Angels & Demons: Duality & Paranormal Phenomena

I mentioned the Neoplatonists in earlier articles. The Neoplatonists believed in the concept of a world-soul, which they also also acquired from Plato. They called this the Anima Mundi. This world-soul or Anima Mundi was the realm from which emerged the gods and daimons. The Anima Mundi is also equal to Dr. Carl Jung's collective unconscious and I also believe it is Dr. Huston Smith's Intermediate Plane or Dr. Henry Corbin's Imaginal Realm.

The Soul of the World, collective unconscious, or Imaginal Realm-whatever noun we choose to identify this magical place with-cannot be known directly. The daimons, myths, and gods that emanate from this realm are, in a sense, metaphors for one another. It is also useful, I believe, to imagine the Anima Mundi/Imaginal Realm as the beautiful, calm reflective surface of a crystal-clear mountain lake on an enchanting Autumn night. Using this imagery, picture that the images on the surface of our lake are actually empty-or not "really" on the lake-but the surface of our magical lake can reflect everything. Then I think we have a good metaphor/analogy for Jung's collective unconscious/Anima Mundi/Imaginal Realm.

In other words the gods, daimons, and myths of the Imaginal Realm are not in the Imaginal Realm etc.--they are the Imaginal Realm etc. One thing that using the placid surface of a lake for our analogy to the Imaginal Realm that may give a false impression of this place is the sense of calm and serenity it gives. In fact, it is a dynamic, tempestuous place that constantly branches into "our" world-its tendrils leaping into the physical plane, the mental plane (our thoughts/imagination) and our psycholgical complexes and dreams.

The philosophy of alchemy gives us one of the most refined embodiments of the Anima Mundi. Mercury (Mercurius) personified a dynamic, living spirit in the physical matter and also the unconscious itself. "The mythical figure of Proteus, a favorite image of the Renaissance, represented a combination of the sea image and the personification: as daimonic offspring of the sea-god Poseidon. Proteus is the shape-changer par excellence-always himself, yet always appearing as something else."

"When Jung spoke of images, he referred especially of course to those archetypal images we encounter as daimons and gods. We must not be misled by the word "images" into thinking of them as somehow unreal. We should, on the contrary, approach them as Jung approached daimons like his Philemon-"as if they were real people" to whom he "listened attentively." He did not, we notice, treat them as literally real, as we (mistakenly) treat hallucinations or (correctly) treat people in the street...He treated them as metaphorical beings, as if they were real people. And it is this metaphorical reality, as (if not more so than) literal reality-as real as Philemon-that he called psychic reality." Daimonic Reality, Patrick Harpur, pp. 47-48.

There are two benefits for thinking of the Anima Mundi instead of the collective unconscious as the prime metaphor for daimonic reality. The first is that the Anima Mundi evokes the notion of the soul, with all of its religious and mystical implications as opposed to psyche which has been denuded of these connections by almost everyone except Jung and a handful of other thinkers. The second benefit is that the Amima Mundi suggests a plane of being that is as much "out there" as it is "within us," as opposed to how the "unconscious" part of the collective unconscious suggests as area of being that can be reduced to psychological factors.

W.B. Yeats wrote: "If all our mental images no less than apparitions (and I see no reason to distinguish), are forms existing in the general vehicle of Anima Mundi, and mirrored in our particular vehicle, many crooked things are made straight." From the human standpoint, the soul is a microcosm which is also composed of a deep, abstruse collective level or world-soul where all of the separate, individual souls meet. From the world-soul/Anima Mundi's point of view it is a macrocosm, a complete impersonal world which has the ability to paradoxically be made known in a personal manner (duality again--microcosm/macrocos, personal/impersonal) as individual human souls. Jung realized that the deeper we dig into our souls, the unconscious unfolds-turning inside out: "At bottom the psyche is simply the world."

The word "animism" is used, by and large, in a derogatory manner by Western society towards traditional societies-all of which, even if they don't have an intellection for it, perceive Anima Mundi. This is because Western culture, long ago, denied any sense of anima in Nature thus taking soul out of it and debased Nature to dead matter reacting in accordance with sterile mechanical laws. To cultures which are animistic, Nature reveals herself in all her glory as thourougly daimon-haunted. These people recognize the sylphs of the air, the genii of forest and mountain, numina of trees and streams etc. The amazing variety of daimons associated with certain places also have their opposite numbers in places of habitation, such as ancestral spirits and the "kinder and gentler" household gods. To people in animistic cultures no part of mundane reality is without the sacralization of everyday living or without a daimon who has to be awarded its share unless one wants to invite misfortune and mishap into their lives.

Daimons also love to inhabit areas such as sacred graves, stone circles, tumuli, and holy wells. Perhaps the lights seen hovering over crop circles and tumuli (among other sacred sites), are analogous in some way to "modern" UFOs that are spotted over power generating stations, nuclear reactors, military bases and reservoirs. If this is the case we would have dualities with the ancient and modern: ghost/fairy lights (ancient) hovering over stone circles/tumuli (ancient). UFOs (modern) hovering over military bases/nuclear reactors (modern). The military bases, nuclear reactors and the like would play the part of our modern "sacred" technological sites which we worship, as animistic cultures worship at stone circles or sacred graves and the like.

Geographical locations where a high number of UFOs are seen are called "windows." Other Fortean phenomena also seem to favor certain locations or "windows" on occasion. A window is certainly a good name to describe an area where there is more permeability between daimonic and ordinary reality--the "daimonic" and "ordinary" being perhaps another duality that is essentially the flip sides of the same coin.

Daimons are famous for haunting "boundary" areas. The anthropolist Victor Turner called them liminal ("threshold") zones. These liminal zones and the daimons that haunt them occur in a wide variety of areas physical and mental-many of which can be thought of in the form of dualities: consciouness/unconsciousness, day/night, old/new (example: at the turn of the year) etc. Other liminal zones that daimons favor are crossroads, bridges, the bases of mountains, and shores. Mobile home parks and caravan sites are frequented by strange beings, UFOs and other Fortean phenomena more often than other areas where people make their homes-especially considering their usually smaller size. Could this be because they are often located in liminal (boundary/threshold) zones between city and country? Perhaps also because these areas are "home" and yet "not- home" to so many people? Could these examples also be yet more evidence of duality?--city/country, home/not- home? Whatever one thinks of the duality issue-one thing can be said for certain with regard to these quirky places: Many people know of a magical, enchanted place whether it is largely known or private where our so-called "laws" of space and time, matter and causality appear to be undermined; and for a time-usually brief we catch a glimpse of a hidden order of things.

Angels & Demons: Duality & Paranormal Phenomena

I think the daimons and the realities from where they have their origin have always been with humanity and quite possibly precede us. Plato and the people who arrived on the scene after him and tried to preserve (and expand on) his teachings have left us some of their thoughts about the daimonic/magical aspect of reality. In the Timaeus, Plato thought of the individual daimon as the element of pure reason in man-a kind of intelligent and wise spirit rudder to steer the ship of one's soul by. The philosophers we call Neoplatonists (they would have thought of themselves as Platonists) expanded on Plato's ideas about reality and daimons.

Wikipedia: "The philosophers called Neoplatonists did not found a school as much as attempt to preserve the teachings of Plato...The concept of the One was not as clearly defined in Plato's Timaeus (the good above the demiurge) as it later was by Plotinus' Enneads: however the passage in Plato's Republic (509c) in which the Sun is said to symbolize The Good (or the One) can be seen as ample justification for the late Platonist's view of the One-for here Plato calls The Good, "beyond essence," especially when this is placed alongside the range of attributes denied of the One in the Parmenides. The afterlife Socrates defines in Phaedo is also different from the afterlife of the person or soul in the Enneads. The soul returns to the Monad or One in Plotinus' works. This is the highest goal of existence, reflected in the process of henosis. In both the Enneads and Phaedo there are different afterlives: one could be reincarnated, one could receive punishment, or one could to to Hades to be with the heroes of old. This last one for Socrates was the highest ideal afterlife. This is in contrast to Neoplatonism's ideal afterlife of returning to the One or Monad. However, what is said in the Phaedrus (248c-249d) reconciles these two apparently conflicting views: for Socrates in this dialogue shows that a movement from life to life (including periods in Hades) is part of a much greater cycle that culminates in perfection and a divine life."

