Nowadays we tend to understand myth as something generally accepted but untrue. This attitude has come about with the advent of science and its monopoly on the interpretation of experiential reality – which, to be fair, is the absolute requirement for the existence of science. Within our discourse, however, we shall propose a different definition of myth and even suggest, refusing to worry about the immodesty of such a proposal, that it would not be a bad idea to consider our definition as the definition, whilst still bearing in mind that other uses of the term myth exist. By making such a proposal, we shall of course repeat the error of science and postulate the existence of a “correct” interpretation of reality…

A myth is a set of cosmic laws perceived in human terms. (Not interpreted: for that we have religion, philosophy, art and science. Here, perceived is to be taken in its literal sense.) It is the form serving as interface between the abstract transcendent (understood here as “free from all concepts”) and the concrete existent, with information travelling both ways all the time. Joseph Campbell, the formative influence behind Star Wars, defines myth as “…a directing of the mind and heart, by means of profoundly informed figurations, to that ultimate mystery which fills and surrounds all existences (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)”, the mystery he likes referring to as “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” (a formulation coined by Rudolf Otto, the great German religious thinker of the early 20th century). Myth, Campbell says, is “a rendition of forms through which the formless Form of forms can be know (The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology).” Further on in the same work, he says that mythology (a body of myth and / or knowledge of myths and everything to do with them) is “an organisation of images conceived as a rendition of the sense of life.”

Whether it emerges as visual and spatial imagery or as a story in whatever form, a myth is always a narrative whose purpose is not to entertain but to energise the quotidian through enactment (not re-enactment!) of the eternal creative now. The narrative of myth is brought to life by the performing of rites: ritual acts and utterances most of which tend to remain unchanged over centuries. Rites, Campbell tells us, are “not references but presences (Primitive Mythology)”, just like “physical formulae; written, however, not in the black on white… … …, but in human flesh. The individuals rendering it are not individuals any more but epiphanies of a cosmic mystery and, as such, taboo – hence ceremonially decorated and symbolically, not humanly, regarded and treated (Ibid.).”

According to Campbell, myth has four basic functions: