From the start, Aesop is presented as a kind of anti-philosopher, the opposite of the Greek philosophical idea. The name itself, Aesop, means “burnt-face,” in contrast to the the name of the philosopher Xanthus, which means “yellow, blond.” Here is how the first sentence of the novel describes our hero: “Aesop was of loathsome aspect, worthless as a servant, potbellied, misshapen of head, snub-nosed, swarthy, dwarfish, bandy-legged, short-armed, squint-eyed, liver-lipped — a portentous monstrosity.” Worst of all, Aesop was  “voiceless,” unable to speak.  Aesop is like an animal, ἄλογον ζῷον (alogon zoion) in Greek philosophical terminology, a “living thing without logos,” a brute beast, a dumb animal. Later on, Aesop will gain the power of speech, but as the novel begins, Aesop is mute.

Seeing his unfortunate condition, Aesop’s fellow slaves decide to take advantage of him. In one incident, some slaves eat the master’s figs, and try to blame Aesop for it. Although he cannot speak, Aesop nevertheless finds a way to prove his innocence. He calls for a basin of warm water, drinks it down, and then makes himself vomit, showing he had had nothing to eat. His master then commands the slaves who accused Aesop of eating the figs to do the same, and all the figs came forth, as you can see here:

Aesop and the Figs, by Francis Barlow.
Life of Aesop, 1687. More information »

Even though Aesop is mute, he can tell a story without words, mounting a logical defense of his innocence: Figs, when eaten, go to the stomach; Aesop’s stomach contains no figs; ergo, Aesop did not eat the figs!

When Aesop later does get the gift of speech (a divine reward for kindness that he shows to a priestess of Isis), his master decides to get rid of him, fearing trouble. Aesop is then purchased by the philosopher Xanthus, an extremely pretentious know-it-all who is the perfect target for Aesop’s wit.

One day, for example, when Xanthus and Aesop are out walking together, a gardener asks Xanthus just why it is that no matter how careful he is when he plants his crops, the weeds always grow up faster and stronger and overwhelm his fruits and vegetables. Xanthus is baffled by the paradox and can only reply that Divine Providence governs all things. When he hears this useless answer, Aesop bursts out laughing. Xanthus is insulted, and challenges Aesop to provide a better explanation.

Aesop does so, supplying his answer in the form of a story. The gardener’s situation, explains Aesop, is like a woman who has children from a first marriage who gets married again, and her second husband has children by a former wife. She is the mother to her own children, lavishing attention on them and helping them to thrive, while she is the stepmother to her husband’s children, shortchanging them on their food and caring nothing for their survival. This is just what Mother Earth does to the gardener’s crops. She is the mother to the weeds, but only the stepmother to the crops which the gardener has burdened her with. The gardener finds this explanation deeply satisfying. He praises Aesop, thanks him for having alleviated his concerns, and offers him a basket of vegetables as his reward — which is more than he had offered to Xanthus, the philosopher!

Aesop and the Gardener, by Francis Barlow.
Life of Aesop, 1687. More information »

What Aesop has given the gardener is not a scientific explanation of how weeds survive and flourish, and Aesop’s answer does not really help the gardener to find a way to increase his harvest. Yet there is nevertheless something that the gardener finds satisfying in Aesop’s analogy. Analogies are an important part of how mythical thinking seeks to explain the world, and while the analogy does not here help the gardener to change his situation, it does help him to understand it. What Aesop has given the gardener is a form of wisdom. It is not science in the modern sense of the word, and it is not even knowledge, in a basic factual sense of knowing the world. Aesop’s story does, however, allow the gardener to look at his life and experience it as meaningful, as opposed to the sense of inexplicable randomness which had troubled him previously.