Plotinus is a very important person in Neoplatonism. Even though his teacher, Ammonius Saccas, was said to have founded Neoplatonism, it is Plotinus' Enneads that are the primary and classical document of Neoplatonism. To Plotinus, the individual daimon wasn't anthropomorphic, but instead, a living psychological principle that dwells within us and is transcendent to us. Here Plotinus appears to be in agreement with Dr. Carl Jung's later work-that there are beings (daimons), archetypes and a psyche beyond ourselves. Here is a bit of what Jung thought about his own personal daimon Philemon: "Philemon brought home to me the critical insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which have their own life...I held conversations with him and he said things which I had not consciously thought...He said I treated thoughts as if I generate them myself but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in the room...It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche." Dr. Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp.208-209.

The Syrian Neoplatonist Iamblichus (d. 326 AD) also added greatly to the study of daimons, in fact, modern investigators of the paranormal could learn a lot from the distinctions he makes between "phasmata." "For instance, while phasmata of archangels are both "terrible and mild," their images "full of supernatural light," the phasmata of daimons are "various and dreadful." They appear at different times...in a different form, and appear at one time great, but at another small, yet are still recognized to be the phasmata of daemons." As we have seen, this could equally well describe their personifications. Their "operations" interestingly, "appear to be more rapid than they are in reality" (an observation which might be borne in mind by ufologists)." Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality, p.39.

Personal daimons, for the most part, prefer two different guises to appear in. They can manifest as glowing orbs of light or take on an angelic/wise-man/woman countenance. Napoleon's daimon both counseled and protected him--it could also be seen by him as a shining sphere, which he called his star, or would visit him as a dwarf dressed in red that would warn him of danger. I agree with Patrick Harpur that the two forms are different manifestations of each other--a duality--the star as an astral guide and a red-bedecked dwarf that warns to stay out of harm's way. The reports of personal daimons/guardian angels/spirit guides are hardly the only paranormal phenomena where the same principle seems to be at work, but taking on different forms that can often be looked at from the perspective of duality--one paranormal coin with two different faces, as I hope to show in upcoming posts. The second image is a drawing Carl Jung did himself of "Philemon."

All the best to anyone stopping by! Oh- that first image- that is a pic of me with my trusty dragon - his name is Mucho Caliente Breath;-)

Angels & Demons: Duality & Paranormal Phenomena

One of the best commenters in blogland, my friend Xdell at the Xspot , left a comment under the previous article that gave me the idea for the direction this series should go next. This is with regard to where paranormal phenomena come from, and how, and why they manifest as they do. Of course, there may not be much more than theorizing here, but I think we may be able to see some surprising patterns develop.

Here is one idea that I hope people who read this blog will at least entertain, even if they end up not agreeing completely, or at all with it. The more I have studied paranormal phenomena/Fortean phenomena over the years, the more convinced I have become that almost all-if not every one of them are produced by (a) human consciousness interacting with matter. (b) human consciousness interacting with non-human consciousness. (c) human consciousness interacting with both matter and non-human intelligence. Another way of saying this is that I think most, if not all, of these phenomena live through us. I also wonder if the human race is just as dependent on these other beings and levels of existence.

Here might-notice I said "might"-be some examples of a, b, and c above. Many of these phenomena may "overlap" categories: (a) noisy ghosts "poltergeists", crop circles, synchronicities, BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) sightings, UFO sightings. (b) NDEs (near death experiences), channeling (Jane Roberts with the "Seth" material for instance), automatic writing. (c) UFO trace evidence cases and contact with UFO "aliens," encounters with elementals, gnomes, fairies etc, and trace evidence left behind from these encounters (fairy rings, missing time etc. -very similar to modern UFO reports quite often), cattle mutilations, "intelligent" hauntings, crop circles.

As you can see, these examples are by no means a complete list. When dealing with paranormal/Fortean phenomena I don't think there will ever be an end to the "list." I mentioned that some of these phenomena would straddle categories-this is due to the way one looks at them. Crop circles, for instance, could they be caused by some natural, but as yet unexplained process? Could they be caused by human consciousness interacting in some way with physical matter? Or could they be caused by some non-human intelligence interacting with matter and human intelligence?

The reason I am not giving a "d" category of non-human intelligences only interacting with matter is that I am thinking that the very fact we humans observe a certain phenomenon-crop circles-for instance-means that we are in some way interacting with the phenomenon by simply just noticing it and trying to explain it. Some might consider this "cheating", but I think the reason I am doing this will become more evident as this series progresses.

I would also like to use Huston Smith's ideas about the "Primordial Tradition" from his book Forgotten Truth to represent the 4 levels of reality I will refer to in this series. In this book, Smith talks about the Great Chain of Being and how it begins with the Infinite level of Spirit (God Unmanifest, Godhead) and proceeds down, or "devolves" to the Terrestrial level (Body, physical reality). This can also be thought of as "devolution" from Absolute Unity, Infinity, Eternity, and Truth down to the state of Duality, Finiteness, Temporality, and Falsehood.

The very highest level of reality is the Noetic Absolute. This is the realm of the Godhead, Spirit, and the Infinite Source of all Creation. This level is the Alpha and the Omega of all existence. It is beyond human language to describe-this level of Spirit must be experienced to know it. It is also somewhat paradoxical, as it is beyond all form, but is "pregnant" with every form of existence.

The next level "down" is the level of the soul: God Manifest. Huston Smith calls this the Celestial plane. This is the plane of the knowable aspects of God. It is also the plane of the archetypes or "first forms." I believe many paranormal events have their origin at this level of reality.

The next level "down" is what Huston Smith refers to as the Intermediate level of existence. This is the level of the world in all its invisible aspects: Mind and the Vital Principle. This would also be the "astral" plane and the "Imaginal" level of reality. I think that quantity-wise, if not quality-wise, most forms of paranormal phenomena and experience originate with human minds/imaginations interacting with this Intermediate or Imaginal level of existence.

The final level is the most self-explanatory. This is what Smith calls the Terrestrial level, and is simply the level of our physical reality here on Earth. There is a "mirroring" of all of these levels of reality in human beings: Spirit= the level of the Infinite; Soul= the Celestial/Archetypal level; Mind= the Intermediate/Imaginal/Astral level; Body=the Terrestrial level. All these levels of reality are accessible to human beings-the only thing is not many experience the Celestial and Infinite levels.

I will close this post with a wonderful bit from Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality (pg. 35) that explains some more about the where and why of the beings (daimons) that inhabit these other levels of reality: "Daimons were essential to the Gnostic-Hermetic-Neoplatonic tradition of philosophy-which was more like psychology (in the Jungian sense) or a mystical discipline than the logical excercises that philosophy became. But the daimons of myth evolved into a sort more suited to these philosophies, whether angels, souls, archons, thrones, or powers- many of which later infiltrated Christianity. Ever flexible, the daimons changed their shape to suit the times, even becoming abstractions when necessary (the Neoplatonic henads for example) but preferring if possible to remain personified...Never quite divine nor quite human, the daimons erupted out of the Soul of the World. They were neither spiritual nor physical, but both. Neither were they, as Jung discovered, wholly inner nor wholly outer, but both." To be continued...

Angels & Demons: Duality & Paranormal Phenomena

"This world of Imagination is the world of Eternity; it is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the Vegetated body. This World of Imagination is Infinite, and Eternal, whereas the world of Generation, or Vegetation, is Finite and Temporal. There Exist in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing which we see reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature. All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the divine body of the Saviour, the True Vine of Eternity. The Human Imagination..." William Blake A Vision of the Last Judgment

Consider: An encounter with a man whom my friend Terry Robinson wonders if he was actually an angel saves him from drowning. Another poet, and friend of mine, Stephen Morrissey has an excellent blog and series of poems, Dream Journeys that would fit right into this new series I am going to do here! There are also other poems of Stephen and Terry that these gentlemen kindly let me post here at My Favorite Monsters under the "poetry" label-and also by their names.

