Abstract

Arguing for the absence of myth may seem unnecessary, insofar as this absence is what contemporary culture has inherited. The givenness of the absence of myth is evidenced not only by the more conspicuous discrepancies between antiquity and today, such as the lack of cult and ritual and a de-animated natural world, but also by the emergence of conceptual thought and psychological awareness, which could only have been initiated out of the dissolution of a pre-reflective mode of being in the world. And yet, what appears to be straightforward becomes unduly complicated when myth is intentionally conflated with thought and reflection, usually in the attempt to cultivate a "mythic consciousness" that aims to reclaim an existential meaning acutely felt to be lost. Subsequently, myth, which for much of the world has been dead for over 2500 years, cannot rest in peace; it must be unearthed, redefined, and re-contextualized such that modern notions of myth are made to substitute for something that modernity has never experienced, but only imagined. ;This study questions the belief that we can never be without myth, that myth is necessary and vital to authentic, aware living. My contention is that this perspective defends against a world logic that has long incorporated the absence of myth into consciousness. We are psychological, not mythical, beings now---and there is a profound difference. Equating the two, as Jungian psychology is prone to do, runs counter to the move towards greater consciousness and sets up a trap whereby what is ostensibly intended can only partially be realized. When consciousness looks backwards to an older form of reflection, when myth is designated the end as well as the origin, the fundamental rupture necessary to consciousness is swallowed by an idea of consciousness, one believed to soothe the inevitable fragmentation and meaninglessness. Yet, this is a notion of consciousness that must cocoon itself from reality in order to subsist and thus functions more like unconsciousness rather than an opening into life as it is. ;Drawing from myth theory, depth psychology, and postmodern philosophy, this study unravels the current confounding of myth, relieving myth of its inflated purpose and unlikelihood of adequately addressing today's existential concerns