Two weeks ago a group of New Church teachers concluded a three week's course on the cultural and historical background of the Book of Genesis. Last of these three teachers to speak, Mr. Prescott Rogers described his methods and purposes and what conclusions he had drawn: Meticulously laying the Genesis account of the Age of the Patriarchs parallel to the archeological and historical evidence, in a methodolog-ical approach that could be a pattern for the highest ideals of New Church scholarship, he pointed out similarities and differences where he saw them, did not force agreement where none was apparent, and assumed the doctrinal stance that the purpose of his historical studies was to confirm and support the Doctrine, not the reverse. Finishing in quite a reflective tone, Mr. Rogers noted that it is the presence of the Ancient Church as the common background of these Near Eastern societies which explains the similarities and resolves many of the difficulties.

        How often I had observed the same thing when trying to explain the origins of myths and the development of idolatry to highschool classes; only the knowledge that there was once a high monotheistic culture back behind some of the polytheistic and decadent societies first recorded by written history, could give my students the explanations they needed. Only the presence of a former spiritual church could explain why there were, in some cases, remnants of incredible wisdom and insight; in other cases, the perversions of the Ancient Church accounted for hideous barbarisms, otherwise, assumed by historians to be man's original nature.

        In teachings the origins of World Cultures, the common sources of festivals, rites, song, dance, and poetry, seem much more reasonably explained as fragmented fallout from once great religious ceremonies and rituals, than that they developed separately in all parts of the world as dreary efforts to coax gruesome gods. Even back in that dark day for the Academy when I taught Biology, the only reasonable framework for the apparent fact of evolution was that, yes, the scientists are right in what they report seeing of natural development; there appears to be an evolving or unfolding from simple to complex forms, but that, according to eternal cycles of creation, so beautifully demonstrated in the history of Churches and the evolution of each day, there had been a Divine Involution, down through series of planes and atmospheres, to plant the potential seed of future development in apparently dead matter.

        Here again, the presence of prehistoric, Spiritual and celestial Churches seemed to be the best educational knowledge prerequisite to the proper understandings of man's high origins as creations of the Lord.

        After Prescott concluded our classes, taking advantage of the last hour before the Library closing time to do some research for this talk, I rushed to the Journal of Education and opened up the first bound volume, 1901; there was a list of College course offerings, and under them this statement:

        "Also, the Rev. Carl Theophilus Odhner delivered a course of Fourteen lectures on the history of the Ancient Churches to all the scholars in the schools of the Academy. These lectures, beside presenting the internal soul and philosophy of all secular history, have proved excellent means for awakening a rational interest in spiritual things, and thus for cultivating the affection for the things of the New Church, which is the chief aim of the Academy's educational work." Here was a record of the importance placed on teaching about the Ancient Church as a means of awakening a rational interest in spiritual things; lectures given to all the schools at once from early High School through the Theological School; the chief aim of the Academy's Educational work.

        Skimming along I read the report of the l4th meeting of the Teachers' Institute of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, held on June 30th and July 1st, 1902, in the School of the Carmel Church, Berlin, Canada. (Lest we think we're doing something new, note that importance this was the 14th Meeting of the Teachers' Institute and held outside Bryn Athyn.) Apparently the opening address was delivered by the Rev. E.G. Bostock, President of the Institute, and included a threefold classification of teachers. In the discussion Bishop W.F. Pendleton emphasized the of the third class of teachers, this class he said, win do the most important work, namely, excite the affection of truth, whether natural or spiritual. This includes all the others. If we can lead our children to think with affection about spiritual things, it will produce a spiritual environment which will go with them. The most perfect teacher is he who leads to that which affects the heart of the child. We must train the thought, but especially the formation of affection for the Doctrines."

        The minutes concluded with this statement: "The usefulness of learning the ancient languages, as introducing one into the sphere of the thought of the wise among the ancients, was spoken of. After more remarks about the great importance of awakening the affections, the meeting closed."