A young mother notices her 3 year old daughter has run off from the garden where she was playing. The mother looks around frantically and to her horror sees the young girl sitting on the nearby railroad tracks-a train is coming. "As she raced from the house screaming her daughter's name, she suddenly saw a striking figure, clothed in pure white, lifting Lisa off the tracks. While the train roared past, the glorious being stood by the track with an arm around the child...When the mother reached the daughter's side, Lisa was standing alone." Daimonic Reality by Patrick Harpur, pages 37-38.

And what of these incidents: "Or the Petropolis, Brazil, report of October 25, 1957, in which we are told that a girl dying from cancer was saved by a fantastic operation performed by two men who came from the sky. Or the case of "Dr X," the French doctor who observed two strange objects near his house in October 1968 and was subsequently cured of a large hematoma and of a form of paralysis." Dimensions, page 154 by Dr. Jacques Vallee.

And what on Earth are we to make of these encounters/incidents?: "Driving home in a company van the evening of March 17, 1978, Englishman Ken Edwards saw a strange figure on top of an embankment...It descended the steep hill at an impossible right angle to the ground, and before walking across the road and straight through a chain link fence as if it wasn't there, turned to face the van and shot narrow beams of light from its eyes into the cab. A power surge burned out all of the major components, Edwards' watch stopped, and he showed Hough [Peter Hough-a respected UFO researcher] marks on his hands that had been clutching the steering wheel which resembled sunburns. He soon began complaining of stomach pains, and was found to be riddled with cancer, and died at 42. Maybe he would have anyway, if he and something unknowable hadn't crossed paths, but like Barbara, his widow, told Hough, "A thing that can burn skin, stop watches and destroy an expensive radio might well be capable of harming a human being." Rigorous Intuition by Jeff Wells pages xiv and xv.

And this?: "Last July 20, Vince Weiguang Li delivered an Edmonton newspaper that carried a lengthy feature on the Wendigo, "a terrifying creature in native mythology that has a ravenous appetite for human flesh. It could take possession of people and turn them into cannabalistic monsters."

"Li abruptly quit his job and took a bus across the Canadian prarie, where he beheaded and cannabalized 20-year-old Tim McLean. "I just don't know what to think of it, quite frankly," says the pieces author, and Windigo expert, Nathan Carlson. He'd documented numerous cases of people believing they were "turning Windigo" who would beg to be killed "before they started eating people." At Li's first courthouse appearance, the only words he spoke was a soft, "Please kill me." also from Rigorous Intuition pg. xv

And this?: "On 16 November 1963 four young people were walking along a country road near Sandling Park, Hythe, Kent. Seventeen-year-old John Flaxton was the first to draw attention to a bright "star" which seemed to be moving over the woods at Slaybrook corner. The group grew alarmed when the "star" started to drop towards them. As they ran for safety they became aware of an oval-shaped golden light floating above an adjoining field. They stopped running-and the light stopped moving. They felt they were being watched."

"Up until now. the encounter is typical: the anomalous light heralds the advent of some visitation-a ring of fairies perhaps or a blond "spaceman" with a stirring message for mankind. Instead, "the glowing disappeared behind the trees, and the next thing the young people knew was that a dark figure was stumbling across the field towards them. It seemed to be completely black, human-sized but with no head [and]...to have wings of the kind associated with bats...The youngsters are convinced they saw a ghost. Mervyn Hutchinson, eighteen, said it was like a bat with webbed feet and no head." Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld by Patrick Harpur, page 44.

The 1963 sighting in England, that Patrick Harpur talks about, gave me a bit more of a pause than its very creepy nature would already suggest. It happened 6 days before the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas (or the 1963 coup d' etat for some of us conspiracy researchers!) "over the woods at Slaybrook corner," and involved an entity very reminiscent of Mothman . Now many people who believe in, and investigate such things believe the Mothman is an apparition that presages death, similar to the Black Dog or the White Lady. Maybe my ponderings on this case are "out of left field." However, I do believe in the reality of these (and thousands upon thousands) of other paranormal/Fortean phenomena. I also believe that human consciousness (at all of the levels of existence it can access) interacts like it is a web -spun within and without the threads and skeins of gross physical matter, and other, more subtler forms of matter which I definitely think exist too.

So I ask myself, "WTF is going on?" The first image is William Blake's The Ghost of a Flea, painted circa 1815-1820. The second image is one I saw on a discussion forum so I don't know who did it- another mystery! To be continued...

Jormungand-The Midgard Serpent: A Dragon "Tale"

The god of evil itself, Loki, gave birth to Jormungand. The horrible serpent was huge and its coils spanned the globe as far as the eye could see. It had scales all along its coal-black body and its dragon-like head looked like death itself.

We can see why Odin cast the beast into the deepest ocean, when it was brought before the Aesir, Norse mythology's council of heroic warrior gods. Jormungand, however, thrived in its watery exile. Eventually it grew so large that its body encircled the globe; its jaws clenching its own tail like a humongous ouroboros.

Jormungand was to remain in the ocean, until Ragnarok, The Day of the Last Battle. Then it was foretold that the evil serpent would be freed to do battle with the most powerful of the Aesir-Thor, god of thunder. However, long before the time of this last titanic battle, these two formidable enemies were to encounter each other on two separate occasions. The first crossing of paths happened when Thor was paying a visit to Utgardhaloki, the king of the giants. The giants were long time enemies of the Aesir. Utgardhaloki thought it would be great fun on this occasion to try some tricks to belittle Thor and his fabled strength.

Utgardhaloki challenged Thor to a trio of tests that actually would have been impossible for even a god or a king to pass. But the king of the giants hoped to bypass this by deception. He was very accomplished in magic and the art of illusion, so he sought to hide the true nature of the things used in Thor's tests. Utgardhadolki thought to humiliate Thor in the extreme in one of the feats. He wondered if Thor could even pick up his pet cat. (Good call on choice of pets-Utgard!)

Thor was extremely angered by this and grabbed the hissing animal on both sides and tried to lift it off the ground; but the cat stayed put. Thor struggled mightily to lift the cat but couldn't lift it even an inch in the air. Utgardhaloki was laughing loudly a such an odd sight, enraging Thor and rallying his spirit for one last attempt. Thor used every fiber of his being and exerted every muscle for this last try, but succeeded in pulling the king's pet cat only a fraction of an inch off the floor!

The other tests left Thor no less humiliated. Thor was famed for his drinking prowess, and failed to finish off a horn of mead that Utgardhaloki's subjects could finish in two swigs. The final crushing defeat was that Thor was overcome in a wrestling match with the king's childhood nurse, who was a frail old woman by now.

Thor was ashamed and humiliated as he left the kingdom of Utgardhaloki the next morning. He was escorted far beyond its frontiers by the king himself. It was only then with the kingdom far behind them and safe from any wrath Thor might bring down upon it that Utgardhaloki told Thor about the true nature of the trials. The horn had been connected by magic to the oceans, so Thor could never have succeeded in drinking its contents. Thor did such a good job during the test that he had created the world's first ebb tide. The "feeble old nurse" wasn't tied to the king at all. She was none other than Old Age, and no one-not the strongest, richest or most powerful can ever conquer her. The most awesome revelation was the test involving the king's pet cat. For this was no feline whatsoever-but Jormungand the Midgard Serpent itself! When Thor had lifted one of the supposed paws off the ground he had actually lifted the head and tail of the great Midgard Serpent.

This was such an astonishing accomplishment that Utgardhaloki had barely been able to hide his terror of Thor's strength with phony laughter. Thor was exceedingly angry to learn how he had been tricked and would have slain Utgardhaloki right then and there with his magic hammer, Miolnir, but as soon as he finished his last sentence, the king of the giants vanished. He had not even been accompanying Thor during his departure, his prescence had been just another illusion.

Many years after the meeting with Utgardhaloki, Thor and another giant Hymir, grandfather of Tyr, god of war, were fishing on Hymir's boat. Thor was using the head of an ox as bait, and suddenly something enormously powerful took the bait in its jaws. Thor knew there was only one creature that could exhibit such strength-Jormungand. He remembered how the beast had humiliated him years before in Utgardhaloki's court and delighted in the opportunity to haul the evil beast to shore. Thor pulled on the line with ever fiber of his being and every ounce of his strength and wrestled with the giant serpent for what seemed like an eternity to the scared-witless Hymir.

