Theory of Mythemes: Decodings, Mappings, Referents, & Breakthroughs

Contents:

About the Key Mythemes Page
Definition of ‘Mytheme’, ‘Decoding’, ‘Mapping’, & ‘Breakthrough’
- mytheme
- decoding
- mapping
- breakthrough
- Terminology (general/sort/move)
Breakthroughs that Are Not Centered on Mytheme-Decoding
- My January 1988 Core Theory breakthrough of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, not involving mythemes
- My circa 1995 conversion removing remaining old thinking, with a rescuing vision of {Christ crucified}
Instantaneous vs. Gradual Transformation — Two Models in Myth
How I Got Started decoding mythemes
See Also
What constitutes a good, complete, satisfying decoding?
Terminology
Against Narrative
Mytheme Needing No Narrative: cista mystica
Direct Description of Loosecog, vs. Mythemes Describing Loosecog Indirectly by Analogy, vs. Storytime Narrative
The True Basic Narrative That’s Built Into the Mind, Later Elaborated-over by Florid Roundabout Storytime Narratives
Outtakes from Mytheme List Page

Theory of Mythemes; Decoding a Mytheme; & Mappings in a Decoding

Core Concepts of Egodeath
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

Every mytheme is understood to be in the altered state and in some way is about transformation of the mental worldmodel from Possibilism to Eternalism. Entries are more specific than that.

About the Key Mythemes Page

Two Laws of Mytheme Decoding:

A mytheme is never literal. A mytheme is a description-by-analogy.
- A mytheme is a description-by-analogy, of things that are observed and experienced in the altered state.
- We only have to identify which specific thing in the altered state, is most isomorphic with this particular mytheme.
- Whatever this mytheme means, we know one thing for certain, that we can rule out: a mytheme never refers to (as its *primary* referent) the thing that it uses as the representation-symbol.
- eg {woman}, whatever it means, most certainly does *not* mean a literal woman.
- {ear of grain harvested}, whatever it means, most certainly does not mean “a literal ear of grain, harvested”, as its primary referent.

Mythemes describe things in the intense mystic altered state.
- All mythemes are in mushroom-Mythemeland.
- A mytheme is a description-by-analogy, of things that are observed and experienced in the intense mystic altered state from mushrooms (or equivalent entheogen; any fully effective cognitive-loosening agent).

Every entry in this mytheme list assumes: in the altered state; the loose cognitive association binding state.

REMEMBER NONE OF THESE ARE LITERAL! THESE MYTHEMES ARE ALL ASPECTS OF THE MIND, dynamics that are experienced & made visible specifically in the altered state! “WOMAN” DOES NOT MEAN WOMAN! NOTHING IS LITERAL.

A {family} of three, carved on an altar, does not mean a literal family; it primarily depicts the mystic {family}; that is, a single initiate, with multiple distinct mental worldmodels.

A mytheme is a description by analogy, of something that is experienced or perceived in the altered state (loosecog).

Whenever discussing mythemes, such as in the “Key Mythemes” catalog entries, it is to be understood that:

Mythemes are in context of the altered state; loose cognition.
Mythemes are description by analogy.
Thus together:
Mythemes are description by analogy, of things that are observed and experienced in the altered state

Mytheme explanations are written in the following concise form, in the Key Mythemes catalog and other Egodeath theory writings.

This concise form focuses on the particular, distinctive meaning of that mytheme, given that all mythemes are analogies describing things that are observed and experienced in the intense altered state.

{snake}

The worldline of control-thoughts.

That definition means:

The mytheme {snake} is a description by analogy, of the worldline of control-thoughts, experienced and perceived in the intense mystic altered state.

Definition of ‘Mytheme’, ‘Decoding’, ‘Mapping’, & ‘Breakthrough’

mytheme

mytheme – a description, by analogy, of referents in the altered state. For example, {rock} is a mytheme, and block universe is a referent, and these equations are a mapping from the mytheme to the referent.

{rock} = block universe.
{snake} = worldline.
{wine} = entheogen.
{king} = pseudo-autonomous center of personal control power, steering through the tree of apparently branching possibilities.

decoding

decoding – a set of mappings of interrelated mythemes to interrelated referents.

