In the last article we close to the end talked about Nietzsche and the consequences of neglecting the inner process required to come to Truth. Next to how Nietzsche’s life experiences were tied to the scapegoat role. Yet when it now comes to the scapegoat and redeemer and the death and rebirth cycle explored in the ancient mystery schools and with it the archaic cave rituals. This itself inherently ties into the mechanism of scapegoat and redeemer. These ancient rites where tied to people who where initiated into the mysteries coming together and being guided by the elders of the mysteries. In a mentor and mentee relationship, with the purpose of teaching the process of unveiling the deeper truths of existence.
Without such a process as what occurred in the mystery schools, cave rituals or the later initiation rites for men and women, people tend to externalise their emotional, instinctual and general unconscious drives, traumas and grievances onto an “other” which tends to be parsed through a specific ideology or set of beliefs. Which sets up a duality of scapegoat and redeemer. The person being scapegoated as the problem, and the person or group of people seen as holders of truth, purity and righteousness. They often associate themselves with being “redeemers”, or holding some special claim to truth tied to their ideology.
The Democratisation of the Heroes Journey
However a true understanding of reality and truth, and with it any true renewal and redemption can only come about through cultivating wisdom and understanding the snake of chaos, the problem to be solved. This itself is the real heroes journey, to go inward and work through ones emotional, instinctual and general unconscious drives, and to integrate and wrestle them into consciousness. The scientific method and with it the peer review system itself sets up a system in which every person are a symbolic scapegoat and redeemer, taking away the need for a singular figure or group to blame for the problems and to nail to a cross. Every person in this carries their own trauma, unconscious biases and cultural biases, which they are now confronted with, and have to face, instead of projecting it out onto an external scapegoat.
So it internalises the method of being the one who has their biases and human blind spots, as we all have them, and in the process of understanding the world, they are forced by their peers to face their own inherited “sins”. Which internalises the process of redemption, and with it takes the load from any singular person. In the process of this, anything we want to understand similarly becomes more clear and connected to a more objective understanding of reality. It forces us to confront our ignorance and with this we create an environment where ideas and iterations of our identity die, without needing a physical death to occur. Yet there is here also in the process a risk, that if dogma where to set in, that this actually pushes people deeper into Plato's cave than bringing them out of it. The presuppositions within what is researched have to be not taken at face value and questioned. Whilst there are some fields that are less concerned with human behaviour or anything philosophical, consciousness and human nature nonetheless have their effect on anything we research. As it is our human consciousness that interprets everything. Therefore we can not divorce any subject of research from consciousness itself and the nature of it.
The Peer Review System
In the peer review system, each individual is not just an external critic of others' work, but also a participant in their own symbolic death. The process of subjecting one’s ideas to peer scrutiny forces a confrontation with the limitations and flaws in one's understanding. This is akin to the process of symbolic death in ancient rites, where outdated or incomplete ideas are 'killed off' in order to make space for new insights. In the scientific method, every piece of research is a vulnerable hypothesis, subjected to rigorous challenge and revision. Ideas must face the "death" of invalidation, allowing for their evolution or replacement. This process itself does not come without its emotional ups and downs, yet this itself is part of the process.
It is not just about the ideas but the facing of our own ignorance and inner struggles that might distort aspects of reality. This iterative process of unveiling truth is gradual and non-linear. Just as the hero’s journey unfolds step-by-step, so too does the scientific method proceed through multiple phases of hypothesis, experimentation, observation, and revision. Each stage provides a deeper layer of understanding, shedding previous misconceptions or incomplete models of reality. Each rejection or modification of an idea serves as a death to a limited perspective, and in the space left behind, a more nuanced or accurate understanding can emerge. The process is slow, deliberate, and ongoing truth does not arrive in a single moment of revelation, but through continuous refinement.
Mentor-Mentee Relationship
In many traditions, wisdom was passed down in mentor-mentee relationships and through ritual, designed to help initiates confront their deepest shadows and self-delusions. Now, in the modern world, science takes on a similar role; confronting ignorance, integrating biases, and engaging in the death of outdated ideas. In this context, the symbolic death of outdated ideas is crucial, it is not about the annihilation of individuals or ideologies, but the continual refinement and replacement of concepts that no longer hold up under scrutiny. Truth is a moving target, and through this iterative process of testing, revising, and rethinking, we edge ever closer to a clearer understanding of reality, always aware that the lens of human perception is imperfect.
It places the onus on each person to confront their own limitations, biases, and blind spots, leading to both personal growth and a more holistic understanding of the world and reality itself. However, the process must be carried out with critical thinking and humility. Just as the initiates of ancient mystery schools were guided by elders to foster this, it was the task of the initiates to also further knowledge, and challenge any rigidity if it were to set in. Therefore, the iterative process must always include questioning assumptions and challenging presuppositions, for it is through these critical moments of doubt that truth can be unveiled and understanding deepened.
The Nature of Truth and Logos
Yet when it also comes to truth and Logos, this is not mere reason as in intellect. Intellect might be the tool used to uncover Logos, but it should not be equated with it. In ancient philosophy, Logos was used by Heraclitus, a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He used the term logos to describe the universal Law, or the principle that inherently ordered the cosmos and regulated its phenomena. Heraclitus saw the universe as constantly changing and in a state of flux, and Logos as the ordering principle that gives shape and meaning to this constant change. In enlightenment thinking Logos was linked to the faculty of human reason (or logic), which is a misunderstanding of what Logos means.
