The Child Before Truth: Mythologies, Ancient Traditions, and the Constant Investigation of Human Knowledge

 

The Child Before Truth: Mythologies, Ancient Traditions, and the Constant Investigation of Human Knowledge

An introduction to the philosophy, research methodology, and fields of study of Revista & Schools of Mysteries.

The First Step Toward Understanding Knowledge Is Learning Not to Consider Yourself Its Owner

There is a passage attributed to Jesus Christ, recorded in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verse 15, that offers a particularly interesting reflection for anyone devoted to the investigation of knowledge:

“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
— Mark 10:15

This passage has been the subject of different religious, philosophical, and esoteric interpretations throughout history. In The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, Max Heindel presents an interpretation that deserves our attention: the child represents a state of mind free from prejudice, intellectual vanity, and premature judgment.

The author observes that when a new philosophy enters the world, people frequently receive it through the filter of their existing convictions. Some look to it only for confirmation of what they already believe. Others reject it immediately because its teachings contradict their opinions.

In both cases, knowledge encounters an obstacle: the mind's resistance to acknowledging that it might be wrong.

Heindel proposes a different attitude: receiving a teaching with the openness of a child, examining it without prejudice, and retaining the ability to recognize both its merits and its limitations.

This reflection provides a starting point for understanding the editorial philosophy of Revista & Schools of Mysteries.

It is not about indiscriminately accepting every theory, religious tradition, philosophy, or historical interpretation. Nor is it about rejecting what we do not yet understand.

It is about investigating.

The constant investigation of truth requires an open mind, but it also requires discernment.

We must distinguish between what has been established through documentary evidence, what represents a possible interpretation, and what remains within the realm of hypotheses and speculation.

A discovery may change an earlier interpretation. A document may reveal previously unknown information. New evidence may compel a researcher to reconsider a conclusion that once appeared sufficiently established.

For this reason, there is no commitment to a definitive theory. There is a commitment to investigation.

Oral Tradition: Before Writing, Humanity's Collective Memory

Long before the emergence of the earliest writing systems, human beings were already creating, transmitting, and transforming knowledge.

Stories about the origin of the world, the creation of humanity, natural phenomena, ancestors, animals, death, and whatever might exist beyond everyday experience were passed down from generation to generation.

This process took place through spoken language, rituals, songs, collective narratives, and stories preserved in human memory.

This is where one of the major areas of investigation in this project begins: oral tradition.

Myths and folktales are fundamental records for understanding how different societies interpreted existence before, during, and after the development of writing.

However, there is an important historical difficulty: oral tradition leaves no fossils, inscriptions, or dated documents marking its original appearance.

A narrative may have passed through countless generations before being recorded for the first time in a manuscript. Its written version may be relatively recent, while the narrative elements it preserves may belong to a much older tradition.

This means that we must distinguish between the age of a document and the possible antiquity of the narrative it contains.

We cannot automatically assign thousands of years of history to a story simply because it contains elements considered ancient. But neither can we conclude that a tradition originated at the same time someone finally decided to put it into writing.

Investigation requires comparing versions, identifying transformations, studying languages, examining cultural contexts, and looking for possible archaeological and historical correspondences.

The Work of Couto de Magalhães

In this field, the work of Brazilian general and researcher José Vieira Couto de Magalhães (1837–1898) deserves particular attention.

In his book O Selvagem, published in 1876, Couto de Magalhães brought together linguistic studies, cultural observations, and Indigenous narratives, including legends transmitted orally by different peoples.

His work constitutes an important historical record for the study of Indigenous narrative traditions in Brazil.

By collecting these stories, recording linguistic elements, and preserving versions of the narratives, the author helped document part of a cultural heritage that, without such efforts, might have undergone further transformations or disappeared.

His book also allows us to examine how Indigenous myths can be studied in relation to other narrative traditions.

This comparative possibility is precisely what interests us.

What do certain narratives reveal about how early human communities understood the universe? Why do stories involving floods, creation, serpents, heroes, celestial beings, and transformations of humanity appear in geographically distant cultures?

Do they have shared origins? Are they the result of cultural influences? Or did similar narratives develop independently?

These are legitimate research questions. Their answers, however, must be built upon evidence rather than superficial similarities.

What Is Mythology, and Why Do We Need to Study It?

The word mythology has several applications. It can refer to the collection of myths belonging to a particular society, the academic study of those narratives, or the symbolic and religious systems that developed across different civilizations.

A myth should not simply be understood as a lie or an invented story.

For the societies that transmitted them, myths frequently served as explanations for the origin of the world, the organization of nature, the human condition, the relationship between the living and the dead, and the presence of forces believed to exist beyond ordinary human experience.

Mythology also preserves elements of social organization, values, conflicts, religious practices, and the cultural memory of different peoples.

Studying mythology, therefore, means studying an important part of the history of human thought.

For this reason, Revista & Schools of Mysteries dedicates attention to traditions from all five continents, without establishing preconceived hierarchies between cultures familiar to Western audiences and others that are frequently overlooked.

