Key Takeaways
1. The Modern Meaning Crisis Demands Personal Myth
As the last great cultural myth of Christianity continues to recede with no new collective myth taking its place, a vacuum has been opening.
Cultural vacuum. Modern society faces a profound "meaning crisis" stemming from the decline of traditional collective myths, particularly Christianity, which once provided a shared sense of purpose and orientation. This void leaves many feeling unmoored, disillusioned, or simply deprived of a coherent life narrative. Without a guiding myth, individuals often experience chronic unease, depression, or frantically seek meaning in destructive substitutes like cults or fanatical ideologies.
Individual responsibility. In this spiritual desert, the responsibility for finding meaning has shifted from inherited cultural traditions to the individual. This book is addressed to "seekers, doubters, the individualists uncomfortable with creeds and dogmas," and the "spiritual but not religious" — those who recognize the need for meaning but cannot find it in outdated frameworks. It posits that a "New Myth" is already stirring within these souls, waiting to be drawn out and built up.
Bridging the gap. The goal is to bridge the gap between the receding old myths and a nascent new spirituality. This isn't about regressing to naive belief but advancing through conscious awareness. Personal mythmaking offers a sustainable, long-term resolution to the meaning crisis by empowering individuals to forge their own connection to the sacred, thereby updating the cultural code for everyone.
2. Jung's Journey: Building a Personal Cathedral
So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know “my” myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks…
Confronting crisis. Carl Jung, the pioneering psychologist, faced a profound personal crisis of meaning, feeling "suspended in mid-air" without a living myth in modern secular society. Recognizing that human beings are inherently "mythic creatures" whose myths inspire meaningful actions and build civilizations, he embarked on a deeply introspective journey to discover his own myth. This quest became his "task of tasks," driven by a need to understand his own psychic disturbances to better help his patients.
Playful construction. Jung's breakthrough came from a childhood memory of playing with blocks. He consciously submitted to his unconscious impulses, beginning to "play" by building miniature villages and castles with stones on a beach. This seemingly childish act, despite his rational mind's resistance, unlocked a torrent of dreams and images, which he meticulously recorded in his Red Book, filled with symbolic figures like Philemon.
Stone confession. This creative process eventually led Jung to build his "Tower" at Bollingen, a monumental structure in stone that embodied his innermost thoughts and knowledge. He described it as a "confession of faith in stone," a maternal womb where he could become his true self. This personal "cathedral" demonstrated how an individual could find purpose and meaning by hewing their myth from their own experience, ultimately influencing society and providing tools for personal growth.
3. Personal Myth: Crafting Your Life's Coherent Story
The personal myth is…a sacred story that embodies personal truth.
Narrative of meaning. A personal myth is an individual's unique narrative of meaning, developed from their own experience, that fulfills the functions cultural myths once provided. It addresses fundamental questions of identity ("Who am I?"), direction ("Where am I going?"), and purpose ("Why am I going there?"), transforming a disconnected series of events into a purposeful and convincing whole.
Campbell's functions. Joseph Campbell identified four functions of mythology:
- Psychological: Centering the individual, guiding development, harmonizing with the world.
- Metaphysical: Awakening awe for ultimate mystery, reconciling with reality.
- Cosmological: Presenting a total image of the universe.
- Sociological: Validating moral order for living with others.
While most psychologists limit personal myth to the psychological, the author argues it can encompass all four, extending beyond individual therapy to collective transformation.
Beyond the individual. The practice of personal myth, though rooted in individual experience, doesn't have to be isolated. Shared spaces and communities can cultivate and encourage its development, fostering "inter-personal myth." This collective, creative mythmaking could replenish the spiritual desert, re-enchant the world, and transform God into a new form for future generations, beginning with the individual.
4. Meaning as a Conscious, Volitional Choice
A personal myth can only develop after an individual chooses to see the events of their life not just as action but as a plot that connects those events and renders them meaningful.
Shift in perspective. The quest for myth begins with a loss of meaning, experienced as "vertigo" or "nausea." To overcome this, the first crucial step is a conscious decision to orient oneself towards meaning, a "metanoia" or shift in mindset. This means choosing to see life's events not as random occurrences, but as a coherent plot, a unified narrative with a driving purpose.
Constructed, not found. Unlike naive meaning, which assumes meaning is an objective fact "out there" to be discovered, conscious mythmaking recognizes meaning as something actively constructed. It's an "act of imagination," where you craft your story rather than passively encounter it. This understanding is vital for those who have experienced disillusionment and can no longer accept meaning as a given.
