At 18:57 31/07/2003 -0400, you wrote: (KH)
But of course! Arthur has put his finger on it precisely. However, I must claim joint-ownership of this insight . . .
. . . because, just before I woke up this morning, I had been dreaming of the Egyptian Pharoahs and their pyramids -- of the vast treasures, food, household goods, relatives, servants and others who were buried with them inside -- supposedly to serve them in the afterlife. As I dressed I thought also of the incredible tombs of the Chinese Emperors of similar periods in their civilisation when they were buried alongside the loveliest concubines and indescribable wealth, of the English Bronze Age king buried at Sutton Hoo in his ship with his richest goods and ornaments, of the princes and princesses of Mongolia buried with their best horses and beautiful accoutrements. There must have been thousands of such instances when big kings and little kings were buried in splendour throughout Eurasia in respective civilisations and smaller-scale principalities.
Of course, these ancient chieftains didn't really think that they were physically going to live forever![snip] (BMcC) Are we really sure of this? Of course I would like to believe that the ancient kings were ancient spin doctors who didn't believe their own press ("religion not only is now but was in 3000BCE the opiate of the masses...")....
No, we can't be sure of this. But, remember, the Pharoahs were a murderous lot and were always killing off their predecessors and brother and sister claimants. If they really believed in an afterlife, they would not want such a welcome committee. Also, I think that someone who reaches the very top becomes extraordinarily objective about the myths that pervade their subjects. For example, after 40 years of snippets of observation of our dear Queen -- the nominal Head of the Church of England -- I have come to the conclusion that she doesn't believe a word of the Christian doctrine. She likes it as much as she likes classical music -- which is zilch. This is not to say that she is a bad person -- just the mother of an extraordinarily disfunctional and a-moral family. She must chuckle every time she listens to sermons by the long succession of whimpering, simpering Archbishops that she has experienced in her reign.
But maybe they *did* believe, although in a form of experience which we no longer have -- Julian Jaynes' "bicameral mind" in which what we might call "the voice of conscience" was experienced as the voices of the gods.
M'mm . . . not quite sure what you mean, but I'm glad to come across another member of that elite group who has read Jaynes. I was much influenced by his book as a young man when it first came out*. Certainly something very psychologically significant occurred at about 500BC. I don't know enough about Chinese history to know whether a similar effect occurred there as it did among the Greeks and Hebrews.
KH
*And, amazingly, I came across someone else during my morning dogwalk some months ago who was actually carrying it! She turned out to be a sociologist lecturer from Bath U and was not one of the PC sort -- her mind was still open to new ideas. I haven't met her since but she has been the only other person I have met in what? -- 30 years? -- who has read the book.
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
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