Lecture I.1.5 - The Vitality of Myth
By Joseph Campbell
1974
Then people began playing that they were plants, that if they buried themselves they would be born again—something like that. And so you played that game.
Then about the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., it was realized that the planets moved at a mathematically determined rate through the fixed stars. And the great concept emerged of a cosmic order. And the cosmic order was illustrated in the sky, and it must now be repeated on earth. And so people began making believe they were stars and suns and moons. People take these make-believe games very seriously; does the monarch or the cleric see that he is playing a role? We still take it seriously when somebody comes in wearing a crown saying, “I’m the sun girl,” or something like that. [laughter] But kings and queens do this in all seriousness in terrific pomp. And it’s astounding how seriously things like this are taken.
I had the experience some years ago of drawing up to the curb in my car. A little boy was standing there in great rigidity. I was about to close the door and he said, “You can’t park here.”
I said, “Why not?”
He said, “Because I’m a hydrant.” [laughter and applause]
Well sometimes when I see clergymen, I wonder what they think they are, and how seriously they take it.
Now it is no accident that we say, “Make believe.” Get it? [laughter] People are playing a game: this is a myth world that we’re playing—the game that man was made for certain purposes and that’s what we’re doing.
Now somebody comes in and says, “Oh they’re all nonsense.”
“Well you’re a spoiled sport. You’re spoiling the game. Get out of here.”
It’s like somebody who would start running back and forth while other people try and play a tennis game running back and forth on the tennis court, busting up the game. There is nothing nuttier than playing tennis, but it’s great fun and you believe it’s worth winning — otherwise you wouldn’t work so hard.
So this whole thing of getting a belief into a life is the function of myth. Now some beliefs are silly, [and] some are very deep, and I want in the concluding part of my talk, to speak about some of these depths. I want to speak about these depths in two contexts: one, that of the Hindu, and another, that of a recent contemporary Western psychological approach to the problem.