In the mythology class, I had written four essays. The Stanley Parable one I wrote was the third one, uploaded as I wrote it. The Rite of Passage one I uploaded late. The two others were this one, the first assignment, and another one I’ll upload alongside this, the creation myth assignment.
Throughout history, mythology has been a vehicle for the human imagination. One cannot say for sure the spiritual significance of these stories and whether or not these Gods and Heroes do exist on some other plane or dimension, but one thing is known for certain—the stories of which these Gods and Heroes acted through had a very real influence on civilization, and can help provide us with a deeper understanding of the human psyche as well as a glimpse into the past through the lens of those who experienced it, and the descendants of those who told the stories.
Joseph Campbell paraphrases Jung when he frames myth as a dialectic between the conscious and unconscious mind [1.15]. Myth is therefore a form of window into the depths of not just one’s individual consciousness, but an apparent collective consciousness that drives much of humanity to reinvent or perpetuate certain themes that exist across numerous cultures throughout the world. While these unconscious archetypes and drivers are not yet fully understood (although Campbell suggests that some of the earliest conceptualizations of divinity date back to the Neanderthals, who potentially may have worshipped fire as a form of deity [1.36]) their expressions and effects are echoed through the stories and myths told throughout the world [1.21].
Myths can serve many functions, but mythologists assert that myth is an alternative method of reframing one’s conceptualization of existence from a narrative perspective with what best scientific knowledge exists at the time [2.9]. It allows one to better understand and predict how one’s external circumstances will behave and react, albeit not by scientific means. Long before chaos theory and fractal geometry were ever conceptualized, cultural groups formed mythologies to attempt to explain the chaotic behavior of nature, so that one may better be able to understand how these resources are distributed to more strategically plan their methods of harvesting the resources [2.9]. This would be an example of aetiologic mythology, i.e. an attempt to explain some external natural force through supernatural, metaphysical, or by other mythological means.
Perhaps one of the most striking and fascinating features of mythology is this interplay between facets of lived reality and the metaphysical, whereby mythological events often include real stories, perhaps as a method of ontologically justifying certain events that have occurred (for example, the siege of Troy being the result of a jealous contest of attractiveness amongst goddesses [2.10]). Throughout much of mythology, we see these themes echoed through history, of fact and (at least, literally, but perhaps not necessarily metaphysically, false) fiction intermingling as a form of storytelling and bookkeeping, so that one may continue to hear the tales of the great very real heroes that permeated many cultures.
One such story that has reached much popularity and has been retold countless times in many countless forms is the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, which has at least one modern movie as well as the Percy Jackson retelling of the tale. When one visits Greece, while one will seldom meet a Greek Pagan who truly believes in Poseidon and all the gods involved in the tale, even the most Orthodox of Greeks will exude an air of mysticism and reverence for these tales that built their culture, that formed their country, that brought forth what makes them, them. One merely needs to stand in the middle of Athens, under the Parthenon, to realize these myths are still very much alive and breathing in the culture, deeply ingrained into the Greek way of life, into Greek ritual and beliefs. During Easter, one will still find Greeks sacrificing rams [4], perhaps not to Jesus or the Abrahamic deity, but as an echo of their past, where sacrificial rams were used to celebrate the seize of the Golden Fleece, up until the early 20th century [3]. This can be seen as a form of an anthropological insight [2.14] from mythology; despite these myths perhaps being a Pagan whisper in the wind these days, the cultural influence weighted from these myths have shifted a culture so drastically that it is deeply rooted in their collective unconscious, as a fundamental driver that they feel drawn to expressing as a form of cultural identity. Perhaps the days of human sacrifice are (hopefully) over, but the small details of cultural tradition live on in the smiling hearts of the Greek people, who while largely perhaps see and know these myths to be literally false, see them as cultural truths that built who they are today.
In certain parts of modern-day Turkey, where these myths extend to, these myths are heralded as sociological truth. One version of the myth heralded that Jason’s ship, the Argo, sank on a small island the locals call Cape Jason [3]. Their fork details how Jason was a real person, whose crew settled on the island and married the local girls, whose descendants are believed to still live on the island to this day. Perhaps this could never be truly verified; after all, we do not have Jason’s DNA sample to test the population against; but regardless, the belief of this direct lineage creates a sort of “belonging” to some special group of people (i.e. those descendants of Jason and his crew) that surrounds their particular version of the myth, and it is a driver for the culture that thrives in that area.
While it is perhaps not quite literally true that a hero snatched glimmering wool from behind the snarling maw of a great and fearsome dragon, these tales of heroism built a culture several thousand years old, and its influence was so great that entire regions of the world still find value in them and celebrate them, despite having shifted away from the core driving beliefs that shaped the initial myths. Myth then, cannot simply be framed as a mere fairy-tale, nor can it be seen as a story made by the scientifically uneducated; it must be seen as a heavy interplay between history, anthropology, metaphysics, and imagination, all woven together by clever storytellers whose goal was to entertain and educate in the most memorable manner possible, in a way the culture at the time could largely relate to. It cannot be simply seen as a relic of the past, as its influences have trickled down and worked its way into every culture in every latitude and longitude of the world, consciously or unconsciously, in a form of cultural and artistic expression. Myth then is a form of self-expression, and truly a way for humanity to understand itself, where it came from, and where it’s going. Myth will not die, as much as Sir James G. Frazer wants it to; myth is us, myth is humanity, and myth will follow us for as long as there exists life to think about itself, and what it means to be alive.
1 Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. 1972.
2 Thury, Eva M, and Margaret K Devinney. Introduction to Mythology. 4th ed., Oxford University Press.
3 Wood, Michael, director. In Search of Myths and Heroes. Jason and the Golden Fleece, PBS, 13 Dec. 2011, https://fod-infobase-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=44322&tScript=0#. Accessed 25 Sept. 2022.
4 This was actually a personal experience from when I visited Greece in 2009 or so. I do not know how I am supposed to cite this.
Fractal's Thought Emporium 