        The most perfect teacher is he who looks to that which affects the heart of the child. And that which affects the child's heart is truth. We're not talking of a static admiration of truth here, which is, of course, im-portant; I think what is spoken of here is the affecting of the child's heart, by means of truth, to do good; that is motivating a child, by true examples and inspiration, to do what is good. This has always been the essential aim of our Academy and General Church schools; this has often been grossly misunderstood. It has often been thought that our dedication has been to some kind of cold manipulation of truths, endlessly for their own sakes.

        Reflecting on the ideas of the Ancient Church as background under-standing of many subjects, and the idea of the Ancient heavens as a means of awakening a rational interest in spiritual things, a conviction began to emerge: When our friends say they're so interested in Mythology or Archeology; when they say, "we should have coursesin correspondence", or "I love Fairy Tales and Children's Books; or when people the world over flock to the King Tut exhibit by the millions, and buy out the endless printings of Tolkein books, they are probably only grasping onto these things as symbols of something much deeper, much less tangible, and eversomuch more important. These outward symbols are undoubtedly only external substitutes for the internal, spiritual, prizes and quests sought by our souls. The longings for a faraway hone, for romance and secret treasures; our passion for decoding, and solving intricate problems, are undoubtedly all outward manifestations of the spiritual motivations, stimulated by childhood remains to seek out truth for the sake of good. Because the deepest and most important remains are implanted in infancy and childhood, and because the childhood of the race corresponds to the childhood of the individual, I believe it is the presence of the spirits from the ancient heavens which bring us the greatest nostalgia and longing to seek spiritual treasures.

        "Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill." Of this quotation from Isaiah, the Arcana Coelestia 1069 discloses. "The Ancient Church being spiritual is described by a vineyard and from its fruits, which are grapes, and which represent and signify the works of charity." Noah and his sons also represent the Ancient Church. Noah, who survived the Flood as the lone good remnant from the celestial Church, signifies the last remains. A. 468-2.

        One of the most beautiful doctrines of the New Church is the doctrine of remains. Remains, "the living soul of all flesh", (A 1050) are those living affections for good and truth implanted deeply by the Lord, mostly in early infancy and in childhood, but also in some beautiful states of later life, which turn the soul to respond, at times with exquisite joy,
to all that is good and right. So important are these remains that it is said a man cannot live without them: "From remains, or through remains from the Lord, man can be as man, can know what is good and true, reflect upon each thing, and thus think and reason; for in remains alone is spiritual and celestial life." A. 560. .

        The thesis I would like to develop tonight is the idea that the good remnants of the Ancient Churches are to the race what remains are to the individual. Arcana 468-2 continues with its treatment of the subject of remains: "And as this is the case in the universal, so also it is in the particular, or as it is with the Church, so it is with every individual man"

        When we are talking about remains, we are talking of something far, far deeper, and infinitely more important than the idea of a rational, historical background for the understanding of history, or as an assumption in Biology; When speaking of remains, we are talking about the most secret and intimate relationship of the Lord with our souls; we can only approach the subject with the greatest reverance: but there is ,a way of talking about a deep and holy subject without coming too close, without taking the risk of profaning; the Ancients used it, it is the method of analogy, of correspondence.

        Recent work on people whose physical or mental processes have been arrested because of injury or paralysis, has involved a process they called "patterning." The child, or even adult, helped by his therapist to go back to his first actions, is then led through each successive physical stage, reaching out, moving limbs, then crawling, and finally walking. By analogy, an injured race might be taken back, and re-led through the early, essential, formative stages of development.  

