The Study of Myth: Two Approaches

Author(s): Robert Luyster

Source: Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1966), pp. 235-243
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 The Study of Myth: Two Approaches
ROBERT LUYSTER

HEREhave been a numberof differentways to approachthe under-

standing and significance of myth, but for the modern student the
choice of method is confined principally to that employed by two dif-
ferent and- at least on this issue - opposingdisciplines: phenomenologyand
anthropology. I should like to analyze each of these approaches, the points
at which they contrast, and then to put forward an evaluation of each. For
purposes of this presentation, I have selected as representative of modern
phenomenology the man who is probably its outstanding spokesman: Mircea
Eliade. His views will be allowed to stand as typical of the school as a whole.

PHENOMENOLOGY:MIRCEA ELIADE

Myth for Eliade is that form of thought based upon symbols. His account
of the symbolic mentality underscores its differences from the mentality of
the modem West. For the symbolic imagination, observes Eliade, "nature is
never 'natural.'What looks like a naturalsituation or process to the empirical
and rational mind, is a kratophanyor hierophany in magic or religious experi-
ence."• The phenomena of nature are freely transformed by the psyche in
'"anautonomous act of creation" into symbols of the power and holiness they
reveal to the beholder. The death and revivification of the gods of vegetation,
such as Attis and Tammuz, are by no means immediately apparent in the
merely empirical disappearing and reappearingof the vegetation itself. The
religious significance of the event is revealed only in its associated symbols
and myths, for it is only in these that the mind apprehendswhat it has seen
and attempts to express its meaning. Symbolic thought, then, is an independent
mode of cognition, with its own structure, logic, and validity. It is through
the symbol that the archaic mentality comes to formulate and understandits
world, since the symbol discloses the structure of that world. The symbol
successfully brings to expression, furthermore, those aspects of reality to
which the conceptualizing consciousness has been the most insensible and
which it has been most unableto articulate. It is in fact just these contradictory

ROBERT LUYSTER (B.A., DartmouthCollege; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chi-

cago) is Assistant Professorof Philosophyand Religion at the University of Connecticut,
Storrs. His article, "SymbolicElementsin the Cult of Athena," appearedin the Summer.
1965 numberof Historyof Religions.
1 Mircea Eliade, Patternsin Comparative
Religion,trans. RosemarySheed, New York:
Sheed andWard, 1958, p. 425.
235
236 ROBERTLUYSTER

and mysterious features of the universe for which the very ambivalence (or,
more properly, multivalence) of a symbol is most highly suited. A symbol
is an image charged with many meanings simultaneously. And it is this very
indeterminacy- whatever the logical or scientific disadvantages it may pos-
sess - that renders it uniquely able to preserve the richness and the paradox
of experienced reality.2
It is by means of myth that the symbolic consciousness expresses most
completely its understandingof the cosmos. Myth describes the activities of
the gods at the beginning of time. Eliade lays special stress upon the fact that
"the main function of myth is to determine the exemplar models of all ritual,
and of all significant human acts."3 That is to say, the importance of the
events related in myth is that they form a model or paradigmfor all human
undertakingsthereafter. Every ritual and every important human action gain
their effectiveness by repeating a mythical archetype, and thus share in the
potency and the sacredness that still inhere in that primeval happening. For
the history narrated in myth is not historical in our sense of the word - a
series of unique, unrepeatableevents - but is instead "eternal" history, that
which takes place in eternity and can accordingly be indefinitely repeated
and reactualized. Furthermore, the man who imitates a mythological model,
whether in ritual or a private undertaking, is enabled thereby to transcend
and abolish profane time and enter again mythical, eternal time. Thus, for
instance, the culminating events in the life of Christ are not simply recalled
during the church services of Holy Week; they are presented rather as in
fact happening again, then, at the moment of their celebration. For the prim-
itive mind profane, everyday time is not only devoid of any particularinterest
or significance; it is also inchoate, unrealized, potentially dangerous.Primitive
man believes that he must hold fast to the way of doing things that was insti-
tuted mythically by the gods, for just these divinely appointed actions have
been responsible for the creation of his world. In myth he discovers what
reallyhappenedto constitute his world as he finds it; in myth he finds revealed
what realityis and therefore what he must do and be if he too is to belong to
the level of reality upon which the gods live.4
Eliade's views upon the cognitive validity of symbolic thought culminate
in his assertion that "the symbol, the myth, the rite, express, on different
planes and through the means proper to them, a complex system of coherent
affirmationsabout the ultimate reality of things, a system that can be regarded
as constituting a metaphysics."5 It will be seen that this position is exactly