A decoding is a set of mappings, from interrelated mythemes to interrelated referents.

mapping

An equation of a mytheme and a referent.

referent

referent — Anything that can be experienced, perceived, or observed in the altered state, of loose cognitive associating binding. In the decoding of a mytheme, the mytheme is mapped to a referent. For example, the mytheme {rock} is resolved by mapping it to the referent, the block universe.

breakthrough

A breakthrough like my non-mytheme-related, directly expressed breakthrough in 1988, is bringing together, re-inter-relating, items such as loosecog, block universe, non-control, and ego transcendence.

See Paul Thagard’s book Conceptual Revolutions, for a model and explanation of the reconnections involved in theory-expansion and theory-replacement.

Terminology (general/sort/move)

Glossary for referents (non-mytheme) terms in explanations within the “Mytheme List” page; a referent is anything that is experienced, observed in the loose cognitive, altered state.

Breakthroughs that Are Not Centered on Mytheme-Decoding

The Difference Between My Non-Mytheme, “Block Universe/ Ego Transcendence/ Loose Cognition/ No-Free-Will/ Non-Control” Breakthrough, vs. my biggest “Mytheme-Decoding/Mapping Breakthrough” (tree vs. snake = Possibilism vs Eternalism)

In my “Block Universe/ Ego Transcendence/ Loose Cognition/ No-Free-Will/ Non-Control” breakthrough, that involved reconnections within the referent area: consisting of two types of perceptants, all within the referent-realm:/ referent-domian (no mytheme-domain involved): OSC-perceived items, now perceived in ASC perspective, and also, OSC-imperceptible items, now made perceptible in the ASC.

—–

So, categories involved in the explanation of two kinds of breakthroughs:

The referent domain portion A: OSC perceptants; things that are perceived in OSC and (differently) in ASC.

The referent domain portion B: ASC perceptants; things that are not perceived in OSC, but are perceived, for the first time, in ASC.

The mytheme domain – not involved in my purely scientific, non-analogy-based breakthrough forming the Core theory (the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence) in January 1988. Was the central focus of my November 2013 “tree vs snake”(that’s mappings among mytheme-domain items) = that’s mappings from the mytheme domain to the referent domain) Possibilism vs Eternalism (that Possibilism/ Eternalism pair is connections within the referent plane).

—–

Reconnection happens during the ASC.

The things that are perceived in the ASC are things that are perceived in the OSC but now are seen differently in ASC, and also, things that are not seen in the OSC, that become perceptible in the ASC experiential perspective.

I here list out all the elements/factors that are identified above, to specify a perfect model.

referents are all things seen in the ASC, including:
o Some things that are seen in the OSC (but now, in the ASC, seen differently).
o Things that are NOT perceptible in the OSC, but become perceptible in ASC.

In my “Mytheme-Decoding/Mapping Breakthrough” breakthrough, that involved __.

My January 1988 Core Theory breakthrough of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, not involving mythemes

See History page, but the point to make here, is,

What’s the difference between a breakthrough of mytheme decoding, versus my breakthrough in the Core theory before I knew anything about mythemes?

My January 1988 breakthrough, or my “October 1987 to February 1988” breakthrough on a broader scale, was like a chapter straight out of Conceptual Revolutions, but with the understanding that the “Old Theory” usually is no “theory” at all, but fragmented confusion.

It’s more a matter of “the Old Non-Theory” vs. “the New Actual-Theory”.

I went from my, say 1980-1985 way of thinking, to a new, 1987-1988 way of thinking, which was finally made consistent and purged of remaining sin and impurity and pollution, in my moment of conversion/completion, which was around 1995.

Although I was fished out and rescued by a vision of Christ Crucified, and I probably read Gnosis issues by then, and I had decoded Rock lyrics for a few years, even that late, final event of my Core Theory Development was essentially nothing to do with mythemes or revelations about mythemes.

I was saved by the vision of a mytheme, yet, I thought in terms of historicity; Mr. Historical Jesus, envisioned bloody on the cross as a vision, not requiring historical reality of any actual violence. I was saved by an idea of self-violation taken to completion in the visionary example of Jesus crucified. That was around 1995, shortly before my baptism —

I might have my peak-conversion/ purification/ rescue/{fishing-out} date written on a cassette of buzz and feedback at Egodeath.com home page.

