I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them. As much as I enjoy mythology, not all mythologies are equal. Arguably not even the same mythology, as like the proverbial river of Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same mythology twice, as it is constantly evolving, with many variants, often inconsistent with each other. Some mythologies just resonate better with me than others.

Hence this is my top ten ranking of mythology – or perhaps top ten mythologies? Mythos – or mythoi? My myths and sacred mysteries? Whatever. They are not ranked by the extent to which they still form part of an active religion, their duration or number of adherents, or by their cultural impact or influence, but by my personal interest in them – although this tends to overlap with one or more of the previous criteria, particularly my top two entries, which are the standouts both to me and for Western culture in general.

So here are my Top 10 Mythologies – all in the one post compiled from individual entries (and also in their own page).

 

 

 

(10) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

 

“The Great Spirit has given to you a red day and a red road” – Black Elk

A mythology that is part of an active religion – or mythologies and religions, as native American mythology at its broadest can be very broad indeed. The description of native American mythology can extend to mythology throughout the pre-Columbian Americas. Even if we confine ourselves to the geographic northern continent, that still is incredibly diverse – including the more lurid central American or meso-American mythologies.

This entry is intended to be representative of the native American mythologies in the area of the present United States. Of course, this remains as diverse as the people themselves in this area, but if I have to nominate any in particular, it would be those of the Great Plains in general or the Lakota (or Sioux) in particular.

This is because of my familiarity with Lakota ‘holy man’ Black Elk, through his own words as narrated in Black Elk Speaks (narrated to John Neihardt) and through the apparent focus his work gave to Huston Smith in the latter’s study of primal religions. I have a particular soft spot for Wakan Tanka, the overarching Great Mysterious that resides in everything.

Also the ghost dance – and in the words of American Gods, “I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(9) AFRO-AMERICAN – VOODOO

 

One of the newest entries in my top ten, as well as a mythology that is part of an active religion – or more broadly the family of Afro-American or African diaspora religions.

While I find it fascinating, it is a mythology or mythologies of which I only have superficial knowledge – and perhaps like popular culture, I am most familiar with the Louisiana variant actually titled voodoo and the Haitian variant that is titled vodou.

For Louisiana voodoo, it is primarily the ritual or magical practices that are associated with voodoo in popular culture or ‘Hollywood voodoo’ – charms or amulets such as voodoo dolls, ‘gris gris’ bags and of course mojo. O yes – and voodoo queens, such as Marie Laveau. I also find it intriguing how early followers of voodoo as slaves disguised their traditional gods as Catholic saints in a form of subversive syncretism.

For Haitian vodou, it is the divine entities, the loa or ‘divine horsemen’ that possess their followers – particularly the distinctive trinity of Papa Legba, Erzulie, and of course Baron Samedi, not least from his cinematic incarnation in the James Bond film, Live and Let Die. Again, I find it intriguing that the loa go by many names, which represent different personalities or traits – with the two most significant being the more positive ‘Rada’ form and the darker ‘Petro’ form, the latter representing the angry dark side of the loa, usually linked to the dark side of slavery in the Afro-American historical experience.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(8) AZTEC

 

I only have the usual superficial knowledge of Aztec mythology characteristic of its lurid image in popular culture – that is to say, the closest mythology comes to a horror film or the Cthulhu mythos, both of itself and of its ritual practice of human sacrifice. Yes – I know that is unfair to the nuances of Aztec mythology, particularly in the context of just how horrific other mythologies can be. I mean – have you read the Bible? Some of that stuff’s straight out of slasher horror.

However, it is hard to resist seeing Aztec mythology as horror film mythology. For one thing, there’s its deities with their tongue-twisting Scrabble-winning names. The messianic plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl might be one of the few good guys (and I have always have a soft spot for love goddesses like Xochiquetzal) but then you have gods like Xipe Totec, the flayed god – whose priests would flay the skin from a sacrificial victim and dance around for days wearing it. Although admittedly I’d go to church to see that.

For another thing, you have its ritual practice, infamous for human sacrifice on a grand scale – with the archetypal image of hearts being torn beating from the chests of thousands of victims on stepped pyramids slippery with blood on sacrificial days.

And finally for yet another thing, there’s that Aztec mythology is a post-apocalyptic mythology – with the present world being the fifth such world, after the apocalyptic destruction of four previous worlds. Indeed, one might even call it a zombie apocalyptic mythology – with the gods continuously, to the point of constantly dying and returning to life, giving their blood and their hearts to power the sun (fuelled in turn by the literal blood and hearts of human sacrifice), while they literally grew humans from bones smuggled out of the underworld. Or one of many underworlds, since the Aztecs had nine levels of its underworld (and thirteen heavens).

