Metamodern Mythopoeia in the Hermead
This article on metamodernism, linked and quoted below, describes clearly the ethos of polarity which is the impulse in me which embodied itself as the Muse who inspired me to compose an epic about philosophers, my artfully crafted myth.
Back in 1980 when I was 16 and still a Christian, before I became Atheist three years later, I felt like I was called by God to be a prophet. In 1983 when I was attending a Philosophy class at a Christian college, the professor explained the Ideas of Plato, how God cannot exist because existence refers to things that "stand out" within the limits of time and space, whereas God can subsist because it is the substance which "stands under" the forms of existence.
I realized the universe is nothing but atoms, spiraling pulses of energy that coagulate into complex bodies of chemical processes that sustain the formation of the brain which becomes conscious and generates a virtual reality which reflects that vast complex real universe.
While contemplating these myteries over the years, I realized that God is the archetype of the Tribal Leader, and that an ancestor of mine was commissioned by his tribal leader to compose stories that chronicle the life of the tribe which would imbue their experience with an overarching narrative of meaning. The genetic memory of that experience forms the programming of my own mental impulses to compose a new myth for myself to replace the Christian myth which I discarded as inadequate to explain this world.
I felt the same impulse to compose the Hermead, my epic about the lives of the philosophers whose ideas form the foundation of our civilization. I simply constructed in coherent epic narrative form the scattered legends of ancient philosophers, creating a Bible, or library of texts, that relate the human experience of exploring the nature of our world. I modeled the Hermead after the narratives of the Bible, telling the stories of the founding fathers who developed the philosophical principles that form the programming of our world view.
I invented meaning for my own life and gave myself a purpose where there is no purpose or meaning, just for the fun of writing stories. I have invented my own religion for fun, and to celebrate the power of the imagination in philosophers and scientists who seek to understand the universe.
There is no God, there is no meaning, and I was never a prophet, for I do nothing more than assemble letters in words that form sentences that generate visions in the mind of the reader, which I hope accurately reflect the real world we perceive. The joyful visions I experience while composing the tales of the epic poem the Hermead is the only purpose of the act of composition itself is the dreaming of my mind.
[Re]construction: Metamodern ‘Transcendence’ and the Return of Myth
Brendan Dempsey
"This post-postmodern ethos, eschewing both the naïve metaphysical systems of the past as well as the superficial materialism of postmodernity, has occasioned a project of reconstruction — one in which new myths and paradigmatic models are now being artfully crafted for the twenty-first century."
"This new, qualified transcendence is already informing cultural production. Indeed, when most potently expressed, one sees a kind of metamodern mythopoeia at work — that is, the construction of entirely new paradigmatic models, which, because knowingly created, seem to operate as much as works of art as myth. This metamodern mythopoeia would seem to include both the postmodern condition of doubt and knowingness as well as a more modernist optimism, a naïve faith to create new mythic systems of meaning and thusly induce a sense of greater depth and sublimity. In metamodern mythopoeia, mythologies are invented: liturgies, hymns, ceremonies, scriptures, deities, all as an artist paints a scene. ‘Theology’ becomes a creative and exploratory act, done for the sensation of the thing itself within in the realm of immanence. The most successful metamodern mythopoeia are compelling; indeed, they create an almost convincing sense of transcendence. One even entertains the possibility of being converted to one’s own invented religion…"
"However, metamodern mythopoeia never decidedly affirms or rejects the idea of the grand narratives of faith and transcendence. Indeed, it is precisely this ambiguity which allows for transcendent experience in the first place: metamodern faith must presume a kind of atheism if one is to have the freedom to create ‘God’."
Read the whole fascinating article here:
http://www.metamodernism.com/2015/10/21/reconstruction-metamodern-transcendence-and-the-return-of-myth/
Book Page for the Hermead
http://facebook.com/Hermead
Buy editions of the Hermead
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions
This article on metamodernism, linked and quoted below, describes clearly the ethos of polarity which is the impulse in me which embodied itself as the Muse who inspired me to compose an epic about philosophers, my artfully crafted myth.
Back in 1980 when I was 16 and still a Christian, before I became Atheist three years later, I felt like I was called by God to be a prophet. In 1983 when I was attending a Philosophy class at a Christian college, the professor explained the Ideas of Plato, how God cannot exist because existence refers to things that "stand out" within the limits of time and space, whereas God can subsist because it is the substance which "stands under" the forms of existence.
I realized the universe is nothing but atoms, spiraling pulses of energy that coagulate into complex bodies of chemical processes that sustain the formation of the brain which becomes conscious and generates a virtual reality which reflects that vast complex real universe.
While contemplating these myteries over the years, I realized that God is the archetype of the Tribal Leader, and that an ancestor of mine was commissioned by his tribal leader to compose stories that chronicle the life of the tribe which would imbue their experience with an overarching narrative of meaning. The genetic memory of that experience forms the programming of my own mental impulses to compose a new myth for myself to replace the Christian myth which I discarded as inadequate to explain this world.
I felt the same impulse to compose the Hermead, my epic about the lives of the philosophers whose ideas form the foundation of our civilization. I simply constructed in coherent epic narrative form the scattered legends of ancient philosophers, creating a Bible, or library of texts, that relate the human experience of exploring the nature of our world. I modeled the Hermead after the narratives of the Bible, telling the stories of the founding fathers who developed the philosophical principles that form the programming of our world view.
I invented meaning for my own life and gave myself a purpose where there is no purpose or meaning, just for the fun of writing stories. I have invented my own religion for fun, and to celebrate the power of the imagination in philosophers and scientists who seek to understand the universe.
There is no God, there is no meaning, and I was never a prophet, for I do nothing more than assemble letters in words that form sentences that generate visions in the mind of the reader, which I hope accurately reflect the real world we perceive. The joyful visions I experience while composing the tales of the epic poem the Hermead is the only purpose of the act of composition itself is the dreaming of my mind.
[Re]construction: Metamodern ‘Transcendence’ and the Return of Myth
Brendan Dempsey
"This post-postmodern ethos, eschewing both the naïve metaphysical systems of the past as well as the superficial materialism of postmodernity, has occasioned a project of reconstruction — one in which new myths and paradigmatic models are now being artfully crafted for the twenty-first century."
"This new, qualified transcendence is already informing cultural production. Indeed, when most potently expressed, one sees a kind of metamodern mythopoeia at work — that is, the construction of entirely new paradigmatic models, which, because knowingly created, seem to operate as much as works of art as myth. This metamodern mythopoeia would seem to include both the postmodern condition of doubt and knowingness as well as a more modernist optimism, a naïve faith to create new mythic systems of meaning and thusly induce a sense of greater depth and sublimity. In metamodern mythopoeia, mythologies are invented: liturgies, hymns, ceremonies, scriptures, deities, all as an artist paints a scene. ‘Theology’ becomes a creative and exploratory act, done for the sensation of the thing itself within in the realm of immanence. The most successful metamodern mythopoeia are compelling; indeed, they create an almost convincing sense of transcendence. One even entertains the possibility of being converted to one’s own invented religion…"
"However, metamodern mythopoeia never decidedly affirms or rejects the idea of the grand narratives of faith and transcendence. Indeed, it is precisely this ambiguity which allows for transcendent experience in the first place: metamodern faith must presume a kind of atheism if one is to have the freedom to create ‘God’."
Read the whole fascinating article here:
http://www.metamodernism.com/2015/10/21/reconstruction-metamodern-transcendence-and-the-return-of-myth/
Book Page for the Hermead
http://facebook.com/Hermead
Buy editions of the Hermead
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions
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