Monday, October 8, 2007

Welcome



"Stories are signposts to help the world choose between the darkness and the light." ~Arago







This blog is about spirituality, alternative religions and quantum physics, heroism, but mostly about mythology and folklore and (geeky) pop culture and how they relate.


Arago was a character on a short lived TV series called The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Adventures_of_Jules_Verne . He may have been based on Francois Arago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Arago . Arago popularized astronomy, physics and technology in many of his treatises, and championed humanitarian causes such as abolishing flogging in the Navy and slavery in the French colonies. His role in the series was to tell the young Jules Verne that his science fictional writings were important in mankind's dealings with the new technologies that were developing in the late 19th Century ... steam power, airships, world travel. Verne in real life popularized technology by giving it the aura of adventure and wonder and more importantly by giving it a human face. His books were fanciful but wildly popular and, as Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."


Joseph Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell said that stories, in the form of myths, are powerful, even vital means of connecting us to the "Unknowable," the mystery that is as much in ourselves as in the Universe.

Today we don't have myths that we recognize as such. The main source of myth, religion, takes itself seriously, mistaking stories for literal fact. The myths we all share are found elsewhere, in popular culture whose icons and archetypes come from our own subconscious. They are updates of the old symbols ... Merlin is Dr Zarkov and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Giles and Dumbledore ... They are our minds' and the Universe's way of telling us eternal truths.

I'll be talking about the connections between myth and mind and mystery here, as well as just rambling or ranting. If any of this interests you, you're welcome to come along and join in.

3 comments:

Ernesto said...

Sounds cool. Look forward to viewing future posts.
Cheers,
Ernesto

Dawn Allenbach said...

I'm looking forward to this blog. I miss our discussions now that I'm way down here in the Big Easy.

Unknown said...

awesome...i'll keep an eye out for future posts! :)