Also, I sometimes like to joke my middle initial Q stands for Quetzalcoatl.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(7) HINDU

 

Another mythology as part of an active religion – indeed, the third largest religion, although it might be more accurately described as mythologies or religions, given the diversity of Hinduism.

It is perhaps the most cheerfully and flamboyantly polytheistic of modern religions, with all its gods and their avatars, although Hinduism itself can be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist – depending on how philosophical one is towards it.

The classifications vary, but modern Hinduism is often classified into four major denominations by primary deity – Vaishnavism by Vishnu (or his avatars, often Krisha or Rama), Shaivism by Shiva, Shaktism by Devi (or manifestations of the supreme goddess) or Smartism by a combination of five deities. Of which I obviously prefer Shaktism for worship of the goddess – she is the goddess and this is her body, o yes!

However, it is a mythology or mythologies of which I have only the most basic knowledge – primarily of their literally colorful deities with all their arms, avatars and trinities. The trinity of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. The supreme goddess Devi or Shakti in all her forms and trinities – most commonly Saraswati, Laskshmi and Parvati, with Kali perhaps as the most distinctive form of Parvati known outside Hinduism. And of course Ganesha, because I have a soft spot for animal-headed deities.

 

RATING 4 STARS****
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(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

 

Dare I say it – the ur-mythology!

The mythology, that is, of the long-standing and predominant civilization in the ancient Middle East that shaped so much of their successors in civilization and mythology – the states of Mesopotamia.

By the states of Mesopotamia, I am referring to the fluctuating city-states or states collectively best known to history as Sumer and Babylon, with the latter’s imperial franchise having at least one reboot as the neo-Babylonian empire. That also includes the other empires that bubbled up from that area such as the Akkadian empire and Assyrian empire (which also rebooted itself as neo-Assyrian empire). The political history is long and messy, although much of the mythology or religion stays the same, albeit with different names – what might be called the classical mythology of the region, which I’ll dub Babylo-Sumerian. Yes I know Sumer preceded Babylon, but Babylo-Sumerian just sounds better.

Indeed, this entry is intended to be representative of ancient Middle Eastern mythologies in general, including the various so-called Canaanite mythologies which we mostly know as the bad guys in the Bible (although the Assyrians and Babylonians also feature prominently as bad guys there, particularly the latter)

But to return to the selection of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology for this entry. Yes – it’s not quite as funky as a certain other neighboring mythology with its animal-headed gods, but it does have some interesting features – two in particular. The first is the epic of Gilgamesh and his quest for eternal life, notable as the first epic of a mythic hero in writing. The second is the slinky goddess to rival other slinky goddesses in mythology – Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of love and war (or her Sumerian counterpart Inanna) and her most famous myth, her epic strip-teasing descent into the underworld.

There are also other features of interest – various other deities (Marduk in our feature image for example), Tiamat the primordial goddess-dragon of chaos (best known to Dungeons and Dragons players as a supreme evil dragon goddess) and various stories recycled in the Bible, notably the Flood (and the Sumerian Noah, Utnapishtim, who features in the epic of Gilgamesh).

Oh – and a certain god who became the demon antagonist of The Exorcist film, which I know better than to name here (or anywhere) because that’s just tempting fate.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(5) EGYPTIAN

 

“I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra…
“Who was that
dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode
from town”…
Go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow
I’m going into town after Set”

If there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. If only the Roman Empire could have gone the way of the ankh instead of the cross. Or if only the Egyptian gods had returned out of the desert, as opposed to Islam and swept Christianity out of Egypt!

What’s not to love about those funky animal-headed gods and those slinky goddesses? Especially the goddesses – lithe and svelte in their form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk. Of course, Egypt was, quite frankly, the sexiest ancient civilization – admittedly perhaps not for its population’s vast majority of peasants who farmed the Nile or worked on those useless tombstones known as pyramids, but certainly for its elite, who pretty much invented style. You know it’s true – just look at the figures in their art!

Or what’s not to love how the gods kept shifting and swapping out with each other as they rose and fell within the pantheon? My personal favorite trinity of Egyptian mythology (well apart from Anubis, one of my favorite dog gods of mythology) – Osiris, Isis and Horus as they square off against their adversary Set. O yes – Isis. Goddess of magic who seduced the secret name from the sun god Ra and lover of Osiris who resurrected him after he was dismembered by his evil adversary Set to conceive the divine hero Horus (who then avenges Osiris)

Or what’s not to love about its different and contradictory creation myths? Particularly the one where the god Atum (who swapped out as supreme god from time to time) created the world by, ahem, mastrbating it into existence. Now that’s creationism! Indeed, Egyptian mythology could get downright kinky. Isis essentially s€xes up all her magic, including that briefly reviving Osiris to conceive Horus. Or how Set and Horus essentially strive to, ahem, out-ejculate each other…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

 

For mine is the grail quest –
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast

This entry is essentially for the whole of Celtic mythology in all its diversity, reflecting the diversity of the Celts themselves. The Celts extended through time, from at least the sixth century BCE through various survivals to the present day, and even more substantially through geographical space – from their original homeland in central Europe throughout Europe, most notably to the British isles. The Celts even extended into modern Turkey (where they were known as Galatians) and perhaps most famously as the Gauls threatening Rome in its infancy (before being conquered by Rome in turn).

