looming large in such arguments.
I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleopaganism and neopaganism (by neo-pagan Isaac Bonewits), although they are also somewhat amorphous (even more so for his mesopaganism, which largely overlaps with the argument for extending paganism throughout non-Abrahamic mythologies or religions of the world).
Paleopaganism essentially refers to the original ‘paganism’ prior to Christianity – largely unknowable as religious practice, although we come closest with classical Greco-Roman paganism due to the surviving texts.
Neopaganism refers to the modern reconstruction of paganism, which arguably has led to its own distinctive mythology (or synthesis of mythology) – and in the opinion of Ronald Hutton, a distinctively modern religion “and the only religion England has ever given the world” (at least for Wicca or modern ‘witchcraft’, the predominant form of neo-paganism).
I also have a soft spot for polytheism, often asserted as the defining feature of paganism. Monotheism is monopoly! Let the marketplace of gods – and goddesses – decide! A polytheistic view of the world just seems more cheerful and easy-going, where gods can rub shoulders – or other parts – together.
Although paganism is more complex than a straightforward matter of polytheism versus monotheism. Paganism essentially had as many different philosophical variants as Hinduism – including monotheistic or at least henotheistic variants, as well as more outright atheistic, agnostic or humanist variants.
The more popular variants of modern paganism or neopaganism tend more towards either a duotheism of overarching female and male deities, or a goddess monotheism of an overarching sacred feminine or divine female figure. With the emphasis on figure in some cases – but I’m down with that. She is the goddess and this is her body.
I believe in L.A Woman & Mr Mojo Risin’.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(2) SHAMANISM
I am a shaman in the tribe of catholicism –
a voice crying for a vision,
animal powers and spirit guides,
true names and song lines,
second sight and third eye.
After paganism, the second of my holy trinity of mythic worlds – the mythos that I playfully refer to as my shaman catholicism.
Also like paganism, as much my ethos as mythos – “but then the awesome mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realise that your sure ways were not sure at all”.
And yes – again like paganism, I know shamanism is not so much an individual mythology or religion, but rather an amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, but on on an even potentially larger scale in space and time.
Strictly speaking, shamanism refers to the indigenous religions of Siberia and neighbouring parts of Asia, with the word shaman itself orginating from the language there.
But where’s the fun in speaking strictly? And so shamanism has been used in a very broad sense, arguably the broadest sense of any mythology or religion – ranging through space to tribal religions on every (populated) continent, and even more broadly in time, through so-called deep history to prehistoric or primal religion.
Peter Watson in The Great Divide hypothesizes that the pre-Columbian Americas was essentially shamanic, having remained the most so (since crossing into the Americas from Siberia) and certainly more so than Eurasia, not least because of the high concentration of psychedelic or psychotropic plants.
While Weston La Barre in The Ghost Dance hypothesizes that all religion is essentially shamanic in nature – and all religions are ghost dances at heart.
As for shamanism itself, animism is often asserted as its defining feature – and there is certainly something appealing in an animistic view of the world. Perhaps its primary definitive feature is its focus on states of altered consciousness – archetypally through psychedelic or psychotropic substances – as thresholds to the spirit world or otherworld.
And again, like paganism, I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleoshamanism and neoshamanism – with paleoshamanism as the original forms of shamanism, potentially very paleo indeed back to the Paleolithic, and neoshamanism as modern reconstructions.
“When a vision comes into the world…it comes into the world with terror like a thunderstorm…if the vision was true and mighty, I know it is true and mighty yet, for such things are of the spirit and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost”.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(3) ZEN
I believe in the god of doubt –
the sound of one hand clapping,
a tree falling in a forest,
a finger pointing at the moon,
your face before you were born,
the goose in a bottle,
and three pounds of flax.
Along with paganism and shamanism, the third of my holy trinity of mythic worlds – the mythos that I playfully refer to as my zen catholicism.
And along with paganism and shamanism, as much my ethos as mythos – “you wake up in the morning and the world is so beautiful you can hardly stand it”
And yes, again like paganism and shamanism, I know zen is not a mythology as such. One could even argue for it as non-mythic or anti-mythic, particularly given its non-theistic nature. (I say non-theistic – it might be described as atheistic, but zen has always struck me as having an agnostic and complete lack of concern as to the existence or effect of gods in our lives).
And yes I know it is an active contemporary religion – or more precisely a ‘school’ or sect within the contemporary (and historical) religion of Buddhism.
However, I occasionally use mythology in a broader sense, even for a religion in which the focus is practice or experience and insight into the nature of things rather than belief. And for a religion that eschews mythology (or theology), it can resemble a mythology but of Zen masters rather than gods or heroes, the pursuit of enlightenment rather than quests or battles, and parables or the proverbial mind-bending Zen koans rather than epic adventures – from its legendary origin in the Buddha’s flower sermon onwards.
Wu wei – or Tao and the art of doing nothing effectively.
For that matter, I also use Zen more broadly to incorporate the Tao and Taoism, aptly enough as it has been observed that Zen is Indian Buddhism filtered through Chinese Taoism. Like Zen, Taoism can resemble a mythology but of masters of the Tao rather than gods or heroes – and that’s even before you get to how Taoism is intertwined with Chinese folk religion, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, feng shui and chi or qi, let alone pantheons of deities such as the Three Pure Ones or the Jade Emperor.
Taoism emphasizes living in balance or harmony with the Tao, which is variously interpreted but I prefer its interpretation as the Way – the natural order of the universe or cosmos that human intuition must discern in order to realize the potential for individual wisdom. Like the Matrix (which was also influenced by Taoism or at least other Asian religions), you cannot be told about the Tao, you have to see it for yourself – “this intuitive knowing of ‘life’ cannot be grasped as a concept; it is known through actual living experience of one’s everyday being”. Some of the most common metaphors for the Way essentially involve going with the flow – depicting the Tao as a fluid force like water.
