Paul Ricoeur on Myth and Ritual

[maklelan]

I'm reading Paul Ricoeur for the first time as a part of a class at Trinity Western University. My first text is The Symbolism of Evil. He begins the second section of his book with a fascinating discussion on myth that I'd like to summarize for two reasons: it'll help me understand it better, and I believe it has significance for temple-going Latter-day Saints. If anyone out there of a more philosophical constitution than my own knows Ricoeur well and has corrections or additions to make, be my guest.

For Ricoeur, modern humanity has a unique opportunity as a result of its critical view of myth as distinct from history: it can now seek to understand the "mythical dimension." Complicating this search is the notion that myth serves a primarily etiological function, or serves simply to provide a narratival origin for a name, event, or state of being (Ricoeur's focus is the state of being sinful). Ricoeur rejects the notion that myth is intended to serve this function because it is history which searches for causes, and myth is not history. Ricoeur decouples myth from gnosis, or the attempt at knowledge.

To answer the question "what was myth prior to its 'etiological' pretensions" Ricoeur highlights the importance of symbolism in myth. The myth transmits experience, not gnosis, through the symbol. Another question follows: "How can the narration mean [have significance] in a symbolic and non-etiological mode?" He answers this question with an appeal to the phenomenology of religion, according to which the myth-narrative is "only a verbal envelope of a form of life, felt and lived before being formulated. This form of life expresses itself first in an inclusive mode of behavior relative to the whole of things." That's a brainful, but it seems to me he is saying the myth-narrative formulates a script that describes a universally shared experience/behavior. He continues:

it is in the rite rather than in the narration that this behavior is expressed most completely, and the language of the myth is only the verbal segment of this total action. Still more fundamentally, ritual action and mythical language, taken together, point beyond themselves to a model, an archetype, which they imitate or repeat; imitation in gestures and verbal repetition are only the broken expressions of a living participation in an original Act which is the common exemplar of the ritual and of the myth.

In other words, myth is the narratival half of humanities imitation of/participation in some original "Act." This conforms with what we know about repetitive rituals in many ancient cultures, especially New Year rituals. Most were associated with a foundational myth and were executed with the understanding that the imitation of the Act actually produced and/or restored the results of the original Act. Performing the New Year rituals (usually a creation myth) in many cultures assured the cycle of life would repeat for the following year. The rivers would flood, the crops would grow, the king would win his wars, and the social structure would remain in place.

For Ricoeur there is no real participation, but the myth and ritual aim at it by way of symbols and symbolism:

Narrations and rites, then, are needed to consecrate the contours of the signs of the sacred: holy places and sacred objects, epochs and feasts, are other aspects of the contingency that we find in the narration. If the plenitude were experienced, it would be everywhere in space and time; but because it is only aimed at symbolically, it requires special signs and a discourse on the signs; their heterogeneity bears witness to the significant whole by its contingent outcroppings.

I think this is fascinating stuff, but I am not through with the text yet and will stop here. Does anyone have anything to add or any comments to share?

[Ron Beron]

For Ricoeur there is no real participation, but the myth and ritual aim at it by way of symbols and symbolism:

I think this is fascinating stuff, but I am not through with the text yet and will stop here. Does anyone have anything to add or any comments to share?

Joseph Campbell comes to the same conclusion regarding myth. He does not equate myth with "fairy tales", but with an honest, albeit simplistically, attempt to deal with life's greatest questions. I was not familiar with this book. Thanks for the review.

[Kevin Christensen]

Very interesting. Compare:

Any ritual whatever . . . unfolds not only in a consecrated space . . . but also in a "sacred time," "once upon a time" (in illo tempore, ab origine), that is, when the ritual was performed for the first time by a god, an ancestor, or a hero. Every ritual has a divine model, an archetype. . . . Not only do rituals have their mythical model but any human act whatever acquires effectiveness to the extent to which it exactly repeats an act performed at the beginning of time by a god, a hero, or an ancestor. . . . Insofar as he repeats the archetypal sacrifice, the sacrificer, in full ceremonial action, abandons the profane world of mortals and introduces himself into the divine world of the immortals. Eliade, Cosmos and History, 21-22, 36.

And this from 3 Nephi at the Temple:

For the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do. . . . And ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; . . . ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one. (3 Nephi 27:21; 28:10)

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[William Schryver]

Very interesting. Compare:

And this from 3 Nephi at the Temple:

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

I also think it is no mistake that our General Conferences are timed to correspond, more or less, with the semi-annual equinoxes; with the time of planting and the time of harvest. It conforms to what I believe to be the internal clocks of our souls, which correspond to the larger cycles of the chronometer of history.

[WalkerW]

I have a couple videos by John Walton and N.T. Wright on my blog that talk about (1) understanding Genesis in its cultural context (i.e. as a temple text) and (2) how we should understand the term myth in comparison to history.

The fact that we are to view ourselves in some sense as Adam and Eve during the covenant-making portions of the endowment, I think these points by Eliade and Ricoeur are important.

[semlogo]

Joseph Campbell comes to the same conclusion regarding myth. He does not equate myth with "fairy tales", but with an honest, albeit simplistically, attempt to deal with life's greatest questions. I was not familiar with this book. Thanks for the review.

Yes, I was thinking of Campbell too.

[Robert F. Smith]

I have a couple videos by John Walton and N.T. Wright on my blog that talk about (1) understanding Genesis in its cultural context (i.e. as a temple text) and (2) how we should understand the term myth in comparison to history.

The fact that we are to view ourselves in some sense as Adam and Eve during the covenant-making portions of the endowment, I think these points by Eliade and Ricoeur are important.

Arnold van Gennep and Jane Harrison maintained that all rites are rites of passage, i.e., initiations, and that true myth (as opposed to legend) is always initiatory (van Gennep, The Rites of Passage [univ. of Chicago Press, 1960], from his 1909 Les rites de passage). Hugh Nibley, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Oden have followed a similar analysis of myth-ritualism.

In a recent article in Die Welt des Orients (XVI [2006], xxvi, 78), Richard Medina found the book of Job to be a parade example of a ritual sequence in which "through stylized movements, acts and speech, they enter into the liminal state . . , decouple from the sphere of day-to-day life and adopt a transitory ritual identity." Robert Graves said that "truth myth my be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like," i.e., with rich iconography (Graves, The Greek Myths, 2 vols., rev. ed., I:12).

Reversing this process, Jack Finegan has insisted that "the myths and related traditions were kept alive in ritual and cult, and reflected in architecture and art" (Finegan, Myth & Mystery [baker, 1989], 15, citing Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals, 11-12). Which came first, myth or ritual?

All of this is encompassed by Mircea Eliade's theory of the Eternal Return, which is based on the notion that myths and rituals are not merely commemorative of hierophanies, but believers actually participate in them, i.e., they return to the mythical age and therefore become contemporary once again with the events described in their myths. Thus, myth and ritual are vehicles of "eternal return" to the mythical age and to sacred time (cf. Jan Shipps' comments on "sacred time" among the early Mormons). Indeed, for Eliade, hierophanies form the very basis of religion (Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return [Princeton, 1971]; Eliade, Myth and Reality [Harper & Row, 1983]}.

[mapman]

It bugs me when people use the word "myth" as a synonym for "lie". I have come to the conclusion that myths from around the world all give truths to people. Campbell showed that myths in general follow a general pattern. Stories in general follow seven basic plots (see here). These unifying stories all reflect portions of the Gospel, which I would call the true myth. Myths can be true, even historically true. J.R.R. Tolkien understood this, and it was because of this understanding that he was able to help C.S. Lewis convert to Christianity.

J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the

[WalkerW]

Arnold van Gennep and Jane Harrison maintained that all rites are rites of passage, i.e., initiations, and that true myth (as opposed to legend) is always initiatory (van Gennep, The Rites of Passage [univ. of Chicago Press, 1960], from his 1909 Les rites de passage). Hugh Nibley, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Oden have followed a similar analysis of myth-ritualism.

In a recent article in Die Welt des Orients (XVI [2006], xxvi, 78), Richard Medina found the book of Job to be a parade example of a ritual sequence in which "through stylized movements, acts and speech, they enter into the liminal state . . , decouple from the sphere of day-to-day life and adopt a transitory ritual identity." Robert Graves said that "truth myth my be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like," i.e., with rich iconography (Graves, The Greek Myths, 2 vols., rev. ed., I:12).

Reversing this process, Jack Finegan has insisted that "the myths and related traditions were kept alive in ritual and cult, and reflected in architecture and art" (Finegan, Myth & Mystery [baker, 1989], 15, citing Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals, 11-12). Which came first, myth or ritual?

All of this is encompassed by Mircea Eliade's theory of the Eternal Return, which is based on the notion that myths and rituals are not merely commemorative of hierophanies, but believers actually participate in them, i.e., they return to the mythical age and therefore become contemporary once again with the events described in their myths. Thus, myth and ritual are vehicles of "eternal return" to the mythical age and to sacred time (cf. Jan Shipps' comments on "sacred time" among the early Mormons). Indeed, for Eliade, hierophanies form the very basis of religion (Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return [Princeton, 1971]; Eliade, Myth and Reality [Harper & Row, 1983]}.

Thanks for this fantastic summary. I'm actually reading Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return. I've read portions of it before (online), but I found it at the university library. It was Eliade's writings that actually led me to view Genesis as a temple text.

[volgadon]

Gershom Scholem argued that a large part of the appeal of kabbalah was that it revitalised the rituals of the holy days, infusing them with the power coming from myth. Jews in medieval Europe were divorced from the land, and the holyday observances (full of agricultural significance) become little more than rituals of remembrance. They produced no effect, did nothing, changed nothing. Kabbalah infused everything with the power of myth, that actions cause things to happen, have an effect both in this world and the next.

[WalkerW]

It bugs me when people use the word "myth" as a synonym for "lie". I have come to the conclusion that myths from around the world all give truths to people. Campbell showed that myths in general follow a general pattern. Stories in general follow seven basic plots (see here). These unifying stories all reflect portions of the Gospel, which I would call the true myth. Myths can be true, even historically true. J.R.R. Tolkien understood this, and it was because of this understanding that he was able to help C.S. Lewis convert to Christianity.

http://www.frederica...t-convert2.html

How strange that you mention this. I've been on a Lewis/Tolkien/Barfield binge recently (I just put in a request for Barfield's Poetic Diction at the university and was pouring over some Tolkien articles in Touchstone). Tolkien's description of a myth in relation to the Gospels, as well as his insistence that reason and imagination both be fully satisfied (the whole person), was quite aesthetic for me.

[Ron Beron]

Arnold van Gennep and Jane Harrison maintained that all rites are rites of passage, i.e., initiations, and that true myth (as opposed to legend) is always initiatory (van Gennep, The Rites of Passage [univ. of Chicago Press, 1960], from his 1909 Les rites de passage). Hugh Nibley, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Oden have followed a similar analysis of myth-ritualism.

In a recent article in Die Welt des Orients (XVI [2006], xxvi, 78), Richard Medina found the book of Job to be a parade example of a ritual sequence in which "through stylized movements, acts and speech, they enter into the liminal state . . , decouple from the sphere of day-to-day life and adopt a transitory ritual identity." Robert Graves said that "truth myth my be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like," i.e., with rich iconography (Graves, The Greek Myths, 2 vols., rev. ed., I:12).

Reversing this process, Jack Finegan has insisted that "the myths and related traditions were kept alive in ritual and cult, and reflected in architecture and art" (Finegan, Myth & Mystery [baker, 1989], 15, citing Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals, 11-12). Which came first, myth or ritual?

All of this is encompassed by Mircea Eliade's theory of the Eternal Return, which is based on the notion that myths and rituals are not merely commemorative of hierophanies, but believers actually participate in them, i.e., they return to the mythical age and therefore become contemporary once again with the events described in their myths. Thus, myth and ritual are vehicles of "eternal return" to the mythical age and to sacred time (cf. Jan Shipps' comments on "sacred time" among the early Mormons). Indeed, for Eliade, hierophanies form the very basis of religion (Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return [Princeton, 1971]; Eliade, Myth and Reality [Harper & Row, 1983]}.

Nice synopses.

[Robert F. Smith]

Thanks for this fantastic summary. I'm actually reading Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return. I've read portions of it before (online), but I found it at the university library. It was Eliade's writings that actually led me to view Genesis as a temple text.

Yes!! And, beginning with Genesis 1 (which is a catechetical, iterative ritual text), there are numerous exoteric and esoteric texts throughout the Bible and Book of Mormon. Exodus, for example, has a central theme which is not merely celebrated in annual Jewish festivals, but is reenacted time and again, (1) by Jews going into one diaspora after another, and then returning, (2) by the Lehites in South Arabia, and (3) by the Mormons, who are given an "exodus" revelation by Brigham Young (D&C 136), and whose two main companies arrive in the SL valley in the midst of a Jewish Jubilee (Sept 11, 1847 to Sept 28, 1848), and which includes the miracle of the seagulls and crickets -- May & June 1848 -- in a territory featuring a "Jordan River" flowing from a fresh-water lake into a salt lake.

Jan Shipps speaks constantly of the Mormon recapitulation in "sacred time" of key Old and New Testament events in a 19th century context. James Sanders too noted that "from earliest times, . . the believing community contemporized earlier value-traditions to their own situations" (Sanders, Canon and Community, 27; cf. I Nephi 19:23-24). Just so, he continues, "myth is by nature multivalent and adaptable to many situations" (23).

Plato thought that the pagan mysteries and rites of passage entailed the "proper rituals and sacrifices by means of which one obtained absolution from one's own and one's ancestors sins" (Republic, II:364bce), while Burton Mack says that "early Christianity bore a distinct resemblance to the Hellenistic mystery cults, particularly where it mattered most, namely in their myths of dying and rising gods [C. S. Lewis took note of this while studying Frazer's Golden Bough] and in their rituals of baptism and sacred meals" (Mack, The Lost Gospel, 22). That last is merely the precursor to the time when Jesus returns to eat and drink with us at the grand Banquet of Salvation. I'll have more detail in my forthcoming book on Temple Rites.

[Bill Hamblin]

Yes!! And, beginning with Genesis 1 (which is a catechetical, iterative ritual text), there are numerous exoteric and esoteric texts throughout the Bible and Book of Mormon. Exodus, for example, has a central theme which is not merely celebrated in annual Jewish festivals, but is reenacted time and again, (1) by Jews going into one diaspora after another, and then returning, (2) by the Lehites in South Arabia, and (3) by the Mormons, who are given an "exodus" revelation by Brigham Young (D&C 136), and whose two main companies arrive in the SL valley in the midst of a Jewish Jubilee (Sept 11, 1847 to Sept 28, 1848), and which includes the miracle of the seagulls and crickets -- May & June 1848 -- in a territory featuring a "Jordan River" flowing from a fresh-water lake into a salt lake.

Jan Shipps speaks constantly of the Mormon recapitulation in "sacred time" of key Old and New Testament events in a 19th century context. James Sanders too noted that "from earliest times, . . the believing community contemporized earlier value-traditions to their own situations" (Sanders, Canon and Community, 27; cf. I Nephi 19:23-24). Just so, he continues, "myth is by nature multivalent and adaptable to many situations" (23).

Plato thought that the pagan mysteries and rites of passage entailed the "proper rituals and sacrifices by means of which one obtained absolution from one's own and one's ancestors sins" (Republic, II:364bce), while Burton Mack says that "early Christianity bore a distinct resemblance to the Hellenistic mystery cults, particularly where it mattered most, namely in their myths of dying and rising gods [C. S. Lewis took note of this while studying Frazer's Golden Bough] and in their rituals of baptism and sacred meals" (Mack, The Lost Gospel, 22). That last is merely the precursor to the time when Jesus returns to eat and drink with us at the grand Banquet of Salvation. I'll have more detail in my forthcoming book on Temple Rites.

When can we expect to see your book?

In addition to Ricouer, it is worth taking a look at Rene Girard's work. Mack Stirling interviewed him recently in Dialogue

My link

[WalkerW]

Yes!! And, beginning with Genesis 1 (which is a catechetical, iterative ritual text), there are numerous exoteric and esoteric texts throughout the Bible and Book of Mormon. Exodus, for example, has a central theme which is not merely celebrated in annual Jewish festivals, but is reenacted time and again, (1) by Jews going into one diaspora after another, and then returning, (2) by the Lehites in South Arabia, and (3) by the Mormons, who are given an "exodus" revelation by Brigham Young (D&C 136), and whose two main companies arrive in the SL valley in the midst of a Jewish Jubilee (Sept 11, 1847 to Sept 28, 1848), and which includes the miracle of the seagulls and crickets -- May & June 1848 -- in a territory featuring a "Jordan River" flowing from a fresh-water lake into a salt lake.

Jan Shipps speaks constantly of the Mormon recapitulation in "sacred time" of key Old and New Testament events in a 19th century context. James Sanders too noted that "from earliest times, . . the believing community contemporized earlier value-traditions to their own situations" (Sanders, Canon and Community, 27; cf. I Nephi 19:23-24). Just so, he continues, "myth is by nature multivalent and adaptable to many situations" (23).

Plato thought that the pagan mysteries and rites of passage entailed the "proper rituals and sacrifices by means of which one obtained absolution from one's own and one's ancestors sins" (Republic, II:364bce), while Burton Mack says that "early Christianity bore a distinct resemblance to the Hellenistic mystery cults, particularly where it mattered most, namely in their myths of dying and rising gods [C. S. Lewis took note of this while studying Frazer's Golden Bough] and in their rituals of baptism and sacred meals" (Mack, The Lost Gospel, 22). That last is merely the precursor to the time when Jesus returns to eat and drink with us at the grand Banquet of Salvation. I'll have more detail in my forthcoming book on Temple Rites.

David Larsen (Ph.D. candidate at the University of St. Andrews) described the Exodus story as another creation story.

[Robert F. Smith]

When can we expect to see your book?

In addition to Ricouer, it is worth taking a look at Rene Girard's work. Mack Stirling interviewed him recently in Dialogue

Hi Bill!!

Long time no see.

I hope to have my book on the Temple out next year. In the meantime, however, Gordon Thomasson and I are producing a major book on the Book of Mormon festivals (as part of the ethnology of the book). We are both admirers of Girard, and fondly recall his visit to BYU a quarter century ago. Thanks for calling his Dialogue interview to my attention. I wasn't aware of it.