Yangqi Zheng

Csordas

ANSC 129

12 January 2020

Within and Between Symbolic Systems

Parallels exist between symbolic systems, between the world and linguistic models of it,

between theories and myths, and physical systems. From the account of the Cuna childbirth

incantation in “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” we find that the homology between myth and

physical biological systems may be sufficiently powerful to produce tangible effects in the

human body when a person engages intimately with the myth. There is a mechanism of magic.

But the power of magic is heavily bound by culture, by local narratives which give power

to the magical processes by making them real, salient, and effective in the minds of those, and

only those who engage intimately with the cultural narratives. The narratives present in diverse

cultures are not necessarily homologous systems with different signs signifying the same things

and processes in the world. Certainly there are structural similarities between narratives, as there

are fundamental structural similarities between what “The Study of Folk Psychiatry” refers to as

“mental illnesses” across different culture. However, actual in-the-world experiences differ from

culture to culture beyond the differences between their own models of experience.

Yet experience is so closely tied to the narratives which serve so universally as lenses for

engaging with it. Being oneself within such a narrative is inescapable, no matter how many steps

back we take in our efforts to comparatively study systems so deeply and inextricably connected

to these narratives, such as local ways of healing. In exploring such domains, it seems almost

unavoidable to first ground oneself, at least to know what one wishes to know.
 And so connections drawn between various symbolic systems, and the processes of healing and

influence derived from them. Magic, psychotherapy, and interrogation are alike in some way. We see

the common features, and there are so many ways to describe them. Magic has described them already,

psychotherapy has described them already, interrogation theories have described them already, and here

we are describing them again.

Here we are constructing yet another myth more beautiful and palatable to us, a myth of myths

that we hope will be better than each one which came before. Perhaps we want a magic that will work

here, where other magics have failed.

The exploratory process of comparing the efficacy of different symbolic systems seems to be

primarily deletive rather than generative. We are extracting the essence of things. To an extreme, we

might ask how might we produce the effect of powerful myths, without the baggage of the myth? But

that extreme is paradoxical; the power is in engaging with the myth; how far might we go in removing

the myth while preserving that power?

Symbols are powerful, but it seems the specific symbols don’t matter. What symbols then will

we use? Or is that some more central essence, that we may remove ourselves entirely from what only

now appears to be the central medium? As we create anthologies then, towards understanding the

“similarities underlying human groups,” the alchemical essence crystalizes, but also dissipates. We

grasp at it, but not at all knowing what, when the process settles, we will hold.