Myth and Ritual, east and west, and the borders of Iran, from where Indoeuropean-aryan-vedic-nomad groups came and turned human thought and myth around. Before the aryan groups arrived though, it existed an inclusive micro and macro cosmos, which related to each other, fused and linked, in which the particular and the whole were the same. Within the oriental thought, it exists the idea of the ultimate ground of being, which transcends thought, imaging and definition, a being that cannot be qualified. Under this thought, to believe that god, man and nature are good is unrealistic, it falls short to understand the whole concept. All such anthropomorphic predications, which were brought by aryan thought, screen or mask the actual enigma, which is absolutely beyond rational consideration. In fact, that enigma is precisely the ultimate ground of being of each and every one of us.
The oriental mythology end is not to establish as substantial any of its divinities or associated rites, but to render by means of these experiences that go beyond, of identity with that being of beings who is immanent and transcendent. This Oriental human belief is inherited from pre-nomadic aryan thought, which in Occident, with the arrival of the Hellenes, practically disappeared . Within the Occidental thought the ground of being is normally personified as a creator, of whom man is the creature and the two are not the same. There are two levels of being, the divine and the non-divine, and man belongs to the second. In Occidental religious thought myth is administered by the clergy and those bring man to the forefront, close to the divine. So we have two levels of beings, and within the second group, man is on an advantageous relationship with the Gods, without being able to ever become them. Immortality is only enjoyed by the divine.
During the Bronze age is when many of the motifs that have been elaborated in Occidental and Oriental mythology started. During this neolithic period, the focal figure was the worship of the mother-earth goddess, nourisher of life and receiver of the dead for rebirth. This was the general feeling amongst communities during this period until the iron age, when a patriarchal warrior tribesman system transformed mythology. These groups of warrior nomads arrived from two sides: for the semites, groups coming from the Syro-arabian desert, and in Europe, groups of hellenic-aryans coming from Russia spread all around. All those groups would transform human thought and mythology not just in Europe, but in the Levant and the East.
Just to give an example of this myth transformation is the story of Eve in the Bible. In “the book of the Genesis” we find God as “Lord of the Tree of Truth”. The snake is characterised as having this wonderfully ability to slough its skin and so to renew its youth. This story gives character to the master of the mystery of rebirth, of which the moon, waxing and waning, is the celestial sign. The snake is sign of many concepts such as a phallic symbol, lord of waters, lightnings, a dual role or as guardian of the tree. It is connected to the sky and to the underworld, to life and death. In the mythic system of the nuclear Near east – in contrast to the later patriarchal system of the Bible – divinity could be represented as well under masculine form. As an example we could mention a Sumerian seal in which a female figure goddess Gula-Bau (Demeter and Persephone) and a male figure son-husband Dumuzi, lord of the tree of life, the ever-dying, ever-resurrected Sumerian god who is the archetype of incarnate being, appears in the story as this double male-female figure. The argument of the tree of life, originated in the Levant, becoming in the Bible an inverted story, an opposite of the original story, is first encountered as female, then as a dual male-female figure, until absorbed by male pantheistic beliefs, becomes part of the makings of transcendent God, the Creator of all life. The patriarchal system of the Iron age influenced the transformation of the original story of the tree of life. This is how we passed from a mother-earth goddess, a tree of life which grew on a holy mountain and with the serpent as a sign of birth and resurrection, to the Eve story, in which women corrupts life for taking the fruit of life from a male Tree of Truth and taking it from a trickster serpent daemon.
There are other examples of this transformation from a whole embracing female goddess to a male orientated pantheistic system, as for example can be seen on the Greek concept of the birth and death dark Goddess. Another example is the image of Zeus Meilichios, a snake figure of Zeus found in some of the territories controlled by the Ancient Greeks. This image most provably has been created as a transformation of a local snake daemon figure, the son-husband of the mother-earth goddess, which might have been taken by the Greeks to portrait their Zeus and with the intention of obtaining local acceptance.
All of those transformations came from the times before the nomadic aryans and semitic sheep and goat herders arrived. Times when it prevailed an organic, vegetal, non-heroic view of nature. However, necessities of life disguised those lion hearts groups, thirsty for battle spears and plunder, which was their source of wealth and joy, to migrate and spread around the Levant, East Europe and towards the East.
During the times when this organic system predominated, mother myths of dark and light forces were together, a duality existed within everything. In contrast, with the implementation of this patriarchal system, light is for the divine. During the Bronze age order is brought my Mother Right, who is in control of birth and death. During the Iron age, this new patriarchal system brings archetype stories of male crashing daemon snakes, signs of cosmic serpent and son-husband of the mother earth goddess. This symbol of this undying power, against who the warrior principle of great deed fought, makes the former to disappear, around the period of the Minoan civilisation and in India with the Dravidian times of the twin cities, Harappa and Mohenjodaro. In India though the serpent power would continue with the myth of the Eternal return. In Occident by contrast, a new free power and moral corollary of individual responsibility appeared, a self-moving power greater than the force of any earth bound serpent destiny could handle.
Panacas 