Psychology is ultimately
mythology, the study of
the stories of the soul.
~James Hillman~
Written by Mathew Naismith
Mythology is about how we react and think
within a world or environment, of course how we react and think in relation to
an environment, comes down to our own psychology. Our own psychology simply determines
the way we think, this is anything from science to religion or materialism to spirituality,
etc. Of course one’s own psychology can be influenced by a number of different
variables such as the different variables of science to religion for example.
Often we judge a variable as mythology through one or two other variables such
as science and materialistic ideologies. To me, it is a huge mistake to judge
one variable by another variable, especially if we psychologically see another
variable as an opposing variable. I cannot see any sustainable viable logical
reasoning in this kind of bias by the psyche.
The psychology of mythology is all to do
with good against evil, the difference to night and day, male and female
interactions, how the weather determines our mood, moral and immoral behaviour,
life and death etc. Mythology is to do with all of what life is and how we
interact within this environment. Anyone who has conducted any kind of research
on mythology impartially, realises that mythology isn’t simply about story
telling as the following will clearly show.
Extract: Many years after the course
was over, I would learn why. Apparently, narratives (stories) represent a
particular way of constructing knowledge that comes naturally to us.
One
writer has even gone so far as saying "Remembering is narrative;
narrative is memory."
Research
indicates that remembering a bunch of new, unrelated elements is difficult. But
if the elements are part of a structured story, they are more easily
remembered. That’s just the way the mind works. Research also indicates that
memory is not a literal replaying of experienced events, like replaying a
recorded video. Rather, it is a reconstruction of significant elements in a way
that makes sense to us. We remember the past by making up stories in which the
events relate to each other in a meaningful way.
My
conception of science has changed over the years, partly because of my experience
in my mythology course. I used to think that science was a way of establishing
with certainty facts about the world, what is absolutely true beyond any doubt.
As I read more about science and began to do science myself, I came to realize
that in science we often attempt to model reality rather than establish
indubitable facts. Scientific knowledge claims are always tentative and subject
to revision. We strive for better models of reality, not just by looking for
more facts, but by improving our insight and vision. A good scientific model is
not one that attempts to capture every factual detail about reality, but is
able to identify key variables that allow some accuracy in making predictions
about the world. Just like a good myth provides enough insight about the world
to help us navigate life's journey.
__________________
Being variable in thought is to do with
diversity or difference. What if we only looked at our environments
scientifically or religiously, viewing our world through one or two variables
only? Our whole reality is built upon one bias or another which is anything but
of self-honesty. Of course there are ideologies that do incorporate various
variables, even supposed opposing variables such as science and religion. In a
reality conditioned to self-deception and self-dishonesty, any variable, such
as isms and ideologies, too variable in thought are not going to be very popular. How popular are people like me
today!!
How many of us looked and look upon
mythology as something irrelevant in the modern age or have disdain for
mythology period due to our own biases and self-dishonesties? This is while
totally ignoring the obvious psychological importance of mythology. Is human
consciousness evolving by not being
diverse and different in thought? It is obvious, to consciously evolve we must
be diverse in our thinking but many of us are doing quite the opposite at
present. Of course psychology is only one variable that observes mythology as
being worthy of consideration.
If you are interested in researching this
further, the following should assist in this. Remember, like any variable, they
all only answer one part of an answer as no variable on it's own has the
answers to everything, only one part of the answer.
