and the journey of Mythos and Logos

In ancient Greek mythology Gaia, or Ge emerged out of primordial Chaos. There are various versions of the ancient Greek creation story. One of them mentions that Gaia gave birth to herself, being both male and female, which Jules Cashford mentions was the original meaning of “virgin” (2021). Another story mentions that Air and Day, children of Chaos gave birth to Gaia. The word Gaya can be traced back to Sanskrit with carrying the meaning “the moving song”, giving the impression that within the essence of what was being termed as Gaia a certain life-giving force was expressed, closely tied to interconnectedness and universal flow. Because of the power that natural forces had on human livelihood it was important for pre-industrial communities to foster the relationship with Earth as it was believed that the way the Earth revealed herself to humans was connected to truth and fate and could be influenced by rituals and offerings. Sense-making of natural phenomena in pre-Greek times had a mythological and religious nature arising from the collective unconscious. C.G Jung spoke about this phenomenon as history preparing itself to live through us (Cashford, 2021). Not only was the meaning of life being dreamed up through myth as symbolic but also in the way the moment-to moment reality, terms of agricultural seasons, rituals, moon cycles, day and night was conceived – a life lived through the deeper realm underlying both physical and psychological expressions.

Owen Barfield, British writer and philosopher, explored in his book History in English Words (2002) the relationship with the Earth in terms of ways of participating, calling the initial level of consciousness Original Participation (before 9000BC), moving to Withdrawal of Participation (from 4000BC onwards) and then Final Participation (present day). During the time of Original Participation, tribes all over the world created representations of earth worship in the forms of the body of a woman, of a mother, of a vessel. Erich Neumann in his work The Great Mother (1974)expands on how ancient archetypical reality is explained through symbols and metaphors which had its origin in a primordial world ruled by feminine darkness, which is also the symbol for the unconscious, the mother of all things. In the archetypical mind, consciousness is represented as masculine but the substrate in which it is held is felt as being feminine.

Ancient Greece was already shaped by the withdrawal of participation with the Earth as methodical procedures started having stronger influence on Greek thought. Historians have different interpretations of the relationship of mythos and logos in Ancient Greece. In an article written by Jules Cashford (2014) she claims in ancient Greece mythos was still predominantly the premise for logos, while the article by Ivana Marková (2016) states that mythos was already subjected to logos. In terms of Platonic dialogue, truth had to be appraised over falsity, even though it was known that truth and falsity were hard to distinguish (Halliwell, 2000).  Yet Aristotle contrasted this way of thinking by claiming that myth was as significant as logos as they carried rational insights and had similar intentions as science, therefore notbeing completely irrational (Johansen, 1997).

In the following sections, I will explore the split into duality and the simultaneous interdependence of mythos and logos on the premise of Gaia and its historical developments. Myth has always and still is permeating reasoning and shaping cultural narratives, especially also the narrative of science and rationality; more than one might assume. Coming back to the ways of participation as coined by Barfield, in the Final Participation the dual existence of mythos and logos and of the present experience of separation and belonging with Earth is acknowledged and a new sense of union is formed through consciousness and imagination (Cashford, 2021). I believe that this acknowledgement of the inseparability of mythos and logos in the relationship with earth and life is currently birthing a transformation of human life on Earth which has the power to support a reinvention of balance on earth, being beneficial to the restoration of ecosystems and beneficial towards a more peaceful society.  

The Gaia Hypothesis

I was not planning to research the Gaia Hypothesis for this essay. I assumed that there was not so much interesting for me to discover as it felt to me as a “chewed through” topic. But somehow inevitably I came across some articles and I became fascinated by the implications it had on collective imagination. I discovered that the entanglement of mythos and logos is much more explicit in present day reality than I had thought. More than one might assume, ideas and ideologies that influence our cultures often carry both scientific and mythological aspects (Midgley, 2002). Scientific discoveries which become accessible to the wider audience naturally entangle themselves in rich narratives as all humans have a tendency for bias by finding universal explanations and coherence to explain a variety of phenomena (Markovà, 2016). Even though we live in a world shaped by the strive for objectivity, the collective unconscious and hidden archetypical images in my opinion always have influence on the stories we live through in our lives.

James Lovelock’s work on the Gaia Hypothesis was one of the major explorations in contemporary science which through the spontaneous naming of “Gaia” led to a multitude of debates and discussions in scientific as well as non-scientific communities. A new planetary imaginary was invited pointing towards the systemic entanglement of life on earth (Sands, 2020).

