Both Western religion and science in their orthodox forms have trouble with mythology. Fundamentalist religion, with its dogmatic need to interpret literally and concretely, treats its own mythology as historical truth and all other religious myths as dangerous heresies. Orthodox science, with its commitment to a mechanistic view of the universe, manifests its own inability to appreciate the kind of relative truth revealed through metaphor, image, and symbol.
Reflecting on this dual problem, humanistic psychologist David Elkins writes:
Myth challenges the need of both fundamentalist religion and orthodox science for a well-ordered universe where everything stays in its place. Myths open the door to a world that cannot be predicted or controlled, where truth is more amorphous, ambiguous, multifaceted, relative, and pluralistic. Myth takes us out of the world where hard-edged facts lie about like stones and leads us into the depths of the imaginal sea which has currents and truths of its own.
Rather than conveying any sort of literal, factual truth, myths are symbolic, metaphorical stories which contain existential insights and perennial truths about the human condition. Echoing this commonly understood conception of myth in the ancient world, the Roman author Sallust, writing in the first century, observed that “Myths are about things that never were, but always are.”
This distinction between mythic truth and factual truth was recognized by the Ancient Greeks, who spoke about two different modes of consciousness, modes they named mythos and logos. Though both forms of discourse were considered to be essential, they were regarded as complementary modes of understanding, each drawing on a distinctly different area of competence.
Mythos was regarded as the primordial form of knowing, concerned as it is with the perennial and unchanging in human existence. It is not concerned with practical, mundane matters, but with questions of ultimate meaning. A society or culture’s mythos — manifested through its stories, symbols, art, and religion — provides its members with a larger context and deeper perspective for understanding their day-to-day lives and experiences by directing their attention to that which is universal and timeless.
As essential as mythos was to our ancestors, logos, the other form of understanding which evolved in Ancient Greece, was recognized as equally important. The understanding brought via logos is rational and practical in both nature. Like its offspring science, logos seeks verifiable facts which must correspond to the external realities of the mundane world to be effective. It is the form of consciousness that enables us to function effectively and efficiently in the world.
By the time of the Enlightenment, however, Western people had achieved such astounding success in the realms of science and technology that they began to see logos as the only satisfactory means of arriving at truth. As a result, mythos came to be entirely discounted not only as false, but also as primitive and superstitious. Unfortunately, the ultimate triumph of logos over mythos has led both to the rise of modern religious fundamentalism as well as to a kind of nihilistic material secularism which deems nothing to be sacred.
In addition, while logos emerges from the conscious aspect of the mind, the source of mythos is deeply rooted in the unconscious. For this reason, C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell both described mythology as kind of ancient psychology. As a result, when storytellers and bards recounted tales of descending into the underworld, battling monsters, or navigating labyrinths, they were really shedding light on the deepest, innermost reaches of the human mind. Indeed, as Jung often ironically observed, it is the modern resistance to mythic consciousness that required the creation of modern psychological therapies to deal with the murkier, messier contents of our inner worlds.
In considering the relationship of mythos and logos in the premodern world, it’s essential to remember that both were regarded as indispensable. That said, though each was thought to be diminished without the other, to confuse mythical and rational discourse was deemed to be dangerous, as they served very different functions. As they have done since the days of Ancient Greece, logic and rationality continue to teach us essential new facts about the earth we inhabit and the physical universe around us, as well as help us to solve the practical problems of daily life. While it is essential that we honor the gifts of logos, the time is long overdue for us to reclaim the equally important gifts of mythos: comfort and support in the face of tragedy; wisdom and spiritual insight about the human condition and the ultimate value of human life; and a sense of deep meaning and enduring purpose in the living of our lives.