In time, Jormungand tired and Thor was starting to realize his long-time goal. The beast's awful, huge and extremely nauseating head emerged from the ocean's surface, and Thor whirled Miolnir to strike the death-blow. Just at the very moment, however, Hymir's courage completely abandoned him. The sight of the loathesome visage so near to his own face was just too much. Without any thought or hesitation Hymir cut Thor's line. Immediately, Jormungand sank below the surface and Thor could only rage at the Fates for having been thwarted again.

In the realm of mankind it seemed as if countless eons passed, but to the Aesir it seemed like only the blink of an eye since the world had begun and Ragnarok arrived. This was the long-awaited Day of the Last Battle, which would pit god and giant, deity against demon, man against monster, and Thor, god of Thunder, against Jormungand.

The ocean's surface and depths quaked with massive ripples and waves as the immense dragon uncoiled itself to come ashore to challenge Thor, the only being capable of giving it a worthy battle. The final combat began and the earth rattled and shook with tremors due to the dragon's unrelenting assault on his adversary. The heavens also quaked and were set alight as Thor sent deadly thunderbolts and searing lightning at his evil and monstrous foe.

The sky shook again as Thor shouted his final war cry and raised Miolnir high above his head. He swung it round and round until the skies were whirling in a vortex. Then he smashed his magical hammer down upon the head of the beast with a thunderous blow that echoed all over the world.

The Midgard Serpent was fatally wounded and squealed out a last earsplitting blast of rage and pain before it crashed lifeless to the ground. Thor had finally conquered the most deadly enemy to ever challenge the Aesir. Sadly, though, Jormungand had a last victory at the same time. Only seconds after slaying the evil dragon, Thor fell dead alongside it. Thor had been strangled to death by the malodorous stench of venom exhaled with the enormous dragon's final breath.

The painting is an artist's rendition of Thor trying to "fish" Jormungand out of the ocean with Hymir crouching in terror in the background. I will try to find out which artist painted it-I had it written down-but lost the paper. This was one of the wonderful mythical stories in Dr. Karl Shuker's Dragons: A Natural History. Thanks again for your great comments and all the best to anyone stopping by!

Dragons! Creatures of Worldwide Mythology

Many European stories of dragons have them guarding a treasure hoard. Both Fafnir and Beowulf's dragon's guarded earthen mounds full of ancient treasure. The treasure was cursed and brought ill to those who later possessed it.

English "dragon" derives (via Middle English), Old French,, and Latin) from Greek drakon, "serpent dragon," the Greek word derives from Indo-European "derk-,"to see," and many originally have meant something like "monster with the evil eye." Not withstanding their folkloric associations, there is no etymological connection between dragons and the ghoulish figures known as draugr in Old Norse.

The emblem books popular from late medieval times through the 17th century often represented the dragon as an emblem of greed. The prevalence of dragons of European heraldry demonstrates that there is more to the dragon than greed.

Though the Latin is draco, draconis, it has been supposed by some scholars that the dragon comes from the Old Norse draugr, which literally meant a spirit who guards the burial mound of a king. How this image of a vengeful guardian spirit is related to a fire-breathing serpent is unclear. Many others assume the word dragon comes from the ancient Greek verb derkethai, meaning "to see," referring to the dragon's legendary keen eyesight. In any case, the image of a dragon as a serpent-like creature was already standard at least by the 8th century when Beowulf was written.

Although today we associate dragons almost universally with fire, in medieval legend the creatures were often associated with water, guarding springs or living near or under water. The poem Beowulf describes a draca (=dragon) also as wyrm (=worm or serpent) and its movements by the Anglo-Saxon verb bugan= "to bend," and says that it has a venemous bite; all of these indicate a snake-like form and movement rather than a lizard-like or dinosaur-like body as in later belief.

Dragons in Celtic Mythology: In Britain, the dragon is now more commonly associated with Wales due to the national flag have a red dragon (Y Draig Goch) as its emblem and their national rugby union and rugby league teams are known as the dragons. This may originate in Arthurian Legend where Myrddin, employed by Gwrtheyrn, had a vision of the red dragon (representing the Britons) and the white dragon (representing the invading Saxons) fighting beneath Dinas Emrys. This particular legend also features in the Mabinogion in the story of Lludd and Llefelys. (Mabinogien-is the title given to a collection or prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international motifs, and early medieval historical traditions.

According to Fox-Davies, the red dragon of Wales originated with the standard of the 7th century king Cadwaledr, and was used as a supporter by the Tudor dynasty (who were of Welsh origin). Queen Elizabeth, however, preferring gold, changed the royal mantle and the dragon supporter from red to gold, and some Welsh scholars, still hold that the dragon of Wales is properly ruddy with gold rather than gules (gules=in heraldry gules is the tincture with the color red). There may be some doubt of the Welsh origin of the dragon supporter of the Royal Arms (the official coat of arms of the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II), but it certainly was used by King Henry II (1 October 1207-16 November 1272-reigned for 56 years from 1216 to his death).

It has also been speculated that the red dragon of Wales may have even earlier origins in the Sarmatian (Persian-ancient Iranians) influenced Draco standards (a Roman cavalry military standard borne by a draconarius. Thought to have originated with the Dacians, it took the form of a gaping wolf's head and mouth formed from cast metal, to the end of which was attached a 'body' of cloth or silk fabric in the form of a woodsock), who would have been the primary defense against the Saxons.

Dragons in Slavic Mythology: Dragons of Slavic mythology hold mixed temperment towards humans. For example, dragons in Bulgarian mythology are either male or female with each gender having a different view of mankind! The female dragon represents harsh weather and is the destroyer of crops, the hater of mankind, and is locked in a never-ending battle with her brother. The male dragon protects the humans' crops from destruction and is generally loving to humanity. Fire and water play major roles in Bulgarian dragon lore, the female has water characteristics, while the male is usually a fiery creature. In Bulgarian legend, dragons are 3-headed, winged beings with snakes bodies.

In Bulgarian, Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian and Serbian lore, a dragon is generally an evil 4-legged beast with few if any redeeming qualities. Zmey (Russian for dragon) are intelligent, but not very highly so; they often place tribute on villages or small towns, demanding maidens or food or gold. Their number of heads ranges from one to seven, or sometimes even more, with three and seven headed dragons being most common. The heads also regrow if cut off, unless the neck is "treated" with fire (similar to the hydra in Greek mythology). Dragon blood is so poisonous that Earth itself will refuse to absorb it. In Bulgarian mythology these dragons are sometimes good opposing the evil Lamya, a beast that shares a likeness with the zmey.

The most famous Polish dragon is the Wawel Dragon or Smok Wawelski, the Dragon of Wawel Hill. It supposedly terrorized ancient Krakow and lived in caves on the Vistual river bank below the Wawel Castle. According to lore based on the Book of Daniel, it was killed by a boy who offered it a sheepskin filled with sulfur and tar. After devouring it, the dragon became so thirsty that it finally exploded after drinking too much water. A metal sculpture of the Wawel Dragon is a well-known tourist sight in Krakow. It is very stylized, but to the amusement of children, noisily breathes fire every few minutes. The Wawel dragon also features on many items of Krakow tourist merchandise. Other dragon-like creatures in Polish folklore include the basilisk (from the Greek basiliskos, "little king," Latin (Regulus) is a legendary reptile reputed to be King of Serpents and said to have the power to cause death with a single glance), living in cellars in Warsaw, and the Snake King from folk legends.

Thanks for all of your thoughtful and intelligent comments! Best to anyone stopping by! The first image is of a statue called the "Dragon of Llubjana" and the second image is the flag of Wales with its famous red dragon.

Dragons! Creatures of Worldwide Mythology

European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe. In European folklore, a drago is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in the constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek drakon -"gazer." The word for dragon in Germanic mythology and its descendants is worm (Old English: wyrm, Old High German: wurm, Old Norse: ormr) meaning snake or serpent. In Old English wyrm means "serpent," and draca means "dragon."

