Based on Nietzsche's critique of religion and culture, and engaging the contemporary offshoots of that critique, this book assesses the myths of origins that have been used to articulate the fundamental attitude toward the relationship between shame and beauty. In reconsidering some of the myths upon which the West is based, from Hesiod and Greek mythology to Plato and the Bible, Hans pursues the ways in which we have habitually separated shame and beauty in order to create the grounds that would provide us with the authority for our lives we think we need. By juxtaposing Socrates' repression of violence in The Republic and Nietzsche's conception of the overman, the author revises the network of relations that are associated with the religious, the aesthetic, and the political, asserting that the religious derives from the aesthetic rather than the other way around, and establishing a necessary connection between the political and the aesthetic. Hans aims to raise yet again the questions embodied in Nietzsche's attempt to prompt humans to face the true status of their actions in the world: are we finally able to address our shame without immediately projecting it onto another or repressing it? If so, what changes might we see in the psychological, social, and political worlds we would create out of such an acknowledgment? What value is to be found in accepting the uneasy relationship between shame and beauty upon which our lives rest? While The Origins of the Gods provides no definitive answers to such questions simply because none are possible, it makes use of such queries in order to reassert the great importance of Nietzsche's affirmation of the value of the world as it is. It argues that this affirmation has something crucial to offer if we are willing to forgo an authorized existence and confront the beauty and shame from which our lives are inevitably constituted.
• Explores how our ancestors used shamanic rituals at sacred sites to create portals for communication with nonhuman intelligences • Shares supporting evidence from the spiritual and shamanic beliefs of more than 100 Native American ...
Ajay Kansal marshals anthropological and historical facts about the development of religions in a simple and straightforward manner to assert that it was mankind that created gods, and not the other way around.
A study of social and economic transformations in the Near East during Palaeolithic-Neolithic transition, first published in 2000.
Over 700,000 copies of the original hardcover and paperback editions of this stunningly popular book have been sold.
This superb application of classical Freudian theory to the key Greek myths' is jargon-free.
If you liked Game of Thrones and From Blood and Ash, you'll love the sexy, magical world of Origins of the Gods.
In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question.
Evolution.
Chronicles the transformations of the Greek gods throughout history, evaluating their changing characters, stories and symbolic relevance in a variety of cultures spanning the ancient world through the Renaissance era.
Technology of the Gods lays out the mind-bending evidence that long-lost civilizations had attained and even exceeded our "modern" level of advancement.