The Cry for Myth (40 page)

Spengler, Oswald, 217, 218–219, 260, 261

Spirit of St. Louis
, 55

spite, 185–186, 202, 211, 212

Spitz, Rene, 53

spoiled child syndrome, 181

Stanford University, 21

Statue of Liberty, 94, 96

steam engine, 235

Steinbeck, John, 276–277, 291–292

Steppenwolf
(Hesse), 261

stock market, 119, 126

straight line, as Faustian symbol, 218

strangers:

compassion for, 52

as literary figures, 117

“Struggling Upward or Luke Larkin’s Luck,”
see
“Luke Larkin’s Luck”

students:

memory skills of, 68

value systems of, 56–57

success, myth of:

in
Great Gatsby
, 131–132

Horatio Alger and, 115, 117–119

suffering, necessity of, 166–167

Sufi, 293

suicide:

cult behavior and, 23, 274

threats of, 63

of young people, 21, 121

Sullivan, Harry Stack, 34, 47, 68–69

Super Bowl, 46, 51

superstition, 22

Swaggart, Jimmy, 27, 225
n

Sweden, nineteenth-century emigration from, 48

Sylvia (case history), 197–199, 202, 210–214

takeovers, 119

Teapot Dome scandal, 126

technology:

ascendancy of, 57

spiritual progress vs., 218

television:

ethical emptiness and, 21

Roots
shown on, 48

stereotypical happiness depicted on, 99
n
, 113

violence shown on, 21, 100

Temple of Zeus, 297

Teresa, Mother, 58

Thanatos, 76–77

see also
death

Thatcher, Margaret, 291

theater, 43

therapists,
see
psychotherapy

Theseus, 83–84

Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 34
n

Threepenny Opera, The
(Brecht and Weill), 207

Tillich, Hannah, 257

Tillich, Paul:

on acceptance, 157, 187

on art as cultural criterion, 261

on courage to be, 205

on desert imagery, 95

on fear of death, 294

“hero” made of, 54

on
kairos
, 92
n

Mann vs., 257

non-being concept of, 33, 77, 185, 202

in World War II, 257

time, 203, 205–206

mortality and, 294, 297

Tiresias, 75, 79, 80, 85

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 48, 99, 102, 108, 114, 115

Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, The
(Marlowe), 222–232

conscious mind vs. unconscious in, 224–225

divine power usurped in, 222–224, 226, 231

ending of, 219, 230–232

Goethe’s
Faust
vs., 219, 226, 254

humanistic values in, 227

magical knowledge in, 222, 226, 228

Mephistopheles in, 223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232

psychotherapeutic models found in, 225, 228, 267, 268, 269

publication date for, 217

sexual love in, 226, 228–230, 244

transference, Virgil and, 156–160

transformation:

EST seminars and, 103–104

feminine traits used for, 246, 247

see also
change, myth of

Transformational Technologies, 104

Treaty of Versailles, 125, 265

trinity, Christian, 220

Trojan War, 244

trolls, 175–178

Trunghpa, 22
n

truth, empirical vs. eternal, 27

Turner, Frederick Jackson, 93, 127

twelve-tone scale, 258, 262

Tyche, 118

type A behavior, 118

Ulysses
(Joyce), 162

unconscious mind:

collective, 37–38, 171

consciousness complemented by, 224–225

evolutionary process and, 20
n

negation and, 251

see also
consciousness

underworld,
see
hell

United States,
see
American culture; American dream; myth(s), American

Unmarried Woman, An
, 152

Ursula (case history), 35–37

Uses of Enchantment, The
(Bettelheim), 28, 194

vagina, symbols of, 195, 206

Van Gogh, Vincent, 262
n

Vasari, Georgio, 250

Victorian period, spoiled child syndrome from, 181

Vietnam, mythic images of, 27

Vikings, 91

violence, 100

Virgil:

