The Odyssey - Manual of Secret Teachings?

[fanu]

Hi everyone,

I hope this can be of some use.

"The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Pathway to Personal Transformation" by Jean Houston, Marianne Williamson, 2009
VII: Horrors and deceptions of every kind line his path, as everything from savages to seducers threatens to keep him from going home
VIII: The mythological and archetypal significance of those troubles compel us even now, as each of us recognizes in Odysseus' journey our own internal quest.
VIII: Yet a seemingly inexorable force—in Odysseus' case, the goddess Athena—still both guides and propels us, as we keep plowing forward…In the words of Jean Houston, Odysseus “found devourers and diminishers, and so do we.” Few of us get fully to escape the trials and tribulations of the human journey; it is part of our initiation into ultimate reality to realize that the journey, for all of us, can be a hero’s quest…We, like Odysseus, can learn not only to endure our suffering but also transform through it, and in the process become who we are truly meant to be.
XIV: I believe that all great stories have power coded in them that can help us change our lives, and by changing our lives, change the world—for the better, one hopes. There is no story in the world that has more of this transformative energy than the Odyssey. In fact, its power is so great that it very likely served as the beginning point for Greek civilization.
5: As Campbell also noted, much has happened in the last three hundred years to cause the timeless universe of symbols and archetypes to collapse in upon itself in just the way black holes swallow stars in the far reaches of the galaxies. Power driven machines, instantaneous communication, the scientific method, economics, and politics have become the central and controlling power of most social units. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, these fascinations have pulled our focus away from the mystery of life; in some cases they have even invited us to pretend there no longer is a mystery. This has severely limited our awareness of the world of spirit and drugged us into a coma of forgetfulness. We have lost our capacity to tap into the greening power of the symbolic and mythic resources of humankind. Gods, myths, and metaphors have been abandoned, then blamed for being dead.
And yet, Myth still beckons to us like a strange and beautiful country seen through the mist, only to retreat again when we have approached too near. Myth remains closer than breathing, nearer than our hands and feet. I think it is built into our very being. It winds its way through the labyrinthine pathways of our brain, codes itself into our cells, plays games with our genes, incarnates with us in the womb, weaves through the roles and rituals of our lives, and finds denouement with our death. Myth waters our every conscious act. It is the very sea of the unconscious.
6: Mythic themes are rampant in modern life. In the Middle East we find Dragon Kings snorting fire from the latest unnatural weaponry to protect their black gold from pale corporate prices. Drugs seep into the veins of those who could be heroes, tendering them as pathetic and dysfunctional as those in ancient tales who were lured to sip the poisoned brew of mad magicians, or were frozen into immobility at the sight of the Gorgon’s writhing snakes.

Cheers.

 

[Vulcan59]

Hi fanu,

Thanks for sharing. Welcome to the forum. :) We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, and how they found their way here. Have a read through that section to get an idea of how others have done it. Thanks.

 

[ginebra]

Welcome to the forum fanu and thanks for the Odyssey insight.

 

[reborn]

...So is this ring structure in the Odyssey reflective of that? To elaborate, perhaps it's suggestive of how our density is defined by the same themes looping around on themselves. We've just got what we see, believe, and think here and that defines the limits/barriers of our reality/density. So perhaps getting beyond this density requires new "themes" beyond what we have here...

Another excellent example of following the thread and making connections between "as above, so below" and inside and outside and so on.

Perhaps our dietary adventures as discussed on the "Life Without Bread" thread have more implications than we imagine?

Aloha, Laura!

Mahalo nui loa for your commendation :)

Yes, macrocosm/microcosm...

I've been musing about a possible connection between the detrimental effects of carbohydrates on the human body and some harmful element in the universe, but I would need to do more research to substantiate that. It has also been striking ;) me lately that there is a connection between the electrical nature of the brain and the electrical nature of the universe, but perhaps I am heading down a trail that has already been blazed there...?

Btw, Laura, since this is my first time addressing you directly, I want to express to you my deep appreciation and respect for what you have done and continue to do here. I continue to be impressed and amazed by your work.

