Half-Human followers and Patron Deities...

[Anonymous]

I don't know how everyone else does things around here, so I feel the need to explain a little bit about myself before things get to far.

My approach really is as a hobbyist or Armchair Mythologist/Philosopher...what I research really doesn't seem to have or need a structure yet. It started when I read about Aristotle and his concept of a Universal--in Mythology and Folklore, such Universals could be described as Archtypes, Themes, Settings...anything which one myth might have in common with another set or group of myths...

I use the Universals to form a thread and then I follow that thread to wherever it takes me...and so far following the Universal has taken me on quite a journey.

The current 'thread' that I've been following has to do with half-human. Centaurs, Satyrs, Sileni, Nymphs, etc. etc. etc...

Many of my references seem to contradict eachother as to the nature of these creatures and how they're represented.

They start off describing their half-human/half-animal nature...and then refer to statues and illustrations that represent them as a human.

Do you think the writers of the myths intended to imply that these beings were shapeshifters or aliens or some other kind of superior being? Or were they, perhaps, using figurative language to describe a particular mindset or social custom?

If we're talking about half-humans as a follower of a lesser deity, perhaps Satyr or Nymph or Nyad was something more of a religious rank or social title.

With all the focus on lineage, lately, the new trend of writing family trees and analyzing folklore...I couldn't help but start to wonder, if these cults with these people represented by these creatures really existed back then, then is it not possible to trace one's lineage all the way back to the age of Mysteries.

Then, perhaps, the key to figuring out the Mysteries--whether they be Arcadian, Eleusinian or Pythagorian or Mithraic--has been under our noses the whole time: our family.

Battling cults, religious wars, hidden ceremonies...What would have been a Renaissance or a Revolution to us was probably described as wars between gods. Perhaps the Greeks had no other words to describe an opening of one's mind or the mingling of different social statuses. So maybe they coined the terms of half-human to convey a process of social climbing--or of half-breeding.

If you could trace your lineage all the way back to a half-human...what do you think that other half would be?

[Horatius Piscinus]

Salve Peripetetice

I am not sure I quite follow what you mean in your "current thread." Our perspectives of such matters would be quite different.

Do you think the writers of the myths intended to imply that these beings were shapeshifters or aliens or some other kind of superior being? Or were they, perhaps, using figurative language to describe a particular mindset or social custom?

I would think of them as other creatures with whom we share this world, but as having a different sort of Being. They are not entirely spiritual, but more than physical beings. Descriptions of fauni, nymphae and similar creatures might be metaphorical but that then relates only to how humans explain them and not what they would actually be.

If we're talking about half-humans as a follower of a lesser deity, perhaps Satyr or Nymph or Nyad was something more of a religious rank or social title.

There are different degrees of divinity or Being that is diffused throughout the Universe. The Gods of myth would be of a higher order of Being in the Universe, but part of the Universe itself. I would further speculate of even higher deities, to whom we refer as the Involuti. Beneath the Gods of myth there would several gradations of divinity. The Di inferi and the semi-divi are less divine than the Di Caelisti but more so than humans. The fauni and similar creatures Ovid referred to as semi-divi.

If you could trace your lineage all the way back to a half-human...what do you think that other half would be?

I do believe that the divine portion of humans can evolve into higher states of being. That is, I think it possible for an individual to attain additional divinity that would raise one into a higher order of Being. Thus a person can become a Hero as opposed to just one of the Manes upon death, with the possibility of his or her Authentic Being rising or evolving still higher. I also believe it is possible for humans to devolve into lesser creatures. But I do not see humans evolving into half-humans, or that humans would be a devolved half-human, as you put it. There are differences between the semidivi and humans that make them unrelated. Both may attain Being as one of the divi, but I would still think of them as quite different in nature.

Vale