Aeneid
, 156, 157, 166

on choice of Gods, 92

Dante’ depiction of, 153, 156–160, 162, 13–14, 273

transference and, 156–160

virginity, loss of, 206

Vita Nuova, La
(Dante), 164

voodoo, 51
n

waiting, creative, 205, 207, 208–210, 287–288

Waiting for Godot
(Beckett), 42, 207, 209, 266

Washington, George, 45

“Waste Land, The” (Eliot), 138
n
, 208–210

Watergate affair, 124

Way, Lewis, 7o
n

Ways to Success
, 115

wealth, American preoccupation with, 48, 56,60, 106, 115, 119, 123–124, 131

Weber, Carl Maria von, 258

Weinberg, Alvin, 219

Werke
(Nietzsche), 57
n

West, American:

healing power of, 95

see also
myth(s), American

Western culture:

collapse of, 259

collective guilt of, 266

Faustian aspect of, 218–219, 266

Hitlerism’s assault on, 257–258

Nietzsche’s predictions on, 259

psychology and, 26o
n

westerns, 96–97

“Western Star” (Benét), 92–93

When Dreams and Heroes Died
(Levine), 56

White, R. W., 115

Whitehead, Alfred North, 73

William Alanson White Institute, 47

Whitman, Walt, 109, 124

“Why Is There So Much Depression Today?” (Seligman), 121
n

Wilde, Oscar, 68
n

wilderness, 93, 94–95

Wild West

healing power of, 95

see also
myth(s), American

Will, George F, 120

William Tell
(Rossini), 96–97

Winthrop, John, 115

Wisdom’s Daughter
(Haggard), 165

Wiseman, Richard, 228
n
, 259

Wise Men, 50

wishing:

actions vs., 226

development and, 200

motivation and, 61

mutuality in, 204–205

witch burnings, 274, 283, 288

witchcraft, 22

women:

beauty of, 242, 244–245

in business, 291

Christian view of, 220

communication abilities of, 213–214

as creative inspiration, 244

dependency of, 196–197

Goethe’s four categories of, 253

Jazz Age styles worn by, 126

liberation of, 287–291

motherhood and, 243, 246–247, 291–292

as mythic symbols, 164–165

myths for, 289, 290

passive vs. assertive, 195–196

problem-solving skills of, 291

sexual development of, 196–199, 200, 201, 203, 206, 207, 212

Wordsworth, William, 106–107 work:

existential crisis of, 39

industrialism and, 242

luck vs., 120

World War II, 40, 218–219, 256–257

Yahweh, 47

Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, The
(Wallop), 218

Yeats, William Butler, 25

Ye Shall Be as Gods
(Fromm), 268

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, 168, 169–170, 174, 183–184

Yoga, 145

Young, Sir George, 79
n

yuppies, 56

Zeus, 36, 41, 118, 144, 145, 293–294, 295, 297

*
Lucretius,
The Nature of the Universe
(London: Penguin Books, 1951), p. 217.

†
Jerome S. Bruner, “Myth and Identity,” in
Myth and Mythmaking
, ed. Henry A. Murray (New York: George Braziller, 1960), p. 285.

*
Hannah Green,
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1064), p. 55. (Italics mine.)

*
Ibid., p. 12. This description has a curious similarity to Dante’s hell, which we will describe later in
Chapter 9
, “The Therapist and the Journey Into Hell.”

†
Ibid., p. 31.

*
Ibid., p. 56.

*
The myths from China, India, Tibet, Japan, and other parts of the Orient spring out of a different culture from ours, and therefore we can understand them only partially. But they also give us a garden of flowers which we can appreciate at least from the garden gate. Joseph Campbell has given us an excellent survey of these myths of different countries in the world. I intend in this book, in contrast, to deal with the myths
of
Our
own America
, as they are revealed in our present world, in psychotherapy, and in social and religious experience.

*
A Gallup poll indicates that “32 million people in this country believe in astrology.” It is “a search (or meaning in life,” the president of the International Society for Astrological Research holds. “Knowing where your stars are is like having a weather forecast of problems in life.” Particularly during times of stress they look for “answers for their lives”(
New York Times
, October 19,1975).

Carl Sagan spent much effort in his television series attacking astrology as unscientific. Arguing from his position as professor of astronomy, he did not seem to realize that astrology has an entirely different basis. Astrology is a myth and requires the language of the myth. It has both the shortcomings and the positive effects of myths.

