The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture

by William Irwin Thompson

In this book, William Irwin Thompson explores the nature of myth. Acknowledging the persuasive power of myth to create and inform culture, he weaves the human ability to create life with and communicate through symbols with myths based on male and female forms of power.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Mythology, Philosophy, Sexuality, Spirituality, Psychology

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

William Irwin Thompson is an American social philosopher, cultural critic, and poet. He received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He describes his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient texts". He is the founder of the Lindisfarne Association.

Reviews

[anton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through bardic oration, Thompson creates lectures of a quality that cannot be surpassed. Serving moreso as artifacts of artwork sans script one can admire a tapestry of riffing on concepts that truly does become musical both in performance and content (as in the later fascination he tethers to with the Pythagorean monochord) through an aperture of telescoping through entire civilization with a prescience only reserved for the deeply introspective and the obsessively hyper-read. Through an unconscious lineage of Spengler and Gebser (the latter of which he becomes consciously fascinated with only decades later) he marks a beginning of a polymathic interest in, what I've formalized and concretized as, the project or map of metahistory.

This text stems and follows from those lectures, those mp3's that act as rites of initiation, and variations upon the themes touched in them. Through a keen sensibility in myth, anthropology and philosophy - he creates a truly Batesonian ecology of mind, through taking every variation upon a myth into a tree directory of that myth's Source as an application of Levi-Strauss's structuralism (Freud's Oedipus and Sophocles' Oedipus can be seen as part of the same myth), a focal lens study of the Paleolithic and Neolithic that is only highlighted amongst its contrast to the study of the cybernetic Gaian planetary culture we create today giving us a "commodious vicus of recirculation," an understanding of metareligion that maps the scientific basis for myth and the mythic roots of science.

Though, one cannot see it as highly as Spengler or Gebser, since Thompson does not reach the grandiose depths that they partake in their complete surveyals of entire civilizations and archaeological listings of every domain of study in them - this more works as an introductory dive towards the project of metahistory.

The gnostic realization of this metahistory - that it is our demise, the nightmare in which we are trying to awake, the fall of unity into multiplicity, the One into Two - and each metamyth we pulse and emanate out of our minds of civilization, those nodes that make networks, the knowing that makes Indra's Net work, is a recapitulation of that fractal Fall.

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my. This was my lightbulb book. I don't remember much except the notion- new to me ajt the time - that male archeologists saw those tiny stick figure men on the cave wall as lords of all they surveyed for a reason, but not reasonably. Seems so obvious now, but for me it was like having a science fiction story happen inside me: an idea went viral in my brain & nothing was the same. Well, no, everything on the outside was the same as it ever was, but I had never seen it.

I don't know why I had the book - I was in a small town with a new baby... and this book set my brain to laughing and thinking and reaching for more.

Over 30 years of feminist reading, writing & thinking later- years completely transformed by that turning point, I saw that a friend listed this to read & just wanted to honor this writer.

[Andrew Neuendorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot tell you anymore because I have already promised not to let anyone else read this author so back the hell up.....but just so you know, things were much better when women were in charge.

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hugely overrated work of pseudoscholarship. Basically, it fits into the mythocritical camp of such writers as Joseph Campbell (to whom Irwin owes huge amounts, but typically never once names), Mircea Eliade, and the like. Thompson is both more truculent and more credulous (if that is possible) than Campbell, with a conspiracy-theorist's mentality of seeing any loose connection as "the" connection, and any perspective contrary to his point of view as part of a vast conspiracy to keep everyone else ignorant of the truth that only he and other "right-minded" people know. A reader should be wary from early on when Thompson praises such loose nuts as Edgar Cayce and Rudolph Steiner, elevating them to geniuses on the level of Darwin and Einstein. Thompson's book is very much part of the 1970s New Age mentality, despairing of civilization (ok, there is some justification of that, just not in the way Thompson talks about it), and worshipful of a cosmic spirituality expressed in the one truth that matters - myth. Thus, additionally, the book exemplifies what I call field megalomania, the belief that one's specialty field of knowledge is the one, true, universal field of knowledge that explains everything else, and that all other fields of knowledge are subsets of one's own field of knowledge. This field megalomania manifests itself in Thompson's repeated invocation of Claude Levi-Strauss's argument that all variations of a myth comprise the one true myth as a whole. Through this invocation, Thompson tries to argue that scientific knowledge is not genuine knowledge of physical reality, but instead is myth because it invokes the three elements of myth - origin, explanation, and prophecy. It is just that the scientists are too small minded to see this "truth" and are only after "control." This kind of false comparison is just one of the many howling errors of reasoning that plague the book. The worst of these is a regular habit of hasty generalization born from the kind of symbol-seeking and grandiose psycho-social interpretation that he gets (unacknowledged) from Campbell. Here are just a few examples. He takes Jane Goodall's description of chimpanzees doing a kind of rain dance and races to conclusions about the kind of society and mythological thinking the chimpanzees must have, then equates this to what he believes to be the Mesolithic era form of mythic consciousness. He claims that Consciousness (which he never clearly defines) pre-exists physical reality (what a Platonist), thus sneaking in God through a quasi-intellectual back door, and giving us a nice little precursor to Deepak Chopra's nonsense about "quantum consciousness." He claims that ancient legends of Sumeria and Egypt retell the origin of the solar system from swirling gases into revolving bodies, because, if Consciousness exists before the creation, then "myth" is the method by which humans tap into this Consciousness, and since Consciousness was aware somehow of the formation of the solar system, early humans must have also been aware of it in some deep recess of their psyches. It is hard to give credence to such ludicrous claims, but this book is full of them. Thompson does give himself an out, so that he can avoid accountability for the ludicrous claims and shoddy scholarship, which is that he is not really writing scholarship, but is instead writing "art," a verbal fugue of themes and ideas (he several times uses this comparison of his method to music composition). This claim is the dodge of the intellectual con artist, and one that sadly all too many readers fall for.

