Dear ex-l,
I will take care with my words here. I agree it is not literally what you said. But it is in effect what you said. It is the implication of what you said ...
This is exactly the attitude that Campbell's quote - "Myth is what you call the other person's religion" - is referring to. Leaving aside clan enmities, he was talking about how the Western Judeo-Christian culture speaks of its own religions and traditions with a different tone to the one it uses when speaking of "exotic" religions & traditions. Ours is religion, tradition, culture, our experience. Theirs is myth, superstition, pagan, and how could they believe such nonsense?.
And maybe to add a bit to what John Morgan is going on about - he must be an air sign given his style (is that right?) - The "living myth" is the story that underlies your paradigm. And determines how you comprehend and respond to reality. Most of us once lived the BK myth. Most of us grew up in a society based on the Christian myth, and have been informed (shaped) by it. You, ex-l, currently live the "spiritualist" myth. I live the "myth" myth!
Campbell's contribution was to show that, a) myth is universal (practically a necessity), and b) a shift of language is often all it needs to reveal the parallels between different myths. (You say "spirit potayto", I say "archetype potahto" - let' s call the whole thing off). But reality is only One . To discuss reality, you have to go past "One" (Discuss : from latin - to separate, and further from Gk - Di - two ( dissect, divide). Pythagoras (reputedly) said that you could discuss any number but the number one.
I will take care with my words here. I agree it is not literally what you said. But it is in effect what you said. It is the implication of what you said ...
"So, the difference being, in an average church or mosque congregation you have the social and psychological (the 'archetypal' terry talks about). In the Brahma Kumaris you have the additional, active, unseen and independent influences upon our psyches").
This is exactly the attitude that Campbell's quote - "Myth is what you call the other person's religion" - is referring to. Leaving aside clan enmities, he was talking about how the Western Judeo-Christian culture speaks of its own religions and traditions with a different tone to the one it uses when speaking of "exotic" religions & traditions. Ours is religion, tradition, culture, our experience. Theirs is myth, superstition, pagan, and how could they believe such nonsense?.
And maybe to add a bit to what John Morgan is going on about - he must be an air sign given his style (is that right?) - The "living myth" is the story that underlies your paradigm. And determines how you comprehend and respond to reality. Most of us once lived the BK myth. Most of us grew up in a society based on the Christian myth, and have been informed (shaped) by it. You, ex-l, currently live the "spiritualist" myth. I live the "myth" myth!
Campbell's contribution was to show that, a) myth is universal (practically a necessity), and b) a shift of language is often all it needs to reveal the parallels between different myths. (You say "spirit potayto", I say "archetype potahto" - let' s call the whole thing off). But reality is only One . To discuss reality, you have to go past "One" (Discuss : from latin - to separate, and further from Gk - Di - two ( dissect, divide). Pythagoras (reputedly) said that you could discuss any number but the number one.