The Homeric Hymn to Demeter most likely represents a symbolic presentation of the initiation ritual to the mystery cult of Demeter headquartered at Eleusis. Rather than magic being canceled, the discovery of Demophoon in the fire and Metaneira's dismay is generally considered to be symbolic of the penalty of disbelief suffered by those outside the cult who fail to recognize the renewing force of Demeter's power. This kind of thing is more about building a sense of community cohesion through shared belief (running counter to beliefs outside the cult, i.e. Metaneira) rather than a justification of magical forces. The cult most likely taught people to expect a different experience of the afterlife, not a powerful force for daily life through belief in the transformative power of magic. Gods didn't do magic, witches (Hecate/Medea) did magic, and it was considered fairly scary and weird (and barbaric), but was generally described in a pharmacological manner in which belief didn't have much to do with the effectiveness of the herbs.

This post sounds a bit like you're fishing for info to support some sort of pan-cultural magical system based on "pagan" deities without knowing enough about the structure of the culture and religion that gave rise to those stories. If that is true, please, OP, do not go to ancient texts looking for validation of your belief systems. There are no universal truths in historical documents, only human memories, and ancient people believing in something doesn't make it any more or less truthful than anything anyone believes in today. Taking these works out of context for your own purposes is an exercise in modern myth-making. Perhaps that is your goal, which is fine, but it is not historical research.

If you are looking for more sources about rationalization, you should explore Euhemerus. You might also want to get a hold of Athanassakis' translation of the Homeric Hymns for a more up to date introduction so you can understand these sources as documents more clearly. Your reading of Plato also needs some serious contextual work considering Socrates is essentially a practical ethical philosopher who, in your own passage cited, could care less about anything that smacks of magical forces because he was questioning inconsistency between the ideological form and actual function of his society, not their cultural religious system.

Neither example there sounds like belief in some sort of fantasy anti magic cone coming out of people. They both seem like mundane doubt: “hey, my neighbor said he saw King Charles come out of the woods and steal my pies, but no one else saw that, so probably not”. Where it’s not even a disbelief of the existence of King Charles, but like, a skeptical view towards an outlandish story

I mean it's anthropological, but I don't see how it's not historiography if it's looking for written sources on the period.

Wikipedia seems to think it’s legit. Haven’t seen anything to the contrary in my searches.

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I think they’ve theorized over 100 billion modern humans have existed on earth, so 8%ish of all humans ever are alive today, 92% have passed. So 9/10 chance the human with the greatest capacity for intelligence and or strength never lived in modern times. The best bodybuilder with modern training and medicine has likely existed but the person with the most potential has likely passed. I think the same with intelligence, there might have been someone in Ancient Greece with the most potential

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Didn’t they disprove mitochondrial eve? Genuinely curious

I mean... is this history or something theoretical?

I'm guessing not historical at all.

Dang, I always took that factoid on faith, and now I have egg on my face.

Saw a study recently that showed London cab drivers have enlarged hippocampus due to memorising the streets of London

Mitochondrial DNA “Eve” is 200,000 years. So there were Homo sapiens 200k years ago. Look how far we came from the dark ages in 500 years. Make me wonder what the first 100k years looked like.

“There's more people alive now than has died previously. I'm no statistician“

You don’t say?

Looking for recommendations on history books by way of Game of Thrones. Been really enjoying rereading Thrones, and obviously it's based on medieval history, War of the Roses, etc. As someone who doesn't really have an 'in' on the real world side of things, any good books about real history that might scratch a similar itch?

Thanks!

Fascinating article. And interesting young man. Many hats and talents. I'm a follower now.

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Yeah the wording of this title is deceptive. Had nothing to do with fashion and I want my five minutes back lol.

I kind of think you're just describing how modern humans lived for the majority of their existence

>they didn’t have a way of recording things

They did though. Not only the same method as any other animals, but they also had at least pictographic writing and tally marking.

A recent discovery shows what we're considered random tally marking of cave art, was probably moon cycles counting from the animals natural reproductive cycle, next to pictures of those animals. Possibly an indication of when and where to hunt for them, aka the good months and near these drawings.

The tally marks line up with animals that still exist. This gives us a lot of insight into the extinct animals pictured.

Keep in mind, if this information is useful to us today, how much more useful it was then. This is also the minimum amount of recording and communication, there likely was more.

You got me. Usually I close reddit and then I open reddit again

Summary: Scientists found that ancient human's wentuged the paw bones of cave bears with cutting implements. Because of this, they surmise that they must have been using the bear pelts to stay warm, as there is not enough meat on a bear paw to bother carefully skinning it.

My perspective: That was a terribly written article that said practically nothing in a whole lot of words. Oh and Wentuged for President! Hopefully this same AI is the one that ends up coming for the human race eventually.

I love books about myths and stories of Ancient Greece. Like:

• Circe, written bij Madeline Miller
• A song for Achilles - Madeline Miller
• Troy- Stephen Fry

They are so fascinating !

I think they didn't even have bows yet.

> People 5,000 years ago were identical to people today, yet “we” still a few thousand years until people were writing of burning bushes that could talk.

That very myth is probably more than 4000 years old.

At least you make it to the room. I walk halfway to somewhere and then forget where I was planning to stand around wondering why I was there.