        In the 1912 issue of the Journal of Education, in an editorial on the decline of classical studies in education, Mr. Leonard Gyllenhaal spoke of the important mission of the Academy of keeping alive the heritage of ancient philosophy and conserving the interests of the soul. In his writings on Mythology in the light of the New Church, the Rev. Carl Th. Odhner advocates the study of ancient mythology in its relation to the studies of the New Church: "In the New Church alone we are able to recognize the intimate relation between Theogony and Theology, between Mythology and Religion. Here we can recognize that in the presence of Mythology we stand before a noble classical temple, the home of the Muses, the cradle of all art, poetry, and culture; to us alone has been given the key, and if we enter the inner recesses we shall find ourselves in a sacred adytum which strangely resembles the interior of a temple of the New Jerusalem." And he continues: "This study will further widen our intelligence in general, by preparing planes in the mind, into which the angels of the Ancient Churches may flow, and bring new illustration, and a stronger sphere of those loves in which they were: the love to the Lord and the love to the neighbor. It will serve to humble the pride of us of the twentieth century, in showing us that the worldly wisdom of this age is but as darkness to the light of the ancient wisdom. It will show us also the origin of those falsities and evils which have destroyed the first Christian Church. We shall hence be able to see more objectively those hells from which they have sprung, and that the same idols and false gods which destroyed the Ancient Churches are, even at this day, ruling in the Christian world, and are therein worshiped. Thus we shall be able to shun the false and the evil of the ancients, and to collect and use those treasures of good and truth which lie buried in the ruins."

        In his 1901 address on the Future of the Academy, Bishop W. F. Pendleton talked about the three groups of sciences which need to be explored by New Churchmen in preparation for building a great New Church University; modern sciences, the sciences of Swedenborg's day, and the third, the science of the Ancient Church must be restored. He continues, "The sciences of the Ancient Church were not natural sciences, as we understand them; though they were the origin of all the natural sciences and all the arts which we now possess. The Sciences as we know them arose in the decline of the Ancient Church when man began to study effects rather than causes."

        The sciences of the Ancient Church were from a spiritual origin, that is, they were from the Ancient Word. They were (1) the Science of Correspondences. (2) The Science of Representation, (3) the Science of Influx, and (4) the Science of Degrees, (5) the Science of the Spiritual World, and (6) the Science of God as Man. All these are Sciences of the Sciences, and must take their place in the higher education of the New Church, as the head, beginning, and origin of all the sciences." He takes up each science in greater detail, but the first one is the most important for our purposes tonight: "The Science of God Man exhibits the universe, spiritual and natural, as being in His Image, and all things, from the greatest to the least, as striving to the human form."

        Just as the "remains of good and truth give an individual man the ability to think and understand and receive, so the remains of the Ancient Churches will give the New Churchman a background or framework for the understanding and reception of the doctrines of the New Church - and therefore deserve an important place in the curriculum.

        What are the remains of the Ancient Churches? What is left to us? No remnant theme from ancient mythologies is more generally recognized by secular scholars than the theme of the Hero, "The Science of God Man."

        Joseph Campbell, at present Emeritus Professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, is widely recognized for his masterful studies of the Hero Legend. Author of the Four volumes called Masks of God, but most famous for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell sees the hero myth as the central theme of all mythology; "from behind a thousand faces" Campbell says, "a single hero emerges, archetype of all mythology." This comes as no surprise to New Churchmen who recognize the Lord as the Single Hero who emerges from behind a thousand faces, but the careful detailed work that Campbell has done, taking countless hero stories and laying them as parallel patterns, side by side, weaving the whole mass of mythical threads into one great cycle, is a masterwork deserving our serious study. Those of you who were with us earlier this summer, will recall some of our more detailed considerations of the archetypes in Myth, so important to the Psychoanalysts of the Jungian School. As just a quick example, the brief review of some of the important studies on the Hero will have to suffice. Much of Campbell's typical hero pattern was observed and collated by others. In 1908, Otto Rank, one of Sigmund Freud's associates, published a book called the Myth of the Birth of a Hero in which he noted seven common events surrounding the birth of most legendary heroes; these he related to seven psychological events in the birth and early life of each child. For example he noted that there was usually some ominous prophecy or dire prediction relating to the expected birth of this cliild; care had to be taken to hide the baby, such as the surrendering of the baby to the water in a box, as in the case of Moses, Sargon I, Perseus, and, racially, Noah in surrendered to the Flood waters in the Ark. Many stories tell of the Hero's early nurturing, unknown as to his royal heritage, cared for by kind animals or simple people, shepherds or fishermen; the similarities abound.

