Prometheus and Hephaestus the Representatives of Our Age by Andrew Linnell
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Prometheus and Hephaestus The Representatives of Our Age By Andrew Linnell Mythology as Preparer for Our Technological Age People reporting on their near-death experience all speak of seeing their whole life before them as a tableau. Not like a movie showing a sequence of scenes over time, but one’s whole life displayed before them as if time had become a spatial dimension. When we die, our physical body is separated from our life forces, our etheric body. Here, the pictures of our whole life are kept and confront us upon death. After about three days, this too will be released to dissolve back into the cosmic ether. One now enters a period roughly equal to the time spent sleeping during life to work through how your deeds affected others. But before this review commences, one prepares a small package of ‘goodies’ from this recently ended life that is sent to yourself as you prepare for a return to a new life. For most people, their time away from earth life will be a bit over 600 years. As they descend towards their new life, the small package they sent to themselves is delivered. It contains the stories that helped to form their concepts in their previous life. The initiates of the Greek Mystery Centers offered helpful stories that were retold over and over again. These myths contained insights for the one incarnating to assist their incarnation process. Let’s look at some of these Greek myths. Abstract Where did the body of mythology come from? Why were these stories created? Since the 19th Century, there has been an assumption that ancient people made up stories to describe what they could not understand. The various myths originated within the ancient Mysteries. Although the content of the Mysteries cannot be known through written records as their content was communicated orally, the Mysteries revered the Truth just as today's sciences do. This paper takes the view that mythologies are not to be taken as mere fiction meant to explain the unknown. Spiritual Science and, in particular, the work of Rudolf Steiner, will be used to show the roles played by the Mystery Centers in teaching their people their respective myths. The Akashic Record, also known as the Book of Jasher, is an important source used by Spiritual Science to understand ancient history. The priests and priestesses of the Ancient Mysteries, from their grasp of the past, experienced how the events occurring out of spiritual impulses had a life of their own completing the impulse at a future time. They could foresee what these meant for future times. These visions became the stories that comprise the known body of mythology. It was a literal, pictorial description of events that occurred in the spiritual world. The initiates who understood those events brought those stories to their people to help prepare them for their future incarnations. Keywords Mythology, Prometheus, Hephaestus, Anthroposophy, Ancient Mysteries, Aristotle, Alexander Introduction In this paper, we are going to take a fresh look at Mythology carrying the question “could it be that these Myths were meant to prepare us for the times in which we now live?” To answer such a question begs an understanding of reincarnation. For some of you, this may lead to unusual and complex thoughts. It will be helpful to "think like an ancient Greek;" that is, with a robust imagination that can bring pictures to life. Hitherto, there has been an assumption that ancient people made up stories to describe what they could not understand. This arrogant modern position fades before the evidence of ancient accomplishments and wisdom arising from their mystery centers (Lockley, 20101; McGinn, 19912; Welburn, 19973). This paper attempts to correct the view that mythologies were false, invented stories meant merely to explain the unknown. The term "myth" has become synonymous in common usage with untrue, with a story far removed from conventional concepts of reality. Webster's Dictionary lists "any fictitious story or account or unfounded belief" as one definition. The Encyclopedia Britannica says Greek mythology is a body of stories about: Gods, heroes, and rituals of the ancient Greeks. It goes on to say that the pious people of those ancient Greek times viewed these stories as true accounts and, lastly, it says that these Greek myths have had a major influence on Western culture, especially in our arts and literature. Our modern belief claims that myths were stories made up to explain the unexplainable. We will explore these points herein. Today, these views and attitudes towards myths are changing. Since the publication of Joseph Campbell's book, the Power of Myth (19884), the stance of modern historians has been moving towards greater appreciation for ancient mythologies as symbolic sustenance for the human soul. This paper takes this evolution to the next stage by claiming that these ancient mythologies were describing for contemporaries not only events from their far past but also events that will occur in their future. In both cases, the events were seen as real upon the astral plane which is a plane of existence (Wikipedia, esotericism5) postulated by classical, medieval, oriental, and esoteric philosophies as well as mystery religions (Wikipedia, Greco-Roman mysteries6) wherein the soul has its existence. In order to understand Greek Mythology, we need to also understand the Greek model of reality. In the third column of Figure 1, we see the four Greek elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Related to these are the four kingdoms of nature, namely the Mineral, the Plant, the Animal, and the Human. The base kingdom, the Mineral, is defined as lifeless matter. The next higher kingdom, the plant, adds life to lifeless matter with what is called prana/chi or an etheric body. Next, the animal kingdom is comprised of individual living beings, each with an inner life; that is, Figure 1: Greek Four-fold Model with emotions and instincts. The fourth, human kingdom includes an inner life and adds to this the knowing knower, the one who knows that he or she knows, the one with self-consciousness. This is called the Ego or the I-Am. When one is awake, these four – the Ego, Astral, Life, and Physical bodies – are working harmoniously together. But when we fall asleep our consciousness changes because our Ego and Astral bodies leave our Etheric and Physical bodies in the bed. Should our etheric or life body also depart, we would experience death and our physical body would then be ruled only by the physical laws of nature. These would begin to cause the physical body to decay. So long as we are alive, the life body overcomes this natural tearing down of the physical body. Profound esoteric truths are expressed within mythology. This paper examines the historic situation and the intended purposes of mythology. The body of mythological works from the ancient world is vast. We will look at merely two, related, myths, the stories of Prometheus and Hephaestus. Many readers may struggle to grasp the profound depths to the ancient myths. For the ancient peoples who shared these myths orally, each character represents qualities of shared human experience. Moreover, the gods of these mythic tales had well known roles and relationships. Modern readers, lacking these contextualizing details, are challenged to absorb the meanings of myths that go far deeper than the individual tales that are presented here. If you are new to mythology, you may find it helpful to read the myths several times with an imaginative mind in order to orient yourself and then move into their deeper meanings. The myth of Prometheus and Hephaestus In the time that these stories take place, Zeus was King of the gods. Prometheus whose name means “thinking in advance” was a titan. The name of his brother, Epimetheus means “thinking afterwards” or in today’s parlance: being a Monday-morning-quarterback. All Titans were descended from the ancient Greek God Uranus (or Heaven) and his wife Gaia (or Earth). In the Vedantic traditions, Uranus is the same god as Varuna. As conditions on the planet Earth changed, the son of the previous king usurped the throne. Thus Uranus and the primordial deities were dethroned by Chronos (or Time) and the 12 Titans who were in turn dethroned by Chronos’ son Zeus. The losers of the battle in heaven between Zeus and Chronos were cast into the underworld. This included all of the Titans except for the two thinking ones: Prometheus and Epimetheus who had sided with Zeus. After the War, Zeus asked these brothers to help form the physical body for mankind [perhaps the brains of humanity]. Prometheus and Epimetheus accomplished this task and thus humanity lived its course through several eras of Atlantean times, circa 25,000 - 9,000 BCE. Despite this, Zeus became disenchanted with how humanity was developing and wanted to destroy it because they had become corrupted. "When Zeus took over the rulership of the earth from Chronos, humanity had advanced far enough to enter on a new phase, while the old faculties possessed by men from Chronos in ancient times were dying out. Zeus wanted to exterminate mankind and install a new race on earth" (Steiner, 19097). Prometheus, however, resolved to give men the means for further progress as he did not want to see destroyed what he had helped to progress. He gave Mankind the means to save themselves by giving them knowledge of the use of [inner] fire, as well as the arts and literature. Through these gifts, he expected Mankind would develop sufficient freedom to no longer be entirely dependent upon the Gods, especially Zeus.