I’ve been reading
Recently
A great many medieval works
And these involve, particularly in the Arthurian romance and so forth
Knights in combat with each other
Fiercely in combat
With complete respect for each other
Even
Love for each other
And there is one wonderful line
In Wolfram von Eschenbach
When two
Brothers
Who didn't know they were brothers
Were in combat
One was a Christian
And the other was a Mohammedan
They were in combat
And Wolfram says
If one wished to think of it that one that way, one could say that they were two
Battling
But they have the same father
And they are one
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
But that is the tragic sense
As I say
Life begins, and that’s the first thing the eye sees
Life eating itself
Killing
But that’s life
And the reconciliation
Of consciousness
Which revolts from this
To that
And its affirmation
That is the song of mythology
It has been
It is the song of the religions
And with that little
Affirmative theme
The affirmation of life
As is
I would say
We have the key
To
The
Hopping up
The stepping up
The invigorating of life
Which has been the function actually, the first function
Of mythology
From the time
The old cave men
Asked the bear
To give its body
For their life
For their life
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
[Bridge]
With that little theme
I’ll close with
Thanks to you all
(audience applause fades)
Recently
A great many medieval works
And these involve, particularly in the Arthurian romance and so forth
Knights in combat with each other
Fiercely in combat
With complete respect for each other
Even
Love for each other
And there is one wonderful line
In Wolfram von Eschenbach
When two
Brothers
Who didn't know they were brothers
Were in combat
One was a Christian
And the other was a Mohammedan
They were in combat
And Wolfram says
If one wished to think of it that one that way, one could say that they were two
Battling
But they have the same father
And they are one
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
But that is the tragic sense
As I say
Life begins, and that’s the first thing the eye sees
Life eating itself
Killing
But that’s life
And the reconciliation
Of consciousness
Which revolts from this
To that
And its affirmation
That is the song of mythology
It has been
It is the song of the religions
And with that little
Affirmative theme
The affirmation of life
As is
I would say
We have the key
To
The
Hopping up
The stepping up
The invigorating of life
Which has been the function actually, the first function
Of mythology
From the time
The old cave men
Asked the bear
To give its body
For their life
For their life
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
[Bridge]
With that little theme
I’ll close with
Thanks to you all
(audience applause fades)
What happens
Is that
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
And you
[scratch rewind]
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
[rewind]
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
And you have, as it were
The
Vestige
Of mythology
The problem of our
Present
Age
Is to
Recreate
The mythology
For today
On which people
Will live
On which the society
Will grow
It is being done
It is being done well
People aren’t always looking in the right place for it
But it is
Taking shape
Our
Great artists
Our great poets
Our great scientists
Erwin Schrodinger’s
Little book
‘My View of the World’
This is a vision of a poet, and of a first-rate physical scientist
And it has the same song in it
That one reads and hears
In the old
Upanishads
And in the sayings of the great prophets
[Chorus]
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Secondary to that
Is the social
Situation
Now in our society, the social problem is turned over largely to the police
And to
Congress
As a purely
Practical matter
However
The creatures
That constitute the society
These are today
The neighbor
They really are
The idea of a personal God
Living
Somehow
Somewhere else
Out there - there is no “out there” anymore
There is no “up there”
It’s awfully difficult
To
Validate
But it seems to me if one’s looking for the personality of God
It’s right here
In the multitudinous personalities of those
Around us
[Chorus]
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Everything I find
In the poets
In the scientists
Who push through
To this
Mystery
Points
Not to the animals
As our neighbors
Not to the plant
Not to the planet
But to that
Other one
That “thou”
Whom you face
Who’s not the thou you would want him to be
He’s other
And it’s that recognition of otherness
That is absolutely basic and necessary
Now this doesn’t mean that you have to
Give up your otherness
In recognition of him
It may darn well be
Collision
But it has to be collision
With reverence
And respect
Is that
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
And you
[scratch rewind]
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
[rewind]
The old
Fascination
Disappears
An echo remains
And you have, as it were
The
Vestige
Of mythology
The problem of our
Present
Age
Is to
Recreate
The mythology
For today
On which people
Will live
On which the society
Will grow
It is being done
It is being done well
People aren’t always looking in the right place for it
But it is
Taking shape
Our
Great artists
Our great poets
Our great scientists
Erwin Schrodinger’s
Little book
‘My View of the World’
This is a vision of a poet, and of a first-rate physical scientist
And it has the same song in it
That one reads and hears
In the old
Upanishads
And in the sayings of the great prophets
[Chorus]
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Secondary to that
Is the social
Situation
Now in our society, the social problem is turned over largely to the police
And to
Congress
As a purely
Practical matter
However
The creatures
That constitute the society
These are today
The neighbor
They really are
The idea of a personal God
Living
Somehow
Somewhere else
Out there - there is no “out there” anymore
There is no “up there”
It’s awfully difficult
To
Validate
But it seems to me if one’s looking for the personality of God
It’s right here
In the multitudinous personalities of those
Around us
[Chorus]
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Nature is still ours
It’s still ours
It is in us
It is in the universe
Everything I find
In the poets
In the scientists
Who push through
To this
Mystery
Points
Not to the animals
As our neighbors
Not to the plant
Not to the planet
But to that
Other one
That “thou”
Whom you face
Who’s not the thou you would want him to be
He’s other
And it’s that recognition of otherness
That is absolutely basic and necessary
Now this doesn’t mean that you have to