A breakthrough of mytheme decoding can shake me very hard although you’d think not, because it in theory didn’t change my core theory, but merely added periphery content.

YET it shook me extremely hard in November 2013 tree vs snake decoding breakthrough — gave huge confirmation of my core theory, in some way. my theory keeps changing; that is, growing, covering more fields, which involves more connections to the Core, possibly (surely in some sense:) reconnections within the 1988-founded Core.

Instantaneous vs. Gradual Transformation — Two Models in Myth

Stages and Levels: 1 door, or 12 doors, and 10 levels of initation, as in Mithraism.

In the standard simplified, all-at-once model, there’s a 1-time taking of the personal control system (it’s female).

The personal control system rises up — or instantly toggles to, or over 40 minutes rises up, to the higher loosecog mode.

The sphere of the fixed stars contains the mushrooms.

When the personal control system jumps or flips into the loosecog mode, the child gets cut away by Saturn’s scythe instantly.

The mind (in the instantaneous model) immediately gains 100% myth-literacy and Transcendent Knowledge, the instant — the 40 minutes — mushrooms switch the mental state, as fast as that rocket engine takes.

That quickly, as fast as God’s mercy, all of the mind’s perishability is zapped like Semele instantly giving birth to Dionysus.

Like a single massive shake of Persephone’s filter, strips all mortality instantly in one blow.

Not 50 years gradually losing virginity.

That mind is now immediately a completed mature initiate.

That’s the exaggeratedly extreme binary model.

Versus: purgatory for a long time gradually burning away mortality.

Some hellish Wilberian 16-step, 4-quadrant, untenable drawn-out multi-life-long Project. Through pscyhospiritual developmntal stagificationism. Stretch out the duration — spiritual professionals dole it out in tiny increments.

Think binary: either Kore in the ordinary state of consciousness, or toggle: jump to the other *orbit*, an orbit-jump, a binary flip from the ordinary state of consciousness to the altered state, from tightcog to loosecog, from earth to Saturn the child-preventing-entering gate.

The instant, binary-state model. Not “gradually ascend” per slow ptolemaic astral ascent mysticism, but instantly flip/toggle/jump up to Saturn/fixed stars/emperiam. A 3-in-one gate reduced to a single gate, binary toggle like myths often.

The simple standard model: virgin maiden, altered state, abducted, seduced, overpowered, climaxes, dies, gives birth, to the new, consciously 2-part self, the god-aware mental worldmodel of time, self, possibility, and control.

All of that happens all at one point in time, in many of the myths, as completely as losing virginity.

Semele had been sleeping with Zeus repeatedly, in the dark, before her instantaneous zapping in a flash of lightning — a drawn-out storyline combined with instant climax action.

The personal control system is exposed to the altered state fire, burning away… gradually over several nights, or imagined as instant — 2 opposite ideas in myth, the “instant” model like in quick-running myth narratives:

{maiden virgin abducted impregnated dies gives birth to god-boy}

The events happen as fast as the poet can sing them.

The innate design of the personal control system is such that it is female in response and outcome.

She the female-acting, female-functioning mind gives birth to the final mental worldmodel, god-aware, the control-thought-injection {phallus} now exposed, having been exposed once or more. Watts Does Mystery Religion.

The normally veiled, uncontrollable source of control-thoughts.

A goddess dangles a boy over fire night after night in a series of 10 initiations to make him immortal by burning off his mortal aspects – not instantly in that story.

Does the initiate pass through one door, the eternalism door (price: sacrifice the childhood self and world, put away childish things), is it one big Heaven’s Gate, or is it a series of 10 doorways?

Either way is a true (incomplete) description; need both — alternate between transformation from possibilism to eternalism happens al at once a la Watts Does M-r m-r , rising through 10 gateways, or is it 1 gateway?

Both, from different scales/perspectives.

It’s a drawn-out sequence, and it can be quick like my January 1988 discovery of combining some 7 basic ideas forming clearly a new coherent system, a coherent theory pulled itself together.

