How can we produce new mythologies? What are the ingredients?
Baba interviewed by Willi Paul at PlanetShifter Magazine
There is a large difference between spinning a narrative, and storytelling. Storytelling exists because it entertains, and when it entertains, it commands an audience. Even Samuel Goldwyn told his screenwriters that if they had a message, then send a telegram (email), it’s a lot cheaper. Storytelling, Mythology is about analogy, which gives a story its entertainment value. The old woman on the edge of the forest didn’t tell her stories because she had a point to make, an ideology to market, she told them because she knew them, and that’s what she did. She didn’t make them up – she found them, in the voice of her grandmother, in the voice of the forest.
Narratives are an attempt to give political context to information, this is not mythology. We call this “The News.” The Authority of this voice comes from its volume and the size of its audience. Narratives use the paradigm of the myth, good guys, bad guys, the quest, bringing balance into the world, the final showdown, and the return home. But where Mythology is connected to the Sky, to the Earth, to the hearts and blood of man, a Narrative is connected to the ideas, ideologies, and strategies of man. Whereas conflicting facts tend to destroy a narrative, they grow a myth. Facts and information are central to the narrative, but have considerably less importance in a myth. Narratives are located in the discourse of a particular place at a particular time, Mythology crosses time and space.