Give up your otherness
In recognition of him
It may darn well be
Collision
But it has to be collision
With reverence
And respect
This notion that out of death
Comes life
Becomes a very important theme
In the later
Religions of the world
“He who loses his life”
“Shall find it”
Is a spiritualization
Of this idea
Then
When the
First cities appear
In Mesopotamia
About 3000 B.C
Large communities grow up
Based on agriculture
Planting has to take place at a certain time
Reaping, a certain time
And there are professional priests watching the heavens
To know when those times were
When those times came
And those men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
And they calculated and recognized that these planets were moving in mathematically inevitable courses
And the idea came into being
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And the planets
On and on
As the day comes and goes
The year comes and goes
The eons come and go
And the whole society must go into accord
With that
This idea that the human society should reproduce the heavenly order comes in
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And this
Still lives with us
In our religions
All of our religions have inherited
This motive
From the old Babylonian world
It went out with the higher civilizations
To India
To China
Even across the Pacific
To Mexico and Peru
And you see these great towers, these great temple towers
That represent
The mountain of the world
It’s the axis of the world around which the world turns
As it does around the pole star
The whole world
And society
And the individual in it
Are like the planets
Moving
In a great course
And society
And the individual in it
Are like the planets
Moving
In a great course
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And the planets
Now in the 1920s
Sir Leonard Woolley, excavating in the graveyards of Ur
Found graves
In which there were thirty
And forty people buried
All of them in court
Attire
Who had been buried
Alive
When the King
Died
Or was killed
At a certain time
In the movement of the planets
When the Moon goes down
And the planet Venus along with the Moon
That was the end of an eon
The King and his entire court
Walked
Into
The grave
They were playing
A game
Just as the hunters
Were imitating animals
Just as the planting people were imitating plants
So the high civilizations began
With princely
Aristocratic
Little groups
Imitating the stars
To the death
Going all the way
The whole court, at the end of an eon
Went in the grave
So that another court
Could come
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And it’s a very poetic thing really
The little girls who played the harps
We have these harps
They have been excavated and restored
These little skeleton hands
The girls’ hands, were still on the harp strings
The women
In one of the graves had
Golden hair ribbons
One girl didn’t have
Her golden hair ribbon on
It was found
In her pocket
She had been late for the party
And hadn’t had time to put her ribbon on
Well now, we don’t do that anymore
That kind of action
Has fallen
Into desuetude
Nevertheless
The king still wears the golden crown of the sun
The sense has gone yet the poetry somehow
Echoes
Comes life
Becomes a very important theme
In the later
Religions of the world
“He who loses his life”
“Shall find it”
Is a spiritualization
Of this idea
Then
When the
First cities appear
In Mesopotamia
About 3000 B.C
Large communities grow up
Based on agriculture
Planting has to take place at a certain time
Reaping, a certain time
And there are professional priests watching the heavens
To know when those times were
When those times came
And those men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
And they calculated and recognized that these planets were moving in mathematically inevitable courses
And the idea came into being
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And the planets
On and on
As the day comes and goes
The year comes and goes
The eons come and go
And the whole society must go into accord
With that
This idea that the human society should reproduce the heavenly order comes in
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And this
Still lives with us
In our religions
All of our religions have inherited
This motive
From the old Babylonian world
It went out with the higher civilizations
To India
To China
Even across the Pacific
To Mexico and Peru
And you see these great towers, these great temple towers
That represent
The mountain of the world
It’s the axis of the world around which the world turns
As it does around the pole star
The whole world
And society
And the individual in it
Are like the planets
Moving
In a great course
And society
And the individual in it
Are like the planets
Moving
In a great course
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And the planets
Now in the 1920s
Sir Leonard Woolley, excavating in the graveyards of Ur
Found graves
In which there were thirty
And forty people buried
All of them in court
Attire
Who had been buried
Alive
When the King
Died
Or was killed
At a certain time
In the movement of the planets
When the Moon goes down
And the planet Venus along with the Moon
That was the end of an eon
The King and his entire court
Walked
Into
The grave
They were playing
A game
Just as the hunters
Were imitating animals
Just as the planting people were imitating plants
So the high civilizations began
With princely
Aristocratic
Little groups
Imitating the stars
To the death
Going all the way
The whole court, at the end of an eon
Went in the grave
So that another court
Could come
[Chorus]
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
Of a cosmic order
Of mathematical
Precision
Men became aware
Of the movement of the planets
Through the fixed stars
The neighbors now
Were the stars
And it’s a very poetic thing really
The little girls who played the harps
We have these harps
They have been excavated and restored
These little skeleton hands
The girls’ hands, were still on the harp strings
The women
In one of the graves had
Golden hair ribbons
One girl didn’t have
Her golden hair ribbon on
It was found
In her pocket
She had been late for the party
And hadn’t had time to put her ribbon on
Well now, we don’t do that anymore
That kind of action
Has fallen
Into desuetude
Nevertheless
The king still wears the golden crown of the sun
The sense has gone yet the poetry somehow
Echoes
All
Of the high cultures
And low cultures
And primitive cultures
And charming simple cultures
And great big enormous ones
Have grown out of myths
They are founded on myths
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Now where do these aspirations come from?
