individual and collective myths

We are all great story tellers.
Most of the time, though we don’t use our talent to the benefit of our environment but we use it upon ourselves. We are our own fascinated listener.
Mostly our own private stories deal with the past and our implication in it.

We tend to transform the truth a bit so that we can keep up our self-esteem as shining hero. Anything going wrong tends very much to be the fault of bad circumstance or of incapable and incomprehensive people.

If we have a low self esteem we tend more to go for the: 'oh no! I did it again- that is the proof for my incapacity' storyboard.

Our own private story gets stored away in our conscious memory- the truth often is buried in the meanders of our unconscious. We use our story to keep up our persona, to communicate about ourselves. The more time goes by, the more we tend to believe our own story and slowly it will become part of our own private myth- the myth of our existence.
In that way we adapt our memory contents to the archetypical context of our subconscious. Hence the unconscious ‘recognition’ of archetypical fairy tales and myths that has been put forward by Bruno Bettelheim.

The construction of myth functions on individual level as well as on collective.
In that case the myth is the glue that keeps a community together, that explains its reason of being, its origins and its beliefs.
What comes to your mind when you think of your parents? Your grandparents? Your children? Your wider family? Stories! Stories about problems, stories about events, stories about experiencing together. Those family stories create the family over generations- some can date back hundreds of years.
In my family it’s the ancestor that created a foundation for fun during studies for his descendance; the great aunt who resembled a Madonna in a polish church, who was probably painted with a lost ancestor as model; my grandfather who would saw the branches of the Christmas tree only to fix them again in a more orderly way- the more those stories go back in time the more fantastic they become. The more recent stories deal with more common events- I and my brother remember a confrontation of our usually so calm father with an American hotel owner or the capacity of my mom to always chose the worst plate in a restaurant.

It is those stories that will keep the memory of the clan alive, that will transcend generations- that will represent the family myth.

Lucky the company who has a real foundation myth- like Apple or Tata. The whole style of management and identity of the company is built on that foundation myth.

The historic truth becomes less and less important as years go by- historic accuracy is more and more exchanged for symbolic content that serves as foundation for belief.

Myths serve as basis and carrier of collective conscience. A myth can even do something even more fascinating- it can transmit special powers to people or places. The knowledge of the myth then charges the collective belief in such a way that the power of belief transfers a sacred identity unto people or places.

During my travels in Israel I encountered many places that were attached to a foundation myth. In the end, it wasn’t important if the mythic event really took place at the same spot- the power of the believers charged a place like a battery with sacred energy that can be experienced.

A sacred space is a space where the rules of reality ( or let’s say of the world out there) don’t apply. It has its own rules, its own magic- In a sacred space windows open to our unconscious. That is why any problem of sacred space is so difficult to treat with logic and realistic means. Rational thinkers suddenly become deaf to the voice of reason in such a place- if they are believers.
A sacred space needs constantly to be kept alive by believers- take away those who trust in its powers and it is just another piece of land. What would Lourdes be without the hoards of ill believers that come to the cave to seek healing?

A sacred space needs a founding myth and a keeper or keepers that will keep the myth alive for the existing or potential believers.
And somehow everybody is a believer, even if it is in the almighty power of the market or of technology, and as such we all create our sacred spaces.