Myth & Understanding

[coberst]

Myth & Understanding

I have been reading about mythology written by Joseph Campbell. In his attempt to make it possibly for the reader to comprehend how myth works he speaks about the human ability to ‘make-believe’.

He speaks of the universality of childhood make-believe and of how this same characteristic is exhibited in human rituals. For example he uses the Catholic Church practice of mass when the priest changes the wine and bread into the body and blood of Christ. In other words it seems to be inherent in humans to make-believe and in the process to truly believe and in truly believing experiences a form of ecstasy.

Such is probably our experience of understanding. In the process of trying to understand I create a model and then somewhere in this process of creating and modifying my model I pass to the point of believing the truth of my model thus the feeling of ecstasy.

In an attempt to explain to the novice the meaning of myth Campbell says that the “grave and constant” in human suffering may, and sometimes does, lead to an experience that is the apogee of our life. This apogee experience is ineffable (not capable of expression). Campbell considers this to be true because it is verified by individuals who have had such an experience.

“And this experience, or at least an approach to it, is the ultimate aim of religion, the ultimate reference of all myth and rite.”

“The paramount theme of mythology is not the agony of quest but the rapture of a revelation.”