In gratitude :)
Renee

 

[forge]

This is from a scholarly paper from the Center of Hellenic Studies of Harvard University, that deals with the passage about what Zeus told Poseidon, and might provide some food for thought:

The passage in question is Odyssey xiii 146-184. As we join the narrative, we find that the god Poseidon is very angry at the Phaeacians for providing Odysseus {82|83} with one of their ships to convey the hero back to his home in Ithaca. The god now plans to take revenge, and he asks Zeus to approve his plan, which has two parts: (1) to smash the ship as it sails back home to the Phaeacians and (2) to make a huge mountain "envelop" their city:

νῦν αὖ Φαιήκων ἐθέλω περικαλλέα νῆα
ἐκ πομπῆς ἀνιοῦσαν ἐν ἠεροηδέι πόντῳ
ῥαῖσαι, ἵν ἤδη σχῶνται, ἀπολλήξωσι δὲ πομπῆς
ἀνθρώπων, μέγα δέ σφιν ὄρος πόλει ἀμφικαλύψαι

So now I want to smash the very beautiful ship of the Phaeacians
when it comes back, in a misty crossing of the sea, from its conveying mission,
so that these people [= the Phaeacians] will hold off, at long last, and stop their practice of conveying humans. And I want to make a huge mountain envelop [63] their city. Odyssey xiii 149-152

Because the Phaeacian's had ships - vessels directed by thought that were able to connect them with distant 'lands' (4D STO?) - this sounds to me as breaking of DNA. Posseidon wants and does smash* the ship, human DNA. So the Phaeacian's, who may be us, can not ever find our way back, (this is what the Posseidon-Gang is hoping) we won't be able to re-establish connection and drive thought-directed ships again.

Also Posseidon seems to have fulfilled his intent and successfully enveloped this Earth-realm with his "mountains", Phaeacian's city (us) into STS fences, so we are shut off from Higher Centre Influences. Making it very hard to shatter the barriers of an STS-God and find our way back home.

edit:
*not smashes the ship, but he turns it to stone. In this case the pineal comes into mind, with age it turns into stone, calcifies.

 

[davey72]

probably a stupid question, but who wrote it?

Doing a little search on the web, you could have found the answer :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

Thanks

 

[davey72]

probably a stupid question, but who wrote it?

Doing a little search on the web, you could have found the answer :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

Ok, that just gave me the same answer as i found myself. The only author i have come up with is "Homer"
Sorry for the naivety, but i have never heard of the book, until now. I guess i should have worded my question better. So, basically noone really knows who wrote it?

 

[bngenoh]

Remembered reading in THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES by Manly P. Hall (1928) references to Homer and Odyssey but could not remember exactly the context. Doing a search revealed only a few references noted and here is what he states.

The Pythagoreans

The favorite method of healing among the Pythagoreans was by the aid of poultices. These people also knew the magic properties of vast numbers of plants. Pythagoras highly esteemed the medicinal properties of the sea onion, and he is said to have written an entire volume on the subject. Such a work, however, is not known at the present time. Pythagoras discovered that music had great therapeutic power and he prepared special harmonies for various diseases. He apparently experimented also with color, attaining considerable success. One of his unique curative processes resulted from his discovery of the healing value of certain verses from the Odyssey and the Iliad of Homer. These he caused to be read to persons suffering from certain ailments…

Of Ciphers

The acroamatic cipher. The religious and philosophical writings of all nations abound with acroamatic cryptograms, that is, parables and allegories. The acroamatic is unique in that the document containing it may be translated or reprinted without affecting the cryptogram. Parables and allegories have been used since remote antiquity to present moral truths in an attractive and understandable manner. The acroamatic cryptogram is a pictorial cipher drawn in words and its symbolism must be so interpreted. The Old and New Testaments of the Jews, the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, Virgil's Æneid, The Metamorphosis of Apuleius, and Æsop's Fables are outstanding examples of acroamatic cryptography in which are concealed the deepest and most sublime truths of ancient mystical philosophy.

The acroamatic cipher is the most subtle of all, for the parable or allegory is susceptible of several interpretations. Bible students for centuries have been confronted by this difficultly. They are satisfied with the moral interpretation of the parable and forget that each parable and allegory is capable of seven interpretations, of which the seventh--the highest--is complete and all-inclusive, whereas the other six (and lesser) interpretations are fragmentary, revealing but part of the mystery. The creation myths of the world are acroamatic cryptograms, and the deities of the various pantheons are only cryptic characters which, if properly understood, become the constituents of a divine alphabet. The initiated few comprehend the true nature of this alphabet, but the uninitiated many worship the letters of it as gods.

Speculating here a bit.

Since we know that sound affecta matter, and can even change ita structure in a clear macro way (Cymatics, etc), and we have established probabilities regarding the antiquity of The Odyssey, due to its structure, etc. The healing effects of certain verses from it, from my prespective, adds weight to the theory that we are dealing with the disjecta membra of a vanished civilization. A civilization that was much more efficient in its ways of doing all the things civilizations do. We are now only beggining to discover the mysteries of sound, and its effect on various systems.

