Myths of Mankind

   Myth Conceptions
    One: the Body, Mind & Spirit Channel series
    studies the roots of the world's greatest legends

“Humanity in the past did fantastic things and had mystical and spiritual experiences that were important to its survival. And we want to re-connect with those experiences.”

– Mythologist John Lash

Prophecies of doom written in the stars. Capricious gods meddling in human affairs. A beast of clay summoned to life to defend God's chosen people.

To many of us, mythical stories like these are the products of a more ignorant time. A modern society, we believe, has no need for primitive fables and fairy tales. But the legends of the distant past express the most immutable of human qualities: our need to know the truth of the world and the reason for our being.

The documentary series Myths of Mankind investigates the most enduring of these great stories, teasing out the facts beneath the fictions and exposing the deeper truths that they communicate.

One: the Body, Mind & Spirit Channel presents all 11 episodes of this Dutch-produced program.

The series opens with a look at Homer's account of the fall of Troy from the Iliad , the legendary tale that inspired the forthcoming Brad Pitt blockbuster Troy . This is followed by a challenging two-part examination of Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus – the explosive issue at the heart of author Dan Brown's best-selling theological thriller The Da Vinci Code .

Myths of Mankind Episodes :

	“The Quest for the Holy Grail” The myth of the Holy Grail brought inspiration to Europe in its darkest era. But what was the Grail? The cup from which Christ drank at the last supper? A Celtic cauldron of rebirth? A symbol for those opposed to Catholic Orthodoxy? Did it even exist at all? This episode traces the Grail mythology through the centuries, exploring the legendary exploits of King Arthur, the suffering of the Medieval Gnostics and the destruction of the Knights Templar.

	“The Quest for the Ark of the Covenant” It was the legendary prize pursued by Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant, the box said to contain the stone tablets on which God inscribed the Ten Commandments, is the most sacred and terrifying objects mentioned in the Bible – an immensely powerful relic regarded as the manifestation of God on earth. The Ark has been missing since the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BC, and the search for it continues to this day. In this episode, self-styled archaeologist Vendyl Jones hunts for the holy artifact in the barren cliffs ringing the Dead Sea, while author Graham Hancock travels to Ethiopia, where some believe the Ark now resides, guarded by a priestly protector.

	“The Golem” In Jewish legend, a rabbi from 16th-century Prague is said to have fashioned a giant of clay to ward off the enemies of Israel, but was forced to destroy the creature when it turned against him. In this episode, American author Chaim Potok (The Chosen) visits Israel, Spain and Eastern Europe as he considers the meaning of this greatest of Jewish myths about the creation of artificial life.

	“The Flood … or Looking for Atlantis” Contemporary scientists dismiss the Biblical story of the Flood as a mere fable. But countless other myths from civilizations around the world also allude to a disaster that virtually wiped out humankind before the dawn of history. In this episode, best-selling author Colin Wilson investigates a number of historical and archaeological anomalies pointing toward a global cataclysm that wiped out an unknown ancient civilization.

	“The War Against Time” With the Spanish conquest of the Inca in 1532, a vast empire crumbled. Though it lasted barely 80 years, the reign of the Inca was a time of extraordinary achievement, which brought peace to the Andean region for the first time in hundreds of years, and saw the land covered with a sophisticated system of terraces, irrigated fields and roads. Was their downfall presaged by a prophecy of doom? While the Inca they lacked the art of writing, scholars now believe they possessed an advanced understanding of astronomy. Some, like anthropologist Bill Sullivan, believe the rapid growth of the empire began when the Inca rulers saw signs in the sky of a looming catastrophe. Fearing extinction, they embarked on a desperate “war against time,” hoping that by restoring order on earth they might alter the course of the stars.