2
Mircea Eliade, Imagesand Symbols,trans. Philip Mairet, New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1961, pp. 9-25, "MethodologicalRemarkson the Study of ReligiousSymbolism,"
TheHistoryof Religions:Essaysin Methodology,ed. M. EliadeandJ. M. Kitagawa,Chicago:
Univ. of ChicagoPress, 1959, pp. 97-103.
3 Eliade,Patternsin
ComparativeReligion,p. 410.
4Ibid., pp. 388-434.
5 Mircea Eliade, Cosmosand History: The Myth of the EternalReturn,trans. W. R.
Trask, New York: Harper & Brothers,1954, p. 3; see especiallypp. 1-49.
THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 237

opposite to the typical nineteenth-centuryview that a myth is something op-

posed to reality, an eminently false literary creation. For Eliade, it is precisely
in the myth that reality for the primitive is disclosed; in other words, "all
mythology is ontophany."' Since on this level of thought the real is equated
with the sacred, it is especially in sacred history or myth that the various lev-
els and modalities of reality gain expression. Naturally, this metaphysics is
not expressed in abstract terms; we do not find such words as "being" and
"non-being." Nevertheless, when we begin to understandthe inner meaning
of myth, we see that it consistently embodies some definite understandingof
reality and therefore implies a correspondingmetaphysical position. Further-
more, in giving articulation to a certain structure of reality, the myth simul-
taneously discloses the existential situation of the man who perceives it thus;
in grasping the constitution of the universe, he at the same time apprehends
his own place within it. The death and resurrection of the vegetation gods,
for instance, is taken as a revelation not only of the real state of nature but
of the real character of human destiny, since man strives always to imitate
the real as he understandsit.'
Eliade's contentions concerningthe ontological and existential implications
of the mythological world-view of archaic man are confirmed in some detail
in the same investigator's extensive phenomenological analyses of ancient
symbols and myths. The function of this attempt to recover the meaning of
archaic thought forms Eliade seeks to describe as a kind of "metapsychoanal-
ysis,"S i. e., an analysis of the psyche of men whose experience of reality is
distinctly different from our own, though not less valid. Moreover, in view
of the present world situation, in which the modern West has entered upon
a decisive encounter with primitive and oriental types of cognition, it is of
the utmost importance that such an effort of understandingbe enlarged and
deepened. If the West neglects such a dialogue, its own philosophic and spir-
itual resources are doomed to provincialismand sterility. If, on the other hand,
the West consents to understandand come to terms with the thought forms
embodied in exotic mythologies, the result will inevitably be a deeper under-
standing of man and the formation of what Eliade describes as a "new human-
ism."' Eliade himself seeks to facilitate such a confrontation in depth by
means of a "test-encounter," in which he subjects the anxiety before Death
and Nothingness regnant in the modern West to a critique based upon the
thought forms of traditional India.10We may note, finally, that as would be
expected, Eliade is strongly critical of positivists, such as Tylor and Frazer,
who regard myth largely as mere superstition and who fail to realize that it

6 Mircea
Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, trans. Philip Mairet, New York: Harper
& Brothers,1960, p. 16.
7 Ibid., pp. 7-27.
8 Eliade, Images and Symbols, p. 35.
9 Mircea Eliade, "History of Religions and a New Humanism,"Historyof Religions,
I, 1 (Summer,1961), 1-8.
10
Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, pp. 231 ff.
238 ROBERTLUYSTER

forms"a metaphysic - thatis, a wholeandcoherentconception

of Reality,
not a seriesof instinctivegesturesruledby the samefundamental
'reaction
of the humananimalin confrontation
with Nature.'""