And I find all Celtic mythology fascinating. The mythology of Gaul – which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! – is mostly from surviving names and images, cited by Roman writers inclined to “transmit any bizarre and negative” information about the people they conquered.

The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses.

Of course, the Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (mostly as recorded by Christian monks) were for those Celts who maintained their identities – in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles. The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and its great hero Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle as well as its great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool) and his Fianna warrior band. And the Cycle of Kings of historical legend. Much of this mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled into the fairy folklore of Europe.

However, if I’m to pick the one strand of Celtic mythology that is foremost in familiarity and fascination for me, it’s that strand that moved through to folklore and above all to historical legend – the legend of King Arthur, as part of the so-called Matter of Britain or legendary history of the Kings of Britain.

Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His father Uther. The wizard Merlin. The Lady in the Lake. The sword in the stone or Excalibur. His queen Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay (often conflated with another character, Morgause, as the mother of usurper Mordred). The knights of the Round Table – most famously Lancelot but also Gawain, Galahad, Perceval and Bedivere. The Holy Grail. Avalon – and so on.

And of course its ongoing adaptations – which essentially started from its very inception with medieval literature – including its cinematic adaptations, of which two films remain my favorite, Excalibur, and Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(3) NORSE

 

“We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming”

And now we come to a mythology that is one of the best known, even outside its European continent of origin, thanks to Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the days of the week still named in English for the Norse gods. It is also arguably one of the most hardcore mythologies, with imagery worthy of a metal album cover.

I mean, what else can you say of a mythology that features a ship made entirely of fingernails and toenails (of the dead)? Or its creation myth, in which the world was created from the corpse of a giant. No fluffy let there be light here. Or that the gods are essentially locked into a perpetual cold war (heh) against the giants – complicated by the trickster Loki in their presence, who alternates between getting them into compromising or difficult situations before getting them out of those situations (until he goes one trick too far). And like the historical cold war, the gods are planning for mutually assured destruction – famously gathering slain warriors in Valhalla – when the war turns hot at the end of the world. Or rather, when it turns ice cold at Ragnarok – or Gotterdamerung, the twilight of the gods (in the Fimbulwinter or endless winter).

Of course, Norse is something of a misnomer, as it was a Germanic mythology that extended throughout much of northern Europe, although it is most identified with Scandinavia and Iceland (and Vikings!), also the source of its surviving texts, so hence the epithet Norse.

“The source texts mention numerous gods, such as the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes; the one-eyed, raven-flanked god Odin, who craftily pursues knowledge throughout the worlds and bestowed among humanity the runic alphabet; the beautiful, seer-working, feathered cloak-clad goddess Freyja who rides to battle to choose among the slain; the vengeful, skiing goddess Skadi, who prefers the wolf howls of the winter mountains to the seashore; the powerful god Njord, who may calm both sea and fire and grant wealth and land; the god Freyr, whose weather and farming associations bring peace and pleasure to humanity; the goddess Idunn who keeps apples that grant eternal youthfulness; the mysterious god Heimdall, who is born of nine mothers, can hear grass grow, has gold teeth, and possesses a resounding horn” and of course “Loki, who brings tragedy to the gods by engineering the death of the goddess Frigg’s beautiful son Baldur”

Norse mythology is distinctive in that its gods are not only fallible (even the wily Odin), but also all mortal. They can and do die. And die aplenty on its version of the apocalypse. No foreordained triumph of the gods here – on this day, all gods die, taking their enemies down with them. Well, not all of them, as there are some key survivors to renew the world, but that phrase just has a good ring to it.

That doesn’t stop the Norse gods from being hardcore – from plucking one’s eye out as Odin did for wisdom, or losing one’s hand as security deposit as Tyr did, putting his hand in the mouth of the Fenris Wolf. Which of course brings me to their fearsome adversaries, not just frost and fire giants, led by Loki, but also his three terrible children – the goddess Hel leading the dishonorable dead, the Fenris Wolf leading other monstrous wolves, and the World-Serpent.

Hardcore.

 

RATING: 4 STARS*****
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(2) CLASSICAL

 

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!”

