[sunbug]

Well this certainly is a catalyst to various thoughts!
Was reading another Myth Blast and did not see a place for comment but this piece definitely overlaps with “personal mythology” and “the collective unconscious.”

To me the “knee jerk” reactions to “personal mythology” not by Norland Tellez, but by others in society make sense…those off the cuff or skimming perceptions.
And because of these kinds of perceptions, Tellez is advocating a need for a deeper dig, which is not entranced by the appearance or masks of ideas but more interested in the deeper darker roots which sustain.
I remember hearing someone talking of “following your bliss,” one of those Bill Maher late nights…and Maher interpreted it as “the right to eat all the ice cream you want.”
So instead of looking to what draws the artist to create (the deep roots), bliss becomes no more than glitter for a child’s temporary indulgence.

The perception of Words have a lot of power to evoke certain images in the mind…just as in another essay which Stephen Gerringer wrote about Names.

Sometimes I think because of certain quick and popular books such as “The Law of Attraction,” and “The Secret,” among others whether one loves that hates that or is in different… that “personal mythology,” seems more like the individual’s search for instant success in all aspects of life.

But to me Campbell stressed the journey. And the experience of it. The bumps in the road, the light and dark….

Back to the ego and the collective unconscious…

Somewhere I remember reading in Campbell that in The East there is no differentiation between Ego and Self…

But in the West or in the Grail type of adventures there was?

Yes going beyond pairs of opposites may make that a moot point…

Yet when I first read Campbell and also noting his own individual adventure along with the personal challenges he faced…

I read the Self as being an element deeply rooted in each of us…not attached to the desires of the ego but drawn to the eternal quest and to the deeper universal recognition of that place where as Norland says the psyche digs into the flesh!
Or coming to a place where Universal or Collective Unconscious is experienced a transcendent moment.
I guess as for the “personal myth” being a controlling or “blocking factor” I can see that,  Norland from the “self gratification or instant gratification so prevalent today.

But as for ideology, guess after reading Joseph Campbell, I had an inverse perception…more that groups rather than individuals drove ideology or belief whether religious or secular.
However to me group beliefs were not the same as the deeper roots of collective unconscious or universal consciousness even if such things were inherited or taught. I’m not denying a mythic connection or one tied into the psyche but the trouble comes when the group demands their beliefs to be everyone’s. Or face punishment or crusade or…

So the inverse in my perception were the individuals (not ego centric) who throughout history or separately through myth saw a new or different way…the Galileos and Copernicuses

And because they did (getting back to the darker roots) they were persecuted.

Certainly not all rainbows and glitter!
I may be wrong Norland, but I think what your conflict is with the “personal mythology,” is when that is “abused,” by the ego centric or worse, when it rises to an individual pathology and or group one, which desires control.
I agree…despicable.
Where as I imagine for so many here inspired by Joseph Campbell, the humbler but passionate quest of the individual heroes or heroines came to that place where all falls away in that aha moment a moment where the collected unconscious takes over. An example: the realization of seeing our planet from the moon… An awareness which we all share, an eternal realization of our connection with everyone and the planet coming from deep down in the roots of the psyche.
Just now and aha moment occurs to me Norland with your excellent description of the psyche digging painfully into the flesh!
At the risk of metaphor, I see the symbolic snake painfully biting the place between the eyes opening the symbolic third eye in order to expand sight and awareness.
As for Tolkien, though better suited perhaps for another topic…his influences both from his early life, scholarly connections and war time experience are all noted. I saw that recent movie on Tolkien. But wondered about the writings in which Tolkien spoke of not all of his writing being a conscious decision or rather he said “something” was writing through him?

That seems to dig down into collected unconscious territory to me!!
Especially since Tolkien seemed to want to avoid allegory whenever pressed.

Well enough! I’ve wandered off like an Ent!

So thank you Norland and Stephen for lively mytho? Historic? Food for thought!!!
Peaceful lively debates! Love it!!