FROM HOMER TO FREUD
(The Odyssey of Mind)

They thought that the dead struck by lightning
Would rise like the gods from their graves,
Some flying like birds to the heavens
Some seeking new worlds on the waves.

But currents surge swifter through neurons,
Creating new patterns of thought,
Which change all our futures for ever,
As the battles for knowledge are fought.

From Homer to Freud via Darwin
Their epics and intellects traced
Fraught journeys through minds' evolution,
In spite of attempts to debase -

- by clerics exploiting Man's instincts
With promises, penances, fears;
The righteous deluding the anxious
Approaching the final frontier.

If Adam and Eve had picked reason;
If myths had not spawned magic creeds,
Then logic might rule in the psyche of Man,
And his Id from its angst would be freed.

by Paul Rattenbury
Alderley Edge, Cheshire

Homer

Charles Darwin

Sigmund Freud