Commitment over conviction. After disillusionment, meaning may not be immediately convincing, but it can be embraced as a commitment. This involves a volitional affirmation of meaning, even in the face of objective doubt. This process returns meaning to its proper subjective domain, breaking the illusion of projection and rebuilding foundations on firmer, inner ground. As William James noted, "a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming."
5. Embracing "As If": The Power of Play in Mythmaking
The trick of symbolic consciousness is in allowing yourself to maintain the distance—I am aware that I’m pretending, gaming, imagining—while at the same time preserving participation.
Reconciling realities. To navigate the tension between objective convictions and subjective commitments, one must adopt a "both/and" perspective, experiencing things in an "as if" mode. This mindset, called "symbolic consciousness," allows individuals to engage in mythic thinking while retaining critical awareness, preventing a descent into psychosis or neurotic loss of imagination. It's about playing seriously, like Jung building with stones.
Play as a bridge. Play activates the imagination's infinite possibilities within a defined frame, creating a "special space or field for fantasy." When we play, we know we are pretending, yet we fully participate. This "suspension of disbelief" is natural to humans, evident in watching movies or engaging in traditional rituals where participants "become" the gods "as if" it were true.
Second naiveté. This playful engagement leads to a "second naiveté," where the power of myth can work again without losing conscious awareness of objective reality. It's a "self-induced belief" that frees the mind from the "bondage of reason," allowing a deeper participation in truth. This mindset is crucial for casting one's gaze on life's raw material and discerning its inherent story, themes, and purpose, redeeming even failures and wounds.
6. Beyond Story: Affirming the Ultimate Mystery
The first function [of myth] is awakening in the individual a sense of awe and mystery and gratitude for the ultimate mystery of being.
The ultimate test. Joseph Campbell's "test of the myth" asks what would sustain you in total disaster. If your personal story crumbles, the true myth is not the story itself, but your ability to mythologize catastrophe, to wrench meaning from it. This profound capacity moves beyond mere storytelling to engage myth's metaphysical function: saying an unconditional "Yes" to reality as it is, embracing "Amor Fati."
Reconciliation with existence. This "Yes" to life, even to its devastating aspects, is a "reconciliation" of self and reality. It's an affirmation of existence that transcends fear and resentment, connecting one to an unshakable "Ground" from which all meaning springs. Jung, for instance, defined "God" as "all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly," experiencing arbitrary happenings as meaningful, not meaningless.
Mysterium tremendum et fascinans. This deep affirmation leads to an encounter with the "mysterium tremendum et fascinans," Rudolf Otto's term for the awe-inspiring, terrifying, yet fascinating ultimate mystery at the core of reality. To affirm your life is to affirm this Mystery, which sanctifies existence and compels wonder. Personal myth at this level becomes a personal spirituality, an individual religious practice emerging from "scrupulous observation of the numinosum in his or her own life."
7. Curating Your Personal Spirituality from Tradition
If I am to discover the holy, it must be in my biography and not in the history of Israel.
Finding the holy within. To develop a personal sense of the sacred, one must look to their own biography and experience, not solely to external religious histories. This involves cultivating an "eye for the numinous," a capacity to glimpse the infinite, deep vitality, and meaning in the finite world. It's the imaginative art of seeing more than accident, embracing existence—including its darkness—as meaning-full.
Salvaging symbols. While traditional myths may no longer function as comprehensive systems, their images and symbols remain powerful "breadcrumbs" to awaken dormant archetypal patterns within. Like exploring temple ruins, one can engage with these "heap of broken images" (Eliot) from any tradition—mandalas, Earth Goddesses, dying-and-rising gods—to stir the imagination and open paths to deeper mysteries.
Conscious curation. Unlike traditional adherents, the personal mythmaker is free to curate, taking what resonates and discarding what doesn't. This involves a "fervor" for studying diverse traditions, learning from Buddhist sutras, Sufi poets, or the Kabbalah, but always guided by conscience and beauty, not dogma. This conscious mythmaking allows for critical awareness, avoiding destructive elements and forging a constructive orientation to life.
8. Creative Mythology: Forging New Symbols and Narratives
What new thing may be required of us is as yet unknown; but we may find that the answer lies only in the living.
Beyond old skins. Core numinous experiences often don't fit neatly into existing religious or mythic frameworks, acting like "new wine in old wine skins." Forcing them into pre-given forms does violence to their unique essence. Instead, individuals are called to "create new myths to live by," moving beyond tradition to forge entirely new bricks out of their imaginations, intuitions, and experiences.
