Thunderbolts Forum v3.0

tholden says, "What Julian Jaynes stumbled upon was the remnants of the antediluvian communication system."

Thank you for the link. It is nice to see a presentation that questions the common assumptions about language evolution and categories.

tholden wrote:What Julian Jaynes stumbledupon was the remnants of the antediluvian communication system.

True. However, Jaynes (who used conventional chronology) theorized that consciousness arose circa 1500 BC, well after Noah's flood.

What Julian Jaynes stumbledupon was the remnants of the antediluvian communication system.

https://youtu.be/XYv5rB62qHk

So Arcmode asked, "And isn't it more of a liberal arts handbook than a mythology? If the author drew on previous myths for a narrative framework, wouldn't it make more sense to go back to the original texts of those myths to look for evidence?"

The very structure of the work contains both types of expression: there is the first half, which is entirely symbolic and allegorical and tells the story of a marriage between a god and an "embodiment of the love of learning", while the second half is a description of an organized, verbal and methodical approach to describing the world through learning and study.

I think that the structure of Marriage of Mercury and Philology actually provides an Etruscan account of a shift away from allegorical and symbolic expression to the methods of study, rational arguments and proofs.

But this does not mean that the previous state of mind was inferior to the later mindset, which uses mainly learning and scholarship to describe reality. After all, we all speak symbolically all of the time, every night when we dream, and when we use the media of cinema. Only movies that have rich and satisfying symbolism are really good -- although most people cannot articulate what the symbolism was, they appreciate it, and miss it if it is not there.

Nancy Thomson de Grummond on Martianus Capella as an Etruscan account

• "We can compare this amazing passage in Martianus Capella with an even more surprising document about Etruscan gods, the artifact known as the Piacenza Liver. This is a bronze model of the liver of a sheep, of the actual size, marked out with cells or houses for the various Etruscan dieties. ...The margin of the upper side of the liver is divided into 16 cells, which probably correspond to the 16 zones of the heavens. There are several striking similarities between the Piacenza Liver and the passage in Martianus..." {Table III}

https://vuka.altervista.org/wp-content/ ... _n-2-6.jpg
Fig 2.1 Piacenza Liver

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... acenza.jpg
Fig 2.2 Piacenza Liver

Nancy Thomson de Grummond on Martianus Capella as an Etruscan account

--At this point she gives a translation of the section of the text in which the gods are invited from 16 regions of the sky. It is quite beautiful and I may transcribe that too.

But notice that the first half of the book by Martianus Capella is an "allegorical novel" while the second half is made up of seven chapters on the learning of the seven liberal arts, Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Harmony.





PS I recall that the Romans actually originally went up to Etruria for an education, and had a holiday based on that tradition (ref needed).

Nancy Thomson de Grummond on Martianus Capella as an Etruscan account

• "A Roman text by the late writer Martianus Capella (5th century AD) preserves a description of where all the gods resided, thought to be based on an Etruscan account. The passage comes near the beginning of a long allegorical novel known to modern scholarship as On the Marriage of Mercury and Philology. Mercury is getting married to a goddess, Philology, who personifies the love of learning, and messengers are going around the heavens to give out invitations to the gods.
  
  In contrast with our usual problems in studying Etruscans, here we havean abundance of detail. But the text has baffled scholars and is seldom studied by anyone but specialists. In reading the passage one may note a great number of different names of gods, some of whom are quite unkown elsewhere, and some of whom are mentioned only once or twice in other ancient texts. Their very rarity is of course consistent with the idea that they originate from an Etruscan source.
  
  It is interesting that we find the names of the gods who are recognizably equated with the Greek and Roman chief gods, such as Jupiter, Juno and Mars, along with personifications, such as Health, Fortune, Discord and Dissention.
  
  As is typical of the Etruscans, a number of gods occur in groups, only vaguely defined and remaining mysterious to us."

Nancy Thomson de Grummond on Martianus Capella as an Etruscan account

• "A good bit is known about the Etruscan concept of the structure of heaven and the location of the gods in the universe. It is certain that the Etruscans regarded the universe as divided into 16 regions, whereas the Romans normally divided the sky in quarters and the Greeks in eighths. Scholars have been able to figure out the relationship of the gods to the compass directions...
  
  It was important to know whre the gods were sitting in the sky, because when lightingin and thunder occurred the priests had to decide which god was creating the celestial phenomenon. The Etruscans believed that there were nine gods who could throw the lightning bolt, in contrast to the Greeks and Romans, who generally reserved the power for the chief god alone. Roman writers tell us the names of six of the [Etruscan] gods who might throw lightning, using Latin designations:
  Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vulcan, Mars, and Saturn." Which in Etruscan are Tinia, Uni, Menrva, Sethlans, Laran, and Satre. "We do not know who the other three are."

Note: There were lost Etruscan books, two of which included a system of interpreting lightning bolts and the flights of birds. Interpreting the appearance of lightning or birds as a message from the heavens was an art which used the structure of the heavens to give meaning to the sign by noticing the directions of the birds or the lightning. You see the flight of birds mentioned in Homer's two books quite a few times, if I recall.

(cont'd)

Arcmode says, "5th century seems like a late source for this question, didn't the shift occur much earlier? And isn't it more of a liberal arts handbook than a mythology?"

Yes, very good catch Arcmode!