Our research explores different cultural worlds:

• Mesopotamia and Sumer: the earliest written records, creation myths, deities, heroes, and ancient conceptions of the organization of the cosmos.
• Ancient Egypt: religious traditions, funerary mysteries, temples, cosmology, and beliefs concerning existence after death.
• India and the Vedic tradition: the Vedas, Upanishads, epics, philosophical schools, and ancient interpretations of consciousness, spirit, and reality.
• Greece and Rome: mythology, philosophy, religion, literature, and the historical foundations of important Western intellectual traditions.
• Pre-Columbian civilizations: the knowledge and traditions of the peoples who preceded and shaped the Maya, Aztec, and Inca worlds, as well as earlier and contemporary cultures.
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas: creation narratives, cosmologies, ancestral traditions, knowledge of nature, and symbolic systems.
• Africa and its traditions: mythologies, cosmologies, religious systems, and knowledge preserved by different peoples and communities.
• Other Asian and European civilizations: religious traditions, ancestral narratives, philosophical schools, and systems of thought that broaden our understanding of human cultural diversity.

Vedic literature occupies a special place in our research.

One working hypothesis worth investigating is that certain Vedic traditions preserve some of the oldest and most significant testimonies of human religious and philosophical thought.

This hypothesis does not mean establishing a definitive chronology for all traditions or disregarding the records of other civilizations. It means recognizing the importance of studying Vedic texts in depth and comparing them with other testimonies from antiquity.

From Ancient Traditions to the Mystery Schools

After investigating ancestral narratives, we encounter another extraordinarily broad field: the mystery schools and initiatory traditions.

Throughout history, different societies developed institutions, study circles, philosophical schools, religious practices, and organizations that sought to preserve specific forms of knowledge.

Some were connected to temples and religious institutions. Others developed in philosophical, scientific, alchemical, or initiatory environments.

Ancient Egypt occupies an important position in this journey, particularly when investigating Memphis, religious complexes, priesthoods, and traditions associated with sacred knowledge.

We are also interested in the historical paths that connected different regions of the world, including centers of manuscript production and preservation.

An extraordinary example is the city of Timbuktu in West Africa, whose manuscript tradition represents a cultural and intellectual heritage of enormous importance to the history of African and Islamic knowledge.

Our investigation also encompasses:

• Ancient Hermetic traditions and their reception throughout the centuries.
• Medieval and Renaissance alchemy and its subsequent developments.
• Natural philosophers and the earliest scholars investigating the transformations of matter.
• Kabbalistic traditions and the study of Jewish mysticism.
• The historical development of initiatory orders.
• The Knights Templar and controversies concerning their possible later influences.
• The documented history of Freemasonry and its various interpretations of its origins.
• The Rosicrucian movement and the traditions that developed around its teachings.
• Esoteric societies and philosophical circles that contributed to the circulation of knowledge in Europe and other regions.

Here, one concern is fundamental: we must not confuse documented historical continuity with symbolic associations or similarities in teachings.

The existence of similar symbols in two organizations does not, by itself, demonstrate that one originated from the other.

The relationships between the Templars, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and other initiatory traditions must be examined individually, taking into account documents, chronology, historical context, and possible influences.

The objective is not to construct an artificial genealogy of the mystery schools, but to investigate what can actually be established about them.

Knowledge, Conflict, and the Transformations of History

The history of knowledge cannot be separated from the history of power.

Books have been destroyed, libraries looted, researchers persecuted, and certain philosophical and religious movements suppressed in different periods.

The control of information, censorship, and struggles over knowledge have accompanied human societies throughout the centuries.

For this reason, our research also extends to events that transformed the contemporary world.

Among the periods and developments we study are:

• The Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
• The formation of modern states and political transformations in Europe.
• The American Civil War and its historical consequences.
• Scientific, industrial, and technological transformations.
• World War I.
• The rise of totalitarian regimes and World War II.
• The persecution of researchers, institutions, and communities.
• The destruction, confiscation, and dispersal of historical collections.
• The Cold War, the Space Race, and the development of new technologies.
• The political, scientific, and cultural transformations of the twenty-first century.

We also investigate episodes in which scientific, religious, philosophical, and esoteric knowledge was used in ideological struggles or projects of political power.

The question guiding this investigation is not merely what happened, but how certain ideas emerged, were preserved, transformed, suppressed, or reinterpreted over time.

From the Occult Sciences to the Frontiers of Contemporary Science

Our investigation does not end in antiquity or with the initiatory schools.

Human knowledge continues to evolve.

For this reason, Revista & Schools of Mysteries also dedicates space to contemporary discoveries, hypotheses, and debates.

Among the fields we explore are:

Neuroscience and consciousness: brain function, perception, memory, altered states of consciousness, and the questions that remain unresolved concerning subjective experience.

Physics and cosmology: the structure of the universe, matter, energy, gravitation, quantum mechanics, and problems that science has not yet resolved.

Parapsychology: historical and contemporary studies of allegedly anomalous phenomena, out-of-body experiences, extrasensory perception, and other manifestations that require rigorous methodological investigation.

UFO studies and nonhuman intelligences: historical records, eyewitness accounts, official documents, unidentified aerial phenomena, and hypotheses concerning the possibility of other forms of intelligence.

Hermeticism and esotericism: philosophical systems, initiatory traditions, alchemy, symbolism, and interpretations of the relationship between human beings and the universe.

Comparative religion and philosophy: different conceptions of the origin of existence, consciousness, the soul, the spirit, death, and the meaning of human experience.

It is important to clarify that the presence of a particular subject in this publication does not constitute a declaration that all the hypotheses associated with it have been scientifically demonstrated.

