How did greek mythology get so specific? Most of it follows simple deification of reality and the elements...

How did greek mythology get so specific? Most of it follows simple deification of reality and the elements, but some things like "the castration of Uranus" just blows me away.

Then Uranus had more children by Gaia: the TITANS. But Gaia, who had never accepted the fate of her former children, persuaded the TITANS to attack their father, and for that purpose she armed Cronos with an adamantine sickle. And when the opportunity came, all TITANS except Oceanus attacked him, and Cronos cut off his father's genitals, throwing them into the sea behind his back, some say at Cape Drepanum in Achaea. From the drops of Uranus' flowing blood which fell upon earth, the ERINYES were born, and the GIANTS, and those NYMPHS called MELIADS. The genitals that Cronos threw away were first swept away over the sea a long time, but finally, from the white foam which spread around them, Aphrodite was born.

Well, it evolved from a variety of sources and influences in order to provide a metaphysical/existential background to human existence updated to the times they were living in. It's not like "Greek Mythology" was an isolated pantheon to whom people started attaching stories: the theme of monosandalism (eg. Oedipus, Hephaestus), for example, with its implications of demi-humanity and communication with the afterlife/inhuman, has evolved coherently across millennia from the steppe of Central Asia to Scythia to Athens to Subsaharan Africa; everytime, it took on the form and the names most adapted to the place "it" (this cultural theme/practice) found itself living. Same thing with this myth featuring parricide, geographical etiology and the common theme of the (de)generation of woman from the One Pure sex of the male (cfr. Artaud's Heliogabalus).

In short, start reading intellectual/religious histories of the Mediterrenean area and the "Ancient World". I recommend Carlo Ginzburg and Ernesto De Martino as authors on the theme.

Still not as good as Warhammer 40k

Read Maps of Meaning

Kill yourself

Is this a meme or should I actually read it

I'm not memeing; it explains the symbolism of myths like this rather well.

Yes

OK. The nonsense that is shitting out is not really the kind of thing that appeals to me.

I like firm sources and actual accepted accounts.

If you mean well, you mean it gives you a cult tier heremeneutic lens that distracts you from all the nuances and particularities of the actual text with a formulaic self contained non-disruptable modular rendering, then yeah you're a fucking retard

>I like firm sources and actual accepted accounts.

Then you best stay far away from Maps of Memeing

I'm so confused right now. I'm just a simple cambridge boy

Maps is more of a psychological account (or phenomenological account) of how myths came to be and why they have the elements they do. It will draw connections between myths though, and you'll be able to identify the same recurring patterns across myths.

One part also discusses alchemy, which Peterson sees as basically the same sort of human product.

Maybe reddit will be more your speed Hugo

You're not a 20th French philosopher, you faggot.

>and you'll be able to identify the same recurring patterns across myths

In other words, made up horseshit from "patterns" that are purely fanciful

So do you have an actual criticism of the text that's not just exaggerating it beyond reason and complaining about petty shit?

I'm going easy on it, this shit is laughable

This isn't like reading patterns into the goddamn clouds. These are texts. It's not exactly controversial to point out, for example, the union of male and female in creation myths, or the hero slaying the monster in myths.

Everything posted here is taken and/or summarized by sourced studies and text (apart from Artaud). De Martino was an anthropologist who started each of his theories and interpretations from fieldwork and confirmed sources, Ginzburg is probably one of the greatest archive-scroungers of the last fifty years. You don't get to call them unsourced and nonsense without looking up your claims, shithead.

>lol this chart is funny if you don't get it

wtf I hate maps of meaning now

Yeah after modularly transcribing a figure into a "Hero" or a figure into a "Monster" rather than viewing them as intrinsic figures in their own right who can't be reduced to simple RPG classes.
Hinduism one of the oldest and most ancient mythologies on Earth doesn't even have a a true creation myth.

*largest and most ancient

The funny part is more that anyone could think there's something there to get in that garbled schizo scrawl

tldr

We might as well dispense with all of our categories and our faulty practice of inducting things into them. These readings aren't exactly shaky.