Gaia as metaphor: Gaia as a catalyst for scientific enquiry: Gaia as literal truth: Gaia as Earth Goddess. Whoever she is, let’s keep her. If science cannot find room for the grand vision, if Gaia dare not speak her name in Nature, then shame on science. To recant now would be a terrible thing, Jim. Don’t do it. (Pearce, 1994)

The challenge in accepting a holistic framework persists because the framework of reality within our minds is fragmented (Midgley, 2002), which some see is a result of the fragmentation of mind and body. In today’s age, this is a well-known concept as the body-mind connection or disconnection is used as a slogan by all kinds of fields. Some authors, such as Mary Midgley in her book Science and Poetry (2002) claim that French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) was one of the founding figures of the separation of mind and body. However, others say that his inability to explain the connection of the mind and the body based on reasoned evidence created a dilemma and his theory became oversimplified based on his main thesis of Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am). In an article in the journal of Analytical Psychology Elizabeth Urban (2018) writes that Descartes did believe that matter and thought are mysteriously interconnected, yet at the same time being different, and he failed to explain the unity of matter and mind.

Coming back to the Gaia Hypothesis, it seems that the physical body of the earth and its relationship with something that might be called earth-consciousness – of which we are all part of – is yet another way the mystery of logos and mythos, of mind and body, reveals itself.

For many people understanding the place of mind in nature is the greatest philosophical problem. Mind is often thought to be the last domain that stubbornly resists scientific understanding, and philosophers differ over whether they find that a cause for celebration or scandal. (Blackburn 1996, p. 245).

Bruno Latour, the author of Facing Gaia (2017) expands on the possibility that the figure of Gaia could be a way to disentangle the fragmented relationship with what we have been understanding as “nature” (Latour, 2017). The Anthropocene is currently influenced by an “utter confusion between objects and subjects” in which “a more realistic image” of the place of humans is being called to be created (Sands, 2020). This is in line with the notion of the Final Participation as mentioned earlier in which a more unified way of relating with earth is being imagined. However, because of the fragmented frameworks in our mind about the nature of reality, the description of Gaia as mythological Earth Goddess while also being geo-physical matter appears confusing (Sands, 2020).

Experiencing Gaia

Western absolutism of the conception if reality is being challenged by the development of the ontological turn in anthropology, which is described in an article by Williams et al. (2022) on indigenous philosophies and psychedelics.I do not yet fully conceive the theory behind the ontological turn, but insofar I understand it what the ontological turn entails is instead of there being the existence of an “objective reality” filtered through different cultural and social contexts resulting in various worldviews, there is no objective reality but a multitude of realities, of worlds and of worldviews. One example given by anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro explains that various “Amazonian societies understand “humans” share the same culture, soul or perspective but differ across the bodies they possess and the worlds they perceive” (Heywood, 2017).  The humans in the Amazonian context are not the same group of individuals as perceived in the Western culture and thus, the word “culture” explains nothing else than a difference, as it does not stand for a fundamental truth but a relative perspective.  

What are things relative to, if not culture? And what is the background against which they are relative, if not nature? (Heywood, 2017).

Personally speaking, the ontological turn reveals that there may be no need for absolutism and that more value can be given to the subjective experience of individuals in which both interdependent mythos and logos shape reality and ways of knowing. This brings me to the topic of the split of gnosis and episteme. Gnosis in Ancient Greece referred to personal or mystical knowledge obtained in participation with the divine and was also associated with the Greek-Roman Mysteries (Cashford, 2014). Episteme referred to reasoned knowledge about something and having proof for this reasoning. Gnostic knowledge has been devalued more and more from the Age of Enlightenment onwards as can be seen by the example of Descartes, where he experienced gnosis about the inseparability of matter and spirit but could not prove it and therefore his theories were reduced to what could be proven.

In an article by Gordon Worley (2017) in which the author explores the three ways of knowing: doxa, gnosis and episteme he says that all ways of knowing have their value and we should not privilege or discount one knowledge with the other. He also mentions a beautiful example of the interdependence of gnosis and episteme, which refers to the fact that since the 1970s we know what earth from space looks like through images, yet when astronauts are in space they are struck by the “overview effect”, a transcendental state of awe which is not experienced the same way when seeing an image of earth. This experience is very much connected to what is understood as gnosis, knowledge obtained through personal experience.

Researchers have characterized the effect as “a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities… The most prominent common aspects of personally experiencing the Earth from space are appreciation and perception of beauty, unexpected and even overwhelming emotion, and an increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole. The effect can cause changes in the observer’s self-concept and value system and can be transformative.(Wikipedia, no date)

Interestingly, an article by the magazine Aeon (Watts, Gandy and Evans, 2019) talks about how psychedelics produce a similar experience of the overview effect. It also mentions an “underview effect”; with that referring to the narrow viewpoint of separate and disconnected selves, seen in the inability to collectively act on the climate crisis and the tribalization of politics. The Mexican indigenous community Wixáritari is a wonderful example of the possibility of an extended sense of self that includes land and community. They are known to use psychedelics such as the peyote cactus in rituals. Scientific research is also becoming more aware of the effects of psychedelics, and it is quite intriguing to see terms such as “oceanic boundlessness” and “oneness” in an traditional quantitative research paper. This to me shows the potential for the merging of mythos and logos into contemporary society, especially to find solutions for the challenges the world is facing.

