The ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia were thought to have been wrapped in imagination, tainted with fantasy. But these ancient ideas allow us to abstract anything from concrete, imaginative forms. We produce this speculative thought that is intuitive, a visionary mode of apprehension. This way of thinking transcends experience, attempting to unify and order experience. Trying to remove problems of experience, speculation connects the problems and tries to explain them. Today, we do not allow speculative thought; it is severely limited to the instrument of science. Interpreting experiences has lost the marvels of fascination. Henri Frankfurt questions, “Where, then, is speculative thought allowed to range today?” (Frankfort 12). Humans speculate their nature, their values, and their destiny. On the subject of their self, humans will uncontrollably speculate.
Looking to the ancient Near East, or South-West Asia, we notice a realm of nature and human were not distinguished. Society did exist, they always saw man as part of society, but it was one with nature dependent on cosmic forces. Nature and human did not stand in opposition, they were one. In the modern world, we see the phenomenal world as an “It,” but for the ancient world, man saw the world as “Thou.” The best way to explain these unique qualities is with the two modes of cognition: the relation between subject and object and the relation that exists when understanding another living being. Differing the “It” and “Thou” hovers between active judgement and passive impression; intellectual and emotional. Frankfort quotes, “’Thou’ is a live presence, whose qualities and potentialities can be made somewhat articulate – not as a result of active inquiry but because “Thou,” as a presence, reveals itself” (Frankfort 13). Using the term “Thou” is seen as transparent, it is sincere and honest. When looking at an object, the “It,” can be scientifically related to other objects; it abides by universal law which makes them predictable. “Thou” cannot be understood through science. Instead, “Thou” is experienced emotionally. The ancient people didn’t see the world as inanimate, the world is being seen as life confronting life.
The ancient people still questioned the ‘why,’ ‘how,’ the ‘where from,’ and the ‘where to.’ Humans confronted nature and gave expression to the experience. “Thou” is experienced as highly individual. The early man viewed happenings as individual events. These accounts of their experiences were told through stories instead of an analysis to draw a conclusion. For example, today when we experienced a drought being broken by rainfall due to atmospheric changes. The Babylonian people would thank the gigantic bird Imdugud for replenishing their rivers by bringing rain clouds to their land. Their myths weren’t intended for entertainment, but instead they represented their existence. At the time of art and literature, these mythical, experiences were traditional, engrained in their society. “The imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a carefully chosen cloak for abstract thought” (Frankfort 15). Myth must be taken seriously, it reveals an unverifiable truth, a metaphysical truth. Myth is a form of poetry, in fact, it transcends poetry in that it proclaims truth. A form of action, of ritual behavior, which does not find fulfillment in the act.
Speculating the ancient Near East may lead to negative results but seeing their ways of thinking as mythopoetic thought may engrain this way of thinking. Humans recognized their transcendental problems. They recognized their origin, telos, the invisible order of justice, mores, and they connect these invisible orders with the visible orders. Myth was their language; myth was their way of teaching. We must view this ancient way of thinking as intentions, if not of their performance. Creation is imagined by analogy with human conditions. “Creation is then seen conceived as birth; and the simplest form is the postulate of a primeval couple as the parents of all that exists” (17). For Egyptians, the Greeks, the Maoris, the earth and sky were the primeval pair, the true creators. These parental figures now have the have this ability to create. A Great Mother, that could imitate a goddess, as in Greece, or it could imitate a demon in ancient Babylonia. In Egypt, the god, Atum, started the creation of the cosmos out of chaos. These stories of creation remain in the realm of myth, even though speculation is perceived.
These Near East cultures remained curious of the phenomenal world. Frankfort mentions that their intellectual judgement does not apply to mythopoetic thought. Instead, these ancient people expressed their emotional thought through time, space, and number. They had the ability to reason logically, but it served no purpose at the time. These modern intellectual values did not fit compatibly with their significant experience of reality. This pre-logical mode of thinking referred to magic or religious practice, recognized as highly emotional acts. “The basic distinction of modern thought is that between subjective, and objective” (19). This modern scientific thought is critical and analytical that reduces the individual’s phenomena to simple universal laws. We see the sun rise and the sun set because we know that Earth revolves around the sun, a Heliocentric model. We see colors, but we see them through wave-lengths. Frankfort quotes, “We dream of a dead relative, but we think of that distinct vision as a product of our subconscious mind” (20). Ancient civilizations didn’t have the ability to solve these events that all humans perceive. The distinction between subjective and objective knowledge is meaningless to these people, same with the contrast between reality and appearance. Whatever affected the mind or will was an undoubted reality for these people. Frankfort questions that there is no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions. Dreams affect us when we are sleeping but also have profound effects when we are awake. We can also argue that hallucinations are also real. Dreams, ordinary vision, and hallucinations had no sharp distinction. Just like the living and the dead, we still have continued relationship with the dead that lingers long after their passing.
