The mythic mode: from childhood, throughout life
Reclaiming mythopoeic cognition, even in technical work
The previous post, “Seeing and doing mythically,” described both childhood and adult forms of the mythic mode. Make-believe play is mainly a children’s form; ritual is an adult one.
The mythic mode is most prominent in mid-childhood. At that age, it has not yet been overlain by reasonableness; or, later, rationality. Both those tend to smother the mythic.
Mature adults may recall their childhood mythic experiences and feel nostalgic loss.
Would that the world might be so vivid again! That we could regain that sense of wonder, of carefree enjoyment and casual creativity!
This is possible—with caveats. We cannot return to childhood, but we can reclaim the mythic mode, although in somewhat different forms. Children’s mythic activity is pure and simple because it’s the only mode they have.1 Adults also think and feel and see and act in the reasonable mode; and some also in the rational and meta-rational ones. All these are meta to, and operate on, the mythic mode—altering and complicating it. Adults’ mythic activity may be less spontaneous and direct, but also more sophisticated. We have lost something, but can also gain something.
Reclaiming the unreasonable mythic mode
We can’t unlearn the later modes, nor should we want to. What we can do is recognize the ways later modes include the mythic. Then we can allow it to shine forth, in situations where it functions well.
This is a function of many religions and spiritual paths. For many adults, that’s where the mythic is most easily accessed. The sacred and the mythic are close relatives, and sacredness is the subject matter of religion. Or a subject matter…
In practice, most religions have many other functions as well. And, most religions, as they work in practice, are mainly reasonable. I’m using “reasonable” here in the sense of “justifiable according to general social expectations.”
The reasonableness and mundane social functions of religions may obscure their mythic aspects. The mythic mode is frequently unreasonable, in its spontaneous creativity and its love of the outlandish. Mainstream Christians and Sutric Buddhists may frown at that, though some Christian Charismatics and Tantric Buddhists may grin.
There are non-religious ways of reclaiming the mythic mode, too. In A Little Book on the Human Shadow, Robert Bly wrote:
In daily life one might suggest making the sense of smell, taste, touch, and hearing more acute, making holes in our habits, visiting primitive tribes, playing music, creating frightening figures in clay, being alone for a month, regarding yourself as a genial criminal.
These are unreasonable activities, with obscure and fantastical aims and outcomes. (I explained those, with reference to this list specifically, in a series of posts that begin with “We are all monsters.”) As adults, our reasonableness may resist. We may also dismiss these aims and outcomes as irrational: in the sense of “not systematically optimizing for specified goals” or “not in accord with systematically analyzed objective evidence.”
The mythic, reasonable, rational, and meta-rational modes correspond to developmental stages 2, 3, 4, and 5 in some psychological theories. According to stage theory, as we mature into each next stage, we forcefully reject the previous one. We do that because the transitions are tremendously difficult. Our grip on a new mode is tenuous; the old way of doing things is easier; and we’re constantly tempted to backslide. We mischaracterize the limitations of our previous stage as faults. Each stage wants to declare its total superiority over the previous ones, and rejects them utterly.
Becoming reasonable is a powerful accomplishment! Stage 3 reasonableness is the minimum necessary to engage effectively with the mundane, everyday, practical adult world. That includes both physical activities (making breakfast; changing a flat tire) and social ones (being friendly on a lunch break in a workplace-appropriate way; disciplining children). Unconstrained immersion in the mythic mode is counterproductive in the everyday world. So reasonableness overgeneralizes, and rejects the stage 2 mythic mode as childish and unacceptably unreasonable.
Stage 2 is unrealistic, illogical, irresponsible, and unempathic. These are faults in an adult; but stage 2 is not “bad,” it is just limited. Recall that, manifesting as the mythic mode, it’s also full of wonder, enjoyment, and creative play. According to stage theory, each stage includes all the capabilities of all the previous ones. Therefore, we can find mythic wonder, enjoyment, and creative play even after accomplishing stage 3 reasonableness. And even also in stage 4, if we can allow ourselves to suspend its rationalist rigidity at times.
