Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32051879-20190214183038

Tulpa is a concept in mysticism of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers, basically things created and shaped by the thoughts and feelings of a person. Some call it "thoughtform".

I am quoting this because Riordan described the Greek gods several times in PJO in a way that implied that it was the humans, the "western civilization," who created them and shaped them rather than the other way around.

This is how Chiron describe the gods and the Western Civilization in The Lighting Thief:

"What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated."

This is how Apollo describe his sun chariot in The Titan's Curse:

"This chariot is built out of human dreams about the sun, kid. It's as old as Western Civilization. Every day, it drives across the sky from east to west, lighting up all those puny little mortal lives. The chariot is a manifestation of the sun's power, the way mortals perceive it."

When Rome became the center of the Western Civilization, the gods changed so much that some of them even gained new personalities, and the books let it clear that everytime the West changes, the gods change with it.

And I have not even started with Kane Chronicles and the way Egypt is describe. And after all this I wonder, did the Greek Gods create the Ancient Greece, or was it the Ancient Greece that created the Greek Gods? 