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.
My next post will probably make a related point, that mythic heroes are also generally stage 2-ish. There's rarely any sense that they have intimate relationships, share feelings, or care for social conventions.
https://pragmaticimagination.com/ seems to be related to this mode. it explores imagination as the whole spectrum and not just this thing maybe children or artists do.
Yes! Thank you for this recommendation! As it happens, I got _Design Unbound_, which _Pragmatic Imagination_ is the last chapter of, when it was published several years ago. Extremely relevant!
Late to the party here but this post compelled me to finally express my feeling that you might find Bruno Latour's work useful for the metarational project. His book Aramis, I think, evokes some aspects of the mythic mode, as the book is something of a literary hybrid: part sociological analysis of science and technology and part detective fiction. It focuses on an innovative public transit system that can be alternately viewed as "dead on arrival", or "killed by politics", or "just one technical breakthrough away from changing public transit forever." Latour writes himself into the story as a witty professor tasked with determining "who killed Aramis?" and it's a pretty fun and engaging ride. His mode of analyzing science and technology is often derided as anthropomorphizing nonhumans and he goes full on mythic in that direction here, but not because it's "true", in a similar way as described in this post.
I could say a bunch more about why Latour could be interesting--he is very interested in "power" (but not in the "yikes, power!" way of other academics these days), he is a hard-nosed empiricist, he has an engaging style and voice. I particularly like the books Pandora's Hope and Reassembling the Social, in addition to Aramis. I also like this article: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf
Thanks! I have read, and appreciate, some of Latour's work, and for years have vaguely meant to read more. "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?" is one I had read, and I think it's brilliant (although it would have been better published a decade or two earlier!). I haven't read the books you recommend. I went and looked on Amazon—I had no idea he had written so many others, too!
also gemini tells me this: While direct citations in Bruno Latour's major works are not immediately apparent in search results, Donald Schön's work, particularly The Reflective Practitioner, is frequently referenced in academic literature alongside Latour's ideas, especially in fields like design and education. The core ideas from Schön are often used to complement or contrast with perspectives found in Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
I feel like I owe some people an apology! Whereas previously I _only_ interpreted (some of) their actions (e.g. expressions) as irresponsibly irrational ('woo'), I can see (at least) hints of what you're describing here in what they did (and are doing) and I now feel MUCH more sympathetic.
I think now what still irritates me is that some people consider those same acts as 'regular reasonable' (or even their own variety of 'rational') and miss that they're 'mythic'.
But I haven't been entirely bereft of appreciation of the mythic either! I think I CAN appreciate it when there's a kind of 'alignment' between/among/across several (or all) modes; that's REALLY satisfying! (You're pretty good at this!)
A (very mildly) mythic act I picked up from my mother is naming (significant) 'inanimate' objects, e.g. cars or computers. It's somewhat practical too and not (significantly) 'dangerous', e.g. likely to be interpreted literally by anyone that isn't a young child.
I DO like to 'signpost' 'mythic' acts or expressions I perform or make, at least somewhat; SOME people really can be confused and miss that they're mostly playful (or poetic) and not serious (literal).
This bit:
> reasonableness, rationality, and meta-rationality all rely on the mythic mode to supply our most important purposes
made me think of Ayn Rand – someone that not only defended but championed both "Reason" (rationality) and capitalism, both abstracts concepts often considered cold (if not callous or even cruel), but she did so in an EPICALLY 'mythic' way! I remember reading that she was disappointed to learn of the details of and evidence for the evolution of humans from 'more primitive' primates and I have previously considered that strange (and 'dumb'), but it's more obviously now her lamenting instead that we aren't (even possibly) the children or creations of gods or titans, a MUCH more 'mythic' idea! (I think Daniel Dennett, in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", actually paints a pretty mythic picture of the Vastness of the scope and fractally near-endless detail of the 'dangerous idea' and the specific history of The Blind Idiot God in this universe, a very mythically eldritch Old God if ever there was one.)
Beautifully put. It’s striking how the mythic never really disappears; it only goes underground. We’re taught that reason is what comes after imagination, when in truth, it only stands upon it.
The child’s world was alive because it hadn’t yet been divided—sign and thing, symbol and truth were one. As adults, we can’t go back to that innocence, but we can move forward toward integration: to see clearly and wonder deeply.
Maybe maturity isn’t the death of the mythic, but its transfiguration—when we learn to honor what reason can’t explain, without surrendering what it can.
Does the word "mythic" do anything in this conception that "imaginative" wouldn't? The latter one seems much more applicable to our disenchanted age, and easier for people to perceive as immediately available to them personally.
>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.
Art scenes would be an exception, I suppose, until they produce ossified canons.
> Does the word "mythic" do anything in this conception that "imaginative" wouldn't?