I believe in all the gods – especially the goddesses!

And I’m into classical mythology for the nymphs.

Or pining for them. As I said for Egyptian mythology, if there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. Of course, the other thing – indeed the foremost – is the decline of classical paganism. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue”

If only we continued to follow the gods of classical paganism! If there is any mythology that tempts to me to actual religion within the deepest levels of my psyche, it’s classical mythology. I can see myself as a devotee of Aphrodite or Dionysus.

Classical mythology is of course the combination of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in ancient Greece as well as the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Even as mythology rather than religion, it is one of the major survivals of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that in turn is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization. Of course, many devotees prefer to refer to it simply as Greek mythology, seeing Roman mythology as Greek mythology with the serial numbers filed off. Which is somewhat ironic, as prior to the so-called Greek revival of the nineteenth century, Europeans primarily referred to names from classical mythology in their Latinized form. It is also a little unfair, as Roman mythology was not entirely derivative of Greek mythology – more a continuity reboot in the words of TV Tropes.

Anyway, you know it – or should. The gods and goddesses, primarily the twelve Olympian gods, but all the other deities as well as the demi-semi-hemi-gods that pop up because the gods can’t keep it in their pants. There are the heroes – a concept that in its very name actually comes from Greek mythology – primarily the heroes of the Trojan cycle. And there’s all the other beings, notably the various monsters that represent all the chaotic or chthonic forces in classical mythology.

And of course there’s the nymphs…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(1) BIBLICAL

 

Or as I like to call it – Babylon and the Beast (featured here in art from a Christian website, which only succeeded in making these two Biblical supervillains look awesome).

This is it. This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Of course, Biblical mythology is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced. Although as one historian quipped, from a historical point of view, Christianity is a Greek hero cult devoted to a Jewish messiah.

However, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion – or as poetry rather than history. That is, as literature for its literary quality. Or in other words, like virtually everyone reads classical mythology or any other mythology shorn of religious belief. And as mythology, it has an enduring resonance – of symbolic narratives that ring true at an emotional level or with the power of story, characters that resonate with us as flawed human protagonists (and that’s including God, who is all too human in his characterization) and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

And when you look at the mythology under the religious hood, that’s when things become much more interesting with layers of subtext, sex and violence as well as hints or insinuations of competing mythologies

Born again in Babylon and torn apart in Jerusalem…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

 

 

MYTHOLOGY – TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

(1) BIBLICAL

(2) CLASSICAL

 

If Biblical mythology is my Old Testament of mythologies, then classical mythology is my New Testament. Yes, yes – I know that in a literal sense Biblical mythology is both Old Testament and New Testament but this is my schtick I do for god tier.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(3) NORSE

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

(5) EGYPTIAN

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

(7) HINDU

(8) AZTEC

(9) VOODOO

(10) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

 

 

 

 

(20) TANTRA

 

The jewel in the lotus!

Two words – sex magic. Or sex zen as I like to call it.

Well at least in the popular perception of tantra (originating in Hinduism and Buddhism), including my own – that’s pretty much what most people see or know it as, although that perception would be more accurate to the reconstruction of it by modern western writers often styled as neo-tantra.

Authentic tantra would appear to be much deeper than that – “the creation and history of the world; the names and functions of a great variety of male and female deities and other higher beings; the types of ritual worship (especially of goddesses); magic, sorcery, and divination; esoteric “physiology” (the mapping of the subtle or psychic body); the awakening of the mysterious serpent power (kundalinî-shakti); techniques of bodily and mental purification; the nature of enlightenment; and not least, sacred sexuality.” And of course such popularized concepts as chakra, mantra and mandala.

However, this entry is intended to be representative of sex magic or sexuality in mythology and religion in general – for which I sometimes use tantra in a much broader (and wildly inaccurate) sense. It’s also intended as the kinkier entry I aim for as my twentieth (and final) special mention!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(19) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

The other modern folklore par excellence – where history meets mythology. Of course, there are conspiracies in history and some of these may be the subject of theories with some documented or factual basis.

It is however important to distinguish between regular theories about conspiracies – and conspiracy theories, that might well be capitalized as Conspiracy Theory for their mythic stature or mythos.

And particularly prone to proliferation by the internet – “conspiracy theories mutate and interbreed almost too fast for humans to track. Any of the theories and sub-theories…can be, and in all likelihood has been, combined with any or all of the others by at least one person. Don’t be surprised if the theory raises more questions than the original incident in the first place. The only thing such theories prove, if anything, is that we’re all too human”.

“Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth”

The definitive conspiracy theory is a theory that proposes that an event or situation “is not as we understand them but really the work of secret cabals of cunning conspirators acting for malicious ends, from merely getting rich to propagating an ideology up to and including world domination”.