Quantum mechanics, for example, has its own mathematical and experimental foundations. It should not be used as automatic justification for every spiritual or esoteric interpretation.

Likewise, subjective experiences, accounts of unusual phenomena, and historical documents must be examined according to their characteristics and possibilities for verification.

The unknown deserves investigation, but it does not exempt us from applying standards of evidence.

Our Method: The Constant Investigation of Truth

Revista & Schools of Mysteries is not committed to a single religion, philosophical school, scientific theory, historical interpretation, or political movement.

Our commitment is to investigation.

This means that different perspectives can be presented and examined against one another.

A hypothesis can be analyzed through its thesis and antithesis. A traditional interpretation can be compared with historical documents. An archaeological discovery can change our understanding of a myth. A contemporary theory can be confronted with the scientific knowledge currently available.

We work with three fundamental categories:

1. Documented facts

Information supported by documents, historical records, primary sources, archaeological evidence, scientific research, and verifiable references.

2. Interpretations

Analyses constructed from the available facts, relationships between different sources, and possible ways of understanding a particular event or tradition.

3. Hypotheses and speculation

Investigative possibilities that do not yet have sufficient supporting evidence, but can be examined, contextualized, and compared with alternative explanations.

This distinction is essential to prevent a possibility from being presented as certainty or an interpretation from being confused with an established fact.

We do not intend to replace science, history, archaeology, or academic institutions. We intend to study their contributions, follow their discoveries, and examine questions that remain open.

Truth does not need to be protected from questions.

A serious investigation must allow its own conclusions to be challenged.

The Freedom to Investigate

There is a difference between holding convictions and becoming a prisoner of them.

It is possible to study a religion in depth without necessarily adopting its doctrine. It is possible to investigate Hermeticism without accepting every esoteric interpretation. It is possible to recognize the importance of a scientific theory without considering it the definitive explanation of every phenomenon.

It is also possible to examine a hypothesis considered unlikely without automatically turning it into truth.

This intellectual freedom is one of the principles guiding our work.

We do not follow herd mentality, adopt conclusions simply because they are popular, or reject an investigation merely because it raises uncomfortable questions.

The compass is the investigation itself.

New evidence may change previous interpretations. New documents may reveal unknown paths. A conclusion reached today may need to be revised tomorrow.

The principle of uncertainty, in this context, represents a philosophical and methodological attitude of humility in the face of the complexity of human knowledge. It is not an indiscriminate application of the physical concept of uncertainty in quantum mechanics.

An Encyclopedia in a State of Continuous Development

Revista & Schools of Mysteries is an independent multidisciplinary research project developed with the purpose of bringing together, organizing, and exploring knowledge from different periods, civilizations, and fields of study.

Its purpose is to establish connections between the past and the present, between oral traditions and written records, and between ancient cosmologies and contemporary discoveries.

The journey may begin with a narrative transmitted orally by an Indigenous people, move through a Sumerian inscription, reach a Vedic text, continue to manuscripts preserved in African libraries, cross the European initiatory schools, and end with a contemporary question in neuroscience or cosmology.

Not because all these forms of knowledge necessarily share a common origin, but because each represents an important part of humanity's intellectual, spiritual, and cultural journey.

Readers will find studies on ancient civilizations, universal mythologies, comparative religions, archaeology, history, mystery schools, alchemy, initiatory societies, parapsychology, physics, consciousness, cosmologies, UFO studies, and nonhuman intelligences.

They will also encounter different perspectives, intellectual debates, historical documents, bibliographies, and investigative hypotheses.

Some conclusions may appear convincing. Others may be challenged. Some questions may remain unanswered.

And that is part of the process.

We return, therefore, to the reflection presented by Max Heindel: the importance of preserving a child's willingness to learn when confronted with new knowledge.

Not the naivety of believing everything, but the ability to avoid prematurely rejecting what we do not yet understand.

Investigation begins when we stop searching only for what confirms our beliefs and find the courage to examine what might change them.

This is the purpose of Revista & Schools of Mysteries.

Investigate the past. Understand the present. Question the unknown. Remain open to new discoveries.

The search for truth is not a final destination. It is a continuous process.

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Author's Commentary: Couto de Magalhães, Indigenous Myths, and Possible Echoes of an Ancestral Tradition

While preparing this introduction to Revista & Schools of Mysteries, I would like to add some personal observations about two authors whose works I consider particularly interesting: Max Heindel, author of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, and General José Vieira Couto de Magalhães, author of O Selvagem, published in 1876.

Reading these two works led me to reflect on how we investigate human knowledge.

Max Heindel draws our attention to the importance of maintaining an open mind when encountering new teachings. Couto de Magalhães, in turn, provides a historical example of a researcher interested in observing cultural, linguistic, mythological, and behavioral patterns among different populations.

In O Selvagem, he did not limit himself to recording Indigenous narratives. He sought to understand their languages, customs, social structures, religious traditions, and possible origins. He also developed hypotheses concerning human migrations to the American continent and the relationships between populations from different parts of the world.

Among his investigations, we find nineteenth-century hypotheses concerning the so-called Aryan languages of the Americas, in which he discusses a possible relationship between Sanskrit, an ancient language of India, and Quechua, the historical language of Andean peoples.

Couto de Magalhães refers to the studies of Vicente Fidel López, author of Les Races Aryennes du Pérou, and presents the claim that Sanskrit supposedly contributed approximately two thousand roots to Quechua.