	“The Osiris Myth” In Egypt, 2,500 years before the birth of Christ, labourers hauled 13 million tons of rock across the desert to build the great pyramids at Giza. Why? Some Egyptologists, like author Robert Bauval, believe these structures are more than just the tombs of dead pharaohs. Research suggests that they are aligned with the stars of Orion’s belt, the region of the night sky that was the realm of the Egyptian god Osiris, judge of the dead and ruler of the underworld. The pyramids may be nothing less than the monumental embodiment of a civilization’s desire to reach beyond death and journey into the afterlife. The Osiris cult would eventually spread far beyond Egypt, and may even have influenced early Christianity.

	“The Son of God” The belief that Jesus Christ was “the only begotten son of God” is a cornerstone of Christianity. But Jesus himself was said to have made no such claim. It was the Nicene Creed of 325 that affirmed the divinity of Jesus and forbade all other views. Modern-day historians, however, are increasingly challenging the traditional understanding of who and what he was. A growing body of research suggests that significant elements of the story of Jesus may in fact be derived from Egyptian, Greek and other pagan mythologies. And many scholars now reject the notion that Gospels offer accurate accounts of historical events. Written decades after the death of Jesus, they are instead the earliest expression of those beliefs that would eventually harden into Christian orthodoxy.

	“A Christianity Before Christianity” The first followers of Jesus adhered to a creed very different from the Christian faith we know today. Indeed, the discovery of the Gnostic gospels in 1945 is changing our whole understanding of early Christianity. Rooted in ancient mystery religions, the Gnostic movement maintained that divinity lies in each of us, and can find our way to God through self-knowledge. Gnostics saw the life and death of Jesus in metaphorical terms. According to some scholars, however, the Gnostic form of Christianity was pushed aside by a literalist movement that saw Jesus as the only begotten son of God, and emphasized the vast gulf between man and the divine. By the third century Orthodox Christianity had allied itself with the Roman state, establishing a religious monopoly.

	“The Mahabharata” When the British ruled India, experienced colonial administrators would advise newcomers to read one book if they wanted to grasp the essence of the place: the Mahabharata. The longest known poem in any language, this 90,000-verse Sanskrit epic remains a favourite of millions to this day, inspiring stage productions, TV programs and comic books. Its account of the epochal conflict between two sets of cousins is both a richly entertaining saga and an expression of Indian religious thought. While Indian scholars place its origins thousands of years before recorded history, their Western counterparts disagree. New studies, however, suggest that the Mahabharata may indeed have originated as far back as the fourth millennium BC – or even earlier. How can a work so ancient maintain such a powerful hold on contemporary imaginations? This episode is hosted by Canadian author Paul William Roberts, author of Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India, and features clips from director Peter Brook’s critically acclaimed 1989 television adaptation of the Mahabharata.

	“Dracula” It all started with a nightmare brought on by a plate of spoiled crab. From this unlikely beginning came one of the most enduring myths of the 20th century. In his 1897 novel Dracula, Irish-born author Bram Stoker channeled the fears and obsessions of Victorian society – grisly death, repressed sexuality, sinister foreigners, liberated women, the occult – to fashion a gothic potboiler that would spawn hundreds of stage and screen adaptations. This episode, hosted by Peter Haining, co-author of The Un-dead: The Legend of Bram Stoker and Dracula, examines the many influences that helped to shape Stoker’s bloodsucking classic, from John Polidori’s 1819 story “The Vampyre,” widely considered the first modern vampire tale, to historical accounts of 15th century Romanian warrior prince Vlad the Impaler – an extravagantly cruel figure sometimes called the “son of the Devil,” or Dracula.

	“The Truth About Troy” On May 14, moviegoers will storm the multiplexes to see Brad Pitt as Achilles in the sword-and-sandal blockbuster Troy . This hotly-anticipated film is based on Homer's epic poem the Iliad , which recounts the climactic events of the 10-year war between the Greeks and the people of Troy. This classic of Western literature gave expression to the ideals of ancient Greece. But did the any of the events that it describes actually take place? Recent archaeological finds suggest that Homer's epic may indeed recall a real-life conflict over trade routes that raged between the Greeks and the Hittites of Asia Minor several hundred years before his birth. Drawing on stories passed down through the generations, Homer may have crafted this mythic tale to mirror the concerns of his own era.