Friday, November 23, 2007

The meaning of Myth

I found the following quote a few years ago. It's probably this quote that started me thinking a bit differently about the word "myth". This led to the study of Jung and the concept of symbols and archetypes, Joseph Campbell's awesome understanding of myth and a few other things. It comes from a book I bought for R5 at a second hand theological bookstore. The title is "The Primal Vision". by John V. Taylor. It's a stunning book and in a chapter on "The Language of Myth" he quotes someone by the name of Nicolas Berdyaev:

Myth is a reality immeasurably greater than concept. It is high time that we stopped identifying myth with invention, with the illusions of primitive mentality, and with anything, in fact, which is essentially opposed to reality... The creation of myths among peoples denotes a real spiritual life, more real indeed than that of abstract concepts and rational thought.
Myth is always concrete and expresses life better than abstract thought can do; its nature is bound up with that of symbol. Myth is the concrete recital of events and original phenomena of the spiritual life symbolized in the natural world, which has engraved itself on the language memory and creative energy of the people...; it brings two worlds together symbolically. (Nicolas Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit)

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