Of course, it is when they get to the soaring heights of world domination, or some overarching grand unifying theory of conspiracies, that they are most fascinating to me – with the Illuminati as my favorite.

There are of course a plethora of conspiracy theories – it seems at least one for every significant contemporary event at this point. Enough for their own top ten – in some cases for particular events (hello 9/11 and JFK), or just a number of times over in general, as in my favorite compilation of conspiracy theories, the Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, which went from 50 in its original edition to 80 in its last edition.

One could even have a top ten classifications of conspiracy theories, by broader type – such as conspiracy theories involving aliens, disasters, disinformation, famous people, guns (and shootings), health, history (including ancient history and monuments), law or enforcement, media, new world orders or secret societies, religion, science or technology, wars, and even weather. Hell – one could even just have a top ten parodies of conspiracy theories.

Or a top ten classifications by thematic type, most evocatively those by Jesse Walker – who classifies conspiracy theories as “Enemy Outside”, “Enemy Within”, “Enemy Above”, “Enemy Below”, and “Benevolent Conspiracies”. Or Michael Barkun’s event conspiracy theories, systemic conspiracy theories, and super conspiracy theories.

Or Murray Rothbard – of all people – with his model contrasting deep conspiracy theories to shallow ones, with the latter observing an event and asking cui bono or who benefits, “jumping to the conclusion that a posited beneficiary is responsible for covertly influencing events”.

As Vankin and Whalen lament in their books, conspiracy theories have become pretty lazy these days. Previously, conspiracy theories involved the meticulous, even obsessive, compilation of facts or evidence. Now, it’s mostly along the lines of Rothbard’s shallow conspiracy theories – simply proposing a beneficiary or motive behind any event, which is pretty easy to do, and asserting that as a conspiracy.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(18) URBAN LEGENDS

 

The modern folklore par excellence – “a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a ‘friend of a friend'”. And yes – worthy of their own top ten.

Apparently the term urban legend as used by folklorists has been in print since the 1960s, but is best known – particularly to me – through their most prolific popularizer, Jan Harold Brunvand, in a series of books from The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings onwards.

“Many urban legends are framed as complete stories with plot and characters. The compelling appeal of a typical urban legend is its elements of mystery, horror, fear, or humor. Often they serve as cautionary tales. Some urban legends are morality tales that depict someone acting in a disagreeable manner, only to wind up in trouble, hurt, or dead.”

“Urban legends will often try to invoke a feeling of disgust in the reader which tends to make these stories more memorable and potent. Elements of shock value can be found in almost every form of urban legend and are partially what makes these tales so impactful. An urban legend may include elements of the supernatural or paranormal”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(17) UFOS & UFOLOGY

 

Close encounters of the third kind.

The modern mythology par excellence, a mythos of extraordinary depth and complexity – one that has even absorbed former fairy folklore, angelic visitations, and divine encounters into itself, as well as forming part of new religions.

Technically, there is nothing mythic about UFOs in their purest sense – as unidentified flying objects. Observations or sightings of aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects have been a prosaic matter of fact, both since human flight and previously throughout history.

And there is nothing mythic about any number of prosaic explanations for them, which could well be the subject of their own top ten – setting aside human error (often of known or subsequently identified objects), delusion, hoax or psychological effects, there are a number of ordinary objects or phenomena.

Aircraft or balloons. Astronomical objects. Atmospheric objects and light phenomena, including my personal favorite I yearn to see for myself, ball lightning.

Of course, what is mythic is the hypothesis that has become synonymous with UFOs – the extraterrestrial hypothesis, essentially UFOs as alien spacecraft or visitation. Although arguably that is one strand, albeit the predominant one, of various overlapping hypotheses, which propose exotic explanations other than ordinary phenomena.

Timecraft rather than spacecraft (and future humans or posthumans rather than aliens). The cryptoterrestrial hyphothesis. The interdimensional hypothesis. Space Nazis or communists.  Or some sort of government conspiracy to manipulate perception.

UFOs and ufology have a number of layered elements. There are the UFOs themselves – ranging from the foo fighters and ghost rockers of WW2 (or their predecessors as mystery airships) to more contemporary black triangles, flying saucers and green fireballs.

Then there’s the aliens, most predominantly the aliens known as the Greys, or their predecessors Little Green Men – the former being suspiciously humanoid and nude – as well as their predilections for cattle mutilation (presumably as bowsers they pump as fuel for their spacecraft), crop circles, abduction, and the omnipresent probing (or lurid sexual fantasies to rival those of witchcraft).

That last always throws in a skeptical note for me. It’s hard to imagine that aliens are so advanced as to cross light years of space or different dimensions just to give some hick an enema. I mean, I would, but I’m not particularly advanced and that’s just my sense of humor.

