Astral myth
In the course of the upswing in comparative myth research in the second half of the 19th century, especially in Germany and England, the term astral myth was initially used to describe the Babylonian and ancient Egyptian heavenly myths and cosmologies , but also the myths of Genesis . Later the term was used for all projections of historical and anthropological facts into an eternal, unhistorical heavenly world. An astral myth is thus the epitome of the mystification of earthly events through their transcendence into the realm of cosmic speculation. Conversely, all events on earth are then only images of the eternal happenings in nature and the cosmos, which must be interpreted by priests and astrologers .
Ernst Bloch contrasts the “inhuman” astral myth with the Logos myth of the emancipating humanity. B. manifested in the Exodus myth . Here the circular gaze, which only ever recognizes the eternal return of the same in the cosmos, is replaced by the evolutionary gaze towards the front.
Individual evidence
- ↑ So above all Eduard Stucken , Astral Myths of the Hebrews, Babylonians and Egyptians , 5 volumes, Leipzig 1896–1907; ders .: Contributions to oriental mythology , Berlin 1902
literature
- Ernst Bloch, Vom Geist der Utopie , Werkausgabe Vol. 3, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 1985 (first 1918/1923).