In this series, I won’t offer any detailed discussions of how to access the mythic mode as an adult. It’s a theme in much of what I write, though. Vividness is about Vajrayana, a branch of Buddhism that aims for wonder, enjoyment, play, and creativity. (Unlike Other Leading Brands.) It employs mythic methods of rituals, visions, and transformations.
The non-fiction parts of Buddhism for Vampires are—despite the name—mainly about non-religious ways of exploring mythic worlds of as-if. The series on the emotional dynamics of “black magic” and “dark culture” (heavy metal, horror fiction, goth attire) is an example.
The complete stance and the mythic
If you’ve read both “Seeing and doing mythically” and Meaningness, you may have noticed a striking commonality. Meaningness describes six “textures of the complete stance”: wonder, curiosity, humor, play, enjoyment, and creativity. These are all also characteristic of the mythic mode!
The complete stance means accepting that everything is both patterned and nebulous, without trying to separate them, or to reject one or the other. It means accepting that both boundaries and connections are both real and fluid; varyingly malleable and obdurate. It includes the recognition that some things are highly meaningful, and others pretty much meaningless.
For children in their middle years, these are obvious aspects of every situation! It would never occur to them to suppose otherwise. At that age, we are naturally in the complete stance, although without any conceptual understanding of it. Any explanation would be meaningless word salad. It is children’s seeing and doing that provide the six “textures.” Children relate to specifics in the complete stance way, without reflecting on these characteristics, or conceptualizing them in general or abstract terms.
Reasonableness tends to fixate mundane ordinariness, which makes the complete stance unavailable. Then we lose much of our sense of wonder, open-ended curiosity, and playful creative enjoyment.
As mainly reasonable adults, we may yet enter the mythic mode, and see the wafer as the body of Christ. But as mainly reasonable adults, despite effort, we can’t help simultaneously recognizing that this is unreasonable and irrational. Slightly embarrassing, at the same time it is miraculous and inspiring. Childish, perhaps, even.
And, well, snake-handling and speaking in tongues… “That’s just crude.” In other words: it reminds the speaker uncomfortably of what it was like to be in stage 2.
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Rationality (stage 4) rejects the mythic mode as primitive and irrational: as belief in falsehoods and non-existent entities, as erratic, as failing to apply valid systematic reasoning to empirically-verified true facts. Rationalism, as a species of eternalism, denies nebulosity, which makes the complete stance completely unavailable. When it breaks down, in postrationalist nihilism, it denies meaning (again rejecting the mythic, for a different reason). That makes the complete stance completely unavailable.
Seeing and acting mythically in stage 5
Meta-rationality (stage 5) uniquely respects all previous modes as valid—for some purposes, in some situations. It recognizes its own dependence on other modes, and inclusion of them. Consequently, the mythic mode and the complete stance are more available from meta-rationality than from reasonableness or rationality.
People acting in a stage 5 way are often described as “child-like,” in a positive sense. That is: they are manifesting textures of interaction that are most often found in children.
Entering the mythic mode in stage 5 is not a regression. It is a skillful deployment of one of your acquired capacities in an appropriate situation. Although it is the same mode, it is also not the same mode, because while you see and do things in the mythic, as-if world, you retain your meta-rational understanding—and your awareness of potential reasonable and rational considerations. Those don’t diminish the experience, but complicate and deepen it.
Meta-rationality can relate meanings discovered in the as-if to the actual world effectively. Children in stage 2 mostly can’t, because they have insufficient understanding of actuality. Reasonableness and rationality aren’t good at this either, because their understandings of meaningness are distorted by confused stances. They have nothing good to say about your interactions with a bear-goddess. (Unless you personally come from a culture in which there are conventional, “reasonable” norms for that, which seems unlikely.)
For stage 5, mythic activity provides powerful sources of insight. It can also be powerfully misleading. Interpreting mythic experiences and applying their lessons in actuality requires skill in meta-rational judgement.
