There is something changing in the collective unconscious of humankind. Religious people are scurrying around witnessing to, judging and saving others as though the end is near. There is a desperate arrogance covering a deep fear and ignorance about our spiritual and historical evolution. Myths in sacred texts have been literalized and concretized to such a degree that a schizophrenia, a schism, has developed in the psychic and cultural mind of civilized nations. We are out of touch with mystery and exhausted with dogma.
As a mythologist I have often been asked and wondered about the need for a new mythology. I have been told repeatedly that our world is in desperate circumstance and that current belief systems are no longer relevant. Some scholars postulate that the issue of historical context is often the justifying reason that Christianity and Judaism are dead to people. Regardless of how I try to envision a "new" myth I cannot. I come up against a brick wall.
When trying to imagine a mythology that will work for the people I think of Alan Watts' declaration that we need more, not less, technology to understand the interdependence of things (p. 22) He wanted us to know that a more organic image of the planet has to be created for our survival. Watts described the world as a body, "a vast pattern of intelligent energy not subjects of a land- We are not 'in' it at all- We are it! (p. 22)." He spoke about power and that God creates the world by giving up power, so too should humankind lessen its grip on materialism and ego.
Recently while reading an essay by Amos W. Wilder entitled "Myth and Dream in Christian Scripture" I found the answers I had felt but not articulated. Mythical archetypes, according to Wilder, are stubborn social symbols carrying "time-binding," primordial characteristics that provide coherence to human society (p. 75). He explains that old symbols become new and an archetypal continuity, a proverbial wheel, is created. For example, in Christianity the mythical symbols of the Divine Child, sacred meal and Jesus turning water into wine all have roots in previous mythologies including Egyptian, Celtic and Graeco-Roman (p. 77).
Wilder's assertions address my questions about a possible pattern governing mythical and spiritual systems and language. I believe there are cosmic, foundational truths inside the puzzles and enigmas of world religions. Within the mystical, esoteric, mythical background of faith, exists phenomenological experience and reality that holds the pieces to the universal puzzle.
At the risk of concretizing the myths that have always freed me with their openness and metaphor, I dare say that there is a finite body of archetypes in the unconscious that exists on a metaphorical wheel that turns through time offering infinite variations of mythical motifs needed at a given moment based on cultural crisis and social change. The will of man creates the need and God helps drive the necessary messages through myth into the present mind. This belief cements the ideas of eternal return and renewal. It also explains why a new mythology has not been born.
As my knowledge and experience increase over age and time, I look forward to reflecting on this piece and discovering if my opinion changes. All work in OneWomansMind.net has an inherent flexibility that moves in tandem with the mysteries, so it is here as well.
© Copyright Paula Vaughan
Joseph Campbell said that we get the Gods we create or deserve. Carl Jung had carved into the stone above his office the legendary inscription Called or not called, God is present. Jeffrey Collins taught that myth is in religion but religion is not in myth. Taoist poetry shines an eternal light into the idea that the world is sacred and cannot be improved. Great thinkers have often asked how a perfect God can create an imperfect world. Perhaps, as spoken in the Gospel of Thomas, the world is already perfect and "the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth but men cannot see it."
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