However in Plato's view, logos is the underlying principle that connects all things in the universe. It is the force that creates order out of chaos and brings harmony to the world. He believed that the human mind was capable of comprehending the logos through human reason and logic, and that this understanding was the key to achieving wisdom and knowledge. Whilst truth-seeking evolves from mythos (narrative-based) to logic (intellect-based) from the ancient days of the mystery schools to now enlightenment thinking, dismissing mythos and its influence on uncovering truth and reality is akin to seeing the shadows on the cave wall as truth. We similarly if we tie this process to any ideology ones that could worst case delude themselves even further.
It is by understanding mythos and seeing through the subjective narratives that shape much of human perception that we get a clearer view of reality and understand the Logos. Intellect is a tool in this process of unveiling this, and working through the subjective narratives. So that instead of externalising them, and turning them into gods or external symbols, we understand the deeper nature of these narratives, and their basis within consciousness, as the psychic processes that they are, so we can through the dialectic method, and the coming together of opposites, and their synthesis come to a deeper understanding of reality. This is the same process the initiates of the mystery schools were after and guided towards by their elders.
The figure of Bacchus being the symbolic reconciler of opposites. Olympiodorus notes about both Bacchus and his pine cone that the Thyrsus symbolizes the forming anew of the material and separated substance from its scattered condition, whilst also symbolizing the diffusion of the higher consciousness into the material world. So it in that sense represents both the state of externalisation and integration at the same time. It is by understanding the narrative (mythos) about something, and the dualistic poles of it, the thesis and antithesis, that we can come to a deeper understanding of reality. This is where the intellect and the process of peer review is the tool used to reconcile these opposites. It forces those within this process to reconcile opposing viewpoints, and have to understand the narrative (mythos) of what each researcher writes about the reality they are trying to describe. It is through this iterative process of reconciliation that the deeper Logos is unveiled, and we come to understand this within both the human mind and behaviour, but also within the context of the physical world. Anything even our modern society has narrative wise is also just a mythos, and not the full truth.
The stories and frameworks that shape contemporary life whether they be political, economic, cultural, or technological are not absolute truths, but instead subjective narratives. Just as ancient myths helped shape early civilizations, modern myths (such as the belief in progress, capitalism, or the value of individualism) are social constructs. Modern society’s narratives are also myths, much like ancient ones. We just happen to be born into this current myth, and take it for reality. Not seeing how all the ideologies and various narratives we tell about the world are also all mythos.
The Need to Question our Modern Mythos
The scientific method itself is something not merely born out of just a current narrative, but is an ancient tool that has been refined over thousands of years for the quest of understanding. Yet it should not become blinded by the fact that, if we do not understand that our modern contemporary life we so easily take as this “consensus reality” with its cultural assumptions, the entire endeavour of scientific truth can become a project divorced from its true nature and a tool of delusion. Working itself deeper into the cave instead of out of it. As without questioning our current mythos, and using the tools of the scientific method itself for this type of deeper inquiry, our current myths of society can blind us from the truth, and we actually do not get to Logos.
As much as we thus understand the ancient frameworks to be a framework, similarly our modern framework is just a framework. Yet truth can not be found if we take our cultural assumptions to be unquestionably true. It does contain truth, and is partly truth, but through narrative which is subjective and structures the confines of the mind of the individual and keeps them constrained to a particular set of blinders, we can become detached from Logos. Truth itself exists outside of any particular framework, and contains and accounts for all frameworks, as everything in one way or another contains truth. Either about the world or the unconscious biases the person who tells said truths. Logos, reality and Truth in its most absolute sense equals wholeness. The whole of reality, which explains why everything is ordered the way it is. That is for Plato and Heraclitus Logos.
On Logos, Chaos and Order
Logos is much like the ancient primordial goddess Nyx. She stands as the absolute source of all power, creation, and existence. The source of goodness and love. Which is the unifying force that binds everything together, flowing from the dark, infinite cosmic well of the unconscious (represented by Nyx), which holds the potential for all things. She is the container that holds the balance, the eternal wellspring from which all the forces emerge and into which they return. The Neo-Platonic system talked about this being the Monad or the One. Which contains the wholeness of reality beyond all dualities. The force which reconciles all dualities of the world into itself and is the ordering principle that unites concepts such as life and death, light and dark, masculine and feminine, next to chaos and order into one unified whole. Which is symbolic of the ordering principle beyond our human conceptions of human order versus what we perceive as chaos.
As chaos in the deepest sense is when our understanding of the whole and the Logos is imbalanced. This is when the metaphorical serpent or dragon appears. Our task is to understand this chaos and the potential it holds, through wisdom and understanding. Through this we become the midwives of Truth. We are all the carriers of our pitchers of wisdom that we pour into the collective well of wisdom. From which we pull wisdom and then question and refine it, through the process of the scientific method.
The process we as humanity have been going through is akin to a murky lake becoming more clear. The scientific method when properly used is akin to removing the particles that make the lake seem murky. So every time we refine this collective well, and make the water just a bit more clear. However if we add ideology and narratives to it, without questioning them, then it is akin to adding more mud to the lake and making it even more murky. Obscuring the waters of Logos even further.
The scientific process is akin to the intricate system of sieves to separate the mud of delusion from the water of wisdom. If we thus fail to do this process properly and sacrifice it for ideological goals we end up sacrificing not only wisdom and truth, but with it any true goodness and usefulness it could have for the true benefit of society. In this way research impact itself can become something that hinders progress and the well-being of the society it wants to benefit. Ideologies and the cultural stories we buy into are myths and if we are to truly see the light of Truth and stand in the sun of reality we are to see beyond these as much we did the ancient “superstitions” of the past. These superstitions hold truth and point towards it, but are not Truth itself.