Chaingang
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Joined: 10/24/2005
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The Tower of Babel myth has antecedents, one of which is from Sumerian mythology: the Nam-shub of Enki.
The two things you must know first:
1. a Nam-shub is a kind of magical spell.
2. The "Me" mentioned in Sumerian myths are universal decrees of divine authority - invocations that spread arts, crafts, and civilization.
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The Nam-shub of Enki
Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
There was no hyena, there was no lion,
There was no wild dog, no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.
In those days, the land Shubur-Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the Me of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people well cared for,
To Enlil in one tongue gave speech.
Then the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
Enki, the lord of abundance, whose commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who scans the land,
The leader of the gods,
The lord of Eridu, endowed with wisdom,
Changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it,
Into the speech of man that had been one.
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The myth is about linguistic disintegration.
Why did Enki confuse man's single tongue? Humanity was in harmony with its many gods; the gods in turn were also pleased with humanity ("Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the Me of princeship"). Then something went wrong and the myth tell us that a "trustworthy" god did something to confound the single language used by men. Is the myth about a magical spell (a Nam-shub) or is the myth itself a magical spell whose subject just happens to be the purpose of the spell - the reading of which is meant to cause something to happen?
That language, or the utterance of certain sounds, is dangerous is an idea that resonates from the ancient past to the present day. The walls of the city of Jericho were felled using sound. Many magickal traditions claim the naming of certain powers gives one temporary control over those same forces. Utterance is equated with power. Authors as recent as Frank Herbert have developed the idea that the uttering of a person's name can be a great weapon - a word that kills. The U.S. has recently developed a nonlethal weapon sound weapon called a "Long Range Acoustic Device," or LRAD for short.
Speculation on the subject of what exactly happened and why abounds. Some people believe that something akin to a computer virus (this would be the Burroughsian "Language is a Virus" theory) was present in man's speech and that by confusing language Enki was able to stop the progress of the virus. Some people further believe that the purpose of this ancient myth is two-fold: while the story itself relates the idea of linguistic disintegration, the story is itself a kind of incantation which causes linguistic disintegration. To hear the tale is to fall victim to it's viral influence - to have one's speech confounded if one is under the influence of a word virus.
One issue remains outstanding: what was the possible nature of the original "word-virus"?
Julian Jaynes, in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", argues that early man was not conscious in the modern sense - he lacked self-awareness and could not think of himself as an independent, self-willed, singular "I." Why? Because the two halves of the brain were not connected then as they appear to be now. Instead, the right brain formulated ideas and plans, which were perceived by the left brain as literal voices emanating from outside the self. In effect, early man hallucinated constantly, living his life obeying voices the origins of which remained mysterious to him - voices that actually emanated from a different part of his own brain. This is where the gods came from - each person's god accompanied him constantly through life, always telling him what to do.
Where did the gods go? What happened to connect the two halves of the brain into a single unit? The complex conditions of the world forced human beings to integrate the left and right brains and become self-aware, self-willed beings in order to cope with their circumstances and survive. The human brain adapted to it's environment that the human species might survive - nothing more than the theory of evolution at work.
Crisis - Adaptation - Survival.
The original "word-virus" was the idea of God in the bicameral brain. The joining of the two halves of the brain into a more coherent unit with the concomitant emergence of consciousness (such that people became aware of themselves for the first time) was the death of the idea of God. People became aware that the other halves of themselves were indeed not only not the voice of god but merely another aspect of themselves.
The Nam-shub of Enki may be a description of this evolutionary process in the form of a myth.
Enki, whose command lines are trustworthy, wrote himself out of the story.
The whole universe, the people alone.
_____________________________
"Everything flows, nothing stands still." (Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει) - Heraclitus
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