“Myths express so well the deep coding of human consciousness.”
“What one calls ‘mythology’ in the present day, it should be remembered, was the religion of the ancient past. On the most basic level, a myth explains a phenomenon, tradition, place-name, or geological formation but it can also elevate a past event to epic and even supernatural significance and, most importantly, provide a role model for one’s individual journey through life.”[i]
“Mythology tries to answer the most difficult and the most basic questions of human existence: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? To the ancients, the meaning of the story was most important, not the literal truth of the details of a certain version of a tale.”[ii]
“The creation story as related in the biblical Book of Genesis, for example, where a great god speaks existence into creation is quite similar to creation stories from ancient Sumeria, Egypt, Phoenicia and China. The story of the Great Flood can be found in the mythology of virtually every culture on earth but takes its biblical form from the Atrahasis myth of Mesopotamia.”[iii]
“The difference between an ideology and a mythology is the difference between the ego and the self. Ideology comes from the thinking system [intellect] and mythology comes from being [intuition].”[iv]
Insight # 32 comes to us from Jean Houston (b. 1937). She is a scholar and researcher in human capacities in the cross-cultural study of spiritual and ritual processes. She is one of the founders of the Human Potential Movement.
“Myth tells us of the struggle to breathe new life into a dead land, the death of the soul and its resurrection, the search for the beloved, the great wound that turns one into a great healer. Myths express so well the deep coding of human consciousness that people of all times and all places have felt compelled to tell and retell them to express the deepest truths they know about themselves.”[v]
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Additional Reading:
- Mythology, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
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[i] Mark, Joshua J. “Mythology.” World History Encyclopedia. Last modified October 31, 2018. https://www.worldhistory.org/mythology/
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Campbell, Joseph. The Hero’s Journey. New York: Harper, 1990, p. 225.
[v] Houston, Jean. A Passion for the Possible. San Francisco: Harper, 1997, p. 126.