At the same time that Aesop is able to find meaning where the philosopher fails to do so, he does not fall into the trap of supposing that he has any real knowledge of his own. Consider, for example, what happens when his master sends him to inspect the baths. While Aesop is on his way there, he runs into a government official, who asks Aesop where he is going. Aesop says simply, “I don’t know.” This infuriates the official, who insists on knowing where Aeosp is going. Aesop still refuses to answer the question, saying only, “I don’t know.” The official, completely enraged, orders that Aesop be arrested and taken to jail. At this point, Aesop explains: “You see that my answer was correct; I did not know that I was going to jail!” The government official is so startled by Aesop’s display of wisdom that he lets him go.

Aesop and the Baths, by Francis Barlow.
Life of Aesop, 1687. More information »

In this incident, Aesop is to all outward appearances a fool. He seems to be stupid and unintelligent, in addition to being rude and obstinate. Yet it turns out that his words contained a truth that eluded his interrogator, and it is a truth that perhaps we can all learn from. For all our plans and purposes, do we really know where we are going…? While Aesop refuses to accept “Divine Providence” as an explanation for why the weeds grow, he also does not make a godlike idol of human knowledge, making the mistake that many philosophers do, of assuming that we can aspire to perfect knowledge. There is a famous motto of the Greek philosophers, attributed variously to Socrates, Pythagoras, and Thales (among others): “Know thyself.” Aesop, however, cackles a different motto of knowledge: “I don’t know!”

With his provocative wit, Aesop is not a philosopher in the traditional sense of the word, but is instead one of the world’s great “wise fools,” someone whose jokes and pranks are also instruments of wisdom. He has kin in many countries, such as the Middle Eastern jokester Nasruddin so beloved of the Sufis, or the cinematic “Little Tramp” of Charlie Chaplin who was also able to speak without words. Like a court jester, Aesop is always lurking in the halls of seriousness and self-importance, ready to provide not just comic relief but surprising insight into the ways of the world as well.

Works Consulted

• Daly, Lloyd W., translator. “The Aesop Romance.” Anthology of Greek Popular Literature. William Hansen, editor. Indiana University Press, Bloomington: 1998.
• Ferrari, Franco, editor. Romanzo di Esopo. Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Milan: 1998.

The first book in the series — Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta — was published in 1979. The title of the book refers to the planet Shikasta, a small and remote planet in the interstellar empire of Canopus. To make the planet useful to their interests, Canopus imported an alien species to speed up the evolution of the native Shikastan species. An unexpected astronomical catastrophe and invaders from the evil empire Shammat caused an unprecedented degeneration in the natives that nearly destroyed the planet. Canopean emissaries continued to work on Shikasta in an attempt to control the damage, but their original plans for the planet had to be abandoned. The book itself is a diverse collection of archives (direct reports from emissaries, excerpts from history books, diaries, letters, etc.) meant to give first-year Canopean students a picture of the empire’s disastrous involvement on Shikasta. Oh — and I should probably mention that Shikasta is our very own planet Earth.

In creating these archives, Doris Lessing has made use stories found in the Hebrew Bible. Two examples will illustrate her approach. First, in Genesis 11:1-8, men gathered to build a tower at Babel that would reach to the heavens. God thwarted their plans by confusing their speech, creating a multitude of languages and forcing them to spread out over the land. In Shikasta this same event is depicted as a planet-wide conference, secretly organized by the evil Shammat. Taufiq, an emissary from Canopus, reported:

All six of us attended the conference, purporting to be delegates from the extreme Northwest fringes. […] The recommended techniques […] to disrupt their speech centres […] were effective. […] Their communication systems malfunctioned, and eight main languages are now established on Shikasta. These will develop into hundreds, then thousands of languages and dialects. (101)

Second, in Genesis 19:1-29, God planned to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness. Two angels warned Lot and his family to leave the city. Lot escaped, and God then poured down sulfur and fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. In Shikasta, Lessing portrays this as a spaceship air raid. Johor, another emissary from Canopus, reported:

We went back to the cities. […] In each were a few people who could hear us, and these we told to leave at once with any who would listen to them. […] Having made sure of the safety of those who could be saved, we signalled in the space-fleet, and the cities were blasted into oblivion. (107-108)