Perhaps its most famous visual symbol is the taijitu, better known as the yin-yang symbol, encapsulating many of the concepts of Taoism within it. Taoism advocates naturalness, spontaneity, simplicity, detachment from desire, and wu wei. The Taoist concept of wu wei is a particular favorite of mine, often translated as the art of doing nothing effectively. Finally – a religious doctrine which I’ve spent my whole life practicing to achieve, although to be honest I’m not sure if I’ve been doing it effectively
Back to zen, my horns won’t fit through the door! Or if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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21 The World in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck (left) and the Universe in the Crowley Thoth deck (rght)
(4) TAROT
“I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died” – Steve Wright
Ironically, Tarot cards appear to have originated as just that – a more mundane medium for playing card games – but subsequently acquired their mystique as a means for divination, often in popular culture with dire portents Wright played on for his joke.
Of course it helps that they were designed with or evolved such vivid and on occasions violent imagery. It is striking how many cards have death or underworld imagery, such as the generally sorrowful suit of Swords, but of course also in the Major Arcana – above all its well-known Death card. Their rich visual symbolism has been a source of tarot motifs or even themed decks in popular culture. And it has been hugely influential for me personally, comparable to my god-tier mythologies or books of mythology, such if you were to peel back the layers of my psyche you’d find a pack of Tarot cards deep within it, although I don’t believe in it (or anything else) as a source of magic divination.
And yes – I have special mention entries for the Tarot for both my Top 10 Mythology Books and my Top 10 Mythologies. The former is for the various Tarot card decks, the latter is for the mythos of the Tarot itself and its cards – indeed, both Tarot decks and cards are rich subjects for their own top tens.
Not bad for a late medieval or Renaissance version of poker, although the more correct analogy might perhaps be games of trumps such as five hundred (my personal childhood favorite – which may also account for my love of the Tarot at the same time).
And as for the mythos of the Tarot, it arises from its modern esoteric mystique (in turn reconstructed from other European mythic art or symbolism), particularly that of the Major Arcana or “trumps”, which popular culture tends to usually or even exclusively view as the Tarot – not surprisingly, since the Minor Arcana more closely resemble modern mundane playing cards as similarly four suits of cards numbered from ones (aces) to tens with four court cards, generally with knights as well as the three modern court cards of kings, queens and jacks (or pages or princesses).
Anyway, while the mythos of the Tarot lacks a pantheon of gods as such, it does have the archetypal images or titles of the Major Arcana which substitutes for it, perhaps not unlike the nameless titled deities (or aspects of deity) in the Game of Thrones known as the Seven – the Mother, the Stranger and so on. And in its modern form, the Major Arcana even has its own mythic narrative, essentially a version of the archetypal hero’s journey, with the Fool (traditionally numbered zero) as its hero.
So here goes, by numbered cards of the Arcana (although there are some variations in numbering and titles between decks):
0 – The Fool sets out on his quest, innocence in search of experience, poised to fall or fly. But first, he is initiated by various figures:
1 – The Magician, ‘male’ archetype of magic or knowledge, “the achieve of, the mastery of the thing” (or brother figure)
2 – The High Priestess, ‘female’ archetype of magic or mystery (or sister figure)
3 – The Empress, ‘female’ archetype of power and nature (or mother figure)
4 and 5 – The Emperor and Hierophant, ‘male’ archetypes of worldly and otherworldly power (or father figures)
6 – The Lovers. The Fool encounters or falls in love and faces choices
7 – The Chariot. The Fool goes to war or wins worldly victory
8 – Justice (traditionally, although often swapped with Strength, but each works in either location). The Fool has the first of a number of visions, in this case of the ideal of justice and apex of the Fool’s worldly quest. It is now time for the Fool’s otherworldly – or underworldly – quest
9 – The Hermit. It is time for the Fool to become or encounter The Hermit in a quest for otherworldly visions and voices
10 – The Wheel of Fortune. The Fool sees a mystical vision of the world, the wheel of fortune on which all rise and fall
11 – Strength. The Fool has a vision of strength, in triumph over bestial nature – which will be sorely needed as it is time for the Fool to descend into the underworld
12 – The Hanged Man. “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”. The Fool encounters or becomes the self-sacrificial Hanged Man
13 – Death. And now it is time for the Fool to die and go down into the underworld
14 – Temperance. With the still, small voice and vision of Temperance as guide, Virgil to the Fool’s Dante
15 – The Devil. And now the Fool comes naked to the very heart of hell itself, with its terrible choices and temptations that echo that of the Lovers
16 – The Tower Struck by Lightning. The Fool harrows hell and breaks free, toppling the Tower and rising through ever increasing light to be reborn, at first the illuminating flash of lightning in darkness
17 – The Star. The Fool rises through or the light of the hopeful Star
18 – The Moon. Not quite out of the woods yet, as the Fool rises through the light of the surreal Moon full of madness and wild dreams
19 – The Sun. The Fool finally is reborn into the full blazing light of the Sun (or with it as child of the Sun)
20 – Judgement. The Fool has a vision of cosmic or divine eons or ‘judgement’
21 – The World. And the Fool has a final vision of the World as it truly is, cosmic dance and dancer, before beginning over again as…the Fool
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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1 The Magician in the Rider-Waite Tarot
(5) MAGIC
Abracadabra!
Where else to feature magic but in mythology? Although…magic is not so definitive of mythology as it is of, say, fantasy. Yes – you have what might be termed (supernatural) magic throughout mythology, but usually as characteristic of divine or semi-divine beings, as part of their inherent essence or nature. You tend not to have magic in the more narrowly defined sense of functional magic – that is, magic as the human “application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed in the belief that they can manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces”. When mortal humans or heroes tend to use magic in mythology, it is as a gift from the gods – because it was given to them by the gods or other supernatural beings.
Functional magic tends to occupy that eclectic middle ground (or perhaps no-man’s land?) between mythology and more general folklore or ritual. And even more so between religion and science. I like to quip that religion is organized magic. I stand by that quip but religion tends to be more a competitor or replacement for magic, reserving the latter to miracles or divine power rather than something manipulated by humans. I understand that historian Keith Thomas proposed such a thesis, albeit in a narrower historical setting, in his book Religion and the Decline of Magic.
