Myth and Mutation

If myth is essentially timeless, does it undergo historical change?

The theogonic process, through which mythology emerges, is a subjective one insofar as it takes place in consciousness and shows itself through the generating of representations: but the causes and thus also the objects of those representations are the actually and in themselves theogonic powers . . . The content of the process are not merely imagined potencies, but rather the potencies themselves—which create consciouness and which create nature . . . The mythological process does not have to do with natural objects, but rather with the pure creating potencies whose original product is consciousness itself.

—F.W.J. Schelling, Historical-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology

Mutations in the Imaginal Background

The imaginal background. I previously introduced this term without any elaboration.

From the vantage point of waking consciousness, the nearest means for approaching the imaginal background is through the encounter with autonomous productions of the imagination. The views elaborated here build upon a tradition of thinkers who have beheld images and motifs welling up spontaneously from the depth’s of the psyche—whether through mythology, dreams, or works of artistic genius—and, in them, recognized portrayals of effective forces surging from the roots of existence. We may conceive of these forces in spiritual or natural terms, as involving some interpenetration between the two, or simply as a unitary process lacking any essential nature/spirit distinction. In the end, the imagination’s productive powers betray their source in mystery.

I relate these “forces” to what Gebser called “the originary powers,” or “the strengths of origin.” He ascribed great importance—indeed, the utmost importance—to our capacity to shift into conscious participation with these powers. This shift implies adopting a radically different attitude from that typical to the modern mind, given that it entails willingly placing ourselves in alignment with influences that, from our waking standpoint, operate unconsciously—or, superconsciously—remaining both invisible and beyond what is conceptually knowable.

Yet, by no means do these limitations imply that such originary influences must be taken purely as an article faith.

Indeed, we may at times find ourselves more sensitized to the way the contents of our own consciousness—which includes our thoughts as well as the currents of desire that entice us to exercise our volition in service of certain aims—arise autonomously, downstream of unknown processes that, while remaining ever-mysterious and elusive, are made undeniably known by virtue of their effects.

Insofar as we may have repeated experiences of such transegoic influences, we may, in parallel, discover a gradually strengthening trust in these originary powers.

The task of entering into conscious relationship with these powers, Gebser suggests, cannot be divided from the obligations thrust upon us by the meta-crisis driven by the enduring dominance of the mental-rational mode of consciousness which, since the advent of modernity, has largely divorced itself from direct sensitivity to the spiritual.

As he writes in the Ever-Present Origin:

“What is to come? I believe that I have given some indication of the answer to this question. As in any crisis there are two possible answers to the question of its outcome: demise or transition . . . Anyone who takes to heart the solution to our problems, and who has not forgotten that we partake every moment of our lives in the originary powers of an ultimately spiritual nature, will be willing to participate in this task. The subtitle 'An Attempt at the concretion of the spiritual' (and not merely the psychic and the intellectual) is addressed to those who do not wish to forfeit in their lives the humility and dignity that are only then granted to us when we recognize spiritual values. To them our profoundly troubled age will reveal the new awareness that today's events have meaning and can lead to a meaningful tomorrow. It is the basic concern of the present book to demonstrate this possibility without indulging in modernism or pandering to optimism. The strengths of origin, and our own strength in bringing this origin to effectivity are the factors that will decide our fate.”¹

As I have emphasized repeatedly, “bringing origin to effectivity” is not accomplished through merely surrendering our critical faculties and agentic capabilities.

Revivified participation mystique must also be a participation consciente.

The very notion of “participation” inherently dethrones the conscious ego as sole agent and prime mover, yet it does not exclude egoic volition.

The mode of consciousness intimated here is a consciousness moving with, acting with, relating with the primordial powers to which it deliberately makes itself available.

Setting out from the assumption that imaginal phenomena carry the capacity for rendering originary powers perceptible, what could be meant by mutations in the imaginal background?

To take up this question, we can look to myth.

Myth and Time

There is a sense in which myth lies beyond historical time, remaining unchanging, sub specie aeternitatus.

Yet, myth can also be viewed from another angle: through the eye of history. From this vantage point, we find that certain topoi or genres of myths spring forth within the human imagination at particular times and places, while different mythic contours begin shining through at others.

If myth is a self-portrait of originary influences at work in our own depths, then changes in the features of mythology would presumably be a downstream effect of primordial transformations.

Is this to suggest that myth changes?

Yes, and no.

In approaching this question, I will think in terms of what Gebser called the Bewußtwerdungsprozess—the “process of the becoming of consciousness.”

For a consciousness without any distance from origin—on a level that is deeper and far more fundamental than historical time—the entire unfolding of consciousness already is, abiding in latent wholeness, prior to all time. Gebser called this the archaic structure of consciousness in which the magic, mythic, and mental structures all lie dormant.

