0001 Why would a Catholic priest podcast on the topics of myths, monsters and mysteries?

Are these actualities somehow related?

Perhaps, they are nested.  Mysteries are locked within monsters.  Monsters are contained in myths.

The outside is myth, the middle has monsters, and the center holds mysteries.

In addition to nesting, the title tells a story. A story has a beginning, middle and end. This podcast title opens with myths, proceeds to monsters, then resolves in mysteries.

Two approaches complement one another.

0002 Why?

Each word in the title labels an actuality.  These actualities fit into one another.  These three actualities tell a story.

0003 Our world is full of stories.  Some are fantasies.  Some are histories.

Fantasies have no foundation in real human events.  So, the story is not real.

Histories are founded in real human events, but often the story is incoherent.

Myths seem to blend these two poles.

Fantasies illuminate how we (humans) think.  For myths, Jungian psychologists investigate this particular topic, revealing universal mental habits.

Histories tell of what happened, by connecting various evidentiary dots or exploring clues.

The magic of myth is simple.  It holds historic dots and clues within itself, long after what happened has passed into the mists of time.  Myths are repeated with such accuracy, that dots and clues may remain for centuries, even millenia.

Consequently, there is no coherent discipline investigating how myths address something that actually occurred.

0004   Can I say that all stories contain clues.

These clues reveal something real. 

 On one hand, this something pertains to human psychology.

On the other hand, this something includes human witness.

0005 Are these poles to a continuum?

Here is how that might look.

0006 Fr. Dwight Longenecker sets out on a quixotic quest.

On first listening, he appears ready to deliver insights in Jungian psyhcology and critical aesthetics, as if these will imbue actuality into myths.

On second thought, he touts his book on who the magi actually are.  They are not Persians.  They are traders, located between Persia and Jerusalem.  They are in transit between both civilizations.  He follows clues in the infant narratives.  He examines archaeology.  He looks at historical documentation.

0007 What does this mean?

Think of a real historical event as a grain of sand.

Think of human psychology as the maw of an oyster.

The grain of sand enters into the maw of the oyster and then, over time, something mysterious happens.  The grain of sandgives rise to a pearl.  

The pearl is like the myth.

0008 In sum, the continuum expressed in the previous blog will not suffice.

There are two real elements, the grain of sand and the pearl.  The grain of sand cannot be recognized within the pearl, but it stands as its origin.  The two elements are contiguous, like matter and form.

0009  For Aristotle, matter and form are contiguous.  The technical term is “hylomorphism”.

Here is a picture.  

0010 For Charles Peirce, the category of secondness, the realm of actuality, consists in two contiguous real elements.

An entire series of comments are published in smashwords on the proposal that Aristotle’s hylomorphism coincides with Peirce’s category of secondness.  This is a portal to the Fourth Age of Understanding, the Age of Triadic Relations.

One way to write the contiguity between matter and form is matter [is contiguous with] form.  Matter and form are real elements.  The contiguity is placed in brackets. The word, “substance”, labels the contiguity between matter and form.  Or, should I say, “being and form”?

0011 There is a beauty in this configuration.

There are two terms that scholastics used regularly.  One is the Latin word, esse.  Esse is translated as being as existent, in contrast to ens, being as being.  Esse concerns presence. The other word made it into English, essence.  Essence concerns form. 

As it turns out, these two terms apply the Arisotle’s hylomorphism.

Here is a picture.

I coin a new word, esse_ce, which sounds the same as esse, but is defined as being [substance], in contrast with essence, which is [substance] form.

0012 What does this have to do with Longenecker’s podcasts?Perhaps, Longenecker aims to discuss the esse_ce and essence of myth.

0013 Now, I travel in a little circle, turning around Peirce’s secondness and Aristotle’s hylomorphism.  One is postmodern.  The other is premodern.

0014 Myth is a hylomorphism, which may be depicted as follows in the style of Peirce’s secondness.

0015 Peirce’s secondness is one of three categories.  It is the realm of actuality.  Secondness consists in two contiguous real elements.  The two elements are real.  The contiguity, placed in brackets, conveys a feeling of causality.  A myth is a story. Its real origin hides within.

0016 A myth does not seem like a thing.  A pearl does. A pearl serves as a metaphor for myth.  If it were not for science, we would not know that a grain of sand gives rise to a pearl inside the maw of an oyster.  This implies that the real world event may be known from other inquiries, not from the story itself.

Here is a picture.

0017 Aristotle’s hylomorphism applies to things.  A pearl is a thing.  A thing has two real elements, matter and form.  Matter has two facets.  If material, matter is called “matter”.  If immaterial, matter is called “being”.  Being is relational.  The Latin word for being is “ens”.

I label the contiguity between matter and form with the word, “substance”.  The term, “substance”, has quite a history.  So, it should be fine if a thing is matter [substance] form.  Note how the contiguity could just as well be a verb, “substantiates”.

0018 Now, many of us have heard the term, “essence”.  Essence is all about form.  Indeed, I suspect that essence captures one facet of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.

There is another, less well known, scholastic term, “esse“.  Esse is Latin for being as existent.  I will now make up a word, esse_ce, which is a complement to essence.  Esse_ce captures the other facet of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.

0019 Here is a picture of the myth, with esse_ce and essence denoted.

0020 Ah, in myth, both esse_ce and essence share the contiguity between a real event and its story.

Isn’t that curious?

Even more, I can extend this pattern to the pearl.

The esse_ce of a pearl contains a grain of sand.

The essence of a pearl is a translucent spherical form.

0021 A pearl serves as a metaphor for myth.I have come full circle.

0022 When Father Longenecker begins his discussion of myth.  It seems that he is discussing Jungian psychology.

Jungian psychology investigates the way that the mind works, especially in regards to the so-called “collective unconscious”,  mental habits common across civilizations.  This corresponds to essence.

Essence contributes to the realness of the story.

0023 However, there is the complement to essence, esse_ce, that is discovered through independent inquiry.  One could label this inquiry, “science”, but the modern term means building mathematical and mechanical models.

The premodern term for “science” is “natural philosophy”.  Natural philosophy seeks out a thing or process or event, tries to explain it, and reaches understanding of the thing itself, not the observable and measurable facets of the thing.  

The thing itself has a hylomorphic structure.

0024  So, an independent inquiry, having great compatibility with natural philosophy, may try to figure out the real event that hides within and gives rise to myth₂.  The discovery of the event is prophetic, since it cannot be predicted by examining the story itself.  Only after the discovery of the event, does the myth become more that pure essence (fantasy).  The story gains esse_ce.

Esse_ce contributes to the realness of the myth in ways that essence does not.

0025 Here is a picture.