        In 1935, Edward Somerset, Lord Raglan, published a book called simply The Hero, in which he cited twenty-two counts which most hero's lives had in conmon. We haven't even time here to list the common counts, but do read the book, it is a delightful, amusing book, and, I just heard it is being reissued in paperback. Raglan's effort was to show how much of what we call history, is actually myth, that somehow, the human mind, when presented with two or three typically heroic characteristics of a living historical figure, tends to fill in the circle of all the heroic characteristics, as if from some sort of Gestalt necessity, projected in a set form from the human mind. For example, Abraham Lincoln arose from humble origins in the woods, became President, and was tragically slain; there seems to be a human necessity for us to fill in the rest of the story, from a preconceived mental pattern: he was so strong he could split rails at a faster rate than anyone around, he was so honest that he walked seven miles to return three cents, he was so clever that he could outwit the most famous lawyers in debate.

            John Kennedy was one of the youngest and most charming Presidents; he was also tragically slain in the line of duty. Though no one could say he rose from humble origins, we are quick to remember that his father was a self made man, and that jack Kennedy and his brothers worked like slaves to achieve their success, rising above physical infirmities and personal tragedies; although his heroism in the P, T, boat incident in World War II was no more remarkable than that of thousands of American soldiers, we have some sort of emotional, psychological need to emphasize heroism in war. We pick and choose from a preconceived pattern, which incidents to record and this becomes history.

            We are not trying to debunk heroes, especially heroes from Illinois! Far from it, we are trying to show that there is a far more important basis than the psychological necessity to make heroes. There is a spiritual basis. You will recall the words quoted only a few minutes ago: “ The Science of God Man exhibits the Universe, spiritual and natural, as being in His Image and all things, from the greatest to the least, as striving to the human form.” It is important to think of the human form first of the body, but then to infill this. We have to begin to see it also as the ongoing ever moving story of the Lord’s life, in this world, and also forever. We believe the beginnings of that are in the simplest hero stories, told to small children.

            Just as the children of our race, in their innocent love and respect for the Lord tended to project what they saw and loved into objective, varied, and graven images, so we in our most innocent states tend to make objective those innate, inborn, heroic attributes of the Lord’s image. The qualities must be made real to us, and the only reality we know, is in the objective world. Later, after we have sensed them as real, in the objective world we can begin to see the realities within. It was the greatest delight of the men of the Ancient Church, because of their approach to the Lord, to do good by means of truth, to make images and stories of all His Myriad Attributes; Divine Power symbolized by Zeus’s thunderbolt or Thor’s hammer, His Omniscience by Hermes’ wings. Those were the first works of art. This is a stage, which each individual must go through. Our lesson, learned from the sad experience of the race must be that we must not forget that these heroic qualities that we love are the human qualities that originate in the Lord, and did not originate in each separate hero. Mircea Eliade put it the right way around when he said; “It is in the imitation of the gods which is our only possibility of becoming men.”

            But in our fear of perversion, we must not deprive our children of the experience of distinguishing, recognizing, and savoring these qualities as if separately personified in the objective world. Because of the correspondential relationship of the history of the race with that of the individual, we know that it is important for the individual’s spiritual development. Anthropologist recognize that early men saw a spirit within each tree and rock, and breeze; and all nature was alive. The anthropologists attribute it to the assumption, that early man saw his kind of human life projected into otherwise dead matter. The same phenomena can be explained by the people of the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches knowing that the Lord's life was with all of his creation, apparent in all its colorful variety as light is apparently separated in a prism and distinguished into varieties perceptable to man.

        Carl Jung says not only must we not deprive our children of outward mythological forms and signs, but that in one sense we cannot so deprive them; he says there is a soul saving mechanism which works toward the good of each human psyche, bringing the injured or deprived back to its original state of wholeness, and that mythological images often seem to be the ' vehicles for this healing process.

