MYTHIC CONNECTIONS (MYTH IN PRACTICE):
MYTH AS RECORDKEEPING Among the values of mythic communication is the nature of these stories that function as recordkeeping devices, retaining not just the values and subconscious significance of the stories, but preserving the knowledge of a disappearing belief system. Again, the level sacrality and the cultural importance of a certain tradition mingle with the larger folkloric importance of preservation in a given society, however, we would be hard-pressed to for example not acknowledge the widespread dissemination of for example the Greek and the later Roman traditions that have both individually as well as communally governed a plethora of political, religious and social exchange or and for the Western/European culture. We can draw the obvious parallel to the nature and value of writing, which was itself used as a means of recordkeeping and played a key feature in the spread of global marketing and consequent birth of civilizations. Myths retain the knowledge of old that was the basis of the understanding of the world ... whether or not we attribute more power to the written or spoken word. While we nowadays globally know more or at least have an incomparably vaster repository of knowledge, this very notion (whether dismissed or strengthened) is based on the myths and records of our ancestors. As such, understanding the thinking process of old and realizing the nature and environment of their observations yields to a much better understanding of where we come from. Whether we consider the “dead” account of Norse mythology (being the Marvel’s Thor groupie doesn’t count) or many still quite vibrant African traditions, myths retain their immortality through the accounts of their authors. One more note on the preservation of these sacred narratives. The myths, legends and stories of a given tradition in general would have been considerably more known to the people than nowadays. Only in so far as there is less emphasis on the “magic” and “marvel” of these tales today, unless they are packed in a neat framework of mindless entertainment. I’ve discussed the active/passive application and retention of information in my various comics studies, but as far as this topic of recordkeeping goes, the obvious implied issue is that the stories may be after memorization and numerous readings and hearings taken for granted and internalized without affective and critically constant evaluation. Ironically, this reflects the danger of knowing a story too much (i.e. the Bible tradition), so every further reading occurs almost on an “autopilot,” the participants refreshing their memories of the events rather than scrutinizing and learning new things from the text. This may be a huge oversimplification, since the complexity and richness of sacred texts like said Bible offer a plateau of experiences. However, the issue is more about the doctrinal nature of religious texts, where participant can become too complaisant for the sake of participation and duty. Consequently, this issue directly reflects the dangers of many academic or quasi-academic researches. In this case the search and analysis of mythic elements becomes the doctrine and the text as a whole can be viewed only in relation to its mythos, bereft from the rest of its complexity. To stress the issue further and applying it to the critique of the monomyth theory, a particular mythic motif such as the journey to the underworld can easily be taken out of context, since the conception of the underworld differs throughout traditions. Religious motifs become the useful, formalistic, arbitrary signs; yet, taken out of their traditions, they lose power, meaning and become marginalized and desecralized. This applies to everyday nonsense just as much as it does to archeological research where an unusual finding is referred as, if not relegated to, an object of some sort of religious significance. In other words, that’s called just being lazy, but I digress. To make a modern observation: the monomythic symbolic meaning of the heroic journey is seen as the struggle with one’s unconscious, yet the question remains whether the unconscious in question follows the neurotic, dystopian Freudian concept, Jungian holistic approach or something completely different and even unfathomable. And that’s exactly why I’m still babbling on about myth and not really covering much, because its depth seems to be (equally) luckily and astonishingly almost unimaginable.
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November 2017
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