Also – why is it never the sexy aliens? Although there is (or was) a strand of aliens in UFO mythology as Nordic aliens.

And then there’s the deeper levels of UFO mythology revolving around human interaction – or conspiracy – with aliens. Roswell and Area 51. Men in black. Majestic 12. And my personal favorite, the endless ancient alien hypotheses, with Eric von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods foremost among them for me – aliens built the pyramids!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(16) EARTH MYSTERIES –
ATLANTIS, BERMUDA TRIANGLE & TUNGUSKA

 

“The time when the oceans drank Atlantis”

Atlantis – myth, allegory, Egyptian priestly gossip…

Not to mention empire of so-called Earth mysteries – that modern mythology of beliefs about geographical locations or monumental architecture and their “energy”. Ley lines, megaliths, pyramids, Stonehenge. Geomancy and feng shui.

But back to Atlantis, it is representative not only of ‘earth mysteries’ but of all mythic lost or sunken continents, lands and kingdoms, including phantom islands and even hollow earth or subterranean realms.

All of which could readily round out their own top ten – Lemuria or Mu, Hyperborea or Thule, Ys or Lyonesse, Agartha, Avalon or Tir Nan Og, Eldorado, Hy-Brasil, Shambhala or Shangri-La.

And they’re just the big names, although the biggest name of all in lost lands is course Atlantis itself, thanks to Plato. Ironically, Plato used Atlantis as a minor allegory (and counterpoint to Athens), set 9000 years or so before his time, one which concludes with “Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean”, but it subsequently assumed a mythic significance after him.

“Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction”. To its mythic archetype of lost continent or land, one might also add its fantasy role as sunken, submerged or submarine kingdom – with the Atlanteans adapting to their new marine habitat.

Foremost in Atlantean mythology, at least as my personal favorites, are the so-called “location hypotheses” – the historical (or pseudohistorical) speculations as to the location of Atlantis, if only as possible sources of inspiration for Plato’s allegory.

Although not as wild as they used to be – with modern understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics putting paid to any actual lost continent (foremost among them Ignatius Donelly’s nineteenth century revival of the Atlantis myth) – there are still some wild theories proposed for America or even Antarctica as Atlantis.

Personally, I’d like to see more speculation for the United States as Atlantis – not as an allegory by Plato but a premonition (or both, the United States kinda fits the Atlantis allegory as well). Not to mention the Atlantean cold war against Lemuria-Mu.

Seriously, however, I lean more towards Plato creating a mostly fictional account, from more plausible sources of inspiration from the Mediterranean – my favorite being the volcanic eruption on Thera and the fall of Minoan civilization on Crete, although close runner-up is more contemporary (and personal) events to Plato in Sicily.

And then there are the more literary influences or interpretations – from utopias (or dystopias), including the definitive Utopia of Thomas More, to the lost land of Atlantis as metaphor for something no longer obtainable

Or again, personally I’d like to see more speculation for Atlantis as premonition by Plato, not to the future but as deep atavistic memory to the distant prehistoric past, when we were all happy little trilobites in Pangaea, or Gondawana, or whatever prehistoric supercontinent it was back then

“We can’t tell where we are… everything is… can’t make out anything…It looks like we are entering white water… We’re completely lost.”

The Bermuda Triangle is one of my personal favorite modern myths – hence its inclusion as earth mystery in this special mention – despite it being, you know, complete crap.

Firstly, it’s a pretty loose triangle, often more of a Bermuda Trapezoid, even extending as far as Ireland in some variations – although it usually includes the Sargasso Sea, which I find almost as fascinating.

Secondly, the idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances is only recent, arising in the mid-20th century, albeit with a bang with my favorite myth within the myth, the disappearance of Flight 19 quoted above. (It happened, but not as part of any larger triangular mystery).

Thirdly and most fundamentally, there’s no mystery. “The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionately speaking, than in any other part of the ocean” – and “the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious”.

Also the claims of writers who contributed to the Bermuda Triangle legend, Charles Berlitz foremost among them for me, “were exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable” – including just straight out misreporting accounts of meteorological conditions or omitting the belated return to port of ships reported missing.

But who cares about all that – it’s just fun, particularly in fantasy, where the underlying reason for the mystery usually “will turn out that something really weird is involved with the area, such as aliens, paranormal activity, Eldritch Abominations, Atlantis, or something even weirder”. Perhaps Cthulhu or other dimensions. Even if human activity is involved, it’s some ancient conspiracy or cult.