        Campbell saw the Myth of the composite or Typical Hero as the archetype of all mythology; It is nothing short of remarkable how these scholars, with earnest intent and tireless labor have themselves, like their typical hero, come right up against the veil between the natural and spiritual minds. Like the Grail hero who, after many a struggle and discouraging challenge, finally found the Grail castle, and looking through the curtain at the mystical scene of a table spread with bread and wine, candlelit processions of weeping women, and dying kings, does not even know what questions to ask. Secular scholars have done their work. It is now up to us and our children to tell them that the veil has been lifted from the other side; now it is permitted to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith. The King is not dead, the Hero returned and told us plainly of the Father.

        All things from greatest to least are striving to the human form. We tend to fill in the circle of heroic characteristics from a preconceived mental pattern. "The truths which will be of faith, indeed, flow in by hearing, and so are implanted in the mind, thus below the soul. But man, by these truths, is only disposed for receiving the influx from God through the soul; and as the disposition is, such is the reception, and such the transformation of natural faith into spiritual faith." TCR 8.

        Within the Monomyth of the Typical Hero, Mytholegists of the Psychoanalytic school have seen a number of smaller groups of typical cycles, we might term them "Micromyths" or Motifs, significant to them because of their relationship to patterns and operations of the human mind. If myth patterns can be seen to relate to the forms and motions of the natural mind, they can by analogy, be assumed to relate to the inner minds, as a receptacle of the soul. If man is created in God's image, it should not be a surprise that creative activities and processes of the human mind on all levels should so function. Not only, then would the Truth about the Lord come from without, in the Written Word, but there would be a living active creative agency from within working at all times to reach out and respond to the teachings of the lord's Word. That there is the inner dictate in all men that there is a God and that He is One is so taught in the Christian Religion 8, and further, -in No. 9: "Ancient Gentiles acknowledged Jove as the supreme God, so called perhaps from Jehovah; and many others, who composed his court they also clothed with divinity; but the wise men in the following age, as Plato and Aristotle, confessed that these were not gods, but so many properties, qualities, and attributes of one God, which were called gods because in each of them there was divinity."

        It seems remarkable to me what deep human patterns the psychoanalysts have seen; Alan Watts wrote a book about what he calls Duality Myths, myths of opposites or polarities; how far sighted he is when he calls his book The Two Hands of God. The Two Hands of God are certainly the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, from which spring all pairs of opposites and dualities right down to the complete correspondence in the left and right hands of man.

        TRINITY patterns, Kingship patterns, myths which describe the quartering of ancient kingdoms, all certainly remnants of those first distinctions made by Ancient Church men, while still in their Church's purity, those men who recognized that"in God all things are distinctly one."

        Supporters of New Church Education have always put first and foremost in our curriculum the religious instruction and spiritual and moral welfare of our children; idealism and high cultural aims have always been a strong suit with us from the beginning. Tonight we have discussed some of the deeper values of Ancient Church and Mythogical studies, but I would not urge with such confidence the importance of these studies in our curriculum were I not convinced that their relevance can be seen at all levels of application. Some of the finest educators and scholars, apart from any religious reasons, see the study of myth to be of prime importance; and this not only to the culturally advantaged of our children, but perhaps more than any, to the otherwise most culturally deprived.

        We have a realistic, practical job of educating our children and young people; even if they need not be "of the world", they must live in the world. Fortunately we live in a time when the study of mythology is gaining new respectability; not only are many of today's educators liberated from some of the worst religious prejudices which had labeled the cream of ancient treasures as pagan and perverted supersititions, and also, there has been a more recent disillusionment with materialistic advances because they have not solved social and emotional problems, but in the last two or three years, there even seems to be a wholesome return to simple, common sense, folk morality. As one Mythologist puts it: "Though the old rationalism dies hard, the intellectual outlook of our own day is profoundly different from that in which the tales were studied half a century ago. There is a growing awareness of the deep significance of realities that cannot be fully reconciled with the categories of reason, or explained by history and science. The study of social anthropology and of the history of religions has brought home to  many scholars that for countless ages men have found in these stories a support for their material and spiritual life."

