Parallel Myths

“Myth is an eternal mirror in which we see ourselves.”

In this brief quote, Bierlein captures much of what defines myth: its timelessness and its ability to reflect upon humanity its true nature, its virtues and its faults, its aspirations and its grasp of the natural world. Much like art, which, in Shakespeare’s words, holds “as ’twere the mirror up to nature” (Hamlet), myth shows us ourselves in our surrounding world. Humans and nature are indeed intertwined, a theme repeated throughout the stories and myths of antiquity.

“In reading these myths, the gaps between cultures narrow to reveal what is constant and universal in human experience.”

Like great literature, myths reveal our commonalities rather than our differences. To read myths from across so many different cultures and to see how “different” cultures saw the world in strikingly similar ways is to understand that far more unites us than divides us. In our current technological age, when STEM courses wrangle eager bodies like punk rockers to a mosh pit and social media seems more anti-social and divisive, the yearning for myth is greater than ever. Humanity can have both science and myth; humans can comprehend the truths offered by both if they are open to them.

“A myth is often something that only begins to work where our own five senses end.”

Among the many definitions of myth this book offers, this quote directly gets at the way in which myth articulates truths not that we can see or hear—the way science arrives at truth—but that resonate on an emotional, intuitive level.