The way that I learned about Martianus Capella was through the work of a wonderful Etruscan scholar, Nancy Thomson de Grummond. Of all the books written about the Etruscans, I find her books to be outstanding, and an example of reasonable and circumspect historical treatment of people where there are no surviving written records of their own. Most historians simply confirm archaeologically whatever the Gr and Rom said. So I love her work.

Nancy Thomson de Grummond in her book Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend explores the idea that Martianus Capella's book from the 5th century AD is based on an Etruscan account.

I will go ahead and transcribe the passages from her book that led me to read "The Marriage of Philology and Mercury" and to agree with her wholeheartedly about the exciting provenance of the work.

5th century seems like a late source for this question, didn't the shift occur much earlier? And isn't it more of a liberal arts handbook than a mythology? If the author drew on previous myths for a narrative framework, wouldn't it make more sense to go back to the original texts of those myths to look for evidence?

But perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions, I'll have a read of it and look forward to seeing what you find in it.

There's a literary work I would like to put forward as a possible ancient witness to a shift in human expression and perhaps even a shift toward frontal lobe dominance in learning and in living.

It's called "The Marriage of Philology and Mercury" by Martianus Capella.

Arcmode says, "I am still looking into the book, but I see it as very similar to the chasing of cosmic gnomes...[L]ooking for an evolutionary process for the origin of consciousness is assuming that humans have evolved from something more primitive or less sophisticated, with a different consciousness, which has never been firmly established."

Those are very interesting comments and criticisms, absolutely. But if you look at the original post/OP, my interpretation of Julian Jaynes is that : "At the heart of this seminal work is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but was a learned process that emerged, through cataclysm and catastrophe, from a hallucinatory mentality only three thousand years ago and that is still developing."

This thread begins with the assumption that Julian Jaynes' work is an outstanding alternative to evolutionary psychology. Others may interpret him differently and are welcome to share their views.

And here are some questions that I felt would follow, from an Electric Universe perspective :

What myths and legends describe a shift in the way the human mind works ?
What kind of planetary catastrophe might have had such an effect?
What did Immanuel Velikovsky publish on this topic?

I think that it is possible that an interplanetary electric discharge may have an effect on a much smaller population of survivors, and I want to explore the topic using myth and legend, and also neuroscience (maybe). But I only want to include legends and myths that specifically mention a shift in expression, communication, or brain function.

I have a few problems with this theory. First, while I'm not completely familiar with all the ancient texts, I have read some of them, and I've read some of them a lot. And from what I've read, a bicameral mind that can communicate in some kind of supernatural way is never presented as being the general experience of humans at the time. It's always presented as being something that is exceptional. You're either chosen by God to be a prophet, or you're a sorcerer who's in contact with spirits, or you are seeking the help of the gods in some way. There's some kind of reason for it, and it's an exception. That's why there's scriptures written about it when it happens . So I don't think we can really appeal to ancient texts as evidence for a bicameral mind as a general experience of humanity in ancient times.

It also ignores the ongoing experience of supernatural communications that occurred and still occur into modern times after the supposed shift into regular consciousness. In the tradition of the Old Testament texts the Christian religion had many saints and holy people in contact with God - receiving instructions, witnessing apparitions and such things, while the general population goes about quite normally, maybe only occasionally experiencing something similar. The same can be said for many other traditions. In this sense there is no evidence of any change at all.

I am still looking into the book, but I see it as very similar to the chasing of cosmic gnomes. In the same way that those searching for dark matter are resting all their hopes on the unfounded assumption of the gravity only Big Bang universe, looking for an evolutionary process for the origin of consciousness is assuming that humans have evolved from something more primitive or less sophisticated, with a different consciousness, which has never been firmly established. In fact the evidence for it is extremely thin and in many cases observations contradict the model, such as with the fossil record.

Just to add a comment:

- The discussion is not just about humans, it is also about the "Entities" or "gods" that we were once part of. They are still there, either in Corbin's Imaginal Realm, or scattered among us as shattered pieces waiting for conditions to change so that they can reform back into "One Mind, Many Bodies".

When you read "myths" the "Entities" discussed are not just metaphorical.

In other words, the "trauma" is spread across the entire Noosphere, and we keep getting hints of that "trauma" from more than just our collective memories.

If that is too much to take in, that is a normal response. The term "Boggled" refers to ideas that researchers would rather not address.

Pay attention to what is being discussed, but do not pay more than what you can afford.

When I find other Native American legends of people sharing a language, both with each other and sometimes with animals, I'll place them here.

I did a search in some of the texts of the Zoroastrians -- which was time well-spent, but I did not find any mention of a loss of communication, or of the development of an entirely new kind of communication. If I do, I'll put it here. Certainly planetary catastrophe is there in the Avesta and other Pahlavi books.

The legend above has some of the elements we are listening for, in which the end of the previous era (perhaps of megafauna?) closes with catastrophe. The new era after the monsters were killed was a great improvement of life for the Indians. I have seen that theme quite often. This is just one example in which the planetary catastrophes were viewed as a positive event by tribes of North America, making life safer for humans.

Does it necessarily fit to say that all of humanity is traumatized? Is it necessarily fair to psychoanalyze all of humanity and assume a negative response to the period of planetary chaos? These traditions may be a counter example.

While planetary catastrophes are abundant in myths and legends from around the world, this is a search for just those which are connected with a shift in communication, expression, and brain organization.