The caves of the Sun, the origin of Mythology by Adrian Bailey

The caves of the Sun, the origin of Mythology by Adrian Bailey 

While some scholars today claim there is no single explanation or source for myth, others say that the answers to riddles posed by enigmatic symbols and relics from the distant past should be sought in the human mind, rather than in the environment of early man. The influence of psychological interpretations posed by Freud and Jung have been powerful and, the author believes, detrimental to a true understanding of mankind's religious origins. A host of alternative views, from mother goddesses to black virgins, shamans and lost civilisations, have also laid claims to plausibility.

In The Caves of the Sun Adrian Bailey revives a long-discarded nine-teenth-century theory that all myths, religions and folktales can be traced to one source: the sun. He shows that solar cults were founded in order to influence and channel the life-giving forces of nature, and these can be identified in Neanderthal cave dwellings of 60,000 years ago. They can be seen too in the Ice Age cave-sanctuaries of France and Spain, and in the great circles of Stonehenge and Avebury. It was the purpose of Stonehenge, hitherto unconvincingly ascribed to astronomy or fertility worship, that first set Bailey off on his inquiry and led to his conclusion that all the evidence points in one direction. Why the single source idea of the nineteenth-century should have become overlaid with spurious misinterpretations is a revealing commentary on the illusions spawned by complexity in the modern world.

Details

• Hardcover with dust jacket
• Condition: Good, spine is bleached by the sun, pages are slightly yellowed, no notes/stamps. 
• ISBN: 9780224030632 
• Publisher: Random House