If our only purpose for studying myths were to explain one thousandth of all the literary works which have alluded to myth or have been patterned after myth, we would be justified in filling our curriculum with myth studies from here to Doomsday. Even the works of Homer and Hesiod, c.800 B.C. are not thought by some to be myths in themselves but only some of the first literary works to allude to myth! Sometimes one might think that the 19th Century English poets had no other occupation than to allude so subtly to mythical characters and events, that only the most sublimely educated in mythology could share their sport. Any self respecting student of mythology knows whose face it was "that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium." It would be too plebeian to many poets to mention Achilles by name, for instance, but like George Santayana, we must speak of "proud child of Thetis beloved of Jove," or share the same sport with Oscar Wilde:"It was for thee gold crested Hector, tried with Thetis' Child that evil race to run." It is necessary to know Mythology to fully enjoy Swinburne's beautiful passage: "Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light." Or Byron's "Or view the lord of the unerring vow, the god of life and poetry, and light."

        Pitifully weak would be our case if we, as sane have done, based all our plea of relevance of myth studies on such literary allusions and modern usages, such as the Apollo Mission, the Saturn missile, the Poseidon Adventure ; or how we use the name Psyche, Arachne, Iris; What are the origins of the words jovial, vestal, volcano, memory? Or worse still Ajax the Foaming Cleanser and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It is interesting that no matter how hard the Medieval Christian Church fought it, tomorrow is still Woden's Day and the next day belongs to Thor.

        Although our advocacy for a strong program of mythological studies is based on a much firmer base than these, still can we imagine the cultural loss, for one not versed in Mythology, of all the riches embedded in literary and art allusions, from Homer and Hesiod, to Shakespeare and Yeats.

        We have discussed what we think are the deep spiritual reasons for the study -of myth; we have pointed out some of the most superficial values, awareness of the origins of project and product names of the market place. Of more importance is the intellectual and cultural orientation in the world of art and literature; not to mention the importance of vocabulary enrichment as vehicle to thought.

        But there is another kind of relevance, neither spiritual or intellectual in the strictest sense, that might be termed emotional or psycho-logical, or perhaps aesthetic relevance. There is a sense of deep satisfaction and security, in having touched base with prim sources, roots; a German philosopher called this "begrunden", a grounding. Adults sense it when they trace their family historical and cultural roots, but children come right to the heart of it when they gather around and say, "tell that story again about when I was a baby."

        An interesting experiment was reported in the recent issue of a national education journal. Those conducting the experiment had found that with center city, culturally deprived children, they seemed to get the greatest flock of eager listeners when they had story hour involving ancient myths. Rather than call them ancient myths, they thought it would be more, acceptable to simply call them Greek stories -- because they thought they were justified in telling these ancient stories if they were at the same time teaching them about a foreign' culture. Later they discovered that a number of the children had not picked up the Greek connection, but were asking for more of those great stories. To these children, exposed as they were, to every realistic extreme of horror and sensationalism in their daily lives, these ancient Greek stories had a realism, a vitality, and magnetic appeal worthy of the title of great stories.

        "Together with symbols," Carl Jung says, "myths are the most archaic structures of the psychic life." Profound psychological studies are being made, at this moment, involving the close interrelation of myth and language with the deepest workings of the human mind. It must be of the greatest importance to New Church psychologists that secular scholars see such an important link between ancient religions and the understanding of the human mind. Myth studies are not just for children, it is ancient religion and culture, it is correspondences, symbol and language, all of which are highways back to the deepest mysteries of the human mind.

        Claude Levi-Strauss, one of the most respected modern scholars in structural anthropology, sees a way of getting at mental laws through a scientific study of myths. "The world of symbolism is infinitely varied in contents," he says, "but always limited in its laws. A compilation of known myths and tales would fill an imposing number of volumes. But they can be reduced to a small number of simple types if we abstract, from among the diversity of characters, a few elementary functions." Levi-Strauss sees these few elementary functions structuring vast sets of symbols, reaching beyond linguistic processes and reducing them to manageable systems. "The kind of logic in mythical thought is vigorous as modern science, and the difference lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things to which it is applied." And finally, remarkably, he notes: "Long ago, many strong components of our semantic systems were expressed as well as consolidated in the Book of Genesis. God and the Snake still thrive among us."