He also refers to the French researcher Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a scholar of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, their languages, and their historical documents.

Another element deserving attention is the Chachapoya people, an ancient population of the Peruvian Andes known for their architecture, funerary complexes, and monumental constructions, including Kuélap.

The cultural characteristics and interpretations of the physical appearance of certain groups from this region fueled nineteenth-century speculation about possible migrations and contacts between American populations and peoples from other continents.

It is important to clarify that these associations do not demonstrate an Indo-Aryan origin for the Chachapoya. Nor is there established linguistic evidence of a genealogical relationship between Sanskrit and Quechua. These hypotheses must be understood within the intellectual context of their time.

Nevertheless, another aspect of O Selvagem is particularly interesting to me and deserves an investigation of its own: Indigenous mythology.

The Indigenous Myth and Biblical Genesis: A Similarity Worth Investigating

In the first legend of his collection, entitled "How Night Came to Be," Couto de Magalhães presents a narrative that he himself considers similar to ancient religious traditions from Asia and to the biblical book of Genesis.

The author writes:

"This legend is probably a fragment of the Genesis of the ancient South American peoples."

He goes on to observe that the narrative contains elements resembling those found in the Vedas and in Genesis: an initial state of happiness, an act of disobedience, an episode involving a prohibition, and the resulting transformation of the established order of things.

The narrative was collected by Couto de Magalhães during his travels through the Brazilian interior. He explains that he recorded the legends as he heard Indigenous narrators tell them, presenting the text in the Tupi language alongside its Portuguese translation.

Below, I reproduce the complete Portuguese translation of the first legend, as published in the 1876 edition.

1. The Indigenous Narrative: How Night Came to Be

Transcription of the Portuguese translation published in O Selvagem, pages 172–174, with the original historical spelling preserved.

No principio não havia noite — dia sómente havia em todo tempo. A noite estava adormecida no fundo das aguas. Não havia animaes; todas as cousas fallavam. A filha da Cobra Grande, contam, casara-se com um moço. Este moço tinha tres famulos fieis. Um dia elle chamou os tres famulos e lhes disse: — ide passear por que minha mulher não quer dormir comigo. Os famulos foram-se, e então elle chamou sua mulher para dormir com elle. A filha da Cobra Grande respondeu-lhe: — Ainda não é noite. O moço disse-lhe: — Não ha noite; somente ha dia. A moça fallou: — Meu pai tem noite. Se queres dormir comigo manda buscal-a lá, pelo grande rio. O moço chamou os tres famulos; a moça mandou-os a casa de seu pai para trazerem um caroço de tucumã. Os famulos foram, chegaram em casa da Cobra Grande, esta lhes entregou um caroço de tucumã muito bem fechado, e disse-lhes: — Aqui está; levai-o. Eia! não o abraes, senão todas as cousas se perderão. Os famulos foram-se, e estavam ouvindo barulho dentro do coco de tucuman, assim: tem, ten, ten... era o barulho dos grillos e dos sapinhos que cantam de noite. Quando já estavam longe, um dos famulos disse a seus companheiros: — Vamos ver que barulho será este? O piloto disse: — Não do contrario nos perderemos. Vamos embora, eia, rema! Elles foram-se e continuaram a ouvir aquelle barulho dentro do coco de tucuma, e não sabiam que barulho era. Quando já estavam muito longe, ajuntaram-se no meio da canôa, acenderam fogo, derreteram o breu que fechava o coco e o abriram. De repente tudo escureceu. O piloto então disse: — Nós estamos perdidos; e a moça, em sua casa, já sabe que nós abrimos o coco de tucuman! Elles seguiram viagem. A moça, em sua casa, disse então a seu marido: — Elles soltaram a noite; vamos esperar a manhã. Então todas as cousas que estavam espalhadas pelo bosque se transformaram em animaes e em passaros. As cousas que estavam espalhadas pelo rio se transformaram em patos, e em peixes. Do paneiro gerou-se a onça; o pescador e sua canôa se transformarão em pato; de sua cabeça nascerão a cabeça e bico do pato; da canôa o corpo do pato; dos remos as pernas do pato. A filha da Cobra Grande, quando vio a estrella d’alva, disse a seu marido: — A madrugada vem rompendo. Vou dividir o dia da noite. Então ella enrolou um fio, e disse-lhe: — Tú serás cujubin.» Assim ella fez o cujubim; pintou a cabeça do cujubim de branco, com tabatinga; pintou-lhe as pernas de vermelho com urucú, e então disse-lhe: — Cantarás para todo sempre quando a manhã vier raiando. Ella enrolou o fio, sacudio cinza em riba delle, e disse: tú seras inambú, para cantar nos diversos tempos da noite, e de madrugada. De então para cá todos os passaros cantaram em seus tempos, e de madrugada para alegrar o principio do dia. Quando os tres famulos chegaram o moço disse-lhes: — Não fostes fiéis — abriram o caroço de tucumã, soltaram a noite e todas as cousas se perderam, e vos tambem que vos metamorphoseastes em macacos, andareis para todo sempre pelos galhos dos páos.

2. The Biblical Narrative: Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3

To establish the comparison, we must examine the episodes involving the forbidden tree, disobedience, and the consequences of transgression, recorded in the book of Genesis.