My circa 1995 conversion removing remaining old thinking, with a rescuing vision of {Christ crucified}

How I Got Started Decoding Mythemes

I did much historical reconstruction of my path from 1985 to 1997, but oddly, I have a gap in my reconstruction in the transition from:

Phase 1 – Core theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence; no mythemes: 1985-1997) –

Rock Lyrics Decoding – 1988-1992+

Decoding Rock lyrics as description of referents in the altered state.

Diary of a Madman (Bob Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne) in late 1988.

In 1991 or 1992, I really got started decoding Rock lyrics, mapping them to altered-state referents.

Gnosis Issues in mid-1990s, into 1999

In the 1990s, I did read the Gnosis issues. I’m critical of their special issue on Psychedelics.

Phase 2 (Mytheme mapping to Core theory, and historical research on ahistoricity of religious founder figures, history of Western Esotericism in Antiquity)

1998: was given book on probably on Roman Religion, or Mystery Religions (red-pink-peach cover with image, probably). I had read the Gnosis journal set in 1995 era.

1999: I was expecting and looking for Jesus to be asserting my the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, but the thing that made no sense was why he was get himself harmed bodily. I hadn’t heard of ahistoricity yet.

I got Clark Heinrich’ book Strange Fruit this yera (most likely), which perhaps got me started thinking in the mode of mytheme decoding.

From that book, I found the priest’s book bemusedly rebutting Allegro – both his ahistoricity theory, and his mushroom-Christianity theory.

Finally I got Allegro’s book, The Mushroom & The Cross.

Around 2000, I posted a lot in the JesusMysteries Yahoo Group. People wanted to know about my entheogen theory combined with ahistoricity, but the Mods woudln’t let people discuss this popular requested coverage. Peter Gandy followed me onto there for a copule posts at least.

I met privately with Freke & Gandy around 1999, an underground coffeehouse conversation.

I read the sketchy entheogen scholarship books at the time, best (besides Heinrich) was James Arthur’s book Mushrooms & Mankind.

Arthur would call me when he was drunk.

Arthur told me on the phone that he agreed with everything in my Theory — which could seem surprising, except, by 2002, I discovered that per Pagels’ first two books, the entire set of beliefs held by the Gnostics (esoterics), diametrically opposed on every point to the Orthodox (exoterics), also aligned perfectly with my coherent, integrated set of ideas.

I found Pagels’ first 3 books via Freke & Gandys book, which is like a sequel of Gnostic Gospels. I don’t recall exactly how I had the good sense to go from her 3rd book, GG, to her 1st & 2nd. I believe my sequence of books was:

Strange Fruit
Clark Heinrich

A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth
John Charles King
http://amzn.com/0340125977
1970
London; Hodder & Stoughton
Customer review 2004 excerpts:

John C. King wrote for his Christian readers this piece against the ideas of Christianity being based on the mushrooms or drugs.

King’s opinions are narrow-minded, prejudiced, and lacking any amount of education whatsoever on other religions other than his Christianity; he uses circular biblical arguments.

King argues as a priest.

Allegro studied as a minister.

Not only can King not see that the Eleusinian mysteries were based on drugs, as well as Greek mythology as laid out in recent [he writes in 2004; here’s a nice historical snapshot of which entheogen scholarship books were hot at the time] publications by Yale University and others:

Persephone’s Quest by Wasson, Ott and Ruck
Apples of Apollo by Ruck, Staples, and Heinrich
[Strange Fruit; the 2nd print-run was titled:] Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy by Heinrich
Food of the Gods by McKenna
Soma – Divine Hallucinogen by David Spess
Mushrooms and Mankind by James Arthur

but King even avoided other publications existing at the time such as “Soma – Divine Mushroom of Immortality” by R Gordon Wasson in order to make his case.”

/ end of customer review

The Jesus Mysteries: How the Pagan Mysteries of Osiris-Dionysus Were Rewritten as the Gospel of Jesus Christ
1999
later title:
The Jesus Mysteries:Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
http://amzn.com/0609807986
Editions & subtitles – at Egodeath.com

The Gnostic Gospels
Pagels

The Gnostic Paul
Pagels
I reviewed this in 2002.
Copies: Egodeath.com, Amazon.com, WordPress.