They come from
A very wonderful
Childlike thing
Fascination
You know if you wanted to make money
Today
I’m no economists
But I’ll bet
The thing to do
Would be to invest your money in something like cameras
Things that people play with
Things that they are fascinated by
These
Fascinations
Are the creations of new
Activities
And when we look at the old cultures
We can see
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
And some of it is very strange
To see
Indeed
What is most fascinating to begin with
Is one’s neighbor
Particularly
If the neighbor is a very strange looking creature
Now think of man
In the old days
He was a minority
On - on - on the planet
And when he looked at his neighbors
They had four feet
They had horns
They had great woolly bodies
They were very strange playmates
Furthermore
He was eating
Certain of them
And
They were
Rather dangerous
He had to
Arrange
Some kind of arrangement
With his neighbors
And we know
That the first religious rites
And the first religious address
So to say
Was to animals
Their neighbors
These
Were the images of God
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
The animal world
Was the first inspiration
And the divinities
Were animal divinities
And not only that
But just as kids
When they identify with something
When they are fascinated by something
They
Act like it
They play it
So
The original rituals
The
Hunting people
Danced buffalo dances
They were in covenant
With the animal world
That through this covenant
The animals gave their bodies
Willingly
To be eaten
Because
Only the body dies
The being
Comes back
If you return the blood
Of the animal to the earth
The life is in the blood
The earth
Is the mother of life
And the animal
Will be back next year
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
People who lived
Then
In the plant
World
The world of the tropics
Where nature was a plant world
They saw something else
They saw
That out of rot
Out of decay
There comes life
There comes life
And this notion
That out of death
Comes life
Becomes a very important thing
In the tropical cultures
And it led to what to us
Is
A very
Horrible
Pattern of rituals
Rituals of human sacrifice
Killing people
Letting them rot
Burying them
With the
Notion that out of this death
There would come life
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
Of the high cultures
And low cultures
And primitive cultures
And charming simple cultures
And great big enormous ones
Have grown out of myths
They are founded on myths
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Now where do these aspirations come from?