Also, the structure of The Odyssey could also be why some of its verses may have a healing effect. Since music ("Ordered" sound) is number in time, the very structure of the verses, when sung may produce by someone who knows about it, and has the intent which is coded in the verses, delivers information to the person who is being sung to. A quote from Dr. Hyman is relevent "food is not just energy, food is also information". It is also interesting to note that all compunds have a specific "sound" or resonance that they produce as a consequence of their bonding with various atoms to form said compund. Take acetylcholine for example, you have receptors on the surface of your cell for this specific molecule and only this molecule, but what is interesting, is that if you "know" the resonant frequency or "sound" of acetylcholine and "play" that, the cell will behave as if the molecule is at the receptor and initiate the sequence of events relating to the uptake of acetylcholine.

Q: (L) Do thoughts produce gravity?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Does sound produce gravity?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Can sound manipulate gravity?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Can it be done with the human voice?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Can it be done tonally or by power through thought?
A: Both.
Q: (L) Then, is there also specific sound configurations involved?
A: Gravity is manipulated by sound when thought manipulated by gravity chooses to produce sound which manipulates
gravity. Q: (L) Now, did the fellow who built the Coral Castle spin in his airplane seat while thinking his manipulations into place?
A: No. He spun when gravity chose to manipulate him to spin in order to manipulate gravity.
Q: (L) Does gravity have consciousness?
A: Yes.

This Odyssey thread, is truly an "Odyssey". :D

 

[forge]

Hi,

I have been following this thread with an interest for a while as an admirer of Greek Myths. I would like to offer my take on center of the mosaic concept.

A: Maybe, but suggest you learn to blend mosaic
consciousness.
Q: (L) What is mosaic consciousness?
A: Thinking in internally spherical terms, rather than using
linear "point blank" approach. The whole picture is seen
by seeing the whole scene.
Q: (L) Well, I guess that is why I guess I get into so many
thought patterns...
A: Picture yourself as being at the center of a mosaic.

When I look at Odyssey, the only ones who see the whole scene seems to be gods, looking up to every detail, every event where Odysseus sets on his journey and his son talks to the participants of Trojan War. They see and observe everything.

However, there is another person with the same ability. It is Tiresias, the blind prophet who was dead and summoned by Odysseus in the underworld. He gave Odysseus valuable information about his journey ahead and warned him of dangers that lurk in the great sea.

Tiresias is an interesting character, in terms of how he obtained ability to see this whole scene. There are various versions:

Tiresias was blinded by Athena after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. His mother, Chariclo, a nymph of Athena, begged Athena to undo her curse, but the goddess could not; instead, she cleaned his ears, giving him the ability to understand birdsong, thus the gift of augury.

Tiresias = presence = Seer at the center of Mosaic?

This looks like patching up damage - so Athena won't have to face punishment later for abusing Tiresias too much. So Tiresias' soul can incarnate again from the Greek Underworld or maybe it is enough to have Tiresias as soul in the Underworld, because another member of his/her soul group, Odysseus, is fighting incarnated in the flesh.

Gods, so dramatic in their touchy-feely, hypnotically dazzling miracle-giving STS-influences, curiously always appear so careful, not to hurt humans too much, for fear of toppling universal balance. Not kill off too many incarnated humans, who share one key-soul group (Gods Food), holders of cosmic balance, keys for the Greek Pantheon-Members' continued STS existence, good human sheep. The C's mentioned Lizzies knowing they can't kill the human manifestation(s) of the presence, because it would mean their destruction. Also it seems the Gods and the Higher Selves of humans are two entirely separate sides of existence, like black and white..

_http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSIhgKwEVyChTW854iaw2X3uiDguF_nNEMoaFOAkrA81Tgp-zBtZw

.. it looks like the Gods fatal actions on human would somehow hurt the Higher Selves connected to humans. Like a tree-root is connected to a tall tree: too much damage to the human-tree-roots incarnated as bodies in 3rd Density, would bring retribution on the Godly heads of the Pantheon. Perhaps the intensification of weather, fighting in 4D means the Higher Selves were always retaliating for the action of Lizzies, depicted by Homer as Pantheon Gods, committed on us in 3D?

Maybe some of you would recommend to read Illiade just after The Odyssey? Or before? Does it have any "importance"

The Iliad comes before The Odyssey and describes the events of The Trojan War.

Way before I found Sott, I learned about hyperdimensional beings from The Iliad even though I didn't realize what I had been dealing with until I found this website and put 2 and 2 together.

