The Historical Process versus the Mythical Process
Thursday, June 14th, 2007History as Political Fiction, Mythology as Personal Reality
In my younger more cerebral days I made the declaration “History is fiction.” As I grew a little older and had more experiences and understandings I sadly came to realize that my assertion was more or less accurate, though it might be more clearly stated as “History is political fiction.” The distinction is that the teller of history, the “historian”, always has an agenda.
Then, I started looking in a slightly different direction. I began to look at history as myth, and to look at most religious texts and stories in the same way. The mistake that I was making was to think that they were myths. A more functional way to talk about this concept is to look at history as a mythical process. What I realized is that it doesn’t really matter if the stories are factually true or not, at least from a certain point of view. If and when they begin to function mythically within us, then they become vital and transforming. Then the question of historical truth is irrelevant. It is more useful to allow history to function as a mythical process than to simply look at “the facts.”