Genesis 2:16–17 — The prohibition

God permits the man to eat from the trees of the garden, establishing a single restriction: he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the warning that disobedience will bring death.

Genesis 3:1–6 — The transgression

The serpent speaks with Eve, questions the divine prohibition, and presents the fruit as a source of knowledge. Eve eats the fruit and also offers it to Adam, who eats it as well.

Among the serpent's words, we find:

"You will not certainly die." (Genesis 3:4)

Genesis 3:14–19 — The consequences

Following the transgression, consequences are pronounced upon the serpent, the woman, and the man. The relationship with nature is transformed, work becomes marked by hardship, and human mortality is reaffirmed.

Genesis 3:22–24 — The departure from Eden

The man and woman are removed from the garden, and access to the tree of life is guarded.

It is important to observe that Genesis presents a narrative about creation, the human condition, transgression, and the loss of access to Eden. The Indigenous legend, in turn, explains the origin of night, the organization of natural cycles, and the transformation of certain beings.

These are not identical narratives. However, they contain motifs that justify a comparison.

3. Where Do We Find the Similarities?

When we place the two narratives side by side, we encounter several elements worth examining:

The initial condition: In the Indigenous narrative, there was no night, and everything could speak. In Genesis, the man and woman initially live in the Garden of Eden, in a condition of closeness to God and without the suffering that comes later.

The existence of a prohibition: In the Indigenous legend, the messengers receive an explicit order not to open the tucumã nut. In Genesis, there is a prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Curiosity and transgression: The Indigenous characters cannot resist the desire to discover what is inside the nut. In Genesis, Eve eats the fruit after speaking with the serpent, and Adam also participates in the transgression.

The transformation of reality: In the Indigenous tradition, opening the nut brings night into existence and transforms elements of nature into animals and birds. In Genesis, disobedience profoundly changes the human condition and humanity's relationship with the world.

The loss of a previous condition: Both narratives present a rupture between an initial condition and a new reality, marked by consequences that become part of existence.

These correspondences are interesting, but we must also recognize the differences.

The Indigenous narrative does not contain an exact equivalent of Adam and Eve, a serpent offering forbidden fruit, or an expulsion from a paradise garden. Instead, it features the daughter of the Great Serpent, the tucumã nut, three servants, and the origin of night and various animals.

What we find is a partially similar narrative structure, constructed through characters, symbols, and cosmological explanations specific to its own tradition.

4. What Could Explain These Similarities?

Here is where one of the most interesting questions for investigation begins.

How can geographically separated peoples with different cultural traditions develop narratives containing similar motifs?

There is no single established answer. We can consider at least three possible avenues of investigation.

First hypothesis: The collective unconscious

The analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung introduces the concept of the collective unconscious, associated with the idea of archetypal structures shared by humanity.

From this perspective, certain symbols and narrative structures might emerge in different cultures because they are connected to deep patterns of human psychological experience.

The tree, the serpent, the forbidden fruit, disobedience, transformation, and the passage from an original condition into another can all be examined through this perspective.

However, similarities between myths do not, by themselves, prove Jung's theory. It is a psychological interpretation that must also be critically examined.

Second hypothesis: An older cultural inheritance

Another possibility is that certain narrative structures were transmitted among populations over very long periods.

Migrations, cultural contacts, population movements, and networks of storytelling could explain some similarities found in distant traditions.

This possibility deserves investigation, particularly when specific combinations of narrative motifs and correspondences can be examined historically.

However, the paths of transmission would need to be demonstrated. Similarity between two stories does not prove that one descended from the other, nor that both necessarily originated in the same geographical region.

Third hypothesis: Independent development

There is also the possibility that different societies developed similar narratives independently.

Human curiosity, our relationship with nature, the experience of night and day, fear of the consequences of transgression, and the need to explain transformations in the world are experiences capable of producing similar narrative motifs in different cultures.

In this case, contact between the peoples would not need to be assumed.

5. A Question That Remains Open

Couto de Magalhães was not the only researcher to observe similarities between the religious and mythological traditions of different peoples.

Comparisons involving creation myths, floods, sacred trees, serpents, culture heroes, and acts of transgression appear in different studies of comparative mythology.

The challenge is understanding when we are dealing with a cultural inheritance, when we are encountering recurring symbolic structures, and when we are observing coincidences produced by similar human experiences.

We cannot anticipate an answer.

What we can do is study the narratives in their original versions, investigate their cultural contexts, examine the dates of their written records, compare their languages, and search for evidence that allows us to evaluate each hypothesis.

This is precisely why I consider reading O Selvagem so important to the project of Revista & Schools of Mysteries.

Not because every interpretation offered by Couto de Magalhães is necessarily correct, but because his work preserves records of Indigenous traditions and raises questions that continue to deserve investigation.

Author's Concluding Reflections

When I bring Max Heindel and Couto de Magalhães together, I find two contributions that speak to the philosophy of this project.

On one hand, there is the recommendation to maintain an open mind toward new knowledge. On the other, there is the practice of observing patterns, comparing traditions, and formulating questions about the cultural history of humanity.

I do not seek out authors to confirm my convictions. I seek authors, documents, and ideas that allow me to investigate what I do not yet understand.

An Indigenous narrative does not need to be transformed into a version of Genesis to deserve attention. Likewise, a similarity between myths should not be dismissed simply because the traditions belong to different peoples.