Though a winged creature, the dragon is generally to be found in its underground lair, a cave that identifies it as an ancient culture of earth. Likely, the dragons of European and Mid-Eastern mythology stem from the cult of snakes found in religions throughout the world.

In Western folklore, dragons are usually portrayed as evil, with the exceptions mainly appearing in modern fiction. In the modern period the dragon is typically depicted as a huge-fire-breathing, scaly, and horned dinosaur-like creature with leathery wings, with four legs and a very long muscular tail. It is sometimes shown with feathered wings, crests, fiery manes, ivory spikes running down its spine and various exotic colorations. Iconically it has at least combined the Chinese dragon with the western one.

Many modern stories represent dragons as extremely intelligent creatures who can talk, associated with (and sometimes in control of) powerful magic. In stories a dragon's blood often has magical properties: for example in the opera Siegfried it let Siegfried understand the language of the Forest Bird. The typical dragon protects a castle or cavern filled with gold and treasure and is often associated with a great hero who tries to slay it, but dragons can be written into a story in as many ways as a human character.

This includes the monster being used as a wise being whom heroes could approach for help and advice, so much so that they resembled Asian dragons rather than the European dragons of myth. Roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of the Near East, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. From Babylon, the musrussu was a classic representation of a Near Eastern dragon.

John's Book of Revelation-Greek literature, not Roman describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns." Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, but John's dragon is more likely to have come originally through the Near East. Perhaps the distinctions between the dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons are arbitrary, since the later Roman dragon was certainly of Iranian origin: in the Roman Empire, where each particular identifying signum (military standard), after the Dacian Wars and Parthian War of Trajan in the east, the Dacian Draco military standard entered the legion with the Cohors Sarmatarium and Cohors Dacrum (Sarmatian and Dacian cohorts)- a large dragon fixed to the end of a lance, with large gaping jaws of silver and with the rest of the body formed of colored silk. With the jaws facing into the wind, the silken body inflated and rippled, resembling a windsock.

This signum is described in the surviving epitome of Vegetius De Re Militari 379 CE: "The first sign of the entire legion is the eagle, which the eagle-bearer carries. In addition, dragons are carried into battle by each cohort, by the 'dragoneers.' "

I hope to do another "Dragon" article very soon-perhaps tomorrow if I get a chance. I believe all of this information so far is from the "main" dragon section of Wikipedia and the "European" dragon section-I thought it would be good to have a lot of background for the next part. Thanks again for all of your wonderful comments!
The first image is a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov called "Zmey" -the Russian word for dragon and the second image is of a Romanian 5,000 Lei bill with a dragon pictured on top of the buildings.

Dragons! Creatures of Worldwide Mythology

From Wikipedia: Dragons are legendary creatures, typically with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of worldwide cultures. The two most familiar interpretations of dragons are European dragons derived from various European folk traditions, and the unrelated Oriental dragons, such as the Chinese dragon. The English word "dragon" comes from the Greek language (drakon-dragon, serpent of huge size, watersnake, which probably comes from the verb drakein-"to see clearly").

Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body like a huge lizard, or a snake with two pairs of lizard-type legs, and able to emit fire from their mouths. The European dragon has bat-like wings growing from its back. A dragon-like creature with no front lets is know as a wyvern. Following discovery of how pterosaurs walked on the ground, some dragons have been portrayed without front legs pterosaur-fashion when on the ground, as in the movie Reign of Fire.

Although dragons occur in many legends around the world, different cultures have varying stories about monsters that have been grouped together under the dragon label. Some dragons are said to breathe fire or are poisonous. They are commonly portrayed as serpentine or reptilian, hatching from eggs and possessing typically scaly or feathered bodies. They are sometimes portrayed as having especially large eyes or watching treasure (very similar to gryphons-see posts below), very diligently, a feature that is the origin of the word dragon (drakein-"to see clearly").

Some myths portray them with a row of dorsal spines. European dragons are more often winged, while Oriental dragons resemble large snakes. Dragons can have a variable number of legs: none, two, four, or more when it comes to early European literature. Modern depictions of dragons tend to be larger than their original representations, which were often smaller than humans, but grew in myths and tales over the years.

Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, a religion and the universe. They are often associated with wisdom-often said to be wiser than humans-and longer lived. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain and rivers.

In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech. The term dragoon, for infantry that moved around on horseback yet still fought as foot soldiers, is derived from their early firearm, the "dragon" a wide-bore musket that spat flame when it fired, and was then named for the mythical creature.

Greek Mythology: In ancient Greece the first mention of a "dragon" is derived from the Iliad where Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his swordbelt and a 3-headed emblem on his breastplate, however, the Greek word used-drakon-genitive drakontos could also mean "snake." In 217 AD, Philostratos discussed dragons in India in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (II, 17 and III, 6-8). The Loeb Classical Library translation (by C.F. Conybeare) mentions (III,7) that "In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine's, but they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unbraided as shark's teeth."

According to Aelian's On Animals, Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragon that hunted elephants. It could grow to a length of 180 feet and had a lifespan rivaling that of the most enduring of animals.

European Dragons: European dragons exist in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe. Despite having wings, the dragon is generally depicted as having an underground lair or cave, making it an ancient creature of the earth element. Chinese Dragons: Chinese and Oriental dragons generally, can take on human form and are usually seen as benevolent, whereas European dragons are malevolent though there are exceptions (one exception being Y Draig Goch, the Red Dragon of Wales). Malevolent dragons also occur in the mythology of Persia and Russia, among other places.

Dragons are particularly popular in China and the 5-clawed dragon was a symbol of the Chinese emperors with the phoenix or fenghuang the symbol of the Chinese empress. Dragon costumes manipulated by several people are a common sight at Chinese festivals. Japanese Dragons: Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and India. Like these other Asian dragons, most Japanese dragons are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet. Gould writes (1896: 248) in his book Mythical Monsters: "the Japanese dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws."

Vedic Religion: In the early Vedic religion, Vritra, was an Asura (power-seeking beings, sometimes seen as deities and sinful) and also a "naga" (serpent) or possibly dragon-like creature, the personification of drought and enemy of Indra (The king of the Gods of Devas, Lord of Heaven). Vritra was also known in the Vedas as Ahi ("snake"), and he is said to have had three heads.

Persian Dragons: Azi Dahaka is the source of the modern Persian word azhdaha or ezhdeha, (Middle Persian azdahag) meaning "dragon," often depicted upon a banner of war. The Persians believed that the baby of a dragon will be the same color as the mother's eyes. In Middle-Persian he is called Dahaq or Bevar-Asp, the latter meaning "[he who has] 10,000 horses." Several of the dragons and dragon-like creatures, all of them malevolent, are mentioned in Zoroastrian scripture.

I hope people enjoy this next series on mythical/imaginal creatures. I wanted to get more done this morning in this post, but am typing too slow and have to get ready for Thanksgiving. By the way, I hope any Americans dropping by have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, and any people from other nations a wonderful Thursday and upcoming weekend also! Thanks again for your thoughtful and intelligent comments and links-I really appreciate them!

Gryphons! Creatures From The Imaginal World?

Study of subjects like the gryphons was ridiculed by many in the same forms used to dismiss and "debunk" paranormal phenomena these days. Even among the learned men who did accept the reality of the gryphons, they couldn't agree on all of the details.

Herodotus did believe in the strong, cruel, gold-hoarding eagle-lion. However, the barbarous, one-eyed Arimaspeans were just a bit too much for him to credit! Pausanias repudiated the notion that gryphons had spots, saying, "Those who like to listen to the miraculous are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and so they ruin the truth by mixing it up with falsehood." We can almost imagine a modern "nuts and bolts" ufologist saying the same thing about the field of study being corrupted and discredited by the publication of the more bizarre reports.

Some people wondered if the gryphons were simply more mundane animals that had been misinterpreted and given a gleam of the fantastical, in the same manner theat some scientists believe the Loch Ness Monster is a pleiosaur or a whole family of them that have survived for millions of years, or a landlocked sturgeon or seal. It is very fascinating that the attitudes of ancient skeptics and believers, in everything from their writings, explanations and class dispersions are very similar to the modern day sceptics and believers in the paranormal.

