What is Mythology? We are in no short supply of definitions and yet as of today there is no ‘Grand Unified Theory of Mythology’. It is an abstraction at its very best. To understand this mystery we draw from the fields of history, psychology, literature, religion, spirituality, philosophy, film, anthropology, science fact as well as science fiction. From Genesis to Star Wars we can follow its journey from ‘and let there be light’ to ‘a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’. Mythology often tells us who we are, what we are, and why we are. Maybe it is born out of a ritual. Perhaps it begins with a story.
We can trace back its origins to the Greek word ‘mythos’ which means “speech, thought, story, or plot” and ‘ology’ which means “the study of”. However, that just seems far too simple and easy. Perhaps we are looking for something a bit more complicated. Moreover, of all the descriptions out there the only one that you may find repeated exactly is “a Mythology is a collection of Myths” as if that does us any good… If you ask the average person on the street what ‘Mythology’ is you are likely to hear something that amounts to “Mythology is a lie” or that it is a story that while purporting to be true is actually false. So just what the Hell are we all talking about?
Joseph Cambell has defined it in a number of ways. He famously termed it “other people’s religion” but he also offered us four specific functions that he said must be met if one is to call something a true mythology.
# 1) Mystical: opening the individual up beyond their normal everyday experience to the transcendent mystery and awe of the Universe.
#2) Cosmological: explaining and defining the characteristics of the Universe often but not necessarily including the scientific understanding of the day.
#3) Sociological: supporting the local social order and reinforcing their customs and practices.
#4) Pedagogical: demonstrating or teaching the individual how to maneuver and progress through the stages of life and the challenges therein.
Many scholars believe that Mythology has to be dealing with Gods or demigods. Another idea is that it has to be revered as being true and sacred or that it has to be linked to religion. It’s even been stated in the Dictionary of English Folklore that once the link to religion is broken that “it is no longer a myth but a folktale” and “Where the central actor is divine but the story is trivial … the result is religious legend, not myth”.
So the question at this point might be who decides if the story actually contains deities? After all there isn’t any reason why someone can’t think of Superman or Spiderman as Gods. The fact is that it’s up to the individual as to whether a story is true or sacred and there is no doubt that some people indeed think of their comic books as being holy and divine. Moreover, while one person in a culture may feel all of the four functions laid out by Joseph Campbell the person standing next to them might only feel that 3 of the functions are operating or none at all.
Legend, folklore, religion, fable, fantacy, tradition, lore, comic book, science fiction, or the front page of yesterday’s newspaper are we any closer to knowing the difference between those and Mythology? This brings to mind the age old saying “what is art” as it appears that the further we go into this question it seems more and more that ‘Mythology’ is all in the eye of the beholder. At this point it might be helpful to recall the Supreme Court justice’s definition of pornography “I know it when I see it”.
