"MYTHS RULE, OK"
| "MYTHS RULE, OK" | |
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| Old Words, New Meanings Boor. An ill-mannered, clumsy, or insensitive person. Collins Dictionary. In the time of Beau Brummel, to be known as a boor was to be seen as witty and entertaining; essential attributes of a 'dandy'. The word was used as though it were a label describing the contents of a box of associated concepts.  It was only when people took dandyism to its extreme, straining for the reputation of being a boor but lacking the essential wit, that the appellation of foppishness became associated with it.So there developed a type of 'false boor' who devalued the concept. Instead of a new word being coined to express to this new view, the old word - boor - was transferred to it. Now the old label remained but the contents of the box had been changed to describe something quite different. A recent example would be the transformation in the meaning of the word 'wicked'. From being an adjective describing something as morally bad, dangerous, or unpleasant; it has now acquired the connotation of referring to that which is very good. This is an example of how the meaning of a word can be devalued because of a misuse of the concepts it described. In this way we can understand how the word, 'myth' came to acquire its present usage as being synonymous with a lie; a functional fabrication. the myth that the USA is a classless society. Collins Dictionary. Carl Jung, whose understanding of the human psyche has been equalled by few others, viewed the imagery of myths as serving a positive, life-enhancing purpose. Myths are literally true, but need be neither historically nor geographically true. They are representations of internal landscapes, maps of the mind that are painted in the colours of feeling, and peopled by archetypes. Yet myths are now frequently derided and discredited. The blame for this denial of an integral function of the psyche must be laid squarely at the door of religions everywhere. |
Dreams and myths are highly personal. Even when they are part of the shared experience of a group, each person is fully aware that they are part of their private and individual psychic life. It is their affect on this level that gives them their dynamism. In their original context they are a way of coming to peace with oneself and one's neighbours. When they are taken away from us and we are told that they are not ours, but are a manifestation of a supernatural being, they lose their immediacy. When self-appointed priesthoods declare themselves to be the only lawful intermediary between that supernatural-being and the individual, then myths cease to be the way to establish integration, becoming a means of authoritarian control. No longer active participants in our own well-being, we are rendered powerless. "Two thousand years of holy mass, we've got as far as poison gas."John Betjeman, Poet Laureate |
| Think of a person who feels that their own behaviour is no longer acceptable to them. Wherever they look they see people who are no better than themselves; so find no role model whose behaviour is worthy of emulation. Then they conceive of, or discover, a legendary figure who personifies the type of person that they wish to be; an archetype who embodies the character traits that they deem as admirable. A goal toward which they can strive. So they plan the journey of change, to begin the task of self-understanding and integration. Overcoming ingrained habits that they wish to shed, replacing them with habits they prefer to have. Invariably, planned changes only really begin when we start to look within ourselves for the source(s) of our current dissatisfaction. The ego finds itself in the position of being called to answer for its own part in the causation of this dis-ease of the mind. Wondrous indeed are the machinations of the ego in its attempts to rationalise its own shortcomings. How it squirms and ducks and dives in its attempts to place the fault on external happenings. How we rationalise our own actions. All this struggling is just smokescreen, a mock fight between the ego and its own shadow; a striving to deflect us from wresting control from it. "There is no need to look further", it tries to tell us. "All answers can be found here in the intellect. Don't go in there. Beyond this point lie dragons." |
| Of course! It is in the nature of things that treasures are guarded by dragons. The way to win this battle with the ego is to stop fighting. In fighting with it we give it energy. No successful hero enters the labyrinth without securing their means of returning. Make the ego the Keeper of the Portal. If we are not to lose ourselves in the country of the mind, we need the motivation to return. Teach the ego to remember the good things in our lives, the people and events that enrich our days. These are our anchors in the external reality to which we must return. So begins the journey to find ourselves; paying attention to the information given by dreams, teaching the intellect to value a growing intuition. Across the bridge of the corpus callosum into the territory of the Pattern Weaver, that observer who is aware of all that goes on in our lives, and keeps its own account in wordless tapestries that are woven into fabric by the Magic Loom. This inner landscape has its own geography, timescale, and rites of passage. Isolated islands rise from deep lakes, solitary trees spread their branches, foam-flecked surf thunders onto shorelines, round towers, many-roomed buildings, places strangely familiar, strangely different. Places of testing, havens of peace. Time and space have their own rules here. Hours can drag by as one struggles to take a few steps, or the traveller can be hurled from one scene to another in an instant. It also has its own denizens. Horses gallop across its strange landscapes, strange things inhabit its dark places, messages are delivered by featureless beings; serpents and birds can talk. Guardians and guides. As one familiarises themselves with the language, they indicate better ways of approaching matters, drawing attention to events unrecognised by consciousness, of times when it is necessary to reform one's attitude. This is the symbolic language, the means by which the inner mind converses; offering information, advice and warnings, to the surface mind. The symbols are universal, historically recognised by peoples of great civilisations and the dream times of isolated tribes. They are to be found in priceless works of art, adopted into the symbolism of the world's religions, and in the legends from times that predate them. They are the language of dreams and are depicted by sets of Tarot cards that have not been distorted to fit the ideologies of external causes. |