Dr. Mahalia Way, who received her Ph.D. in Classics at Berkeley, thinks that the ancient attitudes towards the gryphons are so similar that we can use them as a case study for how human beings react to the unknown. Here is a quotation from the final part of Dr. Way's article in the June 2003 article of Fortean Times magazine on page 55: "Say you notice unknown lights in the sky, unfamiliar movements in your house, something in the woods, or that your penis has shrunk (tee-hee presumably she means males only for this one!) -pick your favorite fortean subject. Your mind will naturally seek an explanation (this is the great thing about being human). When you find one, do not forget to ask yourself what has shaped your conclusion. All too often, when confronted with things we cannot explain, we interpret them without reflection."

"We are unaware of the patterns of thought and behaviour to which we are susceptible. For instance, why do certain identifications "make sense" to some, but seem ridiculous to others? How much of this is influenced by a person's attitude toward authority? When people claim that certain information will "change the way people see themselves in the Universe," or "be too threatening to the powers that be," what dichotomies are they thinking with? Do their dichotomies paint an accurate picture of the world? Have certain phenomena become "sacred" or "polluted" simply because they do not fit into the way we mentally recognise the Universe? How influential is "distance" (i.e., the necessity of relying upon the descriptions of others for information?) Does it guide us toward some conclusions and away from others? Can the distancing effect of another person's description make unlikely conclusions more credible? To what extent are past theories limiting what we can see now? Are we unable to see the dinosaur before our eyes because there is a griffin standing in the way?"

I really enjoyed Dr. Way's work in this article and this subject in general. Maybe I can find more information on them in the future. As I go forward with the "mythical" beings series I would like to continue to ask questions such as these. Thanks for your wonderfully thoughtful and intelligent comments!

Gryphons! Creatures From The Imaginal World?

The creation and sustaining of authority was also a great factor of behavior around these ancient bone discoveries. If one possessed a sacred object one also possessed its power. This authority could even be acquired by cities. Because possession of a hero's body conferred a right to the land it came from, cities all over ancient Greece became very focused on acquiring the bones of heroes from rival cities. This could legititimize one city's dominance over another, and led to a frenzy of unnearthing dinosaur's bones all over Greece in the 7th to 5th centuries BC.

Authority is meaningless unless others know that you possess it. It became quite important to display these bones to the public. The collections grew apace with the passion for collecting bones of the "heroes." Not only bones, but such objects as Medusa's hair, pickled mermen, and the egg Leda laid after her encounter with Zeus which occurred after he had been turned into a swan!

Gryphon claws and eggs were in these collections too and some were still on display in the Middle Ages. That these completely misunderstood bones should have held such importance to the ancient Greeks and Romans shouldn't probably be much of a surprise.

In much later years the Habsburg dynasty and their remains were treated rather "specially" too. In 1618 the church of the Capuchins in Vienna, a 'new' order renowned for an asceticism and evangelizing fervor, was selected as the last resting-place for the bodies of the Habsburgs. However, their viscera and hearts were placed in silver caskets, rather like the Canopic jars of the Pharaohs, and presented to the church of the Augustinian order, where they were kept like Phillip II's relics, in rows behind the high altar. The entrails, the seat of the emotions, were the right of the Cathedral of St. Stephen's, where they were received with due reverence in their silver caskets. There is something in human nature which makes people want to venerate the bones (and other body parts) of mythical (or imaginal) creatures, religious saints and royalty.

Not everyone believed in the truth of what these bones were said to represent. The more orthodox scholars, such as Thucydides and Aristotle, seem to have ignored the subject completely. They-like other men of learning were already sure that the myths associated with such difficult to clarify bones (and the supposed creatures who left them) were false. Others were not so sure. We know now, of course, that the bones were not those of actual gryphons. However, could they have existed on another level of reality alongside us? Daimonic creatures seem to exist along some sort of spectrum, some appearing at the personal level; others at the impersonal level.

From Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld: "The most stiking of these apparitions come in animal form, notable bird-like creatures, black dogs and cats, lake monsters, and "big hairy monsters...Already these suggest an affinity with a certain element or type of landscape as the Neoplatonists noticed. Olympiodorus, for example, remarked that daimons can be celestial, ethereal, aerial, or subterranean. (He adds, for the benefit of ufologists, that "irrational daimons originate from the aerial governors...") My emphasis added.

I should have about one or two more articles to go for the "gryphon" part of this series. After that, I would like to keep going with looking at other mythical (or not so mythical) creatures and some other things in between. Thanks for your intelligent and thoughtful comments! All the best to anyone stopping by!

Gryphons! Creatures From The Imaginal World?

Any theory that we can come up with also needs to explain the huge popularity of the gryphons. Many different cultures over thousands of years were fascinated with them. Could the gryphon have been "made" in the minds of those who coneived of them by combining the actual physical artifacts with conceptual patterns? There are some truly fantastical accounts of peoples and beings encountered by ancient travellers. India was said to be home to many bizarre people-the Sciapodes ("Shadow-feet"), a people whose feet were so large that they blocked the sun by raising their legs! The Headless people of Western Libya weren't blind because they had eyes on their breasts-and so on.

Two patterns can be discerned among the amazing variety of these supposed "peoples." 1) They had a trait that was made extreme by either lack or abundance, or 2) They are an "impossible" hybrid, such as the goat-footed men of northern Scythia, or the flying serpents of Arabia. The one-eyed Arimaspeans would belong in the first category and the gryphons in the second.

To the Greeks it was very important to value perfect physical proportion and to keep groups of things, animals and peoples properly divided. In the Greek mind and philosophy these notions were a very big part of "Greekness." The strange peoples and animals they imagined were a reflection of these ideals, but in a negative form. The Greeks had very exacting ideas about what the perfect proportions of the human body should be, so they thought that grotesquely out of proportion features were extremely interesting.

The "hybrid" people and animals imagined by the Greeks were as equally important as the disproportionate features of them. The Greeks thought that many of the hybrids were horrible because they were often unions of qualities that they thought were mutually exclusive. Hermaphrodites were a case in point. The blurred distinction between male and female was considered an extreme aberration in a strict patriarchy. These days we might not even recognize all unions of opposites because they embody dichotomies that aren't recognized as opposites anymore. The gryphon and the winged serpent would have been seen as hybridized opposites, since they mingle animals of the land with those of the sky.

All too often, we lose track of just how important dichotomies can be to a culture. The very fact that most creation myths rest of the establishment and separation of such opposites, shows us how important they are when looking at the way humans perceive reality. Light and dark, wet and dry, fire and ice or men and animals-each so very different, but each impossible to describe its Janus-faced opposite perspective with. Hesiod's account of creation begins with Chaos a word that originally meant "undivided." Those who threaten these distinctions are exiled from the Garden of Eden or are banished from some sort of primordial paradise forever.

Human interest in creatures who straddle dichotomies and situations where original distinctions become fuzzy is a way for people to explore and "feel" these distinctions. The Greeks also felt a sense of superiority and order when looking at non-Greek cultures. In the Greek world a man was a man, a woman a woman, and a dog a dog-there was no mixing between categories. The Greeks not only felt that there was a superiority to their way of life but their bodies also.

The gryphon also served this purpose, but not for the Greeks. Many years after the gryphon had lost its status as a real animal and had passed into the realms of fantasy, it continued to be a popular representation of opposing forces. Good and evil, God and Satan, Heaven and Hell. The gryphon also took on vastly different "personalities." It could be an extremely unthinking attacker or a victim of thieves, a greedy, vigilant hoarder or a selfless and generous protector. The gryphon, in embodying such opposite meanings, became an easy and safe way to talk about the true meaning of good and evil, charity and greed, etcetera. "Safe" in the previous sentence means several things. Uniting forces that are usually seen to be at opposite ends of the spectrum can be a dangerous practice.

