THE PROMETHEUS MYTH
Prometheus
A Grecian (Greek) word connoting “forethought”; “forward thinking”; “foresight”; and “the one who is resourceful”.
As many know, he stole the fire from the opporessive gods, and brought it to man for their benefit, lest they remain in darkness. These are obvious philosophical grabs for our platform, as we are looking toward the future Man and his development.
His name is used symbolically to represent three components this myth exudes, which we believe are crucial to manhood at this time:
1) A restoration of fire within the soul of each man brought forward through his heart and into his veins, purpose, and relationships.
2) Discussions and developments around where we, as men, want to see ourselves in the future, and also to plan the imminent seeds of those visions.
3) A cultivation of doing the right thing, despite it being hard to do so. This means assertiveness through speaking our truths, integrity within self and community, competence, and fellowship
Prior to and during the beginning of his writings, Aeschylus, who wrote Prometheus Bound – the Promethean literature that is responsible for most of our current understandings of Prometheus – Prometheus and the plays involving Him were widely portrayed and viewed as a cosmic joke by Greeks. His depictions were humorous, and Prometheus was often the center of satire. The qualities of the god were chided, even mocked.
This initial development is important because it parallels modern man’s recent evolution. Beginning in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, men were often televised and depicted as sub-intellectual automatons, who were by nature naïve and in need of proper guidance (think Simpsons, Al Bundy, Home Improvement). Where once, across the world, boys were forged into men through stringent rites and initiations, as if the future of their cultures depended on it, this dire and often painstaking process of forming men in contemporary society had been thrown into a (crab) barrel (of monkeys).
Men often come to the Promethean platform because they have felt humiliated, weak, or not taken seriously. We promote an unfolding of Your way forward, take positive regard of your resources within, and celebrate your victories along the way.
According to some experts, it was only later in Aeschylus’s writings that Prometheus took on the complex and profound nature we recognize today. Prometheus evolved because there was necessity for change in the world. The world needed Prometheus to take himself seriously. Without His deep internal conquest, the world was fated for tragic satire.
From the pleasing fool who was delegated to a humorous nuisance in the 90’s, masculinity has diminished into extremes. Men have been correlated with the term “toxicity”. The current state of masculinity, like the evolution of Prometheus, has become crucial to investigate – a dire evolution is brimming. Resources are being created.
As with the mythology of Prometheus, the more we delve into current Masculinity, we see a complexity of issues that are urging us to consciously explore. Promethean Men’s Groups is committed to these investigations and to sharing the discoveries and their practicalities with its members.
When men begin to investigate their inner patterns, they discover there is a universe of workable material awaiting them – that the fires and rites of initiation are within their emotional and mental knots. Promethean support will ally with you through this process.
Prometheus finds himself up against authorities who seem to be able to ‘hold’ him in his position of suffering and also challenge his resolve toward freedom. The powers are represented remotely by Zeus (who is never tangible or close), but more immediately by Zeus’s minions: Power (a male force) and Violence (a female force).
Likewise, the modern male finds himself chained to the rock of external pressures, which accumulate in him and challenge him to become a more complete, competent, conscious, and creative version of himself. Without doing so, a man is prone to all sorts of maladies: addiction, violence, overt weakness, suicide, or overworking, exerting power over others, feminization, etc.
In the same vein, modern man feels his strings being pulled by mysterious societal powers seated in the backdrop, which he can sometimes put a name to (Zeus), yet feels powerless against. More tangibly, modern man can and often does wade through first-hand encounters with the vicious side of feminine fury, or the raw unconscious oppression of unabated men, all of which, again, summon his heart and mind to initiate him into more efficient spheres of empowerment.
In Promethean Men’s Groups, we reframe these encounters, we work with them in the forge of group dynamics and use these impressions and trials to bolster each man’s ultimate progression.
Prometheus bounces back and forth between his All-Knowing ability and his True, almost human-like suffering. He is simultaneously champion of his path and victim of uncontrollable circumstance. He is indeed a figure like Job, from Hebrew scripture, and Christ. But his story is at times much more relatable, as we wind our way through personal powers (contrary to power over others) and unbounding weakness.
Prometheus gives the antidote to life’s calamity, first by recognizing victimhood and acknowledging the thoughts, emotions, and experiences that accompany experiential helplessness. It is often claimed by member in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) that by admitting powerless over a substance, they were able to begin their sobriety and also echoed in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.
By honoring helplessness, power within often (if not always) births itself into consciousness. Men in today’s world must acknowledge where they’ve been wronged and feel through their helplessness (for Zeus will always remind you), then allow that tenderness and often intricate process to birth forth personal power in the direction of their dreams – to live their own myth.
At Promethean Men’s Groups, we allow for every side of man to be validated, celebrated, and developed. We don’t skip steps; we let the raw potential surface naturally and powerfully, in magnitudes.
Prometheus betrayed his own kind and went out of his way to help Zeus. He did so on His own volition. He most likely knew Zeus would win, due to his foresight, and sided himself with the new Olympian ruler. Alongside this great external power in Zeus, Prometheus also perceived the corruptions taking place (Prometheus Bound is also a political allegory.
Interestingly enough, the left, the right, and the Libertarian middle, and others have all sought to justify their ideologies and ally with the Promethean myth). Prometheus felt for mankind, he stole the fire from Olympus, from the depths of Hephaestus’s forge. He first gave his power away to Zeus, then in reclaiming it, he was punished and chained to a rock at the end of the world.
A profound analogy here arises when men realize they’ve given their power away to an external source (to parent’s dreams for them, to a woman, to money, to dopamine distractions, to Government support), only to want to claim it back once the pain of unconscious meanderings becomes apparent. At this point men look to regain their power, but little do they realize the initiatory pain and torment that awaits them on their path to greater freedom. Tribal cultures ritually recreated this process for boys to initiate them into manhood.
At Promethean Men’s Groups, we aid that process. We acknowledge our self-betrayals, our crimes of the past, and introduce ways to redirect our course. We introduce men to their own pain, that that pain may develop into an ally.
Prometheus followed what he knew was right, even if it was “against the powers influencing him”. He stole fire from the gods (and in some stories the Sun itself) and gave it to mankind. With this gift the arts, industry, herbalism, science, animal husbandry etc. were conceived on Earth. It was also said that the light of conscious thought was also, then, born in man, that they might perceive beyond mere physical senses.
This one is a little more obvious. When a man knows he must begin his own journey, Live His Own Myth, he knows he must go trudge for against the headwind of external influences (and the internalized version of those) in order to alight fire to his capacities, and birth himself again into greater ability on Earth.
Above and below all else, Promethean Staff is dedicated to the fullness of man, and allowing this Fire to empower him to his greatest potential along our 12 Areas of Development.