ANTHROPOLOGY:THE PLURALISTS

First of all it must be borne in mind that ethnic phenomena which we compare are seldom
really alike. The fact that we designate certain tales as myths . . . does not prove that these
phenomena, wherever they occur, have the same history or spring from the same mental
activities. On the contrary, it is quite obvious that the selection of the material assembled
for the purpose of comparison is wholly determined by the subjective point of view accord-
ing to which we arrange diverse mental phenomena. In order to justify our inference that
these phenomena are the same, their comparability has to be proved by other means. This
has never been done. The phenomena themselves contain no indication whatever that would
compel us to assume a common origin. On the contrary, wherever an analysis has been at-
tempted we are led to the conclusion that we are dealing with heterogeneous material. Thus
myths may be in part interpretations of nature ...; they may be artistic productions ...;
they may be the result of philosophic interpretations, or they may have grown out of lin-
guistic forms.... To explain all these forms as members of one series would be entirely
unjustifiable.12

The writer is the great pioneer of American anthropology, Franz Boas,

but the radical empiricism he here expresses has also been transmittedby him
to modern American anthropology as a whole. In many respects Boas repre-
sents the translationinto socialtermsof beliefs concerninghistoricalprocess
and study which we characteristically associatewith Germanhistoricism,
butthis relationship
cannotbe developed here.Bothhavein commonsome-
thingthathas beendeterminativeforthe formationof anthropological
research
in the UnitedStates:a stressuponthe absoluteinviolability
of theindividual
phenomenonand a consequentunwillingnessto subordinateit to any more
generalsystemof interpretation.
In practice,this hasmadefor, on the one
an
hand, amassing of immense amountsof datauponanygivensubject,but,
on the otherhand,a denialthatany commonstructures couldbe perceived
to informthesedata,thatany comparisons couldthereforelegitimately be
made between them, and, finally, that scarcely any generalizationsof any
kindcouldbe genuinelyappliedto them.In identifyingthe schoolthatadheres
to theseprinciples
as "pluralistic,"
we meanto callattention to its emphasis
the
upon dis-unityof its materials andmethodsof explanation.
We beginto see the implications
of this generalpositionfor the subject
at handby observingfirstthecharacteristic
denialby American anthropology
thatonemayspeakat all of "archaic" or "primitive"man,or of a "mythic"
mentality.Suchattestationis based,after all, uponthe premisethat the uni-
formitiesamongprimitivepeoplesoutweigh andit is precisely
differences;
assumptionsof this kind that the pluralistsare concernedto combat.But
what, then, of the seeming similarities of belief and practice found among

" Eliade, Images and Symbols, p. 176.

12
Franz Boas, "The Origin of Totemism," American Anthropologist,XVIII (1916), 320.
THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 239

many primitivepeoples?There are two principalanswers.The first is the

denial that apparentsimilarities are genuine similarities. Culture is a dynamic,
ever-changing phenomenon, and no element within it is spared from the proc-
esses that affect the whole. The truth is that seeming resemblancesbetween
two different cultures bear substantially different meanings within the cul-
tures in which they appear.Second, such apparentparallelsare simply explain-
able as the result of their diffusion due to the historical contacts between
certain peoples rather than as an independentevolution among unrelated peo-
ples due to the fundamentalsimilarity of human nature everywhere."3
The specific result of these views for the subject of myth is a pronounced
rejection by all members of this "school" of any monistic interpretation of
either the nature or the origin of myth. Here is an illustrationfrom the leading
spokesman of this school, Stith Thompson, commenting on the significance
of myth:
The origin of myths and folktales over the world must be extremely diverse, so that it is
not safe to posit any single origin even for those of a particular people. Such is the general
attitude to which this purely empirical approach has led me. To many this will seem only
a negative reaction for I have no answer to make to those who claim to know exactly where
myths come from....