[Richard Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one wants to understand mythology and modern life, this is a must read. Unlike reading Campbell, this is not the professor lecturing, but an artist connecting the dots for you.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally frustrating mixture of speculative spirituality and solid paleoanthropology taking as its starting point the idea that myth is an ever-present body of story constantly informing culture. There's a certain quantum mechanical view of the entangled observer in this that's rather appealing, but Thompson has axes to grind with sociobiology. He never once mentions Stephen Jay Gould, however, and cites E.O. Wilson before that scholar adapted his consilience view of human cooperation and progress. Once he gets out of Neolithic and into near-historical times, he develops intriguing variant views of how matriarchy was subsumed by patriarchy. Getting to those sections of genuinely fascinating speculation requires slogging through nearly a hundred pages of "what if" speculation involving tantric, yogic, and shamanistic traditions as fully based on the kinds of assumptive prerogative that he accuses those with whom he is clearly at odds of using.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating classic that attempts to shed light on our matriarchal/Goddess ancestors, within the rigors of academic standards. It was not easy reading, and I admit I only skimmed it, in part because I got it through an inter-library loan with a ridiculously short due date.

I can see why he was panned by some of the early Goddess revival women (who he evidently had overlooked in his earlier edition). Still, it presents a compelling body of research that, alas, shows how entrenched academia still is about HIS-story.

[TFN · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's rare to find an academic text so well-researched also converge so seamlessly with (for lack of a better term) new age ideas. I find Thompson's arguments and analysis still interesting decades after its original publication. While some of the interpretations no doubt need reevaluation in light of newer research, findings, and theories, his prose remains uplifting and thoughtful, his ideas surprisingly modern and novel.

[Connlou Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

(c)1981 This just happened to be given to me and it was so different from all the other novels I have read. I don't agree with everything William I. Thompson mentions but he uses a huge amount of references and touched base across many schools of thought and their take on mythology etc.. Interesting read never the less.

[Mee Ok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite its random moments of misogyny and homophobia (which he's addressed since) it's a stunning interpretation of the origins of man as well as a solid critique of academia's secular evolution and the West's fundamental misuse of sacred knowledge and practices.

[Alienne Laval · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fall Into Time - to me a necessity to get out of metaphysical speculation and into actualization: in the material world are spirits.

[Ella Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

life changing

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eccentric mythological interpretation of human history, dealing with meaning and interpretation rather than history and facts. Some of the author's views tend to stick in my mind, particularly about the relation of the sexes. He argues against the "just so stories" of evolutionary psychologists that are still quite fashionable, pointing out that they are myths parading as facts or history, and not very good myths at that. In places he comes off as a bit of a sexist, even though he does concede (rather unwillingly) certain points about the distorting effects of always using "man" for humanity - the book was written some decades ago. It's a book I might reread sometime.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thompson's poetic language and depth of insight are inspiring and illuminating. His scholarship is profound, yet he doesn't profess, his learning dances across the page and dazzles the mind. Drawing from a wide array of disciplines, he comments on the origins of human culture and the major cultural transformations that have defined humankind as expressed in the great early myths of Inanna, Gilgamesh, and Osiris. The first few chapters are a bit slow-going, but they lay the foundation for the juice of the book--the myth interpretations--later on, and these are extraordinary. Highly recommended for any open-minded reader who loves to contemplate the human enterprise.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Some of it I really liked, some of it I wasn't convinced, but I appreciate the world view he writes from (at least mostly... he did come off as gender essentialist to me, but not as much as other authors in similar veins).

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat meandering, with occasional flashes of insight, best absorbed in small doses.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this about 20 years ago, and it was enlightening. Maybe I'll get around to reading it again someday, it's still on my shelf!

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most thought provoking read. I recommend it to every woman, and a few thinking men.

[Christy]

Rated and reviewed here: http://www.librarything.com/work/2416...