Mythic Consciousness as Psychological and Spiritual Pathway
The idea of Faith in the Journey originally emerged out of the process of writing my dissertation for a doctoral degree in mythological studies. What I wanted to explore in this work was the relatively modern concept of “personal mythology,” especially as it might relate to the process and experience of personal spiritual exploration. Indeed, a large part of what attracted me to the study of mythology was a profound sense that mythic consciousness was what had been lacking in my own spiritual Quest.
My understanding of the importance of myth and, even more, of the crucial relationship between myth and spiritual understanding has been profoundly deepened by my encounters with the work of two men, Joseph Campbell and C. G. Jung. Both men recognized that the human psyche—the ancient Greek word for soul—was profoundly rooted in a consciousness that was mythic in nature. For Campbell, a comparative mythologist, this understanding arose from comparing and contrasting mythologies from around the world. For Jung, this awareness began with his work as a clinical psychologist and his awareness that the symptoms of his patients often seemed to mirror perennial patterns found in mythology.
Campbell’s lifelong interest in the relationship between myth and the sacred dimension of life began as a boyhood fascination with the stories of Native American traditions. This passion for myth later developed into a deep scholarly interest in the stories of the Quest for the Grail from the medieval Arthurian tradition. Still later, his studies led him to focus on the universal and perennial archetypes of the Hero and the Heroic Journey as detailed in his most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In subsequent years, Campbell’s interest in the relationship between mythology and the sacred culminated in The Masks of God, a masterful four-volume survey of his work as a comparative mythologist. Finally, toward the end of his life, Campbell collaborated with journalist Bill Moyers on the television series The Power of Myth, the vehicle that brought Campbell’s vision of the transformative power of mythic consciousness into mainstream awareness.
Like Campbell, Jung also developed a fascination with myth early in life. Later, as a practicing psychologist, he became deeply intrigued by the correlation he regularly found between his patients’ case histories and the plots of ancient mythological stories. His observations about the powerful relationship between mythology and the unconscious ultimately led him to propose the existence of a collective dimension of the mind, the Collective Unconscious, which is the source of the recurring universal patterns he described when using the ancient Greek word “archetype.”
Eventually, these reflections gave rise to many of the principles and methods that were to become the core of Jung’s unique approach to psychology. Chief among these was the recognition that the evolution and transformation of personal consciousness was dependent on understanding one’s guiding inner mythology. We can trace the genesis of this idea in Jung’s thought back to the intensely painful period that followed the breakup with his mentor Sigmund Freud. During this critical time, a period described in detail in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung found himself grappling with powerful unconscious material that suddenly began to appear in his own dreams and waking visions. “I did not know that I was living a myth,” he writes, reflecting on his own process of psychological and spiritual evolution during this period, “and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge.” As a consequence, he continues, “I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks.”