ABSTRACT
Since we introduced the evolutionary roots of human consciousness, cognition, morality, culture, emotions, and cultural life in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 explores the early efforts people made to understand the larger world, their place in it, and the subsequent impact on their experience and understanding of mental health and mental illness. It is here, in the last few thousand years BC, that we begin to see a clearer record of what people thought about themselves, their values, their dreams, their nightmares, and the forces they saw shaping the way things are inside themselves, in other people, and in the larger world of which they were a part. We now see the emergence of a direct, written record of these dynamics, and we see them emerge in the mythological systems that people created. The gods and their characteristics, the stories that were created that embodied those characteristics, and the roles of the humans included in those stories all reflect the psychological dynamics of the people who created them and believed in them. This is true across all spheres of life and is no less true in regard to mental health and mental illness. What did these people see as normal, a life of richness, purpose, and fulfillment? What led to joy or sorrow? What behavior or attitudes did they recognize as being crazy? What caused people or even gods to go crazy? These questions find answers in the mythologies of early human cultures.