I tend to see religion more as Sir James George Frazer did – as closer to proto-science, or an effort to create a system of cause and effect, albeit without science’s rigor to exclude personal beliefs from the results of observation. Indeed, beliefs are kind of the point of magic. Frazer coined the term sympathetic magic, dividing it further into magical principles of similarity (like affects like) and contagion (things that have been in contact continue to affect each other)
However, the classifications or types of magic could very well be the subject of their own top ten. White, grey and black magic. High and low magic. Modern magic (often styled as magick) – ceremonial and chaos magic. And of course stage magic – or illusion. Apotropaic magic. Blood magic. Elemental and natural magic. Wild magic. Alchemy – elixirs and potions. Incantations. Thaumaturgy. Theurgy. Magical objects – amulets and talismans. Magical symbols – runes and sigils. Curses. Grimoires. Runes. True names.
And of course the schools of magic popularized by Dungeons and Dragons – abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy and transmutation.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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Poster for the 2015 film The Witch directed by Robert Eggers
(6) WITCHCRAFT
Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
Just a girl and her goat. Or in the case of European witch folklore, of many girls and their great goat
Witchcraft – traditionally defined as the malevolent “use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others” – is something that seems well-nigh universal in mythologies or beliefs throughout the world. Perhaps not surprisingly, as cultures that saw the world in terms of magical or supernatural forces would then see harm or misfortune in terms of such forces malevolently used by some individuals against others.
Nor are beliefs in witchcraft confined to pre-modern history – or more precisely, early modern history, as trials for witchcraft declined in Europe in the late eighteenth century. They persist even today, and even in the form of active witch hunts, apparently with body counts far exceeding those of the European witch hunts, most notably in Africa and India.
Arguably however, witch folklore reached its highest or most definitive form (indeed, giving us the word for witch) in European witch folklore, particularly that of the early modern witch hunts and trials – and it certainly is the witch folklore that is the source of endless fascination for me.
The witchcraft attributed to witches in or by the hunts and trials evolved into a mythos with remarkable complexity and depth. There were the witches themselves, predominantly but not exclusively female (with men as the primary targets of accusations of witchcraft in some areas), with all the various features attributed to them or protections against them – magic and spells of course, the evil eye, flying ointment, necromancy (as with the Biblical Witch of Endor), animal familiars, imps, witch’s marks (to be distinguished from witch marks to ward off witches), witch’s teats, witch’s ladders, and witch balls or bottles (again to ward off witches).
And then there was the witchcraft ‘religion’ itself, usually styled as an anti-religion of service to the Devil in exchange for magic or supernatural power, with its ritual of the Witches Sabbath or Sabbat and all its various elements, not least the great goat himself, the Devil in caprine form, referenced as the Sabbath Goat (as in Goya’s famous paintings) or Baphomet – or Black Phillip to his friends. And of course all the lurid sexual details that went with it – with the osculam infame being particularly hard to dislodge from one’s mind after reading about it.
The historiography of the origins of these elements of witchcraft has evolved into almost as much a mythos as that of witchcraft itself. The standard historical explanation tends towards the various elements of witchcraft being projections from the lurid fantasies of those conducting the witch hunts or trials, which they confirmed by “confessions” extracted under torture (aided by circulation of those same lurid fantasies in popular belief).
Interestingly, the medieval Catholic Church had disdainfully dismissed belief in the existence of witches or witchcraft as pagan superstition (although heresy was another matter) – and it was the advent of Protestantism, and the religious warfare that went with it, that saw the height of the witch hunts and trials.
And then there are the more exotic historical explanations that become something of a mythology of themselves – with the foremost as the witch-cult hypothesis, that saw the elements of witchcraft as the survival of a pagan cult, distorted and persecuted by Christianity. The witch-cult hypothesis reached its sensational height with Margarat Murray in the early twentieth century – possibly influencing modern neo-pagan witchcraft or Wicca, but has since largely been discredited – although some scholars such as Carlo Ginzburg contend that “surviving elements of pre-Christian religion in European folk culture influenced early modern stereotypes of witchcraft”.
And on the topic of Ginzburg, I have a soft spot for his and others’ conjecture of witchcraft including surviving shamanic elements, most notably the use of hallucinatory or psychedelic substances to essentially conjure the Witches Sabbath out of dreams or drug hallucinations – flying ointment as getting high, or tripping witch balls.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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“Faeries” by Brian Froud & Alan Lee – 25th anniversary edition. Beautifully illustrated coffee table book reference on fairy folklore – with Alan Lee’s characteristically fey art
(7) FAIRIES
Fairy, faery, fay, fey, fae – the stuff of folklore, most distinctively in British and Irish folklore, but also throughout wider European folklore. And perhaps beyond, as some historians argue for their origin from the peris of Persian mythology – and there are analogous beings (or ‘godlings’) elsewhere, such as the nymphs of classical mythology.
Of course, the term fairies now conjures up images of cute little gossamer-winged pixies like Tinkerbell.
In folklore – particularly British and Irish folklore – fairies were much different, most aptly styled as the Fair Folk, itself a euphemism for things that would flay you and walk around in your skin, because you sure as hell didn’t want to draw their attention or conjure them up by using names more true to their nature, or worse yet, their true names. In fairness (heh), they weren’t always as extreme as to literally flay you and walk around in your skin, only on occasion and only some of them. Some of them were more neutral or even nice, although even the nice ones were usually weird or had weird alien morality. Indeed, alien is an apt description, as in a manner of speaking, the fairies of European folklore have been replaced with the aliens of modern folklore, which uncannily resemble their fairy predecessors in many ways. Hence a whole array of apotropaic magic or protective charms to ward them off.
Their origins are myriad, both those attributed to them by folklore or folk belief, and the historical origins of that same folklore or belief . “The unworthy dead, the children of Eve, a kind of demon, a species independent of humans, an older race of humans”. Demoted or semi-fallen angels. Demoted pagan deities or ancestors. Spirits of the dead. Hidden people. Elementals.