What constitutes a good, complete, satisfying decoding?

Shortest possible answer:
mytheme>mytheme
mytheme>referent
referent>referent
referent>mytheme

Demonstrated concretely via the hyperlinks in my Mytheme List page and Dictionary Tech-Terms page.

Mythemes List
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/15/mytheme-list/
Dictionary of Egodeath & the Altered State
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

1. Map the isolated mytheme to the referent domain (something experienced or perceived in ASC).

2. Mapping the mytheme to other mythemes of some 4 types: duo-pairs/complements; near-synonyms, & antonyms. & general/particular eg branching/tree, rock/altar, rock/cave, nonbranching/snake, nonbranching/vine, even more specific is nonbranching/ivy (one type of vine). one type of nonbranching is vine; one type of vine is ivy.

3. Mapping all the related mythemes to the referent-domain.

A decoding is a set of mappings, relations, and connections.

A decoding of a new incoming mytheme consists of:

0. Specifying the mapping of the isolated new incoming mytheme, to a single referent.

1. Specifying the set of relations (or, “cross-mappings“) among the new mytheme and other mythemes.

2. Specifying the set of mappings from those mythemes to their referents.

3. Specifying the set of connections among referents in Referentspace. eg, here forbidding the employment of any unnecessary mythemes, but only speeaking directly (as possible) of things that are observed/experienced in loosecog: “A worldline is frozen into the block universe, nullifying autonomous personal control power that was seemingly steering in a tree.” Equivalent to saying: the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence explains the relation between loosecog, block universe, and self-control cybernetics across time, and how mental worldmodels work, and how the Possibilism mental worldmodel transforms to the Eternalism model”.

referents, in Referentspace = things experienced, seen, mentally grasped, or observed in the ASC; the loose cognitive association state; the intense mystic altered state. A referent, here, is something that is experienced or observed in the ASC — a thing which might be the case in OSC too, even if occluded then.

A decoding of a mytheme is a set of mappings: ( say 5 things about those “mappings” — in the Mythemes domain (“Mythemeland”),

1. you must show the relation of the “new mytheme” with all known mythemes — there are 4 types of relationships — and,

2. you must map all mythemes that connect w/ the “new mytheme”, to the Referent domain (aka “Referentland”) — and,

3. thirdly, to complete the set, you must make sure to cross-map and items in Referentspace to each other, that are affected by the above mappings from Mythemespace to Referentspace.

Types of Mytheme Relationships

Synonym

Antonym, Duo-Pairs

General vs. Specific

General mytheme-theme, vs. instantiation:
From general to specific:
___
non-branching
serpent
dragon, snake, ketos (short sea-serpent fish-beast w/ front leg-fins)
___
non-branching
vine
ivy, grape vine, Jonah’s gourd-plant

Terminology

“loosecog” in the broad sense means all of this: the entheogenic altered state, which is loose cognitive association binding and its experiential cognitive phenomenology, including mental model transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism; transforming the mental model of time, possibility, and control, from freewill-premised possibility branching, to no-free-will/monopossibility and non-control aka depending consciously on a hidden uncontrollable source & creator of control-thoughts.

“decoding a mytheme” means identifying how a mytheme is analogous to loosecog. It also means how to “read” a mystic image, a “scene”, a “diagram”, in esoteric art — reading a spread of mythemes in relation to other, interlinked mythemes such as “debranched mushroom tree”.

The experienced, mytheme-literate eye knows what to look for when decoding a scene: male/female, reins/steering, rock, king, ruler, visionary plants, branching/non-branching.

One of my recent decodings/discoveries about branching, to read mushroom trees: use the Eden mushroom tree as a height gauge relative to branching legs and to heads. What is the relative height of the head and the branching?

Inventory all branching in the picture, as I did with the Eden tree image in Campbell’s book The Power of Myth (my November 26 2013 breakthrough), as I analyzed and “mytheme-read” the Eden tree with some 4-5 branching themes packed into it.