Yes, several things:
* "Mythic" emphasizes action, whereas "imaginative" is in your head.
* "Imaginative" suggests that, because you are doing it in your head, it's all coming from you. Nothing happens unless you imagine it. it's hard to be surprised by your own imagination (although that can happen). "Mythic" suggests that you are not in control. You are on a quest with allies and adversaries.
For me, "play" and "ritual" suggest active participation and "mythic" suggests a sort of epic storytelling about past events, rather than something happening now. Although, storytelling can be active (drama).
Also, "play" suggests improv and "ritual" suggests repetition. In many rituals, performing the proper actions and and not varying them too much is important!
I wonder what would be some good words for adult improvisational mythic action? Or do we just call that a kind of play? Maybe a festival?
I would say that the “imaginative” is a personal, subjective realm. “Mythic” is in the social, objective realm. If you can bring forth and objectify key elements of your imagination, such that they trigger similar imaginative experience in others, you are well on the way to creating a shared and possibly enduring myth.
This is a tangent, but I'm curious about the bridges. Looking for evidence of bridges associated with Thangtong Gyalpo, I found a TripAdvisor page for Tachogang Lhakhang Bridge in Bhutan. From reviews, it seems there are two bridges there now, an old bridge and new bridge. People report that the old bridge is closed.
There is also somewhat older web page by a rafting company. They wrote "This 600 year old bridge crosses the Paro Chhu (Paro River) and was traditionally restored in 2005 after being washed away during a 1969 flood." No mention of two bridges.
Neither; it was another one that collapsed twenty years ago and would no longer be in the guidebook. The chains were fine; the anchor points on the bank were not properly maintained.
I'm curious how you discriminate between evolution and regression (in self and others).
How would you know that a person ascribing motivations to an inanimate object is 'thinking postrationally mythically' or is sliding into 'prerational mythics'.
I think this has a lot to do with religion especially. I feel like the language of magical thinking is so easy to interpret in both ways, its hard to tell.
David will probably have his own answer, but to me, one of the main measures of practicing mythos with maturity is what I would name 'sobriety'. There are lots of definitions for sobriety, but some characteristics are:
* Being able to see through into the emptiness of concepts and experiences, yet still treat them as important and their content as significant, regardless of whether they can be put neatly into a systematic or narrative frame.
* Approaching concepts and experiences with a certain level of innocence; that is to say, without a fixed agenda as to how you and the mythic relate to each other, work with each other, or change each other
* Being willing to sit with mythic impulses throughout their arc without holding on tightly to their meaning; embracing them as they arise, engaging them at their peak, letting them go as they pass away.
* Perceiving how the mythos encourages the development of relational virtues within your immediate life – is it increasing the level of communion with your surroundings, does it expand your sense of self to include what is around you more vividly?
* Embracing paradox. For example, rejecting a false binary between 'mythos'/'the imaginal' and 'rationality'/'the logical', but also knowing that every behavior comes with inescapable tradeoffs here in the real world.
I should note here that sobriety doesn't necessarily correspond 1:1 to chemical sobriety. The use of chemical substances can often increase sobriety, as described above, and the refusal to use substances can keep one locked out of sobriety.
These all seem right. But I wish I had a rapid test that would just cut the crap with other people. "So are you stupid or mythical?" but in a nice way, where the stupid people don't get offended, and the mythical people don't lose their jive.
I don't know of a specific quick test. I agree with Rajeev that how to approach this probably would depend on why you want to know. If someone starts sounding mystical-ish, unless there's some reason it matters, I just nod my head (and probably change the subject when it's polite to do so, because even if they are clueful I'm probably not interested). But also if someone goes on for a bit you can usually tell. And also also if someone seems grounded and intelligent in other ways, their spirituality probably is grounded and intelligent too, whereas if they seem generally spacey and clueless...
Well, in that situation it would probably help to have pretty clear discernment about what you trying to get out of the other person, because it will help determine how much time and patience you have to let them string you along.
For example, let's say you knew nothing else about me, but we were sitting together and all of a sudden I said what I said in this note to you:
Pretty heavy engagement with mythic mode (among other things!).
What would your next move be? Would you want to read my body language? Would you ask for elaboration or a larger body of work cataloging similar thoughts? Are you trying to take what I say and offer it as help to someone else struggling?
And so forth...
Having a feel for the answers to these questions within moments or minutes is a useful skill to develop.
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.
Oh, nice, yes, I think that's right!
My next post will probably make a related point, that mythic heroes are also generally stage 2-ish. There's rarely any sense that they have intimate relationships, share feelings, or care for social conventions.
https://pragmaticimagination.com/ seems to be related to this mode. it explores imagination as the whole spectrum and not just this thing maybe children or artists do.