From a human perspective, The Illiad is absolutely terrifying as petty, vain, out of control gods control everything. [..]

Yet, and this is what makes this book so special to me, is that in the broad strokes in which the poet creates the canvas of war, there is also celebration of and mourning for the individual. While the gods are petty and care only for themselves, there is a quality of nobility in the suffering of both the Trojans and the Greeks of which the gods seem incapable.

[..]

In The Iliad rules of civilization and culture disintegrate and fall apart.

But this is not so in The Odyssey where justice and balance is being restored.

Maybe the lessons that we need to learn right now are in The Odyssey which is why Laura chose to have us study it now instead of The Iliad.

But later, if you have time, yes I do think it is important and recommend that you read it.


Edit=Quotes

The Iliad seems be then perfect example of showing consequences of wholesale destruction, fall of civilization, apocalypse. As if Homer first wanted to show the worst can happen in the Iliad. Then with Odyssey he seems to attempt coach the audience how to avoid apocalypse. By handing them a survival book. Tiresias recommends Odysseus to leave Helios' cattle alone and in the prophecies given to Odysseus say basically leave everything alone that belongs to the Gods.

Maybe the Odyssey is implying how to avoid the pesky Gods entirely, their machinations once and for all and live in peace, this time not for Gods sake? Re-establish contact with our Higher Selves (and by Higher Selves i mean definitely not the Greek Pantheon-Gang) and claim our birthright in the domain of Gods in 4D? From the perspective of humans remaining in 3rd density, under the red skies continuing as cave persons, members of this soul group becoming hatchling "gods" in 4D? The C's said by incarnating into 4D would level the playing field. Bad news for the Lizzies if that happens.

Penelope tells Odysseus:

Book 23,

320

“And so,” Penelope said, in her great wisdom,

“if the gods will really grant a happier old age,
there’s hope that we’ll escape our trials at last.”

 

[Eva]

This thread is amazing.
I'm still only on page 17 and since I keep diverting to the abundant sources mentioned it will take me a while to finish the whole thread. So I wanted to add my thanks for the wealth of information posted, mainly to Laura - the various book quotes are incredibly interesting, and your comments on them are very very helpful in understanding them - and also to everyone else's insightful contributions.
Amazing food for thought here!

On a side note, I read the Odyssey in high school and although I keep a copy of it and live in an environment where the story is quite 'real' and still part of contemporary art and even everyday quotes I never returned to the story proper. I suspect that feeling overly familiar with it made me blind to the fact that I probably don't know the first thing about it. It's high time to do that now. Thank you for the incentive.

 

[3DStudent]

I'm way behind on this thread, but found something that may be helpful. Sorry if it has been posted. It's a sparknotes 20 minute cartoon video summary of the Odyssey. Here are the links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

 

[Tigersoap]

I've been reading Marie-Louise von Franz book "Alchemy" and from what I understand some passages struck me as having a correlation to the odyssey osit.
I thought that the Nigredo state is quite often lived by Odysseus, the omnipresent theme of water and the washing of the bodies, the circular story repeating itself, the union of a long separated couple...
I may be finding correlations where there are none but I thought I would mention it.

 

[Meager1]

Just wanted to share this description of "Calypso`s island" on which Odysseus spent those seven years, since this identifies it as a place that is a whole lot more then the "rock" out in the sea, I "envisioned it" to have been..

"The oldest of all the great temples of the archipelago, the Ggantija(?), stands on a hill
on Gozo. None of the later shrines reaped the colossal proportions of this building.
Its grey stone masses dominate the landscape, which falls away in long folds and furrows down to the rugged coast. The great curving facade faces the rising sun and looks towards Malta, which is separated from Gozo only by an arm of the sea; a self-contained world which does not look outward.

Gozo had no part in the history which gave its neighboring island the palaces and fortresses of the Knights of St. John, and made it a British naval base.
It lies intact and dreaming, listening to the unchanging voices of wind and wave.
It seems still to preserve something of the spell of vanished ages. When the crumbling temple of the islands original inhabitants had grown strange and unintelligible to new settlers, and new names had long since been given to the mother of mankind and goddess of the dead, Gozo still kept its myths and became the legendary realm of Calypso, the daughter of Oceanus.

In a coral-colored sickle-shaped bay carved out of the sloping shore behind the Ggantija visitors are still shown the cave of the beautiful nymph who, according to the legend, caused Odysseus to forget his home for seven years.