The king’s head is at the place where the trunk meets the branches, that’s where he decides where to steer among the branching possibilities. Eve is looking, profoundly, at the branches at the underside of the mushroom cap, below the fruit and birds and leaves of the mushroom cap.

This is decoding art mythemes, how to read a mystic image, by doing a branching analysis, inventorying any rocks, any sacrifices (implies rock altar).

The entheogenic altered state is (specifically and directly describing it) loose cognitive association binding, per the comprehensive sense — not just the cognitive fact of loosening, but rather, the set of experiential cognitive phenomenology.

Some aspects of loose cognition are developmental, as the mind transforms from Possibilism to Eternalism, and narrative-over-time applies here. First X, then Y, then Z. That can be a direct non-metaphorical description of how the mental model develops and transforms. Or it can be heavily cast as story narrative, “There was a king named …”

Some aspects are more static, such as metaperception. These non-time-dependent, non-developmental aspects can be included in a story narrative, “the king looked into a mirror”.

A mytheme is a description by analogy, of the cognitive phenomenology of the altered-state, loose cognitive state.

Mythemes are a description of altered-state experiencing.

There doesn’t have to be a narrative; there can be not much of a narrative.

Western Esotericism diagrams are meant to be “read” as a diagram. You can order the elements in a sequence, but they are not presented in a sequence, and it would be arbitrary to treat the diagrammatic picture as subservient to some assumed-to-exist “narrative story”.

Against Narrative

Mine is an anti-narratives definition of the term ‘mythemes’.

It’s bad news, if the term ‘mytheme’ connotes narratives — I have to tear the good term ‘mythemes’ out of the hands of those who weld it to narratives.

I don’t think in terms of narrative.

I’m at the extreme other end of the spectrum than narrative: I like Western Esotericism diagrams or analyzing Mithraic images for which we lack all the narratives.

Don’t privilege poetic recitation linear narratives over visual art. Don’t turn mytheme-art into a soap-opera framework. eg to decode an Eden tree art, don’t automatically drag in the Genesis storytelling narrative, of “the fall” or “guilty about eating”.

The proper, primary reading of “guilt” is: Eternalism cancels moral culpability, so knowing and experiencing Eternalism teaches “the knowledge of good and evil”.

You can omit the complex Genesis narrative and decode the scene elements independently of that narrative, which was only one configuration of the mythemes in archaic times, of forms of the Eden tree.

The fruit as “knowledge of good and evil” is independent of any story narrative, such as Genesis. It’s to be decoded by mapping it to loosecog (per the Egodeath theory Core theory), not to some arbitrary narrative among many potential narratives.

The meaning of a given mytheme comes primarily from loosecog, not from a narrative that happens to incorporate that mytheme.

The REAL sequence is what happens during transforming Possibilism to Eternalism.

Privilege cognitive phenomenology during a series of altered-state initiation sessions, not poets’ storytelling, which is only one way of communicating descriptions of what happens in loosecog including transformation of the mental model of control and time, sacrificing freewill-premised personal control-thinking on a rock altar, flames burning away perishability.

Mithraic rock-carved diagrams or images can be artificially forced into a linear, narrative storytelling structure; for example: “the snake wrapped itself around the egg, during 7 initiations, and then, the initiate was reborn from the rock”.

Such “storytime” presentation is reductionistic; mis-placed focus or center-of-emphasis. That’s letting the story-narrative cart drive the loosecog-dynamics horse. Storytelling is only one form of describing what happens in looosecog. Mythemes are description of loosecog.

Mythemes describe loose cognition. There is no need to even mention “narrative”. Narrative is only one way of describing loose cognition.

Mytheme Needing No Narrative: cista mystica

Example of a standalone mytheme that needs no narrative story: cista mystica {snake revealed in basket with lid lifted}

narrative-free mythemes.

cista mystica eg. on a coin — snake hidden and revealed in a basket by removing the lid, is a good example of a standalone mytheme with, I hope, no narrative behind it at all.

cista mystica coin
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cista+mystica+coin

cista mystica — snake hidden and revealed in a basket by removing the lid, and dying from fear and panic falling off the rock cliff like the girls who fell to their death — now I’m slipping into “narrative mode”.

_____________

I go in-and-out of narrative mode freely.

