Friday 7 August 2015

Mythology

I am reading a book by David Leeming titled "An Oxford Companion to World Mythology". It comprises myths and mythological creatures from all around the world and cultures. Here is a collection of quotes I found interesting to keep.



**On New Mythology

"We are either heroes of the new myth or captives of the old. Those who refuse the call will hang on desperately to the dying gods and myths of past value systems and will continue to endanger the world with their blindness to reality. Those who answer the call will depart from the status quo and participate in a breaking away--as heroes have always done--from the merely individual, the merely local, so as to become truly human."

"...where are today's myths, today's mythmaking, and today's mythmakers? Implicit in the question is the widespread suspicion that we have become so mastered by the scientific-rationalism approach to reality that we can no longer take seriously anything beyond the scope of that approach."

"They make use of myth--of stories with characters--because the majority of people are, to a great extent, ignorant of what is, in effect, the sacred and secret language of physics and mathematics."

"But for the most part, myths are created by the collective imagination as metaphorical projections of the way things are in life. Myths emerge from our experience of reality, from our attempt to understand it, and from our instinctive need to clothe that experience in mimetic story and concept."

"The crucial salvation now is communal salvation; without it our species will die and creation will lose its consciousness. ... As Campbell has said, "The modern hero-deed must be that of questing to bring to the light again the lost Atlantis of the coordinated soul ... of rendering the modern world spiritually significant."


**From the Introductions

"Humans, unlike other animals, are blessed or cursed with consciousness and specifically with the consciousness of plot--of beginnings, middles, and ends."

More on this book and other myths later.

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