With myth, Wagner was one of the first to realise that saga and legend were
not simply erroneous scientific explanations, and hence irrelevant to the
modern world, but rather had their own code of meaning that was able to express
profound and important ideas in a popular and interesting way. In his books
he expounds with unprecedented insight the psychic import of myth and of
dreams, and the use of symbols, and the function of all these things as
alternative languages of unconscious feeling, and hence their unique
significance for art. Wagner's theory of opera tried to bring the resources
of drama, poetry, instrumental music, song, acting, gesture, costumes and
scenery all combined into a theatrical presentation of myth to an audience
of all the people. Music drama would be about the insides of characters,
it would be concerned with their emotions, not their motives, it would
explore and articulate the ultimate reality of experience, what goes on
in the heart and soul. In this kind of drama the externals of plot and
social relationships would be reduced to a minimum. Its chief requirement
was for situations which remained unchanged long enough for the characters'
full inner experience of them, and response to them, to be expressed. Myth
was ideal for this, because it dealt in archetypal situations and because its
universal validity, regardless of space and time, meant that the dramatist
could almost dispense with a social and political context, and present as
it were "pure", the inner drama.
This theme was developed by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung when he discovered
images in his patients' dreams corresponded to universal archetypes - symbols
expressing or representing basic features of the human psyche - that could be
found in the worlds' myths. This universality of myth was developed by
Levi-Strauss who argued that the "primitive" was in fact capable of very
profound thought and argument, but this was expressed in the language of myth
and hence usually incomprehensible to western thought.
Roland Barthes conceived a different role of myth, perhaps closer to the
everyday phrase "its a myth that..." which makes it synonymous with
misunderstanding, error and mistake. This was the view that certain
apparently 'natural' and 'innocent' symbols within our society in fact
represent a completely different reality to the one they portray. In
his book 'Mythologies', Barthes shows popular images such as the cover of
"Paris-Match' to reveal a more sinister message when the components of their
meaning are analysed. It was also Barthes who observed that it is not the
author who determines the meaning and message of his of her book but the
reader and critic (hence the phrase "Death of the Author"). Hence in general
meaning occurs not within some 'natural' symbol but within the whole
semiotic social system, 'myth' is that which appears natural but which in
reality is a social construct. It finds its meaning 'in the heads' of the
social agents, not inherently within the material used, and hence is a form
of legitimisation for social values in that it represents society's values
not to have been the result of a decision but natural and hence unquestionable.
Barthes' theory if myth is similar to Karl Marx's theory of commodity
fetishism, where in capitalist society everything appears to have a "natural"
value, but in reality value is generated by labour power, and it is only
the amount of abstract labour power required to produce the object that
gives it value. Once again the contrast is between the natural and the
social, where the natural meaning 'hides' the social meaning.
Thus we notice two things from this analysis of myth: firstly man produces
symbols and images to express himself and his society, indeed it is impossible
to speak without using metaphors and figures of speech. Secondly that these
symbols are given meaning primarily within the current society and function
according to existing forces within society. But there is not just one
system of meaning within society, there are many various explanations for
various phenomena, and it is notoriously difficult to 'translate' from one
to the other (e.g. from Marx to Freud, Catholic to Protestant, Hans Kung to
Karl Barth, African to European, Middle Ages to Modern, Eastern Medicine
to Western Medicine etc) but if communication is required, translation is
a necessity, however difficult and even though the translation is as much
the work of the 'translator' as the 'original author' (e.g. Heidegger translating
the pre-Socratics, Lacan translating Freud, Marcuse translating the early
Marx, Bultmann translating Heidegger into theology, Barthes translating
Saussure into literary theory etc).
Thus the problem of 'truth' outside the text arises. Clearly this is impossible,
for every 'truth' needs expression, and it is necessary to enter into that
system of expression to 'perceive' the truth (for example the 'texts' of
acupuncture and western medicine are very different, there is not a single
totalizing, unifying medical text, as yet, and even if one was chosen it
wouldn't be the only one possible; another example is Medieval philosophy
and modern philosophy - they are both concerned with logic, but the difference
in the notations used have meant that it is only recently the links between
the two have been appreciated; one final example is the different mathematical
notations possible, for example Newton's and Leibnitz's different notations
for calculus). This doesn't result in relativism but continuous movement
and recreation, also deconstruction, as we become conscious of the
presuppositions contained in our meanings (semiotic theory). Indeed the
whole problem of 'regemes of truth' becomes clear: what is the 'correct'
style for theology ? a parable, a systematic treatise ? Are there levels
theology applies itself to ? Is theology possible in any medium - film,
video, a computerised Artificial Intelligence ? an Theological Expert
System ? Is Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' a better study of politics than
a treatise on Government ?
The point of myth is that truth is just another discourse with its own
rules that need to be understood before its meaning is made present. To
hear the sanctuary doctrine without understanding the system of meaning
within which it works is to try to understand a Frenchman without speaking
French, except that here we have an historical discourse, for there are
no pioneers present for us to interrogate, to whom we may address questions
and thus begin to establish a system of translation (and indeed to suppose
that simple interrogation would make present all his presuppositions is
to presume that he or she could articulate them at all). Thus what is required
is a systematic reading of the text, treating the text as symptom whose
cause needs divining. The semiotic system of the sanctuary is just another
discourse whose rules of communication and meaning must be learnt.
