FROM
MYTH TO REALITY
Now it becomes even more complicated. We can no
longer attribute the uncomfortable or disturbing to myth or to the “works in
mysterious ways” explanation. We now have actual figures from history burning
opponents alive, pouring liquid metal down the throats of prisoners, lowering followers
of different religious sects onto sharpened stakes, or hanging children for
petty crimes. We look for origins, sadly I might add.
T.S. Eliot began his classic poem The Waste Land[i],
with simple lines since borrowed by every cub reporter who has had the chance
to write an editorial about springtime:
“April is the cruellest month …”
None bother to quote it with the next few lines.
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.”
So what do we have here?
While offering no claim to be a scholar worthy of
analyzing Eliot, I did take the time once to follow the references that he
offered to understanding his poem. This led to a reading of the (abridged
version) of Sir James George Frazier’s monumental work The Golden Bough, A
Study in Magic and Religion.[ii]
That work offers an interesting tack into the trade winds of history.
Frazier recounts how, in humankind’s quest for
explanations of the world, it shifted from magic to religion and, ultimately to
science. Of magic, he found two forms, one an imitative (replication the sounds
of thunder, for example) and one based on a sympathetic relationship between
causes, i.e. religion. He eventually discounts each as a false, “association of
ideas” and credits science with the best avenue for dealing with uncertainties.
Of course magic and science did not fail to intermix, as in the case of alchemy
for example.
Enough of that. What interests us here are the
sections in which Frazier deals with the fear that primitive societies held
that the world each fall and winter, requiring specific actions for a rebirth
in the spring.
What could be a greater manifestation of
sympathetic magic than the sacrificing of strong and/or beautiful victims in order to restore the vitality of the Earth?
Who among us, though, could now doubt the evil in an act of
leading a beautiful young virgin, or the tribe’s strongest young male, to an
alter to be sacrificed, sometimes horribly, in order that the tribe might bring
forth sustenance for the community during the coming year? Of course if youth
and beauty were in short supply, as well as virgins, the burning of a man, say
a stranger, might suffice.
Yes, for some April was indeed the cruelest month in
light of the vegetation rituals that became, according to Frazier, pervasive throughout
the planet.
Associated with all this is a companion belief
that the well-being of a tribe, nation, or society is equivalent to the vitality
of its king, or leader. Thus, we get odd, and some might say evil, practices in
some societies by which the aging king rules until a younger one murders him.
In fact, Frazier begins his lengthy work with a description of such a practice
in ancient Greece. The passage bears repeating:
“In antiquity this sylvan landscape was the scene
of a strange and recurring tragedy. On the northern shore of the lake . . .
stood the sacred grove and sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, or Diana of the Wood
[fertility goddess of Classical Roman tradition] . . . . [in] this sacred grove
there grew a certain tree round which at any time of day, and probably far into
the night, a grim figure might be seen to prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn
sword, and he kept peering warily about him as if at every instant he expected
to be set upon by an enemy. He was a priest and a murderer; and the man for
whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in his
stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A candidate for the priesthood could
only succeed to office by slaying the priest, and having slain him, he retained
office till he was himself slain by a stronger or craftier . . . The post which
he held by this precarious tenure carried with it the title of king [King of
the Wood–Rex Nemorensis]; but surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier, or was
visited by more evil dreams, than his.”[iii]
Here we find a reference to Shakespeare’s’ “Uneasy lies the head that
wears a crown.”[iv]
It would appear then that some of the earliest
introductions to evil themes centered on the gaining of great power, either
that offered by nature or that offered by society.
How did that shift into such a common practice, a practice
instigated by one individual against another, sometimes for no apparent gain?
Mind the helm.
[i]
Eliot, T. S. (2001). The Waste Land (M. North, Ed.). WW Norton.
[ii] Frazer, J. G. (1923). The
Golden Bough: A study in magic and religion. Abridged ed. London: Macmillan.
[iii] Frazier, op. cit. Chapter
One.