As for the classification or types of fairies themselves, that could be the subject of its own top ten – even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Scottish folklore. The classification of trooping and solitary fairies proposed by William Butler Yeats (to which Katherine Briggs added domesticated faires). Heroic faires. Diminuitive faries. Irish Tuatha de Danaan and sidhe. Scandanavian elves. Changelings. Goblins. Pixies (lending themselves to one of my favorite fairy expressions – pixy-led)
And then there’s all the various fairy objects. Fairy animals – fairy cats and fairy dogs (or black dogs). Fairy trees. Fairy godmothers. Fairy gold. Fairy hills and forts. Fairy paths. Fairy riding (or elfshot). Fairy time. And of course the Fairy Queen and Fairyland (or Otherworld).
RATING:
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Aww – adorable! Illustration of a winged, fire-breathing dragon by Friedrich Justin Bertuch from 1806 – public domain image used in the Wikipedia article “Dragon”
(8) DRAGONS
Here be dragons!
Dragons, drakes, worms or wyrms. Serpents – feathered, horned, winged. Amphipteres, lindworms and wyverns. Basilisk, cockatrice, hydra or ouroboros – and of course the tarrasque.
Dragons or draconic creatures are nearly universal in myth and folklore
“Nearly every culture has myths about something called a ‘dragon’, despite the fact none of them can agree on exactly what dragons are. How big are they? What do they look like? How many heads do they have? Do they breathe fire? Or ice?” (Or something else altogether?)”
“Do they fly (and if so, with or without wings)? How many legs do they have? Are they dumb as planks, or superintelligent? Are they low scaly pests, or ultra-rare Uber-serpents ancient and powerful as the Earth itself? Are they benevolent? Malevolent or even outright demonic? Are they divine entities or spirits, or just really cool animals?”
As such, dragons in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of that most important human interaction with them, dragon-slaying and dragon-slayers.
Very broadly speaking, there are two predominant traditions of dragons (in Eurasia) – ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ dragons, with the former tending towards malevolence or demonic entities, and the latter towards benevolence or divine entities. It is of course more complex than that – with many other distinctions between them (and variations within them).
Even their theories for their origin and ubiquitous presence in myth and folklore are fascinating and diverse.
The most obvious source is of analogous reptilian creatures, whether extant or extinct – crocodiles and Komodo dragons being examples of the former, dinosaurs of the latter. Of course, the dinosaurs themselves can’t have influenced human myths or folklore of dragons, but their fossils could have – apparently some attribute Chinese dragon worship to the prevalence of dinosaur fossils in China. There could even be a combination of extant or extinct reptiles, with some scholars believing “huge extinct or migrating crocodiles bear the closest resemblance, especially when encountered in forested or swampy areas, and are most likely the template of modern Oriental dragon imagery”.
Of course, it’s not just reptilian features – dragons “are often a hybridization of feline, avian and reptilian features”, as noted by anthropologist David E. Jones in his book “An Instinct for Dragons” where he suggested humans, like monkeys, have inherited instinctive reactions to large cats, snakes and birds of prey.
A less obvious source is of the symbolism of natural or elemental forces, as in Robert Blust’s The Origin of Dragons – with particular attention paid to the phenomenon of the rainbow.
RATING:
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David and Goliath, 1888 lithograph by Osmar Schindler – public domain image
(9) GIANTS
“There were giants on the earth in those days” – Genesis 6:4
Giants, titans or cyclopes, oni or Fomorians. The archetypal fire and frost giants of Norse mythology – to which Dungeons and Dragons added hill, stone, cloud and storm giants. The Biblical Nephilim as well as Goliath. Overlapping with ogres and trolls.
If you’re picking up a parallel with my special mention for dragons, that’s because giants and ‘giant-kin’ (a term borrowed from Dungeons and Dragons) are similarly ubiquitous or near universal in myth and folklore, typically as monstrous antagonists to humanity or even the gods themselves. Indeed, giants loom larger (heh) as the latter than dragons – hence the Gigantomachy or Gigantomachia or war between the giants and the gods in classical mythology, escalating to giants as apocalyptic beings in Norse mythology.
“Legendary creatures that resemble human beings but super-sized and often incredibly strong…these creatures may range in size from around 7 feet (the average size of the tallest real life humans), to truly colossal proportions.”
Similarly to dragons, giants in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of those important divine and human interactions with them, divine gigantomachy and human giant-killers.
However, giants differ somewhat from dragons and their broad dichotomy between ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ dragons – with the former tending towards malevolence or demonic entities, and the latter towards benevolence or divine entities. For giants, the dichotomy between benevolent and malevolent giants occurs within ‘western’ giants (and indeed I only have superficial knowledge of giants in non-western or eastern myth or folklore), albeit leaning heavily towards the latter.
And again as with dragons, even their theories for their origin and ubiquitous presence in myth and folklore are fascinating and diverse.
The usual psychological theory is that “the profusion of giants in mythology is usually attributed to memories of childhood (when adults tower over you), to the rivalry between young men and old men, and to medical conditions like gigantism that cause unusually tall stature”.
The more mundane archaeological or paleontological theory is tracing their origins to explaining (or mistaking) the bones of extinct megafauna or dinosaurs as those of giant humanoids. Along those lines, there’s the Gigantopithecus, “an extinct cousin of the orangutan” and “the largest primate to ever exist” standing at three meters tall on its hind legs, which did actually coexist with early humans.
Perhaps related to the above, “it wasn’t uncommon for cultures to describe the imposing ruins of older civilizations as having been built by bygone giants” – as with monumental or megalithic structures, as with the legends of the Giant’s Dance for Stonehenge. And of course monumental structures were often sculpted or drawn as giant figures. Sometimes the same legendary logic was used for natural structures as shaped by or originating from giants.
Yet again like dragons, a less obvious source for giants is that of the symbolism of natural or elemental forces – “gigantic peoples often feature as primeval creatures associated with chaos and the wild”.
Of course, truly gigantic humanoids in real life “would fall victim to the Square-Cube Law”.
RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
The bedsheet ghost – that common visual representation of ghosts in Western popular culture. And what better illustration for one than a Scooby Doo villain – Phantom from “Hassle in the Castle”, Season 1 episode 3 “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?”
(10) GHOSTS
Boo!
Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology. I aways recall Pascal Boyer in his Religion Explained proposing the origin of such beliefs (and in part religion itself) to the persistence of dead people in our dreams. In which case I am haunted by the ghosts of people who are still alive – not to mention haunting the world as a ghost in turn.
There are many more rational explanations for ghosts and haunts, essentially most involving brain states or phenomena conducive to ghost-like hallucinations – once again including toxic and hallucinogenic plants or substances, some of which associated with necromancy and the underworld. Ah yes, hallucinogenic plants – is there nothing they can’t do?
Although I’ve always wondered that ghosts seem remarkably narrow-minded, apparently moping around where they died or other familiar haunts, when they are literally without any corporeal limitation, and could be anywhere or do anything. I’d at least want to haunt the space station for a bit. Not that it stops me, like most other people, being fascinated by ghosts and ghost stories.
Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.
I mean – how do objects have ghosts, or be ghosts? For that matter, how do ghosts have clothing or any other objects? Shouldn’t all ghosts be naked? Although that starts to get towards spectrophilia. And yes – that is an actual thing, an attraction to or arousal by ghosts. Hello, White Ladies and Ladies in Red…
RATING:
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Santanico Pandemonium poster art Season 2, From Dusk Till Dawn TV series – one of my favorite female vampires. Yes – it’s not Salma Hayek from that scene in the film but Eiza Gonzalez is more vamped up in the poster here
(11) VAMPIRES & VAMPIRISM
And now we get to the hungrier folklore of the dead, albeit not so much in archetypal ghostly incorporeal form, but back from the dead as revenants. They came back wrong. Not much good comes out of coming back from the dead as a rule. It usually involves preying upon life to sustain one’s unnatural, undead being – treading water, but in blood, as it were.
There is a whole host of vampiric or ‘vampire adjacent’ beings or creatures in folklore and mythology, worthy of their own top ten, going all around the world and back to the dawn of history or beyond.
But when it comes to vampire folklore, despite all the vampiric predecessors and variants, we’re talking “the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire” that “originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe” – and its progeny in modern fantasy or horror, mostly from the archetype of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which arguably overshadow their precessors in folklore.
And the elements of vampires in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten. There are many variants, lacking a single definitive type, although there are a elements common to a number of European vampire folklore legends. Like witchcraft, which to some degree it overlaps and resembles, vampirism evolved into a mythos with remarkable complexity and depth – even down to a similar frenzy of vampire sightings (and stakings) in the eighteenth century.
There are the various attributes or traits of vampires, although a surprising number of those identified with vampires in modern popular culture originate not from traditional folklore but modern fantasy – as they do for the creation or origin of vampires, which tends to be more haphazard in folklore (such as by a cat jumping over a corpse) than the viral version of vampirism in modern fantasy.
There’s also the various means of preventing vampires (as in the various means of preventing a corpse from becoming a vampire, or at least causing too much trouble as one), identifying vampire, and most importantly of all, protecting against or destroying them. A personal favorite from folklore you don’t see too much (if at all) in modern fantasy is their weird obsessive-compulsion – if you left a bag or sack of grain or seeds in its path, it had to count every single grain or seed, usually detaining it all night. Except perhaps the Count in Sesame Street, which I’d like to think is an esoteric survival of this element of folklore.
And then there are the historical explanations for vampires and vampirism – anomalies in the natural process of decomposition (for elements identifying corpses as vampires), premature burial or grave robbery, various diseases (with porphyria and rabies being the most notable), and psychological or political explanations.
RATING:
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Werewolves just chilling by a wall in “Les Lupins” by Maurice Sands, 1858
(12) LYCANTHROPES & LYCANTHROPY
“You hear him howling around your kitchen door.
You better not let him in.
Little old lady got mutilated late last night.
Werewolves of London again.
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London!”
Not just London, as werewolves are a widespread concept in European folklore.
And not just werewolves either, as I’m opening up this special mention entry to the concept of werebeasts throughout the world. Technically that would be therianthropy, as the better-known term lycanthropy is specifically for werewolves (literally from the Greek for wolf and man). Although werewolfism and werebeastliness would be more amusing to use.
You all know the basic concept – a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, or some sort of wolf-human hybrid, either on purpose or involuntarily by some sort of curse or affliction (often spread by the bite or scratch of a werewolf), with such transformations typically (but not always) by the light of the full moon.
The concept has a long history. I believe it may have one of the longest in human history – or prehistory – originating with animal powers, totemism or transformation in shamanism.
As the use of the Greek term lycanthropy might signify, the more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated in classical history, with references to men transforming or being transformed into wolves in Greek literature or mythology. One of the most famous was the myth of Lycaon, whom Zeus – styled as Zeus Lycaeus, translated by Robert Graves as Zeus of the she-wolf – transformed into a wolf (as divine punishment).
However, while the term lycanthropy itself was used by the Greeks in classical literature, it was apparently only in later classical history, used rarely, and in a clinical sense for a particular form of insanity rather than transformation.
The term werewolf was more recognizably used for the concept. And as that term might signify, the even more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated with the role and totemism of the wolf in pre-Christian or Iron Age Germanic paganism, itself often traced further back to proto-Indo-European mythology – where lycanthropy is apparently reconstructed as an aspect of the initiation of the warrior class.
This heady mix clashed head on with Christianity, leading to the concept of the werewolf in medieval Europe – although that concept reached its definitive height in the early modern period, hopelessly intertwined with the overlapping concepts of vampires and witchcraft, so much so for the latter that there were werewolf trials among witch trials.
And like vampires, the elements of werewolves in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten, from the underlying causes of lycanthropy, the nature of their transformation, and other characteristics – including, most crucially for those European peasants up to their necks in fangs, their weaknesses or possible cures.
And as for wider therianthropy or werebeasts – “Until the 20th century, wolf attacks on humans were an occasional, but still widespread feature of life in Europe. Some scholars have suggested that it was inevitable that wolves, being the most feared predators in Europe, were projected into the folklore of evil shapeshifters. This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche; werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India, as well as werepumas (“runa uturuncu”) and werejaguars (“yaguaraté-abá” or “tigre-capiango”) in southern South America.”
