When I visited Greece in 2008, the Oracle of Delphi was described to us by our guide as a political invention used to govern the vast Greek territory, which back then encompassed much more than present Greece. The institution, the oracle system and its divinations, have been gone now for almost two thousand years, and all that is left is beautiful ruins and a museum, a fancy background for poets and hikers.
The Oracle in ancient times decided the fate of Greece through its riddles, which were known for hundreds of years before Homer, over a thousand years before Christ. For most of those years, the Oracle was not the institution it came to be though, which by the Roman invasion resembled an organized religion, with its priests, Pythonesses and treasuries. Before all of that, there was only a direct contact with a mysterious presence on that beautiful Mount Parnassus, which throughout centuries has never stopped attracting people's imaginations to that particular place. Today's scientists are explaining it as the hallucinogenic effect of tectonic fumes, which are released periodically through cracks provoked by ancient quakes, but the point is, we are still talking about it.
As an institution with such long history, the oracle surely had its moments of political corruption, but I have to wonder, what actually happened during the first hundreds of years of its life? What was that place to humans who, specially during those early stages in our development, when the mind was still young and simple, were so much closer to the earth itself? Humans then had a different relationship with nature at large and their own, to Gaia, who seems to have been obvious to all the inhabitants of the planet at this stage. We have lost this connection, but I believe it's still there, buried under our modern intellect.
The sanctuary continued to be a political and religious center in the region throughout Rome's occupation, but on the 4th century AC the Romans had to eventually destroy it to govern effectively, specially once the new movement that was taking Rome by surprise began to take force, Christianity.
I ask, why was it that the Oracle of Delphi had such a powerful influence over the intelligent Greeks, throughout their entire existence? We read how Socrates spoke of it logically, without questioning it, as if it were an obvious thing. The Oracle was consulted before matters of state were decided, or war and marriage. Our modern minds look at this with modern thoughts and take it for granted, we simply dismiss it because we cannot understand it. We, modern peoples, are unable to recede back to our human experience three thousand years ago, to that time when our intellectual capacities had just began to write and think dialectically. For us to create a connection with our ancient and earthly humanity requires an active imagination.
The Egyptian civilization preceded the Greeks in the large Mediterranean area for thousands of years. We are closer in time to Ancient Greece than those Greeks were to early Egyptians. Thirty centuries is a long time. During all that millennia, as has been noted by modern anthropology, humans possessed a kind of mythical thinking, not quite rational and logical yet, but immersed in more of an animistic way of perceiving things. Their writing alone illustrates this. Egyptians, like us today, wrote the way they thought, and vice-versa. They wrote hieroglyphics, images and symbols, which although had a verbal translation, existed mainly in the visual realm. And myths, as we know, are closely linked to our subconsciousness, mainly to our collective ones, and made essentially of archetypes that speak strongly to us through nature, societies and time. At this point in our evolution, these archetypes are much more active and perceivable, and generate the believe in humans that everything in nature is "animated" by its own spirit.
The Egyptians developed indeed a sophisticated grammar, which was not only necessary to facilitate the verbal descriptions of myth for it to be known collectively, but also needed by a growing civilization. But the young languages of so many tribes coexisting with each other along the banks of the Nile river were very simple at that point. Most of the collective understanding and belief of humans in general at this stage came from the observation of symbolic expressions that, because of their universality, were easy for all to comprehend. Not much rationalization was needed.
When the Egyptians mummified their bodies, for instance, they preserved all the organs in beautiful urns, all except the brain, which was disposed of. Why would they do that? Why would they want to spend their afterlife without a thought? I believe that during those three thousand years they chose eternity without a brain because they didn't think they will need it.
The Oracle appeared very early on during the formation of our mental capacities, when reason starts to govern life for the very first time. And I'm sure it appeared, and it lasted that long, because it was truly perceived, actually sensed, and because there was most definitely a real need for it.
I used to think humans chose a place to represent their abstract believes so they can give them form, like churches and museums, or mountain peaks and sanctuaries. I thought they added to those places their own poetry, their own dreams and fantasies, in response to their profound human yearnings. But now I know it could be the other way around, at least in Delphi. There, people began to believe and fantasize because there was a special poetry spoken in those mountains in the first place. They witnessed it, they talked and wrote about it, and kept returned to it for over a thousand of years, three thousand if you count me.