They come from
A very wonderful
Childlike thing
Fascination
You know if you wanted to make money
Today
I’m no economists
But I’ll bet
The thing to do
Would be to invest your money in something like cameras
Things that people play with
Things that they are fascinated by
These
Fascinations
Are the creations of new
Activities
And when we look at the old cultures
We can see
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
And some of it is very strange
To see
Indeed
What is most fascinating to begin with
Is one’s neighbor
Particularly
If the neighbor is a very strange looking creature
Now think of man
In the old days
He was a minority
On - on - on the planet
And when he looked at his neighbors
They had four feet
They had horns
They had great woolly bodies
They were very strange playmates
Furthermore
He was eating
Certain of them
And
They were
Rather dangerous
He had to
Arrange
Some kind of arrangement
With his neighbors
And we know
That the first religious rites
And the first religious address
So to say
Was to animals
Their neighbors
These
Were the images of God
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
The animal world
Was the first inspiration
And the divinities
Were animal divinities
And not only that
But just as kids
When they identify with something
When they are fascinated by something
They
Act like it
They play it
So
The original rituals
The
Hunting people
Danced buffalo dances
They were in covenant
With the animal world
That through this covenant
The animals gave their bodies
Willingly
To be eaten
Because
Only the body dies
The being
Comes back
If you return the blood
Of the animal to the earth
The life is in the blood
The earth
Is the mother of life
And the animal
Will be back next year
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
People who lived
Then
In the plant
World
The world of the tropics
Where nature was a plant world
They saw something else
They saw
That out of rot
Out of decay
There comes life
There comes life
And this notion
That out of death
Comes life
Becomes a very important thing
In the tropical cultures
And it led to what to us
Is
A very
Horrible
Pattern of rituals
Rituals of human sacrifice
Killing people
Letting them rot
Burying them
With the
Notion that out of this death
There would come life
[Chorus]
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
All
Cultures
Have grown out of myths
I said all
Cultures
They are founded on myth
And what these myths have given
Has been inspiration
For aspiration
Aspiration
Next
Stage
In the mystery of the human development
Is that of
Old age
Coming on
Just about when you learn
How to do
What they have been trying to teach you
You begin to fumble
And then you have to
Pull yourself together
And for another few years
Act as though
You still could do it
And then everybody else begins to see
That he’s not doing so well
They put another waiter in
To take over the job for you
And
That kind of thing
You are gradually
Eased out
You are gradually
Eased out
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
In other words
The first function
Of the
Local social mythology
Was to
Bring you from childhood
Dependency
To responsibility
In terms
Of the social demand
And then just about when you are beginning to feel good about it all
The society that has said
You’ve got to do what we want
Begins to say
Well
It looks as though you can’t do what we want
So
You are on your own
Then you have what’s called a nervous breakdown
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
The
Next problem then
In a mythological order
That is going to take care of us
Is to tell us what to do with our psyches
When that begins to happen
The economic problem isn’t the main one
Not that somebody should
You know
Give you a fishing rod
And send you out fishing
And then have dinner for you when you come home
It’s what are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
You’ve become
Somewhat
Aware
Of the world
Of the mystery of the world
And you just don’t want to go doodling along with silly little children’s tasks
And that’s not what you’re
Worth
It’s not what you are ready for
There are problems to face
The most challenging one
Is death
Man is the only animal that knows he’s going to die
And as soon as you fumble that ball
It’s coming
It’s coming
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
So
We find
This
Wonderful problem
And mythologies
In general
The religions
Have served it
They have provided
Images
Tasks
Discipline
That carry the child
From
Childhood dependency to responsibility
Rather simple responsibilities
Those that society says
You’ve got to
Accept
And then
They’ve provided
A way out
They tell you
That daddy
Will beat a bear
And you’re going back home
Now this isn’t quite enough anymore
Either [audience laughter]
Is it any wonder that our clergymen look a little bit anxious these days?
[audience laughter fades]
Stage
In the mystery of the human development
Is that of
Old age
Coming on
Just about when you learn
How to do
What they have been trying to teach you
You begin to fumble
And then you have to
Pull yourself together
And for another few years
Act as though
You still could do it
And then everybody else begins to see
That he’s not doing so well
They put another waiter in
To take over the job for you
And
That kind of thing
You are gradually
Eased out
You are gradually
Eased out
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
In other words
The first function
Of the
Local social mythology
Was to
Bring you from childhood
Dependency
To responsibility
In terms
Of the social demand
And then just about when you are beginning to feel good about it all
The society that has said
You’ve got to do what we want
Begins to say
Well
It looks as though you can’t do what we want
So
You are on your own
Then you have what’s called a nervous breakdown
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
The
Next problem then
In a mythological order
That is going to take care of us
Is to tell us what to do with our psyches
When that begins to happen
The economic problem isn’t the main one
Not that somebody should
You know
Give you a fishing rod
And send you out fishing
And then have dinner for you when you come home
It’s what are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
What are you gonna do?
With that
Power inside you
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
You’ve become
Somewhat
Aware
Of the world
Of the mystery of the world
And you just don’t want to go doodling along with silly little children’s tasks
And that’s not what you’re
Worth
It’s not what you are ready for
There are problems to face
The most challenging one
Is death
Man is the only animal that knows he’s going to die
And as soon as you fumble that ball
It’s coming
It’s coming
[Chorus]
The first half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
And the last half of life
When there is a knock on the door
You think
‘Here it comes‘
‘Here it comes’
So
We find
This
Wonderful problem
And mythologies
In general
The religions
Have served it
They have provided
Images
Tasks
Discipline
That carry the child
From
Childhood dependency to responsibility
Rather simple responsibilities
Those that society says
You’ve got to
Accept
And then
They’ve provided
A way out
They tell you
That daddy
Will beat a bear
And you’re going back home
Now this isn’t quite enough anymore
Either [audience laughter]
Is it any wonder that our clergymen look a little bit anxious these days?
[audience laughter fades]