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.

0026 Now, I want to offer an example. This example may take Father Longenecker by surprise.  It is the story of Adam and Eve found in the early chapters of Genesis.

Many argue that the temptation of Eve is pure fantasy.  It is pure essence.  There is no esse_ce.  Really, a talking serpent?

0027 Longnecker may speak of the essence, using Jungian psychology.

I will offer a picture of the esse_ce, using the evolution of talk, as opposed to the evolution of language.

0028 Two works shed light upon the esse_ce of this myth. One is a scientific proposal, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.  The other is the dramatic fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall.  The evolutionary backdrop for both is found in The Human Niche.

0029 What is the evolution of talk, in a nutshell?

Starting with the adaptation of walking, characteristic the genus, Australopithecus, the foot is enslaved and the hand is freed.  The hand is free to gesture.  Why gesture?  Manual-brachial gestures convey intentions during team activities.  Why engage in team activities?  That is how a band of walking apes survives.

Homo habilis and erectus adapt to the opportiunity that manual-brachial gestures offer. Gestures convey intent (message), content (meaning) and role (presence) during team activities.  The semiotic qualities of hand talk are iconic (images) and indexal (indicators).  So, a referent defines the message, meaning and presence of its word-gesture.

Hand talk is crucial for team activities, such as gathering seasonal vegetables and hunting or scavenging game.

0030 On top of that, word-gestures should differ from one another, fitting Ferdinand de Saussure’s definition of languageas two related systems of differences, parole (manual-brachial gesture) and langue (particular sets of messages, meaning and presences).

0031 The domestication of fire allows hand talk to become a team activity in itself.  Hand talk expands from team-activities to something more general (that is, conversation).  A full fledged grammar develops, all in the milieu of hand talk.

The generalization of talk is very successful, expanding brain volume and group size.  

0032 Humans evolve in social circles of increasing size.  Larger circles have different dynamics than smaller circles.  Bands are permanent.  Bands gather in community.  Communities are semi-permanent.  Communities gather into mega-bands.  Mega-bands are seasonal.  Mega-bands gather into tribes.  Tribes meet occasionally.  

Adaptation to gatherings of the larger groups includes the use of the voice for social synchronization.  When the tribe gathers, time is limited.  Everyone must quickly get in sync.  The voice comes under neural control for singing.  The Neanderthal and the Denisovan most likely practice lingusitic hand talk and sing.

0033 With the speciation of anatomically modern humans, around 200,000 years ago, the voice is exapted for language.  The voice joins hand talk.  From the very start, Homo sapiens practices hand-speech talk.

Hand-speech talk lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, until…

Something weird happens.

0034 Slightly before 7800 years ago, one culture drops the hand talk component of hand-speech talk.  The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia forms when rising ocean waters fill the formerly dry-lands of the Persian Gulf, pushing a river and coast dwelling mesolithic culture into the same territory as a dry-land stock-breeding culture.  The cultures meld, despite thier vastly different traditions.  Their way of talking breaks down into pidgin. The resulting creole is unrelated to any family of languages.  This creole is the Sumerian language.  Sumerian is a linguistic isolate.

0035 The Ubaid culture is the first speech-alone talking culture.  Speech-alone talk has very different semiotic qualities than hand-speech talk.  Speech-alone talk cannot image or point to anything.  So, the referent cannot define the word.  Instead, message, meaning and presence is projected into the mind, as if there is a referent that is pictured or pointed to.

0036 Does that sound like the snake-like serpent talking to Eve?

The snake says speech-alone words and Eve projects message, meaning and presence into the forbidden fruit.

This is what we do in our current Lebenswelt of speech-alone talk.  Such projection is not possible in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, of hand and hand-speech talk.

0037 Needless to say, this shift in the semiotic qualities of talk potentiates the formation of unconstrained social complexity, including civilization.  Speech-alone talk spreads to the far corners of the Earth, on the wings of power and wealth, the fruits of unconstraind social and labor specialization.

0038 Yes, the key to the talking serpent is this: The serpent has no limbs.  It cannot engage in hand talk.  Therefore, it presents an image of the actualization of speech-alone talk.

How creepy is that?

The talking serpent is more real that anyone imagined.

The talking serpent is a clue to the esse_ce of the story of Adam and Eve.

0039 Fr. Dwight Longenecker is onto something.  The stories of the Bible have esse_ce and essence.

Longenecker’s work on the infant narratives stands at the threshold of the use of both Jungian psychology and independent inquiry to address revelation.  Real world events, like grains of sand, hide within Biblical stories, embodying pearls of revelation.  In myth, esse_ce meets essence.

0040 The esse_ce and essence of myth coheres to the dyadic structure of Peirce’s secondness.  It also expresses Aristotle’s hylomorphism.

The esse_ce of myth is an intimation of a real world event.

The essence of myth is explored with Jungian psychology.

These two approaches complement one another.

0041 What does this have to do with monsters?

Monsters appear in myths.  And, we perceive them as monsters.

There are monsters in the content of myth.  Then, our perception constructs thier monstrosities.

0042 On the content-level, the myth, a story told by a story-teller, is an actuality₂, emerging from the possibility of common attention₁, in the normal context of what is happening₃. 

The following formula is introduced in A Primer on The Category Based Nested Form.  In a normal context₃, an actuality₂ emerges from (and situates) the possibility of ‘something’₁.  The subscripts refer to Peirce’s categories.

0043 Here is a picture.

A situation level emerges from (and situates) a content level, according to A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.

Monsters appear as content in myths.

This content is then situated by the human imagination.

0044 A myth_2a is situated by possibilities inherent in the imagination_1b, giving rise to a phantasm_2b, in the normal context of what it means to me_3b.

The two-level interscope is typical for sensible construction.

0045 Each column produces a virtual relation.

The imagination_1b virtually emerges from (and situates) common attention_1a.

Phantasms_2b virtually emerge from (and situate) the telling of a myth_2a.

What does it mean to me_3b virtually emerges from (and situates) what is happening in the story_3a.

0046 Jungian psychology studies the ways that imagination_1b situates myth_1a.  Imagination picks up on essence.  Essence associates to form.  More than that, essence goes with the filling in of a form (that is, [substance] form).  The way that form is realized addresses the question, “What do the various features of the story mean to me_3b?”

But, the phantasm_2b is not pure fantasy.  It is not solely essence.  The imagination also brings experience into the picture.  For this reason, the child perceives a myth as literally true and the adult senses that the myth is a mix of fact and fiction.  The more experience one has, the more important the matter that goes into the story becomes.  Or, should I say, “being”?

0047 Experience includes one’s own personal accounts.  Experience includes one’s traditions.  Experience includes encounters described in myth.  Experience is both practical and theoretical.

Experience tells us that something real is going into the essence of the myth.  The esse_ce may be taken to be literal (making the story a historical documentation) or figurative (making the story a fantasy) or any mix of the two (bringing us back to the continuum in the first blog).

There is a continuum between matter, which is material, and being, which is immaterial.

Both contribute to esse_ce.

0048 So, what is going on in one’s head when one encounters a myth?

The mind_3b constructs a phantasm_2b that appropriates the structure of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.  Actuality is dyadic.  A myth_2a is actual.  So, the phantasm_2b uses imagination_1b to construct the same dyadic structure, but in a way that reveals the monstrosity_1b in monsters_2a.

0049 Here is a picture of what the phantasm constructs.