        Educationally, places for mythological and antiquities studies are suggested, at all levels, from prekindergarten through post graduate studies. In the beginning of the Academy movement numerous imaginative studies and proposals were made. Many in this audience will look back with the deepest affections, to inspired approaches to Ancient History and mythology courses. Several of our Church schools have recently stepped up their offerings in these areas. We are regaining some ground that we lost around the period of the two Great Wars. It is most heartening. There has been a long line of advocates for a central place for these studies in our curricula, not the least of these was the plea made in 1967 to this Council by our present Chairman.

        I will conclude tonight's serious advocacy for ever increasing attention to Ancient Church studies with one minor plea, one wild proposal, and a favorite heresy. The plea: We should develop not a Mythology curriculum, not a Correspondences curriculum, but a carefully graded Ancient Church Studies         Curriculum. Start with animal fables and Fairy tales for the very young, and moving upward with Greek myths as we usually do around Third Grade, hopefully Norse Myths for older children, into hero stories in direct preparation for New Testament studies; but throughout Elementary School let us not call this subject Mythology. The terra implies a scientific study more appropriate to upper high school and college. No elementary school teacher should feel pressed to teach children the science of myths; hopefully he or she will be well versed in comparative, psychological, and archetypal studies with, of course, the doctrinal and philosophical background from which to make judgments and selections. But the important thing is to teach the children the Myths and legends themselves. It is the stories, and beneath them, the story form themselves that are important. It is important that the children know and love the story; this is not belittling, the story form is of the utmost and deepest importance. And if we are honest with ourselves, we will all realize that we all, not just little children, learn best by means of the continuous thread of a story. We are not computers that we can absorb and digest separate facts without true relationships. When we get older we sublimate and hide the affectional connections that bind our knowledges into remembered forms; we sometimes call it something sophisticated like "associations of ideas." The Lord's life is a continuous, ongoing story to eternity; every other meaningful form is in correspondence with that story. The ancients learned and communicated by means of the much loved story form; the Oral Tradition of which the great bards like Homer, are some of the last descendents, is now believed to involve some knowledges of patterns so remarkable that our modern minds can hardly believe their scope. Far from gimicky memorizations of type phrases and type scenes, the whole of the Odyssey is thought by some modern scholars to be in a perfect pattern well known to the Ancients; the first and twenty fourth book paralleling each other, and the Second and Twenty Third, and so on. The Oral Tradition, and the Art of Story telling are some of our first and noblest arts, for they convey the whole memory of the race; which like the memory of the individual contains every thing we know. Memory is not backward looking, it is everything we know, everything we are, everything we have appropriated in the way of natural and spiritual associations. It is interesting to note that the Goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, was the mother of all the Muses. So let us not complicate our children's lives with a man made, superficial science of Mythology, let us give back to teacher and child the noble art of story telling.

        That was my plea; this is my dream: I haven't checked it with the President, the Dean, or the Treasurer yet, but it all seems simple enough to me. My dream is that some day soon our New Church University will be organized around the distinctive core of the History of the Churches. Not limited to vertical majors of Humanities, Sciences, Social Studies, and so on we would have horizontal majors in Ancient Church, Christian Church, and New Church Studies. We already have most of the staff for this. With the Ancient Studies major you would have Ancient History, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Hieroglyphics, or any other ancient language you might want to add to the program; of course, ancient philosophy, art, Literature, and Archeology. This would all have a laboratory base in our Museum. In the Christian studies major you would have of course, Medieval Latin, French and English, Literature, Philosophy, Romanesque and Gothic Art, Old English, Chaucer; the teachers are right there, ready and waiting. This study would center around the Guild System and the Building of a Cathedral. Included within the New Church major you would have after the late Renaissance and Eighteenth Century History and times of Swedenborg, all the exciting developments in modern sciences and the glorious blossoming of knowledge from the Light of the Second Advent. Modern languages as ways of interrelating all the far flung members of the New Church would be just one of the many examples how such a truly distinctive core could give meaning and purpose to all subjects.

