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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.
- Sales Rank: #1976047 in Books
- Published on: 1980-12
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 280 pages
Review
“This is an abundant, powerful book. Much of its power flows from Thompson's increasing ability to read images, a complicated process. Scholars and thinkers over the last 70 years have slowly rediscovered the stages of this lost ability; and in this book William Irwin Thompson climbs one more step.” ―Robert Bly
From the Back Cover
In the opening passages of his classic book, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, William Irwin Thompson asks the question, "But what is myth that it returns to mind even when we would most escape it?" Acknowledging the pervasive power of myth to create and inform culture, Thompson answers this question by weaving descriptions of the human abilities to create life and to communicate through symbolic myths based on male and female forms of power. Taking us from the earliest periods of prehistory through the time of female goddess worship to the rise of the male-dominated warrior state, Thompson shows the passage of humankind's relationship to nature from initial awe to persistent conquest. At the end of his journey, Thompson finds an answer to his original question: myth is the history of the soul; its creation is ongoing and its power is never-ending. This is a beautiful and fascinating book now being reissued for a new generation of readers, as well as for those it inspired originally.
About the Author
William Irwin Thompson is the author of At the Edge of History, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light and Imaginary Landscapes. He lives in Switzerland.
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Love it.
By Jaime.
Very fascinating and readable. Since I am rather lacking in funds, I have decided to stop buying books for a while, but after reading most of this in the library, I decided that it was a worthy exception.
28 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Above average "new age" stuff
By A Customer
Thompson takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the origins of culture, sex, agriculture and patriarchy.He does not solely rely on left brain abstract thinking, but has got the right side of the brain working too.In other words, he is into mythopoeic thinking, which gets down to deeper levels of existence.If for nothing else, this book is worth it for the sentence "Myth is the history of the soul."There is much wisdom in this sentence.Thompson has more insightful things to say about myth than many other writers on the subject.If he has a fault, it is a too wide sweep over his subject matter.Nevertheless, he has many challenging ideas to confront us with.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
The oral traditions of the Luftwaffe
By Ashtar Command
William Irwin Thompson's curious work "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light" was originally published in 1981. Due to the book's esoteric theme (in both senses of that word - "esoteric spirituality" and "incomprehensible"), its long shelf life and status as a classic are somewhat surprising, something Thompson himself admits in a new introduction to the 1996 edition. Even more surprisingly, "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light" created quite a stir when it was first published. One particularly negative reviewer accused the author of being a closet Nazi obsessed with oral sex! Another claimed that he was, in fact, a feminist fellow-traveller. That's an accusation?
I've only read this book once, and I admit that I haven't completely assimilated it. This review is therefore a first attempt at coming to terms with Thompson's ideas. The author does have a spiritual worldview broadly similar to Theosophy or even the New Age. Thompson's life project is to bring together spirituality, psychology and science. He is perhaps best known as the founder of the Lindisfarne Association. According to Wikipedia, its membership list was pretty impressive, including Lynn Margulis, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry and Gregory Bateson. And, of course, David Spangler! Leading U.S. Anthroposophist Arthur Zajonc is another former fellow of the Association.
"The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light" is an attempt to synthesize mythology, "real" knowledge about human prehistory and an esoteric worldview. Thompson doesn't see any contradiction between the three. Indeed, he says that history becomes myth at the moment when our worldly knowledge is found wanting. Our theories about prehistory will therefore necessarily be mythological, despite protestation to the contrary by Darwinists and others. However, myths can also be "true" in the sense that a myth is the history of the soul. It's not clear to me how true myth is to be distinguished from false myth. Perhaps it cannot, since "false" myths can have very real consequences, such as the myths of sociobiology. Thompson wants scientists and historians to become bold poets, weaving mythological narratives about our past in order the better to change the future.
The myths Thompson in some sense regard as true deal with the fall of spirit into matter and its subsequent liberation or resurrection. While incarnating in matter is in one sense negative, in another sense it's necessary in order to evolve a new spiritual being which masters both the physical world and the nebulous astral worlds, while being in touch with spirit above. Two things strike me about Thompson's chosen myths. One is that they really do sound feminist. The author imagines a primordial matriarchy already during the Palaeolithic, and associates the later domination of men with war, want, class society and "civilization". The kind of feminists who like to emphasize the Mother Goddess and similar themes, will recognize much of the material in "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light", and Thompson apparently established a friendly relation with Marija Gimbutas. The other striking trait of Thompson's work is that he *does* sound obsessed with sex. There's more sex in this book than in "Game of Thrones"! The physical incarnation of man is intensely sexual, both metaphorically and literally. The author sees sexual imagery virtually everywhere, and connects this to kundalini, "the serpent power" or mysterious energy associated with the chakras in esoteric traditions. Of course, one of the chakras is associated with the reproductive organs.
Two things might be controversial with this bold reinterpretation of what our Stone Age ancestors were really up to. One is that Thompson seems to have an essentialist, quasi-biological view of men and women. While women might be "better" in some sense, their essentialist connection to sex, death and the hearth might strike more traditionally liberal feminists as regressive gender stereotyping. Thompson is also hostile to male homosexuality, pairing it with bestiality and incest, and viewing it as a form of anti-woman male bonding. The other theme that might be controversial (but perhaps to another kind of feminist) is that the ultimate goal of spiritual evolution is to create an androgyne. Indeed, Thompson regards many of the goddess figurines of the Neolithic as androgynous, rather than as purely female. Androgyny is also connected to kundalini: when the sexual serpent power reaches the head, a kind of spiritual "sexual intercourse" takes place between the raising kundalini (the phallus) and the head (the vulva).
Of the ancient cultures, Thompson regards the Egyptian as the highest (or "highest"), at least in terms of spiritual insight. The matriarchal cultures civilized the men but perhaps at the price of their manliness. Patriarchal civilization represents an attempt by men (or the masculine principle) to create a real ego rather than submerge in woman-centred collectivism. The Egyptian myth of Isis, Osiris and Horus strikes a balance between the genders and the two opposing forces in the universe (with the destructive or "evil" force represented by Seth). It also points to a balance between the physical and the spiritual, since Horus is said to be both, a divine being with a physical body. Thompson points out that while Egypt was a patriarchal society, the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy wasn't as violent in Egypt as in other regions. This is probably true. In fact, Pharaonic Egypt seems to have been at least semi- or quasi-matriarchal. Of course, Thompson doesn't literally regard Egypt as the "highest" or "best" civilization - it's simply the case that the evolution of consciousness (which must pass through several different stages) reached a kind of zenith in the Egyptian mystery schools.
But what should we *do* with all this esoteric knowledge? Here, Thompson is unclear - perhaps deliberately so, since his purpose isn't to propose a concrete political program, but rather to call for a new myth transcending the various programs. As already noted, he wants the scientists and scholars to become poets who re-enchant the world with new myths about our cosmic purposes. We have to reconnect with Isis (and, I suppose, Osiris and Horus). If not, another goddess will automatically fill the void: Lilith, the demonic spirit who dances in the ruins of cities. Civilizations that can't emancipate themselves through spiritual means, will be "emancipated" by default by Lilith. In plain English, they will be destroyed... Thompson warns that the meaning of the myth of Lilith will become apparent as the 1980's progresses. Here, he was off by a couple of decades, but what does that mean in the bigger scheme of things?
I'm not sure how to rate "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light", and I admit that I still don't understand the title, but since I understood at least part of the point, I gracefully bestow three stars upon this, William Irwin Thompson's magnum opus.
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