The "Parsifal" myth is understandable only within its own terms, it
contains its own explanation, and to speak about it at all, one needs to
enter its terms of reference and understand how its text functions.
The point of myth is that whereas with science we break down the complex
whole into simple parts, it is a process of dismantling e.g. within
sociology we apply a functional or structural framework, we inspect the
parts - the family, the organisation etc - then we explain these in
simpler, more general, more general terms. With myth, every explanation
is also a complication, the explanation is an ascending/ descending building
up and breaking down, where no one view is final, there is always more than
can be said, there is no final meaning - the ineffable nature of Being,
the radically unsayable.
Dowling , in his "Althusser, Jameson, Marx" (1984), makes a number of
important remarks about texts and meta-texts, interpretations of
interpretations, and by translating into an older language, (I mean
language of the 1960s) on myth. One very interesting example is his
narrative form of parables (p. 98) but I wish to look at his discussion
of the meta-code of Deleuze and Guattari. The basic point being discussed
is whether every explanation necessarily impoverishes the original text.
Jameson is arguing that while this may be generally true, in certain
instances it is not so, in particular the medieval system does not
display this tendency:
"Jameson's points about this system will be (1) that in the mediaval scheme
each level generates the next as a new or further level of meaning, and
(2) that it does so through allegory conceived as ideological investment,
in Althusser's sense of ideology as the ways in which men imagine their
relationship to the "transpersonal" catagories of society and history...
allegory is an impoverishment only when it insists on a one-to-one
equivalence between interpretation and text... the allegorical level of
medieval exegesis does not impoverish in this way because the individual to
whose life story it reduces the Old Testament is Christ... thus the
allegorical level cannot stop with itself but immediately generates a
third level of meaning... thus interpretation becomes, in the system of
the Church Fathers, a means of ascending from the dusty wanderings of the
Jews to a vision of the collective destiny of humankind". (p.111)
"What a tide of guiltless blood must flow about the sanctuary, till it was
a sanctuary no more ! Little wonder if the inhabitants of Jerusalem took
to flight, leaving their city to strangers; mother so unnatural her own
children must forsake. Her sanctuary a desert solitude, her feasts all
lament, her Sabbaths derided, her greatness brought low !"
(1 Macc 1:39-42)
This loss of the law, loss of the Sabbath "profanation of the sanctuary...
till the law be forgotten" (1 Macc 1:49-52) as clear echoes in our own
day, and the pioneers did well to note the connection between the times
of Maccabees and our own day. Yet of course they expressed themselves
within their own language, the Millerite terminology, the ideology of
a specific religious conjuncture, with a problematic that did not allow
the text to stray from the King James. In our time we may follow the entry
they made, we may continue on the path where they stopped, and bring to
completion what may be found. "the king's envoys published this edict:
men must live by the law of the heathen round about, burnt sacrifice,
offering and atonement in God's temple should be none, nor Sabbath day
kept nor feast day" (1 Macc 1:47-50).
This is a period of history we would do well to study, with the example of
Israel when the law and Sabbath were forbidden, and observance of the law
punishable by death. What a strange order that calls this interpretation
non-Adventist ! All of Machabees is about Adventism, its whole history a
parable of the church, a "myth", a "story" a "saga" for us to read of our
own problems and to draw strength for our own struggles.
The meaning of the Adventist sanctuary doctrine is to move the ceremonial
into the eternal, the coming of Christ was the fulfilling of religion as
a human activity and correctly Adventism has no priests etc. Christianity
is not a religion but the revelation of God (as Karl Barth showed). Unlike
Barth, however, we do not downgrade human activities within the work of
salvation (because the question of individual salvation is the necessary
consequence of the eternal, individual soul, whereas Christianity teaches
love of ones neighbours, collective salvation). Human activities are an
expression of full humanness and thus an acknowledgement of the authority
of the law.
The sanctuary is bound up with the renewal of the Sabbath and the law
(see I Macc 4 on the cleansing of the sanctuary). Hence we understand the
explanation of the 'new-phase' as the change, after 2000 years, from the
loss of Being, the phallocentrism, the logocentrism, this whole movement
of thought whereby the metaphysics, the presuppositions of Aristotelian,
Enlightenment philosophies the whole western world view were radically
questioned. This is pictured in the symbolism of the restoration of the
sanctuary, which brings with it the remberance of the Sabbath and the law.
Thus we see this rupture in the historical destining disclosure
of Being, at the time of Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard (the last metaphysicians)
the implications of which were understood by Heidegger and Derrida but
the theological implications were only thinly understood (Adventism was a
shepherd in the desert who noticed a light on the horizon and understood
something significant had happened, but lacked the language to explain
what that event was). Thus:
We reject Brindsmead for falling into logocentrism and phallocentrism,
the errors of the western tradition for 2000 years.
We reject the call to give up the sanctuary doctrine and deny its
literalness.
We adhere absolutely to the objective, concrete historical disclosure
whose mystery and ineffible truth were witnessed by Adventism.
The task now is to theorise correctly what they bore witness to, in a
rigorous and analytically correct manner. We refer to the early church
of Ellen White and the pioneers as the witnesses, it is up to the
organised church now to articulate in a clear and specific manner what
it was that they witnessed.
© John Mann 1981