†
There are dozens of these cults—led by Rajnesh, Trunghpa, Da Free John, Radachristian, Muktananda, the Moonies, etc. New ones spring up every year. I do not wish here to make judgments about the value or lack of it of these groups; I only cite them as groups to which people flock in order to get some way of handling their lives, some pattern for managing their anxiety and achieving some meaning and purpose in life.

*
Archibald MacLeish, “Poetry and Journalism,”
A Continuing Journey
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), p. 43.

*
Clyde Z. Nunn,
The Rising Credibility of the Devil in America
. (See also
Chapter 15
.)

†
Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture
9, no. 3 (Autumn 1974): 94.

**
Isaac Asimov, “The Threat of Creationism,”
New York Times Magazine
(June 14,1981). (Italics mine.)

*
John Brockman,
About Bateson
(New York: Dutton, 1977), p. 92.

†
Max Muller, “The Philosophy of Mythology,”
The Science of Religion
(London, 1873), pp. 353–355.

**
Henry Murray,
Myth and Mythmaking
, 1960, p. 114.

*
Those who wish to read more on this topic are referred to Ernst Cassirer,
An Essay on Man
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944).

*
Lillian Feder,
Ancient Myth in Modem Poetry
(Prhere are dozens of these cultinceton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 28.

†
Bruno Bettelheim,
The Uses of Enchantment
(New York: Vintage, 1977), p. 35. (Italics mine.)

*
See
Chapter 14
for further description of the origin of the myth of Satan.

†
Tillich,
The Courage To Be
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952).

*
Faust
(New York: Norton, 1076), 1. 1335.

†
Murray, “The Personality and Career of Satan,” in
Endeavors in Psychology
(New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 531. Murray continues his fascinating description:

Originally the Devil was “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” … St. Thomas Acquinas taught that Satan was one of the pure angels of God probably “superior to all.”

But Lucifer was jealous of his elder brother, Christ, and this sibling rivalry made him evil. Thus resentment was “engendered by envy of God’s supreme position of power and glory.” Satan proclaimed, “I will be like unto the Most High.” Thus envy, or hubris, was present in original sin.

*
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
(Princeton: Bollinger Press, 1959), p. 50.

†
Ibid., p. 512.

*
Claude Lévi-Strauss,
Myth and Meaning
(New York: Schocken Books, 1979), P.3.

*
Highet,
The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature
(New York: Oxford University Press/Galaxy Books, 1957), p. 540.)

*
For these purposes, the ancient cities of Argos and Mycenae are synonymous,

†
Barnes,
The Key Reporter
41, no.4 (Summer 1986): 3.

*
Beckett,
Waiting for Godot
(New York: Grove Press, 1954).

*
New York Times
, May 8, 1984.)

*
New York: Hill and Wang, 1980.

*
Italics mine. The carryover of the theme is shown toward the end of the book: “Grandma would get on that subject sometimes … and Mama would abruptly snap … ‘Oh Maw, I
wish
you’d stop all that old-time slavery stuff.’ … Grandma would snap right back, ‘If
you
don’t care who and where you come from, well,
I
does!’“
Roots
(New York: Dell, 1980), p. 704.”

*
Clyde Kluckhohn, “Myths and Rituals: A General Theory,”
Harvard Theological Review
35 (January 1942): 45–79. Kluckhohn goes on to say, “Myths, likewise, give men ‘something to hold to.’ The Christian can better face the seemingly capricious reverses of his plans when he hears the joyous words ‘lift up your hearts’”(New York: Norton, 1075, pp. 77–79).

†
See my
Meaning of Anxiety
(New York: Norton, 1975, pp. 77–79) for a description of “voodoo death” in primitive tribes. When the whole community believes the victim of voodoo will die, the man lies down and, in two or three hours, expires. He has been “cut dead” by his community, as William James explained it, and by this power exerted on him, he himself believes he will die. It is an illustration of the function of the myth held by the community to take over the mind and will of the victim.