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'''Greek Mythology''' is the polytheistic myths and legends beliefs of the ancient Greeks.
#redirect [[Greek Mythology]]
 
==Primary Gods and Legends==
 
In Greek mythology, there are many other demi-gods and heros, but the most well known gods are the immortals who sit upon the thrones of Mt. Olympus. The Olympian gods represent a specific natural element or energy force. They are the following:
 
* '''[[Zeus]]''': The god of the heavens, or as later mythology would determine, the God of the Gods
 
* '''Posiedon''': The god of the seas, who would challenge Athena for the title of patron of Athens
 
* '''[[Hades]]''': The god of the underworld, whom oversaw the sould of the mortally deceased
 
* '''Hera''': The goddess of marriage, who served as Zeus' primary and exceedingly jelous wife
 
* '''Demeter''': The goddess of the harvest, whose daughter was the delicate Persephone
 
* '''Hestia''': The goddess of the hearth, who tends Mt. Olympus' sacred fire
 
* '''Hephaestus''': The god of blacksmiths and craftsmen, who forged lightning bolts for Zeus
 
* '''[[Athena]]''': The goddess of wisdom, who became the patroness of Athens after bestowing the city with an olive tree
 
* '''Artemis''': The goddess of hunting and wilderness, who was the twin sister of Apollo
 
* '''Apollo''': The god of music and light, who was the twin brother of Artemis
 
* '''Ares''': The god of war, who was quite reckless in his sides and choices in battle
 
* '''Aphrodite''': The goddess of love, who rose from the botton of the sea
 
* '''Hermes''': The god of theives and trickery, who also served as a messenger of the Gods
 
* '''Persephone''': The goddess-daughter of Demeter, who also served as the queen of the underworld
 
There is also various demi-gods and heros, which include [[Prometheus]] and Hercules.
 
==H. P. Blavatsky and Myths==
 
==Anthropomorphism==
 
In polytheistic tradition, Greek mythology gives human qualities to the gods and and demi-gods. Unlike monotheistic beliefs, the gods are seen as vengeful, cruel, and even sadistical. 
 
<blockquote>"The dark night of the soul," no less than the Götterdämmerung, was, in the
ancient mind, just the condition of the soul's embodiment in physical forms.
Taylor reasons that Minerva (the rational faculty, as Goddess of Wisdom) was by
her attachment to body given wholly "to the dangerous employment and abandons
the proper characteristics of her nature for the destructive revels of desire."
All this is the dialectic statement of the main theme of ancient theology - the
incarnation of the godlike intellect and divine soul in the darksome conditions
of animal bodies.<ref>Kuhn, Alvin Boyd. ''The Lost Light: An Interpretation of Ancient Scriptures'' (Rahway, NJ: Quinn & Boden Company, 1940), 146.</ref></blockquote>
 
==Modern Analysis==
 
<blockquote>Similarly it is that during those periods of spiritual dryness we can, if we
have so trained ourselves, commune with God through various forms of Art, for
Art fundamentally is a revelation of the Divine Nature, it reveals what Plato
called the Idea or the Archetype. The ancient Greeks were particularly sensitive
to this aspect of Art. If they looked at a statue of Apollo, the sun-god, it was
not merely to them a statue of some handsome youth, but there radiated from the
statue a mysterious influence, so that they came to feel the influence of God.
Similarly with the goddess Minerva; they felt, when there was an adequately
beautiful image in a temple, that somehow as they offered their adoration to it,
the image was like a wonderful window through which they looked into the Divine
Nature.<ref>Jinarājadāsa, Curuppumullage. Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1953), 99.</ref></blockquote>
 
==Notes==
 
<references/>

Latest revision as of 16:15, 17 May 2013

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