The refusal to identify something as obviously either good or evil can be seen by many not as consciousness raising-but threatening. It can be seen as a way fo questioning the established order. Whatever the case may be-things that defy categorization exist. How does a culture deal with these things "safely." Anthropologists have shown several ways cultures do this. The first is to locate the strange creature or behavior as far away in space and time. Marginal things should be in marginal (or maybe imaginal?) places, the wilderness of the Earth, where the rules and laws of civilized life don't apply anyway.Another way to deal with them was by placing them in the securely vague "once upon a time." In this way they could be conveniently put to death by a hero or champion like Heracles-who bludgeoned many strange creatures to death. Or the creatures could simply disappear.

One way a society could deal with the ambiguous was by declaring it sacred. This was a smart way to deal with uncomfortable creatures and things because they could be accepted by the society, but kept apart from normal life. This was a typical destiny for the dinosaur bones that the Greeks and Romans found close to home. They interpreted these as the bones of gigantic (mortal/immortal) hybrids, as ancient heroes and treated as minor deities. A shrine might be set up or even a priesthood to guarantee the hero's worship in perpetuity. A great example of this is the shoulder blade of Pelops. Pelops was a youth who was chopped to pieces by his father and served to the gods to test their all-knowingness. The scheme was detected, but not before the goddess Hera had eaten a portion of the boy's shoulder, which the gods were kind enough to replace with ivory. Miraculously, Pelops's shoulder was found and enshrined in Olympia along with the rest of his body sometime before the Trojan War!

I hope to have the next article in the series here tomorrow, but can't promise anything. Thanks again so very much for your thoughtful and intelligent comments! The sources I have used or will use (so far) for this series are Wikipedia; Bulfinch's Mythology; Andrew Wheatcroft's wonderful book, The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire; Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld; and especially for the last two articles, Dr. Mahalia Way's fantastic article in the June 2003 issue of Fortean Times magazine -"The Terrible Griffin." All the best to anyone stopping by!

Gryphons! Creatures From The Imaginal World?

The gryphon was believed to be a real flesh and blood creature well into the Middle Ages. It made its debut in written texts sometime around 700 BC. The illiterate masses were very familiar with the gryphon also, as it was a popular subject from 3000 BC onwards. Skeptics fall all over themselves trying to explain away the gryphons longevity in the consciousness of ancient and not so ancient mankind.

Amazingly, belief in gryphons flourished without a single reported sighting or mythological story to tell among a tribe, town, village or city. It seems that awareness of the gryphon was passed along in the FOAF (friend of a friend) manner. For anyone travelling in the Caucausus region of the world in ancient times it was often necessary to listen to tales told by local Scythians of a mysterious tribe, the Arimaspeans. The Arimaspeans fought the gryphons for the gold they hoarded. The Scythians were a nomadic people whose burial mounds (kurgans) have been found as far west as Hallstatt, Austria, and northwest as Brandenburg, Germany-all the way to surround the Black Sea area, excepting the southern part where modern Turkey is.

The Arimaspeans were said to be one-eyed cannibals! The fantastic tales about the Arimaspeans were not at all ripped asunder by lack of any evidence or direct testimony of them. We can ask why-but yet again why not? Classicist Adrienne Mayer has an interesting theory that the popular belief in gryphons may have originated with actual fossil finds. The parts of the world that the gryphons were said to inhabit-an enormous area stretching between the Altai and Tien Shan mountian ranges and through the Gobi desert-was a popular nesting ground for a real creature.

The protocerartops was a dinosaur that had a wide bony frill arrayed around its beaked head. The remains of not only protoceratops, but other frilled beasts as well, are numerous around the region. In fact, there are so many that some paleontologists consider them a nuisance! Looking at a protoceratops fossil through ancient eyes, it would be very easy to recontstruct a gryphon from the skeleton. There would have been a prominent beak, large eyes and big claws left behind, and these are archetypal features of the gryphon. The bony ridge, of which usually only fragments are found could account for the high ears and the decorative knobs that can be found on some early sculptures of gryphons.

The body of the protoceratops was about the size of a lion. The gryphon has one feature thhat is much debated-wings. These are not always present, and could have been guessed at from protoceratops' avian-like shoulder blades and collar bone, and the fact that it also laid eggs. An extremely fascinating aspect of this ancient detective story is that gold is also common in this very same area. Over millions of years, rainwater has washed flakes and nuggets down from the mountains. These wind up in any shallow area they flow over. The net effect of this would be to make the nests of protoceratops very good places to find a "hidden hoard" of gold. Skeletons of the hatchlings could have led to the other theory that the gryphons fought to protect their young rather than the gold. Such finds may have been the inspiration for an Olympian bronze relief of a gryphon chick crouching underneath its mother's wing.

The tales of the one-eyed Arimaspeans may have also have had a paleontological origin. This is because this same region of our little planet is also home to dwarf elephants and their skeletons. The skulls of these creatures have a large, round nasal cavity in the middle of the forehead, and unusually low eye sockets. In esscence, the people of Central Asia were doing the same thing as modern paleontologists; trying to reckon the appearance and habits of unknown animals from ancient fossils. These people were not aware of the dinosaurs, of course, and different geologic eras, so they compared what the found to what the knew. The Meditteranean traders who heard their descriptions secondhand (FOAF) did the same. The gryps was already a motif in Near Eastern art. The Greeks just gave the Scythian creature a name, although the natives called it something else (Waltraud Bartscht: The Griffin in Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide, Malcolm South, ed. (NY, 1987), p 88. It is also possible that the near-eastern images were also based upon Cerotopean skeletons).

Perhaps the mystery of the gryphon is solved then? Not necessarily. The gryphon is such a unique creature that you have to wonder why the ancients just didn't identify the bones as something they were much more familiar with-like a reptile or amphibian? The Chinese and Indians identified the same bones as dragons, and this would seem to make more sense instead of combining a bird and a lion-something the ancients knew was physically impossible. The guarding of the gold seems to recquire quite a stretch of imagination, as the bones were only found with gold. If this is really how a "true" history of the gryphons came about, people were assigning a human value system to them. To be continued...

Gryphons! Background Notes

In his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck talks about a subject that might be useful here for this series. At first glance one might think what do the "Grays" of ufology and Gryphons have to do with each other? Hopefully this will illuminate that question. From pages 142-144 of 2012: "The Grays are analagous to bacteria, but operating on the level of the psyche. Earthly bacteria derives energy from breaking down complex organic compounds that they take in from the enviorment. The visitors seem to be entities that sustain themselves from the negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, emanated by the human nervous system and energy body. Just as earthly bacteria play a crucial role in the global eco-system, we may eventually understand that our infraterrestrial intruders occupy a necessary niche in the ecosystem of consciousness, is it develops or decays."

"Are the visitors "real" or "imaginary"? They are both, and they are neither. Like quantum phenomenon, they do not exist or not exist, they also do not exist and not exist, nor do they both not exist and not exist. According to Dzogchen, a tradition of teachings and practices linked to Tibetan Buddhism, ultimately there are no entities. Any entity only possesses relative reality, including ourselves. Overcoming dualism is essential to Dzogchen, as Chogyal Namkai Norbu writes in Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State: "Duality is the real root of our suffering and all of our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. Where we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political, or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as "enlightenment," "the nature of the mind," and so on, until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence."

"Entities who manifest in other forms of conciousness, such as the Grays, are, at the same time, separate from us and aspects of our psyche. We are the ground for their manifestation, and it is only by attaining a nondual perspective that we can understand them."

"Reality, according to Eastern mysticism, is maya, illusion-a tonal tapestry, or spectrum of vibrations called, in the Mayan tradition, tlalticpac, the dream-world of Earth. There is, according to Dzogchen, neither being nor nonbeing. However, there may be an infinite number of relatively real entities, possessing varying forms of conciousness. Overcoming dualism, we can recognize such beings as fractal shards or autonomous archetypes of our own psyche, as well as self-directed entities undergoing their own forms of evolution."

"From a nondualistic perspective, it makes sense that some encounters with the Grays are neutral or positive. Betty Andreasson, a woman whose accounts of abductions were published in the 1980s, described a classical mystical vision in which they Grays showed her a giant golden phoenix that was consumed by a flame. In her descriptions, and many others, the intruders reveal an ambivalent polarity. Monsters produced by "the sleep of reason," they have a necessary part to play in the evolution of human consciousness-the process of psychic transmutation that alchemists called the "Great Work."

