by May, Rollo
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, 22n
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, 20n
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, 262n
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, 51n
waiting, creative, 205, 207, 208–210, 287–288
Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 42, 207, 209, 266
Washington, George, 45
“Waste Land, The” (Eliot), 138n, 208–210
Watergate affair, 124
Way, Lewis, 7on
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), 57n
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, 26on
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), 121n
Wilde, Oscar, 68n
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, 228n, 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, 79n
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.
*Personal communication from Dr. Laing.
*Personal communication. Ernest Becker himself, after having written several excellent books, died a premature death from cancer. He was a hero himself to many readers.
*The sad postlude to this heroic act was, of course, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby and Lindbergh’s seeming to side with the Nazis in World War II. This illustrates that heroism does not reside in the flesh and blood of one person, but in a spiritual quality we confer upon him or her.
*San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980. This is a quotation from the summary by the publishers.
*James O. Freedman, quoted in the New York Times, August 23, 1987.
†Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke (Leipzig: Alfred Kröner, 1919), vol. 6, pp. 496-497.
*Eliot, “The Choir Invisible,” in One Hundred and One Famous Poems (Chicago: Cable, 1926), p.137.
†The quotations concerning this murder are taken from the New York Times, September 11, 1986.
*Our section on the myth of Horatio Alger in Chapter 7 also discusses the relation between myths and morals in our day.
†New York: Norton, 1969.
**Delmore Schwartz, In Dreams Begin Responsibility and Other Stories (New York: New Directions, 1978).
*I spell the term “fantasy” when the subject refers to a conscious event, “phantasy” when it is an unconscious event.
†I am aware of the various interpretations of this issue, but do not wish to go into them here.
*Quoted by Elizabeth Simpson, in Nothingness: Journal of Humanistic Psychology 19, no. 3 (Summer 1979).
*Ernest Schachtel, Metamorphosis (New York: Basic Books, 1959), p. 309. The above mechanical view of memory led Oscar Wilde to make his satirical remark, “The great enemy of creativity is a good memory.” Yes, indeed—when memory works on the basis of nonsense syllables. But this obviously is not genuine creativity. Wilde is referring to the person who reflects back to the professor his exact syllable; the student who strains to recall the assignment as literally as possible; the idiot savant; the antiquarian who omits whatever is original, new, fresh—and delightful. Such students may get high grades but they are never inspired, never catch fire with a new idea.
*Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
†Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Therapy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
*Lewis Way, Adler’s Place in Psychology (London: Macmillan, 1950), p. 73.
†Stephen Sicari, “Dante’s Wake: T. S. Eliot’s ‘Art of Memory,’” Cross Currents (Winter 1988–89).
*Mann, Joseph and His Brothers (New York: Knopf, 1935), p. 33. †Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York: Basic Books, 1953). p. 325.
*Ibid., I: 325, 326.
†Ibid., p. 356.
*Feder, Ancient Myth in Modem Poetry, p. 44.
†Ibid., p. 46.
*Lillian Feder, to whom I owe the above quotation, understandably writes, “Freud is never so heroic, never so admirable, than when he is, in his mind, creating the myths.” Ibid.
†Ibid.
*When Oedipus is born it is predicted that he will kill his father, King Laius of Thebes. To forestall this prophecy, Laius gives the baby to a shepherd with instructions to expose it on the mountainside so it will die. But the kindhearted shepherd takes the baby home. As a boy he goes to Corinth, where he is brought up in the household of the King of Corinth. When he is a young man, he hears the prophecy that he will kill his father so he leaves Corinth to avoid this prediction. On the road he meets a coach. He has an argument with the driver, and the passenger, who is King Laius, gets out of the coach to help the driver, is struck by Oedipus, and falls dead. Oedipus then continues to Thebes, where he solves the riddle of the Sphinx and as a reward is given the kingship and weds Queen Jocasta.
This Oedipus myth is particularly cogent in our day because it is central both in psychoanalysis and in literature. We find it, for one example, in the much admired drama by Shakespeare, Hamlet The hero is charged by his father’s ghost to avenge his death at the hands of the uncle, who has then married Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet, however, is a hero at the beginning of the modern period, and hence in his self-consciousness he always postpones action. When by accident he is killed in the conclusion, he cries out to his friend Horatio,
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath
in pain
To tell my story….
*Quotations from Sophocles, Oedipus Tyra
nnus, in Dramas, trans. Sir George Young (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1947).
*Quotations from Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, in The Oedipus Cycle, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).
†Note by Fitzgerald, ibid., p. 176.
*This “presence” will come up in a number of myths we will discuss: Solveig’s presence for Peer Gynt, Briar Rose’s presence for the Prince, and so on.
*Ernst Cassirer has pointed this out in The Myth of the State (New Haven. Yale University Press, 1946).
†Kairos is a Greek word used by Tillich and others meaning the “destined time.”
**Robertson, American Myth/American Reality, p. 33.
*Quoted in ibid.
† Frederick Jackson Turner, Encyclopedia Brittanica, vol. 22 (Chicago: William Benton, 1983), p. 62;.
*Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), P.55.
*When my children were young, I used to take them occasionally to “westerns” for their own interest and amusement—or so at least I told myself. I knew the plot was always the same: when the Indians are galloping around the wagon train, now drawn up in a circle to protect those still alive among the pioneers and their families, just before the wagons are completely overrun, the sounds of a bugle are heard and over the hill we suddenly see the Stars and Stripes and the U.S. Cavalry galloping to the rescue, with a handsome lieutenant at their head. I tell myself I won’t feel anything each time. But when the bugle does blow and the flag and galloping soldiers do come over the hill, I am thrilled as I always was. Such is the power of myth!
*This surprising phenomenon of loneliness in the midst of gay and happy Americans was pictured in the deservedly popular book, The Lonely Crowd, ed. David Reissman et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).
*Oriani Fallaci, Interview with History (New York: Liveright, 1976), p. 41.
*On returning from Europe, Philip Slater remarks in his Pursuit of Loneliness that everyone looks lonely in America. “These perceptions are heightened by the contrast between the sullen faces of real people and the vision of happiness television offers: men and women ecstatically engaged in stereotyped symbols of fun—running through fields, strolling on beaches, dancing and singing. Americans know from an early age how they are supposed to look when happy and what they are supposed to do or buy to be happy. But for some reason their fantasies are unrealizable and leave them disappointed and embittered.” Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness (Boston: Beacon, 1976).