You can have a fully meaningful snake-basket mytheme on a coin, with no need whatsoever to force it to be placed artificially within a storytelling narrative.

I see each mytheme as general-purpose: a mytheme can be used within a narrative, but it’s not like the mytheme is of no value until it’s forced into a narrative jail.

The mytheme is to be decoded by me, totally independently of knowing anything about the narrative.

I don’t know that much about long-winded mythic narratives.

I know tropes.

Narrative must be demoted as merely one way, among many, to put a mytheme to use.

The mytheme gets its meaning not from a narrative, but rather, from the mind’s built-in narrative of the initiation sequence, which is a simplified equivalent of “the hero’s journey”.

Or rather, the “hero’s journey” model is an indirect, roundabout, artificial elaboration of the basic description of loose cognitive state. Assume all myth stories are variants of “hero’s journey” — that fails to explain what the hero’s hourney is really about. To properly explain the hero’s journey, must map it to loosecog. Loosecog includes both static and developmental aspects.

Direct Description of Loosecog, vs. Mythemes Describing Loosecog Indirectly by Analogy, vs. Storytime Narrative

Here, don’t mix direct & indirect (metaphor/mytheme) writing; keep them separated. 3 distinct things:

o Direct description of how the mind works in loosecog

o Analogy/metaphor/mythemes that indirectly (or less directly) describe how the mind works in loosecog

o Storytime linear narrative with a cast of characters with names. As soon as you go into storytelling mode, you necessariy move away from direct discussion of the mind’s dynamics as such. We should be primarily talking about, and referencing, how the mind works, not a cast of a thousand characters’ names.

With the Egodeath system of decoding of mythemes (ie in terms of Analogical Psychedelic Eternalism), it’s possible to write in a 3-layered or 3-aspect way, or a 3-perspective way: direct description of loosecog phenom including transformation-over-time phenom but not limited to that; 2) mythemes as analogy-based description of that same referent, but with no added narrative, not even for the develop-over-time phenom, 3) adding storytelling “There was a king named…”

1. Direct description of the mental developmental innate trajectory listed below; direct description of how loosecog works to transform the mental model. It is linear-structured, or rather it has/includes linear-structured aspects. You can describe metaperception, “it’s like a mirror”, without reference to a developmental trajectory.

There are 2 kinds of loosecog phenom to describe:

o Aspects of loosecog that develop over time (dynamic; that is, developmental dynamics; trajectory-over-time aspects of loosecog), and

o Aspects that don’t develop over time (static — alas can also be called “dynamics”, in the broad sense of ‘dynamics’; static dynamics eg “the dynamics of metaperception” (poor example)).

Storytime linear narratives are suited for describing the developmental dynamics of loosecog, and then those narratives can also, along the way, incorporate mythemes that describe the non-developmental aspects of loose cognitive phenomenology, such as {torn to pieces} (meaning loose cognitive state mental constructs representing the body & mind).

2. Use of mythemes, but without any fictional narrative. {king; snake} But ths is totally distinct from storytime narrative with named cast of thousands. A Western Esotericism diagram could show a crown, or throne image, or God’s hand-of-control coming out of the cloud — with no narrative implied whatsoever.

o Storytime narrative with named cast of thousands. “There was a king named..”

I’m firmly based in scientific direct system-description of the mind and mental models as such, and then off to the side, without my depending on mythemes/metaphors, I’m mapping from that core basis of reference, out to arbitrary fanciful metaphors that are relatively indirect descriptions of loose cognitive phenomena.

The True Basic Narrative That’s Built Into the Mind, Later Elaborated-over by Florid Roundabout Storytime Narratives

The Mind’s Innate Developmental Trajectory – the master pattern for arbitrary indirect elaborations (which largely serve to obscure, rather than shed light on, the plain goings-on) such as Hero’s Journey:

First the child knows only the OSC, which is the freewill Possibilism state of consciousness and a mental model of control and time.

Then a series of entheogenic loose cog sessions. {initiation (series actually)}

The testing personal control power, and seeing it fail. {judging in court trial}

Seeing and testing its vulnerability.

experiencing frozen time and non-control.