Although I think that overlooks bears in Europe. There’s also the plethora of werebeasts in the modern fantasy genre, most notably in Dungeons and Dragons, where basically were-anything goes.
RATING:
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Several legendary creatures from a picture book for children between 1790 and 1822, by Friedrich Justin Bertuch – public domain image (used in Wikipedia “Legendary Creature”)
(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”
Except, you know, more like minotaurs and sphinxes and chimeras, oh my!
This special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts – my love for one of the most fascinating aspects of mythology, its plethora of fabulous beasts or monsters, as reflected in the Wikipedia article for Legendary Creature (a title I obviously also used for this special mention) or the TV Tropes Index for Fictional Creatures and Our Monsters are Different (as well as its feature for Stock Monster Symbolism).
Obviously, I’ve already included a number of legendary creatures in previous special mention entries – notably Fairies, Dragons, Giants, Ghosts, Vampires and Lycanthropes, but arguably also Magic (extending to creatures created or summoned by magic) and Witchcraft (as for Magic but also extending to things like familiars, imps or even the witches themselves). They are arguably also encompassed by two special mentions subsequent to this one. This special mention is effectively for all the other legendary creatures (albeit some substantial overlap), including the really bizarre or weird ones (as encapsulated in the TV Tropes feature Our Monsters are Weird).
“A legendary creature is a type of extraordinary or supernatural being that is described in folklore (including myths and legends) and may be featured in historical accounts before modernity”.
Indeed, legendary creatures are so prolific that they exceed the capacity of any single top ten (although I’ll give it a try). The origins and classification or types of legendary creatures themselves could be the subject of their own top ten lists – as for fairies, even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types.
For origins, there’s legendary creatures as monstrous antagonists for heroes (in turn reflecting wild or chaotic forces in nature or other sources) and legendary creatures claimed in accounts of natural history as real animals – or alternatively (and my personal favorite), real animals thought to be mythical before they were confirmed or discovered as real such as the platypus. There’s legendary creatures as hybrid beasts, legendary creatures “based on real encounters or garbled accounts of travellers’ tales”, and legendary creatures as art or allegory.
As for classifications or types of legendary creatures, an interesting framework is that of the Wikipedia’s various lists of legendary creatures, particularly its list of legendary creatures by type – the various animal types (such as reptiles, serpents and worms overlapping with dragons) or plant types, artificial creatures, associations with body parts or abstract concepts, natural elements or time, natural or supernatural habitats, astronomical objects or even the Earth, humanoids, hybrids, shapeshifters, and undead.
RATING:
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Frame 352 from the Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot film – public domain image Wikipedia article “Bigfoot”
(14) CRYPTIDS & CRYPTOZOOLOGY
You could say cryptids have been part of mythology from its prehistoric origins, since mythology has always featured fabulous beasts or monsters.
However, the modern mythology of cryptids and cryptozoology is somewhat different from that of legendary creatures. Typically, it does look at creatures of legend, folklore or rumor – not in any magical or supernatural sense, but as biological possibilities “in the wild”, in isolation or in hiding, yet unrecognized or regarded as implausible by more mainstream biology.
“Some may be relict survivors of species believed to be extinct, or known organisms displaced into inappropriate habitats; others are unlike any known species.”
And yes – there’s enough cryptids for their own top ten. Indeed, many top tens – you could even categorise them, as Wikipedia’s list of cryptids does, by aquatic or semi-aquatic, terrestrial or winged.
There are the big stars of cryptozoology. The Yeti and Bigfoot or Sasquatch (with similar creatures elsewhere, such as the Yowie in Australia). The Loch Ness Monster – standing in for all the various monsters of lakes or lochs around the world, which again could be their own top ten, again with Wikipedia having a list of lake monsters as well as an Australian representative in the bunyip.
As for other star cryptids – the Jersey Devil and Mothman, sea serpents (and mermaids, particularly thanks to that Animal Planet ‘mockumentary’), various living dinosaurs (such as Mokele-Mbembe), living megalodon, various misplaced big cats, and my personal favorite, the chupacabra, because I love that goat-sucking beastie.
RATING:
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Possibly the most iconic UFO picture of all time and certainly the mantra of UFO enthusiasts – the poster for The X-Files made by the production team for the series
(15) UFOS & UFOLOGY
Close encounters of the third kind.
The modern mythology par excellence, a mythos of extraordinary depth and complexity – one that has even absorbed former fairy folklore, angelic visitations, and divine encounters into itself, as well as forming part of new religions.
Technically, there is nothing mythic about UFOs in their purest sense – as unidentified flying objects. Observations or sightings of aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects have been a prosaic matter of fact, both since human flight and previously throughout history.
And there is nothing mythic about any number of prosaic explanations for them, which could well be the subject of their own top ten – setting aside human error (often of known or subsequently identified objects), delusion, hoax or psychological effects, there are a number of ordinary objects or phenomena.
Aircraft or balloons. Astronomical objects. Atmospheric objects and light phenomena, including my personal favorite I yearn to see for myself, ball lightning.
Of course, what is mythic is the hypothesis that has become synonymous with UFOs – the extraterrestrial hypothesis, essentially UFOs as alien spacecraft or visitation. Although arguably that is one strand, albeit the predominant one, of various overlapping hypotheses, which propose exotic explanations other than ordinary phenomena.
Timecraft rather than spacecraft (and future humans or posthumans rather than aliens). The cryptoterrestrial hyphothesis. The interdimensional hypothesis. Space Nazis or communists. Or some sort of government conspiracy to manipulate perception.
UFOs and ufology have a number of layered elements. There are the UFOs themselves – ranging from the foo fighters and ghost rockers of WW2 (or their predecessors as mystery airships) to more contemporary black triangles, flying saucers and green fireballs.
Then there’s the aliens, most predominantly the aliens known as the Greys, or their predecessors Little Green Men – the former being suspiciously humanoid and nude – as well as their predilections for cattle mutilation (presumably as bowsers they pump as fuel for their spacecraft), crop circles, abduction, and the omnipresent probing (or lurid sexual fantasies to rival those of witchcraft).