Having mythic visions is easy nowadays. We have drugs for that. It’s not often that psychedelics, or other portals into the mythic, reveal accurate or useful insights, though. However extraordinary your realizations seem at the time, what you can bring back to actuality is usually just confusion. (I discussed this problem in “Epistemology and Enlightenment: should experience remove doubt?”)
This was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in 1871:
I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”
As adults, we get to choose what we “bring back from a world as-if.” Figuring out which gifts will be beneficial in the actual world, and how, is difficult. It requires meta-systematic insight and exploration and experimentation.
Rationality asks “Is it true?” In many sorts of situations, that is the right question. Holmes’ drug-addled insight was not true.
But with mythic material, it is usually better to ask: “In what sense might this be true of which sorts of situations in the actual world? Is that sense meaningful or useful in the context of my life overall?” This is an inherently meta-rational puzzle, about how to relate different meanings of “true,” and how to relate them to purposes and activities. (That is “the fundamental norm of meta-rationality.”)
This is a large topic. I’ll sketch just one example approach, to suggest a flavor.
A conversation with a sleigh that is also a fish
The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget observed that animism—the attribution of motivations to things that don’t have them—is characteristic of the mythic stage in childhood. Mythologists and anthropologists observe pervasive animism in ancient and “primitive” religion too.
Usually adults deride animism as childish or outright idiotic, but we routinely ascribe intentions to machines. That is often invaluable in reasoning about software. “Why is it taking so long?” “It’s trying to free up disk space, but it’s running out of memory.”
There’s a dual understanding: we know “trying” is only metaphorical, but it’s sometimes also the relevant, correct, concrete way of relating to it. (Tell the daemon to stop trying to do that, or kill it -9 outright; then free the disk space yourself.) And recall: metaphor is itself a mythic mode of reasoning. For me, this metaphor calls up an image of a furry creature scrabbling at the wire mesh walls of a cage, trying to escape.
In a particular situation: is it best to reason about this software misbehavior animistically or mechanically? This is a matter of meta-rational judgment.
Donald Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action is the closest thing we have to a manual of meta-rationality. He describes visual and mechanical design as “a reflective conversation with the materials.”
Your patron, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, delights in the absurd, in exotic animals, in elegant ornamentation, and extravagant theatrical productions. Drama developed in Ancient Greece out of ritual re-enactments of their myths. So…
You had a dream or vision of a preposterous contraption, reminiscent of Greek mythology, a cross between a fish and sleigh. Running on rails as a stage prop, this will entertain Emperor Rudy!
Working toward actuality, you have a mental image of wheels on the fish that will gear into a track. You sketch it on paper, and what you drew tells you it won’t work. The wheels won’t reach if they’re attached to the fish. So you stare at the ceiling for an hour, get a new vision, and draw a revised sketch. “Plausible!” it says. So you make a rough desktop model. Running it on the toy-sized track, a little wooden gear tooth snaps. Oops! You proposed a design, and the model said “no.”
A “reflective conversation with the materials” is one way of relating visionary, mythic experience with actuality. This is animism. Here, treating paper, pencil, and bits of wood as partners in discovery, who argue with your partly-rational design theory, shows how even the most primitive sort of mythic perception aids in sophisticated, creative adult work.
The example may seem prosaic, though. I chose it for its concreteness, and its appeal for engineers like me. It’s not particularly representative; meta-rational methods are extraordinarily diverse.
You might have preferred an example with gods and demons.
Gods, demons, and suspension bridges
Back in the 1400s, the genius engineer-entrepreneur Thangtong Gyalpo developed the technology and economic infrastructure for iron-chain suspension bridges. He built scores of them, free for public use. This was an enormous project, requiring the opening of new trade routes to get the quantities of iron needed, and the construction and operation of multiple factories to mass-produce the foot-long chain links. He funded this partly by inventing Tibetan opera and touring with a for-profit theater company. Six hundred years later, some of his bridges are still in use.