Repudiating dependence on freewill-premised, Possibilism-thinking.

Then during that peak of that initiation session, the mind continues on, still in loose cognition while the mind continues revising connections after that major transformation to Eternalism-thinking.

The mind returns to the ordinary tight-cognitive state after transforming the mental model of time and control.

Then after that, more loose cognitive sessions.

____________________

THAT is what mythemes describe. That is the mind’s true, built-in, minimal narrative.

I reject “myth” (where it’s equated with storytime narrative tale-spinning); I decode mythemes.

Decoding mythemes means mapping each mytheme to loose-cognitive phenomena; identifying how the mytheme is an analogy that describes and is isomorphic with the experiences and events that occur in the loose cognitive association binding state.

Description of loosecog, the land of mythemes, can take many forms – visual art, esoteric diagrams, narrative storytelling in lyre-accompanied poetic altered-state improvisation song at a club banqueting party symposium.

Myth theorists who insist on prioritizing the “linear narrative” frame, are too locked into domino-chain linear time, in their own, limited, anti-mythic experiencing.

Mythemes truly are broader than that.

Storytime linear narrative is only one of various ways to present and utilize mythemes.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=mytheme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytheme — “a minimal unit that is linked with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways (“bundled”) … a fundamental generic unit … from which myths narratives [misguided -mh] can be constructed”

A soon as I saw that definition of mytheme, I knew we weren’t on the same page, that the writer was not properly based in loosecog phenom, but was treating the story-narratives more like the basic point of reference. He’s extracting mythemes from story narratives, but he should instead be extracting mythemes from loose cognitive phen. The point of reference for a mytheme is not “What tales is this mytheme used in?“, but rather, “How is this mytheme analogous to loose cog phen?“

“Structuralism” might mean, too much, storytelling structure. We should be spending most time discussing and thinking in terms of, and in reference to, loose cog phen, not fiction stories narratives.

The bad theorists of mythemes, are merely theorists of myth-narratives — they steer by the wrong star; 2nd-hand roundabout. the Egodeath theory starts at the source (even historically speaking; 1985-1997), and later (historically, 1999-2013) added mapping-to-myth, aka “myth decoding”.

The bad theorists of mythemes = The bad theorists of myths = the bad theories of myth. Read Cyb’s page (or as always, my Egodeath Yahoo Group posts) as if it were about “Theories of Mythemes” instead of “Theories of Mythology”:

Evaluating Theories of Mythemes
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/evaluating-theories-of-mythology/

Ideally, to decode a mytheme-scene, such as a Mithraism tauroctony or snake-wrapped egg or Mithras born from rock, or a Western Esotericism diagram image, you would need two different things:

o The Egodeath theory Core theory (non-metaphorical, no myth, no history-of-religion). To decode mythemes, this is more important than knowing the myth-stories/narratives. When I define the word ‘mythemes’, my true, ideal foundation is loosecog — not an arbitary and confusing set of stories, a jumble of noise and signal.

o Understand the Bible stories and Greek mythology stories/narratives and literature. “There was an evil king named… He sent the hero to do task…” Bad myth theories know all these narratives, but fail to know the Egodeath Core theory. When they define the word ‘mythemes’, their false foundation is the set of stories, without even realizing the most basic thing, that all these narratives and the mythemes they incorporate are really primarily describing loosecog.

The Egodeath theory is not very dependent on knowing the stories narratives of Greek Myth, in order to decode a greek art image. I come to the image-under-decoding from the source: from the vantage point of what it’s really, ultimately all about: loosecog.

Outtakes from Mytheme List Page

Format for Entries

{the mytheme, related mythemes, vs. antonym mytheme} brief referent, verbose explanation

verbose explanation = literal decoding/referent directly described in least-metaphorical terms, per modern science and plain Loose Cognitive Science description.

A referent is anything that’s observed or experienced in the altered state.

Glossary for the Egodeath Theory
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

Top-10 Mythemes

Narrative Sequences

Alphabetical List of Mythemes

xxxxx

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

xxxx

Each group starts with the main mytheme of the group.

Touching Snake with Right Hand Without Dying

Removing Clothing Revealing Body, or Removing Flesh Revealing Skeleton