Participants in a study by Imperial College London in 2017 mentioned the following experience on psychedelics (Watts, Gandy, and Evans, 2019) (note the similarity to the description of the actual overview effect astronauts experience):

I was everybody, unity, one life with 6 billion faces … I was swimming in the sea, and the sea was me.

Like Google Earth, I had zoomed out … I was absolutely connected to myself, to every living thing, to the Universe.

I got a wider perspective, I stepped back. It helped me appreciate that the world is a big place.

In my opinion, personal experiences, ranging from astronauts to indigenous communities, that lead to knowledge about Earth, about Gaia, as a Goddess, as a living being, as a physical reality and mystical reality play an important role in co-creating reality. C.G Jung explored how certain events can be connected by meaning rather than by cause in which intuition is in-tune with an interconnected system (Cashford, 2021). I want to briefly explore how psychedelics as altered states of consciousness play a role in experiential way of knowing earth and what its implications for the unification of mythos and logos are. In the book The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience author Robert Masters mentions in the preface that prior to the Drug War in the 50s there was some agreement that psychedelics such as LSD could provide access to the individual as well as collective unconscious dimensions (Masters and Houston, 2000). The book also mentions that Herodotus had written about how the ancient Persians felt that important matters should not be solely examined by ordinary states of consciousness. The book The Ecstasic Imagination speaks about how psychedelics produce fantasy, and that empirical evidence suggests that fantasy is often highly rational and sometimes more self-knowing than conscious thought, contrasting conventional psychoanalytic theory which sees fantasy as irrational (Merkur, 1998). The content of these fantasies might be more symbolic or allegorical and cannot always be understood by rigorous analysis in the search for truth (Britannica, no date).

Why has Western society failed to recognize the possibilities of altered states of consciousness for discovering knowledge inherently valuable to the human experience? To me it seems to be the same challenge which we find in accepting the various inferences of the Gaia Hypothesis – namely the fragmentation of the framework within our minds in which logos is seen as superior to mythos (even though as mentioned logos and mythos are often found to be inseparable because of the archetypical reality we are bound to) leading to a difficulty in adopting a holistic framework in which unexplainable or subjective phenomena is seen as worthy as scientifically provable.

Conclusion

Interestingly, Descartes seemed to have had experienced a unifying revelation during deep meditation, which led him to pursue a unified science based on his vision of a tree symbolizing the interconnection of metaphysics, physics, mechanics, medicine and morals (Urban, 2018). However, as mentioned previously his pursue of communicating his beliefs of interconnectivity failed, causing scholars such as Damasio to claim “that philosopher believed in ‘an abysmal separation between body and mind…” (Gottlieb 2006) Similar to Descartes, also Albert Einstein found a sense of freedom when he fused his love for science and spirituality. He said: ‘I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research’ (Marková, 2016, p.37). It seems that great thinkers find their inspiration for the world at the intersection of the provable and the un-provable; the ever-lasting dance between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the mystical.

As we cultivate a framework of mind which can see mythos and logos unified, more clarity will be found the possibilities for imagining ways of being that fulfill a longing of human society, namely biophilia, the longing inherently to humans to feel connected to the natural world, fostering the “overview effect” and decreasing the “underview effect”. I think the fact that Gaia has become both Earth Goddess as well as being the physical Earth we live and harvest on shows this inherent need to reconnect to a reality in which myth finds more breathing space next to logos in order to keep the imagination of human thought alive as we transition to the Final Participation in which the underlying inseparability of reality as well as the perceived separation through the conditioned mind is acknowledged. Friedrich von Schelling, who studied the role of myth in creating community thought that “myth does not arise within a people but that, instead, a people emerge from its myth, creating a community of consciousness and a shared mythology (Marková, 2016).

This of course, takes time and as there is a multitude of perspectives, opinions and realities it is also important to acknowledge that the merge of logos and mythos operates different for various communities throughout the world. And this is also what might become a fascinating point of study – namely the diversity of worlds in which myth and reason emerge together in different contexts and different intensities. This I hope will help us move away from a generic “one size fits all” approach to what society, religion or nature is or should be, as suggested by the ontological turn, but to allow for our imagination and creativity to expand creating a positive feedback loop for cultivating the holistic framework in which mythos and logos are both deeply acknowledged as valid ways of sense-making. This is now more important than ever as we see deeply engrained ideologies being upheld against each other causing immense suffering. I believe that a revision through questioning and re-imagining the way we unconsciously and consciously interact with mythos and logos in our systems is crucial for this process.     

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