Knowledge requires openness, but it also requires rigor.

What are we encountering: a cultural memory transmitted since ancestral times, universal structures of human thought, or different paths that ultimately produced similar narratives?

I do not have a definitive answer. Nor do I intend to manufacture one.

I prefer to leave the question open, investigate its possibilities, and allow new evidence to change our interpretations.

6. Before and Beyond Genesis: The First Human Couple in the Zoroastrian Tradition

The investigation of similarities between creation narratives should not stop with the comparison between Indigenous American traditions and Genesis.

There is another religious tradition that deserves special attention: Zoroastrianism, one of the ancient religions of Iran, traditionally associated with the teachings of Zarathustra (Zoroaster).

In Zoroastrian literature, we find a narrative concerning the origin of the first human couple, known as Mashya and Mashyana.

The account appears in the Bundahishn, also known as the Book of Creation, particularly in Chapter 15.

According to this tradition, before the appearance of the first couple there existed Gayomard, regarded as the first human being. After his death, his seed was purified by sunlight and, after a certain period, a plant emerged from which Mashya and Mashyana were born.

The two were initially joined together, like parts of the same plant, until they assumed human form.

Here we already find an important difference from Genesis: in the Iranian tradition, the first man and woman emerge together through a plant transformation associated with Gayomard's origin. Eve is not created from Adam's rib.

But the narrative becomes even more interesting.

The creator deity, Ohrmazd, the Middle Persian name corresponding to Ahura Mazda, instructs the first couple to practice good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, warning them against worshiping demons.

Initially, Mashya and Mashyana recognize Ohrmazd as the creator of water, earth, plants, animals, stars, the Moon, and the Sun.

Later, however, their thoughts undergo a transformation. Influenced by demonic forces, they begin attributing creation to the evil spirit Ahriman.

This false declaration represents a fundamental transgression within the Zoroastrian narrative.

The account continues with episodes concerning food, the discovery of fire, the development of human life, and the emergence of subsequent generations.

7. Mashya and Mashyana Compared with Adam and Eve

When we place this narrative alongside Genesis, we find several correspondences:

The origin of humanity: Both traditions present a first human couple associated with the beginning of humanity's descendants.

Divine guidance: Both Adam and Eve and Mashya and Mashyana receive instructions concerning their existence and relationship with the creator.

The presence of an opposing force: In Genesis, the serpent plays the role of the tempter. In the Zoroastrian tradition, Ahriman represents the destructive force opposed to Ohrmazd's creation.

Transgression: In Genesis, the couple disobeys the prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge. In the Bundahishn, Mashya and Mashyana eventually attribute creation falsely to the evil spirit.

The transformation of the human condition: Both traditions present a rupture between an initial condition and a new reality marked by the consequences of transgression.

Nevertheless, the differences must be acknowledged.

In Genesis, the transgression involves forbidden fruit, the serpent, and the loss of access to the Garden of Eden.

In the Zoroastrian account, there is no precisely equivalent forbidden fruit or expulsion from paradise. The central episode concerns the corruption of thought and the attribution of creation to Ahriman.

Therefore, we are not dealing with two identical stories, but with narratives containing comparable motifs concerning human origins, divine guidance, the influence of evil, and the disruption of an initial condition.

8. A Possible Inheritance Predating the Religions We Know?

Here we arrive at a question I find particularly interesting.

Could these narratives represent very ancient cultural traditions, transmitted and transformed throughout human migrations?

This hypothesis can be investigated, but we must distinguish three separate questions: the antiquity of an oral tradition, the date of a text's composition, and the period in which a particular narrative acquired the form in which we know it.

The Bundahishn preserves Iranian traditions that existed before its compilation. However, its surviving written form is considerably later than the period in which the biblical texts of Genesis were composed.

This does not mean that every element of its mythology originated during that later period. It simply means that we cannot establish chronological priority between two traditions exclusively on the basis of the presumed antiquity of their narratives.

There is also a particularly interesting comparative dimension: the historical and linguistic relationships between ancient Indo-Iranian and Vedic traditions.

Iranian and Vedic literature display correspondences that historical linguistics and the history of religions recognize as part of a shared Indo-Iranian heritage.

This allows us to investigate whether certain mythological elements were preserved, modified, and reinterpreted by different populations over extensive historical periods.

But we must not turn this possibility into a claim that all creation myths have a single origin.

9. The Investigation Continues: Three Traditions, One Major Question

We now have three groups of narratives that deserve to be examined together:

• South American Indigenous tradition: the narrative recorded by Couto de Magalhães in O Selvagem, in which opening the tucumã nut brings night into existence and transforms nature.
• Biblical tradition: Genesis, with Adam, Eve, the serpent, the tree of knowledge, and the transformation of the human condition following transgression.
• Iranian Zoroastrian tradition: Mashya and Mashyana, the plant-based origin of the first couple, the guidance of Ohrmazd, and the destructive influence of Ahriman.

What could explain the presence of partially similar narrative structures in such different traditions?

One possibility is the existence of recurring symbolic patterns in human experience, a question that can be examined through Carl Gustav Jung's analytical psychology and his concept of the collective unconscious.

Another possibility is the preservation of ancient cultural inheritances, transmitted by populations that migrated, established contacts, and transformed their narratives over generations.

We must also consider the independent development of similar motifs, produced by common human experiences.

