Myth is an extremely complex cultural reality

Myth is an extremely complex cultural reality, which can be approached and interpreted from various and complementary viewpoints.
Speaking for myself, the definition that seems least inadequate because most embracing is this: Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the "beginnings." In other words myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality — an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution. Myth, then, is always an account of a "creation"; it relates how something was produced, began to be. Myth tells only of that which really happened, which manifested itself completely. The actors in myths are Supernatural Beings. They are known primarily by what they did in the transcendent times of the "beginnings." hence myths disclose their creative activity and reveal the sacredness (or simply the "supernaturalness") of their works. In short, myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the "supernatural") into the World. It is this sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today. Furthermore, it is as a result of the intervention of Supernatural Beings that man himself is what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being.

Mircea Eliade - Myth and Reality (1963)

REMIXING ARCHETYPE

To historian of myth Mircea Eliade, architect Keith Critchlow and anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, our pan cultural architectures reflect the universal logic that is found in ancient archetypes. From the rippling architectures of human behavior to the shape of our built environment we carry forth these ancient symmetries, often without knowing it. We speak together in the language of archetype - reviving, rebuilding, recasting our rhythmic heritage, over and over again. Like Indra’s jeweled net, where everything is both self-similar and the mirror reflection of everything else, humans have always paid subliminal homage to the natural archetypes of ideal form.



Thinking about a scale independent view, can we look to the natural world for such an “ideal form” that could span the spectrum of scale in what Lewis Thomas described 35 years ago as “biomythology”? If we live in a universe of signs and natural symbols, is there a landmark image that recurs on every scale, from the nano to the astro? A ballast that can help us move seamlessly through the micro dimension to the macro dimension?

There is. Surprisingly, it is a form that is as simple as it is mysterious, as common as it is universal, a shape that is natural, ancient, symmetric – a form that is at once eloquent, iconic, and timeless. Just from our human scale, the scale of the naked eye, this form would have to be…



http://scaleindependentthought.typepad.com/scale_independent_thought/design/

The Theory of Ideas

According to Mircea Eliade (1975), "Plato 'rediscovers' and develops what may be called the archaic ontology: the theory of Ideas carries on the doctrine of exemplary models that is characteristic of traditional spirituality." This newer formulation by Plato spread Orphic and Pythagorean doctrine far and wide. It even became a source of inspiration in the Empire of Alexander and the Hellenistic culture. It has grown into the great academic tradition of philosophy and the humanities.

The Pythagorean-Platonic theory of Ideas has led to the concept of archetypes as models or paradigms of the phenomenal world. We comprehend and understand these Ideas, symbolized by the Platonic solids, through the faculty of the soul. For Plato, the soul was the source of knowledge.

The doctrine of transmigration implies that the soul can remember the archetypal world of Ideas and enjoy perfect knowledge and bliss communing with the original source. Death for the initiated soul is a return to this condition. Orphic philosophy taught the soul how to remain in the archetypal realm continually, becoming liberated from constant reincarnation.

http://zero-point.tripod.com/holistic/Netzach.html