In the magic quiet of midday, when the red sea-smoothed sand burns the feet and
glimmers of sunlight dart across the blue forests of seaweed at the bottom of the glassy sea, the bay still belongs to Calypso. Within her magic cave she takes form as one of the many manifestations of the Great Mother - who, perhaps, was once worshiped in the huge, cave-like temple above. Gozo has always been an island of goddesses, not of gods.

The people of Gozo may have preserved obscure memories of the great female ruler
of the Ggantija. According to one of their legends, the temple was built not by a man, but by a woman with a baby at her breast. Strengthened by a meal of magic beans, she is said to have taken the huge blocks of stone to the site in a single day, and then to have built the walls by night.

In contrast to the southern temple, the front oval-shaped chamber is the bigger.
This second shrine remained the pattern for all the subsequent sacred buildings of this Maltese culture. Both temples are surrounded by a thick layer of earth and rubble; that round the southern temple is shaped like a pentagon, while that round its neighbor is surprisingly reminiscent of the shape of many tumuli over megalithic tombs in north-western Europe.
The whole complex is surrounded by a megalithic-Cyclopean outer wall.

This does not, as in the case of earlier structures, consist of rocks laid on top of one another with no attempt at coursing, but has a base of squarely laid slabs - the biggest measures five yards by four - between which smaller rocks, with their narrow side outwards, were inserted like wedges, a new method of construction which gave the walls extra stability. On this base longish blocks were laid in courses, overhanging slightly on the inner side, as if they were the beginning of corbelling.

The inner walls were built in the old, primitive fashion of rocks of different sizes, but
their irregularity is evened out by a thick layer of mortar. Numerous traces of color
show that the walls were once painted red.

The building of the Ggantija must have made incredible demands on the inhabitants of the island. Some of the megaliths used are as big as cottages and weigh forty or fifty tons.
Stone balls which were used as rollers to shift them are still to be found lying about in the neighborhood of the temple. Just as the building of medieval cathedrals was the work of many generations and was spread over centuries, so must this shrine have required the labor of the whole population for nearly five hundred years.
Like a cathedral, it must have seemed a symbol of security and eternity.

Nothing in the sacred buildings of the archipelago points to any worship of the heavenly bodies; there is no trace of any sun or moon cult.
These buildings belong essentially to the most ancient telluric religions of the Near Eastern-Mediterranean world.

A kind of throne made of stones from a stream bed was evidently intended for an ancestral spirit or god of death, whose head was also found. On the back of this seat there was the drawing of a snake. In Mesopotamia, as in Crete, the snake that creeps out of the earth was a symbol of the Great Mother.
Very ancient Near Eastern idols sometimes show her with a snake s head on a woman s body. A representation in relief of an erect snake was found on a block at the Ggantija, and the same theme occurs on menhirs in Brittany.

No human sacrifices were made in the "holy islands"; libations were poured, and the only sacrifices were animals. What other ritual took place in the red twilight of the round chambers of the Ggantija can be only conjectured. The magic color of ochre, which for countless thousands of years had been believed to give life to the dead, must have made the temples seem like tombs in which the dead were very near the worshipers.
The Ggantija was certainly the religious and spiritual center on which the whole life of the little island of Gozo was based, the abode of forces on which both this life and the next depended.

As the small size and poverty of the islands bore no relation to the huge dimensions of their shrines, it is tempting to regard them as having been a kind of ancient Mediterranean Delphi - a forerunner of the original Delphi dedicated, not to the cult of Apollo, but to a female, subterranean power, that of the great snake Delphine, whose name conceals an archaic word for the womb. The god of light did not prevail at Delphi until he had slain the serpent with his arrows. No such transition from an ancient tellurian to a uranian religion took place on Malta and Gozo.
But oracles are generally closely associated with subterranean powers, and the oracle of Delphi was older than Apollo; the consultation of oracles seems to have been a feature of the ancient Maltese cult.

There are also indications that the sick and infirm went to the shrines to be healed and that, as in classical times, people used to sleep in them in order to enter into communion in dream with the powers of the underworld and to obtain counsel, predictions about the future, or relief from suffering."

 

[cubbex]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Could Athena symbolize the higher intellect and Zeus the laws of consciousness?

Like the gut feelings? I think it relates. Athena as a filter for Zeus commands.

 

[ana]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Could Athena symbolize the higher intellect and Zeus the laws of consciousness?

Like the gut feelings? I think it relates. Athena as a filter for Zeus commands.

Well, I relate "gut feelings" with instinct, which would be a fast way of knowing without reaching complete comprehension of what is happening, on the other hand the higher intellect may give us an exact and complete knowledge and so the hability to act accordingly to the specific situation, osit.