The problem, however, is surely not "where do myths come from?" but rather "where
does each individual myth come from?" Every myth has its own history.... Even the
adherents of some of the monistic schools recognize the vast amount of give and take there
has always been in the behavior of myths and folktales. But while they give lip service to
dissemination, they seldom give sufficient weight to the facts of cultural borrowing.

The search for the original meaning of any folk story is quite as impossible as the search
for the origin of that story. For both quests adequate data are missing. We are left with a
choice of making a guess according to our own predilections or of saying that we do not
know. It is by all means preferable to say that we do not know.'4
In keeping with this position, Thompson has been very influentialin fos-
tering detailed studies of "each individual myth" in terms of its peculiar
motifs. Innumerablefolk stories have been collected by workers in the field,
analyzed into these individual motifs, and edited by Thompson.15
A similar approach is defended in the methodological introduction to a
recent collection of Dahomean myths by Melville and Frances Herskovits,
DahomeanNarrative: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Here, too, a protest is lodged
against the monistic or "all-or-none fallacy." The authors attempt to subject
a particularmonistic hypothesis, that of Freud, to the test of their field data,

13 Cf. two seminal essays of Franz Boas: "The Methods of Ethnology," American
Anthropologist, XXII (1920), 311-22, and "Evolution or Diffusion?," American Anthro-
pologist, XXVI (1924), 340-44.
14Stith Thompson, "Myths and Folktales," Journal of American Folklore, LXVIII
(1955), 482, 485, 487; cf. his The Folktale,New York: The Dryden Press, 1951, pp. 382-90.
16Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,
1932-36.
240 ROBERTLUYSTER

with damaging results for the hypothesis. In consequence, they observe that
"there is no easy theory of myth," and they advance "in essence, as far as
causation is concerned, a pluralistic theory of myth." The various exclusivist
theories concerning the origin and significance of myth have some limited
validity, but none can by any means be accepted as solely true. The only
proper way to approach myth is historical or cross-cultural: the errors of
the monistic position have arisen principally because the proponents have de-
veloped their theories on the basis of knowledge of but a single culture, and
have not subjected them to necessary checks through data afforded by other
cultures."

CONCLUSION

The contrast between these two methods of studying myth is pointed up

by the rather severe treatment administeredto some of Eliade's works at the
hands of American anthropologists. Reviewing his Birth and Rebirth, one
critic registers her astonishment that with Eliade "non-modern and non-
Western cultures seem to be lumped into an entity called, variously, 'archaic,'
'primitive,' or 'traditional,'" and chides him for his "anthropologicalnaivete."
She goes on to claim that an additionaldifficulty is "Eliade's apparentassump-
tion of social evolution. Although in one of his summary statements he re-
marks that one cannot really sketch an evolutionary development when one
pattern of initiation rites gives place to another, the book as a whole does
seem to reflect this attitude.""17 Another anthropologist, commenting upon
The Sacredand the Profane,has the same complaint: "Eliade has written what,
for the anthropologist,must seem like a strange book .... He has made what
appears to be an insightful synthesis of complex and varied phenomena, yet
beneath a facade of skillful writing and brilliant speculation one cannot help
feeling that it is something of an anachronism.While claiming to be an intro-
duction to the history of religion, there is no history in this work, except some
dubious assumptionsregardingthe sequences through which man and religion
have passed .... It should be read almost as a literary effort rather than a
work of science or history."'s Commentingon Patternsin Comparative Religion,
the same critic categorizes Eliade's general approachas "Frazerian."I'

1x Melville Herskovits and Frances S. Herskovits, DahomeanNarrative: A Cross-Cultural

