Hunting Sage Essay

If one is a hunter, one goes through life wandering through several other lives or careers with no real sense of understanding or purpose other than his or her emotions, and through their personal experiences, live many lives. A sage, however, lives many lives in a myth, by literally entering the thoughts of another (or in reality) by studying the myths of a religion or people. A historian of religion, in order to best understand the intricacies of a religion and the people who follow that religion, must be able to do both. A hunting sage is a person who can experience many lives through personal experience, and through the entering of other people’s thoughts. To do this effectively one must be able to use their mind and heart in order to both
In doing so, the scholarly side of objectivity is cast aside and can eventually lead the hunting sage to devolve into one that is merely a part of the religion, a hunter. While, O’Flaherty does mention that there are some academic ways to show the meaning of myths in religion, one crosses a line into “cryptotheologizing”, decyphering myths and claiming that these myths are true or at the least, more correct than other myths; this is not the role of the historian. A historian of religion cannot cast judgement onto a religion’s myths, good or bad, for that reduces the scholar to the bigotry that was Cortez or the British in India, as O’Flaherty states it. The historian is, even if they love or hate a myth or religion, to understand that religions aspects through their myths and traditions. It is not the place of a historian to determine if a religion is good or bad. To a historian, the human sacrifice of captives to their gods is no worse or better than the Buddhists who practice meditation in their