Mythology, magic, and human suffering
Full Transcript (auto-generated)I was going through the Mahabharat the other day and uh, I was in one of the earlier parts and I was going through the scene where King Shantanu's wife, the river goddess Ganga, takes their first baby to the river and drowns it. King Shantanu has made a promise to the Goddess Ganga, and that promise is that no matter what she does, he will not question her.So he silently watches and weeps. Later we are told that the reason the goddess was drowning the babies is because those babies were actually divine beings who had been cursed to be born on earth. So by drowning them, she was actually freeing them from their curse. After reading these scenes, I was struck by a strange thought, and that thought had to do with the kind of feelings that the scene evoked.When I was reading about the baby's drowning, I was feeling sad because obviously who wouldn't feel sad at the sight of a baby being drowned in a river by its own mother as the father of the baby watches. But then I was told that the babies were divine beings and everything was okay, because if it's going according to a plan, then no matter how twist the plan is, it's all okay.It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a tragedy. It wasn't... a bad thing. It was part of a plan, and that makes everything better. The reason I'm talking about this is because I wanted to talk about why mythological stories contain so much magic, why they contain so many divine plans, why they contain so many secret reasons behind things that happen, and often the things that happen are terrible.I gave you one example, but there are examples like this across mythology in every religion. Islamic mythology has it. Christian mythology has it. Every religion, I suppose, on some level has stories that are tragic, but they have super cool explanations behind them. So let's talk about why that happens. Why do mythological stories contain so much magic when they don't actually have to, like, you know, if the purpose of a mythological story is to be a cultural artifact that unites people, it can do that without having magic.Right? You can have a story about a brave prince who fought a... who, who fought another king and, uh, brought his wife back. You can have a story about a great teacher, uh, who told people nice things and then went back to wherever he came from. My theory is that it's because magic is a way to alleviate suffering.Magical thinking exists in mythological stories because if it didn't, these stories would be horrific tragedies. A person comes to Earth and tells people nice things about being good to each other, and yet he's crucified. But wait, everything is okay because he comes back to life. It's magic. It was all according to a plan, and things are all hunky dory now, so you don't need to feel bad.A child is persecuted and killed and it's very tragic. But wait, it's all okay because that child is now a star in the sky. Did someone die? Was it painful for? , did it rip your life apart? Wait, it's all okay. That person is not really dead. They're in another world having the best of times, so you don't really need to feel bad.I think the reason mythological stories contain magic is because life is terrible, and these stories by themselves cannot be processed without at least some kind of a bandaid. You've lost. And I have lost people too. And I can tell you from a personal experience that I would like nothing better than to know that the people who have lost did not die in pain and are now permanently gone.I would like to believe that they're having a great time in another world, and when someone tells me a story about them having a great time in another world, I want to believe it. , every fiber of my being wants to believe that the people who have lost close people, family members, friends, et cetera, who I loved very much, who are gone from my life and this world now, I would love to believe that they're not gone, and therefore the stories that tell me that they're no
