1. Mythology
What is it?
Who is Who?
Wayson 2002
TR6

2. Breaking down the word for meaning
Myth = stories
ology = study or theory

3. What is Mythology?
Myths are stories about supernatural beings, in early times handed down orally from one generation to another–
Myths attempt to Explain such ideas as
Nature…… Where did earth come from?
Man ….. Where did man come from?
Gods….. How many? Role of gods?

4. A collection of myths belonging to a people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes.
What cultures created myths?
Celtic mythology
Greek mythology
Norse mythology
Roman mythology
African mythology
Egyptian mythology
Aboriginal mythology
And Many more
Mythology

5. Greek and Roman Mythology Link
Greek and Roman Gods and heroes are usually the same character with a different name.
Ulysses
Latin (Roman)
Odysseus
Greek

6. Why is Mythology IMPORTANT?
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Why is Mythology IMPORTANT?
Constant References
Language
Marital - Mars
Museum – Muses
Janitor - Janos
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7. Logos and Mythos
logos = logica, is info of the no-nonsense variety: practical, clinical, scientific, secular. Helps us function in society. In the world of logos, it doesn’t matter that fire was a gift from the gods; what matters is that fire is hot and you don’t want to stick your hand in it. Where this becomes difficult is when the same fire gets out of control and burns down a village. In the face of such sweeping tragedy, a larger context is often desired, but the cold calculus of logos – fire burns hot – merely leaves survivors befuddled. This used to be where mythos came in.

8. Myths as Meaning
Mythos was a way of giving meaning to events that existed beyond easy context. For good reason, all of history’s fantastic stories – from biblical tales to Maori myths – fall into this category. Mythos was a way of reminding people that life’s point was spiritual, eternal, deeper, greater, whatever. This fact may explain why the need for mythos stretches across cultural boundaries. Scientists got their first inkling of mythological omnipresence in the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the German anthropologist Adolph Bastian made a global study of such stories and noticed that they all seem to be built on the same core ideas. The psychiatrist Carl Jung named these core ideas archetypes and extended Bastian’s work by arguing that archetypes were not only the building blocks of an individual’s unconscious mind but also the cornerstone of a shared collective unconscious, a slippery term he defined as a “storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from man’s ancestral past.” Later he broadened that ancestral past beyond the border of species, into our “pre-human or animal ancestry as well.”

9. Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God
In the pre-modern world, both mythos and logos were regarded as indispensable. Each would be impoverished without the other…by the eighteenth century; however, the people of Europe and America had achieved such astonishing success in science and technology that they began to think logos was the only means to truth and began to discount mythos as false and superstitious. It is also true that the new world they were creating contradicted the old mythical spirituality. Our religious experience in the modern world has changed, and because an increasing number of people regard scientific rationalism alone true, they have often tried to turn the mythos of their faith into logos (128).

10. Levi-Strauss deduced that we are a species of mythologists because our myths contain the rules for our survival. Yet evolution designed the human brain to detect meaning, and this mechanism doesn’t just shut down when easy answers aren’t readily forthcoming. Hence the need to invent meaning – gods, demons, supernatural forces – is based on an automatic process. Mythos is how humankind resolves the irresolvable. But because we adapt physically as well as mentally, ritualized action has become associated with mythologized meaning. And biologically, people who are better-functioning members of society have a better chance at passing on their genes, meaning this tendency toward myth and ritual was a trait selected as a part of what helped the fittest survive.

11. On average the human brain takes in 400 billion bits of information a second, but only two thousand of those bits make it up to our consciousness – our emotions help regulate our perceptions…our nervous system is not capable of taking in everything, but only scan the outer world for material that it is prepared to find by virtue of its wiring hook ups, its own internal patterns, and its past experience. This means, at least on some level, what we believe governs what we see – though nobody is yet certain how much or how little of this is going on. Which means that belief governs perception, which shapes reality or, as some consciousness researchers now believe, is synonymous with reality and thus our reality – what we think of the real world – is nothing, quite literally, beyond what we believe. It raises the question: What kind of effect does this have on our version of reality when society stops believing in the mythological?

12. The Odyssey by Homer
“The Odyssey, meaning 'the story of Odysseus', takes place ten years after the Trojan War in the Mediterranean Sea. Odysseus, who has been away from his homeland for over twenty years, struggles to return. His tale of the hardships he encountered is told, and the fate of his homeland is resolved. He murders all of the suitors plaguing his household, returns to his wife and son, and restores peace to his island of Ithacs.” (

13. Odysseus Travels
Italy

14. Gods and Goddess in The Odyssey
Zeus (Jupiter), Ruler of the Olympians
The son of Kronos and Rheia
Zeus of the thunderbolt
Married Seven times

15. Gods and Goddess in The Odyssey
Athena (Minerva)*
Daughter of Zeus and Metis
’The Daughter of Wisdom’
Protector of Odysseus
Athena sprang from Zeus head.
*Roman name

16. Mythological Creatures

22. Journal Question
Based on this Power Point Presentation, what predictions do you have about the events that will take place
in “The Odyssey?”