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The human mythic imagination
Bill Moyers: What do you think our souls owe to ancient myths?
Joseph Campbell: Well, the ancient myths were designed to put the mind, the mental system, into accord with this body system, with this inheritance.
Bill Moyers: A harmony?
Joseph Campbell: To harmonize. The mind can ramble off in strange ways and want things that the body does not want. And the myths and rites were a means to put the mind in accord with the body, and the way of life in accord with the way that nature dictates.
Bill Moyers: So in a way these old stories live in us.
Joseph Campbell: They do, indeed… (5:08-5:53)
In this episode of the Power of Myth, Campbell speaks of the mythic imagination that arose from human interaction with animals as hunters. He points to the Lascaux caves exquisite paintings as a “burst of magnificent art and all the evidence you need of a mythic imagination in full career” (28:00-28:10). At an estimated 30,000 years old, the Lascaux cave paintings in Dordogne, and the even earlier paintings of Chauvet-Pont D’arc in Ardèche in France are magnificent—Picasso anecdotally said, “Since Lascaux, we have invented nothing.”
What if story is not a human invention?
I am wondering about an idea, though: while these caves may well be one of the earliest efforts at mythic storytelling by humans, there are actually story-tellers that began these stories millions of years earlier. What if story is not simply a human invention, but one we humans simply understand in a particular way?
What if story is not simply a human invention, but one we humans simply understand in a particular way?
If we think mythically about stories themselves, and about how these stories create the world as much as they define it—and how as humans we are created by the stories we tell, an intriguing mythic and scientific lens begins to open.
The creator microbes
In June, The New York Times Magazine published a piece by science writer Ferris Jabr, an adaptation of his book Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. Jabr accompanied a group of geomicrobiologists down into a mine shaft in South Dakota, a cave carved out by gold miners rather than water, tunneling a mile and a half below the surface. What they discovered here is extraordinary, as Jabr writes: “Here we were, deep within Earth’s crust—a place where, without human intervention, there would be no light and little oxygen—yet life was literally gushing from rock.“ Microbes abound there, without human intervention, and they are ancient, living and moving seemingly endlessly, and they breathe, eat, and create rock. It’s a radical realization: that our planet is not life perched on a shallow surface, but is instead constantly being created by life. These microorganisms create their surroundings. Jabr continues, “Subsurface microbes carve vast caverns, concentrate minerals and precious metals and regulate the global cycling of carbon and nutrients. Microbes may even have helped construct the continents, literally laying the groundwork for all other terrestrial life.”
Simultaneously, microbiologists are just beginning to parse out the relationship between microbes in the human body, particularly in the human gut, and how they don’t merely inhabit their surroundings, but transform them as well. Genes in the human gut microbiome vastly outnumber the “human” genes we carry, and not only develop human cognitive function, including memory, but our emotional capacity. In an article echoing Jung in its title, “Collective Unconscious: How Gut Microbes Shape Human Behavior,” researchers report that “gut microbes are part of the unconscious system influencing behavior, and microbes majorly impact on cognitive function and fundamental behavior patterns” (pgs. 1-9).
Mythic microbial stories
If Campbell is right—and our human myths emerged as a way to bring harmony with the natural world—and the microbiologists and microgeologists are right—and the microbe community on the planet are creators and communicators, building both the natural world and human capacities to function within it—is it that outrageous to imagine that the first and most powerful story-tellers were not human at all? But that our stories that we shape and are shaped by each telling of them actually are mythic echoes of microbial stories?
I find this idea both utterly compelling and oddly comforting. It weaves a powerful connection and rightness for me, in both scientific and mythic ways, about human kinship with everything else on—and in—this planet. And perhaps this affinity can be an opening into how we might better articulate that connection as we try to respond to a beleaguered natural world.
MythBlast authored by:
Leigh Melander, Ph.D. has an eclectic background in the arts and organizational development, working with inviduals and organizations in the US and internationally for over 20 years. She has a doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology and wrote her dissertation on frivolity as an entry into the world of imagination. Her writings on mythology and imagination can be seen in a variety of publications, and she has appeared on the History Channel, as a mythology expert. She also hosts a radio who on an NPR community affiliate: Myth America, an exploration into how myth shapes our sense of identity. Leigh and her husband opened Spillian, an historic lodge and retreat center celebrating imagination in the Catskills, and works with clients on creative projects. She is honored to have previously served as the Vice President of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Board of Directors.
This MythBlast was inspired by The Power of Myth Episode 3, and Romance of the Grail
Latest Podcast
In this episode we speak with Master Chungliang Al Huang—a tai chi master, writer, philosopher, dancer, and generational teacher. Originally from Shanghai, China, Master Huang moved to the United States to study architecture and cultural anthropology, and later Dance. In the 1960s, Master Huang forged a significant collaboration with philosopher Alan Watts, which led him to Esalen. There, he became a beloved teacher and formed meaningful connections with thought leaders such as Huston Smith, Gregory Bateson, and Joseph Campbell. He and Joe taught together at Esalen until Joe’s death in 1987. Master Huang is an author of many books including the classic Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain. His contributions include pioneering modern dance in the Republic of China and sharing the stage with luminaries like the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall. He has been an assembly member and presenter at The Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions and has been a keynote speaker for the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) and WPO (World Presidents’ Organization) and at major global gatherings in China, India, Switzerland, Germany, South America, South Africa, and Bali. In 1988 he was featured in the inaugural segment of the PBS series, A World of Ideas, moderated by Bill Moyers. Joseph Campbell famously remarked, “Chungliang Al Huang’s Tai Ji dancing is ‘mythic images’ incarnate. He has found a new way to explain ‘the hero’s journey’ to help others follow their bliss through the experience of tai ji practice in his work through the Living Tao Foundation.” In this conversation, we discuss his life, his relationship with Alan Watts, and his friendship with Joseph Campbell. For learn more about Chungliang visit: https://livingtao.org
This Week's Highlights
“Within each person there is what Jung called a collective unconscious. We are not only individuals with our unconscious intentions related to a specific social environment. We are also representatives of the species Homo sapiens. And that universality is in us whether we know it or not."
-- Joseph Campbell
Myth and Meaning, 18