I find Lessing’s use of Biblical narratives in this novel both entertaining and intriguing. Some scholars devalue stories from various mythological traditions on the grounds that they are half-remembered or exaggerated accounts of historical events. At first glance, it may appear that Lessing is criticizing these stories from Genesis along the same lines. However, a statement she makes in the preface of the book convinces me she is doing something more subtle:

It is possible we make a mistake when we dismiss […] the sacred literatures of all races and nations […] as quaint fossils from a dead past. (x)

I think a better understanding of Lessing’s approach in this novel can be grasped by looking at the distinction between mythical thinking and logical thinking I explored in my article contrasting mythos and logos. Though she does not use these terms, Lessing provides in Shikasta an imaginative thought-experiment meant to challenge a logos-only thinker’s rejection of these stories.

This portrayal of stories from Genesis as distorted accounts of a prehistoric human past suggests an interesting possibility. Perhaps some shred of truth has been preserved in these stories, possibly even more accurate truth than we have found through scientific and historical methods. Even if we cannot prove this is true, we can at least imagine it. In Shikasta, Lessing establishes that it is at least imaginatively possible that the sacred texts (products of mythos thinkers) preserve some scientific and historical truth that scientists and historians (logos thinkers) have not discovered. Far from criticizing these stories, her fictive account attempts to elevate them in the minds of logos-only readers — from ridiculous falsehoods to potential sources of truth.

The archives move back and forth between documents related to Shikasta’s prehistoric past and those related to its twentieth century, presenting a bleak picture of degenerated humanity. In the so-called “Century of Destruction,” a rising belief in materialism and rapid advances of technology, both results of logos-only thinking, brought about the elimination of any sense of the sacred and of transcendence, along with the depreciation of the value of human life. This way of thinking originated in Western Europe, then spread as regional fighting escalated to full-scale warfare that devastated the entire planet. Humans living under this way of thinking pursued the only good they could conceive: their own advancement, consumption of goods, and accumulation of wealth. These values affected the way people felt about one another — they had “a license to cheat, lie, and murder and [to] regard every passer-by only as a possibility for gain” (106) — as well as how they felt about themselves: “Their way of life […] increasingly saddened and depressed their real selves, their hidden selves” (91).

Once Lessing establishes the sacred texts as potential sources of scientific and historical truths, the she has prepared the way to see them as sources of spiritual truths to address these negative consequences of logos-only thinking. The spiritual truths taught by Canopean agents to the Shikastan natives can be found in places throughout the Hebrew Bible:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

“I [God] desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

“[The king] must not acquire many horses for himself or […] acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.” (Deuteronomy 17:16-17)

“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” (Proverbs 12:10)

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” (Isaiah 1:17)

These spiritual truths reflect ideas Lessing first encountered in the 1964 book The Sufis and through a subsequent friendship with the author Idries Shah; Lessing spoke often about the influence this book had on her. Shah described Sufism as a universal spiritual wisdom that transcends individual religions, a wisdom that has traditionally been communicated through parables and folktales. In drawing on the Hebrew Bible, Lessing is not arguing here for the correctness of Judaism or Christianity: she is well aware of the injustices and brutalities performed in the name of religion. Rather, Lessing provides in Canopus’s involvement on Shikasta a fictional explanation for the ideas about Sufism made popular by Shah. According to the archives, all the great religions surviving into the twentieth century were originally founded by Canopean agents for the “stabilisation of the culture, preventing the worst excesses of brutality, of exploitation, and greed” (111). Even though they became perverted, “distorted inklings of the truth remained” in them (Lessing 90).

Shikasta is much more than just a retelling of stories from Genesis from a different perspective, but this aspect of the novel is most relevant to this site’s ongoing exploration of mythical thinking. Doris Lessing understood the materialism, the greed, the injustice, and the spiritual degeneration prevalent in the modern world to be the result of logos-only thinking. She acts still today as a strong advocate for the potential of the products of mythos to address these issues.