Also this entry is intended to be representative of mysterious disappearances and “vile vortices” in general. There’s the similar Devil’s Sea (or Dragon’s Triangle) near Japan, as well as a few other triangles. The lost colony of Roanoke. The Mary Celeste. Ambrose Bierce. Amelia Earhart

And there’s also my personal Bermuda Triangle, because whenever I lose things, they vanish completely from the face of the earth – perhaps into Charles Fort’s Super-Sargasso Sea.

And then there’s the third of my holy trinity of Earth mysteries – the Tunguska Event. Although I feel a little trepidation ranking the Tunguska Event with the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis – because unlike those latter two, the Tunguska Event is more grounded, less earthly or mysterious.

It’s also a less enduring phenomenon – an explosion in Siberia usually reckoned at 10-15 megatons on 30 June 1908. As to what caused the explosion – there’s the mystery, but again it’s usually reckoned to be a meteorite. The only catch is that an impact crater or meteorite has never been found, so the leading hypothesis is that it exploded as an air burst rather than from direct impact.

If so, it was a lucky day for St Petersberg at the same latitude, as a few hours difference might have made it the site rather than a remote and sparsely populated region of Siberia.

However, that doesn’t stop wilder hypotheses, ranging from the still relatively mundane such as a comet or exploding leak of subterranean natural gas, to the bizarre – “a deuterium-rich meteorite causing an all-natural thermonuclear explosion; a chunk of antimatter; a miniature black hole passing through the Earth; an alien spacecraft crashing or discharging some kind of superweapon; psychic experiments or magic rituals gone wrong”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(15) CRYPTIDS & CRYPTOZOOLOGY

 

As “the biological equivalent of UFO sightings”, cryptids and cryptozoology are the other modern mythology par excellence, albeit without the same depth or grand unification theories of UFOs and ufology.

You could say cryptids have been part of mythology from its prehistoric origins, since mythology has always featured fabulous beasts or monsters.

However, the modern mythology of cryptids and cryptozoology is somewhat different. Typically, it does look at creatures of legend, folklore or rumor – not in any magical or supernatural sense, but as biological possibilities “in the wild”, in isolation or in hiding, yet unrecognized or regarded as implausible by more mainstream biology.

“Some may be relict survivors of species believed to be extinct, or known organisms displaced into inappropriate habitats; others are unlike any known species.”

And yes – there’s enough cryptids for their own top ten. Indeed, many top tens – you could even categorise them, as Wikipedia’s list of cryptids does, by aquatic or semi-aquatic, terrestrial or winged.

There are the big stars of cryptozoology. The Yeti and Bigfoot or Sasquatch (with similar creatures elsewhere, such as the Yowie in Australia). The Loch Ness Monster – standing in for all the various monsters of lakes or lochs around the world, which again could be their own top ten, again with Wikipedia having a list of lake monsters as well as an Australian representative in the bunyip.

As for other star cryptids – the Jersey Devil and Mothman, sea serpents (and mermaids, particularly thanks to that Animal Planet ‘mockumentary’), various living dinosaurs (such as Mokele-Mbembe), living megalodon, various misplaced big cats, and my personal favorite, the chupacabra, because I love that goat-sucking beastie.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(14) LYCANTHROPY

 

“You hear him howling around your kitchen door.

You better not let him in.

Little old lady got mutilated late last night.

Werewolves of London again.

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London!”

 

Not just London, as werewolves are a widespread concept in European folklore.

And not just werewolves either, as I’m opening up this special mention entry to the concept of werebeasts throughout the world. Technically that would be therianthropy, as the better-known term lycanthropy is specifically for werewolves (literally from the Greek for wolf and man). Although werewolfism and werebeastliness would be more amusing to use.

You all know the basic concept – a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, or some sort of wolf-human hybrid, either on purpose or involuntarily by some sort of curse or affliction (often spread by the bite or scratch of a werewolf), with such transformations typically (but not always) by the light of the full moon.

The concept has a long history. Personally, I think it has one of the longest in human history – or prehistory – originating with animal powers, totemism or transformation in shamanism.

As the use of the Greek term lycanthropy might signify, the more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated in classical history, with references to men transforming or being transformed into wolves in Greek literature or mythology. One of the most famous was the myth of Lycaon, whom Zeus – styled as Zeus Lycaeus, translated by Robert Graves as Zeus of the she-wolf – transformed into a wolf (as divine punishment).

However, while the term lycanthropy itself was used by the Greeks in classical literature, it was apparently only in later classical history, used rarely, and in a clinical sense for a particular form of insanity rather than transformation.

The term werewolf was more recognizably used for the concept. And as that term might signify, the even more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated with the role and totemism of the wolf in pre-Christian or Iron Age Germanic paganism, itself often traced further back to proto-Indo-European mythology – where lycanthropy is apparently reconstructed as an aspect of the initiation of the warrior class.

