http://web.uvic.ca/interfaith/practicing/labyrinth.html
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2.) "a sequence of four stages normal to all culture cycles, whether of mankind in general, a civilization, or a nation...summarized in the following diagram:"
deeply experienced perceptions: aptly named
I Poetry: Folk Belief (Hearty) Imagination
II Theology: Idealizing/Exaltation (Holy) Reason
III Philosophy: Clarifying/Devaluation (Wise) Understanding
IV Prose: Dissolution in Banality (Vulgar) Sensuality
from Goethe as quoted in Campbell's Creative Mythology (it looks much nicer in the book; my HTML knowledge is bad and the above is sloppy)
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3.) "It is in the passage from Stage II to Stage III that mentality gains the upper hand and reductive criticism begins to devaluate and, where possible, even eradicate the instinctual impulses to life." - Campbell
the paragraph relating to the above, again by Goethe as quoted in Campbell:
The man of understanding tries to appropriate everything imaginable to his own sphere of clarity and even to interpret reasonably the most mysterious phenomena. Popular and ecclesiastical beliefs, consequently, are not rejected, but behind them a comprehensible, worthy, useful component is assumed, its meaning is sought, the particular is transformed into the general, and from everything national, regional, and even individual, something valid for mankind as a whole is extracted. We cannot deny to this epoch the credit of a noble, pure, and wise endeavor; however, its appeal is rather to the unique, highly talented individual than to an entire folk.
For, no sooner does this type of thought become general than the final epoch immediately follows, which we may term the prosaic, since it has no interest in humanizing the heritage from earlier periods, adapting it to a clarified human understanding and to a general domestic usage, but drags even the most venerable out into the light of common day and in this way destroys completely all solemn feelings, popular and ecclesiastical beliefs, and even the beliefs of the enlightened understanding itself--which might yet suspect behind what is exceptional some respectable context of associations.
This epoch cannot last long. Human need, aggravated by the course of history, leaps backward over intelligent leadership, confuses priestly, folk, and primitive beliefs, grabs now here, now there, at traditions, submerges itself in mysteries, sets fairy-tales in the place of poetry, and elevates these to articles of belief. Instead of intelligently instructing and quickly influencing, people now strew seeds and weeds together indiscriminately on all sides; no central point is offered any more on which to concentrate, but every-odd individual steps forward as leader and teacher, and gives forth his perfect folly as a perfected whole.
And so, the force of every mystery undone, the people's religion itself profaned; distinctions that formerly grew from each other in natural development now work against each other as contradictory elements, and thus we have the Tohu-wa-Bohu chaos again: but not the first, gravid, fruitful one; rather, a dying one running to decay, from which not even the spirit of God could create for itself a worthy world.
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4.) Tohu-wa-Bohu:
In the days of Abraham the period of "tohu wa-bohu" (confusion) ceases and the 2,000 years of law begin.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanna_Devei_Eliyahu#The_Periods_of_Jewish_History
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