That last always throws in a skeptical note for me. It’s hard to imagine that aliens are so advanced as to cross light years of space or different dimensions just to give some hick an enema. I mean, I would, but I’m not particularly advanced and that’s just my sense of humor.
Also – why is it never the s€xy aliens? Although there is (or was) a strand of aliens in UFO mythology as Nordic aliens.
And then there’s the deeper levels of UFO mythology revolving around human interaction – or conspiracy – with aliens. Roswell and Area 51. Men in black. Majestic 12. And my personal favorite, the endless ancient alien hypotheses, with Eric von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods foremost among them for me – aliens built the pyramids!
RATING: 4 STARS****
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Map of Bermuda Triangle (or one version of it anyway) – public domain image in Wikipedia article “Bermuda Triangle”
(16) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE
“The time when the oceans drank Atlantis”
Atlantis – myth, allegory, Egyptian priestly gossip…?
Atlantis earns special mention not just for its own mythos but as representative of all imaginary places or mythic lost or sunken continents, lands, and kingdoms, including phantom islands and even hollow earth or subterranean realms. All of which could readily round out their own top ten – Lemuria or Mu, Hyperborea or Thule, Ys or Lyonesse, Agartha, Avalon or Tir Nan Og, Eldorado, Hy-Brasil, Shambhala or Shangri-La.
And they’re just the big names, although the biggest name of all in lost lands is course Atlantis itself, thanks to Plato. Ironically, Plato used Atlantis as a minor allegory (and counterpoint to Athens), set 9000 years or so before his time, one which concludes with “Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean”, but it subsequently assumed a mythic significance after him.
“Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction”. To its mythic archetype of lost continent or land, one might also add its fantasy role as sunken, submerged or submarine kingdom – with the Atlanteans adapting to their new marine habitat.
Foremost in Atlantean mythology, at least as my personal favorites, are the so-called “location hypotheses” – the historical (or pseudohistorical) speculations as to the location of Atlantis, if only as possible sources of inspiration for Plato’s allegory.
Although not as wild as they used to be – with modern understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics putting paid to any actual lost continent (foremost among them Ignatius Donelly’s nineteenth century revival of the Atlantis myth) – there are still some wild theories proposed for America or even Antarctica as Atlantis.
Personally, I’d like to see more speculation for the United States as Atlantis – not as an allegory by Plato but a premonition (or both, the United States kinda fits the Atlantis allegory as well). Not to mention the Atlantean cold war against Lemuria-Mu.
Seriously, however, I lean more towards Plato creating a mostly fictional account, from more plausible sources of inspiration from the Mediterranean – my favorite being the volcanic eruption on Thera and the fall of Minoan civilization on Crete, although close runner-up is more contemporary (and personal) events to Plato in Sicily.
And then there are the more literary influences or interpretations – from utopias (or dystopias), including the definitive Utopia of Thomas More, to the lost land of Atlantis as metaphor for something no longer obtainable
Or again, personally I’d like to see more speculation for Atlantis as premonition by Plato, not to the future but as deep atavistic memory to the distant prehistoric past, when we were all happy little trilobites in Pangaea, or Gondawana, or whatever prehistoric supercontinent it was back then
Interestingly, there’s some geographic overlap between the speculated locations of Atlantis, at least in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Bermuda Triangle – and even some thematic overlap, with Atlantis or its fate as behind the Bermuda Triangle, although I’d like to see that move in the opposite direction, with theories that Atlantis was swallowed up by the Bermuda Triangle gone wild.
“We can’t tell where we are… everything is… can’t make out anything…It looks like we are entering white water… We’re completely lost.”
The Bermuda Triangle is one of my personal favorite modern myths despite it being, you know, complete crap.
Firstly, it’s a pretty loose triangle, often more of a Bermuda Trapezoid, even extending as far as Ireland in some variations – although it usually includes the Sargasso Sea, which I find almost as fascinating.
Secondly, the idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances is only recent, arising in the mid-20th century, albeit with a bang with my favorite myth within the myth, the disappearance of Flight 19 quoted above. (It happened, but not as part of any larger triangular mystery).
Thirdly and most fundamentally, there’s no mystery. “The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionately speaking, than in any other part of the ocean” – and “the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious”.
Also the claims of writers who contributed to the Bermuda Triangle legend, Charles Berlitz foremost among them for me, “were exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable” – including just straight out misreporting accounts of meteorological conditions or omitting the belated return to port of ships reported missing.
But who cares about all that – it’s just fun, particularly in fantasy, where the underlying reason for the mystery usually “will turn out that something really weird is involved with the area, such as aliens, paranormal activity, Eldritch Abominations, Atlantis, or something even weirder”. Perhaps Cthulhu or other dimensions. Even if human activity is involved, it’s some ancient conspiracy or cult.
Also I’ve intended the Bermuda Triangle to be representative of mysterious disappearances and “vile vortices” in general. There’s the similar Devil’s Sea (or Dragon’s Triangle) near Japan, as well as a few other triangles. The lost colony of Roanoke. The Mary Celeste. Ambrose Bierce. Amelia Earhart
And there’s also my personal Bermuda Triangle, because whenever I lose things, they vanish completely from the face of the earth – perhaps into Charles Fort’s Super-Sargasso Sea.
RATING:
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The Vanishing Hitchhiker – promotional art for Nintendo Switch, one of many variations or adaptations of the urban legend
(17) URBAN LEGENDS
The modern folklore par excellence – “a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a ‘friend of a friend'”. And yes – worthy of their own top ten.
Apparently the term urban legend as used by folklorists has been in print since the 1960s, but is best known – particularly to me – through their most prolific popularizer, Jan Harold Brunvand, in a series of books from The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings onwards.
“Many urban legends are framed as complete stories with plot and characters. The compelling appeal of a typical urban legend is its elements of mystery, horror, fear, or humor. Often they serve as cautionary tales. Some urban legends are morality tales that depict someone acting in a disagreeable manner, only to wind up in trouble, hurt, or dead.”
“Urban legends will often try to invoke a feeling of disgust in the reader which tends to make these stories more memorable and potent. Elements of shock value can be found in almost every form of urban legend and are partially what makes these tales so impactful. An urban legend may include elements of the supernatural or paranormal”.