I do not dismiss any of these possibilities in advance, but neither do I consider any of them proven merely because of the similarities found between the myths.

The most important point is to understand that the history of religions and mythologies may preserve testimonies of cultural processes that are far older than the written records that have survived.

Oral tradition therefore deserves a central place in this investigation.

Could we be looking at echoes of an ancestral cultural memory, transmitted by very ancient populations before the formation of the great religious traditions known to us?

This is a question that deserves investigation, documentation, and multidisciplinary comparison.

I do not intend to offer a definitive answer. I intend to investigate the possibilities.

After all, if there is one lesson we can take from Max Heindel, it is the need to preserve a willingness to learn, even when we encounter knowledge that challenges our previous interpretations.

Truth is not obligated to confirm our expectations. We are the ones who must be willing to revise our conclusions when confronted with evidence.

A Journey of Reading, Comparison, and Investigation

It is important to clarify that this investigation did not begin with artificial intelligence. Long before these tools existed, I was already pursuing this path through books.

I have read and continue to consult works of Vedic literature, studied The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception by Max Heindel, and encountered the Indigenous narratives recorded by General José Vieira Couto de Magalhães in O Selvagem, published in 1876.

These authors and researchers, each within the historical context and limitations of their time, provided references that I consider important to the development of my own intellectual journey. We do not need to agree entirely with their interpretations to recognize the value of their contributions.

Later, I deepened my studies of biblical Genesis, the creation narratives of the Zoroastrian tradition, and the texts of the Vedic civilization. Along this journey, I encountered narrative similarities, recurring motifs, and questions that inevitably raised further inquiries.

I cannot simply ignore the patterns I have identified through my reading. Nevertheless, I cannot prematurely turn them into proof of a common origin, a specific migration, or a historical transmission that has not yet been demonstrated.

That is precisely why I return to the sources, compare versions, examine historical contexts, and seek to confront different interpretations.

Today, OpenAI's artificial intelligence and other technological tools expand my research possibilities. They make it possible to locate documents, compare narratives, consult references, and examine hypotheses more efficiently. But they did not initiate this journey, nor do they determine my conclusions.

I am grateful to the researchers and authors who came before us, including those whose interpretations may need to be revised. Knowledge advances not only through the confirmation of earlier ideas, but also through the ability to question them.

My position remains unchanged: I am not committed to a definitive theory. If new evidence contradicts an interpretation that I currently consider plausible, I will be willing to revise it.

Investigation is not about finding what we want to be true. It is about having the courage to follow a question as far as the evidence allows—even when the answer does not yet exist.

This is the essence of my approach:

The Constant Investigation of Truth.

Supplementary Comparative Analysis Report

Project: Revista & Schools of Mysteries Focus: Anthropological, Mythological, and Psychoanalytical Deep Dive into Origin Traditions (The Tupi Myth, Biblical Genesis, and Zoroastrian Cosmogony)

1. Introduction: The Status of Myth in Multidisciplinary Investigation

The text by R.V. Garcia exposes one of the greatest challenges in the historiography of religions and anthropology: how to handle the repetition of structural motifs across geographically isolated civilizations without falling into naive diffusionism (the idea that every myth derives from a single linear historical point) or sterile skepticism (which reduces similarities to mere coincidence).

To deepen this analysis through the lens of comparative anthropology and Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology, we must examine how myth functions not merely as a historical narrative, but as a map of the human consciousness undergoing individuation and social structuring.

2. The Tripartite Structure of Transgression: A Detailed Comparison

Placing the three traditions analyzed in the text side by side, we realize that the core axis is not merely "disobedience," but the transition from a state of paradisiacal unconsciousness to differentiated consciousness, mediated by an act of rupture (opening, ingestion, or misattribution).

Analytical Axis	Tupi Tradition (O Selvagem, Couto de Magalhães)	Biblical Tradition (Genesis 2–3)	Zoroastrian Tradition (Bundahishn 15)
Initial State	Eternal day; absence of night; animals do not exist separately, and "all things spoke."	Garden of Eden; direct communion; absence of suffering or awareness of mortality.	Unified primordial existence; first human (Gayomard); seed purified by the sun.
Agent of Rupture / Prohibition	The tucumã nut (sealed with pitch, containing the sound of crickets and frogs—the night).	The tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the prohibition against eating the fruit.	Ohrmazd’s instruction to practice good thoughts, words, and deeds; avoidance of demon worship.
The Act of Transgression	The servants succumb to curiosity, melt the pitch, and open the coconut against the Great Serpent's command.	Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit instigated by the serpent ("You will not surely die").	Influenced by demonic forces, Mashya and Mashyana think erroneously and falsely attribute creation to Ahriman.
Immediate Consequence	Night erupts; nature fragments and metamorphoses into animals, jaguars, birds, and fish.	Eyes opened; perception of nakedness; introduction of arduous labor and mortality.	Rupture of primordial harmony; corruption of thought and departure from the original spiritual axis.

3. The Lens of Structural Anthropology and Mircea Eliade

From Mircea Eliade's perspective in Myth and Reality, myth does not recount fiction, but a sacred history that took place in in illo tempore (the fabeled time of beginnings).