Analysis, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1958, pp. 119, 121, 95, 101. Cf.
also the destructive criticism of the solar theory of myth by Richard M. Dorson, "The
Eclipse of Solar Mythology," Journal of American Folklore, LXVIII (1955), 393-416, and
of the psychoanalytic approach to myth, again by Dorson, "Theories of Myth and the
Folklorist," Daedalus, LXXXVIII (1959), 280-91.
17
Dorothy Libby, review of Birth and Rebirth by Mircea Eliade, American Anthro-
pologist, LXI (1959), 689.
18 Wm. A. Lessa, review of The Sacred and the
Profane by Mircea Eliade, American
Anthropologist, LXI (1959), 1147.
19 Wm. A. Lessa, review of Patternsin
ComparativeReligion by Mircea Eliade, American
Anthropologist, LXI (1959), 122.
THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 241

Now all of this, it seems to me, reflects a rather astonishing lack of com-
prehension among these anthropologists concerning what Eliade and other
phenomenologists of religion are in fact attemptingto do. While Eliade indeed
has certain beliefs "regarding the sequences through which man and religion
have passed," he is by no means a Frazerian or evolutionist. This should be
obvious to any unbiased reader. How is it possible, for instance, for any re-
sponsible critic to ignore the following words of Eliade? "There is always
the risk of falling back into the errors of the nineteenth century and, partic-
ularly, of believing with Tylor or Frazer that the reaction of the humanmind
to natural phenomena is uniform. But the progress accomplished in cultural
ethnology and in the history of religions has shown that this is not always
true, that man's reactions to nature are often conditioned by his culture and
hence, finally, by history."20
What really lies behind this misunderstandingand, in a more general
sense, the whole anthropological antagonism to Eliade is the long-standing
crusade of Boas-oriented American anthropologists against generalization
and synthesis, their obsession with evolutionism as the chief offender in this
regard, and their continued adherenceto the simplistic doctrine that "diffusion
negates evolution."21Because Eliade generalizes and systematizes, he is there-
fore taken for an evolutionist - which he certainly is not. The correct iden-
tification of Eliade is that he is a phenomenologist, one who investigates the
nature and structure of given phenomena. To do this, the phenomenologist
must necessarily abstract common features from their particular historical
manifestations and compose from these features the structures which they
everywhere - and yet nowhere completely - disclose. It is precisely this
process of abstraction and synthesis to which American anthropology has
long been antipathetic, and which has given Eliade a bad press in the anthro-
pological journals.
At least two comments should be made upon this immediate situation.
First, the tone of inquiry in anthropology is now in process of changing.
Within the ranks of anthropologists themselves a growing recognition is evi-
dent of the need for generalization and systematization, accompanied by a
corresponding awareness of the limitations in particularizingstudies of spe-
cific historical phenomena.22 The reasons for this trend have been primarily
methodological, but important philosophical implications of the problem are
also present. Specifically, the permissability of generalizations depends upon
whether or not there truly exist certain general phenomenato which the gen-
eralizations correspond. Since generalizations about man depend for their

20 Eliade, The Sacredand the Profane, p. 16.

21 Cf. Leslie White, "Diffusion versus Evolution: an Anti-evolutionist Fallacy," Amer-
ican Anthropologist, XLVII (1945), 339-56.
22 See Murray Wax, "The Limitations of Boas'
Anthropology," American Anthro-
pologist, LVIII (1956), 63-74; John Buettner-Janusch, "Boas and Mason: Particularism
versus Generalization," American Anthropologist, LIX (1957), 318-24.
242 ROBERT
LUYSTER