This heady mix clashed head on with Christianity, leading to the concept of the werewolf in medieval Europe – although that concept reached its definitive height in the early modern period, hopelessly intertwined with the overlapping concepts of vampires and witchcraft, so much so for the latter that there were werewolf trials among witch trials.

And like vampires, the elements of werewolves in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten, from the underlying causes of lycanthropy, the nature of their transformation, and other characteristics – including, most crucially for those European peasants up to their necks in fangs, their weaknesses or possible cures.

And as for wider therianthropy or werebeasts – “Until the 20th century, wolf attacks on humans were an occasional, but still widespread feature of life in Europe. Some scholars have suggested that it was inevitable that wolves, being the most feared predators in Europe, were projected into the folklore of evil shapeshifters. This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche; werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India, as well as werepumas (“runa uturuncu”) and werejaguars (“yaguaraté-abá” or “tigre-capiango”) in southern South America.”

Although I think that overlooks bears in Europe. There’s also the plethora of werebeasts in the modern fantasy genre, most notably in Dungeons and Dragons, where basically were-anything goes.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(13) VAMPIRES &VAMPIRISM

 

And now we get to the hungrier folklore of the dead, albeit not so much in archetypal ghostly incorporeal form, but back from the dead as revenants. They came back wrong. Not much good comes out of coming back from the dead as a rule. It usually involves preying upon life to sustain one’s unnatural, undead being – treading water, but in blood, as it were.

There is a whole host of vampiric or ‘vampire adjacent’ beings or creatures in folklore and mythology, worthy of their own top ten, going all around the world and back to the dawn of history or beyond.

But when it comes to vampire folklore, despite all the vampiric predecessors and variants, we’re talking “the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire” that “originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe” – and its progeny in modern fantasy or horror, mostly from the archetype of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which arguably overshadow their precessors in folklore.

And the elements of vampires in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten. There are many variants, lacking a single definitive type, although there are a elements common to a number of European vampire folklore legends. Like witchcraft, which to some degree it overlaps and resembles, vampirism evolved into a mythos with remarkable complexity and depth – even down to a similar frenzy of vampire sightings (and stakings) in the eighteenth century.

There are the various attributes or traits of vampires, although a surprising number of those identified with vampires in modern popular culture originate not from traditional folklore but modern fantasy – as they do for the creation or origin of vampires, which tends to be more haphazard in folklore (such as by a cat jumping over a corpse) than the viral version of vampirism in modern fantasy.

There’s also the various means of preventing vampires (as in the various means of preventing a corpse from becoming a vampire, or at least causing too much trouble as one), identifying vampire, and most importantly of all, protecting against or destroying them. A personal favorite from folklore you don’t see too much (if at all) in modern fantasy is their weird obsessive-compulsion – if you left a bag or sack of grain or seeds in its path, it had to count every single grain or seed, usually detaining it all night. Except perhaps the Count in Sesame Street, which I’d like to think is an esoteric survival of this element of folklore.

And then there are the historical explanations for vampires and vampirism – anomalies in the natural process of decomposition (for elements identifying corpses as vampires), premature burial or grave robbery, various diseases (with porphyria and rabies being the most notable), and psychological or political explanations.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(12) GHOSTS & GHOST LORE

 

Boo!

Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology. I aways recall Pascal Boyer in his Religion Explained proposing the origin of such beliefs (and in part religion itself) to the persistence of dead people in our dreams. In which case I am haunted by the ghosts of people who are still alive – not to mention haunting the world as a ghost in turn.

Although there are many more rational explanations for ghosts and haunts, essentially most involving brain states or phenomena conducive to ghost-like hallucinations – once again including toxic and hallucinogenic plants or substances, some of which associated with necromancy and the underworld. Ah yes, hallucinogenic plants – is there nothing they can’t do?

And yes – ghost lore is the term used by Wikipedia for ghost foklore, albeit perhaps more in its modern context.
“Ghostlore is still widespread and popular… It might be expected that a rational age of science would destroy belief in the ability of the dead to return. I think it works the other way: in an age of scientific miracles anything seems possible”

Although I’ve always wondered that ghosts seem remarkably narrow-minded, apparently moping around where they died or other familiar haunts, when they are literally without any corporeal limitation, and could be anywhere or do anything. I’d at least want to haunt the space station for a bit. Not that it stops me, like most other people, being fascinated by ghosts and ghost stories.

Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.

I mean – how do objects have ghosts, or be ghosts? For that matter, how do ghosts have clothing or any other objects? Shouldn’t all ghosts be naked? Although that starts to get towards spectrophilia. And yes – that is an actual thing, an attraction to or arousal by ghosts. Hello, White Ladies and Ladies in Red…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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