• The Creation of Time and Space: In both the Tupi myth and Genesis, the rupture of the initial static order is what gives birth to historical time and biological diversity. In the myth collected by Couto de Magalhães, night is not a punitive moral punishment in the Judeo-Christian sense, but an ontological condition necessary for the emergence of cycles (rest, the morning song of birds, differentiation between species). Without opening the tucumã coconut, the cosmos would be locked in an eternal undifferentiated present.
• The Function of the Plant/Natural Symbol: The tucumã nut (in Amazonia), the tree of knowledge (in the Near East), and plant origin from Gayomard (in Iran) reveal that ancient man viscerally understood his connection to the biosphere. The rupture of the cosmic order invariably passes through an element of nature that serves as a receptacle of mystery (the fruit, the seed, the plant).

4. The Perspective of Analytical Psychology (Carl Gustav Jung)

When we apply the hypothesis of the collective unconscious and archetypes proposed by Jung, similarities no longer necessarily demand direct historical contact (physical diffusion) and are instead explained by the very psychic architecture of the human species.

1. The Archetype of the Fall and the Differentiation of Consciousness: The state of "eternal day" or "Eden" symbolizes the stage of participation mystica, where the infant ego has not yet separated from the collective unconscious. Original innocence is, psychologically speaking, unconsciousness.
2. "Curiosity" and the Serpent/Temptation as an Evolutionary Impulse: For Jung, the hero (or the transgressor—whether the servants, Eve, or the first Zoroastrian couple) must violate the interdiction for the emergence from psychological childhood to occur. Opening the tucumã coconut, listening to an unfamiliar sound, and breaking the pitch seal equate to the act of exploring the unconscious. The immediate result is "fear" and "loss," but also an awakening to objective reality (animals take on real shapes, dawn breaks with the morning star).
3. Metamorphosis and the Instincts: In the Tupi myth, the dispersion of night transforms elements into jaguars, ducks, and monkeys (the punished servants become monkeys leaping through the branches). In the language of archetypes, integrating the unconscious brings forth instinctual contents (represented by animals). Man, having breached the veil of innocence, must learn to deal with his own animality and the duality of the world (light and shadow, day and night).

5. Methodological Conclusion for the Revista & Schools of Mysteries

The great merit of the approach defended in R.V. Garcia’s text—and corroborated by this in-depth analysis—is demonstrating that structural similarities between myths of uncommunicating cultures in antiquity teach us more about the unity of the human psyche and the universal laws of thought than about simplistic theories of migration.

Investigating these traditions without dogmatism means accepting that:

• Myth is a living document of the human mind.
• Motifs coincidences (prohibition, breaking the seal, fracturing the original state, and the consequent dawn of a new order) reflect deep archetypes.
• The role of the serious researcher is not to force fits, but to maintain a "child's mind"—curious, rigorous, and stripped of intellectual vanity.

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Bibliography and Selected Research References

The following references provide a starting point for readers interested in examining the primary texts, historical context, comparative mythology, and philosophical foundations discussed in this article.

Primary texts and ancient traditions

1. COUTO DE MAGALHÃES, José Vieira. O Selvagem: Curso da Língua Geral Segundo Ollendorf, Comprehendendo o Texto Original de Lendas Tupis; Origens, Costumes, Região Selvagem. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia da Reforma, 1876.
   Original historical edition, including the legend "Como a noite appareceu."

2. HEINDEL, Max. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception; or, Christian Occult Science. Seattle: Rosicrucian Fellowship; Chicago: Independent Book Company, 1909.

3. WEST, E. W., trans. Pahlavi Texts: The Bundahis, Bahman Yast, and Shâyast Lâ-Shâyast. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880.
   English translation of important Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts, including the Bundahishn.

4. THE HOLY BIBLE. Genesis, chapters 2–3; The Gospel According to Mark, chapter 10, verse 15. For English-language readers, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) provides a modern translation suitable for comparative study.

5. JAMISON, Stephanie W.; BRERETON, Joel P., trans. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Comparative mythology, psychology, and the study of religion

6. JUNG, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 2nd ed. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9, Part 1.

7. BOYCE, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

8. ELIADE, Mircea. Myth and Reality. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

9. ELIADE, Mircea. A History of Religious Ideas. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978–1985.

10. CAMPBELL, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008.

Historical and linguistic context

11. LÓPEZ, Vicente Fidel. Les Races Aryennes du Pérou: Leur Langue, Leur Religion, Leur Histoire. Paris: Maisonneuve et Cie, 1871.

12. BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, Charles-Étienne. Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale. Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1857–1859.

13. WEST, E. W. Pahlavi Texts. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880.

Digital research collections and reference resources

• Library of Congress — historical edition of Max Heindel's The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception: https://www.loc.gov/item/09029803/
• Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin, University of São Paulo — digitized edition of O Selvagem (1876): https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/7476
• Encyclopaedia Iranica — scholarly reference on the Bundahishn and its textual history: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bundahisn-primal-creation/
• Oxford Academic — The Rigveda, translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton: https://academic.oup.com/book/33632

Editorial note: The historical hypotheses discussed in this article are presented as subjects for investigation, not as established conclusions. The nineteenth-century theories concerning Sanskrit and Quechua, as well as the proposed relationships between distant mythological traditions, must be evaluated in light of modern historical, archaeological, and linguistic research. The comparative approach does not, by itself, demonstrate direct cultural transmission or a common origin.

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Revista & Schools of Mysteries
Independent Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia

Author: R.V. Garcia

The Constant Investigation of Truth

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