Yes! Thank you for this recommendation! As it happens, I got _Design Unbound_, which _Pragmatic Imagination_ is the last chapter of, when it was published several years ago. Extremely relevant!
some notes https://memex.samho.xyz/pragmatic-imagination
Late to the party here but this post compelled me to finally express my feeling that you might find Bruno Latour's work useful for the metarational project. His book Aramis, I think, evokes some aspects of the mythic mode, as the book is something of a literary hybrid: part sociological analysis of science and technology and part detective fiction. It focuses on an innovative public transit system that can be alternately viewed as "dead on arrival", or "killed by politics", or "just one technical breakthrough away from changing public transit forever." Latour writes himself into the story as a witty professor tasked with determining "who killed Aramis?" and it's a pretty fun and engaging ride. His mode of analyzing science and technology is often derided as anthropomorphizing nonhumans and he goes full on mythic in that direction here, but not because it's "true", in a similar way as described in this post.
I could say a bunch more about why Latour could be interesting--he is very interested in "power" (but not in the "yikes, power!" way of other academics these days), he is a hard-nosed empiricist, he has an engaging style and voice. I particularly like the books Pandora's Hope and Reassembling the Social, in addition to Aramis. I also like this article: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf
Thanks! I have read, and appreciate, some of Latour's work, and for years have vaguely meant to read more. "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?" is one I had read, and I think it's brilliant (although it would have been better published a decade or two earlier!). I haven't read the books you recommend. I went and looked on Amazon—I had no idea he had written so many others, too!
also gemini tells me this: While direct citations in Bruno Latour's major works are not immediately apparent in search results, Donald Schön's work, particularly The Reflective Practitioner, is frequently referenced in academic literature alongside Latour's ideas, especially in fields like design and education. The core ideas from Schön are often used to complement or contrast with perspectives found in Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
Oh, interesting, I didn't know that, thanks!
I feel like I owe some people an apology! Whereas previously I _only_ interpreted (some of) their actions (e.g. expressions) as irresponsibly irrational ('woo'), I can see (at least) hints of what you're describing here in what they did (and are doing) and I now feel MUCH more sympathetic.
I think now what still irritates me is that some people consider those same acts as 'regular reasonable' (or even their own variety of 'rational') and miss that they're 'mythic'.
But I haven't been entirely bereft of appreciation of the mythic either! I think I CAN appreciate it when there's a kind of 'alignment' between/among/across several (or all) modes; that's REALLY satisfying! (You're pretty good at this!)
A (very mildly) mythic act I picked up from my mother is naming (significant) 'inanimate' objects, e.g. cars or computers. It's somewhat practical too and not (significantly) 'dangerous', e.g. likely to be interpreted literally by anyone that isn't a young child.
I DO like to 'signpost' 'mythic' acts or expressions I perform or make, at least somewhat; SOME people really can be confused and miss that they're mostly playful (or poetic) and not serious (literal).
This bit:
> reasonableness, rationality, and meta-rationality all rely on the mythic mode to supply our most important purposes
made me think of Ayn Rand – someone that not only defended but championed both "Reason" (rationality) and capitalism, both abstracts concepts often considered cold (if not callous or even cruel), but she did so in an EPICALLY 'mythic' way! I remember reading that she was disappointed to learn of the details of and evidence for the evolution of humans from 'more primitive' primates and I have previously considered that strange (and 'dumb'), but it's more obviously now her lamenting instead that we aren't (even possibly) the children or creations of gods or titans, a MUCH more 'mythic' idea! (I think Daniel Dennett, in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", actually paints a pretty mythic picture of the Vastness of the scope and fractally near-endless detail of the 'dangerous idea' and the specific history of The Blind Idiot God in this universe, a very mythically eldritch Old God if ever there was one.)
Beautifully put. It’s striking how the mythic never really disappears; it only goes underground. We’re taught that reason is what comes after imagination, when in truth, it only stands upon it.
The child’s world was alive because it hadn’t yet been divided—sign and thing, symbol and truth were one. As adults, we can’t go back to that innocence, but we can move forward toward integration: to see clearly and wonder deeply.
Maybe maturity isn’t the death of the mythic, but its transfiguration—when we learn to honor what reason can’t explain, without surrendering what it can.
Does the word "mythic" do anything in this conception that "imaginative" wouldn't? The latter one seems much more applicable to our disenchanted age, and easier for people to perceive as immediately available to them personally.
>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.
Art scenes would be an exception, I suppose, until they produce ossified canons.
> Does the word "mythic" do anything in this conception that "imaginative" wouldn't?
Yes, several things:
* "Mythic" emphasizes action, whereas "imaginative" is in your head.