validity upon the genuine existence of man as a generically identifiable phe-

nomenon, the real question is about man himself. Many anthropologistshave
attempted to dissolve the oneness of human nature into history and its bor-
rowings, contacts, and conditions; a priori, the widespread presence of any
culturalconditionor complexof conditionsis neverallowedas evidence
toward a deeper understandingof human nature itself, since the resemblances
canalwaysbe dismissedas merelyanotherinstanceof diffusion.In a larger
sense, then, diffusion has been resorted to to question not only theories of
man's evolution, but also theories about man himself.
Second,Eliadehasnot onlyanticipated butalsoattempted to answerthe
chargesagainsthim.Manyyearsagohe picturedanimaginary criticasking,
"Whatdo youmeanby theseterms?Whatsymbolsarein question? Among
whichpeoplesandin whatcultures? Andhe mightadd:Youarenotunaware
thatthe epochof Tylor,of Mannhardt andFrazeris overanddonewith;it
is no longerallowable todayto speakof mythsandrites'in general,'or of a
uniformity in primitive man'sreactions to Nature.Thesegeneralizations are
abstractions, likethoseof 'primitive man'in general.Whatis concreteis the
religiousphenomenon manifested in historyandthroughhistory."Eliade's
rejoinder to this kind of attack appearsto centeraroundtwo points.The
firstis that"beforemakingthe historyof anything,onemusthavea proper
understanding of whatit is,in andforitself."Suchanunderstanding, however,
canonlybearrived atsynthetically, by means of abstraction from the concrete.
Itsmethodis inevitably comparative, seeking to discoverresemblances among
relatedreligiousstructures. The secondconsideration is that"allthesecon-
ditioningfactorstogetherdo not, of themselves,addup to the life of the
spirit."23It is especiallyin mattersof religionandits vocabulary of mythand
symbol that man transcends his historical conditioning, and it is therefore
especially in this area thata narrowly historical is
approach inappropriate.
Eachof the understandings of mythwe haveconsidered hasits peculiar
and
problems dangers. For most students of the
myth anthropological-pluralist
approach mustseemexcessivelynegative.Theseanthropologists declarethat
so impossible is it to discoverthe meaningof myth,we shouldnot evenat-
temptto guessat thematter.Butthisscarcelyseemssatisfactory. Onemight
claimwithequaljustification thatit is impossible to discoverthefinalmeaning
of Hamlet,or Germanromanticism, or the rise of capitalism, or the consti-
tutionof anatom.The impossibility of finalsolutionscannotbe usedto deny
the tentativesolutionsthataredisclosingthemselves moreandmoresatis-
factorily.It is essentialto remember thatif thosewho aremostqualified to
proposesuchpartialsolutionsrefrainfromdoingso, thoselessqualified will
be emboldened to enterthe discussion. The universality andthe importance
of mythin theformation of humanculturemakeevena partialunderstanding
of its meaning and structure preferable to no understandingat all, and it is

23 Eliade, Images and Symbols, pp. 30, 29, 32.

THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 243

only through a systematic and comparative approach, a phenomenological

approach, that such understandingcan be gained.
But if phenomenologists of religion are to be commended for their more
positive and constructive attitude, the question may be raised of whether
their appreciation of myth may be excessive. Thus, Eliade may come dan-
gerously close to a kind of mystique of the myth in his claim that the grasp
of reality disclosed in mythology is in more than one respect superior to the
conceptual grasp. Not only does he hold that mythology is able to articulate
certain ideas not attainableby rationalizingmetaphysics; he even asserts that
mythology contains certain truths that conventional philosophy does not
grasp. Presumably, Eliade not only knows what myth means, he knows that
what myth means is true. For many critics, at least, such claims demand far
greater substantiation than Eliade has thus far offered. If the skepticism of
the anthropologists to whom we have referred is excessive from the stand-
point of their own discipline, these claims of Eliade step beyond phenomenol-
ogy proper, which does not permit value judgments of this kind.
We may conclude that the two approaches to myth need each other.
Ideally, one might hope that they could be integrated, that the sobriety and
caution of the first could chasten the somewhat unscientific zeal of the second,
while the forwardness of the second could counteract the timidness of the
first. A more sober outlook may recognize that the extremes of timidity and
boldness will continue to divide scholars and the forms of scholarship. Nor
can we maintain that either way of attempting to understandmyth is intrin-
sically more valid or valuable than the other. Both ways are necessary and
both are beset by the faults of their virtues. The student of religion must
learn to employ and understandboth. He may hope, finally, that the practi-
tioners of each will come increasingly to understand and appreciate one
another.