Letting psyche speak. Creative mythmakers can forge a link with the unconscious by entering into discourse with inner mythic personalities, or "imagoes." Like Jung's Philemon or Schumann's musical alter-egos, these figures represent parts of the psyche, externalizing common tensions and leading to personal resolution and cultural insight. This process allows the "most elementary function of personal mythmaking" to align the different parts of the psyche.
New cosmos, new Genesis. Creative mythology also addresses the urgent need for a new cosmological myth that integrates scientific understanding with psychological fulfillment. Science reveals a universe of "incomprehensible glory and splendor," but lacks a meaningful story. Poets and artists are called to translate this majesty into a "new Genesis," a shared mythic telling that sacralizes the physical processes of the universe, helping humanity feel at home in the cosmos again.
9. The Opus: Externalizing Your Myth to Inspire Others
The work, the opus, the labor provides a form that holds inner and outer experience together in the vessel of meaning.
Building your cathedral. At a certain point, personal myth demands outward expression, compelling individuals to externalize their insights into tangible forms—an "opus." This could be books, paintings, sculptures, or songs, transforming inner blueprints into a finished building in the world. This act of communication is a key factor of creative mythology, sharing one's unique experience of value.
Art as mystic's work. The opus translates ineffable numinous experiences into coherent containers of psychic power, using images and symbols to communicate effectively. This process is inherently artistic, as the "true artist" (Campbell) shares a fundamental orientation with the mystic, expressing pure inner gratitude for being. In a world devoid of traditional seers, the mythic artist becomes the "midwife to others' spiritual development," igniting subjective connections with the Source.
Evoking wonder. Creative mythologies don't just convey information; they are evocative, activating latent archetypes in the audience and arousing their own organic response of mystery and wonder. Like Jung's Red Book or Blake's Jerusalem, they offer a "genuine personal encounter with the Source," causing "living water to flow once more in our spiritual desert" and opening portals to the deep unconscious.
10. Humanity's Divine Task: Awakening the Unconscious God
Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and man found his indispensable place in the great process of being.
Cosmic significance. Jung's encounters with the Pueblo Indians and the African savannah revealed humanity's "cosmologically meaningful" role. He realized that by becoming conscious of the world, humans "bring it into being," raising it from the unconscious into phenomenal reality. Our consciousness is indispensable for the "completion of creation," making us "the second creator of the world."
God's self-awareness. Jung believed that all of history and evolution tend towards this consciousness, and that deep within, God is still unconscious. Every time we reconnect with our unconscious and externalize material into myth, we are bringing God to greater conscious awareness—both to others and to this emerging God's own Self-awareness. This is "divine service," where "light may emerge from the darkness, that the Creator may become conscious of his creation."
The New God-Image. This process, ongoing for millennia, is the "transformation of God." As new stages of development are reached, old symbols give way to new ones, and the myth itself becomes the myth of God's transformation. The "New Myth" is about mankind's role in shaping the divine, with humanity aiding in the transformation of the divine. This is the "God-image" that is slowly taking shape in the collective unconscious.
11. The Cathedral: A Collective Myth for a New Civilization
The world of many generations elaborates a myth. …Like a temple of vast dimensions, in the early stages we do not see how the pieces fit together, because we do not know the blueprint.
A shared dream. Personal myths, though individually crafted, have far-reaching impacts, influencing others' stories and contributing to a "web of story making and story living." When externalized as creative mythologies, they become "small lights" that rekindle the mythic imagination of the group. Jung believed cultural renewal paradoxically comes from individuals who restore the cultural imagination, as personal myths become the "rebirth of the greater myths."
Vast, evolving temple. The "cathedrals" of our personal myths are part of something much bigger: a "vast complex of rising mythic structures," all assembled independently yet forming one harmonious whole—The Cathedral. Jung envisioned this as a "temple of vast dimensions" being built worldwide over centuries, a "new religion" where each individual's life is a "work station" contributing to the collective structure.
Ethic of aspiration. This collective construction of God, where humanity aids in the divine's self-actualization, fulfills the sociological function of myth. It fosters an ethic rooted in shared aspiration, encouraging inventiveness, playfulness, and a profound reverence for life as a microcosmic expression of the Ultimate Reality. No authentic consciousness is lost; each individual's "essential accomplishments" are preserved, becoming a "pillar in the temple of my God," built into the very architecture of the emerging God.
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