* "Imaginative" suggests that, because you are doing it in your head, it's all coming from you. Nothing happens unless you imagine it. it's hard to be surprised by your own imagination (although that can happen). "Mythic" suggests that you are not in control. You are on a quest with allies and adversaries.
* "Imaginative" also suggests relatively static images. "Mythic" suggests extended narratives.
(Same general points as in Darren Lott's earlier reply!)
>"Imaginative" suggests that, because you are doing it in your head, it's all coming from you.
Yeah, heading off the mistake of dualism does make sense.
For me, "play" and "ritual" suggest active participation and "mythic" suggests a sort of epic storytelling about past events, rather than something happening now. Although, storytelling can be active (drama).
Also, "play" suggests improv and "ritual" suggests repetition. In many rituals, performing the proper actions and and not varying them too much is important!
I wonder what would be some good words for adult improvisational mythic action? Or do we just call that a kind of play? Maybe a festival?
I would say that the “imaginative” is a personal, subjective realm. “Mythic” is in the social, objective realm. If you can bring forth and objectify key elements of your imagination, such that they trigger similar imaginative experience in others, you are well on the way to creating a shared and possibly enduring myth.
This is a great answer! Similar to the one I am about to post myself :)
This is a tangent, but I'm curious about the bridges. Looking for evidence of bridges associated with Thangtong Gyalpo, I found a TripAdvisor page for Tachogang Lhakhang Bridge in Bhutan. From reviews, it seems there are two bridges there now, an old bridge and new bridge. People report that the old bridge is closed.
There is also somewhat older web page by a rafting company. They wrote "This 600 year old bridge crosses the Paro Chhu (Paro River) and was traditionally restored in 2005 after being washed away during a 1969 flood." No mention of two bridges.
Which bridge did you cross?
Neither; it was another one that collapsed twenty years ago and would no longer be in the guidebook. The chains were fine; the anchor points on the bank were not properly maintained.
This is great! Thanks for writing it!
I'm curious how you discriminate between evolution and regression (in self and others).
How would you know that a person ascribing motivations to an inanimate object is 'thinking postrationally mythically' or is sliding into 'prerational mythics'.
I think this has a lot to do with religion especially. I feel like the language of magical thinking is so easy to interpret in both ways, its hard to tell.
David will probably have his own answer, but to me, one of the main measures of practicing mythos with maturity is what I would name 'sobriety'. There are lots of definitions for sobriety, but some characteristics are:
* Being able to see through into the emptiness of concepts and experiences, yet still treat them as important and their content as significant, regardless of whether they can be put neatly into a systematic or narrative frame.
* Approaching concepts and experiences with a certain level of innocence; that is to say, without a fixed agenda as to how you and the mythic relate to each other, work with each other, or change each other
* Being willing to sit with mythic impulses throughout their arc without holding on tightly to their meaning; embracing them as they arise, engaging them at their peak, letting them go as they pass away.
* Perceiving how the mythos encourages the development of relational virtues within your immediate life – is it increasing the level of communion with your surroundings, does it expand your sense of self to include what is around you more vividly?
* Embracing paradox. For example, rejecting a false binary between 'mythos'/'the imaginal' and 'rationality'/'the logical', but also knowing that every behavior comes with inescapable tradeoffs here in the real world.
I should note here that sobriety doesn't necessarily correspond 1:1 to chemical sobriety. The use of chemical substances can often increase sobriety, as described above, and the refusal to use substances can keep one locked out of sobriety.
I like this a LOT!
These all seem right. But I wish I had a rapid test that would just cut the crap with other people. "So are you stupid or mythical?" but in a nice way, where the stupid people don't get offended, and the mythical people don't lose their jive.
I don't know of a specific quick test. I agree with Rajeev that how to approach this probably would depend on why you want to know. If someone starts sounding mystical-ish, unless there's some reason it matters, I just nod my head (and probably change the subject when it's polite to do so, because even if they are clueful I'm probably not interested). But also if someone goes on for a bit you can usually tell. And also also if someone seems grounded and intelligent in other ways, their spirituality probably is grounded and intelligent too, whereas if they seem generally spacey and clueless...
Well, in that situation it would probably help to have pretty clear discernment about what you trying to get out of the other person, because it will help determine how much time and patience you have to let them string you along.
For example, let's say you knew nothing else about me, but we were sitting together and all of a sudden I said what I said in this note to you:
https://substack.com/@cactusbrahmin/note/c-164310828?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7y5fh
Pretty heavy engagement with mythic mode (among other things!).
What would your next move be? Would you want to read my body language? Would you ask for elaboration or a larger body of work cataloging similar thoughts? Are you trying to take what I say and offer it as help to someone else struggling?
And so forth...
Having a feel for the answers to these questions within moments or minutes is a useful skill to develop.