"Connected to our technological development, the Grays embody a malignant, supersensible element lurking beneath our fascination with mechanization, revealing the irrational basis of our constricted rationality. They also have lessons to teach us. As the critic Lewis Mumford noted, "Our capacity to go beyond the machine rests on our power to assimilate the machine. Until we have absorbed the lessons of objectivity, impersonality, neutrality, the lessons of the mechanical realm, we cannot go further in our development toward the more richly organic, the more profoundly human." Like transhumanist zombies, the Grays embody the reductive perspective that sees everything-matter, genes, human souls-as resources to be used for the purposes of control and domination. In this way the visitors serve as a warning, as well as an innoculation against a nightmarish fate we can recognize, and reject, in the time that remains to us."

"...According to occult tradition, humanity has a responsibility to all of the elemental beings, those other forms of consciousness that express themselves through the natural world. We are supposed to learn to work with the elementals and, also, alleviate their suffering-it is clear from the abduction accounts that the visitors are suffering...They are intelligent and sentient, hence aware of their exiled status. Unable to escape their de-souled condition,they desire to draw humans into their lower world, sustaining their half-lives on our subtle energies. They appear to be utilizing their dream-world technologies in a serious and desperate attempt to find a way out of the cul-de-sac."

I wanted to include this bit from Daniel Pinchbeck's book not only because it is one of the best explanations or theories about the "Grays" that I have ever read (I would be very interested to know what you think)-not necessarily all of our "visitors" by a long-shot. But I also thought this part of his book goes a long way towards explaining the thinking about how something (including us) can be real and not real, or have a relative reality.

These paragraphs from 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl explained in a lucid way not only what and why the "Grays" may be doing here when they visit us-but also gave a wonderful overview of how to look at the "imaginal realm" -the "real" and "unreal" at the same time world, where not only the Grays may come from, but perhaps Gryphons, Dragons, Garudas, Elves, Gnomes, Bigfoot, etcetera-and maybe just maybe this is the realm where our so called "myths" spring from and perhaps we humans ourselves! I say our "so called myths" because one thing I am starting to realize is that it seems that so many "myths" are being played out in our so called "real world" {:-)>{ in "real time" right before our "real eyes"! All the best to anyone stopping by and I hope to have the main "Gryphon" article here in a couple of days. Thanks again for your wonderful comments and links!

Gryphons! Background Notes

The next two articles will be some information that should probably have come first for this series. I always do things bass-ackward around here! This information will largely be about thinking and theories on just what the "imaginal realm" is, if indeed there is one-I believe there is. Henry Corbin (14 April 1903-7 October 1978) was a philosopher, theologian, and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. As a boy he had a profound sensitivity to music. Although he was born a Protestant he was educated in the Catholic tradition and at the age of 19, received a certificate in Scholastic Philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris. Three years later he received his "licence de philosophie" under the great Thomist (the philosophical school that arose a a legacy to the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas) Etienne Gilson.

In 1928 he encountered the formidable Louis Massignon, director of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne, and he introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian philosopher and mystic whose work was to have a huge impact on Corbin's life. The stage was set for a personal drama that had deep signficance for understanding those cultures whose roots lie in both ancient Greece and the prophetic relgions of the Near East going all the way back to Zoroaster.

Years later Corbin said, "through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. Platonism, expressed in terms of the Zoroastrian angelology of ancient Persia, illuminated the path that I was seeking."

Corbin is responsible for redirecting the study of Islamic philosophy as a whole. In his Histoire de la philosophie islamique (1964), he disproved the common view that philosophy among the Muslims came to an end after Ibn Rushd, demonstrating rather that a lively philosophical activity persisted in the Muslim World-especially Iran and continues to our own time. The philosophical work or Corbin can be divided into 3 phases. The first is the 1920s and 1930s, when he was involved in learning and teaching western philosophy. The second is the years between 1939 and 1946, in which he studied Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination in Istanbul. The last begins at 1946 until his death, in which he studied and reintroduced eastern and Islamic philosophy.

It is the second and last phases of Corbin's life that are most important to us. In 1949, Corbin first attended the annual Eranos Conferences in Ascona, Switzerland, where he was to become a major figure along with Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Gershom Scholem, Adolf Portmann and many others. In 1954, he succeeded Louis Massignon in the Chair of Islam and the Religions of Arabia. From the 1950s he spent autumn in Tehran, winter in Paris and spring is Ascona.

The 3 major works upon which his reputation is largely based in the English speaking world were first published in French in the 1950s: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, Creative Imagination in the Sufiism of Ibn 'Arabi' and Spiritual Body & Celestial Earth. His later work on Central Asian and Iranian Sufisim appears in English with an introduction by Zia Inayat Khan as The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. His magnum opus, as yet untranslated, is the four volume En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels philosophiques. His life was spent teaching, working lecturing, and editing critical editions of Persian and Arabic manuscripts. His published work includes over 200 critical editions, translations, books and articles. He presented his last paper in June 1978, entitiled "Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Fire: the Science of Gnosis." He died later that year.

The term "imaginal realm" is somewhat strange and new to most people. To understand it better we should go to Henry Corbin himself, as he coined the phrase. In his study of Sufi and Persian texts, he discovered that in these literatures there was believed to be a realm that existed above our ordinary three-dimensional reality and consciousness. Some parts of the imagination are clearly unreal. But these same texts also suggest that there is also a place in our minds and imaginations where things are real in a form where they exist independently of the "imaginer"-they have some degree of ontological reality. The imagination would then appear to have two aspects: one is intentionally false; the other comes to us as a "real" place. Corbin used the term mundis imaginalis (imaginary realm) to differentiate between the "imaginary" (i.e. something equated with the unreal or with fantasy) and the "imaginal" (i.e. a world that is ontologically as real as the world we know from our senses and intellect). Something imaginary is "made up" and comes from us, whereas the imaginal comes to us from another realm. The difference would be that of thinking about some fantastic thing like a pink elephant wearing a tutu (imaginary)-and having a dream image of that same elephant (from the imaginal realm).

In Corbin's view and that of Jungian philosophy the motifs, symbols and images that come from the mundus imaginalis are a reality in some dimension other than the sensible and intellectual dimensions that we are more likely to encounter in our workaday world-and that we have been taught (in some societies, like Pavlov's dogs) to value and respect. This concept can be a very difficult one to accept for a person grounded in the materialist and rationalistic perspective. The most unlikely of saviors, however, science is starting to provide a framework for understanding these other realms of being. It can't be stressed enough-and maybe I have gone too far in this blog with these ideas-that science can only take us so far. God, Godhead or Transcendence will never be found in a particle accelerator (although maybe some other things will;-).

These other realms can also be experienced through dreams, prayers, meditation or even when we are moved by some powerful image in our own culture, such as from a film, book, or even the news. I am often very moved by either "real" stories on the news etc-or completely "fictional" stories in books (some books I have read are so good it makes me wonder-only half jokingly here-that the places and characters described in the book might really exist somewhere in some form!). Music also moves my spirit tremendously at times. When an image does make itself known to us, we may be inspired, awestruck, surprised puzzled, or very touched emotionally. Overall these images awaken or stir an emotion or feeling in us.

Looked at from Jungian or archetypal psychology, we are supposed to work with these images not interpret them. Dr. Carl Jung believed that the soul and image/archetype were one and the same. They exist as a mediating factor between body and mind. As a mediating factor, soul/image allows the integration of the body and the mind, which have been so long separated in dualistic consciousness since Descartes, although the split goes back even further in time. Henry Corbin went further in his later work and said that images are the thoughts of the heart and that the heart is the seat of the imagination, which in turn is the true voice of the heart. To speak from the heart is to speak imaginatively. The English poet John Keats said, "I am certain about nothing but the holiness of the hearts affections and the truth of the imagination."

I hope to be back again today with another article -hopefully a bit shorter than this one and to catch up with friends! It is lawyer time now. This is just a strategy meeting and not the actual hearing. All the best to anyone stopping by! I wanted to mention also before I go that there are many fantastic links and comments in the comments section of this blog. Thanks again for all of your intelligent, thoughtful comments and great links and information!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Corbin