13.8.25 - Epic

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Gilgamesh fights Enkidu

Why study epics? 

People always talk about how awesome epics are - these grand schemes of things. What are the qualities of epics. They usually involve lots of players and long journeys. They also span long periods of time. Literally. They tend to have the involvement of gods who can take sides or just take the hump. There are lots of facets. Everyone has something to say. But I think the most important thing about epics is that they are stories of INITIATION. I did not realise this until I did the Class 5 lectures with Eugene Schwarz. While I knew all these stories individually, I did not realise that these stories, although very important to the mythic narrative and cultures of their time, these stories also carried all the hallmarks of initiation.

What is initiation? When you are initiated you undergo a series of trials and tests. There is no guarantee that you pass this initiation. In fact, not only is there a good chance you won't but also a good chance that you would die. That is the point though - the death is not literal. The death is metaphorical. The hope is that you DO die. That you are not yourself after you emerge from the initiation. You are hopefully older and wiser. And you have connected with the divine - you have connected with your own divinity and developed this ability to see timelessness. It is also interesting that many epics from different cultures come from around the same times... around 2000 BC, give or take a thousand years. 

In a way, the Bible can be read as an epic. A fictional, mythical account. We have all those hallmarks of epic as well. In this case it is the epic of Abraham and Moses. 

Then of the Hebrew peoples themselves. It is their epic.

The epics we will do are the following:

Mahabharata
Ramayana
Inanna (Descent to the underworld)
Gilgamesh
Zarathustra
Isis, Osiris and Horus
Illiad
Odyssey
Alexander the Great

We touch on them and their basic outline of course, but by the time we end the year, we will know all these wonderful characters, been with them through their highs and lows and emerge fortified and ready to take on the Romans who are completely nuts. I know that people fought with each other a lot back in the day, but there was no one was blood thirsty and INSANE as the Romans. I do think that maybe we are still living with the legacy of Roman fascism. They were the originators of the term after all. When Rome gets going, that is the end of the idea of the God King. We now have the Emperor and the rule of might. 



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