Also, nothing Peterson says about myths necessitates that there be a creation myth in every mythology. It sounds like you haven't read the book.

Why don't you try reading the book? If you can't understand that figure from reading the book, I'm worried for you.

Because I don't read New Age fiction

Becouse is the only true religion

For Peterson to have not said something he'd have to have said anything to begin with. His entire lifeswork is a contentless struggle to promote non-truths and nice sounding fairy tales with no serious propositional worth to even begin to falsify.

You gotta be trolling at this point.

Peterson criticises New Age shit. It doesn't draw on a single piece of woo woo. He's just trying to explain myth in terms of things like evolution. It's a very reasonable book.

ebin

>Peterson criticises New Age shit.

Yeah like literally every single New Age mystic does. Deepak Chopra would have just the same spiel about how his horseshit is actually based on science

>several authors
>developed over centuries
>had previous mythos to build upon
>produced the first philosophers, they were obviously passionate as fuck
>lots of texts are missing so we don't have the full image

There are current lore systems maybe not as high quality but are just as detailed and bizarre if you look at a random small part of it as an unfamiliar outsider, like Warhammer 40k as someone mentioned.

I'm gonna assume you're trolling.

That or you've drunken so much Enlightenment Kool-Aid that you can't even be in the same room as someone implying that myths may be an early form of human knowledge and not just shit pulled out of the ass of the ancients.

Ya, but warhammer 40k is new relatively.

it's not ancient

It probably had far more man hours contributing to it though

So what? Not sure where you're going with that.

Also, Warhammer has had many authors, editors, artists etc. contribute to it. Arguably just as many in far less amount of time. The world has changed since Ancient Greece.

because it actually fucking happened

...

Read Jung instead

Its reasonable to assume Warhammer 40k is more profound and sophisticated than Greek Mythology infact

More importantly.

Can you get high on cocaine from pouring it in you ass?

>Carlo Ginzburg and Ernesto De Martino
Any particular titles I should be looking for?

Ginzburg
>The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
>Ecstasies. Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath

De Martino
>The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism
>Morte e pianto rituale. Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria (afraid there's no English translation for this one)

These are the texts most relevant to the topic of this thread and my post, in amy case everything they've written is exceptional.

I wouldn't say more, just different.

>How did greek mythology get so specific?
Poets and tragedians competing with one another, and being excellent writers together with the mythographers.

This, I was there.

>how did Greek mythology get so specific
8th century BC authors and orators heavily, HEAVILY redacting existing folk tales and Egyptian/Mesopotamian mythological traductions to create a loosely interwoven canon. This tradition then gets picked up by Hellenistic writers, orators and historians throughout the Mediterranean and eventually Rome where the practice explodes.

not reading buckert... pleb tier

I still wonder what the castration, the blood drops and his dick turning into the most beautiful woman means. This had to have some sort of symbolism for someone.

Does nobody have an answer to this? Any interpretations that are popular/generally accepted by historians?

The ancient Greeks took dreams seriously, as forms of divine communication. It's possible some of their myths are poetically embroidered dreams, dreamt by high priests or oracles, and then repeated by poets in the oral tradition, which means that they improvise, expand, and contract their material as needed.

I recommend that you read Freud (especially Interpretation of Dreams and Totem and Taboo) and Walter Burkert's stuff. Also the book "The Singer of Tales."

His erogenous organ turns into an erogenous goddess.
His penis impregnates the sea, which gives birth to a goddess.
etc. It only makes sense as dreamlike free association.

Dude its the most Freudian shit imaginable. Why are you so confused?

Also to hell with Historians, its not their job to interpret texts

Haven't been most of Freuds theories disproved or generally not accepted by the scientific community?

Holyfuck, how new are you?
There is no "Scientific community", who you're referring to are Psychologists who full of shit and not even scientists. Try keep up

Just people adding to their favourite lore over time. It actually changed quite often.