Work Consulted

• Lessing, Doris. Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta. New York : Random House, 1979.

I find it useful when discussing this distinction to consider the Greek words from which our English words “logical” and “mythical” have been derived, logos and mythos. Both Greek words can be translated as something like “story” or “account”; mythical thinking and logical thinking both provide an account of the world, but they do so in very different ways. Those using logical thinking approach the world scientifically and empirically. They look for explanations using observable facts, controlled experiments, and deductive proofs. Truth discovered through logos seeks to be objective and universal. Those using mythical thinking, on the other hand, approach the world through less direct, more intuitive means. A person might gain poetic insights into the nature of the world by seeing a caterpillar emerge from a cocoon or watching a full moon rise as the sun sets. Truth discovered through mythos is more subjective, based on individual feelings and experiences.

To illustrate the difference between these two approaches, let me consider one of nature’s most perplexing conundrums: why the turtle has a shell. A recent article in New Scientist magazine demonstrates how the techniques of logical thinking have been applied to this question. Modern turtle shells are deeply infused with the turtles’ skeletons; observations made on turtle embryos suggested that the shell might have been an outgrowth from the dorsal ribs and the vertebrae. Bone fragments recently discovered in New Mexico, however, show that this hypothesis was incorrect. The fragments came from an ancestor of the turtle with something like the armor of an armadillo; since the rows of armored plates were not connected to the skeleton, the shells of later turtles could not have been an outgrowth of it. More experiments will be performed and more observations will be made to explain the turtle’s shell in terms of physical causes and effects.

An Aesopic fable demonstrates how the techniques of mythical thinking have been applied to this same question. In a previous article, I discussed this fable of Zeus and the Turtle in great detail: Zeus invites all the animals to his wedding, but the turtle skips the wedding because she prefers being in her own home than being anywhere else; as punishment, Zeus makes her carry her house with her everywhere she goes. We do not possess any description of the thought-process involved in the creation of this fable. We could guess that some ancient person might have observed the turtle’s slow pace and understood the turtle as downcast and humiliated, struggling under its great burden — or perhaps an observer saw in the turtle great determination in the face of life’s adversities. If a story already existed of a divinity punishing a disobedient creature, the observer may have retold the story with a turtle as the disobedient character to express the insights from this observation; perhaps the events of the narrative and the explanation occurred to the observer simultaneously. We cannot know for sure the origin of this story, but something like this strikes me as a possible development.

The academic discipline of mythology is perhaps best understood as the application of the techniques of logical thinking to the products of mythical thinking; this is nicely illustrated by the fact that the English word mythology is derived from both Greek words mythos and logos. My own discussion of the Aesopic fable fits nicely within this discipline because it is an attempt to explain the fable in a objective, historical fashion. But the reverse also occurs: the techniques of mythical thinking can be applied to the products of logical thinking. Fantasy authors often incorporate scientific discoveries and theories into their stories: Philip Pullman connects dark matter with Milton in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and Madeleine L’Engle examines the space/time continuum and the theory of relativity in her Time quintet. Many science-fiction authors have scientific backgrounds and use narratives to work out for themselves and to convey to others the mythical significance of findings in their various fields.

Many of the great advances in civilization have been the product of these two ways of thinking working together. Artists, poets, musicians, and other mythical thinkers rely on the tools and techniques of logos for their own works of mythos: in a previous article, I discussed the effects of iron tools on the art of totem-pole carving. The pursuits of logos are in turn influenced by mythos: logical thinkers have figured out, for example, how to cure illnesses and prolong the average human lifespan, but they have learned through mythical thinking to value human life enough to bother. Products of logos enable us to communicate with the people who matter most to us (even when they are thousands of miles away), but mythos provides the context for us to know which people matter and what we should say to them when we do communicate. These exchanges, interactions, and dependencies demonstrate to me that mythos and logos are best seen as complementary to each other.