Time springs multifariously from the originary void, expressing its distinct yet interrelated modes—radically entangled (magic) timelessness, (mythic) cyclical time, and the (mental) timeline of history. All temporal modes unfurl from the pre-temporal originary wholeness and, taken from a given angle amid the unfolding, each mode comes to assume precedence while the other modes retreat again into their originary latency.

The fullness of time is eternally whole in its latency, while in its evolutionary unfoldment it springs forth iridescently through a dynamic play of revealment and concealment as it grows toward its ultimate integration, whereby the originary latency of time’s intrinsic wholeness is rendered transparent (diaphanous).

To be clear, if we are willing to follow Gebser here, the pre-historical and nonlinear modes of time are not reducible to a so-called “primitive” and psychologically naive perspective on the world that is ultimately rendered obsolete with the attainment of rational thought. Rather, these alternate time modes are legitimate forms of attunement to the whole, phenomenological dispositions disclosing valid dimensions self-other-world/space/time.

The different ontologies corresponding to these phenomenological modes, having largely been eclipsed by the mental-rational structure over the last several centuries, are growing increasingly ripe for integration within the phenomenological diaphaneity of the now-emerging integral consciousness structure.

While this integrative task absolutely requires the involvement of our comparatively young capacity for consciously directed thought and action, it is equally being carried out by the transegoic agencies expressed not only through the magic and mythic structures of consciousness but, ultimately, by the efficacy of origin itself.

Hence, the emphasis on participation:

“The simple is in us. It is participation—participation in that which is unknown yet evident to us: a tiny seed in us, which contains all transparency.”²

This is the overarching frame through which I will consider mythological mutation. All modes of myth always already are, in pretemporal latency. Yet, from within the surging forth of historical time, developments in mythic dominants³ announce evolutionary changes, effected by origin, in accordance with their time-bound relevance to the unfolding whole. Evolutionary leaps in mythic patterns reveal the explicit unfoldment, in history, of the pretemporal realities ever-presently enfolded in origin.

Dating mythological developments, however, inherently places us on dubious footing. From where we stand, historicizing myth inevitably leads us to the misty border of historical time itself and right through it into the prehistorical modes of time.

This problem pertains to the mutation of the imaginal background implicated in the birth of the mental-rational consciousness and modern ego.

Myth as Messenger

Let’s take a simple example: the Pelasgian creation myths in relation to the emergence of the Homeric epics.

Archaeological and philological evidence places estimates for the emergence of the Pelasgian creation myth somewhere in the Neolithic or early Bronze Age (ca. 6000-2000 BCE) and the Iliad and Odyssey roughly in the late 8th or early 7th century BCE.

Of course, as with many revered ancient figures, the historical contours surrounding the person of “Homer” are inherently hazy. Richard Tarnas remarks that in the ancient Greek world “‘Homer’ was ambiguously both an individual human poet and a collective personification of the entire ancient Greek memory.”⁴

This ambiguity is poetically (and, perhaps metaphysically) apt. Homer dwells upon the bridge between the more ancient and interpenetrating magic/mythic structures of consciousness and the mental structure. Crossing this bridge implies a leap in emphasis from identification with the tribal collective toward the progressive intensification of individuation.

As with individuality, so approaching and delineating time is likewise clouded by ambiguity in this terrain.

“How far back we may wish to place this magic time into prehistory is not only a question of one's predilection, but, on account of the timeless character of the magical, is essentially an illusion … It is pure speculation if we attempt to locate something timeless in a temporal framework that we have subsequently devised. In the context of the timeless, what can such terms as ‘day,’ ‘month,’ or ‘year’ possibly mean?”⁵

We find the same sentiment expressed, a century earlier, by Schelling:

“For according to its origin mythology indeed loses itself in a time into which no historical tidings reach. Yet from that which is still attainable for historical knowledge, conclusions can be drawn about that which can be presupposed as possible and impossible in the historically inaccessible time.”⁶

Amid the iridescent unfolding of time, the creation myths representing origin’s primal leap (“Ursprung,” the primordial event) emerges out of an ambiguously “prior” timelessness relative to the ambiguously “subsequent” historicity of the Odyssean hero, mythological counterpart to the mental-rational structure of consciousness.

The historical blooming of hero myths can be viewed as a collective anticipatory dream heralding the birth of the psychological ego. In this sense, we recognize a correlation between the mythic hero and the varieties of Axial age monotheism which, as I previously explored, likewise heralded the intensifying consolidation of individuality.

These developments were mutations in the imaginal background.

