The unknown has fascinated mankind for generations. It binds humans together, on a morally “higher” level. Yet, across continents and parted by oceans, each civilization has taken on its own interpretations of deities and monsters, but still, are bound together by the same thread of suspended disbelief to bring worship to the all-powerful forces working for or against them. Mysticism connects us, on a level of unexplainable and profound connections, chiefly by using its most powerful tool of all: storytelling.
The most organized form of mysticism comes in the shape of religion. The main character in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi explores this kind of magic in many different ways. Despite serious insistence that such a set of religious beliefs like his cannot exist, Piscine “Pi” Molitor Patel believes in and follows three different religions: Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. It was through each religion that he found another to follow. Piscine was raised a Hindu by his family and surrounding culture as an Indian. Through travels and curiosity though, Pi came to accept his other views on faith. Considering that he began a Hindu, a religion with millions of gods and spirits, believing in two more would not be that difficult task. At the same time, the Christian and Muslim God are both solitary gods, and contradict the Hindu beliefs of there being millions. Despite the seemingly impossible existence of this faith, Pi practices all three as a true devote. His religion is not limited by the confines of one belief, but by the many different forms of religion that have crossed boundaries. As Pi sees it “Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hi...
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...end. Everyday, the mighty fable grows and continues, and will go on to do so until the end of time. This is what holds humans together on the deepest level: our great urge to have a page in the story of life.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor, 1994. Print.
Dead Poets Society. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, 1989. DVD.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. Print.
Jack The Giant Slayer. Dir. Bryan Singer. Perf. Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, and Stanley Tucci. New Line Cinema, 2013. DVD.
Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.
The Princess and the Frog = La Princesse Et La Grenouille. Walt Disney Studios, 2010. DVD.
Shakespeare, William, and John Wilders. Macbeth. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Sleeping Beauty. Dir. Walt Disney. Disney, 1959.
In all of human history, people have written about inhuman beings, many of which include gods, demons, wizards, sorcerers, sorceresses, and witches. Nowadays mystical beings are seen everywhere in media. Most of society stopped believing in these creatures years ago, but for 17th-century Salem, witchcraft became a living nightmare (Fremon, 1999).
film. There is no princess in the film but, at the end of the film,
Beowulf and Grendel, Dir. Sturla Gunnarson. Perf. Gerard Butler and Sarah Polly. Anchor Bay Entertainment Inc., 2005. DVD.
From before the dawn of civilization as we know it, humanity has formed myths and legends to explain the natural world around them. Whether it is of Zeus and Hera or Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-mikoto, every civilization and culture upon this world has its own mythos. However, the age of myth is waning as it is overshadowed in this modern era by fundamental religion and empirical science. The word myth has come to connote blatant falsehood; however, it was not always so. Our myths have reflected both the society and values of the culture they are from. We have also reflected our inner psyche, conscious and unconscious, unto the fabric of our myths. This reflection allows us to understand ourselves and other cultures better. Throughout the eons of humanity’s existence, the myths explain natural phenomena and the cultural legends of the epic hero have reflected the foundations and the inner turmoil of the human psyche.
times we have been fascinated with all sorts of tales about monsters and intrigued by myths and
world of mysticism, a world fraught with peril. First you must study the basic subjects, those
Through studies such as comparative mythology, researchers and philosophers have discover hundreds of parallels between the myths that make up every culture, including their creation myths. As most are deeply rooted in religion, comparisons based on geographic area, themes, and similar story lines emerge as religions form and migrate. Campbell recognized these similarities an...
“The Tortoise and the Hare” (Disney 1934). YouTube.com. Youtube, 17 June 2010 Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Mythology has been present throughout human civilization to provide a sense of awe, wonder, and fear. According to Joseph Campbell’s The Need for New Myths, a myth offers gratitude or rapture to reveal a comprehensive image of man’s universe and his place within the world. In the novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, magic and religion reassemble human struggles into a relatable, yet awe inducing myth. The sensation of wonder, surprise, or fear induces a feeling of self-insignificance at the vastness of the universe. To accommodate for this overwhelming experience, a person undergoes catharsis where their mental schemata is reset. In this release of emotions, one accepts their place in the universe and becomes a better self. Dunstan and Paul rely on religion and magic for the mending of a traumatized childhood. The reenactment of the Christian Faust legend in the magic act portrays the eternal struggle of good versus evil in humanity. Eisengrim, as an allusion to Jesus, provides wonder and release to his audience. In Fifth Business, Magic and religion both reconstruct everyday experiences to provide catharsis in wonder.
On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which story he or she thinks is true, but rather what story he or she thinks is the better story. In real life, this applies in a very similar way to common belief systems and religion. Whether or not God is real or a religion is true is not exactly the point, but rather whether someone chooses to believe so because it adds meaning and fulfillment to his or her life. Life of Pi is relevant to life in its demonstration of storytelling as a means of experiencing life through “the better story.”
We all go through things. Sometimes it even has such a strong impact that it changes our lives forever. I didn’t always have it so easy growing up. I was born with vocal cord paralysis, which caused me to have a soft, hoarse, and breathy voice. I was short, I was skinny. Despite these things, I was a happy kid with a normal life. I was a cheerleader. However, something happened when I was just 9 years old. Something that changed me forever. In "The Year of Magical Thinking," Joan Didion states “life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.” She means that things happen when you least expect it. No one expected it, but I was diagnosed with scoliosis. This medical condition took a huge toll on my life.
To think about Christian mysticism as a whole, only one thing comes to mind, the direct experience of God. It represents an experience that is marked by love and joy, but is perceived to not be so emotional, but more intimate. It is not a religion, but an important component in all-practicing religions. It represents a level of consciousness that results in a need for one to have a direct relationship with God. The mystic rarely questions the goodness and value of his experience. Consequently, if he or she receives new information, it is not to be questioned because it is believed to come directly from God. This is the reason that many religious...
In modern times, "mysticism" has acquired a finite definition, but an extensive application, as meaning the thing at the "union with the Absolute, the Unlimited, or God". This limited definition has been applied to incorporate a worldwide range involving religious traditions and also practices. Since this 1960s, a scholarly debate has been ongoing in this scientific research involving "mystical experiences" concerning perennial and constructionist solutions.
Even the most ardent disbeliever cannot deny the facts of reality, the effects that religions have had on the art and culture of different ages. Despite the truth that hardly anyone believes in the Greek pantheon and relatively few in current religious trends including Christianity, the immense proliferation of art with religious themes is more than enough evidence to indicate the effects of faiths on many cultural levels. In the same sense, though people may not believe in Paradise Lost-or the Bible-as accounts of true events in the history of the world as we know it, it offers a lens, or perhaps a mirror, by which we can explore the world of Milton, of Christianity, of the English language. Whether or not one believes in a certain philosophy or doctrine or story, it is irrational to deny the effects of those on individuals and societies. Such is the case with Paradise Lost.