By Norman O. Brown

From the Preface: This study of the Greek god Hermes explores the hy­pothesis that the interrelation of Greek mythology and Greek history is much closer than has generally been recognized. Such a hypothesis seems almost inescap­able in the face of the radical transformation that the attributes and personality of Hermes underwent during the archaic period of Greek history. What I have sought to do here is to correlate these changes with the revo­lution in economic techniques, social organization, and modes of thought that took place in Athens between the Homeric age and the fifth century b.c. Such a cor­relation, I submit, casts new light on the mythology of Hermes, and especially on the Homeric Hymn to Hermes.

NY. Vintage. 1947. 1969. 183p.

By Sonia Soul. Art by Michael Lacinere. Translation by Philip Kamp.

From the introduction: “.Intellect is the gift of the human race, the greatest and most enduring of all. This is the means by which it perceives, exists, creates and evolves, No matter haw extensive knowledge is, it has its limits. Intellect thirsts for fulfillment, to ceaselessly push these limits outward. Thus, people in that far-off period wanted to learn for they felt powerless and vulnerable in a world without bounds. They were deeply concerned with the beginning and the end and all the supernatural forces that could not be mastered. Through intellect, humanity came to fashion its view of the world. Utilizing the raw information from its immediate surroundings, it cultivated knowledge and experience, while imagination filled in the rest. Mankind had need of "Myth" because that was his own personal truth. His path in this increased his certitude about the world he had created around himelf. This is how we have come to accept the myth. In its conventional sense, that is, a narration that informs us about an older order of the world and explains it. The content of Greek mythology is not a simple matter. There is a practically endless series of accounts from various periods, and derivations on which  an  enormous classificatory endeavor has been expended and that is only the beginning. ...”

Athens. Techni. 1998. 118p.

By Francis Bacon.

With a biographical notice by A. Spiers. Preface by B. Montagu, and notes by different writers.” “Wisdom for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall, It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are Sui Amantes sine Rivali are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of Fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self wisdom, to have pinioned.”

Little Brown (1884) 291 pages.

By S. Giora Shoham.

This tour-de-force is an innovating, interdisciplinary treatment of sex and love. It draws on biology, mythology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy as well as on the author's own personality theory. Shoham proposes a mother-based sexual development theory which includes a sexual typology arranged on a continuum that stretches from the starkly carnal Casanova to the romantically agonized Don Juan. Dramatic and literary illustrations abound. The “separant” Sisyphean Casanova tries to overcome the rift between himself and the object of his desire by the continuous conquest of female bodies; and the participant archetype Don Juan longs to be possessed by the ultimate woman, by being in love with love. Sex As Bait offers a unique theoretical framework for the maternal proscription of incest, and relates this to the main role of women in the formation of the nuclear family and of human culture. On the psycho-cultural level Sex As Bait presents the development of sexual identity, both male and female, basing itself on a new approach of the oral development of the psyche. Shoham concludes the book with a challenging, if not disturbing, discussion of the sacred and profane aspects of love and their place in the development of human personality and culture.

NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. 2012.