RATING:
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The Eye of Providence – on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States and here on the US one-dollar bill
(18) CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The other modern folklore par excellence – where history meets mythology. Of course, there are conspiracies in history and some of these may be the subject of theories with some documented or factual basis.
It is however important to distinguish between regular theories about conspiracies – and conspiracy theories, that might well be capitalized as Conspiracy Theory for their mythic stature or mythos.
Also particularly prone to proliferation by the internet – “conspiracy theories mutate and interbreed almost too fast for humans to track. Any of the theories and sub-theories…can be, and in all likelihood has been, combined with any or all of the others by at least one person. Don’t be surprised if the theory raises more questions than the original incident in the first place. The only thing such theories prove, if anything, is that we’re all too human”.
“Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth”
The definitive conspiracy theory is a theory that proposes that an event or situation “is not as we understand them but really the work of secret cabals of cunning conspirators acting for malicious ends, from merely getting rich to propagating an ideology up to and including world domination”.
Of course, it is when they get to the soaring heights of world domination, or some overarching grand unifying theory of conspiracies, that they are most fascinating to me – with the Illuminati as my favorite.
There are of course a plethora of conspiracy theories – it seems at least one for every significant contemporary event at this point. Enough for their own top ten – in some cases for particular events (hello 9/11 and JFK), or just a number of times over in general, as in my favorite compilation of conspiracy theories, the Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, which went from 50 in its original edition to 80 in its last edition.
One could even have a top ten classifications of conspiracy theories, by broader type – such as conspiracy theories involving aliens, disasters, disinformation, famous people, guns (and shootings), health, history (including ancient history and monuments), law or enforcement, media, new world orders or secret societies, religion, science or technology, wars, and even weather. Hell – one could even just have a top ten parodies of conspiracy theories.
Or a top ten classifications by thematic type, most evocatively those by Jesse Walker – who classifies conspiracy theories as “Enemy Outside”, “Enemy Within”, “Enemy Above”, “Enemy Below”, and “Benevolent Conspiracies”. Or Michael Barkun’s event conspiracy theories, systemic conspiracy theories, and super conspiracy theories.
Or Murray Rothbard – of all people – with his model contrasting deep conspiracy theories to shallow ones, with the latter observing an event and asking cui bono or who benefits, “jumping to the conclusion that a posited beneficiary is responsible for covertly influencing events”.
As Vankin and Whalen lament in their books, conspiracy theories have become pretty lazy these days. Previously, conspiracy theories involved the meticulous, even obsessive, compilation of facts or evidence. Now, it’s mostly along the lines of Rothbard’s shallow conspiracy theories – simply proposing a beneficiary or motive behind any event, which is pretty easy to do, and asserting that as a conspiracy.
RATING:
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Discordianism’s Sacred Chao
(19) DISCORDIANISM
Life is the laughter of the gods!
Or the goddess in this case.
Discordianism is the combination of two strands within contemporary mythology (or religion) that appeal to me.
Firstly, the strand of neo-paganism – not so much a mythology of itself, but an eclectic combination, reconstruction or syncretism of earlier mythologies, particularly those of historical pagan or pre-Christian Europe. The most distinctive – and perhaps the most numerous – neo-pagan religion is Wicca, which reconstructs historical witchcraft as a pagan survival or resurgence, typically combining historical mythic female figures within one overarching or universal Goddess, often identified as the Triple Goddess or Great Goddess, either as a monotheistic figure on her own, or with a similar male figure, often identified as the Horned God, as her consort in a duotheistic couple. Or not, since neo-paganism in general and Wicca in particular are extremely eclectic and difficult to pin down.
Of course, Discordianism isn’t the most serious example of neo-paganism – to the extent that it is even accepted as such, something which is often disputed. Which brings me to the second strand – the strand of parody religion, or more broadly, religious comedy, humor and satire. Parody religion or religious comedy is perhaps distinctively modern with many different strands, some notably sourced from popular culture, but also arguably has long roots extending back at least to classical philosophy or literature, even within traditional religions. Some even ascend to distinctly postmodern religions – which appear to have a number of relatively serious followers who embrace the perceived absurdity of these religions as spiritually significant and it is hard to tell whether even these “serious” followers are not just taking part in an even bigger joke.
Sometimes I feel that the world would be a better place if all religions originated in comedy or was told in the form of jokes.
And so Discordianism appeals to me because of its complete playfulness and lack of seriousness in matters of belief, all with a neo-pagan tint. After all, if you’re going to have a universal goddess, metaphorical or otherwise, then who better than the playful goddess of chaos, invoking Eris from Greek mythology or her counterpart Discordia from Roman mythology? Essentially, Discordianism originated as a parody religion, and as far as I’m aware, one of the first parody religions – although is it a joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as a joke? Only Eris knows!
RATING:
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Samantabhadra (Ever-Perfect One) or (Tibetan) Kuntuzangpo, Tibet, early 20th century – part of the tantric art exhibit Honored Father-Honored Mother, Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas, Texas, photographed by Joe Mabel and licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
(20) TANTRA
The jewel in the lotus!
Two words – s€x magic. Or s€x zen as I like to call it.
Well at least in the popular perception of tantra (originating in Hinduism and Buddhism), including my own – that’s pretty much what most people see or know it as, although that perception would be more accurate to the reconstruction of it by modern western writers often styled as neo-tantra.
Authentic tantra would appear to be much deeper than that – “the creation and history of the world; the names and functions of a great variety of male and female deities and other higher beings; the types of ritual worship (especially of goddesses); magic, sorcery, and divination; esoteric “physiology” (the mapping of the subtle or psychic body); the awakening of the mysterious serpent power (kundalinî-shakti); techniques of bodily and mental purification; the nature of enlightenment; and not least, sacred sexuality.” And of course such popularized concepts as chakra, mantra and mandala.
However, this entry is intended to be representative of s€x magic or s€xuality in mythology and religion in general – for which I sometimes use tantra in a much broader (and wildly inaccurate) sense. It’s also intended as the kinkier entry I aim for as my twentieth (and final) special mention!
RATING:
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