A Religious Experience Rooted In Mythology

 Art from Tool's Aenima album

"With the music of his lyre, Cadmus said, he would be able to stop the planets in their courses and enchant wild beasts (381)."
Earlier in the semester I was reading one of Jason's blogs entitled The Story of Nachiketa in in his conclusion he was discussing sacrifice. Which got me thinking about a paper I had written for Dr. Lansverk's Biblical Lit class about Cain and Abel.  In this paper I argued that this story was an example of confusion during the transition between the pagan age and the monotheism.  At the time I really couldn't see why the monotheism came about. I mean polytheism is perfection right?  There is a god of the hunt, the hearth, of love, and so on; there are gods and goddess'. What possible reason would the ancients have for turning to monotheism?  This question remained largely unanswered until I read Calasso's book.  Rape, abduction, jealousy, and the sodomizing of children are all aspects of mythology i was unaware of.  The gods were not perfect and they could not judge humans because they possessed the same flaws.  The ancients needed perfection; they needed perfection to guide them and judge them.  The gods of mythology, with their excesses, had set the stage for the religious age. It all makes sense now.
Discussing the relationship between mythology and religion reminds me of a mythological religious experience I had once (or was it a religious mythological experience?).  In 1998, I saw Tool live for the first time.  They were touring in support of their album Aenima.  Even though I'd been concert going for several years this was to be the biggest rock band I had seen and in one of the largest venues I'd been in at that point.  I love Tool.  I will swear til my dying day that they are my generations Pink Floyd.  I was all of sixteen years old and Tool was just starting to make it big; we grew up together.  Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon was sold out that night and I felt an excitement that to this day I only feel before a Tool show.
The crowd was electric, the entire venue was on fire with energy as we all paid our respects to the Melvins and eagerly awaited Tool.  When the band hit the stage the shit hit the fan.  I was never so glad to be in the balcony instead of out on the floor. Music surrounded me not only in sound but in color.  I'd never felt more alive yet was completely paralyzed by the ferocity of the bands performance and Maynard's vocals--there are no words, he must be an Angel sent from Hell.  Then I felt a pounding and heard an indescribable roar, the crowd was moved by their performance in their own way.  A situation had developed on the floor and three songs into the set security completely lost control.  In addition to the gatecrashers on the ground floor, the pounding and roar was the feeling of hordes of people sitting at the top of the balcony rushing past us in the lower balcony and jumping to the floor.  In the middle of extreme chaos I felt the most peace I had ever known.  I saw music, I felt music, and tens of thousands of people danced in the spirit realm that night.
Since then I have seen Tool on tour for Lateralus and 10,000 Days and I always tell people I'm going to church when I'm heading to a Tool show.  From these experiences I've come to the conclusion that it's not the crowd or even the band, it's the music. Pure and strong. Like the band is channeling the gods themselves.