Gods and demons: Thangtong Gyalpo was also a revered religious prophet and innovator, and the foremost exorcist of his era. His bridge-building work was inspired and guided by benevolent visionary goddesses, who gave him critical technical information about how to proceed. It was repeatedly obstructed by demons and nagas (aquatic spirits), so he developed new ritual means for subduing them.
I visited one of his bridges, and was seriously impressed. Can we build bridges that durable now?2 They were a great thing, connecting regions of Tibet previously separated by impassible river gorges. Why didn’t people build more of them, I asked a local. “They couldn’t! He built them with his miracle-power, you know.”
Mythic activity is most obvious when it’s dramatic, as in religious ritual. But we also engage in it routinely, without noticing, in the course of ordinary, reasonable social interactions and rational, professional work. Each mode critically depends on all the previous ones—covertly, in the cases of reasonableness and rationality.
In an upcoming post, I’ll explain how reasonableness, rationality, and meta-rationality all rely on the mythic mode to supply our most important purposes. And: the consequences of loss of purpose that comes with denying the mythic.
Further reading
While writing about the mythic mode, I drew particularly on three sources, two about the mythic mode in childhood, and one on ritual:
Kieran Egan’s chapter titled “Mythic Understanding” in The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding.
Robert Kegan’s discussion of developmental stage 2 in The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, particularly in the chapter “The Growth and Loss of the Imperial Self.”
Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. It’s long and difficult, so I’ve written a summary of it.
As I mentioned in “Seeing and doing mythically,” I’ve found academic discussions mainly unilluminating. However, for a classic overview of literal myths and their functions, from multiple perspectives and with an emphasis on Ancient Greece, you might try:
Stephen Asma explains how the mythic mode is the foundation for all cognition. His influences are extraordinarily eclectic, but particularly include 4E cognitive science. (I have also been involved with 4E for forty years.) This academic article is an overview of his synthesis:
“Adaptive Imagination: Toward a Mythopoetic Cognitive Science,” Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2022.
If you’ve read the sections of Meta-rationality about how we actually do things, this quote from his article will resonate:
Mythopoetic cognition is a form of embodied cognition, and rejects the Neo-Cartesian view that other minds are trapped behind a veil of representation, requiring inferences or special modules to access or decode. Rather, our intentional mental states and those of our friends, families, acquaintances, and enemies are on display (albeit fallibly) in our embodied social interactions. These social interactions are read directly by the body as affordances and intentions, without the need for us to build an elaborate, internal, mental model of the social world.
Asma also has a non-academic book about this, which I haven’t read:
I may be able to recommend other resources if you’d like to pursue particular interests in the area.
This isn’t quite accurate; the mythic mode develops in mid-childhood, and children retain still earlier ways of being, which the mythic mode builds on. They often deploy those as well—as we also do as adults.
The iron in the bridge I saw was rust-free after six hundred years. A 1970s chemical analysis found that the metal he used is actually a unique form of stainless steel. Apparently, its high admixture of arsenic prevents rusting. This is discussed in the standard work on Thangtong Gyalpo, Cyrus Stearns’ King of the Empty Plain, p. 48.
There is a sort of related idea that I have on the usefulness of myth and religious view of the world - pretty much, we are extremely social monkeys with a very, very developed theory of mind that gets activated in childhood at some point, is capable of handling very complex models and, unlike rational thinking, easily accessible to our subconsciousness. So, when one deals with, say, problems in relating to the world, the easiest ways to fix them is to use a god-model and develop a relationship with it. To illustrate it, some saying like "God is merciful to those who err, but smacks down the overconfident and prideful" is significantly easier to remember, internalize and emotionally relate to in practice than a few pages of psych writing on cognitive biases through which we tend to be overly fearful of small errors but sometimes when our confidence gets too high underestimate the risk of big moves.
Stages 3 and 4 are fairly easy to understand, but it's substantially harder to make every bit of 2 fit together. It is at once the stage of going after what you want and acting on the world, the stage of myth and the stage of certain approaches to rules.
But as I was thinking about this, it all clicked. What beings are known for their mythic nature, their selfishness and hedonism, and their focus on rules and exploiting them? Fae.
Fae embody stage 2.