As an institution with such long history, the oracle surely had its moments of political corruption, but I have to wonder, what actually happened during the first hundreds of years of its life? What was that place to humans who, specially during those early stages in our development, when the mind was still young and simple, were so much closer to the earth itself? Humans then had a different relationship with nature at large and their own, to Gaia, who seems to have been obvious to all the inhabitants of the planet at this stage. We have lost this connection, but I believe it's still there, buried under our modern intellect.
The sanctuary continued to be a political and religious center in the region throughout Rome's occupation, but on the 4th century AC the Romans had to eventually destroy it to govern effectively, specially once the new movement that was taking Rome by surprise began to take force, Christianity.
I ask, why was it that the Oracle of Delphi had such a powerful influence over the intelligent Greeks, throughout their entire existence? We read how Socrates spoke of it logically, without questioning it, as if it were an obvious thing. The Oracle was consulted before matters of state were decided, or war and marriage. Our modern minds look at this with modern thoughts and take it for granted, we simply dismiss it because we cannot understand it. We, modern peoples, are unable to recede back to our human experience three thousand years ago, to that time when our intellectual capacities had just began to write and think dialectically. For us to create a connection with our ancient and earthly humanity requires an active imagination.
The Egyptian civilization preceded the Greeks in the large Mediterranean area for thousands of years. We are closer in time to Ancient Greece than those Greeks were to early Egyptians. Thirty centuries is a long time. During all that millennia, as has been noted by modern anthropology, humans possessed a kind of mythical thinking, not quite rational and logical yet, but immersed in more of an animistic way of perceiving things. Their writing alone illustrates this. Egyptians, like us today, wrote the way they thought, and vice-versa. They wrote hieroglyphics, images and symbols, which although had a verbal translation, existed mainly in the visual realm. And myths, as we know, are closely linked to our subconsciousness, mainly to our collective ones, and made essentially of archetypes that speak strongly to us through nature, societies and time. At this point in our evolution, these archetypes are much more active and perceivable, and generate the believe in humans that everything in nature is "animated" by its own spirit.
The Egyptians developed indeed a sophisticated grammar, which was not only necessary to facilitate the verbal descriptions of myth for it to be known collectively, but also needed by a growing civilization. But the young languages of so many tribes coexisting with each other along the banks of the Nile river were very simple at that point. Most of the collective understanding and belief of humans in general at this stage came from the observation of symbolic expressions that, because of their universality, were easy for all to comprehend. Not much rationalization was needed.
When the Egyptians mummified their bodies, for instance, they preserved all the organs in beautiful urns, all except the brain, which was disposed of. Why would they do that? Why would they want to spend their afterlife without a thought? I believe that during those three thousand years they chose eternity without a brain because they didn't think they will need it.
The Oracle appeared very early on during the formation of our mental capacities, when reason starts to govern life for the very first time. And I'm sure it appeared, and it lasted that long, because it was truly perceived, actually sensed, and because there was most definitely a real need for it.
I used to think humans chose a place to represent their abstract believes so they can give them form, like churches and museums, or mountain peaks and sanctuaries. I thought they added to those places their own poetry, their own dreams and fantasies, in response to their profound human yearnings. But now I know it could be the other way around, at least in Delphi. There, people began to believe and fantasize because there was a special poetry spoken in those mountains in the first place. They witnessed it, they talked and wrote about it, and kept returned to it for over a thousand of years, three thousand if you count me.
The documented stories of the Oracle of Delphi demonstrating a visual comprehension of the present and of the future in its riddles, should make us wonder if we should just dismiss it as a mere archaic human invention. Because, if the Oracle was indeed real, what that means to us is very profound. It tells us something very important about Life itself.
My Oracle, as I much later understood it, began in the evening of July 3rd, and ended in the early afternoon of July 4th, 2008. It truly changed my life and my understanding of it. I believe that if you comprehend what the presence of the Oracle reveals, you'll live a better life and will have a deeper appreciation for it.
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