        Again, the essential staff is there, reading and waiting, and any desired additions could be supported by, the Carpenter Foundation for the Ancient studies, the Glencairn Foundation for the Christian Studies, and we would all support the New Church studies.

        You think I am joking! Do we always have to wait until the world beats us to it? I have news; they already have. Rrinceton and Duke Universities already have horizontal Medieval studies majors. One American University builds its whole Medieval major around Chartre Cathedral; Our Cathedral is right in our back yard.

        In the College English Journal of March, 1973, we read: "Joseph Campbell once suggested to some of his scandalized colleagues in other disciplines that the entire college curriculum could be subsumed into one inclusive course in mythology! And there could be no better way to begin to understand the nature and the difficulties of studying myth today than to see just how outrageous this suggestion is, and how right." And a few paragraphs later: "The emergence into popular consciousness of the notion of the ecological interdependence of all living things is only the most visible aspect of a general movement toward the reexamination of traditional understanding in the light of larger, more inclusive categorious of meaning. And it is just this questioning of the validity of our categories which may well prove to be one of the magnificent intellectual developments of the past decade."

        Now to conclude with my heresy: I cautiously label this my heresy because , although I have discussed it with a number of ministers, and even several Bishops, I am not quite sure whether their affectionate nods indicate doctrinal agreement, a chivalrous attitude toward a harmless old lady, or whether the kindly smiles represent the secret knowledge that the branches and logs have already been gathered for the witches' execution pyre, and the torch is now ready to light it.

        When advocating more emphasis on the teaching of ancient studies and myth, I have constantly faced myself with two questions. The first question is, considering all the good reasons given for studying myth, is there anything in myth that is essential, that is not also taught in the Letter of the Word? The next question is, what of all the complicated tangle of traditions, truths, and perversions, should be taught, and which discarded? It was in connections with these questions that I worked out my heresy. I am convinced that there is something in the traditions of the Ancient Churches, more particularly from the Japhethites, handed down to us far from the central Core around Babylon and Canaan, where the greatest perversions took place, there was something far away in the clean sweep of the winds on the Zagros Mountains of Northern Persia, on the rocky coasts of Greece, in the Northern Forests of Russia and Scandinavia, and in the emerald woodlands of the Celtic Islands that caused a certain external purity to be preserved longer.  

        Although we know that all truth is contained in the Written Words of the Old and New Testament, some truth is apparent and some is as it were hidden. Although there are occasional teachings of an After Life in the New Testament, "In my Father's house are many Mansions", and the glorious story of the Resurrection confirms the fact of the Life after death, certainly the Jews made almost no reference to a real life after death. I believe that the sense of the reality of another life has been kept alive by remnant truths from the Ancient Church; especially did the whole complicated mythology of the Egyptians turn on the detailed descriptions of daily life in the Nether world. Even the Hindu and Celtic fallacies of reincarnation were permitted, I believe, to give a sense of reality to a life after death. The Indo European, and especially the Celtic Fairy land brought down to us, in the folklore of the European tradition has given us the sense of the living spirits within the trees and behind the rocks.

        Although a case can be made for a background tradition of monogamy with Isaac and Rebekeh, and in the single preference of Jacob for Rachel, one can not really say that any true picture of the concept of Conjugial Love, of a beautiful love for one married partner to eternity, shines forth in either the letter of the Old or New Testaments. When taught from the Heavenly Doctrines that there is such a beautiful relationship with just one, what background affirms? Whence comes the instant recognition that this beautiful thing is true? It is interesting how closely related these two doctrines are, that of Conjugial Love and that of the Afterlife. Temporary true love is unthinkable; life to eternity without that partner is also unthinkable. I believe that the one essential personal gift from the Lord, directly through the Ancient Church is that beautiful remnant, the deep seated undying conviction that the Prince married the Princess and lived happily ever after.

        "Only from remains can man be as man, can know what is good and true, reflect upon each thing, and thus think and reason, for in remains alone is spiritual and celestial life." Let us do our part in cooperating with the Lord in the preservation and activation of the Remains of the Race.