FROM MEN TO GODS AND BACK AGAIN

Abstract

This book is really about how man has come to understand himself so far as he actually has. Its German title, quoted above, is difficult to express in English, not by reason of any intrinsic verbal difficulty, but just because the corresponding phrase is not used in English: Numinous Mixed Form. The compound Mischgestalt is peculiarly German; it is based on the observed fact that in some cultures divine beings are represented as differing from men, not simply in being superhuman but as being part animal, bird, reptile, (or any non-human shape) and partly human. The Egyptian god Anubis is one such: he is human in shape but has the head of an animal, a jackal or dog. This is the Mischgestalt, translated here as (MF). Actually the term is used to cover a multitude of non-human or partly human forms, including the variable forms of the Great Ancestors in Australia and other primitive beliefs. In the higher religions the deity does not have a form at all, and is incapable of being imaged or described at all as the Jewish, Islamic and Christian God. The second commandment forbids the making of any image of God. There is no Gestalt at all, much less a Mischgestalt. In other religions, the deity or deities may be partly human and partly non-human. This is what the author means by form, and the book enquires into the historical problem as to how the concept of such mixed forms arose, and how old they are, their psychological or other explanation. Among modern primitives, the author deals especially, by way of example, with the religion of the Aranda in Central Australia, because this is especially well documented. Had he been writing in Australia he could have included other tribes as well, all of which appear to represent a very ancient thought pattern. Amongst the Aranda, as amongst other Australian tribes and peoples elsewhere, the totemic ancestors may be now human, now non-human, and change from one to another without losing