Oedipus Rex, Cu Chulain, Khepri and the Ass*

This is about the sun cycle. This is about the man cycle. This is about the golden strand that threads through the warp and woof of man's ageless and never ending struggle against death.

The cyclical man cycle repeats itself in the next generation. The cyclical sun cycle repeats itself generation after generation. Recurrences and recurrences from time immemorial occur in all the thousand aspects of death in all quarters of the world. It is not strange that repetition subsumes the core of this story about mythic quests for immortality.

Aside from protean repetitions, there are other confusions that obfuscate the meaning of myths. Some of these confusions stem from the fact that humans who currently populate the world are most often rendered helpless when forced to abandon Aristotelian thinking. It is difficult for current humans to realize that primitives could use one word, one phrase, one term to designate opposites.

Because myths are expressions of psychologic needs, the myths provide a rich source of information about the intellectual and emotional activity of primitive and ancient men during periods of stress.