The individual, while emerging historically from the standpoint of mental time, is a timelessly dormant potency latent in origin from the timeless “beginning.” The historical realization of individuation is a time-bound crystallization of what Corbin called “the essential individuality, the transcendent celestial ‘I.’”⁷

Digging Deeper Than Myth

What I am calling the “imaginal background” ultimately gestures to something that runs far deeper than the subtly visible surface of myth, dreams, or any autochthonous psychic imagery. The notion of the imaginal background pays homage to the source—what Schelling poetically described as the “dark foundry, the first forging place of mythology”⁸— in which these manifestations have their roots.

The imaginal background, at a deeper level, might be imagined as an originating energy giving rise to mythologems, which spring forth like bright green shoots from dark, fecund soil. The birth of mythology marks an inflection point in the efflorescence of primordial energy, the birth of a distinct language acquired by cosmogenesis itself amid the course of its unfolding.

Owen Barfield expresses this way of thinking and, drawing approvingly on Schelling, directly situates himself within the Romantic legacy:

“The philosopher Schelling maintained that mythology represents the repetition in the human spirit and consciousness of the processes of nature ... that the myths also disclose the ties uniting man with the primary processes of world creation and formation ... that deep natural processes were at work even before the consolidation of matter; and man’s destiny was still rooted in them, although his divorce from higher spiritual processes had already taken place.”⁹

These deep, protomythic processes correspond with what River Kenna calls infranarrative,¹⁰ which might be imagined as dynamic currents of originary influence. These influences require our active participation for their fulfillment: we are like plants who must lovingly tend their own soil, through somatic and imaginal practice, in order to bring forth their fullest fruition.

Just as the planetary flowering of hero myths can be read as collective anticipatory dreams, flowing from originary powers and announcing the intensification of individuation, we may wonder whether newly emerging mythological patterns may be appearing in tandem with the leap beyond individuation.

Mutant Mythoi?

The supersession of the ego must mean the supersession of the hero myth.

Now, of course, not all myths are heroic myths, and the hero myth has certainly never been the only relevant myth.

What I mean to say here, to reiterate, is that the relatively recent drive of earthly cosmogenesis toward producing more intensely individuated personalities, a process driven by protomythic energies that portray themselves imaginally through the pattern of the hero mytheme—appears to be enfolding itself within a newly emerging development of comsogenesis: the impulse toward transindividuation.

It is probable that this development will represent itself imaginally, and it will plausibly entail an expansion of the whole mythic frame within which the heroic character is cast¹¹ (and will quite likely assume forms completely alien to the heroic pattern. Some friends of mine, and their companions, have leapt into artistic experimentation at these edges.)

Another way of saying essentially the same thing: if the enfoldment of individuation into transindividuation flows from cosmogenic forces that perpetually generate mythological representations of their operations, then mythological cognizance of the individuation process is likely stretching to accommodate a broader range of emphasis, now focalizing the entangled field of inter-individuating agents collectively unfolding in mutual becoming.

What forms might be taken by the mythological topoi, or “mythopoetic currents,” behind transindividuation?

Primordial Leap/Abyssal Origin — Creation Myths

Individuation — Heroic Myths/Unification-Transcendantalization of God Image

Transindividuation — ???

In addition to question concerning how the originary thrust toward transindividuation may represent itself mythologically, there is another dimension also worth considering.

It is quite possible that any autochthonously emerging mythic patterns corresponding to transindividuation will be encountered, at least in certain instances, through a new and intensified mode of experiencing the living mythoi. I assume this would assume the diaphanous perception belonging to the emerging integral consciousness. Some fleeting experiences of my own have further opened me to this possibility.

I’ll say more about this in a coming article…

1. Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin, p. 278.

2. Jean Gebser, Decline and Participation.

3. Jung used the word dominant interchangeably with “archetype” or “primordial image,” though often in the context of considering the influence of shifting archetypal currents in the unfolding of sociohistorical events.

4. Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, p. 17

5. Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin, p. 61.

6. F.W.J. Schelling, Historical-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, p. 11

7. Henry Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, p. 42.

8. Schelling, Historical-critial introduction, p. 17

9. Owen Barfield, “Myth, Dream, and Philosophical Double Vision,” included in a volume, edited by Joseph Campbell, entitled Myths, Dreams and. Religion, p. 220.

10. River, quite rightly, notes the close connection between infranarrative energies and the soma—which, I believe, marks a crucial corrective to the Neoplatonic tendency to denigrate the body as maximally fallen and distant from spirit (a corrective that Cynthia Bourgeault, drawing on Gebser, likewise introduces to her own Gurdjieffian-inflected vision of an essentially Neoplatonic cosmology informing her understanding of the imaginal).

11. While not the sort of autochtnously generated imaginal productions I’m considering here, Richard Tarnas’s emphasis on the heroic community seems to be a deliberate step in this direction.