Symbols share these same qualities. They are signifying and yet separate from the objects being compared. These symbols are separated from gods or powers, but we still draw a relationship in the mind. This figure of thought, pars pro toto, “a part can stand for the whole,” can refer to a name, a lock of hair, a certain smell, or even a simple shadow can be seen as a symbol that is significant to the human. It may confront the person with a “Thou,” bearing physiognomy of its owner. For example, in ancient Egypt, bowls had inscriptions of names of hostile tribes and their rulers from Palestine, Libya, and Nubia. Smashing these bowls was a common action at funerals and was perceived that these people should die. But we can’t see this as a symbolic action. The Egyptians felt real harm was done to the enemies by the destruction of their names. Today we see the difference between an act or a symbolic performance. But to the ancient people, this was meaningless. Imagination was acknowledged as existing in reality, it is unable to leave the scope of the concrete and renders its own concepts as existing realities. This leaning towards concreteness is found through the primitive conception of death. Frankfort quotes, “Death is not, as for us, an event – the act or fact of dying, as Webster has it. It is somehow a substantial reality” (23). The Egyptian Pyramid Texts a description of the beginning of things which states: “When heaven had not yet come into existence, when men had not yet come into existence, when gods had not yet been born, when death had not yet come into existence…” (23). Life is considered endless. It is opposed to death. Only the intervention of another phenomenon, death, makes an end to life.
Causality, the distinction between the subjective and objective. This modern thinking reduces the chaos of perception through science. A primitive thought often recognizes the relationship between cause and effect, but they did not recognize our view of an impersonal, mechanical, and lawlike functioning of causality. We now recognize true causes, ignoring the immediate sensation. Newton discovered the concept of gravity. He took three accounts of phenomena that are unrelated to the perceptive viewer: the free fall of objects, the movement of the planets, and the alternation of the tides. Our modern thinking of causality would not satisfy the ancient civilizations, mainly due to the impersonal character of these explanations. Today, we may explain that certain physiological processes cause a man’s death. But the ancient human would see this differently. Frankfort quotes, “Primitive man asks: Why should this man die thus at this moment?” (Frankfort 25). The modern human would simply say that death will always occur, but the ancient human would want to the specific reasons why that person died. This way their death would be analyzed with a complexity that only exists on a personal level. This relates to the ‘why’ to the ‘who,’ but does not question the ‘how.’ Death is considered with a detachment as a state of being, a substance inherent in all who are dead or about to die. “But death, considered emotionally is the act of hostile will” (Frankfort 25). There is a similarity when interpreting sin or illness. When someone gets a fever, it is caused by hot matters entering a person’s body. But that heat was caused by the will of the man, his body as an evil spirit. When this personification of evil gains question, it becomes the focus of attention, the stimulation of imagination. We could say that the gods give reason to the ancient man to give reason and understanding to things to understand the phenomenal world. We can see this through some modern African civilizations and ancient Egyptian’s enthroning people to power. The throne is empowered with a fetishism charged with the mysterious power of kingship. This process of personification affects a human’s attitude to a limited extent. Like Isis, the sky goddess Nut, was considered as a loving goddess. They painted life-sized figures of the goddess in their coffins, reassuring a safe ascent to heaven. We are more inclined to take explanations more seriously than what facts they explain. Egyptians had inconsistencies and sometimes doubted their ability to think clearly. This attitude is sheer presumption. “Natural phenomena, whether or not they were personified and became gods, confronted ancient man with a living presence, a significant “Thou….” (Frankfort 29). We then carry a burden of expression and significance through our flexibility in thought and language. Objects and nature have the ability to be perceived through a variety of viewpoints. But the procedure of the mythopoetic mind in expressing a phenomenon can create unconnected avenues towards approach. This causality that we seek to discover identical causes for identical effects throughout the phenomenal world becomes inevitable.
As modern thought establishes causes in abstract, functional relations between phenomena, so it views space as a mere system of relations and functions. Today, space is seen to be infinite, continuous, and homogenous. Ancient civilizations could not abstract a concept of space from its experience of space. Frankfort quotes, “The special concepts of the primitive are concrete orientations; they refer to localities which have an emotional color; they may be familiar or alien, hostile, or friendly” (Frankfort 30). However, primeval hills and temples do not measure the significance that the sacredness that the locality had assumed. For the Egyptians, the dead had the ability to become reborn within the tombs of the ancient pyramids. The royal tombs were shaped to represent the primeval hill, scattered over several sites to show the overwhelmingly important aspects. This phenomenon called coalescence in space. The connection between space and time is that they are qualitative and concrete. Ancient civilizations saw time through nature, not through the idea of time. They saw the aging of human life, the rising and setting of the sun, and seasonal changes. These dramatic cosmic events did not leave man as a mere spectator. The man accompanies the principles of nature with appropriate events. Both in Egypt and Babylonia, the New Year was an occasion of elaborate celebrations. In these festivals, humans participated in the life of nature. This connection between social and cosmic events allowed humans to arrange their lives. Frankfort quotes, “… there are certain ‘regions’ or time which are withdrawn from direct experience and the greatly stimulate speculative thought. They are the distant past and the future” (Frankfort 35). When man was faced by intellectual problems, they faced no critical judgments. Instead, the ancient people face complex images. The mythopoetic thought is imbedded in nature and the natural processes are affected by the acts of man. The experiencing of this unity with the utmost intensity was the greatest good ancient oriental religion could bestow.
Frankfort, H. (1971) Before philosophy: the intellectual adventure of ancient man. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.