Though we have inherited great traditions in both mythical thinking and logical thinking, logical thinking has risen to such prominence that many no longer realize any another approach exists. The decline of mythical thinking throughout much of the industrialized world has resulted in the unfortunate loss of a sense of transcendence and of the value of human life. Some people argue that this has been responsible for much of the devastation in the last one hundred years. (I explore this connection in an article discussing Shikasta, a science-fiction novel by Doris Lessing.) I would not argue that mythical thinking can cure all of humanity’s problems — I imagine that an equal amount of damage has been done on account of both mythos and logos — but I would argue that it is now our burden and privilege to re-discover mythical thinking and to wrestle with the proper way to re-integrate these two ways of thinking into our lives.

One of my main goals with this site is the opportunity to explore for myself this integration of mythos and logos. I will continue to publish articles that explore myths and mythical thinking: the next issue will contain an article on mythical thinking in the teachings of Jesus and one on the way modern artists and authors understand their own art in mythical terms. But I would also love to hear from you: please leave a comment below discussing your own thoughts and experiences with mythical thinking. What has led you to appreciate mythos in a logos-heavy culture? In what ways have you embraced it and what value have you found in it? How do you think we should best integrate mythical and logical thinking?

Works Consulted / Recommended Reading

• Sløk, Johannes. Devotional Language. Translated by Henrik Mossin. Danbury: Walter De Gruyter Incorporated, 1996.

Sløk approaches the issue of mythical thinking and logical thinking through the philosophy of language. (One excellent section of his book has the provocative title “The Awkwardness of Rational Language.”) He uses the mysteries related to Demeter and Persephone practiced in ancient Greece at Eleusis, a coastal city outside of Athens, as his primary example of mythical thinking throughout the book.

• Buxton, Richard, editor. From Myth to Reason? : Studies in the Development of Greek Thought. Oxford UP, 1999.

It has long been taken for granted that Greek society moved from mythos to logos in the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, culminating in the works of Aristotle. Recent scholars, however, are challenging this generalization and seeking to understand the importance of mythos throughout Greek society. This book contains papers delivered at an academic conference in 1996 exploring this theme.

• Peters, F. E. The Monotheists, Volume 2 – The Words and Will of God. New York: Princeton UP, 2003.

This two-volume series explores Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from many different perspectives. In chapter seven of the second volume, titled “Theology,” Peters uses the mythos/logos distinction to discuss the  development of theology in these monotheistic religions over a period of nearly two thousand years. He shows that both have been essential to theology, with the emphasis shifting back and forth in different times and in different religious communities.

• Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

Armstrong draws heavily on Sløk’s work to define mythos and logos. She brings these concepts into the twentieth century, exploring how these two ways of thinking are reflected in fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She argues that these uniquely modern movements are the results of applying the works of mythos to the concerns of logos.

• Shelburne, Walter A. “Introduction.” Mythos and Logos in the Thought of Carl Jung. Albany: SUNY Press, 1988.

Although Carl Jung never used the terms mythos and logos, Shelburne argues that this distinction provides insight into Jung’s thought. The introduction of the book provides an excellent discussion of mythos and logos. The author briefly contrasts Jung’s view with two other views in an attempt to clarify what Jung would have thought about these two ways of thinking. The whole introduction nicely illustrates the difficulty of talking about mythical thinking in terms of logical thinking.

• Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: Bantam, 1984.

This is a fascinating novel in its own right, but of particular relevance here is the narrator’s distinction between classical understanding and romantic understanding. This distinction addresses aspects of the mythos/logos distinction from a different angle. The narrator introduced the concept of “Quality” as a way to overcome the classical/romantic dichotomy.

He approaches the problem through the philosophy of science, and  I found his comments on the scientific method to be particularly thought-provoking: Where do hypotheses that science tests originate? Are there an infinite number of hypotheses to any given problem? Can scientific results ever be conclusive when it is impossible to test an infinite number of hypotheses?